August 25, 2024, Message by P. Kevin Clancey
All right. Ezekiel 28.
11 Then this further message came to me from the Lord: 12 “Son of man, sing this funeral song for the king of Tyre. Give him this message from the Sovereign Lord: “You were the model of perfection, full of wisdom and exquisite in beauty. 13 You were in Eden, the garden of God. Your clothing was adorned with every precious stone — red carnelian, pale-green peridot, white moonstone, blue-green beryl, onyx, green jasper, blue lapis lazuli, turquoise, and emerald — all beautifully crafted for you and set in the finest gold. They were given to you on the day you were created. 14 I ordained and anointed you as the mighty angelic guardian. You had access to the holy mountain of God and walked among the stones of fire. 15 “You were blameless in all you did from the day you were created until the day evil was found in you. 16 Your rich commerce led you to violence, and you sinned. So I banished you in disgrace from the mountain of God. I expelled you, O mighty guardian, from your place among the stones of fire. 17 Your heart was filled with pride because of all your beauty. Your wisdom was corrupted by your love of splendor. So I threw you to the ground and exposed you to the curious gaze of kings. 18 You defiled your sanctuaries with your many sins and your dishonest trade. So I brought fire out from within you, and it consumed you. I reduced you to ashes on the ground in the sight of all who were watching. 19 All who knew you are appalled at your fate. You have come to a terrible end, and you will exist no more.” (Ezekiel 28:11-19, NLT)
God, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight. O Lord, our rock, our strength, our redeemer. Amen.
All right. There are two. Well, first of all, we live in a material and a spiritual world and universe. God created two orders of beings, both in his image and likeness.
And what he means by that is meant to rule with him, meant to not. Not become. Not become co-gods, but meant to share in his divine counsel. In one group, he gave over the heavenly realms to. To be part of his divine council over the heavenly realms. And loosely, we call that group angels. But they are. They’re a variety. That’s far too simple.
Angels and demons is a little too simple. There’s just a variety. There’s cherubs and seraphim and archangels and the whole. And, you know, there’s principalities and powers and spiritual forces of wickedness and demons.
And there’s a spectrum here that we aren’t given a lot of information in the Bible in. And we’re not given a lot of information on how that angelic order came into being. We’re given the story of how humans were created, not how angels were created, and we’re not given a lot of information on how they fell.
But there are two places in the prophets where there seems to be, where the prophet seems to shift from talking about an earthly king or an earthly ruler to talking about a heavenly principality and God’s judgment upon that principality.
That’s in Isaiah 14 and here in Ezekiel 28.
And so I just want to tell you, and I’ve told you this time and time again, and I think you all believe this.
We are living in a world where spiritual warfare is a reality. All the evil and all the goodness in this world aren’t simply the result of human choices. They are also affected by the work of God, the Holy Spirit, working in us and through us, the work of Jesus on the cross, the Father working throughout history.
These are all parts of what this world has been shaped by, along with the principalities and powers, the Spiritual forces of wickedness that fell, that rebelled.
And it seems like under the leadership or under the ruler of this one exalted angel at the beginning, this one kind of high angel, this one anointed cherub, who has the name Lucifer, or sometimes we call him Satan, though Satan is more a description, the Satan. Satan means adversary, the adversary.
And this passage looks like it’s a description of the fall of that anointed cherub. And this is just one of the few places in the Bible where we have information regarding that. And here’s the clue. The clue is in Ezekiel 28.
Ezekiel is prophesying against the nation, the city-state of Tyre. And he’s prophesying against the ruler of that city-state, the prince of Tyre. Up to verse ten, he’s prophesying against the prince of Tyre. And all the prophecies are very this-worldly. They’re very much about his ships, his armies, his cities, etcetera, etcetera, that are going to go down.
There’s a shift in verse eleven where he shifts from talking about the prince of Tyre to talking about the king of Tyre.
And this is one of the places in the Bible where the curtain is drawn back. And God now says, as I’m bringing judgment upon the prince of Tyre, the literal man that lives there and rules that city, so I want you now to know that behind him is a principality, is a ruling cherub, a ruling fallen angel, and this is the judgment upon that one.
And I think he takes the step even further to say he’s not just the principality of that region, but the king of Tyre is in fact Lucifer himself.
And God here is describing his fall and his judgment in Ezekiel 28. The clue is that he moves from the prince of Tyre to the king of Tyre, and then he moves into the heavenly realm. He’s talking about things in heaven. He’s talking about him being present in Eden. He’s talking about him being cast out of heaven, and all these kinds of things give us the clue. He’s moved on from talking about an earthly ruler to a spiritual ruler. He says that this spiritual ruler had perfection, wisdom, and beauty.
We were talking earlier. How could Solomon have fallen with all his wisdom? Well, an even better question is how could Lucifer fall with all his wisdom? And yet, there is something in the heart of men and angels that God has created who are to join Him to oversee all of His creation.
There’s something in that heart that is free, and that freedom does not create evil, but it does create the possibility for evil. It creates the possibility for rebellion.
I happen to think my best take on this is that, as I observe life and as I read the scriptures, love requires freedom. I’m not a Calvinist. Love requires freedom. And love is God’s highest value and therefore created beings with freedom who could freely choose to love or reject.
One of the greatest joys of life is to love something and to have that love returned, or to be loved by someone or something and to return that love.
I hope that just the last half an hour before I got up here and talked, you experienced joy as in music. You were returning love to the God who has loved you.
Singing is not meant to be a duty. It is a duty, but it’s meant to be a duty that’s filled with joy because we’re returning love. That’s how love works. I love you. I love you, too. All right.
You pour out love upon people, and one of the greatest pains of life is to expend love towards someone and to have it rejected. That’s painful.
God is willing because love is the highest value. It appears to be the highest value. He is willing to create beings who theoretically, conceivably, possibly can choose to reject and disobey.
We don’t know how many angels rejected and disobeyed God. Revelation 12 talks about the dragon, a picture of Satan and the powers of evil, and sweeping his tail, and a third of the stars falling from the heavens.
And some people have taken that to say, since stars often represent angelic beings and apocalyptic visions of the Bible, some people have taken that to say, well, ultimately, one third of the angels rebelled against God.
We don’t know that they all rebelled at once. We don’t know that they all went with Satan at once. There are some indications in the scriptures that maybe there were multiple falls. We see Satan in the Garden of Eden. Then we see the sons of God who apparently hadn’t fallen yet.
Maybe they had, but beginning to cohabitate with the women of the earth. And then God judges them, and they’ve fallen.
And then we see in Genesis 11, God turning the nations, the disobedient nations who tried to build the tower of Babel, over to these Elohim, these small g gods. And we’re not sure if they were fallen gods at that point or in their rulership of those nations, became fallen gods. It seems like they had already fallen. But we’re not. But those things aren’t even clear to us.
But what we do know is that this dark side of angelic powers is real. And Ezekiel 27 again talks about this leader. I’ll tell you. Anybody ever have any scary devil stories?
When I was, like, 18 years old, I got to house sit for friends of the family, and they were a little wealthier than we were. They lived in California, in the Bay Area, but they lived in the foothills. We lived in the valley, in Campbell. They lived in the foothills. Saratoga.
And they had this beautiful house in Saratoga, my dad used to say, where the other half lived. They let me house sit, and you could see over the entire Santa Clara Valley from their front window. It was just gorgeous.
I would go up there and house sit. The guy was an engineer. Engineers are the best people in the world. I love engineers. He’d give me the keys to his BMW and just say, here. I took Jill out on a date in that BMW. It was great.
Love that house. But one night, I came home from work around midnight. Three things happened simultaneously. I turned on the TV. I was watching TV. When I had come in from the garage, I had closed the door from the garage to the house, but apparently, I did not close it all the way, so it hadn’t clicked right.
And this engineer was a collector of grandfather clocks. He had grandfather clocks throughout the house, maybe a dozen of them or a half dozen. I don’t know—a lot of grandfather clocks.
And at midnight, three things happened simultaneously on the television. A commercial came on. This was way back when, for the movie The Exorcist. So I’m up in this house all alone, all the lights are off. And all of a sudden I see on the TV screen, Regan was a normal girl until head spinning, barfing.
But at the exact time that commercial came on, all the grandfather clocks began to dong. You know how unsettling that is? you’re all alone in this dark house. This commercial’s on—dong, dong, dong, dong. And the vibration from those clocks.
Donging took the door that had not been completely closed, and the door went squeaked and opened.
You never saw. I was an athlete in high school. I had athletic ability, but I don’t think in any game or practice I ever was in. Did I run so fast as I ran that night, turning all the lights on in that house and calling for their dog Fred to come and be by my side.
Fred, get over here. Get over here. And it was old school. I had to actually get up and turn off the tv.
I couldn’t just shut it off with the remote. It was terrible. It was horrifying. The movie The Exorcist. Oh, boy.
We have all these movies about demonic powers and demonic beings, but they work much more subtly than that. Sometimes they manifest as horrors and treacherous, but mostly they work through getting us to agree with them and to invite them into circumstances.
The devil was perfect in wisdom and beauty, but he fell, he rebelled, and he was cast down. And he’s in Eden.
Then the first place we see him is in the garden of Eden, where he tempts. He doesn’t horrify, he doesn’t scare, but he tempts men and women to join him in his pride. You will be like God. Disobey, and you will be like God.
He’s adorned with these magnificent stones that represent, really, a lot of the stones that Ezekiel 27 talks about were the stones that Israel’s priests were adorned with. And so there’s an indication here that the adornment of stones says he’s a priest. That is, he has access to God and access to humanity.
He’s a mediator between God and humanity. That’s part of his created purpose. He’s a leader of worship. He’s a great musician. He’s an anointed cherub. He’s one of the angels surrounding the throne of God.
And there’s even indications in this passage that he is possibly the prime angel, the leading angel in heaven. Mormons have taken it too far and said he and Jesus are brothers. It’s not that they have a wrong understanding at that point of who Lucifer was. They have a wrong understanding of who Jesus is. The devil is not God’s opposite.
He’s not God’s equal. He’s God’s creation that has fallen. Evil, in fact, is not the opposite of good. Everything in creation is good. What’s evil? The absence of good or the twisting of good.
There’s nothing that the devil has. You know, somebody will say, that’s just pure evil. No, it’s not. There’s no such thing as pure evil. Darkness is the absence of light. And Satan then brings darkness in his rebellion.
There are four ways. Ignore my slides. There are four ways, not three. I’m going to change this a little bit.
You get the revised sermon I preach in Bremerton, and go, that stunk. I got to make it better tonight for Paul’s bow. So you get the revised sermon, but he says, iniquity was found in you. And then he kind of describes what the iniquity was.
I’m going to talk about four areas of iniquity that are in Lucifer, but also then that Lucifer really brings to effect on earth. And they’re the kind of iniquities and kind of troubles and kind of evil that we experience on earth.
He says, first of all, you are competitive in trade because of your great trade, because of your great wealth. He had. Somehow he had this heavenly wealth. Maybe being the first, you know, that there’s something there.
But because of your competitiveness or your pride in trade, there now has created on earth a fallenness in trade. And we’ve seen it throughout the history of humanity.
The Bible says the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Now, don’t make the mistake. And here again, is money. Is wealth.
Is the means to provide for your family evil? No. That is all part of God’s good creation. Nowhere does the Bible say money is evil. In fact, the Bible says these things were given that you might enjoy them.
You don’t have to feel guilty about your home or your automobile or your clothes, your hobbies. It’s the worldliness. It’s when those things take precedent, when we put too much value in those things, we invest our pride and our worth in those things.
Have you ever wondered why multibillionaires are still playing the game?
You know, it always struck me, why do people with generational wealth want more wealth? It seems to me it’s time to enjoy the wealth. But they still play the game, and they play it vigorously. Why? Because they want to win. They want to win.
For some who may be very humble, it’s okay to be the fifth richest man in the world. But others, I want that title. The richest man in the world. There is a competitiveness.
Let me tell you something about competitiveness again, the good side, the created side.
Lord, you have given me gifts, and I want to be the best that I can be. I want to excel in all the potential that you have given me to your glory and the benefit of others.
And then there’s the other side. I want to beat him. I want to put her down. I want them to be put in their place. It’s not, I want to be the best I can be to glorify God and to enjoy all the potential he has given me.
But it is that I can put my foot on the neck of my opponent and say, I won and you lost. Ha ha.
I’m a sports fan. I see both these in sports all the time. I see both these in sports all the time. And I see people excel in sports using both of those motivations.
I see people using the motivation of joy. I delight in what my body can do at this young age. I delight in this. And it makes me a great living, and it’s fun, and there’s a camaraderie and the teamwork.
And in that aspect, I just think sports is one of the best things you can be involved in. One of the best things you can get your kids involved in, learning teamwork and joy, and becoming physically fit and just feeling the pleasure, if that’s your ilk, feeling the pleasure of it.
But there’s a dark side. The dark side is they’re the enemy. And I always call sports fake war. It’s pretend war, right? Because you pretend that your team is the good guys and the other team is the bad guys.
And I’ll tell you something.
As long as it’s pretend, as long as Kathleen and Mick joke about the Yankees and the Red Sox, it’s fun. But if Kathleen and Mick come to blows over the Yankees and Red Sox (and I’m putting my money on Kathleen), it becomes something dark, right?
The same is true with money. If money ceases to be a means to provide for my family, to be generous, and to help my family, and to enjoy life and help others enjoy life, it’s good. But when it becomes “he who dies with the most toys wins,” it’s evil.
And what Satan, who had all the toys of heaven, has done is he’s twisted our minds to that perspective. And so there’s wickedness in trade, right? And we see it. We see one of the arguments in our country, one of the philosophical arguments in our country: is it better to have big government curb a big business? Or is it better to let big business run on its own and have big government out of the way?
And the problem is you look at either one of those things and it’s extreme and they’re bad.
If you let big business run its way, what does it ultimately end up in? Child labor and slave houses.
If you let big government have its way, what does it end up in? Genocides? Concentration camps.
Why? Satan and our following of Satan filled with violence. Lucifer became filled with violence. Might makes right. You get your way by force. You get your way by force. I want it. You can’t have it. I’m bigger. I’m going to punch you. I’m taking your lunch money. Bullies on local levels, on national levels.
Everyone in this room has probably been bullied at one time or another. Also, everyone in this room has probably been a bully at one time or another.
Ladies, don’t think that it’s only men who are bullies. Men tend to bully with the threat of physical violence. I can’t explain how women bully, but I did watch the, I did watch the movie Mean Girls. I think I saw it there. I think I saw it there.
But I get what I want through force or manipulation.
But I take what I want from you without regard for you and only for me. And I take it because I can.
Poland. We’d like to be a nation. Nazi Germany. We’re going to take you. We’re going to take you.
All right, Native Americans, you can have this property as long as the grass grows and the wind blows. Oh, there’s gold discovered in those hills. Yeah, that ain’t that we got. It’s ours now. It’s ours now. You take it because you can.
The devil has no regard for others. Demons have no regard for others, only for themselves. They’ll take what they can, whenever they can. It’s violence. History is written in violence.
Then there’s pride and vanity. I want to take two levels of pride here. I want to break this out. Vanity is the desire to be a people pleaser. That my satisfaction will come. And this is almost the most humble of all vices, but it’s still a vice. My satisfaction will come by the praise of other people. Please love me. Please like me. Look at me. I’m smart, I’m pretty, I’m successful.
Look at me. You see people craving fame. It’s amazing how many people have gained fame and have come to the conclusion of Ecclesiastes that, oh, man, this is the worst. I wouldn’t wish fame on my worst enemy.
Look at the plight of child stars. You know how many of them turn out well? A very small percentage. Lifestyles of the rich and famous. Misery, misery upon misery.
Oh, look at me. The famous comedian Bill Murray at his old age, a little Ecclesiastes. Momentous. Somebody said, what’s it like to spend your whole adult life rich and famous?
He said, I take the former, not the latter. I like being rich. I don’t like being famous.
When he was a young man, oh, did he want to be famous? You don’t get upstage and tell jokes in front of hundreds of people and do movies unless you want to be famous. You don’t keep doing them unless you want to be famous. Because once you do them, there’s other ways to make money. Once you make a little bit of money, there’s a lot of other ways to make money.
Vanity, please look at me. Please love me. We spend millions and millions of dollars on fashion and makeup and correct bodily surgery. Not to fix something that’s ill in our bodies, but just to make us look different so people will look at us and approve of us.
Oh, please, like me. And let me tell you the good side of that. We all desire to be loved, but the dark side that leads is the pride and vanity of I want it all. I want all the attention, all the affection. We can’t handle it, and yet we crave it.
And then, as I said, that’s probably the least, the most humble kind of pride. The worst kind of pride, which Satan had, is spiritual pride. I’m the most spiritual. And in fact, what does it say? I want to sit on the throne of God. I want to usurp God.
And it is the most dangerous pride out there. It’s the pride of the Pharisee. It’s the pride that says, I know what’s right and best. I am holier than you, I’m smarter than you. God likes me better than you.
And in fact, if I do everything perfectly, God is in my debt. If I obey the laws, God owes me. And so this is the pride of Satan he wants, and this is the pride he tempts Adam and Eve to. You can be your own goddess. It’s the pride ultimately behind all disobedience. All disobedience is I want to be my own God.
My little grandsons, grandchildren are great. You just love them so much. But my wife and I are not under the illusion that our grandchildren are not little original sinners.
We see it all the time. We just laugh because their parents have to deal with it because we had to deal with it with their parents. And we just see the justice in that, right? It’s like, huh? Yeah, you used to do that, too.
But my grandson told his father recently, my son said, you got to do this. He says, you can’t make me do that. I have a choice. And my son is a wise father. He said, you’re right. You do have a choice. You can obey or disobey.
And he says, I have a choice on what the consequences of that will be. So we both have choices. So, son, choose wisely. You have the choice not to do that, but that doesn’t end it.
But ultimately, our rebellion is God. You can’t make me. And God says, I won’t. If you want to skip to hell, I’ll let you. I love you.
The father and the prodigal sons doesn’t stop the prodigal son. Doesn’t stop him. I want my money and leave. I don’t want your life. Okay. It won’t go well for you. Too bad.
You and that little big brother of mine aren’t going to tell me what to do anymore. All right.
Was Jacob bossy? You got blessed sometimes. Sometimes. That’s a little bossy. Yeah, that’s a little bossy. That’s a little bossy.
I say, you should pick that instrument up. Just because I’m passive-aggressive that way. You should pick that instrument back up and go to his house and serenade him someday. Yeah, your mom and I think that would be hilarious. Yeah. Yes, that’s right.
All right. God says because of this, Satan, you’re judged. He is cast out of heaven. In fact, the Bible talks about four casting downs. He’s cast down to earth, he’s cast out of heaven, and he’s cast down to earth.
Jesus talks about when the gospel is preached and the kingdom of God advances in power, that he said, I saw Satan fall from heaven to the earth. He said, I saw him fall. And so there’s a sense where he’s cast down into the earthly realm at Eden, but he still has this control over earth.
But as the gospel is proclaimed and preached, he is cast down again. He is defeated again and he’s cast down.
If you want to cast down principalities and powers, do what I tell you to do, all right? Just do what I tell you to do. Lead somebody to Jesus. Heal the sick, cast out demons, feed the hungry, clothe the naked. Do the Jesus stuff in your life and in your community and in your world. When you do that, you’re doing spiritual warfare. you’re casting down the devil.
Then in Revelation 20, it says, he is bound. He is bound for a thousand years. Now, if you’re a futurist dispensationalist, you will take that literally and you’ll talk about the thousand-year millennium.
If you’re a millennialist or a post-millennialist, you’ll take that thousand years figuratively. And you’ll say, at the ascension of Jesus, at the victory of Jesus, through his resurrection and ascension, Satan has been bound from stopping the nations from receiving Christ. He can still wreak havoc through his commands and through his demons, but he can no longer own the nations.
He can no longer own people groups that the gospel now is free to expand. And so those are two views on that. You know me well enough to know which one of those I take. But we’re not getting into that tonight.
In either sense, though, his judgment is he’s cast down to the pit, and he is chained. And the final casting down is he is cast into the lake of fire. And so he will be cast down from his high and exalted place as the leading cherub in heaven.
He’ll be cast down to eternal torment in the lake of fire, and even saved humans will judge him and the other fallen angels. He’ll be cast down before kings.
You know who the kings are? Well, they may be literal kings on the earth, but you know who else they are? They’re the sons and daughters of the most high God. God says we will judge angels. Well, what angels will we judge? Not the good angels.
When I say, hey, guardian angel, remember that time I fell in the Denver airport? Were you taking a nap, dude? What’s up with that? No, we don’t get to do that. Though I do want to ask my guardian angel about that. It’s like he probably said, well, you know, I did warn you to not look at your phone. Well, all right. But anyway, not that we don’t get to judge those. No, I don’t think.
But we do get to judge those demons who have been assigned to us and tortured us, and tempted us, and spoke all those evil thoughts and words into our heads all our lives, who helped. We participated with them. We bear the responsibility, but we listened to them, and we fell into addictions and problems and struggles and then condemnation.
You know, the ones who tell us, do this, do this, do this. And then when they do it, then they’re the same ones who say, oh, and you call yourself a Christian. You know, those little cockroaches.
Anybody else got those cockroaches? All right, we got those cockroaches. One day you get to step on those suckers, hear them crunch under your feet.
All right, this is the only time you get to say this, and it’s going to be okay for you to say it. Or when you’re preaching a sermon and using as an example, you get to look at those creatures and you get to say, go to hell.
All right, you want to practice tonight so we can say, tell everybody we said go to hell in church. Is that too far?
All right, I’ll just say it again, just because. Go to hell, you can say it. It’s the time you can say it. Don’t ever say that to another human being. That’s one of the worst things you can say to a human being.
And the phrase God damn, it means that. So don’t use that phrase. God, send that thing or that person to hell. Don’t say that. All right? But on that day, you can say it. You will have the authority.
God will say that thing that tortured you, tell it where to go and you’ll tell it. I think that’s how it works. I could be wrong, but I think that’s how it works.
We will judge angels. Every knee will bow, every tongue confess. Satan himself will bow before King Jesus and say, Jesus Christ, you are Lord. All demons, all principalities, all powers, all spiritual forces of wickedness.
And C.S. Lewis says this, and I think he’s right. If you see, if you were to ever see an angel, a demon, or a human being in their eternal resurrected state, you would see a splendor that you would be tempted to worship. In other words, if Jesus walked in this room in His eternal state, we would have no choice but to fall on the ground. John, His best friend, does.
But I’ll tell you what. If your beloved family member were to walk in this room in all the glory that has been bestowed upon them, which isn’t the complete glory that they get with their resurrected bodies, you would be blown away.
And in the same token, if you physically saw a fall or you saw an angel, I love it when people see angels and the angels aren’t in disguise. The angels show up in their heavenly glory, and the first words out of their mouth are, fear not.
And I always, you know, I don’t long for this experience, but I think if I ever have this experience, just knowing my, and I don’t know if it’s right to be, you know, joking around with angels, but if an angel came to me and said, fear not. I would think what I’d want to say is too late, right?
Yeah. How about stop fearing too late? I’m fearing because of. Because of the incredible glory. But if you were to see your beloved grandmother, your beloved.
My parents, Jill’s parents, in their resurrected state, you would be tempted to worship them. The angel appears before John in the book of Revelation, and John bows down to him. What does the angel say? Don’t do it. Only worship Jesus. Only worship God.
All right. If we saw somebody in their damned state or if we see a demon, we will see a horror, C.S. Lewis says, that of which we only encounter now in nightmares.
So what’s the takeaway? Bob Dylan had his little Christian phase during the Jesus movement. I don’t know if it lasted.
I don’t know if it stuck. He seems kind of ambiguous on it now. But he did produce one Christian album, and in that album he had a song called you’re going to have to serve somebody. It might be the devil and it might be the Lord, but you’re going to have to serve somebody.
And it’s true, you will never be. We all, you know, the sinful pride in us wants to be on top. Nobody’s going to tell me what to do. Nobody’s going to tell me what to do. Yeah.
The difference is you will follow a benevolent, loving father who only desires your good and has all the means at his disposal to bring it to pass for all eternity. Or you will become a slave to this lying, fallen cherub and his hosts.
And here’s a good thermometer. Look at those four. How much in this world am I worldly and competitive? And do I want mine at the expense of others? Or how much am I grateful for what God has given me? But I delight. I delight in the winds of others.
Second, how much do I get what I want through violence, intimidation, and manipulation? How controlling am I? How passive-aggressive am I? How much do I really? Just ask the Lord. Lord, show me when I’m angling for my way with my family, my friends, and I’m not. Listen, there’s nothing. Honesty is great. Here’s what I’d like to do. Here’s what I’d like. That’s perfect. But we don’t stop at that. How often is it my way or the highway?
All right. Third, how vain am I? How much do I want the approval of men and women? How much do I want the applause of the crowd?
And fourth, how just disobedient and rebellious and defiant am I? You know, it’s one thing to be tricked into sin. It’s one thing to fall into sin because you’re weak and you struggle. And God has great mercy for that. He says seventy times seven he’ll forgive you. So keep track, because at 491 you’re lost. That’s for the biblical literalists out there.
No, I think, again, I think Jesus is saying, for that kind of struggle, as long as you maintain your integrity and honesty before me, I have great grace.
But there are folks who just say, I know what God wants me to do. I know the right thing to do. I’m not even that tempted. I’m just going to do it my way. The heck with God. I’m the boss of my life.
Christians can say that. Christians can do that in certain areas of their life, and those are just good checkpoints for us.
How much am I like Satan? How much do I want to see others lose? How much do I want to get my way? How much praise do I want from men? How much willful disobedience is there in me?
Lord, I want to be more like Jesus than the devil. I don’t want to be cast down. I want to be lifted up. And the key, I think, is humility. you’re God and I’m not. Satan lacked humility. The deadly sin is pride, and the key is humility.
All who qualify for the kingdom of God are those who admit they’re not qualified. All who disqualify for the kingdom of God are those who think they’re qualified.
Jesus said that to the Pharisees. Because you say you see, you remain blind. If you said you were blind, I’d give you sight. But because you say you’re smarter than God, who’s standing right in front of you, you remain blind. you’re lost.
Don’t be lost, be found.
Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner. I’m not smarter than you, God. I’m not better than you, God. I don’t want to run my own life. I don’t do a good job of it. I want your grace, your power, your wisdom, your instruction, your spirit, your people. I want to be filled with your love.
And I want to enlist myself in serving your kingdom, purposes, and God. I already know from the beginning I’ll do it less than perfectly.
But I ask for your forgiveness and grace to pick myself up and to never quit until I walk and stand before you and I hear these words that I don’t deserve, but that you enabled me to receive. Well done. Good and faithful servant.
And Lord, help me at every turn to recognize pride and vanity, wicked competitiveness and violence that is in me, and let me turn from those things and simply love like Jesus. That’s the kind of person I want to be.
And so I ask it in your Name, Amen.
Turn to somebody next to me and say, I don’t want to be like the devil. All right. I don’t want to be like the devil. All right, Mick. I don’t want to be like the devil. you’re my brother. If you ever see me acting like the devil, just say, Kevin, quit acting like the devil. All right? Thank you.
Thank you, Sophia. If you ever see me acting like the devil, you can kick me in the shins and say, Kevin, quit acting like the devil. All right? And you’d probably do it giggling.
Kevin, quit acting like the devil.
All right, dear ones, this is a meal of humility. Isn’t it? A humble meal? You think, man, Christ gave us a meal. You think steak and eggs or French food or patience? No. Simple bread, simple juice. But I fill it. Here’s what he’s telling us. I fill the simple things with the glory of heaven. I feel the simple things. I feel the humble things. I feel the plain things with the glory of my presence. I take what is small and plain and ordinary, and I make it beautiful.
That’s who I am. And so, this is the most beautiful meal, and it fills us with the most beautiful life.
And so, Jesus, thank you for new covenant love. Thank you that you’ve saved us from the devil, that we don’t have to. Though our forefathers and foremothers have joined him often in the fall. Though in our life, we have done behaviors and acts that have agreed with the devil and invited him in.
We renounce all those now, and we humbly come to this meal and say, fill us with the new covenant life of Jesus. We want to be new covenant people, forgiven of our sins, filled with your Holy Spirit, living a kingdom life.
Nourish us tonight with your presence in this meal. We ask in Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Come and eat.
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