January 19, 2025, Message by P. Kevin Clancey
Transcribed by Beluga AI.
Romans 1:8. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because the news of your faith is being reported in all the world.
God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in telling the good news about his Son, that I constantly mention you, always asking in my prayers that if it is somehow in God’s will that I may at last succeed in coming to you.
For I want very much to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you. That is to be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine.
Now, I don’t want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I’ve often planned to come to you but was prevented until now in order that I might have fruitful ministry among you, just as I had among the rest of the Gentiles.
I’m obligated to both Greeks and barbarians, both to the wise and foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.
For I’m not ashamed of the Gospel because it’s the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes, first the Jew, and also the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written, the righteous will live by faith.
8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you because the news of your faith is being reported in all the world. 9 God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in telling the good news about his Son—that I constantly mention you, 10 always asking in my prayers that if it is somehow in God’s will, I may now at last succeed in coming to you. 11 For I want very much to see you, so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you, 12 that is, to be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. 13 Now I don’t want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I often planned to come to you (but was prevented until now ) in order that I might have a fruitful ministry among you, just as I have had among the rest of the Gentiles. 14 I am obligated both to Greeks and barbarians, both to the wise and the foolish. 15 So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith. (Romans 1:8-17, CSB)
God, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, Lord, our Rock, our Strength, and our Redeemer. Amen.
14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. (Psalms 19:14, CSB)
All right, so Paul starts like he starts all his letters addressing the church. And with most of his letters, he starts and he says, I am thankful for you. And I think he’s being sincere. I think Paul is thankful for the church.
One of the weapons the devil uses is he takes the imperfections of the church, magnifies them. And so people become not grateful for the church. You know, we’re taught to honor our parents. And in most cases, that isn’t an impossible thing to do. We had less than perfect parents.
But as I look back on my childhood, you know, there was food on the table, there’s a roof over my head, there were clothes on my back, there were footballs and basketballs and baseballs in the garage.
A dad who played with me, a mom who nurtured and cared for me. And, you know, so much of life is not about what happens to us, but how we respond to what happens to us.
And the Bible continually tells us to respond with thankfulness. I think when people criticize the church, they very rarely realize they’re criticizing themselves. I think they’re criticizing something else. And it’s an easy target, right? It’s an easy target because—I’ll tell you why it’s an easy target—because it’s filled with people like you and me, all right?
But that’s also a reason to be thankful. And I agree with St. Paul. I said this in Bremerton this morning, and I say this here tonight. And I said, this is. I’m not kissing up here, people. I’m not flattering you or anything. I am thankful to see you.
I like and love each and every one of you, and when I see your faces, it encourages me. Which he goes on later to say that we might mutually encourage one another.
I am grateful for the churches that I have served. In fact, I’m even grateful for the EGRs, the extra grace required, people. Because God has not used anybody in my life more than those people.
Because I pray foolish prayers. I pray prayers like, I want to be more like Jesus, and I want to have patience and I want to learn to love.
And we think the way God answers those prayers is he dumps out buckets from heaven of patience and love and Jesus likeness. But what he really does most often is he puts us in situations where to be more like Jesus.
Lord, I want to be more like Jesus. So I pastor a church in downtown Bremerton where the homeless like to camp, and they leave a mess. And I’m not talking about just a few things. I’m talking about cardboard boxes. I’m talking about underwear. I’ve cleaned up. you’ve heard me say this.
I’ve cleaned up old Depends, and I’ve shoveled poop. I remember the worst mess we ever had, and it was just horrible. Somebody had come on our back patio, and they just camped there and just destroyed it.
I’m just back there with a shovel, and it’s dirty and it’s yucky. I’m shoveling stuff into a shopping cart, and I’m taking it to the garbage and I’m dumping it out. My wife’s like, wash everything when you get home, and I say, okay.
And I whine to God, you know, I don’t know if you ever pray like this. I often pray like this. God, I said, I don’t like cleaning up other people’s mess. He says, I know, Kevin. That’s what I did.
Oh, I had prayed. What? I want to be more like Jesus. And then, bless his heart, Josh D’Antino Santo comes down with his four kids, puts them in the nursery. They play the whole time. So well behaved. And he comes out there and joins me and makes it a much more pleasant task.
God is gracious and merciful again. Through who? The church? Through good people in the church.
And we cleaned it up and we invented a game called, and I don’t know if this is politically correct or nice, but we invented a game called Homeless Bingo. It’s like, I got a needle. I found a needle. Broken whiskey bottle. It’s like, there we go.
So anyway, we got it done. We got it done. So I thank God for the church. Paul thanks God for the church.
One of the reasons he thanks God is because the church’s simple existence is a statement to the world that there are people on this planet who believe that God entered into human history through Jesus Christ, rose from the dead, and is the Savior and the hope of the world. And it confronts the world. The existence of the church confronts the world.
And as Paul says later, it is the aroma of salvation for some and the aroma of death for others. One of the things that convinces me that Christianity is true is the opposition.
Is the opposition. Well, why? Because we stand in the middle of people’s worlds. Just our very existence, our very existence. Now, we got to go further than this. But our very existence proclaims the gospel.
People in our neighborhoods, in our workplaces think, well, they seem like a normal, nice person. Why do they go to that funky thing? Why do they. Why do they wait? They could be watching football. They could be watching the Bills and the Ravens right now.
I know I got no Scott. Sherry, help me out here. I got no other. No other football fans in the room here. Thanks, thanks. And thanks. So we’re a witness to the world, and Paul is grateful for that. Paul is grateful for that.
You know, when people. One of the things people. People say is, you know, we say, well, you know, you got to believe in Jesus. And, well, what if. What if I never really knew?
Well, there are people and there are places in the world where people don’t have an opportunity to know. And I trust in the goodness of God that he’s going to work that out in a very just and right way. I just believe that.
But you know what I say to those people who say that? I say, what about you? Who does? There’s a church on every street corner. Have you ever tried an adult reading of the Bible?
Have you ever asked, what if this is true? Maybe I should check it out. Have you ever? Have you ever sought, you know, God? I never sought you, but I was basically a good person.
Depart from Me, I do not know you. It’s as simple as seeking. We make that possible. We are a light in a dark place.
I thank God for the church. I thank God for our partnership in the gospel. This morning we had our all church meeting in Bremerton, and we looked at our little network of churches in Grace Covenant.
And we looked at, there’s works in Paraguay, there’s works in Peru, there’s works in the Dominican Republic, there’s works in Spain, Nepal. There’s works in five countries in Africa. I didn’t even mention.
I’ve mentioned it to you guys. I forgot to mention this morning. We’re bringing on a pastor now in East Africa, and we’re bringing them out to our conference in March. And we’re going to start planting churches in East Africa.
We’ve got churches in West Africa. We’re starting in Kenya. And so we have partners all over the world. And I’ve been all over the world. I’ve been not, not everywhere, but, you know, I’ve been to Mexico, I’ve been to. I’ve been to a really. One of the weirdest countries I went to was Canada.
But they might be getting better, I don’t know. But I’ve been to Haiti, I’ve been to the Dominican Republic. The roughest mission trip I ever had was the Bahamas. That was suffering for Jesus. That was a rough one. But I’ve been to Africa a couple of times.
And here’s the thing. I’ve discovered different languages, different cultures, weird food, but the same Jesus. The same Jesus. The minute you connect with those pastors in Africa, it’s like they get it, you get it. I know the same guy. I have the same Savior.
And so we’re thankful for our partnership in the gospel. Then Paul prays for the church. He loves them. He wants to be with them.
Dear ones, there are schools of love in our life, and they go out in concentric circles. All right? Here’s where we learn to be like Jesus. Here’s where we learn to love.
First school of love, family. That’s the school of love. Marriage is the school of love. All right? And see, God tricks us. And I don’t know how he tricks women, but I know how he tricks men. We’re 16, 17, 18.
And y’all are really cute. And it’s like, ooh, cute, cute. Like cute. Follow cute. Yeah, yeah. See, that’s why all those boys were chasing you back in the day. That beautiful smile you have. And so we just. And, and, and so, and, and I don’t know I don’t know what women see in us. I don’t get it. And that after they fall in love for that very short period of time later in their life, they never admit what they see in us because they don’t want to give us a big head, you know, so.
But they see something because they flaunt that cuteness like nobody’s business. That’s God’s trap to populate the planet and to get us into relationships that then teach us love. Because as my wife says, the difference between cute and annoying is time. At first it’s adorable.
And two years later, you know, I was loosey goosey, hang back, chill, messy, hey, it’ll all work out. Life’s cool. And Jill was, you know, disciplined, structured, organized, responsible. And, you know, I met her, man, I need some of that. In my world, I need some of that.
And she looks at me and goes, man, I need to learn how to relax. I need to learn how to not sweat it out. Before a test, she would memorize chapters of books. Before tests, I would show up in class and the teacher would say, hey, we’re having a test today.
I go, no kidding, who knew? You have some of those people? Yeah, I was that guy. Really? A test? Oh, quiz every Friday. Oh, that’s what we’ve been doing. Yeah. Okay. And so, you know, you’re attracted to that opposite.
Well, two years into the marriage, you know, she’s thinking that boy is a pig. Pig. He just lays stuff around the house. And I’m thinking that woman is a Nazi. We will straighten things. Straighten things. That’s what she says. Straighten things.
I say, hide things from your husband. He left it one place, you hide it in another place. And you have a distinct advantage over that because you’re a woman, you know how to find things. I’m a man. We don’t know how to find things. That is. That is true.
Alright, enough therapy for me on my marriage. Church is the second school of. Oh, let me give you one more about family.
You think it’s tough being married? Have a baby. You know, there’s a grand conspiracy out there. People who have babies tell people who don’t have babies to have babies. And we tell them a lot. It’ll be great.
It’s the best thing in your life. It’s so fun, it’s so exciting. It’s so great. They say, really? Yeah. And then three months in they go, we will never sleep again, will we? No, no, that’s over. Sleep’s over. Going on vacations is over. Everything you enjoyed before is over.
The school of love. Second school of love. Here, here. This is the school. This is more than singing songs and listening to a guy exegete the Bible and do a weak stand-up comic routine. There’s more than that, alright? This is, this is the school of love. This is where we learn to love people who are different than us.
And it’s not the hotel for saints, right? It’s the hospital for sinners. And we just learn to love each other.
And so God loves the church. He then wants us to impart spiritual gifts. He has work for the church to do, and we can’t do the work of the church without him.
We’ve been trained by the world that we do the work by muscle and brain power. You know, we use our muscles, we use our brains, and that’s how we do the work. And there’s nothing wrong with that. God gave us muscles and brains to use. But when it comes to advancing the kingdom of God, that’s not enough. We need Holy Spirit.
We need the Spirit of God to do the work of God. And he says when you gather together, there is an impartation that happens that doesn’t happen alone.
We think again. God just dumped spiritual gifts on us. But in fact, when Paul talks about spiritual gifts, he talks about it in the context of the gathering. Here’s where we learn and operate in spiritual gifts.
All right? I think it would be a great evangelistic tool if all of us Christians were out there healing in the Name of Jesus, non Christians. That’d be great.
Where do we learn to do that? Here. And then we take it outside these doors. I think it’d be great if we had the boldness to articulate the gospel and we knew enough about the gospel to articulate it. Great. Where do we learn that? Here. Here. Listen. It’s not a place.
I know it feels like this. Maybe it feels like this too much. One guy talks, everybody listens. But no, every. Everybody gets to play. Everybody gets to play. This is for encouragement. you’re the team, I’m the coach. Right? I’m giving you the pep talk.
You got to go out there and beat the enemy. They won’t listen to me because they don’t trust me. What do you do? you’re a pastor. What do you do? I build stuff. I build stuff too. You got an in? You got an in. What do you do? I race horses. Oh, I’m broke too. You got an in.
The next point, Stevin. We mutually encourage one another. How you feeling? It’s your fault. I’ll never forget. I went to Stefan. He’s talking about his horses. I just like.
I like to be curious about what other people are interested in. How do you make it? How do you make a small fortune on horses? He said, start with a large fortune.
All right, dear ones, one of my deepest hopes is that when you come here on Sunday night, you leave here with hope and encouragement. Man. I hope that. I pray that that’s one of the Spiritual gifts that I pray for the most is I pray that God would allow me to impart encouragement. Because life takes courage.
Because life is hard. There’s no easy days. We live in America, first world. We got it easier than a lot of the world. But you know what? No easy days. No easy days.
The wealth and comfort we live in shelters us from some problems, but actually creates others. And so, dear ones, we need each other to encourage one another. We need people to put their arms around us and love us and walk with us, carry our burdens when they’re heavy, and then we pay that forward or backward or whatever. We carry their burdens when they’re heavy.
That’s what church does. It’s a very interesting verse in Galatians. He says, Paul says, each man should carry his own weight. I love that man. I hate entitlement culture. Suck it up, Buttercup. You know, get a job, be responsible.
Now, this is from one of the softest men I know. I am Buttercup. They used to call me that at the last church I pastored. I don’t want to tell you this because you’re going to start doing it. Well, now I’m not. They used to call me the Pillsbury Doughboy. Buttercup.
Okay, well, they would poke me in the stomach, so I’d giggle. I refused. I just wouldn’t. I would glare at them. But really, I don’t like entitlement. Do your work, do your job. Be responsible. Pay your bills, you know, get up in the morning, go to work, grow up, be an adult.
But, you know, with people who do that, life still hits them. People like that still have tragedy, lose jobs, marriage crisis, serious illness. You get to be my age.
It’s kind of past now, but you get to a certain age. All of a sudden, it’s like, wow, I’m so glad I’m not taking care of my kids anymore. And it’s like, oh, they’re my parents, and they need taking care of now. And there’s always something.
And so we carry our weight. But there are times when we sprain our ankle, you know, if we went. If we went backpacking together, right? And we’re all carrying our backpack, right? But let’s say one of us on the trip, you know, let’s say Troy trips and.
And, you know, severely sprains his ankle, and he can’t walk anymore. And Stefan and I are going, well, what are we. What do we. I mean, this is of course not true because I’m never going backpacking with you guys. But. But, you know, for the sake of the story, Stefan, I go, what do we do?
And Steven says, well, what we’re going to do is we’re going to take everything out of Troy’s backpack, and we’re going to put it in your backpack, Kevin.
And we’re going to take everything out of my backpack, and we’re put in your backpack. I’m going to put Troy on my back, and you and I are going to carry more than our fair share to get our brother out of the woods, all right?
I used you, Troy, because you’d be the easiest one to carry out. If I sprained my ankle in the woods, you and Steven would say, let’s put him out of his misery, all right?
And so we carry one another’s burdens, and we carry one, and we carry our own weight. And that makes sense. That’s what the church is.
And finally, we have fruitful ministry. We have fruitful ministry, all right? Not only do I hope you that you’re encouraged, I hope you are strengthened by our times together, by our prayers, by our worship, by the preaching, by communion, by the love that is shared, and it bears fruit in your life. Sociologically, there is a ton of evidence that it actually does.
People who go to church and follow Jesus live longer, live healthier, live happier than people who don’t. It just assures that the earth is round. I don’t want to offend any flat earthers here, but assures that the earth is round. All right? There’s a lot of evidence for both those things. All right?
So that’s Paul and the church. Dear ones, don’t complain about the church. Love the church. Pray for the church. Be the church. And then Paul talks. He shifts to the world. He says, I owe the world the gospel. That’s an interesting text.
That’s an interesting passage. He says, I owe it to the world to preach the gospel. And I’m thinking, well, there’s two ways you can owe somebody, all right?
If Brian loaned me $1,000, I would owe Brian $1,000, and I’d be in his debt. I would be a debtor until I paid that back. But there’s another way where I could owe somebody who didn’t give me anything. Say Brian gave me a thousand dollars and said, here’s a thousand dollars, Kevin, I want you to give it to Scott.
Then I would owe Scott a thousand dollars, and I would be in debt to him until I had paid that. That’s what Paul means. Jesus Christ has deposited something in me, and he said, this belongs to the world.
You’re in debt. You owe the world the gospel. You owe your neighbors. You owe the people you work with. You owe your family an encounter with God. That’s why Christ. It’s not just us four and no more. It’s not just me and Jesus.
God came to the world to seek and save the lost. His means of doing that. Now, us, we’re the A team. There is no B team. We’re it.
Now, we have different gifts and different ways of doing that. I’m not saying every one of you needs to be a street evangelist, all right? I’m not saying you need to get a bullhorn. We probably could use more people like that, though.
You know, I always see them, you know, down. I go down to the Mariners games. I always got people there, repent, you know, and all that.
And I think, oh, that’s not effective. And I’m thinking, well, maybe not, but what are you doing that’s effective? If you think that’s a bad idea, come up with a better one. Do something. At least make a prayer list. A sic em. Prayer list. God, Sic em, sic em, sic em. At least invite them to church.
I’ve told you this a hundred times, and I’m not gonna use the old joke, don’t worry, but I’ve told you this a hundred times. If you don’t. If you. If you don’t.
If you’re not comfortable sharing with them the gospel, bring them here and I’ll do it. I’ll preach to them. It’s my job. I’ll do it. All right?
But we owe, because of what Christ has done for us, the world, an encounter with God. Pray for them. People will come to you with their problems. Simply say, I’d like to pray about that. And they almost always say, yes.
It’s amazing in this world that. Oh, you know, you and your God. Yeah. When they. When, you know, when their house burns down in LA, it’s like, hey, pray for me. Gotcha. You bet I will. And don’t go away and do it. Do it right there. Take their hands and pray for them and give them an encounter with God.
There were two drunks, two town drunks in Oakdale, California, where I pastored, or more than two. But these two were. They’d wander the parks and the streets, and we had this great idea to do worship in the park. And Oakdale, California, is 100 degrees, you know, 90s and hundreds in the summer.
And we’d drag all our equipment out there. And we did it in the afternoon. Like, what were you thinking? We’d drag all our equipment out there, set up the stage, set up everything, and we’d worship, and we’d sweat, and we’d worship, and it was hot, and pound water.
And just people from our church. We figured, oh, man, the community’s going to gather around as they drove by. We thought it was going to be a great outreach. Two drunks, one of them had a really sore shoulder. And he came up and said, man, my shoulder hurts.
And one of our youth just didn’t know any better. He said, well, let me pray for that. He put his hand on his shoulder, and the power of God came upon him. The heat came through his hand, and this guy’s shoulder caught fire. He started feeling the power of God in his shoulder.
And you know what this guy did? He started cussing his head off. Who the are you? What’s going on? Holy. And our little youth guy, he was not deterred. He just kept going.
You know, he just kept going and just prayed for that guy. He says, how’s your shoulder feel? You know, it’s better. It’s better. Who are you people? We’re followers of Jesus, man. And Jesus is the one who just healed you. I never heard nothing like that. Didn’t hear from him again. Just. He had that encounter.
The other drunk, this was hilarious. He walked in the middle of our worship service, drunk. The song stopped. Looked out at the congregation and said, I’ll give any one of you women half a million dollars to have my baby.
We had a little missionary from Haiti there. A woman missionary from Haiti. I love her. She didn’t miss a beat. She said, show me the money.
He came back. We shared Christ with him. That winter, one of those drunks stepped out in the middle of traffic and was hit by a car and killed. The other one went to jail and died.
I don’t know how deep those encounters sunk in, but I’m glad we had them. I’m glad they didn’t die without us doing that. Ats is doing. If you’ve given to the Firehouse Church, Ats is doing giver records now, and you’ll get yours.
And there was a man named Kenny Williams, a street person in Bremerton, and he would come to the Firehouse Church. He had lice, we noticed on the back of his chair one time. Like, ooh, okay. We washed the chair. But we didn’t tell Kenny he couldn’t come to church.
And one Sunday, Kenny came forward and I. I had baptized somebody that Sunday. Just. I didn’t do it the Baptist way. I did it the old Methodist way with the cup and the water. But I baptized somebody in church that Sunday.
And Kenny came up, said, I need prayer. And I started praying for Kenny. And this hit me. I said, Kenny, have you ever just surrendered your life to Jesus Christ? Have you ever put your faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? He goes, no. I said, Kenny, you’ve been coming to church. Do you want to do that? He says, that’s what I want to do. And so I just prayed for Kenny.
And a little lady behind me, she used to come to the church. She moved. Tamara Cooley. I don’t know if somebody. You remember Tamara and Kevin and her two sons, Kevin. And they’ve been to your house? Kevin and Kieran? Yeah.
She was up there crying. And we pray for Kenny. And the water’s right there, say, Kenny, I’m gonna baptize you and drown some lice my hands. But I baptized Kenny in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
That was in November, by Christmas, before Christmas, the library two doors down from us. Kenny was finding a place to sleep, and he had a heart attack and died that January. As our bookkeeper was doing the books, she found an offering for $1 from Kenny. Most precious offering ever. We wanted to frame that thing, you know, just put it up.
We owed Kenny an encounter with God. And so Paul then says, that’s why I’m eager to preach the gospel. Don’t be reluctant. Be eager to share Christ. Be eager to share Christ. Woe to me if I don’t preach the gospel.
16 For if I preach the gospel, I have no reason to boast, because I am compelled to preach —and woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! (1 Corinthians 9:16, CSB)
Of all the lines that Paul says, I can just say, personally, that’s the one I relate to the most. There are times I want to quit, and that just pop. Woe to me. Woe to me if I don’t open up, break open the Bible, and preach the gospel and tell people Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life.
It’s what I do with my life. It’s what you do with your life. Well, I’m a teacher. Yes, you are a teacher. you’re a teacher for Christ. I’m a homemaker. Yes, you are a homemaker.
You’re a homemaker for Christ. I’m retired. Good. You have more time to share Christ, whatever you do. He’s not a slice of the pie. He is the pie, and everything else fits into him.
So be eager. Invite people to church. That is the number one way. Still, all the technology. I get all these things on our, you know, we upgraded our website, and now I get all these emails. Hey, we’ve looked at your web page. We can give you, you know, all these hits.
We found a way to make you more effective and get more people viewing you. Delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete. I don’t care because of all the technology that we have now, and I’m not saying it’s bad, but all the technology that we have and the bumper stickers follow me to the firehouse, church, you know, all that, you know, it hasn’t changed the statistics from 50 years ago.
Still, 90% of people who come to church, connect with Jesus, and connect with the church come because a family or a friend invited them. Not at still 90, 80, 90%. My wife says I use statistics felicitously, but I only do that 72% of the time. So she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
I said the other day, I said 80% of people don’t do. Don’t work in careers that have any relation to their major in college. I don’t believe that. She looked it up and she found out I said 46%. So I was way off. But I did some more research and there was an article from the Washington Post that said 73%.
I hardly ever go with the Washington Post, but if I can win an argument with my wife, I’m going with the Washington Post. All right.
Dear ones eager to preach the gospel, for Paul says, I am not ashamed of the gospel. You know, that’s a tragedy. We are ashamed of the gospel.
15 So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. (Romans 1:15-16, CSB)
Not our fault. The world and the devil work really hard to make us ashamed of the gospel. They want to silence us.
I was watching a mystery show that I really liked. You know, it was cleverly written, it was British, and I really liked it. I watched season one and I liked it, and season two, and I watched the first two, and then season three. Here it comes. Here it comes.
A young gay man commits suicide in a church. The whole episode is about how terrible and homophobic Christians are and how sad and pathetic it is that this poor guy was ostracized, hurt, and driven to suicide. It’s like everything in that episode. All the other episodes are cleverly written.
Everything in that episode is designed to make me say, you know, I should probably be careful about the truth. I should probably be careful about how I share the truth, which is true. I should be full of care. But what it does is it bullies us into silence.
And then we become just like the world. We substitute the real love of Christ for the codependent enablement of a cruel culture that mask its cruelty with a smile. You understand what I’m saying? Don’t be bullied. Don’t respond to bullying with bullying, but don’t be bullied, all right?
You do not have to call broke, fixed and wrong, right to appease a codependent culture. You can say, which I say, we’re all broke. We all need a savior. you’re broken in area A. I’m broken in area B. Join me at the foot of the cross and we’ll pray for broken Area A and broken Area B, and we’ll both seek to follow Jesus.
And neither one of us will do it perfectly for a while, but that’s okay. We’ll hang in there with each other. That’s love. That’s acceptance.
So, dear ones, that’s the current cultural what? Presenting issue around human sexuality. There’ll be another presenting issue in 20 years. There’s always going to be a presenting issue. And the world’s always going to try to bully us into silence.
That’s fine what you do in your church. Just don’t bring it into the office place. Well, he lives inside of me, so I can’t help it. When I leave church, he doesn’t stay there. He comes with me. Here he is. I smell like Jesus. Deal with it.
Deal with it. Don’t be ashamed of the gospel, but instead speak the gospel because of the power of God to bring us. To bring us to God.
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. (Romans 1:16, CSB)
It’s the power of God to give us new life. It’s the power of God to forgive our sins. It’s the power of God to defeat sin in our lives. It’s the power of God to share in the ministry of Jesus to this world.
The gospel is the only thing that brings the power of God into our lives. Everything else is on our own steam.
And if you think your own steam is going to get it done, just give Me your track record of New Year’s resolutions.
Listen, even people who are successful, highly successful in one area of their lives and we idolize them, are train wrecks. Often in other areas of their life. They simply, you know, wow, this person’s a Fortune 500 CEO. His kids hate him because he was never home. Right? Or he was a corrupt business person and cheated people. But. Oh. Or this person’s a great athlete. You know, whatever.
We just set people up on pedestals for human achievement. We’re all good at something. But the only thing that really brings lasting change is the power of God. Nothing we do apart from Jesus will last. No money we make, no halls or statues or buildings named after us.
But a cup of cold water given in his name will gain an eternal reward. Don’t buy the lie that there’s something out there better than Jesus. I don’t know how many billions these people have, but you got it better. You got it better.
You know, Jim and John Harbaugh, the two football coaches, their dad used to teach them, who’s got it better than us? What a great saying. Who’s got it better than us? I got Jesus. And I’m married to Jill. Who’s got it better than me? And I get to hang out with you guys on Sunday night. Who’s got it better than me? Nobody. Nobody.
All right, so tap into the power of God. Preach the gospel and God’s righteousness then is revealed. His righteousness is revealed. Because God is a covenant-keeping God. God’s righteousness is revealed.
God is the promise keeper. God said through Abraham that He was going to bless all the earth through His faithfulness. Guess what? This gospel has now gone to all the earth. All the nations of the earth have been blessed. God keeps his promise. When God says it, it happens.
God is a promise keeper. God does what he says. When he says something, the power is there to accomplish it. Now, will he do it as quickly or in the way you want? Almost never. Will he do it? Yes, he will do it.
God is a covenant keeper. And we step into it by faith. And we continue in it by faith. Not by striving. Not by being really, really good Christians, not by going to church, but by faith. Now, faith is not just the believing in right doctrine. The devil would beat us all in a theology test.
26 God presented him to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and justify the one who has faith in Jesus. (Romans 3:26, CSB)
But faith is a trust, a personal trust in what God has done for us through Jesus Christ our Lord and a loyal allegiance to him as our king. That’s what it is.
I’m a Jesus guy. He’s My king. God bless America. You bet. I’m a patriot. Sometimes when we’re right. When we’re wrong, not so much. I love my family. You bet. But Jesus comes first.
My kids were shocked. My wife is such a justice, do the right thing person. And when Biden pardoned Hunter, I was kind of compassionate. Well, you know, he said, a father. I can understand how a father deals. Like, no way. If he broke the law, he needs to pay for it.
My youngest daughter goes, mom, if I broke the law, would you make me pay for it? She goes, yeah. Didn’t even hesitate, Stefan. It’d be good. Do you good. She’s like, really, Mom? Yeah. I’m like, honey, I pardon you, but you know, I married a Nazi. I told you, you will get caught. All right. That’s right. Consequences are the best teacher.
It begins by faith, and it continues by faith. It starts by trusting Jesus, and it finishes by trusting Jesus. From faith to faith. From faith to faith. And when we do that, two great things happen.
He declares us righteous, not because we are perfect this week, but because he now views us through the lens of his son, Jesus. And when we stand before God Almighty on judgment day, he will see us through the lens of Jesus.
And you’ve already got an A on the test. You got Jesus grade. You got Jesus grade. And it’s not cheating because they all. God’s in on it. All the Father’s in on it. They all knew it. So now you already got an A. Now you can just relax and learn. So he.
Listen, we forget how good a news this is. We’re going to stand before an all holy God one day, and he’s going to say, your sins are forgiven. But what about the time I did? Your sins are forgiven.
But that really bad one. Your sins are forgiven. But what about the time I told you I’d never do it again? That was Tuesday and then Thursday. your sins are forgiven.
Your sins are forgiven. Your sins are forgiven. But it gets better. Wait. He not only forgives sin, but he will ultimately defeat it in our lives.
Have you ever been like me and struggled with God? Why am I not getting better faster? Why do I still struggle with this when I’ve prayed 200 times not to struggle with this?
All right, why is. What about this? And why isn’t my willpower working? And I know that there have been improvements in other areas, but, you know, I came to Jesus and I didn’t stop. And I got the Holy Spirit, and I didn’t stop sinning. I didn’t get perfect. Overnight.
And so we get. And we want to be. I mean, one of the things that will truly tell if you’re a Christian or not, or you really have the Spirit of God in you, is not that you’re perfect, but that you want to be more like Jesus.
You sincerely. I do. I sincerely want to be a better husband. I sincerely want to be a better pastor. I sincerely want to be a better father and grandfather. I sincerely want. I pray to God. I want to be kinder. I want to be more encouraging. I want to be wise.
I want to bring the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. I don’t want to bring my cynicism and sarcasm and negativity and grumbling into the world. I want to bring the light of Jesus into the world.
And your light is so bright and beautiful, and mine seems so like Washington day in January. Overcast today was nice. It was. But here’s the thing. He not only declares us righteous, very clear promise in the Bible. We will be like him.
You’re going to be the person you always wanted to be and the person your dog always believed you were. You know, that ought to be a prayer in everybody’s life. God, make me the man my dog thinks I am. Yep.
So I just want that to give you hope tonight by faith in Jesus Christ. You don’t have to be smart. You can be stupid or smart. You don’t have to be rich. You can be rich or poor, male, female, anything else. you’re invited.
And when you have, when you put your faith in him, give him your loyal allegiance, your sins are forgiven, and he puts his spirit in you. And he says he will work until the job’s done. Philippians 1:6. I am confident in this, that God will complete the good work he has begun in you.
6 I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1:6, CSB)
Isn’t that good news? We’re going to spend eternity, and we’re all going to be as good as Jesus. Wouldn’t that be great? There’ll be no more annoying. There’ll be no more.
Yeah, that person kind of gets on my nerves, but, you know, the Lord’s using them to grind off some rough edges in my life. Those edges are finally going to be gone, and we’ll simply enjoy. But here’s the remarkable thing.
I know I’m going on and on, but you know what? What? There’s only 17 of you. Who am I going to chase away? You know, it’s like, all right, I shouldn’t be that cynical. Forgive me. All right, here’s the deal.
I don’t know how this is going to work, but we’re going to all be like Jesus, and we’re all going to be more unique than we are now. you’ll be more Aiko than you are now in the best possible way. All right? You know, you’ll be more Troy than you are now in the best possible way.
It’s just going to happen, and God’s going to do it. And that’s our forever story. Not the brokenness and the sorrow and the struggle in this world. That’s our forever story. Forever story.
Isn’t that good news? Go home with hope. Turn it. Don’t nudge somebody next to you and say, hey, wake up. Have some hope. Spark up, Sparky. Spark up and have some hope.
God will make you like Jesus, alright? On the night that he was betrayed, he took bread and he broke it. He gave it to his disciples. And he said, this is my body given for you. See, he says, eat me. Become like me.
I love. You know the old saying, you are what you eat, right? You are what you eat. And there’s a lot of truth to that. You know, what you put into your body is what feeds your cells and makes you, you know, what you are.
Some people eat stuff that makes them healthy, and some people eat stuff that kills them. Though you healthy people, it’s coming to you too. But you know, it’s later. Meet you there.
But here, nothing is more true than this: you are what you eat. On the night he was betrayed, he said, this is my body which is given for you.
In the same way, he said, this is my blood which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Often as you gather together, do this in remembrance of me.
So, dear ones, this is the healthiest food you’re ever going to eat. Your sins are forgiven, and Jesus is feeding you with his life so that he will complete the process to make you like him.
Thank you, God, for your overwhelming tsunami. Wave goodness to us through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thank you for calling us into it.
Strengthen us to walk in that faithful loyalty to you this week in such a way that that debt we owe to the world will shine through us. And we will give the world an encounter with Jesus. Because you’re so strong in us, we pray it in your Name, Amen.
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