July 28, 2024, Message by P. Kevin Clancey
All right, dear ones.
Psalm 1.
1 Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers. 2 But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night. 3 They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do. 4 But not the wicked! They are like worthless chaff, scattered by the wind. 5 They will be condemned at the time of judgment. Sinners will have no place among the godly. 6 For the Lord watches over the path of the godly, but the path of the wicked leads to destruction. (Psalms 1:1-6, NLT)
All right, we’ve talked about this several times, that wicked. It’s very interesting that the meaning of wicked is, and Psalm 1 just points it out so well, is that without anchor, that’s not planted, it’s not rooted, it has no foundation, there’s no substance to it. And Psalm 1 says, you know, don’t. Don’t hang with the wicked. Don’t follow the advice. Don’t do what the sinners are doing, and don’t join in with the mockers.
1 Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers. (Psalms 1:1, NLT)
And there’s a controversy that came at the start of the Olympics. You guys know about the Olympic controversy, that it seemed like there was a parody of the Last Supper, and Christians were upset by it. Some people are saying, no, no, it’s a Greek thing.
My whole deal is, I don’t care. I really don’t. My reaction is, if it was meant to mock the Last Supper, my response to that isn’t anger, it’s pity.
And the other thought I had was how grateful I am to gather with you and celebrate the table of Jesus.
I can’t think after I saw that, I can’t think of. My one initial experience was all of a sudden, my feelings about communion just got stronger. It was like, what a great deal that, wow, this must really be a special meal if, in fact, the enemies of Christ feel it worthy of mocking.
And so that was just my take on that. But it got me thinking about the wicked.
People who have no foundation, they have no basis, and they’ll be blown away in the judgment. And, you know, my desire is that they won’t be. My desire is that they will find Christ, that they will find something to ground their lives.
When I was 16, the love of God sought me and found me, laid hold of me. And I’m so grateful that I’ve been able to live my life. Less than perfect life, less than perfect, raw material, broken, Kevin struggles with all sorts of issues.
But I’ve been able to live my life with a purpose and a foundation and a planting, you know, a planting, a direction. I believe things. I live for things, and I’m so grateful for that.
And the fact that you’re here tonight means one of two things. And I love. Since love believes the best, I’ll say for each one of you, I believe it means this. You are seeking to develop a planted life.
You know, you’re given an hour and a half or 2 hours or whatever out of your life to sink deep into the soil of God. And so I said, good for you.
The other reason you could be doing it is because you know you’re a hypocrite and you want to look religious. But really, there are very few times in culture that got anybody anywhere. And in the Pacific Northwest in 2021, there are better ways to impress people. This one doesn’t work that well, so that’s. I give you the benefit of doubt.
I think you’re all doing it for the right reasons. All right, so God bless you.
Oh, there’s a third reason. You might be coming because your parents made you. That’s also a very good reason. I know. I know you. You both come because you just. you’re sitting at home going, you know, we haven’t been teased by Pastor Kevin for a week. We need to go to church tonight. I know. All right, so good.
It is good then, to be planted. And let’s plant ourselves tonight with word, prayer, worship, communion, all those things.
We got music to help us, and so we’re going to use music as a tool to give our praise and our thanks to God. So let’s stand and do that.
Let our hearts burn, God. Let our hearts burn within us. Holy Spirit, set our hearts on fire for Jesus. For the glory of his name and for his kingdom. Set our hearts on fire.
Thank you, Lord. you’ve shown me the path of life. In your presence is the fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Thank you, Lord Jesus. Thank you, Father.
Come, Holy Spirit. Be upon us. Be upon the preached word. Let it do what you created it to do. Shape us into the image of your son, Jesus. Let it go into our ears, into our head, and then down into our hearts. What’s dross, blow away. What’s eternal, settle in us. We ask it in Jesus’ Name, Amen. Amen.
All right, dear ones, we’re going through the Bible, and we’re going through the prophets. And the prophets can be some tough sledding because prophets are covenant lawyers.
And what I mean by that is God established a covenant with Israel. Prophets come to Israel, and they make God’s case. They say, all right, here’s the covenant. Here’s how you violated it. Here’s what the Lord says.
And the Lord says what he said when he established the covenant. If you violate the covenant, if you worship other gods, if you oppress the poor, those are the two biggies, right? Those tend to be the two biggies. He doesn’t even get mad at them for not holding Passover.
You know, when Josiah holds the Passover, he’s like, wow, great, guys, you finally did it. But it’s, I mean, I, he doesn’t even get mad at them for not having the right sacrifices.
In fact, he doesn’t like their sacrifices because they just come legalistically when they do and then they go and offer sacrifices to Baal and Asherah and Molech, and they sacrifice their kids to these false gods. And he says, your burnt offerings are detestable to me.
What he wants is he wants them to worship him exclusively and stop chasing after the other gods of the surrounding nations. He wants them to do right in the land like his covenant says.
If they followed his covenant, the poor would be cared for, the widow and the orphan would be cared for. There would be justice in the land. Instead, there’s corruption, there’s deceit, there’s debauchery, and everything’s just bad. And it’s bad for a long time.
It’s not like it’s bad for two years. It’s not like it’s bad for four years. It’s bad for hundreds of years. Hundreds of years. You have these practices, and God keeps telling them, don’t do it.
And you read the prophets, and you know, it’s like it’s all this judgment. Except in all the prophets, there’s this hint, this hint that though I’m going to bring judgment, though there’s going to be exile, though you know, hard times are coming that you have brought upon yourselves, I’m going to create a whole new day.
You are going to learn your inability to follow my covenant, and I’m going to come and I’m going to write my law, as he says to Jeremiah, on your heart. I’m going to do an inward work. I’m going to send another one.
Remember how good David was? I’m going to send another one from the line of David. Only his kingdom won’t be a kingdom that lasts a lifetime. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and he will be.
And the Jews had a name for that. They called it Messiah, the anointed one.
The Greek word Christ, the christed one, was going to come. And there’s all these hints about what this Messiah is going to look like, and we know he’s going to be a great king.
But then Isaiah comes along, and Isaiah probably does more than any other prophet to talk about the Messiah and the messianic age. From Isaiah 40 through Isaiah 36, some people have called it the fifth gospel or the gospel of the Old TestAment. But Isaiah puts another twist on the Messiah that is a little different than this mighty warrior king David.
And that is, the Messiah is also going to be a suffering servant. The Messiah is going to be a suffering servant.
And you realize how Israel had such a tough time with these almost two contradictory pictures of the Messiah, a victorious king and a suffering servant. Now, any human being that lived a human, human life can understand how both of those can be true, right?
We have the times in our life where we’re on top of the world, where things are going well, you know, and we feel like, you know, the job’s good and the family’s good, and everything’s happening good.
And then we have these other times where it’s like, oh, my gosh, everything’s falling apart and life’s crazy, and the kids are crazy, and why did I marry this person? And. And human life has always been like that.
But the idea of a majestic, victorious king and a suffering servant seemed really hard to. What? Bring together to reconcile.
And so when Jesus comes the first time, the disciples are like, you’re the Messiah. Look at all these signs and wonders. Look at this brilliant teaching.
And Jesus says, you’re right. I am the Messiah. Great. Let’s go to Jerusalem and kick some Roman tail. Let’s go to Jerusalem and defeat our enemies. And you’re going to be on the throne.
And John and James are like, hey, can we be the secretary of defense and the secretary of state? Can we sit on your right and on your left? We’re going to get rich.
We’re going to be famous. We’re going to be awesome. And Jesus says, no, you don’t understand. But Isaiah understood. Before the reigning king comes a suffering servant.
Isaiah writes four places in Isaiah. They’re called the servant songs, where Isaiah writes about this servant of the Lord and the Messiah as the servant of the Lord: Isaiah 42, Isaiah 49, Isaiah 50, and then Isaiah 52 and 53. Isaiah 50:2-13 through Isaiah 50:3-12.
All right, he writes about this servant of the Lord, and especially in the last passage, he really focuses in on this servant’s suffering.
And that’s what I’m going to read to you tonight, and that’s what we’re going to look at.
So Isaiah 52:13 starts out,
13 See, my servant will prosper; he will be highly exalted (Isaiah 52:13, NLT)
Okay, that’s great. That’s great.
14 But many were amazed when they saw him. His face was so disfigured he seemed hardly human, and from his appearance, one would scarcely know he was a man. 15 And he will startle many nations. Kings will stand speechless in his presence. For they will see what they had not been told; they will understand what they had not heard about. (Isaiah 52:14-15, NLT)
1 Who has believed our message? To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm? 2 My servant grew up in the Lord ‘s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. 3 He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. 4 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! 5 But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. 6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all. 7 He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth. 8 Unjustly condemned, he was led away. No one cared that he died without descendants, that his life was cut short in midstream. But he was struck down for the rebellion of my people. 9 He had done no wrong and had never deceived anyone. But he was buried like a criminal; he was put in a rich man’s grave. 10 But it was the Lord ‘s good plan to crush him and cause him grief. Yet when his life is made an offering for sin, he will have many descendants. He will enjoy a long life, and the Lord ‘s good plan will prosper in his hands. 11 When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied. And because of his experience, my righteous servant will make it possible for many to be counted righteous, for he will bear all their sins. 12 I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier, because he exposed himself to death. He was counted among the rebels. He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels. (Isaiah 53:9-12, NLT)
And may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable. Lord, in your sight, our rock, our strength, and our redeemer.
So the suffering servant of Isaiah 52 and 53. I don’t know if any of you have seen on YouTube. It’s where I’ve seen it, a ministry called One for Israel or something like that.
And it’s not just. It’s not like a pro-Israel, political pro-Israel, but it’s about Jewish people who have given their lives to Jesus.
And there’s just these. There’s probably, I don’t know, dozens, maybe. I don’t know how many. Now, they have recorded testimonies of several Jews who surprisingly surprised themselves, gave their life to Christ.
And I’ve watched a lot of these because they’re just kind of inspiring. And it’s after midnight and I can’t get to sleep, and I already have enough cigar lighters. I can’t go buy another one on Amazon.
I think, well, maybe I should do something holy. And so I’ll watch one of these. Let me hear a story about somebody coming to Christ. And I’m always glad I did. They’re inspiring. They’re exciting.
But one of the things that struck me as I was watching these is how many times, not every time, but how many times these Jewish Christians, these Messianic Jews, how many times they said that a significant part of their conversion was reading this passage. Because when they read this passage, what dawns on them is these are our.
These aren’t the Christian scriptures. These are our scriptures written a long time, you know, 600 years or so before Jesus.
And yet, just like Psalm 22 describes the death of Jesus on a cross, so Isaiah 53 describes the ministry, the mission, the suffering, the death, and the purpose of that death of Jesus.
And all of a sudden, we can see how this great king can also be the suffering servant.
And they come together, and he wins this marvelous victory, not by a battle with an army, but by, in fact, submitting himself to evil, to the point of death. And yet somehow, because of his obedience to the Father in that death, everything gets reversed. He wins this great victory and is exalted and vindicated throughout all of history. It’s the greatest of all turnarounds.
And so let’s look at some of the characteristics of the Messiah. Beginning in Isaiah 52:13-15, you know, it talks about his life. My servant will prosper.
He’ll be highly exalted. Well, that sounds great. Now, we start off with a victorious king, but then it says, it just shifts real quick. But he was disfigured. He was beaten. He didn’t even appear as a man.
But because of this, somehow, throughout history, kings will stand speechless in his presence. They will realize things that they have never been told. They will understand what had not been heard.
And, dear ones, you’ve got to think this is an amazing story. A crucified Jewish carpenter created western civilization. Let me tell you that again.
A crucified Jewish carpenter under Roman authority, from the land of Nazareth, from Palestine, has shaped Western culture so that 2000 years, over 2000 years later, we’re still talking about him. We’re still arguing about him. But our morals, our ethics, our culture has been shaped by what he taught and who he was.
And he never had an army. He never traveled more than 30 miles from his hometown. There were books written about him, inspired, we would believe, by His Spirit. But he never himself sat down with parchment and ink and wrote anything down.
His public ministry lasted an incredibly short period of time. Three years before that, he was completely hidden, never raised a sword, never marched an army. And yet, as Isaiah said, kings, rulers, the most powerful men of the world, will pay homage to him and will be startled by his teaching, and even their lives will change.
One of the most powerful kings in the Middle Ages was King Charlemagne. And when King Charlemagne died, King Charlemagne was victorious.
He expanded his kingdom through, as kings always do, military victories, and through the sword, and through the armies, and through the bloodshed of men and women. He had this powerful kingdom, and he had wealth, and he had power, and he had prestige.
Yet, as he grew old in life, he realized how empty all that was. When he was buried, he said, bury me with an open Bible and place my bony finger on this passage.
And the passage was, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and yet forfeit his soul? The most powerful king in that era of the world said, you know what? Jesus is smarter than me. Jesus is smarter than me. And so it’s an incredible story. We believe people, well, people say, well, other religions gained, you know, gained a cent in the world. Yeah, they did. But none from such a man as this. Islam gained through the sword. Whenever Christians have taken up the sword, it’s not gone well for us.
It’s not really gone well for us. That’s not the standard operating procedure God has for us to hold a sword over somebody and say, infidel, believe or die. But that is the strategy, and that has been the strategy of Islam throughout its history and to a large degree. And that’s their growth.
Throughout the Middle Ages, throughout the Mediterranean world, it was the growth of, like, a military kingdom. They grew through military conquest, but not Jesus. And yet his ministry goes on.
And even to this day, you can’t get elected president of the United States, whether it’s sincere or not sincere, without making some kind of allegiance to this man. Without articulating, “I’m a good Catholic” or “I’m a Baptist” or “I.” you know, I can’t think of. Is there any president, Brian, that’s ever not given some kind of, you know, whether it’s been genuine or not? Right?
They all went to church. They all conclude that, in fact, probably the least religious of all of them, Trump. You know, so that’s just the way it is.
He is strangely exalted based on who he was, where he was born, in Nazareth.
Listen, here’s the deal with Jesus. The Jews were occupied by the Romans. They were poor, occupied people. And amongst the Jews, there was also a status. If you were a southern Jew around Jerusalem, Judah, Tribe of Judah, Benjamin, down in that area, you were prestigious. It was like you were in Silverdale or Poulsbo. But if you were a northern Jew, it was like you were in Bremerton or Port Orchard.
I tell people I live in Port Orchard.
They say, oh, I feel sorry for you. Well, I live in McCormick Woods. We call it the Gig Harbor of Port Orchard. We live in the Gig Harbor of Port Orchard. And even in Bremerton, there’s a pecking order. I live in Bremerton. Oh, I’m sorry. Well, I don’t live in Gorst. I’m not in Gorst.
And, of course, Kathleen, there’s the queen. The queen of Kitsap County. Yeah. And it’s. We don’t even call it Bainbridge Island. We just call it the island brain dead. Okay. Yeah, well, kids like to rebel. Yeah. But Nazareth was Gorst.
Nazareth was gorsed. Jesus. Peter was seen. Peter was picked out in Jerusalem when Jesus was being crucified, and he was denying him. They say, oh, we know you’re one of his disciples. Well, how do we know? Cause you speak like a Galilean.
Now, it’s reversed. Back then, the northerns were the hillbillies, not the southerners. Right. In our culture, you know, it’s like, oh, you got a little south in the mouth, you know, and because the north won the Civil War, we looked down on the southerners, but then it was. They looked down on the Galileans.
That’s where Jesus came from. He was born in poverty. He wasn’t tall and handsome. There was nothing majestic in his appearance. He wasn’t like King Saul. He didn’t stand a foot above everybody else.
As a kid growing up, I always wanted to be tall. My dad wanted a son who had long legs. My mother had long legs. He got two of his three daughters had long legs, and he had me, and I didn’t. My dad was five nine. I never caught up to him. I’m five eight and a half.
Now that I’m older, I’m probably just flat five eight. And man, I loved playing basketball. I always envied tall guys, man. And the girls liked tall guys better, and I was just short.
As I got older, I got short and fat, you know, just so thankful I’m not bald. Short, fat, and bald, man. That’s the trifecta of bad news. Looked like Danny Devito, and I just. And the Lord healed me of my envy.
And you know, when the Lord healed me in my envy, when I got on a plane in coach and I looked at the tall guys and I said, thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. This 6 hours is going to go much better for me than that guy over there who’s six foot three. It’s going to be a lot easier.
There’s nothing Jesus would not be. You know, I don’t know. Who are the hot tickets today in the acting world? I don’t even know. You know? You know? Go ahead, Sidney. No. Yeah.
You know who would play mister Darcy, Sophia? Colin Firth. All right. He’s not Colin Firth. He’s not handsome. He’s just a normal guy. But he identified with humanity, and he identified with their suffering.
He was despised and rejected. It’s hard being rejected. It’s one of the most difficult experiences any of us have. You know, I tell you, ladies, men take a big risk. You get all down on them because they don’t do it right. Just be glad they take the risk.
What a risk to go out and spend all that money on a ring, humble themselves, get down on a knee and say, will you marry me? With the possibility that you might say, let me think on it.
I just remember high school dances and the terror of going up and asking some cute girl to dance. It’s like, well, you want to dance? No. Or here’s worse. You got a crush on somebody, right? It’s like, oh, I just. I’m crushing on her, and you go and you finally take the risk. I really like you.
I like you too. Great. And then these deadly words, like a brother. It’s so hard to be rejected. You didn’t get the job, or you got fired, or you got handed the divorce papers.
Jesus was despised and rejected. He was misunderstood. He was a man of sorrow. He understood grief and people and his death. I mean, Judas betrayed him, one of his best friends, for 30 pieces of silver. Betrayed him.
We think, ah, his other disciples didn’t betray him. No, no. They stood by his side until they ran away. They ran away.
The people he created, who he called through the burning bush, who he gave a land to, who he tried to shepherd, and the people he made his own, shouted out the day of his death in unison, crucify him.
Even the Romans, he couldn’t even turn to the Romans for impartial justice. The Romans freely admitted he hadn’t done anything wrong. We see no reason to kill him. But even the Romans succumb to political expediency and there is nobody to stand for him.
He knows the dregs of human experience. You had a bad day.
He had a worse one. He had a worse one. you’ve been accused falsely. So was he. you’ve been rejected. you’ve been, you’ve been, you’ve been stabbed in the back by somebody you thought was a friend. Him too.
Have your friends ran away from you when you wanted them to stand up for you? His friends too.
I remember as the Methodist pastor in this little church, I was going into a meeting. I know it’s gonna be a fight. I knew it’s going to be, you know, it’s one of those meetings.
I had established a preschool in the church, and I was giving the preschool a good deal on using our space. You know why? They were bringing families to our church. It’s like we’re making money on these, you know, if you want to do it just business, we’re making money on these people.
But these trustees, these old trustees, they couldn’t see farther than their noses. Like, we need to charge these people more money. We need to charge this preschool more money for using it. We’re not charging market value.
And I had a room full of people, and three or four of them were just dead set, you know, that we needed to charge them more money.
The rest of the room full of people, probably five or six of them, were on my side. And I’m thinking, oh, when this easy.
I get in there and we start debating and, you know, what’s the deal with the good guys, right? The good guys just say, well, we don’t want to offend anybody.
They just let me fight that all by myself.
I kept looking around the rooms, like, when are you guys going to stand up here? Come on. You know, come to the. Come to the table.
And afterwards, they all came up to me and they patted me on the back, hey, you did great. It’s like, yeah, thanks for the help, dude. Could have used. Could have used. You could have said something.
Way to go, Jesus. Way to go to that cross. Yeah, thanks for running away, Pete. Denying me three times. He knows. He knows, but he did it for a purpose.
He brought us peace in his sorrows. His beating and his stripes bring us healing. His death brings us forgiveness. He does it all in our place.
That’s what expiation means. What it means is what 2 Corinthians 5:21 means. God made him who knew no sin to become sin so that we might become the righteousness of God.
It’s the one time in history where something that’s too good to be true for us is actually true.
All of our sin, all of our rebellion, all of our mockery of God, all of our antagonism, all of our shaking our fists angrily, saying, I’m going to do it my way. The heck with you. I’m not going to play by the rules. I’m going to look out for number one. All of that, Jesus, while we were still there. Not after we repented, while we were still there. Took it upon himself. It all climbed onto him, and he nailed it to the cross, and it was crucified with him.
Listen, if you’ve experienced injustice, let me tell you, there has never been or never will be an injustice perpetrated on planet earth like this one. He didn’t deserve any of it, but he took it. And in exchange, he gives us his life.
We become children of God. We become beloved by God. We become forgiven by God. We get his righteousness.
You know, when I was a kid, my parents taught me, and this is wise counsel. You ought to teach your kids this too: if it’s too good to be true, it ain’t right.
If the king of Abu Dhabi gets your email address and says he’s going to give you $20 billion and all he needs is your credit card number and bank account number, it’s a scam.
All right, if it’s too good to be true. You know you can get billions of dollars just by playing the lottery. No. You can increase the amount of money you pay in taxes by playing the lottery. If it’s too good to be true, it’s not true.
Why do we have this instinct that something could be too good to be true?
Because in all history, it’s true. Once God made him who knew no sin to become sin, that we might become the righteousness of God. This is the great exchange. This is the story that’s too good to be true, and it’s true. By his stripes, we are healed.
There’s a debate amongst theologians in church history. Is healing in the atonement? Is healing in the atonement? We know forgiveness is in the atonement. What about healing? And here’s the argument for healing in the atonement: Isaiah 53. By his stripes, we are healed.
He was beaten for our wholeness. Sounds like it’s there. It’s other places in the scripture too. Let me give you Psalm 103.
Bless the Lord, o my soul and all my inmost being. Bless the Lord, o my soul, and forget not all his benefits. He forgives all your sins. What comes next? Heals all your diseases.
Listen, the way Hebrew poetry is constructed, one of those is not metaphorically, mostly true and the other one literally true. If one of them is metaphor, the other is metaphor. If one of them is literal, the other is literal.
So either he forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, or he kind of forgives all your sins and kind of heals all your diseases.
There’s the Lord’s prayer: Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Where? On earth as it is in heaven.
I just take it as based on what I kind of read in scripture and based as a matter of faith, I just take it there’s no sickness in heaven. I don’t think anybody’s struggling with cancer in heaven. I don’t think anybody’s got a little diabetes thing. Little packs on them in heaven.
All right. I don’t think. I don’t even think we need these in heaven. All right. Nobody’s gonna get shots in their eyes, Kathleen, in heaven. Praise the Lord. All right, it’s all gone. It’s all done.
But, you know, I’ve worn glasses since I’ve been about 16 or 17. I’ve never minded. A lot of people, you know, they don’t like glasses. They want contacts. They think they look better. I think I look better with glasses. You know, I think glasses actually, you know, at least with guys, make us look smart.
And there’s a great move with glasses. There’s a great move you can do with glasses that will really make you look smart when you don’t know a thing.
Yeah, exactly. All you have to do is somebody say, Kevin, is there healing in the atonement? And all I have to do is this. See? Gotcha. Didn’t you? Didn’t it? You were thinking, wow, he is a thoughtful, reflective, wise, philosophical person.
Well, not when you’re giggling. No, it doesn’t help when you’re giggling. Yeah, watch Brian. Brian’s got it down pretty good. Yeah, Brian. Yeah.
Yeah, you can do this. You can do this. That, that emphasizes, touch the lip and then point. It’s a good move. All right. Yeah, got it.
Sidney, get up. Even if you don’t need them, get a pair of glasses. When you go to Great Northern and when your professor asks you a tough question, let us know. Bring back a report. It’ll get you higher grades. The professor will be so impressed, it’ll take a B and bring it right up to at least an A minus.
All right, no glasses in heaven. Back to my point.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Look at Jesus. He says we’re to pursue his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. It seems to me that healing is a part of it.
I’ll give you my last argument on this. I’ve got others, but the last big one: Jesus never made anybody sick. He’s God in the flesh. He never made anybody sick. He never said, you know what? I’m going to give you blindness just to teach you a lesson, and you’re going to thank me later. I mean, that’s what sick people often say.
That’s what reformed theology often says, right? We got this, but God gave it to us to teach us this valuable lesson. Now, I believe half of that.
There was a young man, a high school kid, who had gone through cancer in high school, and he was healed. He got better and he said he thanked God for giving him cancer because he learned so many good lessons through his cancer. And usually at Burger King, I don’t feel the need to correct somebody’s theology. Actually, that’s not true.
I almost always feel the need to correct somebody’s theology. But usually at Burger King, I refrain from correcting someone’s theology. There’s a guy who gave me some bad theology today in church, and I didn’t correct him. And so anyway, I didn’t. But I couldn’t let it go. I just said, look at Randall. I got to tell you something. I don’t think God gave you cancer.
Now, second part, I learned so much going through that. Yeah, God did that. You can thank God for all that.
Now let me give you a big argument against healing in the atonement, all right? Everybody we pray for doesn’t get well. That’s the argument from experience, not scripture, though. And usually, the argument is a sovereign God gets to decide when somebody gets healed and when somebody doesn’t. And that makes perfect sense.
The problem is Jesus never says that when people don’t get healed in the ministry of Jesus. Oh, did I say oh, Jesus never made anybody sick. Let me point to everybody. Every single person in the scriptures who asked Jesus to heal them got healed.
He didn’t heal everybody. He goes to the pool of Bethesda, he heals one guy. Not everybody. But based on just the scriptures, we don’t know, maybe somebody asked him to get healed and he didn’t heal them. I mean, the chosen takes that position on a couple of occasions, which is my only grief against the TV show The Chosen.
But everybody that I know of who came to Jesus for healing as recorded in the scriptures got it. Now back to the argument against God is sovereign.
So obviously it’s his will if he heals somebody, and it’s his will if somebody doesn’t get healed. And God knows best, and God will cause good to come out of it.
Okay, you can hold that position. It makes sense. I’m just saying that’s not the conclusion I come to when I read the gospels. And I will admit that the conclusion I come to is a minority opinion in the body of Christ. And I will also admit that I can’t prove it by experience because I prayed for lots of people to get better who didn’t.
Well, what do you do with that then? Well, here’s the uncomfortable thing that Jesus does with that. Jesus doesn’t say, oh, a sovereign God just decided not to drive the demons out of this boy. He looks at his disciples and goes, why couldn’t you guys do this? You don’t have enough faith yet. Grow your faith.
Oh my goodness, now you’re sounding like a pentecostal. Now you’re sounding like a faith healer. Well, say that to Jesus. Now what I’ll never say because I think it’s cruel and Jesus actually never does that when somebody doesn’t get healed.
Jesus never looks at that person and says, well, you just don’t have enough faith. He looks at his disciples and says, you don’t have enough faith.
So if I pray for somebody and they don’t get healed. If I pray for you and you don’t get healed, don’t worry, I’m not going to blame you. I will go home and blame me. Maybe sometimes too harshly, but really, I think it’s the church as a whole that we have my operating theory on. This is the church as a whole.
We have not reached the level where we’re batting a thousand yet. But I’ll say this about my experience, all right? Not everybody I pray for gets healed. And people will say, see, Jesus healed everybody. So it’s not his intention to heal today.
Well, you know what? Here’s my deal. Jesus was better at it, okay? Dude, it’s like, Jesus was a better evangelist than Billy Graham. He was a better teacher than all these guys on the Internet who think they’re God’s gift to teaching, all right? He was better at it. Can he be better at healing?
Jesus never had to look at himself and say, darn, I just don’t have enough faith, you know? Hey, Father, I already know you’re gonna do this. I’m just saying this prayer for the people around here so they know that you’re working in me and I’m in you, and you always hear my prayers and you always do it.
That’s the only reason I’m saying this stuff out loud. Cause I knew a couple days ago when they came from Lazarus’ house and said he was dying, I knew that you were gonna do this.
That’s why I waited, because you’re going to be glorified through the raising of Lazarus the dead. So I’m just making this big speech on behalf of you and behalf of me so that everybody knows it’s about you and me and about the great thing we’re doing.
And by the way. Oh, here we go. Hey, Lazarus, come on out. Come on out, Laz. And he did.
Jesus never like, man, I got to work up my faith for this one. All right?
So anyway, whether you believe healings in the atonement or not, I just gave you, now you can. There are other. I’m not going to spend all night on. There are other arguments against it that do have some scriptural basis, but that’s. I just think. I just think we. I just think it is a. It is an over simplistic answer, and I feel like it is sometimes used as a cop out to just land on the sovereignty of God issue for our ineffectiveness in a ministry of healing.
I think God might be looking at us and saying, I sovereignly want to heal people. I’m just looking for some people who get in the game and believe it, who will risk looking like a fool and failing until they grow enough spiritual muscle to see the kingdom breaking.
I don’t know. I don’t know how much heaven we can see on earth, but here’s what I say. I’ll bet we can see more. And I want to die pressing into that instead of giving simple answers to make us feel better.
So that’s where I land on that.
It’s not a deal breaker. It’s not part of the doctrine of grace, covenant, and the firehouse church. It’s my opinion based on scriptures, so you can disagree with me. No big deal. All right.
And maybe for nobody in here but me, is that even a theological issue of whether or not there’s healing in the atonement? But just in case there is, I thought I’d give it a run. Ott is going there, you know. I’ve thought of that, Kevin, so that’s good. I don’t know if you’ve thought of that.
But anyway, yeah, it’s been a question for you. Good. All right. He dies for our sickness, for our sorrows, and for our sin. And the greatest miracle, I will agree, the greatest miracle is he die. Listen, whether there’s healing in atonement or not, there’s healing in the resurrection, right?
We already established that there’s healing in heaven. There’s healing in heaven, all right. I don’t even know if I’ll drop stuff in heaven.
But I hate dropping stuff now, and one of the reasons I hate dropping stuff is I got to pick it up now, or at least I have to have an argument with myself on how important is that. Is that worth the sacrifice of picking it up? You know?
So I think that stuff will be gone. Maybe even tonight. Maybe even tonight, my back will be completely healed. Amen. Maybe every sickness that’s in this room will be healed as we meet him at his table tonight.
Maybe as we take the food of the new covenant, every benefit of the new covenant will be applied to us. Can’t hurt. No. And I know somebody who is diagnosed with breast cancer who’s, you know, doing just fine. Just doing fine. Just happy as a tick on a well-fed dog. She’s doing great.
He resigned himself to this. He resigned himself to this. Best compliment you ever received. He resigned himself to this? Like a sheep before his shears, he was silent. Man. This is the hard one for me.
This is harder than believing there’s healing in the atonement. Is keeping my mouth shut and not vindicating myself. They begged him to try to vindicate himself.
The Jewish leaders. Have you nothing to say, Pilate? What are you going to look at? They’re going to kill you. Aren’t you going to defend yourself?
And the only thing she says gets him killed. Are you the Son of God? Well, metaphorically speaking, we’re all kind of sons of God, you know? Are you the Son of God? You said it. Aren’t you going to defend yourself?
Listen, Roman governor, I got more troops than you got. I got heavenly troops, but this, this is meant to be. This is God’s call. This is not my kingdom. you’re going to see my kingdom one day. It’s more impressive than Rome.
But he never. He never vindicates himself. Man, and you’ve heard me confess this before, I just want to put people in their place. They deserve to be put in their place, you know, I want to look right and I want them to be wrong. But he was silent. In his own defense, he died childless.
What does that mean? Well, here’s the vindicate we get. We’ll get to the vindication. But in that culture, not to have children was considered shameful. You know, if you were a woman and you couldn’t bear children, it was a reproach, something, you know, you must have sinned so that, you know, that retributive theology. You must have sinned if, you know, children were. Children were a blessing from the Lord. All right. your quiver should be full. Children were a blessing.
I think, actually, you know, I do believe the scriptures and their original languages are inerrant, infallible.
But I think there was a translation error that has gone down through the ages. Grandchildren are a blessing from the Lord. Children are simply the means by which you get them. That’s what I think the Bible really means. Not really. People don’t.
All right. He died childless. He died at a young age. He was buried with sinners. He resigned himself. He did not vindicate himself, but he trusted in his Father. He trusted to the very end, and therefore he was vindicated. He will be given a long, eternal life.
Well, what? He died.
How’s he given a long life? He’s resurrected. He is resurrected from the dead. He is vindicated. The resurrection. The resurrection is a lot of things theologically, but one of the things it is, is it is the great vindication. It is the great turnaround. It is where the movie turns around. It’s where the adventure film, the western, the superhero movie, the Marvel movies, and the DC movies, they all, they all follow the same pattern. And it is the pattern of the gospel.
There’s a good guy and there are bad guys, and there’s not even really a lot of confusion. There’s not a lot of gray, you know, with some of the leading characters.
You know, Batman’s a little dark, you know, and Iron Man’s a little immoral, but, you know, but there’s good guys, but their hearts are good. You know, they’re in the right place. There’s good. And Superman, I mean, he’s just good, you know, and there’s just good guys and bad guys. And the bad guys are always really bad.
You know, in the western, there’s the cattle baron who owns the town, and he owns the sheriff, and all the poor people of the town are under his thumb.
And then all of a sudden, Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, Gary Cooper, all my old movies, all my movies are old. Jimmy Stewart. They ride into town. Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer ride into town. The music changes. Indiana Jones. Dun dun dun dun dun dun. Oh, he’s on a white horse. He’s chasing down the Nazis. Things are going to change.
That’s the story. That’s why we like westerns.
They’re this story. The bad guys are really bad. They’re oppressive. But there’s a hero. And when things look the darkest and the most desperate and the worst possible scenario, suddenly things turn and the hero rises up and the story changes.
All right, have I used it in a year? Can I use it again? Tombstone, the railroad scene. Watch it on YouTube. Right? His brother, Kurt Russell, his brother has been killed.
The cowboys look like they’ve chased the earps out of town and Doc Holliday, and now they’re just going to run the town. They’re going to continue their villainry and their corruption.
It looks like the earps are running out of town, but they’re not. In fact, Wyatt Earp goes and gets martialized, and they’re there to kill his brother and to kill him at the railroad station. The bad guys are there, and they go, where’s Wyatt? Bam. One bad guy dead.
The other bad guy turns around, gun in his face, opens up his coat. He says, you see this? His marshal badge. You go tell the cowboys I’m coming. This is theological people. You go tell the cowboys I’m coming.
I see a red sash. That’s what the cowboys wore that was there. I see a red sash, I shoot the man wearing it. You tell them I’m coming. And what does he say? Judgment. Hell’s coming with me.
And the next scene, you see these horse riders and the sun rising behind them and the music playing. All of a sudden, the whole tenor of the movie has changed. Now the good guys are winning, and the bad guys are losing. We get a rush of emotion and a rush.
Boy, that’s Sunday morning, people. That’s Sunday morning. The devil, the cows of Bashan, those howling, snarling lions of hell, those dogs of demonstration who surrounded Jesus at the cross, drug him down into the grave, drug him down to the pit.
They didn’t know that he was gonna shake them off like nothing, walk to their boss, the devil, and snatch the keys of death and Hades from his hand, and get up on Sunday morning. All hell was screaming like, that’s not fair. We thought we won.
But God has vindicated Jesus, and because of that, he is honored by God and he has given many offspring. Hey, offspring, we’re here. We’re the offspring of Jesus. We’re the sons and daughters of the living God because he suffered, he died, and he rose again.
And a thousand years, or 600 years before it happened, Isaiah saw it. So that when his disciples read the scriptures, after he rose from the dead, just like those modern messianic Jews, when they read Isaiah 53, those disciples read Isaiah 53, they go, oh, you know, oh, my goodness, who is this guy? This is it. This is our guy. Isaiah told us about him. There he is.
Now here’s the rub. We want to be like him, right? I say it all the time.
I want to be like Jesus more when we walk out that door, when we walked in. It involves suffering. We can’t vindicate ourselves. We can’t smack our enemies back. We will be mocked and persecuted, misunderstood and slandered, and we don’t get to take up the sword and cut off their heads.
That’s not the way of it. We win by losing. We win by humility, by love. That’s our only weapon. That’s it. That’s all we got. We’re not Batman. We don’t have this whole. Well, we do. We have a whole utility belt of spiritual gifts.
And the purpose of every spiritual gift is love. Read every place. It talks about spiritual gifts in the New TestAment and either right before it or right after it. An exposition on love, that’s the only application of spiritual gifts is love.
That is what we bring to each other and that is what we bring to the world. And that’s all we have to offer. And sometimes we will see that vindicated in this world. And other times we will be despised and rejected. We’ll be slandered and cursed. Some will die, some, many have throughout history.
It’s not really at that point in our culture, but it could get to that point. Who knows? Certainly, slander and certainly mocking we endure. So be it.
In fact, Jesus says, be happy. Be happy when it happens. Why? Just shows you’re one of mine. That’s the badge. How do I know I belong to you, Jesus? You know, do they mock you? Do they slander you? Do they speak evil against you? Yeah, they do. Great. you’re in good company. They did it to me. What’s next? Oh, they’re going to kill you. All right.
What’s the Bible say? I’ve been crucified with Christ. It’s no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
20 My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20, NLT)
Jesus didn’t come to make you better. He came to make you dead and to make you new.
That’s part of the suffering, right? Part of the suffering isn’t even inflicted upon us by others. It’s the suffering we have in our own battles within ourselves.
I’ll never forget one of the most poignant times of my prayer life. I’m reading the gospels and Jesus is doing miracles, and I love miracles. I love power.
And that’s not always, you know, that’s not just a selfish thing that, oh, I love power for my glory.
Part of that at least, part of the motive, I don’t know how pure my motives always are, but part of my motive is love, right? I want to see sick people made well. It breaks my heart to see sick children. It breaks my heart to see people in church that I love afflicted and sick and burdened.
And I want to be able to put hands on those people in the name of Jesus, say, be well, and watch them get well. I mean, because I love those people. I don’t like to see that.
And so I’m reading about Jesus and the deaf hear and the blind see and the lepers are cleansed. And, you know, it’s like. And I was moved by the Spirit of God to pray. And I got down on my knees in my office and I said, oh, Lord, make me like Jesus.
Power to heal and huge crowds to preach to and, you know, and all that. And immediately as I said that, this picture enters my mind of a man dying, bleeding on a cross.
And if you, you can’t give me credit for holiness here, but at least you got to give me credit for honesty, immediately out of my mouth were these words, oh, no, not that, Jesus. I actually said it before I could edit it, before I could edit my prayers. No, you misunderstood what I’m praying for here, God.
And then I hear the voice, right?
Not the audible, but in my head. And here’s what the voice says. That one comes with this one. There’s no separating them. There’s no Easter without a Good Friday, and Friday ain’t good without Easter.
Kevin, if you want to heal the sick and raise the dead, great. I want more people who want that. But it’ll cost. It’ll cost. you’ll be slandered.
We started in California, the church. We started in California, and signs and wonders started breaking out. And the Holy Spirit started breaking out. It was exciting. It was great. And people left the church.
People who came to that church for more of the Holy Spirit left because, no, we didn’t want that much more of the Holy Spirit.
Friends, friends left other churches in town who we were held in high esteem for because we stood up to those Methodists and these evangelical churches. You know, they respected us and they respected me, and it was great.
And I love that respect now because people were being slain in the Spirit, which is a phrase I don’t even like, going down under the power. People were laughing when we prayed for them.
These manifestations were happening that couldn’t be understood and couldn’t be unexplained. Our church was on a little hill, and we were called behind our back, but it got back to me, the cult on the hill.
Well, why are we a cult? Have I renounced any of the tenets of the apostles Creed? Have I stopped believing that Jesus is the Son of God? Have I stopped believing that the scriptures are the inspired Word of God? Have I stopped believing in the literal, historical resurrection of Jesus? No.
Why are we a cult? Well, because that stuff’s demonic.
Really? So when I lay hands on somebody and pray in the name of the Father, Lord Jesus, send your Spirit on this person, that’s a demonic prayer. Obviously.
They fell and laughed. you’ve not received, you’ve not received a spirit of, you know, fear, but a spirit of self-control. That wouldn’t happen if there was self-control.
Okay, all knowing one. And, you know, I’m not going to say anymore because my sarcasm and vindication will come out. That’s not a big cost to pray, but there was a cost. There was a.
I prayed for revival.
We got revival. There was a cost. Listen, we pray for revival here. If it comes, there will be a cost. There will be a cost.
I realized this morning there was a young couple in church. They were new to church, and there was a guy who came in and he started getting expressive. Kathleen, he started whooping and hollering and shouting and dancing. And I like that. But you know what? I immediately went to, ooh, I really like this new young couple. I hope that’s not too much for them.
And then the Lord just said, what do you want, Kev? Let me worry about that. Let me worry about that.
So, sister, as the Spirit leads you, you whoop, holler and dance all you want, all right? Really, you can do it here. It encourages me. It gets me started. All right. I hear it behind me. It’s like, whoo. Say, well, either somebody came in the streets, or Kathleen’s here.
All right, there’s a cost. I’ll pay the cost. He was raised from the dead. He was given many offspring. He was honored by God.
Philippians says it even better. Although he existed in the form of God, he did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. But he made himself nothing. Being formed in human likeness, he became obedient, obedient unto death, even death on a cross.
Therefore. Can you hear the music? The plot’s changing.
Therefore, God has highly exalted him, and he has given him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus in heaven, on earth, and below the earth, every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
CS Lewis calls it the celestial dive. He dives to the lowest points in humanity and is exalted to the highest position in heaven. I think that’s the pattern of the Christian life.
We dive in obedience and faith to God, and we say, whatever comes of it, comes of it. And I will trust you, God, that in the end you will vindicate me, you will be my savior, my sins will be forgiven.
Isaiah 53 says, your sins are forgiven. your sins are forgiven.
I had a few moments. It drives me nuts. Drives my wife nuts. But I’ll be sitting there and all of a sudden, out of nothing, we’re just watching TV. All of a sudden I go, oh, my gosh. And she’ll say, what?
And I’m like, oh, my gosh. I wish I hadn’t said, oh, my gosh, because I’m going to have to explain to her what I said, oh, my gosh about.
Women, you just need to know that talking about it makes you feel better. It doesn’t make us feel better. We don’t want to talk about anything, all right? No, we don’t want to talk about it. That’s just reliving it, all right?
My wife’s like, what? What was that about? Nothing. Well, you wouldn’t have said oh my gosh if it was nothing, all right?
I had a memory from 20 years ago and it just jumped on me. And you, you’ve had those, right? Those old memories, and you just cringe, like, why did I say that? Why did I do that? Oh, you knucklehead. Why were you such a jerk, you know?
And I’m just, I just, I just lived that. And it was painful for a moment, all right? And then I just look at my wife, go, satisfied, all right, we talked. We communicated. There you go. You feeling warm all over, feeling close and intimate.
I say, oh my gosh, just leave me alone, all right? I want to love you. Yeah, leave me alone. That’s the way you love me.
These men are just smiling in here like, yeah, yeah, exactly. You tell my wife. I don’t have the courage to, all right?
But then I remember this. After that painful moment and that painful interaction, I remember this. I remember this. My sins are forgiven. I can’t go back and make that better. If I ever meet that person again, I can apologize, but I can’t go back and make it better.
But I can trust him, who forgave me, to bring good out of even my bad. And I can have peace in my. Oh my gosh.
And so, dear ones, with everything in me, I want you to believe this. I can’t make you believe it, but I pray, Holy Spirit, you would apply this to each of our hearts. And I simply want to say this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to me. You are forgiven. That’s what this table says. This table is the covenant, the new covenant given for many. For what psalm?
I mean, Isaiah 53 said it. For the forgiveness of sins. For the forgiveness of sins. And so your sins are forgiven.
You are not a perfect person. You haven’t been a perfect person. There’s still stuff, probably of that old nature, that old dead nature, that still. There’s still memories that are going to rise up and you’re going to act like you used to act out of character. With who? Jesus, who you are in Christ.
Remember? That used to be your character. Now that’s out of character. When you act like Jesus, you’re acting in character.
That’s the real you. I hate it when people say, I just need to live my authentic self. It’s like, man, you do not want to see my authentic self. Yuck.
I want to live my new self in Christ. That’s now my authentic. That’s what you mean by your authentic self, which is actually true. That is, if you’re in Christ, that is your authentic self. Go ahead and live it.
And every time you slip back into that old dead person, that’s your inauthentic dead self.
But right here on the night he was betrayed, he took bread and he broke it, gave thanks to his Father in heaven, gave it to his disciples and said this is my body.
In the same way, he took the cup. And I love these words. He took the cup, gave thanks to his Father in heaven, poured it out for his disciples and said this is the cup of my blood. It is the cup of the new covenant.
And where’s, what’s the entry point into the new covenant? The forgiveness of sins.
That’s not all the new covenant is. It’s not just the gospel. Is not just your sins forgiven and you get to go to the good place? No, it’s bigger than that. But there’s no other door than the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ. So come and eat and let the forgiveness of sins be solidified in you, and let the authentic life of Christ be strengthened in you tonight. Amen.
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