Please at this time before before we even begin bow with me and let's pray Gracious God and Heavenly Father, Lord We come before you now asking for your Your special help at this time We pray God that you would open our ears that you would truly prepare your people to hear your word Truly remove me God and hide me So that only Christ stands God Pray Lord that we see him today that we hear him I pray God that whatever your people need Use me God to comfort Uplift strengthen build up your people Use this message at this time to preach to me We thank you God Pray and we ask this in Jesus name Do good by us here our requests His name we pray amen amen
Amen we all we all I want to thank the choir for that song again. I thank God for the response of reading and the nice and creed and the hymns that we've sang And using it to uplift us and just help us see the joy and the goodness that we have in God So this past week if anybody watches the live stream Bible study through the church's website I was blessed and I was privileged to to get to teach and lead the study for this week and The scripture that we focused on Came from this very same chapter that we're looking at this morning and in verses 20 22 through 28 We look at the promise that Jesus gives his people in the form of a command and an exhortation He promises us that we don't have to worry Jesus says Don't be anxious And we look at the range of that command That it's not limited to just some parts of our life or Some areas are for some people, but it extends into every area and to all parts of our life and our being We don't have to be anxious about anything because there's a claim that he's making But we also saw the warnings that Jesus gives Through that very same command and it's the warning to not be like the rich man in the parable if you go back to verses 16 through 21 You'll read about him and this rich man worried over the business of his material wealth But he cared very little about the things and the business concerning his soul and in doing so as we mentioned he earned the title of fool and The warning implied by Jesus command to not be anxious Was a warning to not be like the rich fool Who number one practice idolatry as he he worshiped his wealth over over God and then secondly He was a fool because of his bad theology He didn't believe that God Providentially provides for his children His creation in general But his children and his people especially and then the last thing that we we took note of was the motivation for us to pursue God's Command or exhortation to not be anxious and This promise to believe that promise that that is encapsulated when Jesus says don't be anxious the problem The promise that we don't have to worry and so we looked at the motivation and we said that there was two things number one Our motivation for for not being anxious and taking Jesus at his word was the simple fact that being anxious is just Elogical and It really makes no sense when you stop and you think about it and you you consider what it entails It's a logical But secondly and more importantly Jesus himself. We said is our motivation for trusting him when he says don't be anxious And so because of the for myself the overwhelming encouragement that I got from that study it's timeliness and Also because as I as I looked in chapter 12 I was just in awe of Jesus as he breathed out unmatchless wisdom and As he he continued to to give us promise after promise, I decided to just kind of part put the car in part And sit here for a bit in chapter 12 Which is how we end up on verse 32 And if you would please read with me. This is God's word He says fair not little flock For there's your father's good pleasure To give you the kingdom Again, amen me, but may God bless the reading of his word Now I got to mention that I would be doing poor homiletics and even hermeneutics if I didn't clearly state the the point of This proposition in verse 32 so to be Faithful to the text I Should state explicitly that Jesus is just reassuring his followers in the verse that we just read and He's doing that in light of his exhortation if you read throughout chapter 12 And leading up to this verse He's telling us to abandon our anxious pursuit of earthly riches in exchange for the pursuit of heavenly treasure And so Jesus gives these words in verse 32 as reassurance to his people Because he's telling them it's telling us to go that that what we go and seek He's reassuring us that we're going to find it Seek the heavenly treasure Abandoned the pursuit of anxious earthly Riches, but I want to look at this passage from a slightly different angle You see in this verse Jesus also reveals some truths about himself Without even saying it and then also in doing that he confirms some truths about the Christian faith and these are truths that opponents Sometimes debate the loss try they try to deny it And hell tries to distort So quickly for this morning's three things that I think Jesus reveals about himself in just this one sentence And we'll go right to it number one as we read fair not little flock for it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom Jesus is telling us Something without even telling us first thing is that Jesus is not a universalist He's not a universalist He's too particular Jesus came at a particular time And he was born in a particular place and Jesus had a particular mission to save particular people So no matter how the opponents or unbelievers try to spin it no matter what the enemy tries to purport Jesus was not and last I checked still is not a Universalist Now before I go on to demonstrate how that is true from just the one verse that we read Let me quickly explain what a universe what what universalism is and I'm gonna give the simple version because honestly, it can be very complex and You'll see in just a second you have a unitarian Universalist or unitarian universalism which includes people who may profess atheism agnosticism To new age spirituality even Islam and Christians And then you have Christian universalism And a confuse things a little more You can further divide those between Qualified or unqualified universalism and even potential Universalism. So I think that there is a benefit to just being concise when it comes to divide to defining this term so the plain and simple definition It's plain as simple as we can get Universalism universalism is the belief that ultimately Everyone in the end will be saved And a person who holds to this this view is therefore what we call a universalist Some universalists think that people will walk straight in the head They're already say they've already obtained salvation some universalists Believe that God will rescue them out of hell And some believe that after this life There's nothing at all. So there's nothing to be rescued from Now as Christians it's and Christians who grounded in the faith It's easy to to I criticize That belief system and even the people who would hold it But if you really think about it if you're fair and you give it some thought You'll see that there's legitimate reason why this ideology would be alluring and so attracted to a person See it provides what any decent human being What wants and even guarantees what some of us are probably pray for at one point of time in our life or another And it's that none of our friends None of our family members nobody that we love or care about what parish the whole world is saved Through the view of a universalist Before she was she was saved my grandmother was a Jehovah's Witness and
We I can remember have I can remember I can remember having the people in our front room Doing a Bible study with her and I said in a listen sometimes And You know, I thank God that my mom introduced me and my siblings to to God at a very young age So as far back as I can remember I just always remember having a conviction Of the things of God and God himself and a guilt for sin at the youngest age So I'm not one of those who can remember when they actually when they experienced regeneration and was saved I just as far back as I can remember I just always remember having that conviction And and thinking of God But there were times when I would and and because of that there were times when I thought about death as a child young child And hell eternal torment And it would it would grieve me as a young boy And I don't know if it was one of my my brothers It probably had to be my younger brother because he got in the most trouble And I thought about him a lot But there's one particular day I was thinking about the thought of I'm guessing it was him And hell And I was born and my grandmother she must have saw me and she asked what's wrong And I told her you know, I'm just I don't want my brother to go to hell And she told me well, you know what? It's okay because You know people don't really go to hell when they die Um, she basically Talked me one of the doctrines that the Jehovah Witness believe in Um, which is basically annihilation after this you just sleep There's an eternal sleep and darkness She told me you just close your eyes and you'll you'll just be asleep the whole time And that brought as As erroneous as that is if I'm honest that brought me so much comfort To hear that and so you could imagine the As we said the allure of universalism and saying that everybody's Saved in a false sense of hope and comfort that comes with it Now Christians are not particularists Which the opposite of a universalist we're not particularist Because we lack the desire of seeing a whole world save if it were possible And we just want people to go to hell We see the very desire for one and the multitude save When the Apostle Paul and in Romans the beginning of chapter 9 he says I'm speaking the truth in Christ I am not lying my conscience It bears me witness by the Holy Spirit That I have great sorrow and unseicing unceasing anguish in my heart For I could wish that myself were cursed and cut off from Christ For the sake of my brothers And brothers and sisters we share in Paul's anguish over the thought of just one person Going hell suffering eternal damnation cut off from God and Christ But even still as tempting and as alluring as it may be we reject universalism Because it clearly goes against what the scriptures teaches us And that brings us back to our passage for this morning where Jesus himself rejects the heresy of universalism By simply saying fair not little flock For it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom Again these words are reassurance and a promise of inheritance But for who? Who is this promise for who will inherit this kingdom that Jesus It's promising and reassuring us That as we go through this world fighting To give up the riches or the pursuit and the anxious obsession with gaining the world's riches To gain the heavenly things he reassures us with this Who's being reassured here who's this promise for who will the kingdom be given to not everyone brothers and sisters Not everyone Not the entire world not even an entire race Jesus is exclusive and he is particular here These words are for his little flock The gift of the kingdom is for the children as it says the children of the Father Jesus is excluded some people and he's making it clear that everyone is not included here And we have to assume since Jesus is wisdom personified That he was he was very careful and he was very aware of the words that he chose when he said this He knew when he used little what he was talking about and what he was referencing And if you're a universalist I'm like Jesus here um You might think that it's ironic the choice of an adjective that Jesus uses when he says little How can the flock of Jesus be little if as a universalist would believe the whole world It's going to be saved where all God's children So we almost be his flock how can he say that this flock is little The world is big and then even um Luke at the beginning of the chapter if you go back to chapter one Luke tells us that the crowd who's gathering who hears this Jesus isn't just talking to his disciples verbally explicitly There's more people here and Luke tells us at the beginning In verse one he says in the meantime when so many thousands of people So many thousands of people have gathered together that they were traveling One another He began to say to his disciples So there's a crowd here who's Jesus who Jesus is talking to and it numbers well into the thousands yet he says Do not be afraid do not fear fear not my little flock And for the universalist There's an irony here, but see Jesus is showing us That just because people gather together with God's sheep To hear their shepherd's feet that doesn't mean that all of those people are numbered among the flock The shepherd knows this truth better than anybody Turned with me to Luke chapter 10. I'm John chapter 10 In the gospel of John The 10 chapter will read verses 24 Through 30 Here's what Jesus says so the Jews gathered around him and said to him how long will you keep us in suspense If you are the Christ tell us plainly in Jesus answer them I told you and you do not believe The works that I do in my father's name bear witness about me But you do not believe because you are not among my sheep My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand Saint Jesus is not naive he knows that just because many people are gathered around him even hearing in John chapter 10 They don't hear him they're physically there But as if they're not They're not present It didn't mean that all of the people who were there belong to he knew this then he knows this now And it's sad to say just because people join Join in and direct prayers to God when calamity happens When the world is turned upside down and Leaders of nations call for prayer just because people join in to those prayers It doesn't mean that their hearts have been softened by God and he hears every single one of those prayers Just because the church is filled up to capacity We don't take for granted that those seats Every one of them are occupied by our person Who has been regenerate and redeemed by God we pray that that's the truth But we know that more than likely that's not the case And even know that there are morally upright people who walk in this world And most people can check off some good deeds that they've done Each week even though that's the case We we know Jesus is not a universalist and neither are we or should we be But what does this leave us Do we just bask in the fact that we're saving we got in Well, no Because Jesus is a universalist here's what that means number one because he's a universalist as we said neither should we be because He's not a universalist neither should we be But then also because Jesus is not a universalist Here's what you should do today saints and you can do it right now You should start the view his choosing of you Day in and day out just think about the fact that you have been saved And start to view his choosing of you as a true gift of immense grace And take joy in it the fact that he he chose you Because there was nothing special about us So that must means that there's something special about him. He's gracious But then thirdly because Jesus isn't a universalist Here's what we got to do. We must preach the gospel And a pole pits When we talk about the things of God When we look at the scriptures with friends and family We have to preach the gospel and we should be motivated to evangelism So that the people in this world can be safe So the first thing that we see in this sentence is one proposition where Jesus says fair not little flock Where it is the father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom without saying that Jesus just said he's not a universalist But then there's something else that he says Number two Jesus He also says that he's not a legalist Now again without getting into on too much of a technical definition the basic sense of legalism Is the idea that we can earn God's favor or we can continue to earn God's favor and even keep that favor Once we've earned it we can keep it by the things that we do and by how we perform Legalism is the reason people get baptized 20 times It's the reason we have a re-dedication services and I grew up Attending them and it's the reason that we walk that walk down our eye Each Sunday because we feel that there's something new that we have to do legalism It's also And this is where it gets Dangerous legalism is it's the trick of Satan nonetheless You know very well that Satan if he had his way Satan would prefer thousands of churches Throughout the world on every corner filled Filled up to capacity Always making the budget and going over everything running well and even peace among the people in there As long as they preach legalism He would prefer that over no churches at all because legalism does not say Legalism cannot save I think about um There was a time and I don't know I don't know what I was thinking I don't know I don't know how this happened but I was with my mom and it was a Saturday And I guess she was running her Saturday errands and we were at a we were at a bank part that a bank And a family member of mine pulled up my aunt pulled up and For some reason I guess looking back I was excited again. I was young very young And I must have been just so excited to see her you know how kids get sometimes a company comes around You got to tell them stop showing off It was one of those moments. I was excited. I see it pull up next to us and I rolled down the window and I I scream out of name And I don't know how I don't know why But I call her Some names that were very inappropriate Again, I don't know why now my mother took this day. I've never heard her say a curse word It's just how she how she is So that was below her standard And that was her law And I had transgressed at that point And the first thing that she did Her eyes got big and she asked where did you hear that from? And then the second thing that she did she told me That when we got home she was gonna wash my mouth out with soap And I was terrified And it was at that point With the sense it kicked in and tried to think of the most manipulative thing I could do to try to Earn her favor back and I said you know what and I remember this so vivid Um, I'm just gonna stare at There's one spot in the glove compartment in front of me And maybe she'll look and see if she'll feel sorry for me because I'm not gonna move I'm not gonna flinch. I'm just gonna look there and she'll see how sorry I am And it didn't work It was done. I lost her favor. I had transgressed her law And only outside help or her being gracious to me could save me at that point there was nothing I could do To avoid her wrath and I'll tell you how the story ends She's she's not like God. She's not as good as him. She didn't show me any grace I got my mouth washed out with soap that day See legalism attempts To mask a Bigger underlying condition It tries to cover it up and I think back again. I'm having a lot of flashbacks this morning when I was in high school a little older When I was getting ready to enter high school One of the rumors was that when you take PE You're gonna have to take a shower After after PE's over with and all of everybody in fifth grade when we were all terrified I didn't even want to choose PE as an elect because man the fact that we all have to Undress and take a shower in front of each other It it it rattled me um But then I got to high school and I found out that that wasn't the fact. I said fifth grade eighth grade So I found out that that wasn't the fact um, I was at Killian I attended Killian and Just to let you know they had on they used the shower of storage So there was no way to take a shower, but how I wish that would have been true after the fact I had PE sometime during the morning. I think it was maybe my first class And you could imagine that after all of these um All of these teenagers that finished sweating Right you can imagine what the body does And because the showers were used as storage all we all we could do is you know Wipe our armpits down put on a little extra deodorant maybe use some body spray But again, I was just trying to mask The underlying problem And that's a vivid picture of legalism See there's a problem with us That affects our inner being And the idea of legalism is that outwardly we can do things That God would see and it would maybe hopefully mask what's really won't wrong with us We see it with Adam and Eve when they first transgress God's law in the garden And they tried to perform they make these figs that they sew together these fig leaves to cover themselves What does God do? It's not adequate enough And God has to step in And he has to give adequate covering and clothing Eric Raymond has an article where he mentions why legalism is so bad he mentions four points Um, and I just want to go through them real quick and we'll move on to the next Our next and final point he says four things legalism The problem with it is that number one it promotes unbiblical standards Like universalism we don't find it in the scriptures God doesn't teach it But then secondly secondly legalism promotes performance again the mask To try to cover up the true problem He he says thirdly legalism promotes division And we find that throughout the body Where some people and I have my era I actually left these in After kind of looking at this point today just to make a point maybe I can be an illustration Um, but it divides and some people because Certain Christians do certain things There's a division. They won't they won't fellowship with them true Christians True doctrine would teach true doctrine And before it lead legalism demotes and this is the most important thing legalism demotes Jesus Where we can perform and do it on our own. There's no need for safety. There's no need For outside help. There's no need for God's grace Jesus knows his flock though We read in John 10 That he knows them and they know him and they hear his voice But Jesus knowing his flock all his flock also means that he knows Who's in that flock and he knows what's in them And he knows that none of us If left left up to ourselves Have done enough to earn This kingdom that he's promising and verse 32 he knows that And so I love how he follows up with the announcement to not fear Says fear not because God He's gonna give you the kingdom my sheep He's gonna give us what we would. I know you can't earn He's gonna give it to you and not only is he gonna give it but look at what else. Jesus says It's his pleasure To give it Not like the parent who feeds it when my mom fed me that night I'm sure she did it Not with a smile on her face She continued to care for me and give me But it wasn't with pleasure She wasn't pleased to do it But God As sinful as we are not only does he do it But he does it with a smile on his face with joy in his heart He's pleased to give us the kingdom brothers and sisters Jesus is not a universalist Neither is he a legalist That brings us to the third and final thing That Jesus reveals about himself without saying it Jesus He's more than a messenger Jesus is more than a messenger And I think it's become cliche to talk about the year 2020 How bad it is right 2020 it's just a bad year it's one of those years And I think people have also found themselves Venturing into different things and new hobbies Because of everything that's come with this year and the downtime that we have Same has happened for me. I've gone from teaching in the classroom to teaching exclusively online learning new tools I watched Star Wars the whole song all every episode I've always heard about Star Wars and All of these cat phrases, but I never knew what it meant or what it was and I watched them all And something else that I recently got into was something I said I would never do Ever again. I was in the I got into a social media debate And it wasn't over politics was over religion And my best friend who I grew up with he He's to call me to back up when he had a problem with a person this physically this time he called me I thank God he is He's a believer and he called me and say hey listen I need you. I need you to have my back. Somebody's talking about my Jesus Um, I need you to come on here with me and we gotta stand up for the gospel now He's the type of person I can't talk when he has his mind made up. He's gonna do it And so I went in With the intention of trying to just cool the fire and I found myself totally and fully involved And as we engaged in that debate The other side I noticed a tactic that they continue to use they didn't go after us necessarily Um, they didn't go after our faith But they went after um, they went after Jesus And it's a common trend that I noticed anytime there's an attack on Christianity A lot of times it's an attack on Jesus namely his deity Because if you really want to want to attack Christianity the best place to go Is to the one who who is Jesus is our faith he is Christianity And so brothers and sisters maybe you've seen this Um Yourself and other religions or from other people Where they attack Jesus deity and they try to make them less than what he truly is who he he's revealed himself to be You've heard it all that he's the brother Satan You heard that one That he is the first created being by God maybe a little higher than man again and angelic being like Satan but the first created and that's why he's special because he was the first to be created by God the Father Some say that he's Michael. He's Michael the Archangel Some give him no name at all. He's just an angel And then some they knock him down to the level of a man And they say that he he's just a prophet it was a good teacher And somebody who we should look at and follow And as hard as it is to hear as Christians Um such blasphemous things being said about God incarnate Very God of very God. It's nothing new Jesus has been Um attacked and his person and who he is it's been attacked since Since since he walked the earth You think about it if we go to the scripture We hear a lot of things about Jesus We hear that he was just the son of a carpenter That's all We hear that um Some said that he was a man who cast out demons by the help of the ruler of demons. That's who he was His own family they called him crazy And then some again said that Now he's he's just a prophet a prophet. He's like um John the Baptist Elijah Jeremiah The most common thing we look at it. We see a trend They they they take away his deity And they look at Jesus angel prophet Who are just messengers of God he's just a messenger of God And both the angel and a prophet is indeed a messenger of God And I guess maybe for those who want to say that he's a little more than man Well, maybe they'll consider him an angel It's a spiritual being but still just a messenger And for those who say off that's a little too much little too high for us They just make them a man. They say he's just a prophet It's a human being Angels when we look at angels they have a unique role that they played in salvific history Any old testament we see um the entrance of Eden being guarded by angels and even those those angels aren't recorded As having spoken any words the message was clear you cannot enter We see angels appearing to Abraham three of them before the destruction of Sodom Sodom and Gomorrah We see angels also appearing to Zachariah to announce the birth of John about this the forerunner of Jesus whose birth was announced by an angel Gabriel to marry So angels have a unique role in the scriptures and in salvific history And at some point Angels were worship and began to be worship until this day still are And then prophets prophets also played an important role as we look at the history of salvation Samuel we see he bridged the gap between um the judges and The the monarchy and the kings uh we see Elijah the miracle worker standing up against the Canaanite God bell And then we see John about this the last of the prophets and we can't forget last but not least Moses Moses the great prophet who led God's people out of bondage and out of slavery Prophets have been greatly revered in scripture angel and both prophets are unique But in the end brothers and sisters they're just messengers And no matter how much you try to equate Jesus with these beings Jesus has revealed that he is more than a messenger Now there's one angel we encounter throughout the Old Testament Who is different than a rest And angel who when people encountered him if you remember they fell down sometimes in a worship This angel is God and he didn't think twice or felt the need to correct them He brought good news To heygar and Genesis chapter 16 He was among the three of the angels that we mentioned who visited Abraham Before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and he was the one who stayed while the other two were sent He's the angel that appeared He's the angel of the Lord That we read of who was even worship and appeared to Jacob and Moses And who was believed to be the pre-incarnate Christ So there is a sense in which we can speak speak of Jesus as the angel He is without a doubt the prophet who is greater Demoses He did bring us good tidings and a great announcement a good message And he did say that he only spoke what the Father told him to speak but saints Jesus is more than just a messenger. He's not simply the mouthpiece of God the Father And forgot the Father And Jesus boldly claimed that he and the Father were one They were equal when he says Fair night little flock He's not speaking like Moses spoke the Pharaoh when Moses said let my people go because Moses spoke the words But he had to wait on God to do the work Saint Jesus He is the work He knows that the Father will give us the kingdom and he knows this Not he will give us the kingdom with with exceeding joy and he knows this Because his substitutionary and his atoning work On that cross and in the righteous life that he lived garrantese And so here we have good news. Jesus says fair night We have good news that though we've we've transgressed God's law Perpetually over and over again, and we've done it to levels and depths That We're either sometimes oblivious so we don't even realize that we're sin Or most times we're too ashamed to even admit too guilty to To speak on yet in those conditions here's what we hear from Jesus. He says fear night And this doesn't come from the lips of a subservient angel Or from the mouth of a human prophet, but it's from the mouth of God himself The one who was able to forgive sins Brothers and sisters Jesus is not a universalist He knows that not everybody Will be saved Not everyone is a sheep And Jesus is not illegalist He doesn't tell us to work our way into this kingdom Even though there are some who won't be saved the message is for all to hear And whosoever will come and here Can't come into this flop And he doesn't tell us that we have to work or do anything to get in But he gives us some message and what is that message? It's a message given by him But he's more than a messenger. It's a message about him He's the subject of that message. He's the object of that faith of our faith He saves and if anyone would trust in him Anyone who's listening if you have trusted in him Then know that you are in that flocking you can't be pulled out If anyone would hear the voice of the shepherd Then you can join that flock Fear not It's God's good pleasure to give us the kingdom Amen, let's pray our gracious God and Heavenly Father