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Naked and Ashamed (Survey of Isaiah #30) (CC Troy)

Lindsey Gardner on October 3, 2024

SERMON TEXT: ISAIAH 20&21

20:1 In the year that Tartan came unto Ashdod, (when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him,) and fought against Ashdod, and took it;

2 At the same time spake the Lord by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put off thy shoe from thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot.

3 And the Lord said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia;

4 So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.

5 And they shall be afraid and ashamed of Ethiopia their expectation, and of Egypt their glory.

6 And the inhabitant of this isle shall say in that day, Behold, such is our expectation, whither we flee for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria: and how shall we escape?

21:1 The burden of the desert of the sea. As whirlwinds in the south pass through; so it cometh from the desert, from a terrible land.

2 A grievous vision is declared unto me; the treacherous dealer dealeth treacherously, and the spoiler spoileth. Go up, O Elam: besiege, O Media; all the sighing thereof have I made to cease.

3 Therefore are my loins filled with pain: pangs have taken hold upon me, as the pangs of a woman that travaileth: I was bowed down at the hearing of it; I was dismayed at the seeing of it.

4 My heart panted, fearfulness affrighted me: the night of my pleasure hath he turned into fear unto me.

5 Prepare the table, watch in the watchtower, eat, drink: arise, ye princes, and anoint the shield.

6 For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth.

7 And he saw a chariot with a couple of horsemen, a chariot of asses, and a chariot of camels; and he hearkened diligently with much heed:

8 And he cried, A lion: My lord, I stand continually upon the watchtower in the daytime, and I am set in my ward whole nights:

9 And, behold, here cometh a chariot of men, with a couple of horsemen. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground.

10 O my threshing, and the corn of my floor: that which I have heard of the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, have I declared unto you.

11 The burden of Dumah. He calleth to me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?

12 The watchman said, The morning cometh, and also the night: if ye will enquire, enquire ye: return, come.

13 The burden upon Arabia. In the forest in Arabia shall ye lodge, O ye travelling companies of Dedanim.

14 The inhabitants of the land of Tema brought water to him that was thirsty, they prevented with their bread him that fled.

15 For they fled from the swords, from the drawn sword, and from the bent bow, and from the grievousness of war.

16 For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Within a year, according to the years of an hireling, and all the glory of Kedar shall fail:

17 And the residue of the number of archers, the mighty men of the children of Kedar, shall be diminished: for the Lord God of Israel hath spoken it.

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Directives for Women (CC Troy)

Lindsey Gardner on October 3, 2024

SERMON TEXT: GENESIS 2:18-25

18 And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

19 And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.

21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

22 And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

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Sin and Its Effects (CC Troy)

Lindsey Gardner on October 3, 2024

SERMON TEXT

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 6:23

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Anointed for Burial (The Inescapable Story of Jesus #14a) (CC Downtown)

Lindsey Gardner on October 1, 2024

Introduction

In various surveys of people’s fears, public speaking is regularly atop the list. We are frightened of standing before other people. This fear is close to the bone. At our core, we often care far more than we should about how people view us, and we fear losing the esteem of others. But to follow Jesus is to be reviled by the world. As Jesus approaches the cross, Mark challenges us to consider the question: Do you know what it means to follow Jesus?

 

The Text

After two days was the feast of the passover, and of unleavened bread: and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take him by craft, and put him to death. But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar of the people. And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head. And there were some that had indignation within themselves, and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made? For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor. And they murmured against her…

Mark 14:1ff

 

Summary of the Text

Jesus has pronounced judgement on Jerusalem, and Mark now brings us into the valley of the shadow of death. The Passover was in two days, and the Jewish rulers wanted to get their dirty business taken care of before then, but without arousing the ire of the adoring crowds (vv1-2). Jesus must be killed. The only question for them was how.

While the rulers are plotting Jesus’ death, He is feasting with a restored leper in Bethany (v3). During the meal, a woman enters and anoints Jesus’ head with an entire vessel of precious spikenard ointment (v3). The woman’s lavish display incites a bit of fremdschämen in some of the diners, their objection is that this costly gift could have been better used to fund the local soup kitchen (vv4-5). Jesus rebukes the murmuring with two stark statements. First, He reproaches, “You can help the poor anytime you want to.” Secondly, He describes the woman’s actions as a burial anointing, and her act is worthy of timeless retelling (vv6-9). All this is too much for Judas, and he goes off to betray Jesus (vv10-11).

Meanwhile, Jesus gives instructions for the festal preparations. Two disciples are sent to make things ready, and everything is as Jesus instructed—like when He sent for the colt (vv12-16). That evening Jesus and the twelve gather for the feast, and at the meal Jesus declares that one of them would betray Him; one by one they sorrowfully ask, “Is it I?” Jesus doesn’t answer directly, but conveys that it is one of the twelve, close enough to dip the bread in the olive oil with Jesus. The Lord is not dismayed by this, for He knows that sufferings await the Son of Man; but He pronounces a fearful doom upon the betrayer (vv17-21).

Now Jesus takes the Passover feast, and retells the Exodus story in a shocking way. Just as He had done with the feeding of the two multitudes in the wilderness He takes, blesses, breaks, and gives bread to His disciples. But this time He tells them that this bread and wine is not merely a memorial of Israel’s past deliverance, nor is it a hopeful token of future deliverance, but that deliverance will be seen in the very imminent breaking of His body and and the shedding of His blood (vv22-24). Furthermore, Jesus makes a vow to forego wine until He drinks it in His inaugurated Kingdom (v25). The supper ends with a song, and then off once again to Mt. Olives (v26).

On the way, Jesus foretells two things: the scattering of the disciples according to Zechariah’s prophecy (Zech. 13:7), and His rising again. Peter objects to all this, and insists that he at least wouldn’t fall away. This leads to a third prediction from Jesus: Peter’s threefold denial (vv27-31). Coming to the quiet of Gethsemane, Jesus goes off with the three for prayer; the coming battle weighs heavy upon Him, and He calls the three to watch (vv32-34, Cf. 13:37). The Lord prays unto Abba, asking that the cup might pass from Him; yet in perfect humility Jesus acquiesces to the Father’s will. Three times Jesus goes off to pray only to return to find the three asleep. The salvation of the entire world rests on Jesus’ alone (vv35-41). When Jesus returns the third time it is clear that He is ready, and that the hour had struck: the betrayer was at hand (vv41-42).

 

A New Passover

Holiday imagery hangs over this feast: a killed lamb, bread made in haste, a Red Sea crossing, a deadly tyrant defeated. Mark paints a familiar scene. The head of the home retelling the Exodus story. But as Jesus retells the Exodus story, He gives it an unexpected twist. Twelve disciples, like the twelve tribes, are informed that Jesus, the Son of Man, is going before them into the very sorrows of death. He tells them that to truly understand the old Passover story they need to see it in light of His coming act of death.

God was going to bring deliverance for His people once more. Jesus, the Son of Man, would go forth before the tribes of Israel to lead them out of Satan’s kingdom, and into the glory of God’s Kingdom. But Jesus once more insists that the way into the Kingdom comes through Him alone. Furthermore, that pathway was leading to His death. Are you sure you want to follow Him?

 

How to Honor Jesus

Mark has now given us two examples of women who truly honored the Lord. The widow who gave everything in giving her only pennies; also the woman in this text who anointed Jesus with rare and costly ointment. The crowd responds with a back of the napkin estimate about the ointment costing nearly a year’s wage.

Many Christians are content to follow Christ in a socially acceptable manner. Their obedience to God stays in between the lines of cultural expectations. They may proudly declare their identity as a Christian. But, honoring Jesus, as these two women have shown, doesn’t confine itself to what is reputable. It doesn’t obey only insofar as to be unlikely to meet with ridicule. Honoring the Lord raises the eyebrows of those who only covet worldly praise and prestige. Honoring the Lord isn’t found in mere lip-service, like we see in Peter’s boasting.

This woman discerned, however imperfectly, enough to see the worth of Jesus and what He’d come to do. Jesus interprets her act as a burial preparation. What on earth could this mean? The disciples could understand Him being anointed as a king or priest or prophet and taking up the throne, or offering up the atoning sacrifices, or defying wicked kings. But anointed for burial? They could not yet see that Jesus had come to die, and in so doing be rewarded the throne of heaven and earth. In so doing, the final sacrifice for sin would be offered. In so doing, the most wicked tyrant, Satan, would be cast down.

 

In Galilee

Jesus tells the disciples they are gonna chicken out. They are going to shame themselves. One of them was going to betray the Lord. Another would deny Him three times. They thought of themselves as sturdy stones upon which Jesus could build His new kingdom. He tells them that they too are going to be scattered like He had foretold would happen to the temple’s stones. Here is great sin. But Jesus gives a greater promise.

Despite all their coming sin of fearfully forsaking Him, He promises that after His death He would go before them and they were to meet Him. They weren’t to meet Him in some astral plane. He wasn’t casting His body aside as if it was garbage. The Resurrection was not Jesus’ desertion of this earth He had made. No…He tells the disciples, and us, that he would rise again, and they were to meet Him again in Galilee. To follow Jesus into His death, is to follow Him into the Resurrection.

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Delighting in Your People (The Well-Pleased Father #1) (King’s Cross)

Lindsey Gardner on October 1, 2024

Introduction

We are a nation of bastards. A bastard is an illegitimate son, a son born out of wedlock, a son without a covenant father, and thereby at some level, abandoned and rejected by his father. This has been enacted by mass fornication, adultery, divorce, and in its most violent form, abortion. Even in the church where there is often far more cohesion, there is still sometimes great tension and distance in our families, where there ought to be delight.

This fatherlessness and generational static have their root cause in our alienation from our Heavenly Father. You cannot reject God the Father Almighty and end up in any kind of happy place. If there is tension between fathers and children, it is because we are not in full fellowship with the Father. Every good and perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of Lights, in whom there is no variation or shadow of turning (Js. 1:17), including the gift of delighting in your family.

The Text: “And Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him: and lo a voice from heaven, saying, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mt. 3:16-17).

 

Summary of the Text

The Father shows up directly in the gospels just a couple of times, and both times He says almost the same thing. The first is at Christ’s baptism: “this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mt. 3:17, Mk. 1:11, Lk. 3:22). The second is the transfiguration: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mt. 17:5). What we learn in the gospel directly from God the Father is that He is well pleased with His beloved Son.

 

Restored to the Father

Eph. 3:14-15 says, “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom every family in heaven and earth is named.” This means that families exist because God is Triune: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All human fatherhood gets its meaning and purpose from God the Father. And when the Father shows up, the central thing He wants the whole world to know is that He is well pleased with His beloved Son.

Many men did not have fathers or else their fathers were absent or harsh, and this is why God sent His only Son into the world: “And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to the fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse” (Mal. 4:6, cf. Lk. 1:17). Generational dysfunction and animosity are burdens, and when sin is not dealt with, it is a great curse. But Christ came to bear the curse of sin and heal the generations. He does this by taking away our guilt and shame, but He restores families fundamentally by restoring us to God the Father. “For He [Christ] is our peace… For through Him [Christ] we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (Eph. 2:18). That Spirit is the same Spirit that came upon Jesus in His baptism, the same Spirit that caused the Father to proclaim, “this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Gal. 4:6).

 

Delighting in Your People

Our delight in our people is grounded in the delight of God in His people in His Son. “The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing” (Zeph. 3:17). This is not God rejoicing over a perfect people; this is God rejoicing over a people He is saving. This is not a blind love; it is faithful love. It is a delight in what is and what will be.

This is the bedrock of Christian family life: we are The Delighted-In and so we are Delight-Full. Our Father is well-pleased with us. He rejoices over us with singing. It is His holy, infinite delight in us that is to spill over into our homes. This infinite joy is plenty for every Christian, but he who finds a wife finds a good thing and has obtained favor from the Lord (Prov. 18:22). Children are the inheritance of the Lord; they are His great blessing and reward (Ps. 127:3-5, Ps. 128). Christ is the pool into which the pleasures of God pour infinitely (Ps. 16:11), and if you are in Christ, that pleasure pours out of you.

 

Delighting in Creation

This delight is not only directly in your people. God has also created a universe that expresses His delight, and it was created for the enjoyment of God and His people. Delight is a gift, but shared delight multiplies the gift and binds us together. This was part of God’s point in His reply to Job’s great complaints: God points Job to His favorite parts of the universe and invites Job to join Him in ruling the weather patterns, riding constellations, caring for ravens and goats and unicorns, and playing with dragons (Job 38ff).

Our Father delights in His work and creation, and therefore, this delight in work and creation should mark Christian families: work, hobbies, sports, games, camping, fishing…

 

Applications

The center of this delight is a bloody cross where all our sin was nailed and crushed. This is not a humanistic optimism or a stiff upper lip. This is gospel grace. Sin paid for. Debts forgiven. Adopted by the Father. As you have been forgiven, so forgive. Confess, forgive, walk in the light. No backlogs. No bitterness. No hidden sin.

This is also central to discipline and correction. Christian discipline restores joy, which means it must be your baseline. Is your discipline and correction doing that? Parents, your job is to make sure that it actually yields peace and joy (Heb. 12:11).

A Christian family should be marked by playful delight: joyful work, chores, wrestling, tickling, jokes, laughter, singing, dancing, adventures, and games. And in the midst of it all, many, many words of praise, delight, gratitude, and love. Why? Because this is the way of your Father.

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