title: Was Crucified, Died, and Was Buried

themes: apostles-creed passion-of-christ mortality-and-death atonement the-cross suffering-and-divine-solidarity faith-as-action

text:
**Scripture:** Isaiah 53:8-10; 1 Kings 3:16-28; Deuteronomy 21:23
**Series:** 2022

> Part of a series on the Apostles' Creed, this sermon meditates on the clause that Jesus 'was crucified, died, and was buried,' reading it through Isaiah 53. The preacher argues that the death of God, far from being a scandalous atheist taunt, is the heart of Christian faith. He examines the brutality of crucifixion, the reality of Jesus' death as an act of faith (we trust others' reports of death just as we trust the Gospel accounts), and surveys atonement theories (substitution, satisfaction, ransom, moral equivalency) while warning they can distract from the cold fact of death itself. The cross, once a tool of death, has become a symbol of life. Christ's real death and burial matter because they mean God has entered human suffering and bridged the distance to us, so that neither our death nor our suffering is the end of the story. Closes with a prayer and an original hymn-poem on the cross.

**Illustrations:** time-is-god-dead-1966, nietzsche-death-of-god, solomon-divide-the-baby, spartacus-slave-revolt-crucifixion, thor-zeus-would-not-die, burgess-jesus-big-lungs, trusting-doctors-declare-death, marie-antoinette-let-them-eat-cake

---

# November 13
## was crucified, died, and was buried

He was eliminated from the land of the living,
    struck dead because of my people’s rebellion.
His grave was among the wicked,
    his tomb with evildoers,
    though he had done no violence,
    and had spoken nothing false.
But the Lord wanted to crush him
    and to make him suffer.
If his life is offered as restitution,
    he will see his offspring; he will enjoy long life.
    The Lord’s plans will come to fruition through him.
Isaiah 53:8b-10

On the cover of Time Magazine in 1966 were printed the words, Is God Dead? It caused a big uproar and prompted the most letters in Time’s history.

This modern idea about the death of God started with the 19th century German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche. Often, it's presented as this scandalous claim. Like adolescent atheists who are trying to trigger Christians by saying What if God is dead? Assuming that this would collapse their world.

Maybe in other religions it's scandalous. In the Christian religion, the death of God is the central action of the faith. But what is unique in the Christian religion is that the death of God is not the end of the story. And we'll get to that next week. But before we get to Easter Sunday, and even though it's the middle of November, we need to rest a little longer in this Good Friday moment.
## Series Intro
My friends, we are continuing our series on the apostles creed, the historic doctrinal statement of the faith. We are going to look at how the creed encapsulate scripture and offers it to us in a way that shows us what has been revealed from God about who God is, how the world is, why we are in need, how Jesus saves us, and what we should do about it.

Today, “I believe in Jesus Christ, who was crucified, died, and was buried.

 He suffered to the point of death. Here are the words of Isaiah again.

He was eliminated from the land of the living,
    struck dead because of my people’s rebellion.
His grave was among the wicked,
    his tomb with evildoers,
    though he had done no violence,
    and had spoken nothing false.

The word translated here as ‘eliminated’ is nigzir. It is usually translated as divide or cut. The first occassion it is used in the old testmanet is 1 Kings 3 when Solomon is asked by the two women whose child is it. His response is divide the baby, cut the baby. Same word used here. Separate totally from the land of the living.

This total separation we see on the cross.
Crucifixion was a heinous instrument of death. It was a process where people most often asphyxiated or suffocated due to exhaustion. The most famous instance of crucifixion outside of the Christian history is the rebellions of Spartacus. The slave revolts. The rebelious slaves were crucified as a warning to others. Crucifixion is used not only to kill, but to intimidate. It's not an easy thing.
Christians share the cross as a symbol of faith.

Why is our symbol a faith an instrument of death? This is important because this is why crucifixion is in the creed.
Christians use the cross as a symbol of faith. Not to mark death, but to mark the defeat of death. This tool of misery has become a symbol of life. This tool of pain has become a symbol of joy.
In Deuteronomy, it says, Cursed be the one who hangs upon a tree.” Early Christians saw this as a prefiguration of the crucifixion. Cursed be the one who hangs upon the tree.
But then we go a step further. Not only was Jesus crucified. He died.
God is dead. Real death, an actual death. People understood, in the ancient world, what happens when people die. It wasn't just a more supernational era where they assumed that death was not final. No. People saw others die all the time. It was a present reality.

This is an act of faith to believe that God died.
It is a scandal to believe that God died. Scandal means stumbling block. A scandal isn’t something racy but what causes you to trip and fall.

What kind of God lets himself be killed? Would Thor let himself be killed? Would Zeus let himself be killed.
What is going on here?
Some people thought that Jesus didn't really die. This is how he's able to rise from the dead. If he's not really dead, he can't really come back from the dead. There's a novelization of the book of Acts by Anthony Burgess that has people saying that Jesus really had really big lungs. That's how he was able to survive. But this also misses the point.

What is often rarely mentioned is that all reports of death are acts of faith for most of us. That is, most of us here are not legally able to declare someone dead. We trust the people who tell us. We trust the doctors who make that call. There are not as many open casket funerals as there used to be, but I trust the doctors at their word. I trust the family at their word. I don't seek extra evidence or confirmation to make sure someone is actually dead. This is an act a faith. We trust the authority of another. And so we have to ask ourselves, are the accounts of Jesus trustworthy?
Do we believe that Jesus actually died a real death?

But what sometimes interests me is not necessarily why someone should believe that Jesus died and rose again, but why someone should not. Why do people doubt the resurrection? Because as far as I've been able to see, and what it ultimately comes down to is, someone doubts the truth of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ because they doubt the possibility of a miracle of any kind.
So then the question is no longer about Jesus or this moment of crucifixion. It becomes about metaphysics. The supernatural, the existence of God.

But christians don’t just stop at any old death but a particular kind of death. Jesus was crucified. This is how he was separated from the land of the living. and then he died, and then he was buried. It matters that he was buried. His body was taken to a certain place to rest because that rest is not eternal. The body is put away so that it can come back again redeemed and renewed.

Now with Christ’s death. The theological significance of Christ's death is manifold. It's enormous throughout the centuries, what John Wesley would call justification hinges on Christ's death. That Christ died for us. Isaiah 53 has it.

He was eliminated from the land of the living,
    struck dead because of my people’s rebellion.
His grave was among the wicked,
    his tomb with evildoers,
    though he had done no violence,
    and had spoken nothing false.
But the Lord wanted to crush him
    and to make him suffer.
If his life is offered as restitution,
    he will see his offspring; he will enjoy long life.
    The Lord’s plans will come to fruition through him.
Isaiah 53:8b-10

He offered his life for our redemption. His death marks something significant for us. The way is that the death of Christ impacts us in theology is often called atonement theories. It is an old english word for At-One-Ment. How do we become one with God? How are we reconciled with God? How do we connect with God? How does Christ's death mark this? There are a number of theories over the years.
The most prevalent in, in many theological circles is, is called substitutionary atonement. That is, Christ suffers the death we all deserve and substitutes himself for us. There are lots of Bible verses to back this up. There is also a theory called satisfaction that says that Christ satisfies the wrath of God the Father towards sin. There's another way of talking about atonement that is called the ransom theory, that basically the Christ pays the ransom with his life to the devil. The devil thinks he gets God, but really, God gets him. There's another theory called moral equivalency. And I could go on and on about these.

Seminary classes are focused on atonement theories. And yet, one of the reasons why I mentioned them is that I think atonement theory sometimes gets us away from the brute and cold fact of death, crucifixion, death and burial. These are acts of faith. They're not the end of the faith, but they are part of it.
And it matters. It matters because if Christ didn't die, then Christ couldn't rise again. It matters because we see people die all the time. We've experienced death all the time. I can relate to his friends grieving on Good Friday. I can empathize. I can connect. I have grieved.
You have grieved and lost loved one. We can connect to that experience, we can connect to that suffering. And it matters in itself. It matters for its own sake. It matters that God saw us in our suffering, saw our brokenness, became human and carried part of that with him. The sufferings we face in this world are not foreign to God.
They aren’t unknown. There isn't this moment like Maria Antoinette in the French Revolution when when people come to the throne room starving for bread and she says, Let them eat cake because the distance between her and them is so far God has bridged that distance in Jesus Christ.
We can hold onto hope that in the midst of our own suffering and the suffering around us, God is not far away.
And so my brothers and sisters in this season, in this time, even as Christmas is approaching, in life, may you not be afraid of the scandal of the death of God. It's not a got you moment by atheists. It is in fact the heart of our faith because it is not the end of the story.
And when we suffer in this world and we see our friends suffer and break, that is not the end of their story either. This is our faith. This is our hope. May this hope stay with you.

Let us pray,

Heavenly father we thank you for your love in Jesus, who transformed the cross from a tool of death into a symbol of life. May we live out a cross-shaped life offering ourselves for others. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Why do we wear a cross
When it is a sign of death
In wood or silver or gloss,
We wear it under our head.

For Jesus has turned our pain into joy
A symbol of death now shows death is destroyed.
So wear this cross well for your life is restored
For Jesus has turned our pain into joy


site: sermons

title: Water

author: Wilson Pruitt

church: bee-creek-umc

themes: living-water new-life-in-christ self-reliance-versus-trust wilderness-provision grace discernment

text:
**Scripture:** John 4:13-14; Jeremiah 17:5-7; Jeremiah 17:13; John 3:16-17
**Series:** 2022

> Part of a 'Survival' series, this sermon uses the preacher's Appalachian Trail experience of learning to distinguish good from bad water sources to explore Jesus' offer of living water in John 4. Just as the body continually needs water, the soul continually needs the spring of eternal life God provides. Bad spiritual water, chiefly trusting only in oneself (Jeremiah 17), runs dry and harms; Jesus, alluding to Jeremiah's fountain of living water, offers the ever-flowing presence of the Lord. The church discerns together to keep drinking the true water, and the invitation is to return again and again to God's inexhaustible source and begin new life right here and now.

**Illustrations:** appalachian-trail-water-filter, giardia-parasite, dead-moose-at-spring, big-bend-boot-canyon-spring, kids-water-bottles, nicodemus-born-again, samaritan-woman-at-the-well, shrub-in-the-desert

---

# July 3
## Water

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks from the water that I will give will never be thirsty again. The water that I give will become in those who drink it a spring of water that bubbles up into eternal life.”
John 4:13-14

Last week, I talked about how I brought a tent with me when I started hiking on the Appalachian trail. I didn’t really need it. I only used it a few times because of all of the shelters everywhere. There was another tool I brought with me hiking that I eventually sent home, but one which I should have kept. It was a water filter.
As a boy scout growing up, I knew about the importance of treating water in the wild. About the different bacteria present as well as the parasites, like Giardia, which are odorless and tasteless but can be deadly or debilitating.
When I got started hiking, I would filter the water I came across. It was a time consuming process, but I gladly did. Then I would see some people go to a spring while I was in the process of filtering. They would fill their bottle, and move on while I staid there another ten minutes pumping.

Growing up in Texas, I had never seen a good water source before. We have small rivers and mostly man made lakes and aquifers that are chugging along. I had been to Barton Springs but you don’t see the source there. I had never in my life come across water source emerging from the mountain. I'd been to Big Bend many times, but I had never seen the boot canyon spring active. It was always just this pipe sticking out of a wall.

After a week of filtering water on the Trail, I started to develop a sense of the difference between a good and a bad water source and I took the jump and stopped filtering. I was fully cognizant that it could go bad, so some of the things I would look for were 1) do I see the water come directly out of the mountain? If yes. Great. If not, no. 2) are there any animal markings or droppings above the water source? If yes, then I would avoid it, an easy one. For instance, in Maine I came  across a dead moose at a spring. That one was not for me. I am not recommending this practice. Don’t go off drinking anything you find because the preacher did it when he was 21. There are many things I did at that age I would not recommend. For instance, not calling your mother when you are in college. I don’t recommend it.
One of the reasons why every single wilderness book or survival book or park ranger recommends at least boiling water is not because all water sources are bad but bad water can really knock you out.
We need water. Whether you're in the wild or not, you need water to live. You need a good source of water.
My friends, we are continuing our series on Survival on looking about how to live in the wild, but also how to live in the brokenness of this world. How some of the skills to survive in the wild can be applied to the survival of our souls and what God offers us in this world.
The reading today comes from the gospel of John. It is after the famous passage, in John 3, where Nicodemus comes to Jesus in the night and asks him, “what must I do to be saved?”
Jesus says, “you must be born again.” And then Nicodemus asks, “does that mean I need to go back inside my mother's belly” Jesus doesn't laugh at him. He says, “no, you were born once of the flesh. And then once of the spirit.” This then gets us to that great passage of John 3:16-17.

In John 4, Jesus is walking along Samaria. He is thirsty and comes across Jacob's well. There's a Samaritan woman there and he asks her for a drink of water. She is surprised by this because she doesn't know why he had asked her, a Samaritan, for water. According to the Jews, Samaritans are unclean. She's unclean.
Then he says, if you had known who I am, if you had known, who was asking you, you would ask for living water. Her response is, “that sounds awesome. How do I get that? And that's when we get to the passage I  read earlier,
Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks from the water that I will give will never be thirsty again.

Again, we need water as humans to survive. We continuously need it. There's never a maximum point where we don't need water anymore. We will always need water. Whether you're in the wild or here on Spicewood, you will need this water.
How much water people drink is something people have started focusing on a lot more in the last few years. Not getting enough water is a problem. I notice myself that sometimes when I am tired in the afternoon, it is because I am dehydrated. Most of us have started becoming more intentional about how much water we drink, how often we drink it, making sure to drink more water and not as soda or not too much alcohol or too many other things that can get in the way of our health. I see a lot more water bottles around and kids actually drinking from the water bottles. I could not imagine children of my generation walking around with water bottles. It was only coke or sprite or mega sugar apple juice. It's a really good improvement for society to realize that we do need water to live. We don’t need fancy water from across the world. Just water.
Even still, if you drink enough water today, you will need it again tomorrow. What is this living water of which Jesus speaks?

What Jesus offers is not just a sip of water, but a spring, a healthy and flowing spring, inside of you. A spring from which will well up eternal life. A spring that will not run dry.
Jesus is showing us what new life is about: it is something totally new. It is different from the life before. And when you have it, you don't need to seek the same things you used to seek anymore.
When you have it, you don't need to do the same things you used to do anymore.
As a father responsible for others, I always filter and boil water when hiking. We went to Big Bend a few years ago and boot canyon was amazing. It's still one of the most indescribable feelings in the world to go up to a spring and to fill your water there. But I boiled the water. I used it for cleaning and cooking and not just to fill the water to drink because there are bad sources of water, Jesus gives you the grace of eternal life. The water that comes again and again and again to which you are no longer thirsty that you are satisfied.
But there are also sources of spiritual water that are bad. That will make you sick. There are spirits. You can return to again and again. They will harm you in order to destroy you and deceive you. One of harshest spiritual waters is trusting only in yourself. The prophet Jeremiah lays this out in stark terms in chapter 17.

> “Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. “
> Jeremiah 17:5-7 ESV

Like a shrub in the desert, or in the hill country, that is the person who trusts in their own strength. Sure, it rains sometimes, but when the droughts come, what do you have?

Jeremiah continues.

>“O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be put to shame; those who turn away from you shall be written in the earth, for they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water.”
>Jeremiah 17:13 ESV

Jesus is clearly alluding to Jeremiah when he speaks of living water. In offering living water, Jesus offers the Lord. The Lord, present and full and flowing.

God calls us together, as the church, to discern together, to make sure that we are drinking the water life, that we are drinking of the truth and goodness and beauty of Jesus Christ. The word made flesh, the eternal son of the father, just like you can drink mountain Springs all your life. And then you have one less cup and filled with a Giardia. And that parasite just eats you way.

If your only spiritual water is found in yourself and your strength, it will run dry.

This day, for us as individuals, for the church, we need to, again and again, return to the spring that God has given us. God has given you a source of water that will not run dry. It's not in the mountains of Tibet. It's not even in the mountains of Appalachia or Big Bend. It is right here. It is the living water of the Lord, God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, given to you by Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.

You don't have to go across the world. God loves you here and now and offers you living water. You don't have to become someone you're not in order to find God's love. You don't have to lose 20 pounds in order to find God's love. Here and now, we are God's children. What we shall be has not yet been revealed. But the living water of new life is already here and offered for you. The good source that will not run dry is here offered for you. This day you can choose to follow Jesus. This day you can choose to seek the water. This day you can start a new life.

Let us pray,
Heavenly Father, thank you for offering us the living water of new life. Remind us to return to the source of your love. Protect us from bad sources that harm us and our neighbor and which draw us closer to you. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

method: authored, not translated

license_apparatus: CC BY-NC 4.0


title: What do we hope for?

themes: hope-not-optimism new-creation cheap-grace antinomianism mercy-as-transformation already-and-not-yet love-of-neighbor

scripture: Revelation 22:1-4; 2 Peter 3:10-13

text:
**Scripture:** Revelation 22:1-4; 2 Peter 3:10-13
**Series:** 2022

> Second in a series on hope, this sermon asks what Christians actually hope for, grounding the answer in Revelation 22's vision of the new heaven and new earth. Drawing on Terry Eagleton, the preacher distinguishes hope (which comes from God) from optimism (which comes from the self). The governing illustration is the Konami cheat code from the video game Contra: just as the code granted extra lives and removed all consequences, some Christians treat grace as a 'cheat code' that lets them sin freely or repent only at the last moment. Using 2 Peter 3, he argues our works will be exposed, not burned away, and that mercy is not a blank slate but transformation and conversion. Against antinomianism in its various forms (indifference to the world, contempt for the unsaved), he insists hope is realized now: the kingdom is here, Revelation is about the present, and listeners should begin living holy, neighbor-loving, transformed lives today rather than waiting.

**Illustrations:** nintendo-childhood-video-games, konami-code-contra, patek-philippe-watch-jet-boat, curtain-rising-on-a-play, methodists-accused-antinomian

---

# August 7
## What do we hope for?

Then the angel showed me the river of life-giving water, shining like crystal, flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb through the middle of the city’s main street. On each side of the river is the tree of life, which produces twelve crops of fruit, bearing its fruit each month. The tree’s leaves are for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse. The throne of God and the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. Night will be no more. They won’t need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will shine on them, and they will rule forever and always. Revelation 22:1-4

I grew up at a great time for video games. When I was a child, my parents bought us, my brother and I mostly, an original Nintendo system. The eight bit Nintendo that came with super Mario brothers and duck hunt and little gun. It was a lot of fun.
I had a lot of fun playing those early games. I loved to play Mario. I was never super good at it, but I loved it. I tried my best. My friends down the street kept getting the other systems like Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. We never got another system, which I think was wise on my parents part. I remember going to a friends house to play the first Mario cart, how fun that was. And then the Nintendo 64 and Goldeneye, the James Bond game and multiplayer. Another thing I got into was computer games. I especially loved role playing games that weren't super fast paced and didn't have a lot of quick decisions. They allowed for slow deliberation. That is what I really enjoyed about them.

We played board games and card games as a family. I played sports growing up, and loved them. I still enjoy playing basketball when I can. But something unique about computer game and video games, as opposed to other kinds of games, were the secret codes. The cheat codes.
The famous one that even I knew, growing up in College Station, was from this game called Contra, which came out a little after the Iran Contra affair. But I didn't know about that and thought it was just a cool game. You play two mercenaries in the jungle with cool guns. And there was a secret code you could use at the beginning of the game and it would give you 30 extra lives.
It was Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A then Start at the title screen and voilà, you had 30 extra lives without even trying. It is called the Konami code and was created by the original game designer to make testing the game easier but it was still in the final build and the secret was whispered across the world.   Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start. 30 lives. When you used the code, you would no longer have as many consequences for your actions. I used it a few times, but I think the best kinds of games help you to form ways of decision-making and understanding which allow you to look at the costs and benefits of certain actions. And if you have the secret code, especially in Contra, it doesn't matter. There are no costs for any actions. You can do what you want. You can play what you want.
Now, how does that connect to hope?

My friends, we are continuing our series on hope on trying to understand the central idea in the scriptures, how it can shape and reshape our lives. Last week talks about defining hope. How Jesus used hope as a verb, and then how it's changed to a noun by Paul, because Jesus is the one in whom we hope and long for, perseverance comes from hope. Today, we're going to talk about what we hope for. Our scripture was from the end of the Bible: Revelation 22. In this really striking and beautiful passage of the heavens, the sending of a new heaven and a new earth, our hope is our ultimate destination in God. What does that look like? How is that going to happen?

The first thing to remember is that hope is not optimism.

> “An optimist is not just someone with high hopes. Even a pessimist can feel positive on a particular issue, whatever his or her habitual gloom. One can have hope without feeling that things in general are likely to turn out well. An optimist is rather someone who is bullish about life simply because he is an optimist.”[^1]

Optimism comes from yourself. Hope can only ultimately come from God and seeking God. When we hope for something in this world, like rain, our hope is found in seeking the good of rain. And in seeking the good we seek God.

But these hopes are only a part of our ultimate hope in God, which we see in Revelation 22. The river of life. No weeping. No pain. This isn’t the only description of our ultimate hope.

In 2 Peter, there's an even more confusing passage that I've never got a good, clear answer about.

>But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. On that day the heavens will pass away with a dreadful noise, the elements will be consumed by fire, and the earth and all the works done on it will be exposed.

>Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be? You must live holy and godly lives, waiting for and hastening the coming day of God. Because of that day, the heavens will be destroyed by fire and the elements will melt away in the flames. But according to his promise we are waiting for a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.

Different people have different ideas about what it means. I tend to read it in the following way: the point is the holy and godly lives we should live now;  our material possessions will not follow us to the new creation. That awesome Patek Phillipe watch or new boat is not eternal. Peter writes that the earth and all the works done on it will be exposed. Nothing will be hidden. The backroom deals and oppressive and destructive practices of this world will be exposed. This is revelation. The world will be fully revealed for what it is. Our response should not be fear but holy living now. Living for God’s kingdom now. Loving our neighbors now. For our neighbor’s love is worth far more than that Patek Phillippe or a new Jet boat. Our neighbor’s love will not burn away.
There is discourse like this in the prophet Ezekiel, Daniel and some of the Gospels, and throughout the Book of Revelation about the future of the world and Christ’s future and Christ’s coming and what will happen after Christ's coming. I gave a sermon series on the book of revelation last year that I can share with you if you are interested. But for today, I want us to be aware that sometimes Christians can speak about the future and speak about hope in a dangerous way by acting as if our hope in God is a cheat code on this life. Acting as if, when we hope in God and God's future, there are no more consequences for our actions. Acting as if mercy gives us a blank slate so we can do whatever we want, or we can do whatever we want until we're just about to die. And then we confess everything. And then we're, scot-free. It's kind of like a clichéd way that Catholicism is presented in the media. This is not an accurate view of any Christian faith or social teaching.

There is mercy which is offered to us. We proclaim the mercy of God. We are offered the mercy of God, but mercy is not about letting you stay the same in order receive forgiveness again and again. Mercy is about transformation and conversion.
In the 18th century in England, when the first Methodists were preaching, some accused them of being antinomian, There have been antinomians throughout history, though Methodists were definitely not one of them.
It is a Greek term that means lawless. Nomos means the law and anti-nomos means no law. It's like people who live as if there is no law.
Antimonians think that as long as you want it, it is good. Go ahead. It is like a cheat code on life. There are no consequences for any actions. I can do whatever I want because God already loves me. So I can steal my neighbors money because God loves me. I can cheat on my wife because God loves me. I can punch-in someone’s face for looking at me weird because God loves me. I am free to do whatever I want and whatever I want is good because I am good because God loves me. I have a cheat code, but this is not the love revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus does not offer a cheat code to get out of the consequences of our actions. In some ways, faith reveals even greater consequences for our actions. To believe in the love of Jesus means you have to start thinking about your neighbors in a deeper way.

But what so important for us to remember in speaking of faith and speaking of what we hope for is that hope is not a cheat code to get out of the consequences of our life. New life in God, resurrection in God, heaven, grace, a new heavens and new earth, Christ's second coming; none of these get us out of the consequences of our actions. There are stakes involved in faith. You can't just up, up, down, down left, right left, right, start, and get a set of extra lives. You can’t shut down the game and start over when things aren’t going your way.
But that doesn't mean it's hopeless.
One of the ways that Christians have become antinomian is by not caring about the world around us, and that's a reality. Some people have preached that it doesn't matter what we do because God's going to destroy it anyway. They have taken 2 Peter 3 and totally missed the point of what Peter is saying. Our sins are not going to be burned away. They will be exposed.

As well, there are some Christians who have preached that it doesn't matter what we do to heathens because they're not saved. Anyway, I could go on and on in increasingly political and controversial statements about the ways in which faith has been abused and used to justify and rationalize actions contrary to scripture. Our hope in God, what we hope for is not just in the future, not just this world being made new sometime in the future. It is the world being made new here and now.
As much as anything, that is what the Book of Revelation is about. It's not about the future. It is about the present. It is about what do we do now? When the truth of reality has been revealed. Revelation means what is revealed. Apocalypse is the Greek word for revelation, for being revealed. It's what happens at the beginning of a play. When the curtain goes up and you see the stage and the set, what has been revealed, what has been revealed is that Jesus is Lord here and now. Jesus is not Lord of the future earth. Jesus is Lord of this earth. And there is strong continuity between here and our future. The kingdom of heaven is here and now. We can live into it here and now.
If we wish to spend an eternity with God, we should start now, don't wait. Start living holy and godly lives now. Don't wait.
You cannot save yourself. Don’t try. Seek God’s mercy, but don’t stop there. Don’t use mercy as an excuse to stay in the same place but as an inspiration to move and transform into who you were created to be. Mercy is about a transformation in your heart. Not just that you are forgiven for things, but that you no longer desire those things. You no longer desire what is broken. You no longer desire what is self-destructive.
Our hope is in God's action and salvation, but there are stakes involved in this. There are stakes involved in what God is doing, and we should not rely on ourselves, but in the God heaven and earth.
Let's seek the God of heaven. That is our hope. And that is happening now. You can live into it now. You can make a commitment to it now. You can change your life now. You don't have to wait. You are forgiven. Accept it. Hope in the Lord. Believe it. Transformation is offered this day, come and take it.

Let us pray,

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your love and mercy. Help us to never take you for granted. Help us to respond to your grace and hope with lives transformed for love. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[^1]: Terry Eagleton, Hope Without Optism


title: What is Hope?

themes: hope-not-optimism theological-virtues christian-hope faith-as-seeing body-of-christ kingdom-here-and-now resurrection

text:
**Scripture:** Ephesians 1:15-23; Hebrews 11:1; 1 Thessalonians 1:2-3; Matthew 12:21; John 5:45; Isaiah 25:6; Revelation 22
**Series:** 2022

> Launching a sermon series on hope, the preacher distinguishes shallow, wishful 'Hollywood' hope (illustrated by the film Hope Floats) from the biblical, theological hope described in Ephesians 1:15-23. Drawing on Greek word study (elpis/elpizo), the absence of the noun in the Gospels, Aquinas's four conditions, and Paul's letters, he argues that hope is active rather than passive, open-ended because our future with God cannot be fully comprehended, and is given through images rather than contracts. Hope is both verb and object: the kingdom and the Spirit present here and now. Like his wife who saw God's call on his life despite his poverty, believers are invited to have the eyes of their hearts enlightened to see and live God's hope in the present.

**Illustrations:** alina-saw-hope-not-circumstances, tiny-apartment-no-microwave, grandfather-beat-smithville-football, hope-floats-movie, aquinas-four-conditions-of-hope, house-closing-paperwork, feast-and-lion-with-lamb

---

# July 31
## What is Hope?
“Since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, this is the reason that I don’t stop giving thanks to God for you when I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, will give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation that makes God known to you. I pray that the eyes of your heart will have enough light to see what is the hope of God’s call, what is the richness of God’s glorious inheritance among believers, and what is the overwhelming greatness of God’s power that is working among us believers. This power is conferred by the energy of God’s powerful strength. God’s power was at work in Christ when God raised him from the dead and sat him at God’s right side in the heavens, far above every ruler and authority and power and angelic power, any power that might be named not only now but in the future. God put everything under Christ’s feet and made him head of everything in the church, which is his body. His body, the church, is the fullness of Christ, who fills everything in every way.”
Ephesians 1:15-23 CEB

My wife and I, Alina have been married for 10 years. It's going to be 11 in December. When we met, my amazing and brilliant wife was a PhD student at UT and a high school English teacher. I was a part time administrative assistant at a church in Austin. Now, church’s don’t run without administrative assistants, but an exciting career path was not something that I had. I lived in a 350 square feet apartment in Austin with my dog, Bunbury, who is still with us. There was no furniture except a table and bookshelves. I didn’t have a microwave. I reheated coffee on a stove. Despite all of that, we met and fell in love. She did not see the material things around me. She saw something else. And we got married. When we were married, a little deeper fire came into me about finishing the ordination process in the Methodist church that had been stalled for various reasons: many of them out of my control, some of them in my control. But after two years of marriage, I finally got an appointment as a local pastor to a two point charge. I was pastor at a very small church in Winchester and I was an associate pastor in a town called Smithville.
I say all that because we had never heard of Smithville before receiving the call to serve there. A few members of my family had heard of it before. When I told my grandfather, John Huebel, he said he remembered Smithville because he beat them in football. He was the high school quarterback in Columbus back in the thirties. He told me, “Yeah, Smithville were a good football team until I played them.” Despite my grandfather’s athletic prowess, the most famous thing about Smithville at the time we moved there was a movie from the nineties with Sandra Bullock called Hope Floats.
In order to learn more about this community that we were about to enter, Alina and I watched Hope Floats. If you haven’t seen it, the movie is about Sandra Bullock's character, named Hope, who goes back to her small town, Smithville. The movie is set in Smithville. It's about Smithville. They take some liberties with the size of the community. I think there's one scene where Sandra Bullock's character has this kind of walk of shame, but it goes on for hours and you cannot walk for hours in Smithville. Like you can walk for 15 minutes and you're one side of town to the other. It's fine.
The point of the movie is how to maintain hope through these challenging situations. It’s a super surface level metaphor. Or how do you hope when your life falls apart? How do you keep hope? These kinds of ways? and hoping in a kind of generic Hollywood sense?. It's like, you know, you kind of hope for things. “Gosh, I hope it will rain tomorrow.” It's like predictions that you would like to happen. Good natured predictions. Maybe your bucket list is a list of hoped for activities. But this is not the hope of the Bible. This is not the hope of Jesus Christ. This is not the hope of Paul in Ephesians. So what is hope?

My friends, we are starting a new sermon series on hope. We are going to dig a little deeper into this theological virtue at the center of what it means to be a person of faith, to live into hope today, we are starting with the most basic question. What is hope?
There are a number of passages throughout the Bible that articulate hope clearly. The one I want to focus on today is from the beginning of Ephesians. But before that, I want to look at one of my favorite passages in the Bible: Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11 starts with this great definition of what faith is: Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. Okay. So, ‘assurance,’ that's really important for faith. ‘Things’. I think we understand what a thing is, but what is hope?
The word for hope in Greek is elpis or elpizo. It doesn't have the same valence as the word does in English. In fact, one of the curiosities of the Bible is that the noun form of the word, elpis, never occurs in the Gospels. It occurs 53 times in the rest of the New Testament but not in the Gospels. Instead, the verb form, elpizo, is used. For instance, in Matthew 12:21, which quotes from Isaiah, “In his name the nations will put their hope.” Or in John 5:45, when Jesus is explaining who he is, he says, “But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set.“ When Jesus speaks of hope, he uses the verb. Hope is an action.
Paul uses the noun form of hope as well as the verb. He uses it in such a volume that when we find it in the book of acts, it seems clear that the Author of Luke-Acts was influenced by Paul’s work after the resurrection of Jesus.

Paul uses it often in the first letter we think he wrote, 1 Thesillonians. From the very beginning, he writes starting in verse 2
>We always thank God for all of you when we mention you constantly in our prayers. This is because we remember your work that comes from faith, a your effort that comes from love, and your perseverance that comes from hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father.

Perseverance comes from hope. This is super important. We must read and understand that this hope is different from secular hopes. Hope isn’t just a longing for another day but what offers us sustenance to persevere here and now. As the early apostle, Barrabas, wrote “For surely there is a great store of faith and charity within you because of your hope for life in Christ.”

The greatest definer of things in Christian history was probably Thomas Aquinas, the great medieval philosopher theologian and doctor of the church. He defines hope as having four conditions.

Now, in the object of hope, we may note four conditions. First, that it is something good; since, properly speaking, hope regards only the good; in this respect, hope differs from fear, which regards evil. Secondly, that it is future; for hope does not regard that which is present and already possessed: in this respect, hope differs from joy which regards a present good. Thirdly, that it must be something arduous and difficult to obtain, for we do not speak of any one hoping for trifles, which are in one's power to have at any time: in this respect, hope differs from desire or cupidity, which regards the future good absolutely: wherefore it belongs to the concupiscible, while hope belongs to the irascible faculty. Fourthly, that this difficult thing is something possible to obtain: for one does not hope for that which one cannot get at all: and, in this respect, hope differs from despair.

Thomas has these conditions for hope. They are helpful, but ultimately, I do not find them satisfying
What I think it's important for us to understand, though, is that there is no ultimately satisfying definition of hope. It is always going to be slightly open-ended. If we're talking about hope in a secular sense, in a generic sense, in the hope floats kind of sense, its not open. It's like I hope to meet the man of my dreams and to settle down, et cetera. Like that's a concrete thing, but again, it's much more of a wishful prediction than what Paul is describing here in Ephesians one, this hope is a biblical hope.
That's our theological hope which rests in our future with God. It must, in some ways, remain open-ended because we cannot physically, intellectually, or even emotionally comprehend what that future entails.  Our future with God is not articulated in the Bible like it is in closing documents for a house. To be a Christian, you don't have to, you know, sign here, initial here, 50 pages and go through all these steps. You don’t have to sign the document that only exists because of a lawsuit in 1853 and most people forget why it’s there but it is part of the closing and you do it. To be a Christian, you do not need these things because in some part we don't all know what is going to happen.
We are not given these concrete descriptions. We are given images. God offers us images of what the life with God will look like. Images of our future with God.

It is Isaiah 25 and a feast, a party that never grows old or stale. It is Revelation 22 and the lion lying down with the lamb. Hope draws us and activates us towards what is greater than us. Our hope is in God and our future, yet that hope has effects on us now.

I can say nothing greater that what Paul already said.

I pray that the eyes of your heart will have enough light to see what is the hope of God’s call, what is the richness of God’s glorious inheritance among believers, and what is the overwhelming greatness of God’s power that is working among us believers.

When Alina met me in my sad state 11 years ago, she did not see me as the world saw me. She had the light to see the hope of God’s call on my life and that my circumstances were not my reality or my future.

This day, may you have enough light to see hope for yourself and for others. Sometimes, it can be hard to see. It can seem dark. The world can seem dry and harsh, yet may you have enough light to see the hope of God’s call. The light by which we see also comes from God, for Jesus is the light of the world. Jesus used hope as a verb because he was still with us when he spoke. For those of us this day, after the resurrection, hope can still be a verb, but it is also an object. It is the kingdom of heaven here and now. It is the presence of the Holy Spirit here and now.

Paul defines the hope of God’s call as the glorious inheritance of believers and the overwhelming greatness of God’s power working among us. Hope is not passive but active. It is not only temporally located in the past or the future but in the present. Hope is about having our eyes opened to the beauty and transformation taking place right here and now.

Paul describes God’s power in this way.

God’s power was at work in Christ when God raised him from the dead and sat him at God’s right side in the heavens, far above every ruler and authority and power and angelic power, any power that might be named not only now but in the future. God put everything under Christ’s feet and made him head of everything in the church, which is his body. His body, the church, is the fullness of Christ, who fills everything in every way.

When we are truly the church, the fullness of Christ is here. The fullness of Christ, the power of God, the hope of eternity is here this day.

God is making all things new, here and now. Your life can change here and now. Make a change here and now. Hope in the Lord this day.

Let us pray,

Heavenly Father, open our eyes that we may see the beauty of your love. Open our hearts to see the light of your call on our life and your call on others. Give us the strength to live out your hope here and now. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.


title: What is Salvation?

themes: salvation grace faith-as-action via-salutis admitting-need

text:
**Scripture:** Romans 10:9-13; Ephesians 2:8; Romans 3:23
**Series:** 2022

> Opening sermon in the Lenten series 'The Rescue,' using the 2018 Thai cave rescue documentary to reframe salvation as God's merciful reaching down to rescue people who cannot save themselves. Drawing on Romans 10 and John Wesley, Wilson argues faith is the condition and grace the source of salvation, critiques sinner's-prayer/Romans-Road and even ordo/via salutis schemes for working only retrospectively, and insists salvation is a present, ongoing transformation that begins with admitting our need.

**Illustrations:** thai-cave-rescue, sinners-prayer-romans-road, addict-first-day-sober, this-is-fine-dog-meme, stuck-on-roadside

---

# March 6
## What is Salvation?

Because if you confess with your mouth “Jesus is Lord” and in your heart you have faith that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Trusting with the heart leads to righteousness, and confessing with the mouth leads to salvation. The scripture says, All who have faith in him won’t be put to shame. There is no distinction between Jew and Greek, because the same Lord is Lord of all, who gives richly to all who call on him. All who call on the Lord’s name will be saved. Romans 10:9-13

The Rescue is a movie on Disney + about a cave disaster from 2018 in Thailand. A soccer team of 12 and 13 year olds were exploring with their coach when the monsoon started early and rain began to flood the caves. The movie is not apologetic in nature, but a documentary set in a mostly Buddhist country, so if you watch it all the way through, there are going to be some Buddhist prayers. This is not Pastor Wilson advocating those practices. Instead, I want us to watch the trailer together because i think this story can really help illustrate what is going on in the life of faith and the heart of God’s gift to us on the cross.

(Play Trailor)

We are starting a new sermon series for Lent called The Rescue. Christians have spoken of salvation and how Jesus saves us for a long time. Different churches you attend will have different understandings of salvation. We don’t often use the language of rescue in churches, and in that freshness of language and the story of the Thai Cave rescue, maybe we can come to a different understanding of what Christ has done and what Christ is doing still for us. What I hope to show through this series is the who, what, why, when, and how of salvation, because God’s love for us is not just a one time thing but an all-time thing. We have to begin with the what: what is salvation?

John Wesley offers clarity in a sermon on Ephesians 2:8 which is a verse that says, “you are saved through faith.”

Wesley writes,

The salvation which is here spoken of is not what is frequently understood by that word, the going to heaven, eternal happiness. It is not the soul's going to paradise, termed by our Lord, "Abraham's bosom." It is not a blessing which lies on the other side death; or, as we usually speak, in the other world. The very words of the text itself put this beyond all question: "Ye are saved." It is not something at a distance: it is a present thing; a blessing which, through the free mercy of God, ye are now in possession of. Nay, the words may be rendered, and that with equal propriety, "Ye have been saved": so that the salvation which is here spoken of might be extended to the entire work of God, from the first dawning of grace in the soul, till it is consummated in glory.

It is not just a future thing but a now thing. So what should we do? Paul is fairly clear in Romans 10 about what we need to do to be saved. As John Wesley, the founder of Methodism puts it, Faith is the condition of salvation. Grace is the source.
Faith is not an act in itself. It is not a work because you cannot earn your salvation. There's a work of faith. There's not a thought. There's not an energy expense in that degree of faith because its source is in God's grace and solely in God's grace.
Faith is the assurance of God's love and the direction of our life towards God. Faith is the way we posture our lives and our souls towards the world or towards God..
So if faith is the condition of salvation and grace is the source of salvation, why do different denominations talk about salvation in different ways?
There are a number of churches in this country. Some of you may have been involved with some where salvation has to do with praying the sinner's prayer. And once you pray the sinner's prayer, you're good. And if you don't pray it, whether or not you are baptized, whether or not you've been a part of the church or any church, you still have to pray these words.
So this prayer is not in the Bible. There's no direct mention of it in the Bible. As well, some people are taught this method of evangelism called the Romans Road, which highlights these steps within the book of Romans, starting usually with Romans 3:23, “ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We are all sinners. We cannot save ourselves. But through Christ, we are offered life with God.
In the 17th century, there were different writers who formed what eventually became known as the ordo salutis or the order of salvation. John Wesley has a sermon titled The Way of Salvation and some scholars, instead of saying ordo salutis speak of the via salutis. Basically saying that there isn’t a brick by brick method to be saved. It's a way. It's a path. I think both of those kind of missed the point. All of these means of understanding salvation work retrospectively. That is, they work looking back on our life. They don’t work looking forward because they don’t spend enough time with the need itself.

### Movie
I’ve been stuck on the side of the road. I’ve never been stuck in a cave. The reason why I was struck by this movie and this story is that it illustrates this concrete need of these boys and this coach to be saved. They are trapped. They are trapped and they need help.
They cannot save themselves. In some ways they are their worst enemies in being saved. They are the ones who actually limit their salvation, not because of where they are or how they got there because of how hard it is going to be to get them out of there. And you can't train a 13 year old, how to scuba dive in a cave, let alone cave dive Day.
There is a need. They need rescue. The scriptures reveal to us about who we are and who God is, and that we are in need. There is brokenness in this world. And the brokenness in this world is not between the church and others. It's not between us and them. The brokenness cuts down right to the human heart. The brokenness starts right here (pointing to chest).
We have to admit a need for something before we can be rescued for something else. You have to admit that you're lost before you're willing to be found. So how do we admit that? How do we admit we're broken? Is it by our own effort or strength? By no means.

### Grace
It is by grace that we see even our need. God's grace has been with us the entire time. God's grace is the one who convicts us and shows us this. We still are free to deny it. And we still are free to say that. “No, we're okay. We can save ourselves or we don't need to be saved. We're fine.” It's like the meme of the dog and the burning building. This is fine.
We need to be able to name what we are saved from, in order to describe what we're going to saved for. Save, salvation, and rescue are transitive verbs. They need an object. There was no such thing as salvation as such or a rescue as such. You rescue people from something, you save people from something, And yet God does not stop there.
Bible scholars and theologians talk about justification, being made right with God. In the Wesleyan tradition, we talk about prevenient and grace, that is the grace that comes before. We are aware of the grace that reminds us that we are loved, that convicts us of our sin and need for repentance and conversion. Justifying grace is the grace that makes us right with God and offers and opens up the possibility of righteousness with God.
This is where a lot of traditions that talk about the sinners prayer stop. They say that they're justified by the blood of Jesus Christ, which gets into what's called atonement theory, which we’ll talk about more, but basically which covers the question: why did God have to die? Why did Jesus have to die? How does the cross save us? How does Jesus save us? This is really important stuff.  But God doesn't stop there.
God doesn't make our souls right And then leave us alone to fall back into those habits. Just like if you're an addict and you're sober for one day, your journey is not over. Yes. That first step is often the hardest, but the first step is not the last step.

It's like even in this cave in Thailand, The first step really is admitting our need for rescue. The second step is getting to the point where we can be rescued. This is what we're going to show next week, when they actually find the boys and find out where they are. And then after that, it's the actual process of being rescued and transformed into free and living people who are able to continue to grow into who God created them to be. Not just in the future. Here and now. Here and now change your life. Here and now start living for others.
What is salvation? Salvation is God's merciful reaching down to us to pick us up from our muck to stand upright, to be ambassadors of God in this world and for all eternity. It is not based on what you do. It's not based on who you are. It is based solely on the grace of God found fully in Jesus Christ offered for us.
In this Season of Lent, may you discern and you pray about where you are and what needs you are in. May you seek to receive the grace to admit those times when you are still in need of rescue to ask God to swim up into that cave to give you peace.

Let us pray,
Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.


title: What Should We Do to Be Saved?

themes: salvation-by-grace self-as-enemy need-for-a-savior imitating-christ original-sin humility self-examination

text:
**Scripture:** Philippians 3:17-21; John 3:30; Exodus 32; Matthew 4:4
**Series:** 2022

> A Lenten sermon in a series on 'The Rescue' (using the 2018 Thai cave documentary). Preaching from Philippians 3:17-21, the pastor argues that to be saved we must first admit we cannot save ourselves; like the trapped boys who had to be anesthetized, the solution cannot come from inside the cave of sin. Using a live interview with a retired NYPD rescue diver, Pelagius and works-righteousness, the golden calf, and Barth, he insists salvation rests solely on grace. Our response is not nothing but humble imitation of Christ-like people, becoming less so Christ becomes greater, and reaching out to those who show us Jesus.

**Illustrations:** the-rescue-thai-cave-film, steve-bienkowski-rescue-diver-interview, pelagius-works-righteousness, golden-calf-well-intentioned-idolatry, barth-the-way-into-the-far-country, i-need-thee-every-hour-spiritual

---

# March 20
## What should we do to be saved

“Brothers and sisters, become imitators of me and watch those who live this way—you can use us as models. As I have told you many times and now say with deep sadness, many people live as enemies of the cross. Their lives end with destruction. Their god is their stomach, and they take pride in their disgrace because their thoughts focus on earthly things. Our citizenship is in heaven. We look forward to a savior that comes from there—the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform our humble bodies so that they are like his glorious body, by the power that also makes him able to subject all things to himself.” Philippians 3:17-21 CEB

So we have been talking about the rescue over the past few weeks, about how God rescues us and saves us. Also, about this movie, The Rescue,about the 2018 Thai cave disaster and how this event can illustrate some of the ways that God rescues us. Today, I want to start by focusing on scuba diving in general. I’ll get to Jesus and those kinds of things, but I want to give us just a little baseline on SCUBA before we go into the video clip from the movie. So I'm going to ask Mr. Steve Bienkowski to come down. He is a Retired Rescue Diver for the NYPD and so not only is he scuba certified, but he has rescued people in the water.

- What do you need to do to SCUBA dive (basics)?
- Is this something you could teach a 12 year old in a few minutes?
- What are ways that people can be their own worst enemy when in the process of being rescued?

Steve interview.

Thanks Steve. Okay. Now we are going to see another clip from The Rescue. What’s happened now is that the boys and their coach have been found in the cave, but nobody knows how to get them out. Everyone quickly realized that finding them was the easy part. Earlier in the movie, there were some pump workers stuck a hundred yards from the entrance and had to be rescued. They were only under water for thirty seconds but it was a great struggle. Here we go.

### Show Clip 49:12 - 51:41

So my friends, we are continuing our series on The Rescue. We started by talking about What Salvation Is. In that sermon, I defined salvation as “God's merciful reaching down to us to pick us up from our muck to stand upright, to be ambassadors of God in this world and for all eternity. It is not based on what you do. It's not based on who you are. It is based solely on the grace of God found fully in Jesus Christ offered for us.” Last week, we spoke about Where we are and how we need to know where we are to know where we going.
Today, we are going to look at how God saves us. That is, the understandable question:  what do we need to do to be saved? It is a trick question because the reality of the matter is that we are so often our own worst enemies. When we try to do things to be saved, we get in our own way. Even being conscious or aware can sometimes get us into trouble.
 This is really the heart of this series and why I wanted to share clips from this movie. I’ve never been a good multimedia preacher or someone who can connect with relevant cultural phenomena, but this experience of absolute need struck me. The boys could not save themselves. The radical idea to save them was to anesthetize them. They allude to it in the clip a little bit. Rescuers have to go in with medication because if the boys are awake, they will go into shock. There are a lot of things that can go wrong, but the solution can’t come from inside the cave.
In our own moral life, we, ourselves, are also often our own worst enemies. We can blame the devil or other people. We can pass the buck. Most of the time, though, it stops right here with our own heart. There are other factors that make life easier, and other factors that make life harder, but in order to be rescued by God from this world of sin and death, you have to admit that you cannot save yourself. You cannot escape the grip of sin on your own. Humans have tried again and again, They have tried and they have failed. They've tried for noble reasons, The Christian doctrine of original sin illustrates this. Talk of sin can seem kind of harsh. I mean, sin is a bad word, right? We're sinners. That means we're bad, right?

Christians have tried to get around talking about sin for a long time. Pelagius, a writer from England in the 5th century, really tried to emphasize freedom and the possibility of a moral life without constraint and apart from grace. It is a noble attempt but the consequences are profoundly tragic. Pelagius offered an example of works-righteousness. The more you do, the better you are. The problem with this is that it means that if you can be saved on your own, all of us who need grace are of a lesser caste and a lesser sort. And we are cursed from the get go. And what kind of malevolent God would do that?
The golden calf moment, in the Exodus story, is so often lifted up as this example of idolatry. It is, but it was well-intentioned idolatry. The people wanted to do something. They were tired of waiting on Moses. They were tired of waiting on God and they wanted to do something to respond to God. The point of taking the gold they had stolen from Egypt and turning it into a calf was not to create a new God. They were trying to honor God, The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But in the midst of this, they dishonored God deeply. In the midst of wanting to do something, needing to do something, needing to feel useful to God, they turned away from God and sinned. You don't need to feel useful to God. You are already loved.
Even in the midst of sin, when we don’t deserve it. When we got trapped in this cave of sin on our own accord and don’t deserve to be rescued, God offers his son, Jesus, for us.

As Karl Barth wrote,

> That Jesus Christ is very God is shown in His way into the far country in which He the Lord became a servant. For in the majesty of the true God it happened that the eternal Son of the eternal Father became obedient by offering and humbling Himself to be the brother of man, to take His place with the transgressor, to judge him by judging Himself and dying in his place. But God the Father raised Him from the dead, and in so doing recognized and gave effect to His death and passion as a satisfaction made for us, as our conversion to God, and therefore as our redemption from death to life.[^1]

It is about Jesus. The old Sunday School joke about how the answer to every question is Jesus is not far off. The answer is Jesus.

So what are we supposed to do? If we can’t save ourselves, if God has to knock us unconscious to get us out of the cave, should we just do nothing?

By no means.

This is where the words of Paul in Philippians come in

> Brothers and sisters, become imitators of me and watch those who live this way—you can use us as models.

We look for people who act like Jesus so that we can act more like Jesus and show more people the power of Jesus. As Jesus himself prayers in John 3, “He must become greater, I must become less.” Once we accept that we must be less and that we need help, we can receive help and grace and be transformed by the Holy Spirit into the kind of people that help and guide others.

As Paul continues, our choice is between Christ or destruction because there are many who do not seek to imitate Christ Paul says, “As I have told you many times and now say with deep sadness, many people live as enemies of the cross. Their lives end with destruction. Their god is their stomach, and they take pride in their disgrace because their thoughts focus on earthly things.”

We are back in that cave. We have survived, but if we think we can save ourselves, we are fools. The world around us convinces us that we can do it on our own. But in that way, we are trapped. Freedom isn’t found in boldly scaling the mountain but in humbly receiving grace. In humbly looking to others for guidance. In humbly sharing of yourself with others because that is what Jesus did. In humbly becoming less. In humbly, letting go of desires of the body that consume our time and our mind and our health. In humbly realizing that one does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

As Paul finishes this passage, “Our citizenship is in heaven. We look forward to a savior that comes from there—the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform our humble bodies so that they are like his glorious body, by the power that also makes him able to subject all things to himself.”

In Christ, we are citizens of heaven. That is our home. That is our goal, the place where we long to be.
Lent is a time to admit what we may be ashamed of. We cannot make it on our own. We cannot swim out of that cave on our own. Even if you are in the best shape. If you are the fastest, the strongest, the smartest, the richest, you cannot swim faster than death. You cannot out think pain. You are in need and in that we are not alone.

Who are the people in your life that show you Jesus. Take a moment. Think of two people who show you kindness and mercy and humility. Write down their names on your bulletin or in your phone. Reach out to them this week to let them know the impact they have made on your life.

Because of what Christ has done for us, you are free to love. You are free because you don’t have to save yourself. You don’t have to spend all your life trying to conquer death. Christ has won the victory. You don’t have to spend all your life trying to evade pain. Christ has won the victory. Receive his power. Call out to Christ, as in the old spiritual.

I need Thee, O I need Thee
Every hour I need Thee
O bless me now, my Savior
I come to Thee

Let us prayer,

Heavenly father, we need you every hour. Forgive us when we stray and lie to ourselves. Help us come back home under your wings. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[^1]: Karle Barth, Church Domatics 4.1.59.


title: Where Are We

themes: living-in-the-present self-examination pilgrim-people salvation-history spiritual-formation the-cross marriage

text:
**Scripture:** 1 Corinthians 10:1-13; Ephesians 4:13-16
**Series:** 2022

> Second sermon in a salvation series, this Lenten message ('Where are we') uses 1 Corinthians 10 to locate the congregation within salvation history: like Israel passing through the sea yet still in the wilderness, believers are saved but remain pilgrims and wayfarers, still in a cave the size of the universe. Drawing on the Thai cave rescue documentary and Plato's allegory of the cave as salvation narratives, Wilson argues that modern conveniences deceive us into thinking we know where we stand. He reframes the 'way out' of temptation not as God withholding hardship but as God offering life in the midst of it, while insisting we must honestly admit where we are. The way of the cross is narrow and requires staying together. Closing with Ephesians 4, he urges continual spiritual growth and a Lenten practice of discerning where one stands in faith and sharing it with another.

**Illustrations:** before-phones-and-gps, shared-location-different-buildings, thai-cave-rescue-the-rescue, seminole-canyon-cave-drawings, platos-allegory-of-the-cave, justin-martyr-plato-and-moses, star-trek-v-flying-to-heaven, lakeway-pd-speeding-ticket, trapped-boys-stayed-together

---

# March 13
## Where are we

Brothers and sisters, I want you to be sure of the fact that our ancestors were all under the cloud and they all went through the sea. All were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. All ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. They drank from a spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. However, God was unhappy with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness… These things happened to them as an example and were written as a warning for us to whom the end of time has come. So those who think they are standing need to watch out or else they may fall. No temptation has seized you that isn’t common for people. But God is faithful. He won’t allow you to be tempted beyond your abilities. Instead, with the temptation, God will also supply a way out so that you will be able to endure it.

1 Corinthians 10:1-5, 11-13

Like many, but not all of you, I grew up without cell phones or GPS. I had to find directions. I had to ask directions. I had to look at a map to go to a park. When I was going to meet someone, I had to make sure exactly where the meeting was going to take place because there wasn't a text message I could send or an emojii or a GIF.
Phones are certainly a great convenience. It is great to be able to share my location with another person. I was meeting a guy a few weeks ago to have a conversation and we were at the same establishment, but we didn't see each other. We were unbenownst in different buildings. And so I shared my location from my phone and we were able to find each other. Before the proliferation of phones, I would have probably just gone home.
The ease of phones and the ease of GPS sometimes deceives us into thinking that we know where we are. “Oh yeah, I know where I am. I can always check.”
It seems like it is harder to be lost than ever. But phones and tools like GPS, can also deceive us into thinking we really know where we are.

I want to show another clip from the documentary, The Rescue, about the Thai Cave disaster from 2018. Here is a map of the cave system. We are on Day 10 of the attempt to rescue the boys. So far, nobody has made contact them. Here is a map to show a little bit of the complexity of the cave. It is the fourth largest cave system in Thailand, going back as much as 6 kilometers. After the Thai navy seals try to save the boys for a few days, a group of British Cave Divers came to Thailand to help. This clip is going to be from their perspective. And just a warning, when we start, they don’t know what they are going to find and even if the boys are alive.

#### Play Clip Minute 36:59 - 4:40

## Series Intro
Last week, we talked about what salvation is. Today, we're looking at Where we are. And in that, where we need to be saved from. In the movie, the boys are saved from a cave.
Caves have been a part of the human imagination for thousands of years. If you’ve ever have a chance to see some old cave drawings, they are pretty remarkable. There are some caves down near Del Rio at Seminole Canyon State Park that are just unbelievable. You can just go and see these drawings that are 20,000, 30,000 years old. As well, for the last 2,500 years, Western civilization has been influenced by Plato’s Allegory of the cave in The Republic, which is this idea that we are all in a cave watching shadow puppets on the wall. This is an imaginary representation.
And these shadow images are what we think reality is. But in order to truly understand reality, we can't just stare at the wall. We actually have to climb outside of the cave to see what the world is like. This is what philosophy is for. It's to help us see the truth.
Early Christians saw a great connection between this philosophy and the faith. The Gospel of John is filled with language of light. Jesus is the light and in him there is no darkness at all. Justin Martyr, an early Christian writer, even said that Plato and Moses had conversations together.  I don't know if that was true, but there was a desire to make the connection.
But then in the 17th and 18th century, the enlightenment Had this idea that the people keeping the world in the caves was the church and the world needs philosophy to help  to see things rightly.
We see in any of these talks of the cave a form of salvation narrative. It's a story of salvation. Someone is trapped and lost in one way and they need to be helped in order to be free. The enlightenment desires to free people to reason rightly. Jesus offers to free us for love and eternal life.

### Getting back to Paul
When we get back to Paul in 1 Corinthians 10, he is showing the church the scope of God's creation. He shows the depth of salvation history, which is really the history of God's relationship to creation specifically in a relationship with the people of Israel, the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Paul offers this incredibly beautiful understanding of the Exodus as going through the waters of the red sea, going from slavery to sin and death in Egypt on the other side of the sea.
And yet there's a sense in Paul that the people are still in the wilderness and have not yet reached the promised land. Other Christians have taken this up. What we see in this life is not our final destination, but a foretaste of what it will be like: we are all still pilgrims in this land. We are wayfarers. When we build, it does not last forever.
In some ways, then, we are still in a cave. It is a big cave, the size of the planet. It is a cave the size of the universe.
In Star Trek 5, Captain Kirk and the Enterprise fly to heaven, but heaven is not a place to which you can fly. It is not a material space like we are in.
God is not really big and far away. God is the source in which we live and move and have our being. God saw God's people lost and wandering. In fact, God saw that all God's people were lost. All of creation was God's gift and God did not see fit to leave any of it in brokenness.
There can be challenges here, but as Paul says, “God] won’t allow you to be tempted beyond your abilities. Instead, with the temptation, God will also supply a way out so that you will be able to endure it.” Sometimes this verse is paraphrased as “God won’t give you more than you can handle,” but I think that that is missing the point. God doesn’t test you with hardship. God offers life in the midst of hardship and promises we will not be tempted beyond are means. But we still have to admit where we are.

### Where are we?
So where are we right now, my brothers and sisters? We are not, thank God, in a cave in Thailand. We are in a lovely church with a great view, overlooking Lake Travis. We are, each of us, in a life that has offered us the opportunity to go to church on a Sunday morning, or to watch or listen to church from a remote location Even still, we are trapped. And there Is nothing we can do about it.
We are trapped in a world that thinks everything is figured out or can be figured out. We're stuck in a world that says might makes right. We are mired in a space where disease and brokenness and death and war and poverty and starvation continue to attack. We're stuck in a world where the rain falls on the just and the unjust. And even if you do a good turn to another person, you may get pulled over five minutes later by Lakeway PD because you're going 31 on Lakewood Boulevard.
The way of the cross is not a wide way. It's not a pyramid scheme where if you get enough people on board, as well, and then you'll start profiting from it. The way of the cross is a narrow road It has some ups and downs.
It's a road so narrow that sometimes it feels like we need to walk in single file. If we even feel like we are walking together, But we have to walk together, we have to stay together.
There are a number of amazing things that took place to rescue those boys from the cave in Thailand. Something amazing that took place was the fact that they were able to stay alive in the dark. For so many days, They stayed alive because they stayed together. Even though they were lost, they stayed together.
### Conclusion
Friends, in this season of Lent, God is calling you to discern where you are. Visualize Jesus teaching from the mountaintop. How high are you up the mountain? Are you looking at Jesus or looking away? Are you walking towards Jesus or walking away?

(Reflection)

The most amazing thing is that God has not left us here alone. We are not alone. We may not be at our final destination yet, but God has more plans here. As Paul writes in Ephesians

> God’s goal is for us to become mature adults—to be fully grown, measured by the standard of the fullness of Christ. As a result, we aren’t supposed to be infants any longer who can be tossed and blown around by every wind that comes from teaching with deceitful scheming and the tricks people play to deliberately mislead others. Instead, by speaking the truth with love, let’s grow in every way into Christ, who is the head. The whole body grows from him, as it is joined and held together by all the supporting ligaments. The body makes itself grow in that it builds itself up with love as each one does its part. Ephesians 4:13b-16.

As I told the kids, you stop growing physically. You never stop growing spiritually. If you think that you have stopped growing spiritually, you don't know where you are.

Knowing where we are, even if it's hard, even if it's far away from where we’d like to be, should not discourage us. We cannot follow the way of the cross if we don't even know where we are beginning.
This week, take some time to discern where you are in your faith, where you are in your life. What do you believe about God? What are you struggling with? What are you afraid to look at? Hopefully you started this morning, but don’t end here.
Seek someone with whom you can share that with. Maybe coffee with a friend, maybe a phone call or a text message, maybe a spouse, maybe a golf buddy. Where are you?
Where do you find yourself? God has already been there with you and God has drawn others to help you. And God has brought others together that you may help them on their way. The life of faith is not just about transforming your soul, but how now you can be an instrument of God's love in this world.

Let us pray,
Gracious father, help us to see where we are, spiritually and physically. Help us to remember that you will seek us out, no matter where we find ourselves. May we hold close to your promises and mercy. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.


title: Who Gets to Be Saved

themes: grace-not-merit us-vs-them scarcity-vs-abundance god-seeks-the-lost responding-to-injustice you-are-worthy-already

text:
**Scripture:** Philippians 3:3-14; Romans 3:23; John 3:16; Luke 15:3-7
**Series:** 2022

> A Lenten sermon closing a series on The Rescue (salvation), arguing from Philippians 3 that no one—not even the credentialed Paul—earns salvation; it is grace all the way down. Using the Thai cave rescue's smallest boy, the parable of the lost sheep, and the Malthusian scarcity logic behind colonial-era Indian famines, Pruitt contrasts a world that decides who deserves to live (always choosing itself) with God's kingdom of abundance where Christ's love has no limits and leaves no one behind. He calls hearers, quoting Leo the Great and John 3:16, to see themselves with the abundance Christ sees and to prophesy rather than complain.

**Illustrations:** sports-records-and-olympics, shot-put-gold-medal-neighbor, nypd-diver-tryout, the-rescue-final-clip, grizzly-bear-run-faster-joke, paul-resume-credentials, malthus-east-india-company-famines, beeloved-counting-kids

---

# April 3
## Who Gets to Be Saved

“If anyone else has reason to put their confidence in physical advantages, I have even more: I was circumcised on the eighth day. I am from the people of Israel and the tribe of Benjamin. I am a Hebrew of the Hebrews. With respect to observing the Law, I’m a Pharisee. With respect to devotion to the faith, I harassed the church. With respect to righteousness under the Law, I’m blameless. These things were my assets, but I wrote them off as a loss for the sake of Christ. But even beyond that, I consider everything a loss in comparison with the superior value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have lost everything for him, but what I lost I think of as sewer trash, so that I might gain Christ and be found in him. In Christ I have a righteousness that is not my own and that does not come from the Law but rather from the faithfulness of Christ. It is the righteousness of God that is based on faith. The righteousness that I have comes from knowing Christ, the power of his resurrection, and the participation in his sufferings. It includes being conformed to his death so that I may perhaps reach the goal of the resurrection of the dead. It’s not that I have already reached this goal or have already been perfected, but I pursue it, so that I may grab hold of it because Christ grabbed hold of me for just this purpose. Brothers and sisters, I myself don’t think I’ve reached it, but I do this one thing: I forget about the things behind me and reach out for the things ahead of me. The goal I pursue is the prize of God’s upward call in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 3:3-14 CEB

When I was a kid, I loved learning sports all-time records. I loved learning about who had the most home runs (Roger Marris when I was little and then it changed a few times), who had the best batting average in baseball, knowing who had the most yards rushing football, (Sealy native Eric Dickerson, who was given a car by Texas A&M but still went to SMU). I loved the Olympics, finding out who was the best in the world.
We had a neighbor growing up in College Station who had won the gold medal in shot putt back in 1968 and a silver in 1964. A really friendly guy. Gold medal winner, Best in the world. I loved having that connection to a champion.
A lot of aspects of life include a bunch of people trying to earn a few spots. Two weeks ago, we heard about Mr. Bienkowski’s preparation to be a diver for the NYPD. How there were 32 people trying out for four slots, but only two made it. They were looking for the best.

So what happens to those of us who aren't the best? What happens to people who aren't the strongest, the smartest, the kindest? Where's the space for everyone else? Today, we're showing our last clip from the movie, The Rescue. It is going to look at the heroes getting the last kid out.

1:31:52 -1:36:04

My friends, we are finishing our series on The Rescue on how God saves us, trying to understand salvation and the purpose of Christ’s coming in a fresh way. How salvation is not simply a state a person is in; you were saved from something and you are saved for something. We began this series talking about what salvation is. Then we spoke about where we are. We have to know where we are to know where we are going. We have to know where we are to know why we even need to be saved to begin with. If we don't think we need anything, if we don't think we need to be saved and Jesus comes around knocking, we're not going to respond.
Then we spoke about what we need to do to be saved, realizing that there's nothing we can do: it is grace all the way down. Last week, we spoke about how we are saved through the cross of Jesus Christ. Finally, today we're looking at who gets to be saved, who deserves to be saved?
In the movie, the only kid left was the smallest one by a lot. The standard mask didn’t fit.
They thankfully had an extra mask that barely fit. They did what they had to do: they did not leave anyone behind.
When we're in smaller groups, it is somehow easier not to leave people behind. With BeeLoved or other childcare centers, I hear teachers counting kids all the time.

When groups get larger and larger, it becomes a more difficult proposition. Once we get to the point of not knowing each other, leaving someone behind becomes easier and easier. You’ve got to save yourself. You’ve got to save your family first. You've got to do what you have to do. The old joke that if you're Escaping from a grizzly bear, you don't have to run faster than the grizzly bear. You just have to run faster than the slowest person in your group.
Who gets to be saved, who deserves it.
We see a familiar version of who deserves to be saved with Paul in his letter to the Philippians. As if he were applying for a job, Paul basically gives us his CV, his résumé, for how much he deserves God's love. He did everything right. Not all of us can be like Paul and do all these things right, but even Paul, the best of them, could not save himself.
Last week, when we talked about how we're saved or shared with different models of salvation inside of scripture, how everything up until Jesus, leaves folks behind. To use the example of the parable of the lost sheep, every model is happy with 99 and okay with leaving the one behind. A lot of human societies have been okay with this, too.
In the late 18th century, the East India Company was one of the largest organizations in the world which was also incredibly profitable. And they had their own university just for the company. One of the teachers at the university was an Anglican priest named Thomas Malthus. Malthus was an early practitioner of statistical analysis. He studied how populations grow and how resources grow. Malthus looked in and said that resources grow mathematically, which means it like basically adds every year. Whereas humans grow exponentially. Here is a chart to make his point clear. A married couple has four kids. All of their kids get married, and they have four to eight kids and so on and so on. And what he said was that, eventually, humans are going to run out of resources. There's not going to be enough space for all the people. Show slide ]So People should stop having as many kids. Now, this logic has been around since that time. People have have said, again and again, there's too many people. There's not enough stuff. If you're having kids you're selfish.
The problem with this logic was very quickly apparent. The East India Company was created by the English to exploit the treasures and resources of the sub-continent we know now as India. It was not designed for the betterment of the populations in India, but solely for the profit of East Indian Company stockholders.
Eventually, the English crown took over the company after the mutiny of 1856, but the logic was still there. And in the late 19th century, There were a set of El Nino famines that killed almost 30 million people on the subcontinent. Instead of changing the harvest to food, millions of Indians died to send cotton to England rather than feed themselves. There was a specific choice made by the colonial administrators: some deserve to live and others deserve to die. When people choose who should live, they always pick themselves first and they usually pick against the ones who aren't fast enough, who are sick, who look different, who talk different, who can't get the things done.
Even Paul was not good enough. It says in Romans that we all have sent fallen short of the glory of God. In this world, there is scarcity. There are limits. I profoundly disagree with Thomas Malthus and his calculations, but there is scarcity. There are limits in this world. There are limits to oil. There is only so much in the ground. There are limits to land. There are limits to water and oceans. More is not being made.No one’s way of life can last forever. None of the things of our life will stay the same. And complaining about changes doesn’t change things. It doesn’t create more land or more oil. Complaining about things can help us connect with others who have similar complaints, but it never leads us to love. Complaining divides the world again without living into something new. There is a difference between complaining and prophesying. God doesn’t say, “blessed are the complainers” God does not give the gift of complaint, we are all naturally gifted at that, but the gift of prophecy, which is a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven here and now. Prophecy isn’t about telling the future but seeing as God sees. Viewing the real world where Christ is king. And in that kingdom, there is no us and them because there is no scarcity of Christ's love for you. There are no limits. There isn't a point after which you are no longer worthy. Your worthiness and your inclusion in God's kingdom have nothing to do with what you have done.

As Leo the Great said,

“No one, however weak, is denied a share in the victory of the cross. No one is beyond the help of the prayer of Christ. His prayer brought benefit to the multitude that raged against him. How much more does it bring to those who turn to him in repentance.”

You are already loved. There is no difference that God despises. You are going to make it out of that cave alive. For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

In this season of Lent, may you look at the world, may you look at yourself, not with what you lack, but with what you have. May you see yourself with the abundance that Christ sees you. May you see yourself in the possibility that Christ sees you. May you prepare your hearts for holy week knowing that Jesus leaves no one behind, not even the lost sheep, not even the lost son.

Let us pray.
Heavenly father. We thank you for your love and for your discernment in loving us. Even when we don't deserve it, help us to humbly accept your grace and humbly offer mercy the same way that we have received it. In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Amen.