Peace or a Sword?
Last week, we looked at the topic of judgment and what the Bible really says regarding how we as Christians should judge and how we will be judged personally. This week, we will tackle the topic of violence and how a phrase Jesus uses in Matthew 10 is often misinterpreted by some to justify it.
Pastor Gene emphasizes the importance of understanding Jesus' words in their original context to avoid misinterpretation and promote peaceful resistance. He also discusses the biblical account of humanity's fall from grace and the need for a Savior, as well as the importance of enduring unjust treatment and forgiveness. Additionally, he explains the relationship between self-defense and ethical concerns, and the need to cultivate qualities such as faith, faithfulness, and self-control.
Pastor Gene emphasizes the importance of understanding Jesus' words in their original context to avoid misinterpretation and promote peaceful resistance. He also discusses the biblical account of humanity's fall from grace and the need for a Savior, as well as the importance of enduring unjust treatment and forgiveness. Additionally, he explains the relationship between self-defense and ethical concerns, and the need to cultivate qualities such as faith, faithfulness, and self-control.
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Sun, Jun 09, 2024 10AM • 1:01:42SUMMARY KEYWORDSJesus, god, sword, heals, read, fight, faith, bible, retaliate, law, fruit, good, Paul, people, peace, prophets, word, die, martial arts, verses
Good morning. Welcome if you're new here among us. My name is Gene. I serve here at C3 church as your pastor, and I need a new opening line, right? So we'll work on that. Anyway, I heard a story about a family at a dinner table who's a young boy, and he just asks an open question, how do wars start? And so the father, thinking himself a history major, kind of perked up and said, Oh, let me tell you. Take the First World War, for example. It started when Germany invaded Belgium. Well, the mom, at this point is like, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not how it happened. It happened when someone was assassinated. Well, Dad took offense. He said, are you answering the question, or Am I answering the question? Well, somebody's had this experience, so she stands up from the table, storms out of the room and slams the bedroom door. Well, just as the dishes finished rattling in the cupboard, the boy says, Daddy, you don't have to tell me how wars start. Now, I know the woman was right, by the way, Archduke Ferdinand, Alright, anyway. So we find ourselves continuing in our series twisted scripture, right? So the basic premise is that there are verses of the Bible people don't understand. They take them out of context. So it's like the quick intro for you. And yes, there's a problem, because, right, we read the we but most Christians read the Bible one line, one sentence at a time, all randomly out of order. And of course, you're not going to understand the Bible if that's the way you do it, right? So they'll take these verses and sometimes innocently, just apply them to whatever they want them to mean, or sometimes not so innocently. So we're just going to jump right in. I'm going to take you to the verse in question this morning, Matthew 1034 don't imagine this is Jesus speaking. Don't imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth. I came not to bring peace but a sword. Alright? So real simple how this is misused. It's kind of obvious. Christians and people will use this to justify all different kinds of forms of violence, like Christian violence in the name of Jesus or something like that. Alright, so wars, whatever. Now, before I begin, I just want to be really clear about something and prayerfully say some things to you. This is not this sermon is not a response to anything going on in the world, anything currently, right? So we are not on, like, the world's calendar. So if you're not new here, you totally get that. Like, I just don't really preach in reaction to anything, really, I just prayerfully go through, like, the series that we're going to do leadership. Prays about it. I pray about it some more, right? And so we do that thing that they did in acts like the prayer and fasting, and then I just stick to God's word. I'm taking it out of God's Word in his time, not the world's time. Alright, so the idea here this morning, and this is really my prayer for you, and this is kind of like the second problem is that when people do get around to the Bible, they're looking at it through the world's eyes, right? So they have these lenses on that, like are the world's lenses. And so we do things, scholars would say, reading things into the text. And so you got to be really careful with that when you read the Bible. So my prayer for you is that you look at the Bible the other way around, the way it's supposed to be looked at, right? With pure eyes, pure hearts, the Holy Spirit's worked on that, and you're just looking at what it says for what it says with no preconceived, you know, cultural notions or anything like that. So it's really my genuine prayer for you this morning. Some of these topics are hard because a lot of these verses, and pastorally, I'll kind of acknowledge that, you know, they're ingrained into even the Christian culture. And so when you hear like, Wait, that's not what it means. You're going to run through, like, a lot of different emotions and a lot of different things. So this is one of them, a big culture thing. But my encouragement is, again, is, let's put the world out there where it belongs, and just get deep in the word and look at what this says. So Alright, first thing we kind of have to do, and, and I'm going to go over some of this pretty quickly, because it's not really the subject matter, but I'm going to give you references. So if you're really interested, you can look for yourself. You're supposed to, right? So I encourage you to do that. Look at all of this stuff for yourself. So I'll be referencing some things quickly throughout this message, but, you know, jot them down. You can ask me later, or watch the message later. We put it online. So the first thing is that we just need to understand. We need backup from the Bible. Because if you read the whole Bible, a little bit, you know, a little bit, you read the whole Bible, you'll understand that. Like, wait a minute, you know, there's a whole lot of violence in the whole testament, right? But you have to look at the way that that starts, right? So that's the important thing. Where does we when I say we just human? Mind. Where do we start? Well, we start in paradise. We start at peace, right? There's no even working for the food. They're just like, and they're naked and they're just eating the fruit, right? So, yeah, some of you may be like, what doesn't sound like paradise to me, so depends on who you're with. Let's just rip that band aid off, right? So it's, it's a peaceful place, right? So that's what God wants. He's like, yes, mankind Paradise, and it's just like that, and, and it's wonderful, right? Humankind then tries to rob equality with God. Humankind then murders for the first time, commits the first acts of violence, right? And it's a progressive story, all downhill from there, just a progression of humankind, like, if I just summarize it real quick, humankind just rejecting God, right? That's really what it is, right? And then, okay, now, you know, Prophets aren't good enough. You know we want to then, and then we want a king. Yeah? We want to be like everyone else, right? And they get warned it's going to be all downhill, they don't listen, and they just go downhill, right? So what all this points to as a need for a Savior, right? So this is a very long lesson, because we take a long time to learn things, a very long lesson in we need Jesus, right? So we can't do this on our own at all. And the whole idea here is that Jesus is going to kind of flip the script now and bring us back to paradise where there was peace, right? So he's bringing us back to that through him. That's kind of the idea here, right? So he calls on us. It reverses that first sin. Right? Doesn't regard equality with God is something to be taken advantage of, right? Comes here in human form, dies for our sins, right? So that through Him and Him alone, we can get back to that paradise, right? So again, like we must look at our Bible with pure eyes, we must look at the Old Testament through the lens of the New Testament, if that makes sense to you, right? So we have to look at the conclusion and consider the conclusion when we look back at the past. So one of these things, it's kind of like, the simplest way for me to explain it, like a teaching tool that God uses is the law of Moses. So there are all kinds of teaching tools. And so if you're new, I'm trying to frame this from like, maybe you don't know anything. You've probably heard of the 10 Commandments, right? So that's like the 10, right? And do not commit adultery, for examples on this list. But then you get like, 603 other commands, right? So the law of Moses, because they're going to define what happens. So for example, someone commits adultery, what do we do? Right? What happens to that person? They die? Right? So they get killed. It's up to the community. To kill them. Sometimes it's like setting on fire. Sometimes it's being stoned to death, whatever it is. And it's pretty violent. It's a violent response. But one thing to remember is that that is also a command. It's not a suggestion. People get in trouble for disobeying those kind of commands that point to another command, right? So, do not commit adultery. That's command, right? Kill the people who did is also a command. That's not a suggestion. Now, just as for example, what we do when we get to the New Testament is what? Well, there's a woman, John eight, committing adultery, caught in the act of adultery. What does Jesus say, right? And everybody knows this, right? Yeah, he was without sin, cast the first stone. And starting with the old guys, they dropped the stones. That's remarkable, remarkable here. Well, Jesus fulfills the law, right? So that's the point here. So you see a little bit like a flip of the script, right? If we're kind of thinking of it that way, uh, a big thing. And this is, I'm not going to go into this a lot, is that we are not under that law anymore. And so it's really strange to me that some people actually believe that we are. It's very, very crazy.
Because, right? So if we were under that law, we'd be saying something like, Come as you are, so we can stone you to death, right? So you know what I mean, like, it doesn't make any sense at all. They don't pay attention. If you really read the law, you're like, this is totally impossible, right? We don't have that priesthood, we don't have the land, we don't have the devil. So just you can't do it. It cannot be done, or the tabernacle can't be done. So this is the so if you want your reference points, read Acts 15, read the book of Romans, and especially Galatians Hebrews as well. It's crystal clear. It's the reason why Galatians was written. So people follow this. I'm like, you kind of got to throw away a lot of the New Testament. You got to take out whole books of the Bible, which we shouldn't do. So we're not under that law, right? And it's interesting to note, this will come up later. It's, it's actually predicted in the Old Testament that would happen. Read Jeremiah 31 for example, and that were to be changed. So if you know about those 10 Commandments, right? They're written on stone tablets and all over the prophets are talking about that Ezekiel 36 I believe Ezekiel 11 as well, Jeremiah 31 so he put it all together, and it's we're going to have this law, the Royal laws, the New Testament, says. Is written on our hearts, right? Soft, fertile hearts, instead of tablets of stone. And so I will replace that heart of stone with a heart of flesh, right? So it kind of gets in there, permeates and works. Okay? That's the only way this is going to work this time, right? So this is the idea. So again, we'll be using the new testament to define the Old Testament. So we were following the Sermon on the Mount. And again, just funny thing to note, there's absolutely no call for violence there at all. How did he start? Blessed are the peacemakers, right? So there's your hint, right? There's your first hint here, right? Then Jesus explains, I just want to on this topic, because I'll lead you right into where we're going. Here. Jesus explains something, because you got to remember something. Jesus is speaking at this point. He has not died on the cross, yet, he has not fulfilled the law, yet he's speaking to a Jewish audience here, right? So they're hearing this stuff where he is flipping it constantly. I'll point to a couple of examples here. And he knows they're they got to be like, what? And so he has to give a disclaimer. And this is his disclaimer, Matthew 517 don't misunderstand why I've come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose. I tell you the truth until heaven and earth disappear. Not even the smallest detail, iota of God's law will disappear until, until an important word, its purpose is achieved, right? So the purpose of that law, if you're reading Romans and Galatians, is to show us our sin. Remember, I called it like a God's teaching tool. That was what the Bible, that is what the Bible, the New Testament, says. The purpose of the law is to show us our sin, right? So Jesus died for that sin, right, and accomplish the purpose on the cross through His death. That's where we're at. So then, after that statement, I want you to notice something. Matthew 538 you have heard the law that says the punishment must match the injury, an eye for eye, a tooth for tooth. He's quoting the Old Testament law. But I say do not resist an evil person. If someone slaps you on the right cheek. Offer the other cheek also. Alright. So you see the flip there, right? So I'm careful with the words change, but you know it's different, right? He's saying, Okay, no, no. Before it said, retaliate, that's okay. Now I'm saying you it's not okay. Big flip here again. Matthew 543, have you heard the law? It says, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say, Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you. So you notice what he's doing here. He's taking out that hate part. He's like, nope, nope, nope, nope, different. But I say, alright, so we are now into that royal love everybody. Now that's it. Alright. So again, as Jesus stated earlier, right? You're blessed. When people persecute you, you're blessed, right? So this is the idea. Now what's really interesting? So we looked at some other stuff from the Sermon on the Mount. Sermon on the Mount finishes in chapter seven of Matthew. What we looked at earlier is in chapter 10. And just a point of interest like so if you're reading the whole thing, and you're reading it like a book, like you should read any other book, you kind of Jesus is going to set the tone here through his actions, right? So just, just what happens in between, Jesus heals a man of leopard, of leprosy, a Centurion servant heals many people at Peter's house, calms the storm, heals the paralytic, heals a woman bleeding 12 years brings a girl back to life, right? Brings a girl back from the dead and heals a mute. So after the sermon about peace, Jesus is all about going around and healing people and bringing life to people, that's what he does. Is all the things he does in between these two parts, healing and life, right? Killing anyone, healing in life. So let's look at those verses again, right? And then just kind of see what's going on here. Matthew 1034, Jesus, speaking God, imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth. I came not to bring peace but a sword. I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter in law against her mother in law. That's not hard to do. Your enemies will be right in your own household. Didn't
take Jesus to do that, right? Just got to make sure you're paying attention, right? So though that wasn't in the scriptures, like it's not there.
So when we look at the surrounding context, clearly Jesus does not want us to hack our family to pieces, right? That's the wrong religion, right? So it's not a literal sword here. So just in case we're still a little confused, let's back up and go to the beginning of the chapter. So Jesus chooses his 12 apostles, like Simon, Peter, Andrew, Simon The Zealot, James, John James of Philip Bartholomew, Matthew Thomas, Judas. Judas, not in that order. In Matthew anyway, he sends out those 12 apostles. I told you I'm going to be running over some stuff real quick. And he gives those apostles instructions, right? And what are they? Heal the sick, heal the sick, raise the dead, right? So those are leprosy, cast out demons, right? Give as freely as you receive. What's the point? What. He sends them, heal people, bring life, give you know, okay, and he goes through it'll be important later. Don't take any money in your money belts, no gold, silver, even copper coins. Don't carry a traveler's bag with a change of clothes or sandals or even a walking stick. Don't hesitate to accept hospitality, because those work deserve to be fit. So this will come up later. Then we work down a little bit in that chapter, verse 14, if any household or town refuses to welcome you, uh, or listen to your message, shake the dust from your feet. So it's basically like later, you know, you didn't listen. But notice something, he doesn't say, kill the infidels again. Wrong, religion, right? So, Matthew, 1016, look, I am sending you out as sheep among wolves. So be as shrewd as snakes and as harmless as doves, but beware, for you will be handed over to the courts and will be flogged with whips in the synagogues. You will stand trial before governors and kings because you're my followers. But this will be your opportunity to tell the rulers and the other believers about me when you are arrested. Don't worry about how to respond or what to say. God will give you the right words at that time for it's not you who will be speaking. It is the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. A brother will betray brother to death. A father will betray his own child, and children will rebel against their parents and cause and be killed. Then all nations will hate you because you are my followers. But everyone who endures to the end will be saved when you are persecuted in one town flee to the next. I tell you the truth, the Son of Man will return before you have reached all the towns of Israel. So what's the point from the context alone? You can see here he's not sending the apostles out to commit any acts of violence or to retaliate in any way, right? So and on sheep, right? Have you ever heard people say, like sheeple or like you know, you shouldn't be like sheep that's not what Jesus says. Interesting. And remember Romans eight, if we go back a week or two ago, alright, we're being slaughtered like sheep for your sake, all day, New Testament, quoting Old Testament. But here's the thing, be as harmless as doves. You will be handed over, but that's an opportunity. Great. We're getting arrested, right? So for what to share the gospel on that fight or flight thing. Flee. Flee, alright, when you're persecuted, confronted, flee to the next step. Don't kill the infidels. Again, right? Wrong, religion. So when Jesus says something similar again, 12 verse later, he'll clarify, right? Luke, 1251, do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I've come to here we go. Divide people against each other. Now on, families will be split apart, three in favor of me and two against, or two in favor and three against. So you see it here. It's not about a sword, it's about his words just naturally causing division, right? So I'm going to preach all this peace stuff, right, to people at that time who are waiting for this warrior Messiah. They got it wrong. They weren't reading carefully enough. They think it's going to be this warrior king coming, and Jesus is like, ah, turn the other cheek, right? Flee, like he's saying the opposite of what they're expecting, right? This is going to cause division, and even today, still, right? I know, by the way, you laughed at a joke about, like, the mother in law, right? So I know that, you know, there's division in families over religion, right? And so there you might have a mix of some politics and religion, right? So there's going to be division over it. That's what Jesus is saying, right? So it's just an example of something like a analogy here. So if we keep reading in Luke, and we'll see, though, that even the disciples had a little confusion about this sword thing, right? So right, after the Last Supper, Luke, 2235 Then Jesus asked them, when I sent you out to preach the good news, and you do not have any money a traveler's bag or an extra pair of sandals. Did you need anything? No, he's talking about when they're sent. So here we're attaching those things, right? They replied, but now he said, Take your money in a traveler's bag, and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. For the time has come for this prophecy about me to be fulfilled. He was counted among the rebels. Yes, everything written about Me by the prophets will come true. Look, Lord, they replied, we have two swords among us. That's enough. He said, So did you see the contrast between now? You know, things have changed. Would it be ready now? Like it's going to get worse? That's a vision I was talking about. It's going to be really bad. So the sword is the same type of object that it was before. Now Jesus responds, like, that's enough. So when you're looking at the Greek, you can translate it a couple different ways. Here it's like ways of looking at it. But I want to show you, doesn't matter how you look at it, Jesus is making the same point, right? So either one, he's saying, that's enough swords, guys. There's 11 of them. Two Swords is not enough, right? And then not listening to the instructions, sell your cloak and buy one, right? So it doesn't but he doesn't say that again. I told you need to sell nine cloaks. You know, it's like, whatever it is, like, No, right? So we're going to assume here just for a minute, that Jesus, God is not bad at math. Right? He doesn't have a math problem, right? So it's more like, yeah, that's enough, right? Or, most likely, stop it. Like, enough of that. And we know that if we keep reading, you'll see Jesus has the same type of response, but is now a little more clear. So if we're still confused, Jesus is about to get arrested, right? Judas is going to be trapped. Luke 2247 but even as Jesus said this, a crowd approach led by Judas, one of the 12 disciples. Judas walked over to Jesus to greet Him with a kiss. But Jesus said, Judas, would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss? When the other disciples saw what was about to happen, they explained, Lord, should we fight? We brought the swords, and one of them struck at the high police slave slashing off his right ear. But Jesus said, No more of this, and then touched the man's ear and healed him, just in case you were confused, right? So it's kind of cool, just an example of, keep reading the Gospel of John says, like John tells on Peter, and I think that's funny. He says, Peter slashed off in the slave Malchus ear. So we get their names. So the disciples misunderstood, but Jesus really clarifies here, right? Very clear. No more of this meaning. Don't do that again. And then heals the person again, healing in life. We look at Matthew's account. Matthew 2650, Jesus said, My Friend, go ahead and do what you've come for. And then the others grabbed Jesus and arrested him. Well, what are the men with Jesus? Now we know who that is. Pull out his sword and struck the high priest's sleeve, slashing off his ear. Put away your sword. Command, right? Not a suggestion. Jesus told it, those who use the sword will die by the sword. Don't you realize that I could ask my father for 1000s of angels to protect us, and he would send them instantly. Alright? If Luke wasn't clear, this should be right? No, Christian army is coming in here. Alright? Jesus says where the real army is. It's not here. So here you get a command, put away the sword, right? And then a warning, doesn't live by the sword, will die by the sword, right? So this should be enough, right? But we'll give you a little more. Jesus and Pilate. So John's account, they're having a conversation, right? So he's king bounced around all these trials. And so Pilate asks him, Jesus, Are you the king of the Jews? Right? Is this your question, or did others tell me? Tell you about me? Am I a Jew? Pilate retorted, your own people and their leading priest brought you to me for trial. Why? What have you done? John, 1836 Jesus answered, My kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. Think more people need to hear that. Like my kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were, my followers would fight. They would fight in an earthly kingdom, just contrasting earthly and heavenly things to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my kingdom is not of this world, right? This is what you do here. That's not the whole different program up there, right? So if we keep reading, we get even more clarification, right?
So just really quick in this here, I'm just going to give you a quick overview. If we get past the Gospels, there we go into acts, acts as a history of the early church if you're new, right? So it documents a lot of this whole long history of the early church, and you just see it over and over again. Gamaliel, so he is like Saul's later. Paul Saul, he says he learned to defeat right? So smart guy, but exactly what Jesus predicts happens to the apostles, right? So they're arrested and everything, and then they're put before this religious council to make things simple for trial. Well, this guy, Gamaliel, he gives some advice. He's smart. He's like, listen this guy through this like other people, you know, if what they're all about is wrong, it's going to come to an end. But if it's really from God, you're going to find yourself fighting against God. So then this happens right the others accept the advice. They call the Apostles in they have them flogged, flogged. They're beaten like horribly like beaten. The reaction is they left thy counsel, rejoicing, rejoicing, rejoicing that God had counted them worthy to suffer disgrace. They're humiliated, joyful about it, no retaliation. Why? Finally, they're getting it. That's what this means. They're getting it like they're understanding, right? They had an opportunity, and they used it just like Jesus said, Alright, who are these uneducated men? Was the Holy Spirit speaking through them. You might have heard of Steve in chapter six, acts six, one of the first deacons to be chosen. Chapter Seven, he gives, like, this awesome sermon, and he basically covers the whole testament. That's what goes on. But they don't like it, right? You've killed the prophets. So he's, he's, he's accusing the Jewish people rejecting Jesus, right? And they start him death. He's martyred, right? But Lord, don't count this against them. Like, forgive them. He does what Jesus did, right? So he's following you. I know this is unjust. I'm dying, but forgive them. So he does right. So the reaction chapter eight, what happens? They flee. They do exactly what Jesus said. They get scattered, right? They're not like, let's get an army. Let's avenge Stephen. No, like, not at all. It's not in there. Here, right? So then, if we keep going acts 12, James of James and John James is killed by the sword. What do they do? Retaliate? Nope, nope. So Peter put in prison. Did they get an army to break him out? Nope, they prayed. They prayed an angel broke him out. That's what happened. Imagine that like God, maybe he's more powerful than us. Just a thought, right? So they pray him out, right? They didn't raise an army to save Peter. It continues like Paul flogged again with silence, right? He's thrown in prison. The stocks beaten. Do they retaliate? No, they worship. They worship in the inner dungeon. So they're imagine being a cold dungeon. Be complaining. They're not complaining, they're worshiping and they literally bring the house down, the chains come off. And what happens? If you're a Roman soldier, you're watching the prisoners, and you let them go, they're going to kill you. So the guard goes to kill himself, and Paul is like, no, don't do that. What does Paul do? Kill him? No, he converts him. So that's the important thing. He's interested in, that conversion there, right? And the whole thing ends, Paul's taken into custody. It's unjust. It's unfair. He's kept in custody for like, two years, right? Guys feels and Felix and Festus like this guy's waiting for a bribe doesn't get. It's unfair. Paul just keeps preaching the gospel to him, right? So Paul is shipwrecked. He's in custody. All these terrible things happen to him, and then finally, it ends with him being put in, like a Roman prisoner, and like, house arrest, right? That's it. There's no retaliation. There's no save Paul. There's no let's like, you know, and board the boat and, you know, pirate movie or something. It's not there. It's just not there. Romans, right? So if we go on over to Romans, so the whole point of Romans is unity and peace in the church. You have these ethno religious kind of groups, the Jews and Gentiles, they've come together. They're Christians now, but they're still arguing about it, right? So Paul levels the playing field. All have sinned. You're all a bunch of sinners. Stop it, right? And furthermore, because all this theology and stuff, he's like Parakalo Greek, I plead with you to make your bodies a living sacrifice. What? Alright. So there we go. He continues, right? Romans, 1214, Bless those who persecute you. Sound like somebody else, yeah, don't curse them. Pray that God will bless them. Be happy with those who are happy and weep for those who weep, live in harmony with each other. Don't be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people, and don't think you know it all. Never pay back even with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see your honorable. Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone, dear friends. Never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say, I will take revenge. I will pay them back, says the Lord. Instead, if your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals of shame on their heads. Don't let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good. So Don't lump burning coals on anyone's head, right? So it's just another it's like the sword guys. Okay, so, yes, I heat up some. No, you're missing the point, right? So interesting. A lot of flipping the script there. But what's interesting about this? He's quoting Deuteronomy in the first case, right? And then it's proverbs 25 in the second. So it's kind of interesting there. He's bringing some Old Testament stuff in and showing how, hey, this works with what we're doing, right? Work at peace forever for with everyone, right? Don't repay evil, for you conquer evil. How fight fire with fire? No. Conquer evil by doing good by doing the exact opposite. That's how you do it, right? We're getting it? Alright. Then it goes on. People hate Romans 13, because it says to honor the governing authorities and pay your taxes. Yeah. So First Peter, very, very easy. You didn't like that. So First Peter, something very, very similar in first Peter 213, for the Lord's sake, submit to all human authority, whether King, as head of state, or the officials he has appointed for the king has sent them to punish those who do wrong and honor those who do right. It is God's will that your honorable lives should silence those ignorant people who make foolish accusations against you. So Peter saying the same thing followed, for you are free and you are God's slave, so don't use your freedom as an excuse to do evil. Respect everyone and love the family of believers. Fear of God. Fear God. Sorry, and respect the king. You, who are slaves, must submit to your Masters With all respect, do what they tell you, not only if they are kind and reasonable, so he knows the excuse that maybe some of you made up in your mind. Well, what if the king is unreasonable, right? What if it's wrong? Well, here we go, not only if they are kind and reasonable, but even if they cruel, for God is pleased when conscious of his will, you patiently endure unjust treatment. Of course, you get no credit for being patient if you're beaten for doing wrong, but if you suffer for doing good and endure it patiently, God is pleased with you, for God called you to do good, even if it means suffering. Just as Christ suffered for you, he is your example, and you must follow in his steps. He never sinned nor deceived anyone. He did not retaliate when he was insulted nor threatened revenge when he suffered. He left his case in the hands of God, who always judges fairly. I think we got enough, right? The defense rests, you know, again and again, endure unjust treatment peacefully, don't retaliate. Wasn't fair. What happened to Jesus? Be like him. Not going to be fair. What happens to you? But your reward is going to be great. It's just, that's it. It's going to surpass anything you can
imagine here. That's the point, right? So just very quickly here again, right? So just in the same way the sword was, like an analogy, an illustration, metaphor, like you have the sword, you have these burning coals, right? So a lot of times in the Bible say things like, people will cite things like, Philippians having courage. Paul tells it to Timothy, like, things like, fight for the faith, you know, fight the fight for the faith, right? Or, you know, the soldier illustrations, or things like that. Like, be a good soldier. You know, here's a First Corinthians, a boxing illustration, right? Those kinds of things. And it's just like, it's sad, because people really lack reading comprehension skills. They didn't do well in English, whatever it is, right? It's really clear that these things are just kind of examples, but people will take and run with it. But when you look at the surrounding context, it's not what it's about, right? So just to address these things, one thing that comes up too, just very, very quickly in Revelation. Revelation is very tricky, because you really do need to understand the Old Testament, how it works. That type of literature can get very confusing. And it's like incredibly important to be familiar with the Greek when you're reading that, you know. So because different translations will put things different ways, which then allow people to kind of go, you know, one way or the other with it, and it's not where it belongs. So people will talk about like these armies in Revelation and Revelation seven, the irony when they bring that up, the Greek word there is, is not necessarily army, it's more like just a multitude of people. And so what John hears is the 144,000 what he turns and sees is a multi ethnic you know, it's not an army. It's a multitude of people. And if you keep reading, you see what happens. They're the people who die in the tribulation. Like, who are these? Those are the ones who died in the tribulation. So, you know, it's completely peaceful. They didn't die fighting. They're just, they're clothed in white, you know, like, so it's just wrong. But when you get to Revelation nine, you know that army there, that's like a demonic army type of thing, 19, probably that multitude, again, you know that army, and that's where the word army is used, but it's a peaceful army. And if you keep reading, you see that Jesus is the one who cuts everybody down, you know? So it's Jesus who wins the fight. That's the point, not us, right? So just to address that, and you'll see a refrain in Revelation, which people don't ever talk about, but it's a refrain revelation. 39 anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand. Anyone who is destined for prison will be taken to prison. Anyone who is destined to die by the sword will die by the sword. This means that God's holy people must endure persecution patiently and remain faithful to what Jesus's commands. Remember what he said, Revelation, 1412, and the refrain again. This means that God's holy people must endure persecution, patiently obeying his commands. There it is, and maintaining their faith in Jesus. What were his commands? Peace, being peaceful, even if it means unjust treatment, is what the Word of God says, not my words God's right. So no retaliation, over and over and over again. Uh, interesting to know. You know these people when they're martyred, right? So later clarifies, beheaded in the Greek, they're beheaded for the faith, and those people get to come up and reign with Jesus. And if you believe it, 1000 years, 1000 years is what it says, right? So you're going to judge the Lord. You're going to get your justice law Right, right? So you're part of there's two resurrections, that resurrection, right? Then another one, right? So you you're first, basically, right? You get beheaded. You die for Jesus. You're first in line, you know. So you see the flip again. It doesn't make sense, like, you know, if I lose my life, I gain it. Oh yeah, that's right, Jesus said that. So my point is the burden of proof is enormous on someone who wants to make any claim for Christian violence, Christian armies, enormous because it just isn't there. It's not there, right? So a person who espouses any teaching calling for Christian violence or some kind of warfare proves, proves they don't understand the language of the Bible, nor the very heart of Christianity. You. Yeah, so, just some application, because I know for a lot of you, it's tough, right? Because, again, that's why I said, what I said about looking at things through a cultural lens. It's a mistake, you know, because we're talking about, you know, difference, like, what are we going to do next? So, you know, some problem just praying about, you know, people give me ideas, but I'm like, ultimately, me ideas, but like, ultimately, I have to pray about it. And I was thinking this would be a great series, Christianity, you're doing it wrong, right? So that's basically it, right? You're not laughing. Okay, we won't go with that title. But anyway, it really is because we've, we've bled so much of our culture into the Bible that we can't tell the difference anymore. And I explained to you how most people read the Bible. So just, oh, yeah, of course, that makes sense, right? How could our government be lying to us, right? Like, how could the media be lying to us? How could our culture, you know, how could anyone in church who just asked for a private jet be wrong, you know? Like, come on. You know what I mean? Like, there's a lot of ways, the majority can be wrong. I'll give you an example. Fast food, alright? Pop music, anyway, right? The popular stuff can be bad, right? So anyway, it's called consumerism, but I want to, I kind of just tell you a little bit to relate to you, right? So you know, I'm totally aware we may have people who are military or ex military police officers. Tony Johnson, right? One of my best buddies, he preaches here isn't any police officer. I get it right. So that's not what this is about, necessarily. I just want to share with you if, if you haven't, if you don't know who I am, my story, I want to give you this story so that you'll understand where I'm coming from. So I wasn't always a pastor, and if that wasn't abundantly clear now it is right. I wasn't always a pastor. I was a lifelong musician, right? So I played lots of different instruments. I still do. I still consider myself a musician, but in order to prove everyone wrong, I became a martial arts professional, right? So I decided I wanted to beat people up for a living. And it was a hobby before that, and it's very hard to understand in today's world what kind of martial arts is. So it was MMA, right? So my specialty was Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. It's just a martial arts, mixed martial arts like and the point of it was the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu guys made up the UFC, the Ultimate Fighting Championship to show that theirs was the best in a one on one fight, you're going to win. And it happened every single time. When I got introduced to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, it talked about humility, right? This was like, it really like the humility, because I was a black belt and other things plural, and I went to my first Brazilian Jiu Jitsu school and got beat, like, over and over again by a white belt. It was really bad. Yeah, it's embarrassing, right? And I was running a school at the time, so I had to, like, take my belt off and start over again. It took me a while, to be honest, but then from that point, it took me 10 years training professionally to earn a black belt that martial arts so hard. It's very hard. Most people, like, we used to sit laugh all the time, like, you know, how long does it take to get a black belt? You failed the first test out? Like, you know, I'm not taking you as a student, and my wife's laughing because, yeah, I, like, really said that to people. You failed the first test took me 10 years. At the time, you know, I was running it as a brown belt, my teachers coming in. But before this MMA thing, they kind of kind of had to regulate it was illegal, actually, in New York when we first started doing it, because they hadn't regulated it. Regulating it means you make a lot of rules. But before that, that's not why I got involved in this stuff for sport Jiu Jitsu. I didn't get involved in, I got involved to do what they called, like Brazil, like valet tudo, right? So it means anything goes is what it literally means. It's like, nhB, like, Oh no, holds barred is on steroids. So you can do anything. It's kind of like, why I can't see how this high real well, like you can do anything you want, and you do it on concrete, anywhere, like you just fought until someone passed out, tapped out, lost a limb, right? So it was that kind of thing, very violent. So I was really into it for self defense, and I did train people for UFC. I've coached UFC fighters, I've done all kinds of things like that, and did the sports stuff and made my champions as a teacher, known more as a teacher than a fighter, but I taught a lot of the bulk of our students from military and police. That's what I taught, because it became the most in fact, the army combatives manual was rewritten because of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. They rewrote the whole thing based on that martial art. That's how good it was. Good it was. So all the military and police officers and bouncers and all those people they would come to learn from me, and so I was very, very good friends with a lot of police officers, military people. I only made four black belts in my entire career. I don't know how long it was, like 1520, years, like whenever only four black belts, and the first two were police officers. So closest people to me were military and law enforcement. I had the opportunity to teach at places like West Point, if you've heard of West Point, like, like, so very, very immersed in that culture, right? So to be clear, just a quick disclaimer. And Christians can participate in martial arts. To be clear, I didn't quit because of the martial arts aspect. I quit because of the pride, the ego and the money that came with it for me, plus I was called in the full time ministry. I don't have time to train. I mean, bear, like my guitar, like I get around to it once in a while, but I don't practice as much as I really would like to, so it's a busy thing, and that's why. But just with that being said, we've
talked about competition and pride in the past. So I just would recommend looking at your motives behind training. If you're going to train in martial arts, just check your heart, as they say, like, look at the MO Why are you doing this? You know what I mean? Just look at the motives, self defense. Nothing wrong with that, especially like in art, like Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, it's meant to, like, really restrain people more than just knock them out. You know, sort of schools we had to bring in, like Muay Thai and boxing instructors to handle that. That end of it, right? So it's about restraining which is why police love it, right? Because they can restrain people. The other thing to consider, too, that a lot of people don't know about me, actually, I don't really put it out. There's no reason to, is, I was heavily immersed in a gun culture. I grew up in a gun culture. My dad would take me hunting and stuff. So I grew up around guns, very much into that. And that continued. And when my wife was like, You need hobbies, I was like, oh, guns, you know, so I'll do something safe. I'll do that so, but because of this military and law enforcement that really came into play, right? Because this is real. It's not a sport. And so they'd say, gee, you know, what do we do if you know someone has to stab me? What do you do if someone shoots me? And so I did a lot of, like, if you're into guns, you'll appreciate it. A lot of three gun training. So you know, you'll do pistol, rifle, shotgun, and you learn how to transition, and go through all these different courses and stuff. So I'd work with the military people. I'd work with the law enforcement people, and then every day, every day, except the weekends, Monday through Friday, I would go to the skeet range. Why? Because people move. And so you want to learn how to shoot moving people, right? So you do skeet. And so it's really good with the shotgun, right? Because they do, they don't just always freeze, right? So you got to shoot them. Hopefully the back doesn't turn. There's a whole other thing. So anyway, ski every day, every single day. If you ask my wife, what do you do if you're a gun owner, responsible gun owner, after you come back from the range, you clean all your weapons. You make sure they're all clean. They're oiled up, everything's good to go, right? And so I could probably field strip a 1911 now, if you know what I'm talking about, good for you. It's not just a 45 right? So 1911 is awesome, right? So I collected those. I had a bunch of those, and asked my wife, the place smelled like a gun store. It was crazy. Always guns around, always guns around. And here's the thing, I still, I don't own as many guns. Sold them when I got in ministry, but I kept a couple. And I'll be very honest with you, this is coming from me. I'm not talking about anyone else. I'm still heavily conflicted about it, because I know what the Bible says, right? So like, martial arts, if you're going to go to the skeet range, pistol range, you're going to go shooting or whatever. It's an okay, hob, it's fine. So again, the reason I don't shoot ski here anymore, it's too hot. You're crazy. Like, no way. It's got the ears on the hat and everything. It's too much. Right? It's too far away, and again, no time. But remember, my application was not to, like, go and shoot skied or something. I was training to kill people or to teach other people how to kill people. That was my application, right? That's, that's what it meant to me. And when I look at this, there's a problem. It's just being totally honest. And this is me. This is just on me. Alright, I needed to pump the brakes on because there's just simply nothing in here. Nothing in here is a Christian that would ever justify that. Nothing. It's not there. And trust me, I read this a lot, it's not there. So that is when we look at the New Testament again. We're looking at it through the right lens. Right? What defines Christianity? The conclusion of the Bible, the truth, the truth. And if you're new here today, and this is difficult, welcome. My name is Jean, and I teach the truth when I'm here, if you're talking to me there, nah. You know, sometimes it's just most a bunch of sarcasm. It's just a string of lies and sarcasm. But when I but when I'm here, it's the truth, right? So so that you get where I'm coming from, I preach the truth, right? I study the word you know. So I'm only going to give you that right, and some really bad jokes. So if your military, your police, you're from that background, or even a gun culture. Look, I'm here to say, I get it. We come from the same place. I totally understand, right? And as a note, I appreciate you and your service absolutely right? But it's not really what we're talking about. See, that's your personal choice. This is my personal choice. It's my interpretation, slight one. But anyway, other people have other and I get that, all right, non denominational, fine, you know, I get it. But what I would encourage you is that you think about what you might be called. Called to do in that position. So I only encourage it. Read this a lot and think about what you might be called to do, and does it line up? That's it. When I thought about it, I was like, No, it doesn't work. They don't reconcile, right? So there's really no justification for violence. If you want to use the Bible for that, as a Christian, it's not there again, wrong, religion, right? So we don't always like it, but at the end of the day, the truth is, all that really matters, no matter how much it hurts, right? It stings. Sometimes we don't like it, but our culture doesn't really matter, right? Our opinions really don't matter.
The Word of God is really what matters so, and that's the only pure truth we have. So what changed, right? Well, when I did the opposite of what
the world told me to do, and when I did what the word told me to do, that's when things change, right? So when I went to God and just surrendered, being really surrendered, not like, oh God, you know, I trust you, but I got it, you know, no, when I just like, I'm done, okay, okay, I'm done, right? This is not working. I'm done. Well, that happened. What did the prophets predict? Right? That heart of stone would go to a heart of flesh, right? I'll give you a new spirit, right? I'll put the law in your heart. That's what happened. That's how that happens when you really surrender to him, he comes in there, right? When you stop fighting and fighting and fighting. Just okay, I'm done, like face on the floor, kind of moment, right? So that's what happens. That's what the prophets are saying. That's what the New Testament is saying. It's going to get in there, what Jesus saying, parable The Sower, and you're going to start to produce good fruit. It's going to happen when the word is really in there. It's planted in there. And the key here is the Holy Spirit
just I don't understand. Let me know, right? The Holy Spirit made me realize that the real war was inside me. That's where it was. Until you resolve this conflict, you're no good to anybody. The real war was inside myself, that's what I saw, right? And it's only one that the Holy Spirit can win. That's it. You're not even going to win. It All. Glory to God, right?
He'll change you, and you'll produce fruit. And so last week we looked like judging a tree by its fruit, the fruit that we produce. So I'll take you to Galatians five. I go there a lot. It's, it's really some pivotal scripture. I think it's like better than anything else, but it just, it's just amazing. So I'm going to put it on a chart. I'm going to show you this chart today, and so that you can visualize, you can see things. So what you're seeing here is, you're seeing the opening verses, you're seeing the closing verses, right? And then you're seeing, you know, two columns. So you have the depending on which way you are, you see you have, like, the, I would say, the fruit of the flesh, right? So a lot and fruit, as Jesus would say, right? The bad tree fruit. But it's just sin of the flesh. That's what it is. It's sin of the flesh. If you anyone need to see some cameras going up, I know you're not taking pictures of me. So if you need this, most of you, I saw the cameras go up. I have your number. If you need it, text me and I'll, I'll just, I'll send you the chart if you really want it, right? So I make these things. I don't expect anyone cares anyway. So that's the sin of the flesh. And so when you look at it, that's what that is. So this is all the sinful things, and then the fruit of the Spirit. And so this ties very well into what Jesus is saying. So I, you know, I'm not going to say who, but someone corrected me, my wife, when I said that. You know, this is the fruit of the flesh. But she's like, No, say fruit. And she's a great reader, right? But when you put it together with everything, rotten fruit, a good tree can't produce bad fruit. You know, bad tree can't produce good fruit. So when you pull it into what Jesus is saying, I'm not going to say my wife is wrong. Alright, then you'll see what I'm seeing, because I'm just getting myself in a lot of trouble. So anyway, we joke, we kid. So let's just look at the setup. Let's look at the setup. Alright, what do we have here? The sinful nature. Here's the war. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what spirit wants, and the Spirit gives us desires that he the opposite what the sinful nature desires. Now look at this. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you're not free to carry out your good intentions, right? So this is but that struggles good, right? That struggle. Someone came to me, like, I struggle, I struggle with this. I'm like, good. Because if you didn't struggle with anything, there's no Holy Spirit in there fighting the sinful nature. So that war, that conflict, is good, good, because the Holy Spirit's in there. He's doing his job, right? He's bringing conflicts to mind. Yes, good. Like something's happening. So it's actually a good thing, right? Not that you want to, like, stay in. That state, but good, especially initially. Now we have those columns, right? So, bad, bad, good, right? So notice the sin of the flesh. They're all these like things, these self idolatrous things and violent things, right? So in particular, hostility, quarreling, anger, outburst of anger, but anger, right? One of the seven deadly sins, as they say, division, right? Dissension and scary line. Scary line should scare you. Those live that kind of life will not inherit the kingdom of God. Ah, yeah, it's there, right? So that's the truth. Now the fruit of the Spirit, it's the opposite. Notice that love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and gentleness, right among them, right? Truthfulness, goodness, self control. So all those things good. So wait, what does Jesus say? What is you know, Paul saying that when we let the Holy Spirit in, we start exhibiting more of the good fruit, which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, self control, right? So you're just going to do that. And what? Less of the bad things, less of the outburst of anger, the violence, all that other stuff. And I can tell you again, you know, I was a very violent person, right? Very violent. You know, it was that, like, smash things guy, that was me, right? I just wanted to be violent. A lot of anger. I can just honestly tell you, most of it's gone. That's just not really the way I typically respond to things anymore. It's been healed. And it's not to boast, it's in the Lord who won the fight, not me, right? I don't have a black belt and being awesome here, you know, like I do, but, but anyway, all, all glory to God, make sure you're paying attention. You guys get quiet once in a while, I wonder. But you get my point, right? So not that old man anymore. I'm not that person anymore. It's not me. It's just not it's by I'm trying to operate by the power of God here. God does it. That's the point. And you identify a Christian a tree by its fruit, this type of behavior. So it begins when you let this gospel message make its way from like the head knowledge to your heart. And that only comes through surrenders nothing you can do. You can't do anything but nothing. Right, give it to him, and it's a long journey for some, but that's what we have to do, right? We have to turn that let the Lord work on us, get that heart of stone turned into a heart of flesh, so the word can get in there and take deep roots and begin to grow and produce all that for and we do, we see less of that anger, that hostility. It's called progressive sanctification, if anyone's interested, right? So sometimes it just doesn't happen all at once, but we're sanctified, we're made holy, and we're closer to God as we progress along in our walk. But you know, come as you are, yes, but don't stay as you are. Let's come on. Let the Lord do his work in there, right? And one of the things people overlook is the fruit of the Spirit's Faithfulness. Faithfulness, you know, it's just they read it and they don't think about it, faith, right? We need to have faith. And what does that mean? We talked about this in the past, like in faith, it means like the unseen, right? That's what faith is. All about the unseen, not about the stuff that we can control, nothing. It has to do all with the Lord just having faith, faith that he's got it, right? We don't need to bring the justice. We're no like, you know you're self righteous, right? If you think you're this champion of justice and you're going to fix the world, like, have faith that God's just a little more powerful than you. You think you know what I mean. Like, stop it. And that's what happens when we begin to have the fruit of the Spirit, which is faith too. Like, I know you got this, Lord, there's a reason this is happening, and I don't need to know That's faith. I don't need to know I'm good, right? And I've heard this illustration in the past, and as a close give you some other things here, but you know, it's, it's kind of like, you know, I just don't know if your experience, if this resonates, might be with your mama. For me, it was my dad, right? You know, faith, a childlike faith, right? It didn't matter where my dad was going. I was just happy to just go with him. And he had this. And if you're old like me, you remember, like, GMC had that problem where they rusted out in the 70s, and get in his truck and there'd be a hole. It's like the Flintstones, like, is this where my feet go, you know? But they would, and you could die, right? So you did, but it didn't matter. Like, I just got in that truck, you know, my mom was like, ah, like, it didn't care. But no seat belt. It didn't matter. Dad screaming at people, even tools at him. He was crazy. And I was just like, This is great. You know, it's like, in reality, I look back at that, I was like, I was in a lot of danger, like, it was really bad, right? But you just, you just go where Daddy's taking you. That's what Jesus. Swamp, not you in a busted vehicle, pickup truck, necessarily, but that's what Jesus is asking us to be right? Yes, daddy, just go wherever you go. I don't care, right? Even the doubters, like mom doesn't matter. Just keep going like she has no faith, right? I'm getting myself in trouble with all the women now. So, but anyway, self control, fruit of the Spirit, right there, showed you. So anyway, you get my point, right? I'll go with you, dad. It doesn't matter whether there's risk to life and limb. Doesn't matter. Just don't care anymore. You just want to be with you, and that makes me happy, right? We live in faith. When we let go of all this stuff, this anger, we begin to live by faith, and it just brings joy to any situation you really can. So if you're dying, don't have me around, because I make like I just the jokes don't stop. And for your death, it doesn't and so I'm probably like, the wrong person to you. But anyway, we have that faith that Jesus will bring us back to the garden, back to paradise. Right now, why I want to close here is on some scripture, just so we get our minds right. And if we go to Hebrews, that's like, really the best commentary in the New Testament, in the Old Testament. The point is, in Hebrews is Jesus is superior to everything, alright? So that's the theme of the book, you know, just to kind of consolidate that for you, superior to the prophets the angels. He's the superior son, right? He's so you're like brothers and sisters again. Chapter Three, He's superior to Moses. He superior to Joshua. Chapter four, five through seven, He's superior to the priesthood and Melchizedek and even greater priests than the priesthood of Levi, right? He's the mediator of a superior covenant in chapters eight through 10, where quotes Jeremiah 31 right in there, we are under a new and better covenant, because Jesus is superior to everything, basically in the Old Testament. So we live by faith, disciplined lives, because Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever. Within that we see how a truly changed heart reacts to opposition. Hebrews 1032 think back on those early days when you first learned about Christ. Remember how you remained. There's the word faithful, even though it meant terrible suffering. Sometimes you were exposed to public ridicule and were beaten, and sometimes you helped others were suffering the same thing you suffered alone. Those were thrown into jail, and when all you owned was taken from you, you accepted it with joy. You know there are better things waiting for you that will last forever.
So now throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you. Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God's will, then you will receive all that He has promised for in just a little while, the coming one will come and not delay, and my righteous ones will live by faith, but I will take no pleasure in anyone who turns away. We're not like those who turn away from God to their own destruction. We are the faithful ones whose souls will be saved. We must remain faithful, even if it means terrible suffering. Sometimes we're exposed to public ridicule. We don't repay with insult. Sometimes we're beaten. We don't repay it. We do not retaliate. We may suffer and have everything we own taken from us, but we don't want it back, right? Because there's a greater reward. We accept it with joy. We know there are better things than even those things we lost waiting for us in heaven. This is Faith. So I just want to pray for you guys, just kind of some thoughts here, just especially for those of you who want to see that fruit in your lives, right? So if, if you're just done, are you done yet with what the world is trying to offer you or sell you? Are you done? If you're done with the anger, you're done with the hostility, and you want joy this, this is what I want for you. I just pray that those who are seeking peace would find the peace through Jesus and just Lord, open their hearts as my prayer, open their hearts truly, surrender them to you, and have that faith that Jesus will come back. Have that faith that Jesus is going to bring the justice. Have faith in that. Believe that That's my prayer. Have faith in His justice, not ours, his give us the self control in the face of insults and injury, patience. And that anticipation endurance while we wait in our trials and just to have true love and compassion for those for whom Jesus died, I pray for the faith to just remember the great reward it brings us. And as the Scriptures say, patient endurance is what we need now, so that we will continue to do God's will for in just a little while, Jesus, the coming One, will come and not delay, maranatha, amen
Good morning. Welcome if you're new here among us. My name is Gene. I serve here at C3 church as your pastor, and I need a new opening line, right? So we'll work on that. Anyway, I heard a story about a family at a dinner table who's a young boy, and he just asks an open question, how do wars start? And so the father, thinking himself a history major, kind of perked up and said, Oh, let me tell you. Take the First World War, for example. It started when Germany invaded Belgium. Well, the mom, at this point is like, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not how it happened. It happened when someone was assassinated. Well, Dad took offense. He said, are you answering the question, or Am I answering the question? Well, somebody's had this experience, so she stands up from the table, storms out of the room and slams the bedroom door. Well, just as the dishes finished rattling in the cupboard, the boy says, Daddy, you don't have to tell me how wars start. Now, I know the woman was right, by the way, Archduke Ferdinand, Alright, anyway. So we find ourselves continuing in our series twisted scripture, right? So the basic premise is that there are verses of the Bible people don't understand. They take them out of context. So it's like the quick intro for you. And yes, there's a problem, because, right, we read the we but most Christians read the Bible one line, one sentence at a time, all randomly out of order. And of course, you're not going to understand the Bible if that's the way you do it, right? So they'll take these verses and sometimes innocently, just apply them to whatever they want them to mean, or sometimes not so innocently. So we're just going to jump right in. I'm going to take you to the verse in question this morning, Matthew 1034 don't imagine this is Jesus speaking. Don't imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth. I came not to bring peace but a sword. Alright? So real simple how this is misused. It's kind of obvious. Christians and people will use this to justify all different kinds of forms of violence, like Christian violence in the name of Jesus or something like that. Alright, so wars, whatever. Now, before I begin, I just want to be really clear about something and prayerfully say some things to you. This is not this sermon is not a response to anything going on in the world, anything currently, right? So we are not on, like, the world's calendar. So if you're not new here, you totally get that. Like, I just don't really preach in reaction to anything, really, I just prayerfully go through, like, the series that we're going to do leadership. Prays about it. I pray about it some more, right? And so we do that thing that they did in acts like the prayer and fasting, and then I just stick to God's word. I'm taking it out of God's Word in his time, not the world's time. Alright, so the idea here this morning, and this is really my prayer for you, and this is kind of like the second problem is that when people do get around to the Bible, they're looking at it through the world's eyes, right? So they have these lenses on that, like are the world's lenses. And so we do things, scholars would say, reading things into the text. And so you got to be really careful with that when you read the Bible. So my prayer for you is that you look at the Bible the other way around, the way it's supposed to be looked at, right? With pure eyes, pure hearts, the Holy Spirit's worked on that, and you're just looking at what it says for what it says with no preconceived, you know, cultural notions or anything like that. So it's really my genuine prayer for you this morning. Some of these topics are hard because a lot of these verses, and pastorally, I'll kind of acknowledge that, you know, they're ingrained into even the Christian culture. And so when you hear like, Wait, that's not what it means. You're going to run through, like, a lot of different emotions and a lot of different things. So this is one of them, a big culture thing. But my encouragement is, again, is, let's put the world out there where it belongs, and just get deep in the word and look at what this says. So Alright, first thing we kind of have to do, and, and I'm going to go over some of this pretty quickly, because it's not really the subject matter, but I'm going to give you references. So if you're really interested, you can look for yourself. You're supposed to, right? So I encourage you to do that. Look at all of this stuff for yourself. So I'll be referencing some things quickly throughout this message, but, you know, jot them down. You can ask me later, or watch the message later. We put it online. So the first thing is that we just need to understand. We need backup from the Bible. Because if you read the whole Bible, a little bit, you know, a little bit, you read the whole Bible, you'll understand that. Like, wait a minute, you know, there's a whole lot of violence in the whole testament, right? But you have to look at the way that that starts, right? So that's the important thing. Where does we when I say we just human? Mind. Where do we start? Well, we start in paradise. We start at peace, right? There's no even working for the food. They're just like, and they're naked and they're just eating the fruit, right? So, yeah, some of you may be like, what doesn't sound like paradise to me, so depends on who you're with. Let's just rip that band aid off, right? So it's, it's a peaceful place, right? So that's what God wants. He's like, yes, mankind Paradise, and it's just like that, and, and it's wonderful, right? Humankind then tries to rob equality with God. Humankind then murders for the first time, commits the first acts of violence, right? And it's a progressive story, all downhill from there, just a progression of humankind, like, if I just summarize it real quick, humankind just rejecting God, right? That's really what it is, right? And then, okay, now, you know, Prophets aren't good enough. You know we want to then, and then we want a king. Yeah? We want to be like everyone else, right? And they get warned it's going to be all downhill, they don't listen, and they just go downhill, right? So what all this points to as a need for a Savior, right? So this is a very long lesson, because we take a long time to learn things, a very long lesson in we need Jesus, right? So we can't do this on our own at all. And the whole idea here is that Jesus is going to kind of flip the script now and bring us back to paradise where there was peace, right? So he's bringing us back to that through him. That's kind of the idea here, right? So he calls on us. It reverses that first sin. Right? Doesn't regard equality with God is something to be taken advantage of, right? Comes here in human form, dies for our sins, right? So that through Him and Him alone, we can get back to that paradise, right? So again, like we must look at our Bible with pure eyes, we must look at the Old Testament through the lens of the New Testament, if that makes sense to you, right? So we have to look at the conclusion and consider the conclusion when we look back at the past. So one of these things, it's kind of like, the simplest way for me to explain it, like a teaching tool that God uses is the law of Moses. So there are all kinds of teaching tools. And so if you're new, I'm trying to frame this from like, maybe you don't know anything. You've probably heard of the 10 Commandments, right? So that's like the 10, right? And do not commit adultery, for examples on this list. But then you get like, 603 other commands, right? So the law of Moses, because they're going to define what happens. So for example, someone commits adultery, what do we do? Right? What happens to that person? They die? Right? So they get killed. It's up to the community. To kill them. Sometimes it's like setting on fire. Sometimes it's being stoned to death, whatever it is. And it's pretty violent. It's a violent response. But one thing to remember is that that is also a command. It's not a suggestion. People get in trouble for disobeying those kind of commands that point to another command, right? So, do not commit adultery. That's command, right? Kill the people who did is also a command. That's not a suggestion. Now, just as for example, what we do when we get to the New Testament is what? Well, there's a woman, John eight, committing adultery, caught in the act of adultery. What does Jesus say, right? And everybody knows this, right? Yeah, he was without sin, cast the first stone. And starting with the old guys, they dropped the stones. That's remarkable, remarkable here. Well, Jesus fulfills the law, right? So that's the point here. So you see a little bit like a flip of the script, right? If we're kind of thinking of it that way, uh, a big thing. And this is, I'm not going to go into this a lot, is that we are not under that law anymore. And so it's really strange to me that some people actually believe that we are. It's very, very crazy.
Because, right? So if we were under that law, we'd be saying something like, Come as you are, so we can stone you to death, right? So you know what I mean, like, it doesn't make any sense at all. They don't pay attention. If you really read the law, you're like, this is totally impossible, right? We don't have that priesthood, we don't have the land, we don't have the devil. So just you can't do it. It cannot be done, or the tabernacle can't be done. So this is the so if you want your reference points, read Acts 15, read the book of Romans, and especially Galatians Hebrews as well. It's crystal clear. It's the reason why Galatians was written. So people follow this. I'm like, you kind of got to throw away a lot of the New Testament. You got to take out whole books of the Bible, which we shouldn't do. So we're not under that law, right? And it's interesting to note, this will come up later. It's, it's actually predicted in the Old Testament that would happen. Read Jeremiah 31 for example, and that were to be changed. So if you know about those 10 Commandments, right? They're written on stone tablets and all over the prophets are talking about that Ezekiel 36 I believe Ezekiel 11 as well, Jeremiah 31 so he put it all together, and it's we're going to have this law, the Royal laws, the New Testament, says. Is written on our hearts, right? Soft, fertile hearts, instead of tablets of stone. And so I will replace that heart of stone with a heart of flesh, right? So it kind of gets in there, permeates and works. Okay? That's the only way this is going to work this time, right? So this is the idea. So again, we'll be using the new testament to define the Old Testament. So we were following the Sermon on the Mount. And again, just funny thing to note, there's absolutely no call for violence there at all. How did he start? Blessed are the peacemakers, right? So there's your hint, right? There's your first hint here, right? Then Jesus explains, I just want to on this topic, because I'll lead you right into where we're going. Here. Jesus explains something, because you got to remember something. Jesus is speaking at this point. He has not died on the cross, yet, he has not fulfilled the law, yet he's speaking to a Jewish audience here, right? So they're hearing this stuff where he is flipping it constantly. I'll point to a couple of examples here. And he knows they're they got to be like, what? And so he has to give a disclaimer. And this is his disclaimer, Matthew 517 don't misunderstand why I've come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose. I tell you the truth until heaven and earth disappear. Not even the smallest detail, iota of God's law will disappear until, until an important word, its purpose is achieved, right? So the purpose of that law, if you're reading Romans and Galatians, is to show us our sin. Remember, I called it like a God's teaching tool. That was what the Bible, that is what the Bible, the New Testament, says. The purpose of the law is to show us our sin, right? So Jesus died for that sin, right, and accomplish the purpose on the cross through His death. That's where we're at. So then, after that statement, I want you to notice something. Matthew 538 you have heard the law that says the punishment must match the injury, an eye for eye, a tooth for tooth. He's quoting the Old Testament law. But I say do not resist an evil person. If someone slaps you on the right cheek. Offer the other cheek also. Alright. So you see the flip there, right? So I'm careful with the words change, but you know it's different, right? He's saying, Okay, no, no. Before it said, retaliate, that's okay. Now I'm saying you it's not okay. Big flip here again. Matthew 543, have you heard the law? It says, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say, Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you. So you notice what he's doing here. He's taking out that hate part. He's like, nope, nope, nope, nope, different. But I say, alright, so we are now into that royal love everybody. Now that's it. Alright. So again, as Jesus stated earlier, right? You're blessed. When people persecute you, you're blessed, right? So this is the idea. Now what's really interesting? So we looked at some other stuff from the Sermon on the Mount. Sermon on the Mount finishes in chapter seven of Matthew. What we looked at earlier is in chapter 10. And just a point of interest like so if you're reading the whole thing, and you're reading it like a book, like you should read any other book, you kind of Jesus is going to set the tone here through his actions, right? So just, just what happens in between, Jesus heals a man of leopard, of leprosy, a Centurion servant heals many people at Peter's house, calms the storm, heals the paralytic, heals a woman bleeding 12 years brings a girl back to life, right? Brings a girl back from the dead and heals a mute. So after the sermon about peace, Jesus is all about going around and healing people and bringing life to people, that's what he does. Is all the things he does in between these two parts, healing and life, right? Killing anyone, healing in life. So let's look at those verses again, right? And then just kind of see what's going on here. Matthew 1034, Jesus, speaking God, imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth. I came not to bring peace but a sword. I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter in law against her mother in law. That's not hard to do. Your enemies will be right in your own household. Didn't
take Jesus to do that, right? Just got to make sure you're paying attention, right? So though that wasn't in the scriptures, like it's not there.
So when we look at the surrounding context, clearly Jesus does not want us to hack our family to pieces, right? That's the wrong religion, right? So it's not a literal sword here. So just in case we're still a little confused, let's back up and go to the beginning of the chapter. So Jesus chooses his 12 apostles, like Simon, Peter, Andrew, Simon The Zealot, James, John James of Philip Bartholomew, Matthew Thomas, Judas. Judas, not in that order. In Matthew anyway, he sends out those 12 apostles. I told you I'm going to be running over some stuff real quick. And he gives those apostles instructions, right? And what are they? Heal the sick, heal the sick, raise the dead, right? So those are leprosy, cast out demons, right? Give as freely as you receive. What's the point? What. He sends them, heal people, bring life, give you know, okay, and he goes through it'll be important later. Don't take any money in your money belts, no gold, silver, even copper coins. Don't carry a traveler's bag with a change of clothes or sandals or even a walking stick. Don't hesitate to accept hospitality, because those work deserve to be fit. So this will come up later. Then we work down a little bit in that chapter, verse 14, if any household or town refuses to welcome you, uh, or listen to your message, shake the dust from your feet. So it's basically like later, you know, you didn't listen. But notice something, he doesn't say, kill the infidels again. Wrong, religion, right? So, Matthew, 1016, look, I am sending you out as sheep among wolves. So be as shrewd as snakes and as harmless as doves, but beware, for you will be handed over to the courts and will be flogged with whips in the synagogues. You will stand trial before governors and kings because you're my followers. But this will be your opportunity to tell the rulers and the other believers about me when you are arrested. Don't worry about how to respond or what to say. God will give you the right words at that time for it's not you who will be speaking. It is the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. A brother will betray brother to death. A father will betray his own child, and children will rebel against their parents and cause and be killed. Then all nations will hate you because you are my followers. But everyone who endures to the end will be saved when you are persecuted in one town flee to the next. I tell you the truth, the Son of Man will return before you have reached all the towns of Israel. So what's the point from the context alone? You can see here he's not sending the apostles out to commit any acts of violence or to retaliate in any way, right? So and on sheep, right? Have you ever heard people say, like sheeple or like you know, you shouldn't be like sheep that's not what Jesus says. Interesting. And remember Romans eight, if we go back a week or two ago, alright, we're being slaughtered like sheep for your sake, all day, New Testament, quoting Old Testament. But here's the thing, be as harmless as doves. You will be handed over, but that's an opportunity. Great. We're getting arrested, right? So for what to share the gospel on that fight or flight thing. Flee. Flee, alright, when you're persecuted, confronted, flee to the next step. Don't kill the infidels. Again, right? Wrong, religion. So when Jesus says something similar again, 12 verse later, he'll clarify, right? Luke, 1251, do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I've come to here we go. Divide people against each other. Now on, families will be split apart, three in favor of me and two against, or two in favor and three against. So you see it here. It's not about a sword, it's about his words just naturally causing division, right? So I'm going to preach all this peace stuff, right, to people at that time who are waiting for this warrior Messiah. They got it wrong. They weren't reading carefully enough. They think it's going to be this warrior king coming, and Jesus is like, ah, turn the other cheek, right? Flee, like he's saying the opposite of what they're expecting, right? This is going to cause division, and even today, still, right? I know, by the way, you laughed at a joke about, like, the mother in law, right? So I know that, you know, there's division in families over religion, right? And so there you might have a mix of some politics and religion, right? So there's going to be division over it. That's what Jesus is saying, right? So it's just an example of something like a analogy here. So if we keep reading in Luke, and we'll see, though, that even the disciples had a little confusion about this sword thing, right? So right, after the Last Supper, Luke, 2235 Then Jesus asked them, when I sent you out to preach the good news, and you do not have any money a traveler's bag or an extra pair of sandals. Did you need anything? No, he's talking about when they're sent. So here we're attaching those things, right? They replied, but now he said, Take your money in a traveler's bag, and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. For the time has come for this prophecy about me to be fulfilled. He was counted among the rebels. Yes, everything written about Me by the prophets will come true. Look, Lord, they replied, we have two swords among us. That's enough. He said, So did you see the contrast between now? You know, things have changed. Would it be ready now? Like it's going to get worse? That's a vision I was talking about. It's going to be really bad. So the sword is the same type of object that it was before. Now Jesus responds, like, that's enough. So when you're looking at the Greek, you can translate it a couple different ways. Here it's like ways of looking at it. But I want to show you, doesn't matter how you look at it, Jesus is making the same point, right? So either one, he's saying, that's enough swords, guys. There's 11 of them. Two Swords is not enough, right? And then not listening to the instructions, sell your cloak and buy one, right? So it doesn't but he doesn't say that again. I told you need to sell nine cloaks. You know, it's like, whatever it is, like, No, right? So we're going to assume here just for a minute, that Jesus, God is not bad at math. Right? He doesn't have a math problem, right? So it's more like, yeah, that's enough, right? Or, most likely, stop it. Like, enough of that. And we know that if we keep reading, you'll see Jesus has the same type of response, but is now a little more clear. So if we're still confused, Jesus is about to get arrested, right? Judas is going to be trapped. Luke 2247 but even as Jesus said this, a crowd approach led by Judas, one of the 12 disciples. Judas walked over to Jesus to greet Him with a kiss. But Jesus said, Judas, would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss? When the other disciples saw what was about to happen, they explained, Lord, should we fight? We brought the swords, and one of them struck at the high police slave slashing off his right ear. But Jesus said, No more of this, and then touched the man's ear and healed him, just in case you were confused, right? So it's kind of cool, just an example of, keep reading the Gospel of John says, like John tells on Peter, and I think that's funny. He says, Peter slashed off in the slave Malchus ear. So we get their names. So the disciples misunderstood, but Jesus really clarifies here, right? Very clear. No more of this meaning. Don't do that again. And then heals the person again, healing in life. We look at Matthew's account. Matthew 2650, Jesus said, My Friend, go ahead and do what you've come for. And then the others grabbed Jesus and arrested him. Well, what are the men with Jesus? Now we know who that is. Pull out his sword and struck the high priest's sleeve, slashing off his ear. Put away your sword. Command, right? Not a suggestion. Jesus told it, those who use the sword will die by the sword. Don't you realize that I could ask my father for 1000s of angels to protect us, and he would send them instantly. Alright? If Luke wasn't clear, this should be right? No, Christian army is coming in here. Alright? Jesus says where the real army is. It's not here. So here you get a command, put away the sword, right? And then a warning, doesn't live by the sword, will die by the sword, right? So this should be enough, right? But we'll give you a little more. Jesus and Pilate. So John's account, they're having a conversation, right? So he's king bounced around all these trials. And so Pilate asks him, Jesus, Are you the king of the Jews? Right? Is this your question, or did others tell me? Tell you about me? Am I a Jew? Pilate retorted, your own people and their leading priest brought you to me for trial. Why? What have you done? John, 1836 Jesus answered, My kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. Think more people need to hear that. Like my kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were, my followers would fight. They would fight in an earthly kingdom, just contrasting earthly and heavenly things to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my kingdom is not of this world, right? This is what you do here. That's not the whole different program up there, right? So if we keep reading, we get even more clarification, right?
So just really quick in this here, I'm just going to give you a quick overview. If we get past the Gospels, there we go into acts, acts as a history of the early church if you're new, right? So it documents a lot of this whole long history of the early church, and you just see it over and over again. Gamaliel, so he is like Saul's later. Paul Saul, he says he learned to defeat right? So smart guy, but exactly what Jesus predicts happens to the apostles, right? So they're arrested and everything, and then they're put before this religious council to make things simple for trial. Well, this guy, Gamaliel, he gives some advice. He's smart. He's like, listen this guy through this like other people, you know, if what they're all about is wrong, it's going to come to an end. But if it's really from God, you're going to find yourself fighting against God. So then this happens right the others accept the advice. They call the Apostles in they have them flogged, flogged. They're beaten like horribly like beaten. The reaction is they left thy counsel, rejoicing, rejoicing, rejoicing that God had counted them worthy to suffer disgrace. They're humiliated, joyful about it, no retaliation. Why? Finally, they're getting it. That's what this means. They're getting it like they're understanding, right? They had an opportunity, and they used it just like Jesus said, Alright, who are these uneducated men? Was the Holy Spirit speaking through them. You might have heard of Steve in chapter six, acts six, one of the first deacons to be chosen. Chapter Seven, he gives, like, this awesome sermon, and he basically covers the whole testament. That's what goes on. But they don't like it, right? You've killed the prophets. So he's, he's, he's accusing the Jewish people rejecting Jesus, right? And they start him death. He's martyred, right? But Lord, don't count this against them. Like, forgive them. He does what Jesus did, right? So he's following you. I know this is unjust. I'm dying, but forgive them. So he does right. So the reaction chapter eight, what happens? They flee. They do exactly what Jesus said. They get scattered, right? They're not like, let's get an army. Let's avenge Stephen. No, like, not at all. It's not in there. Here, right? So then, if we keep going acts 12, James of James and John James is killed by the sword. What do they do? Retaliate? Nope, nope. So Peter put in prison. Did they get an army to break him out? Nope, they prayed. They prayed an angel broke him out. That's what happened. Imagine that like God, maybe he's more powerful than us. Just a thought, right? So they pray him out, right? They didn't raise an army to save Peter. It continues like Paul flogged again with silence, right? He's thrown in prison. The stocks beaten. Do they retaliate? No, they worship. They worship in the inner dungeon. So they're imagine being a cold dungeon. Be complaining. They're not complaining, they're worshiping and they literally bring the house down, the chains come off. And what happens? If you're a Roman soldier, you're watching the prisoners, and you let them go, they're going to kill you. So the guard goes to kill himself, and Paul is like, no, don't do that. What does Paul do? Kill him? No, he converts him. So that's the important thing. He's interested in, that conversion there, right? And the whole thing ends, Paul's taken into custody. It's unjust. It's unfair. He's kept in custody for like, two years, right? Guys feels and Felix and Festus like this guy's waiting for a bribe doesn't get. It's unfair. Paul just keeps preaching the gospel to him, right? So Paul is shipwrecked. He's in custody. All these terrible things happen to him, and then finally, it ends with him being put in, like a Roman prisoner, and like, house arrest, right? That's it. There's no retaliation. There's no save Paul. There's no let's like, you know, and board the boat and, you know, pirate movie or something. It's not there. It's just not there. Romans, right? So if we go on over to Romans, so the whole point of Romans is unity and peace in the church. You have these ethno religious kind of groups, the Jews and Gentiles, they've come together. They're Christians now, but they're still arguing about it, right? So Paul levels the playing field. All have sinned. You're all a bunch of sinners. Stop it, right? And furthermore, because all this theology and stuff, he's like Parakalo Greek, I plead with you to make your bodies a living sacrifice. What? Alright. So there we go. He continues, right? Romans, 1214, Bless those who persecute you. Sound like somebody else, yeah, don't curse them. Pray that God will bless them. Be happy with those who are happy and weep for those who weep, live in harmony with each other. Don't be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people, and don't think you know it all. Never pay back even with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see your honorable. Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone, dear friends. Never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say, I will take revenge. I will pay them back, says the Lord. Instead, if your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals of shame on their heads. Don't let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good. So Don't lump burning coals on anyone's head, right? So it's just another it's like the sword guys. Okay, so, yes, I heat up some. No, you're missing the point, right? So interesting. A lot of flipping the script there. But what's interesting about this? He's quoting Deuteronomy in the first case, right? And then it's proverbs 25 in the second. So it's kind of interesting there. He's bringing some Old Testament stuff in and showing how, hey, this works with what we're doing, right? Work at peace forever for with everyone, right? Don't repay evil, for you conquer evil. How fight fire with fire? No. Conquer evil by doing good by doing the exact opposite. That's how you do it, right? We're getting it? Alright. Then it goes on. People hate Romans 13, because it says to honor the governing authorities and pay your taxes. Yeah. So First Peter, very, very easy. You didn't like that. So First Peter, something very, very similar in first Peter 213, for the Lord's sake, submit to all human authority, whether King, as head of state, or the officials he has appointed for the king has sent them to punish those who do wrong and honor those who do right. It is God's will that your honorable lives should silence those ignorant people who make foolish accusations against you. So Peter saying the same thing followed, for you are free and you are God's slave, so don't use your freedom as an excuse to do evil. Respect everyone and love the family of believers. Fear of God. Fear God. Sorry, and respect the king. You, who are slaves, must submit to your Masters With all respect, do what they tell you, not only if they are kind and reasonable, so he knows the excuse that maybe some of you made up in your mind. Well, what if the king is unreasonable, right? What if it's wrong? Well, here we go, not only if they are kind and reasonable, but even if they cruel, for God is pleased when conscious of his will, you patiently endure unjust treatment. Of course, you get no credit for being patient if you're beaten for doing wrong, but if you suffer for doing good and endure it patiently, God is pleased with you, for God called you to do good, even if it means suffering. Just as Christ suffered for you, he is your example, and you must follow in his steps. He never sinned nor deceived anyone. He did not retaliate when he was insulted nor threatened revenge when he suffered. He left his case in the hands of God, who always judges fairly. I think we got enough, right? The defense rests, you know, again and again, endure unjust treatment peacefully, don't retaliate. Wasn't fair. What happened to Jesus? Be like him. Not going to be fair. What happens to you? But your reward is going to be great. It's just, that's it. It's going to surpass anything you can
imagine here. That's the point, right? So just very quickly here again, right? So just in the same way the sword was, like an analogy, an illustration, metaphor, like you have the sword, you have these burning coals, right? So a lot of times in the Bible say things like, people will cite things like, Philippians having courage. Paul tells it to Timothy, like, things like, fight for the faith, you know, fight the fight for the faith, right? Or, you know, the soldier illustrations, or things like that. Like, be a good soldier. You know, here's a First Corinthians, a boxing illustration, right? Those kinds of things. And it's just like, it's sad, because people really lack reading comprehension skills. They didn't do well in English, whatever it is, right? It's really clear that these things are just kind of examples, but people will take and run with it. But when you look at the surrounding context, it's not what it's about, right? So just to address these things, one thing that comes up too, just very, very quickly in Revelation. Revelation is very tricky, because you really do need to understand the Old Testament, how it works. That type of literature can get very confusing. And it's like incredibly important to be familiar with the Greek when you're reading that, you know. So because different translations will put things different ways, which then allow people to kind of go, you know, one way or the other with it, and it's not where it belongs. So people will talk about like these armies in Revelation and Revelation seven, the irony when they bring that up, the Greek word there is, is not necessarily army, it's more like just a multitude of people. And so what John hears is the 144,000 what he turns and sees is a multi ethnic you know, it's not an army. It's a multitude of people. And if you keep reading, you see what happens. They're the people who die in the tribulation. Like, who are these? Those are the ones who died in the tribulation. So, you know, it's completely peaceful. They didn't die fighting. They're just, they're clothed in white, you know, like, so it's just wrong. But when you get to Revelation nine, you know that army there, that's like a demonic army type of thing, 19, probably that multitude, again, you know that army, and that's where the word army is used, but it's a peaceful army. And if you keep reading, you see that Jesus is the one who cuts everybody down, you know? So it's Jesus who wins the fight. That's the point, not us, right? So just to address that, and you'll see a refrain in Revelation, which people don't ever talk about, but it's a refrain revelation. 39 anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand. Anyone who is destined for prison will be taken to prison. Anyone who is destined to die by the sword will die by the sword. This means that God's holy people must endure persecution patiently and remain faithful to what Jesus's commands. Remember what he said, Revelation, 1412, and the refrain again. This means that God's holy people must endure persecution, patiently obeying his commands. There it is, and maintaining their faith in Jesus. What were his commands? Peace, being peaceful, even if it means unjust treatment, is what the Word of God says, not my words God's right. So no retaliation, over and over and over again. Uh, interesting to know. You know these people when they're martyred, right? So later clarifies, beheaded in the Greek, they're beheaded for the faith, and those people get to come up and reign with Jesus. And if you believe it, 1000 years, 1000 years is what it says, right? So you're going to judge the Lord. You're going to get your justice law Right, right? So you're part of there's two resurrections, that resurrection, right? Then another one, right? So you you're first, basically, right? You get beheaded. You die for Jesus. You're first in line, you know. So you see the flip again. It doesn't make sense, like, you know, if I lose my life, I gain it. Oh yeah, that's right, Jesus said that. So my point is the burden of proof is enormous on someone who wants to make any claim for Christian violence, Christian armies, enormous because it just isn't there. It's not there, right? So a person who espouses any teaching calling for Christian violence or some kind of warfare proves, proves they don't understand the language of the Bible, nor the very heart of Christianity. You. Yeah, so, just some application, because I know for a lot of you, it's tough, right? Because, again, that's why I said, what I said about looking at things through a cultural lens. It's a mistake, you know, because we're talking about, you know, difference, like, what are we going to do next? So, you know, some problem just praying about, you know, people give me ideas, but I'm like, ultimately, me ideas, but like, ultimately, I have to pray about it. And I was thinking this would be a great series, Christianity, you're doing it wrong, right? So that's basically it, right? You're not laughing. Okay, we won't go with that title. But anyway, it really is because we've, we've bled so much of our culture into the Bible that we can't tell the difference anymore. And I explained to you how most people read the Bible. So just, oh, yeah, of course, that makes sense, right? How could our government be lying to us, right? Like, how could the media be lying to us? How could our culture, you know, how could anyone in church who just asked for a private jet be wrong, you know? Like, come on. You know what I mean? Like, there's a lot of ways, the majority can be wrong. I'll give you an example. Fast food, alright? Pop music, anyway, right? The popular stuff can be bad, right? So anyway, it's called consumerism, but I want to, I kind of just tell you a little bit to relate to you, right? So you know, I'm totally aware we may have people who are military or ex military police officers. Tony Johnson, right? One of my best buddies, he preaches here isn't any police officer. I get it right. So that's not what this is about, necessarily. I just want to share with you if, if you haven't, if you don't know who I am, my story, I want to give you this story so that you'll understand where I'm coming from. So I wasn't always a pastor, and if that wasn't abundantly clear now it is right. I wasn't always a pastor. I was a lifelong musician, right? So I played lots of different instruments. I still do. I still consider myself a musician, but in order to prove everyone wrong, I became a martial arts professional, right? So I decided I wanted to beat people up for a living. And it was a hobby before that, and it's very hard to understand in today's world what kind of martial arts is. So it was MMA, right? So my specialty was Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. It's just a martial arts, mixed martial arts like and the point of it was the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu guys made up the UFC, the Ultimate Fighting Championship to show that theirs was the best in a one on one fight, you're going to win. And it happened every single time. When I got introduced to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, it talked about humility, right? This was like, it really like the humility, because I was a black belt and other things plural, and I went to my first Brazilian Jiu Jitsu school and got beat, like, over and over again by a white belt. It was really bad. Yeah, it's embarrassing, right? And I was running a school at the time, so I had to, like, take my belt off and start over again. It took me a while, to be honest, but then from that point, it took me 10 years training professionally to earn a black belt that martial arts so hard. It's very hard. Most people, like, we used to sit laugh all the time, like, you know, how long does it take to get a black belt? You failed the first test out? Like, you know, I'm not taking you as a student, and my wife's laughing because, yeah, I, like, really said that to people. You failed the first test took me 10 years. At the time, you know, I was running it as a brown belt, my teachers coming in. But before this MMA thing, they kind of kind of had to regulate it was illegal, actually, in New York when we first started doing it, because they hadn't regulated it. Regulating it means you make a lot of rules. But before that, that's not why I got involved in this stuff for sport Jiu Jitsu. I didn't get involved in, I got involved to do what they called, like Brazil, like valet tudo, right? So it means anything goes is what it literally means. It's like, nhB, like, Oh no, holds barred is on steroids. So you can do anything. It's kind of like, why I can't see how this high real well, like you can do anything you want, and you do it on concrete, anywhere, like you just fought until someone passed out, tapped out, lost a limb, right? So it was that kind of thing, very violent. So I was really into it for self defense, and I did train people for UFC. I've coached UFC fighters, I've done all kinds of things like that, and did the sports stuff and made my champions as a teacher, known more as a teacher than a fighter, but I taught a lot of the bulk of our students from military and police. That's what I taught, because it became the most in fact, the army combatives manual was rewritten because of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. They rewrote the whole thing based on that martial art. That's how good it was. Good it was. So all the military and police officers and bouncers and all those people they would come to learn from me, and so I was very, very good friends with a lot of police officers, military people. I only made four black belts in my entire career. I don't know how long it was, like 1520, years, like whenever only four black belts, and the first two were police officers. So closest people to me were military and law enforcement. I had the opportunity to teach at places like West Point, if you've heard of West Point, like, like, so very, very immersed in that culture, right? So to be clear, just a quick disclaimer. And Christians can participate in martial arts. To be clear, I didn't quit because of the martial arts aspect. I quit because of the pride, the ego and the money that came with it for me, plus I was called in the full time ministry. I don't have time to train. I mean, bear, like my guitar, like I get around to it once in a while, but I don't practice as much as I really would like to, so it's a busy thing, and that's why. But just with that being said, we've
talked about competition and pride in the past. So I just would recommend looking at your motives behind training. If you're going to train in martial arts, just check your heart, as they say, like, look at the MO Why are you doing this? You know what I mean? Just look at the motives, self defense. Nothing wrong with that, especially like in art, like Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, it's meant to, like, really restrain people more than just knock them out. You know, sort of schools we had to bring in, like Muay Thai and boxing instructors to handle that. That end of it, right? So it's about restraining which is why police love it, right? Because they can restrain people. The other thing to consider, too, that a lot of people don't know about me, actually, I don't really put it out. There's no reason to, is, I was heavily immersed in a gun culture. I grew up in a gun culture. My dad would take me hunting and stuff. So I grew up around guns, very much into that. And that continued. And when my wife was like, You need hobbies, I was like, oh, guns, you know, so I'll do something safe. I'll do that so, but because of this military and law enforcement that really came into play, right? Because this is real. It's not a sport. And so they'd say, gee, you know, what do we do if you know someone has to stab me? What do you do if someone shoots me? And so I did a lot of, like, if you're into guns, you'll appreciate it. A lot of three gun training. So you know, you'll do pistol, rifle, shotgun, and you learn how to transition, and go through all these different courses and stuff. So I'd work with the military people. I'd work with the law enforcement people, and then every day, every day, except the weekends, Monday through Friday, I would go to the skeet range. Why? Because people move. And so you want to learn how to shoot moving people, right? So you do skeet. And so it's really good with the shotgun, right? Because they do, they don't just always freeze, right? So you got to shoot them. Hopefully the back doesn't turn. There's a whole other thing. So anyway, ski every day, every single day. If you ask my wife, what do you do if you're a gun owner, responsible gun owner, after you come back from the range, you clean all your weapons. You make sure they're all clean. They're oiled up, everything's good to go, right? And so I could probably field strip a 1911 now, if you know what I'm talking about, good for you. It's not just a 45 right? So 1911 is awesome, right? So I collected those. I had a bunch of those, and asked my wife, the place smelled like a gun store. It was crazy. Always guns around, always guns around. And here's the thing, I still, I don't own as many guns. Sold them when I got in ministry, but I kept a couple. And I'll be very honest with you, this is coming from me. I'm not talking about anyone else. I'm still heavily conflicted about it, because I know what the Bible says, right? So like, martial arts, if you're going to go to the skeet range, pistol range, you're going to go shooting or whatever. It's an okay, hob, it's fine. So again, the reason I don't shoot ski here anymore, it's too hot. You're crazy. Like, no way. It's got the ears on the hat and everything. It's too much. Right? It's too far away, and again, no time. But remember, my application was not to, like, go and shoot skied or something. I was training to kill people or to teach other people how to kill people. That was my application, right? That's, that's what it meant to me. And when I look at this, there's a problem. It's just being totally honest. And this is me. This is just on me. Alright, I needed to pump the brakes on because there's just simply nothing in here. Nothing in here is a Christian that would ever justify that. Nothing. It's not there. And trust me, I read this a lot, it's not there. So that is when we look at the New Testament again. We're looking at it through the right lens. Right? What defines Christianity? The conclusion of the Bible, the truth, the truth. And if you're new here today, and this is difficult, welcome. My name is Jean, and I teach the truth when I'm here, if you're talking to me there, nah. You know, sometimes it's just most a bunch of sarcasm. It's just a string of lies and sarcasm. But when I but when I'm here, it's the truth, right? So so that you get where I'm coming from, I preach the truth, right? I study the word you know. So I'm only going to give you that right, and some really bad jokes. So if your military, your police, you're from that background, or even a gun culture. Look, I'm here to say, I get it. We come from the same place. I totally understand, right? And as a note, I appreciate you and your service absolutely right? But it's not really what we're talking about. See, that's your personal choice. This is my personal choice. It's my interpretation, slight one. But anyway, other people have other and I get that, all right, non denominational, fine, you know, I get it. But what I would encourage you is that you think about what you might be called. Called to do in that position. So I only encourage it. Read this a lot and think about what you might be called to do, and does it line up? That's it. When I thought about it, I was like, No, it doesn't work. They don't reconcile, right? So there's really no justification for violence. If you want to use the Bible for that, as a Christian, it's not there again, wrong, religion, right? So we don't always like it, but at the end of the day, the truth is, all that really matters, no matter how much it hurts, right? It stings. Sometimes we don't like it, but our culture doesn't really matter, right? Our opinions really don't matter.
The Word of God is really what matters so, and that's the only pure truth we have. So what changed, right? Well, when I did the opposite of what
the world told me to do, and when I did what the word told me to do, that's when things change, right? So when I went to God and just surrendered, being really surrendered, not like, oh God, you know, I trust you, but I got it, you know, no, when I just like, I'm done, okay, okay, I'm done, right? This is not working. I'm done. Well, that happened. What did the prophets predict? Right? That heart of stone would go to a heart of flesh, right? I'll give you a new spirit, right? I'll put the law in your heart. That's what happened. That's how that happens when you really surrender to him, he comes in there, right? When you stop fighting and fighting and fighting. Just okay, I'm done, like face on the floor, kind of moment, right? So that's what happens. That's what the prophets are saying. That's what the New Testament is saying. It's going to get in there, what Jesus saying, parable The Sower, and you're going to start to produce good fruit. It's going to happen when the word is really in there. It's planted in there. And the key here is the Holy Spirit
just I don't understand. Let me know, right? The Holy Spirit made me realize that the real war was inside me. That's where it was. Until you resolve this conflict, you're no good to anybody. The real war was inside myself, that's what I saw, right? And it's only one that the Holy Spirit can win. That's it. You're not even going to win. It All. Glory to God, right?
He'll change you, and you'll produce fruit. And so last week we looked like judging a tree by its fruit, the fruit that we produce. So I'll take you to Galatians five. I go there a lot. It's, it's really some pivotal scripture. I think it's like better than anything else, but it just, it's just amazing. So I'm going to put it on a chart. I'm going to show you this chart today, and so that you can visualize, you can see things. So what you're seeing here is, you're seeing the opening verses, you're seeing the closing verses, right? And then you're seeing, you know, two columns. So you have the depending on which way you are, you see you have, like, the, I would say, the fruit of the flesh, right? So a lot and fruit, as Jesus would say, right? The bad tree fruit. But it's just sin of the flesh. That's what it is. It's sin of the flesh. If you anyone need to see some cameras going up, I know you're not taking pictures of me. So if you need this, most of you, I saw the cameras go up. I have your number. If you need it, text me and I'll, I'll just, I'll send you the chart if you really want it, right? So I make these things. I don't expect anyone cares anyway. So that's the sin of the flesh. And so when you look at it, that's what that is. So this is all the sinful things, and then the fruit of the Spirit. And so this ties very well into what Jesus is saying. So I, you know, I'm not going to say who, but someone corrected me, my wife, when I said that. You know, this is the fruit of the flesh. But she's like, No, say fruit. And she's a great reader, right? But when you put it together with everything, rotten fruit, a good tree can't produce bad fruit. You know, bad tree can't produce good fruit. So when you pull it into what Jesus is saying, I'm not going to say my wife is wrong. Alright, then you'll see what I'm seeing, because I'm just getting myself in a lot of trouble. So anyway, we joke, we kid. So let's just look at the setup. Let's look at the setup. Alright, what do we have here? The sinful nature. Here's the war. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what spirit wants, and the Spirit gives us desires that he the opposite what the sinful nature desires. Now look at this. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you're not free to carry out your good intentions, right? So this is but that struggles good, right? That struggle. Someone came to me, like, I struggle, I struggle with this. I'm like, good. Because if you didn't struggle with anything, there's no Holy Spirit in there fighting the sinful nature. So that war, that conflict, is good, good, because the Holy Spirit's in there. He's doing his job, right? He's bringing conflicts to mind. Yes, good. Like something's happening. So it's actually a good thing, right? Not that you want to, like, stay in. That state, but good, especially initially. Now we have those columns, right? So, bad, bad, good, right? So notice the sin of the flesh. They're all these like things, these self idolatrous things and violent things, right? So in particular, hostility, quarreling, anger, outburst of anger, but anger, right? One of the seven deadly sins, as they say, division, right? Dissension and scary line. Scary line should scare you. Those live that kind of life will not inherit the kingdom of God. Ah, yeah, it's there, right? So that's the truth. Now the fruit of the Spirit, it's the opposite. Notice that love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and gentleness, right among them, right? Truthfulness, goodness, self control. So all those things good. So wait, what does Jesus say? What is you know, Paul saying that when we let the Holy Spirit in, we start exhibiting more of the good fruit, which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, self control, right? So you're just going to do that. And what? Less of the bad things, less of the outburst of anger, the violence, all that other stuff. And I can tell you again, you know, I was a very violent person, right? Very violent. You know, it was that, like, smash things guy, that was me, right? I just wanted to be violent. A lot of anger. I can just honestly tell you, most of it's gone. That's just not really the way I typically respond to things anymore. It's been healed. And it's not to boast, it's in the Lord who won the fight, not me, right? I don't have a black belt and being awesome here, you know, like I do, but, but anyway, all, all glory to God, make sure you're paying attention. You guys get quiet once in a while, I wonder. But you get my point, right? So not that old man anymore. I'm not that person anymore. It's not me. It's just not it's by I'm trying to operate by the power of God here. God does it. That's the point. And you identify a Christian a tree by its fruit, this type of behavior. So it begins when you let this gospel message make its way from like the head knowledge to your heart. And that only comes through surrenders nothing you can do. You can't do anything but nothing. Right, give it to him, and it's a long journey for some, but that's what we have to do, right? We have to turn that let the Lord work on us, get that heart of stone turned into a heart of flesh, so the word can get in there and take deep roots and begin to grow and produce all that for and we do, we see less of that anger, that hostility. It's called progressive sanctification, if anyone's interested, right? So sometimes it just doesn't happen all at once, but we're sanctified, we're made holy, and we're closer to God as we progress along in our walk. But you know, come as you are, yes, but don't stay as you are. Let's come on. Let the Lord do his work in there, right? And one of the things people overlook is the fruit of the Spirit's Faithfulness. Faithfulness, you know, it's just they read it and they don't think about it, faith, right? We need to have faith. And what does that mean? We talked about this in the past, like in faith, it means like the unseen, right? That's what faith is. All about the unseen, not about the stuff that we can control, nothing. It has to do all with the Lord just having faith, faith that he's got it, right? We don't need to bring the justice. We're no like, you know you're self righteous, right? If you think you're this champion of justice and you're going to fix the world, like, have faith that God's just a little more powerful than you. You think you know what I mean. Like, stop it. And that's what happens when we begin to have the fruit of the Spirit, which is faith too. Like, I know you got this, Lord, there's a reason this is happening, and I don't need to know That's faith. I don't need to know I'm good, right? And I've heard this illustration in the past, and as a close give you some other things here, but you know, it's, it's kind of like, you know, I just don't know if your experience, if this resonates, might be with your mama. For me, it was my dad, right? You know, faith, a childlike faith, right? It didn't matter where my dad was going. I was just happy to just go with him. And he had this. And if you're old like me, you remember, like, GMC had that problem where they rusted out in the 70s, and get in his truck and there'd be a hole. It's like the Flintstones, like, is this where my feet go, you know? But they would, and you could die, right? So you did, but it didn't matter. Like, I just got in that truck, you know, my mom was like, ah, like, it didn't care. But no seat belt. It didn't matter. Dad screaming at people, even tools at him. He was crazy. And I was just like, This is great. You know, it's like, in reality, I look back at that, I was like, I was in a lot of danger, like, it was really bad, right? But you just, you just go where Daddy's taking you. That's what Jesus. Swamp, not you in a busted vehicle, pickup truck, necessarily, but that's what Jesus is asking us to be right? Yes, daddy, just go wherever you go. I don't care, right? Even the doubters, like mom doesn't matter. Just keep going like she has no faith, right? I'm getting myself in trouble with all the women now. So, but anyway, self control, fruit of the Spirit, right there, showed you. So anyway, you get my point, right? I'll go with you, dad. It doesn't matter whether there's risk to life and limb. Doesn't matter. Just don't care anymore. You just want to be with you, and that makes me happy, right? We live in faith. When we let go of all this stuff, this anger, we begin to live by faith, and it just brings joy to any situation you really can. So if you're dying, don't have me around, because I make like I just the jokes don't stop. And for your death, it doesn't and so I'm probably like, the wrong person to you. But anyway, we have that faith that Jesus will bring us back to the garden, back to paradise. Right now, why I want to close here is on some scripture, just so we get our minds right. And if we go to Hebrews, that's like, really the best commentary in the New Testament, in the Old Testament. The point is, in Hebrews is Jesus is superior to everything, alright? So that's the theme of the book, you know, just to kind of consolidate that for you, superior to the prophets the angels. He's the superior son, right? He's so you're like brothers and sisters again. Chapter Three, He's superior to Moses. He superior to Joshua. Chapter four, five through seven, He's superior to the priesthood and Melchizedek and even greater priests than the priesthood of Levi, right? He's the mediator of a superior covenant in chapters eight through 10, where quotes Jeremiah 31 right in there, we are under a new and better covenant, because Jesus is superior to everything, basically in the Old Testament. So we live by faith, disciplined lives, because Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever. Within that we see how a truly changed heart reacts to opposition. Hebrews 1032 think back on those early days when you first learned about Christ. Remember how you remained. There's the word faithful, even though it meant terrible suffering. Sometimes you were exposed to public ridicule and were beaten, and sometimes you helped others were suffering the same thing you suffered alone. Those were thrown into jail, and when all you owned was taken from you, you accepted it with joy. You know there are better things waiting for you that will last forever.
So now throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you. Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God's will, then you will receive all that He has promised for in just a little while, the coming one will come and not delay, and my righteous ones will live by faith, but I will take no pleasure in anyone who turns away. We're not like those who turn away from God to their own destruction. We are the faithful ones whose souls will be saved. We must remain faithful, even if it means terrible suffering. Sometimes we're exposed to public ridicule. We don't repay with insult. Sometimes we're beaten. We don't repay it. We do not retaliate. We may suffer and have everything we own taken from us, but we don't want it back, right? Because there's a greater reward. We accept it with joy. We know there are better things than even those things we lost waiting for us in heaven. This is Faith. So I just want to pray for you guys, just kind of some thoughts here, just especially for those of you who want to see that fruit in your lives, right? So if, if you're just done, are you done yet with what the world is trying to offer you or sell you? Are you done? If you're done with the anger, you're done with the hostility, and you want joy this, this is what I want for you. I just pray that those who are seeking peace would find the peace through Jesus and just Lord, open their hearts as my prayer, open their hearts truly, surrender them to you, and have that faith that Jesus will come back. Have that faith that Jesus is going to bring the justice. Have faith in that. Believe that That's my prayer. Have faith in His justice, not ours, his give us the self control in the face of insults and injury, patience. And that anticipation endurance while we wait in our trials and just to have true love and compassion for those for whom Jesus died, I pray for the faith to just remember the great reward it brings us. And as the Scriptures say, patient endurance is what we need now, so that we will continue to do God's will for in just a little while, Jesus, the coming One, will come and not delay, maranatha, amen