Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church
Pastor Dennis Tuuri

Sermon text today is found in John chapter 8 verses 21 through 32. John 8:21-32. Please stand for the reading of the King’s word. Gospel of John beginning in chapter 8 verse 21. Hear the word of the Lord.

And Jesus said to them again, I am going away and you will seek me and will die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come. So the Jews said, will he kill himself? Because he says, where I go, you cannot come.

And he said to them, you are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world. Therefore, I said to you that you will die in your sins. For if you do not believe that I am he, you will die in your sins. Then they said to him, “Who are you?” And Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been saying to you from the beginning. I have many things to say and to judge concerning you, but he who sent me is true, and I speak to the world those things which I heard from him.” They did not understand that he spoke to them of the Father.

Then Jesus said to them, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing of myself. But as my Father taught me, I speak these things, and he who sent me is with me. The Father has not left me alone, for I always do those things that please him.” As he spoke these words, many believed in him. And then Jesus said to those Jews who believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for the light of your word and for the light of the Holy Spirit. Now illuminate our hearts, Lord God, with light that we might comprehend the greatness and vastness of our salvation and of our liberty in the Lord Jesus Christ. Help us, Father, to rejoice today in the resurrection power of the Lord Jesus. Thank you for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit because of the hour of his glorification.

And now may the spirit, Lord God, teach us and may we be submissive to you, your spirit teaching us this word. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen. Please be seated.

This is of course the celebration of Resurrection Sunday, a day of great joy, great trumpeting forth of the good news of the ascension of the Savior King to the throne, of his resurrection from the dead, of him releasing us from the bondage of sin, of him removing the fear of death which according to Hebrews enslaves us, has enslaved us apart from his work.

The wonderful news of the adoption of the children of God by the Father. Us who are isolated, alone, alienated, feeling no love ultimately from God being cut off from the sins of Adam are now brought near through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we have relationship with God the Father. We are assured of our entrance into the family of God. And all this is accomplished because of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross and in his resurrection.

More than that, we have seen in the gospel of John that what is happening in the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ and his death and his resurrection and ascension is nothing less than a new creation in the beginning. The way this gospel begins. The Resurrection Sunday celebrations must be times of great festivity and joy. The power of God is fully revealed. There is no more historical event in the history of the world more important, significant, or joyous or triumphant than this day that we remember the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, the justification of God’s people being brought into his family, the declaration that he now is our Father in heaven and he will deal with all of our enemies—whether there are the seven tribes of the Canaanites that we see round about us as it were, in the same way that the Israelites saw them as they went into the promised land—or whether it’s the seven deadly sins that lie in our heart, our Father is in the process of removing those enemies and making us victorious over them.

This is a day of great power, victory, joy, and fulfillment. And we live in the context of a culture that celebrates all of that with little bunnies hopping along innocuously, going searching for eggs. We don’t know why. Little symbols of spring and life naturally springing forth from the world, the natural powers of nature to procreate and to have life. There is no such natural power in nature to have true life.

We have seen that the Lord Jesus Christ has declared himself to be the light of the world. And that outside of the Lord Jesus Christ and the light of life, there is no life. There is only death. Now, that’s the contrast that happens as a Christian church celebrates Resurrection Sunday in the face of a culture that increasingly has moved away from any thought of the Lord Jesus Christ on this day and moves instead to natural powers and innocuous little bunnies hopping about.

Now, if you use bunnies or eggs today, I’m not trying to make you feel bad about that, but certainly tell your children the wonderful news of this day, the good news of the risen Savior accomplishing all these things for our deliverance.

We’re in that section of John’s gospel where this light of the world has come and now starts to shine. And we said that where this sits in the context of the new creation going on in John’s gospel, this is fourth day sort of stuff. This is designated ruler, lampstand time in the gospel of John. The fourth day—the sun is created to rule the day and the night’s created to rule the night, or the moon rather is created to rule the night and the stars are made heavenly rulers. It’s why in our flags we have stars and suns and moons representing power. It’s delegation of authority. The Lord Jesus Christ comes as the light of the world to bring to pass children of light, sons of light.

We went over that last week. You are to be those lamps and shining in the midst of this world. You are to be God’s people shining in the context of an otherwise dark day. We said that light, as one commentator said, is Yahweh in action. And if you’re to be children of light, you’re to be men and women, boys and girls of action, diligently pursuing the gospel of the Lord with claims in every area of life and thought.

What do we have for Passion Week now? We used to have commemorations of Passion Week—Monday, Thursday, Good Friday, Palm Sunday—the week given apart to a consideration of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ for his people and the empowerment of them to be lights in the midst of the world. Just as we had the bunny instead of the resurrection Savior, now we have spring break, not Easter vacation, not resurrection vacation. We have spring break.

This is a time to kick back. It’s time to party. Go get drunk. Go have loose sex. Go have bad sex instead of the good sex God says in the context of marriage. Kick back, man. You deserve it. You deserve a break today. Well, I think that we’re called to be men and women of action. We’re not supposed to be slothful sluggards. There is a time for rest. There are periods of vacation in the Old Testament cycle, but there are periods that always in the midst of the celebration of the word of God being taught, of focusing on what Jesus has accomplished in his coming or what they look forward to being accomplished. That’s to be at the heart of our celebrations.

I’m going to kick back this afternoon with some friends. And you know, Sunday afternoon is a day of new creation. It’s like heaven to me most of the time when I’m with friends, sitting around enjoying the rest that the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished. Rest is good. But spring break, I think, is a picture of the slothfulness of much of our generation. The generation that’s coming up now, they don’t want to work. The whole point is to work as little as possible so you can get as much time as possible off.

We are to be dominion men and women, shining as lights and rulers in the midst of an otherwise dark age. We’re to be governing this place. We’re to be remaking the face of Arrakis. It’s a reference to Dune. It’s why I put it in the outline again to tell you about that. The Fremen, right, in the novel Dune and the movie Dune, they remake the face of Arrakis. They take resources. They, as wise stewards, the water of the planet, and as Fremen, they remake the face of Arrakis.

We take the free men. The Lord Jesus Christ says that as a result of his going away, his departure on the cross, his being lifted up, he says that if you believe in me that the truth, you’ll know the truth and the truth will make you free—free men, free men and women. And that freedom is to be used to serve God in the power of the resurrection and to extend the manifestation of the crown rights of King Jesus, his reign in the context of our world.

This scripture, this gospel rather, opened by saying that as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name. That’s us, dearly beloved in the Lord. We’re called to be those delegated, designated rulers, the lampstands reflecting the light of the Lord Jesus Christ. We’re called to be men and women of action. We are called to be diligent and not slothful. We’re called to rejoice in our work and in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

God says this is a wonderful day to remind us of what’s going on. You know, it probably seems a little silly to you guys sitting down, standing up, sitting down, standing up for that song we just sang, but that was to capture the whole movement of Psalm 22, which is the center of the first book of the psalter, the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The movements were not a mistake. They were to show you the transition in that psalm from death to resurrection. Elder Wilson read those death-like portions in solemn tones and then burst forward into the resurrection. That’s what that psalm is all about. And we tend not to realize that. We tend just to become numbed. We tend to think of the gospel as some sort of intellectual or spiritual exercise unrelated to the rest of our work-a-day world.

But when we have you physically do things—stand up, sit down, come forward for the offering, raise your hands—it’s a reminder that as you are men and women in action today, that’s what you’re to be as light for the Lord Jesus Christ and his children shining into the context of this otherwise dark world. Praise God for this day. Praise God for the rest that we can be empowered to rise ourselves up. And when we sin and get humbled down again, entering into the sufferings of the Savior, then we can confess those sins and rise up in newness of light to shine where the Lord Jesus Christ has put us.

We shine reflecting the heavenly pattern. Jesus is from above. He goes back to above after his resurrection and ascension. He communicates to us the life of him, the risen Savior, by means of the spirit. We see that heavenly pattern reflected in his word, and we’re to take that pattern and to bring it into all the world, reflecting his light in the context of the world.

I mentioned the treasury last week. Jesus says he’s the light of the world and it says that he made that declaration in the treasury. Well, we’ve got a treasury today. The treasury was a place of 13 boxes set up for special offerings. We’ve got your normal tithe box. We’ve got your building fund box. You put money in there to retire the debt on this building which we want to keep before us—getting rid of that debt. We’re supposed to be free men and liberty in terms of what we do here as well, in terms of ownership.

We’ve got these two special treasury boxes set up to give benevolences as we come forward to receive the grace of God in communion. He says, “Be gracious. Freely you’ve been given. Freely you’ve received rather. Freely give. Help people. Extend that mercy out.” Listening to the last part of Deacon Hoover’s benevolence class—word and deed. That’s what we’re supposed to be. Deed is right here: putting money in the benevolence boxes to help people, to extend out the light of Christ to those who dwell in darkness.

We got another treasury box downstairs for the next three weeks so that when Eli and I can go to Poland, we’ll bring light of the word. We’ll also bring the deeds of this people, rewarded by God with money. We’ll take money over to impoverished churches over there to help them do ministry activities and to be light in the context of their world as well. I strongly encourage you to take advantage of the offering boxes today and particularly the offering for the mission work going to Poland that we might show our church not to be a church that just goes over and teaches but that we would do deeds representing the Lord Jesus Christ as well.

Money now, young men and women going over to do mission work in various ways. That’s our goal. Well, that was the treasury.

Another reference to the treasury here is back in Nehemiah. Nehemiah said that in the chambers of God’s temple, wicked men were set up. And Nehemiah had all their stuff thrown out of the chambers of the temple that was being constructed. Jesus Christ, before he says he’s the light of the world, shines light on some Pharisees who are misusing a woman in wicked, sinful ways. And Jesus cast the light of the temple, of the tabernacle, of the lampstand rather, upon them and declared as God had declared to Belshazzar that their kingdom was being removed. I think we can understand that from the text. He cast judgment upon certain men, and those who had stayed with him acknowledging their sin, he received, and then said to go and sin no more.

Well, here I think when Jesus says these things—”I am the light of the world. I am the lampstand”—it’s a reminder again that no matter what authority is established in church or state, if it is not consistent with the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, history is about the replacing of those men and women, the tossing out by the greater Nehemiah of those who would dwell in the places of authority that correctly belong to the people of God as the children of light.

The treasury is a reminder to us that as we’re called to exercise the freedom of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is to the end that we would be diligent rulers for him, shining his lights in the context of the world and that God would put us in positions of authority to tame, so to speak, those people that are outside the Lord Jesus Christ, to funnel their actions for kingdom purposes as opposed to for wicked purposes.

We are to rule as priests, correctly dedicating the things that God has given to us to be bringers of light to darkness. Again, the benevolence efforts of the church—a consecration of a portion of our goods and services to shine as lights for Jesus as we minister benevolences in a biblical fashion. We’re to be shepherd kings, as it were, of Christ, as children of light in this section. As Jesus declared himself in chapter nine to be the shepherd, the lamp of Israel, the greater lamp replacing the lesser lamp David. Jesus is a light in darkness but he shines as the shepherd king as well. And we’re to do that. We’re to shepherd people. We’re to bring them into the household of faith.

Last Thursday—Maundy Thursday. Monday from the Latin word, the same word we get our commandment from or mandate: mandi. Law Thursday is another way to say it. Why is it called Maundy Thursday? Because Jesus gathered his family together at that Passover feast and he gave them a new commandment to love one another. He washed their feet. And that’s what Maundy Thursday services frequently do—they remind people of the love we’re to have for one another by the washing of feet. Now, maybe you wash your family members’ feet. You certainly do for the little guys. It’s pretty tough to wash each other’s feet as adults, but it’s something that God says is a good thing to do to remind us that we’ve been incorporated into the family of God. And this is where light is. This is where the source for our light is. This is how we go out and shine into the world.

We watched What About Bob? last Thursday night, a movie about a Freudian psychiatrist who’s trying to help some guy who’s really messed up and also kind of funny. The psychiatrist’s two children are named what? Anna and Sigmund, obviously a reference to Freud. And he can’t help this guy. But the way he does help him is this: the guy incorporates himself into the psychiatrist’s family. He becomes part of the guy’s family. He won’t leave him alone. Hangs around with them, vacations with them. And as a result, Bob does all kinds of things that he never could have done before. Bob is brought to freedom. How? Through incorporation into the household.

Baptism is a picture of that. All of us are messed up in many ways. God says he’s going to heal us, not through psychoanalysis. He’s going to heal us and make us light-bearers by bringing us into the family, the extended family of the church. We’re to be those kind of people. We’re to be evangelists and prophets.

Jesus is the light of the world. He raises Lazarus from the dead, a picture of salvation, going from darkness to light, death to resurrection. As we take the word of God and as we work on the basis of what he’s given us to proclaim and to do, God says that is effectual work.

I heard a false gospel song this last week from my teenage years. I spent late early 70s in San Francisco in the aftermath of the hippie revolution or whatever you call it. And I heard a song this last week. “Long Time Gone” is actually the name of the song. I put “long time coming” on the outline. I thought, you know, the metaphor of light is so often used in songs and it’s used in that song as well. It goes, “It’s going to be a long, long time before the dawn.” The lyric goes, “Surely he said there’s something going on here. Hear what the people are saying. You know, there’s something that’s going on around here that surely, surely won’t stand the light of day.”

Right? This is about the counterculture movement in the late ’60s. And then the implication, the exhortation of the song is to speak your mind out, but don’t get yourself elected because if you do, you’ll have to cut your hair. All right? And then the song concludes by saying that the darkest hour is always just before the dawn. So this was a song of a false gospel that said the darkness of the world is, you know, conservative Christian culture and we want to speak out against the injustice of the world, but you got to be careful that you don’t look at politics as the final solution because politics is compromised.

But you do want to bring light to a darkened world. Well, you know, that’s a false gospel, but it reflects much of the truth of what this section of John’s gospel says. Jesus Christ is saying that there’s many things going on in the context of the temple and its broader environments that will not stand the light of day. And there is much that goes on in this world today that will not stand the light of day.

The kind of polytheistic gods that are now worshiped in our culture—the Jewish faith, the Christian faith—we just all need to get along and accept each other’s prophets. That will not stand the light of day. That is darkness. And it’s darkness that we’re supposed to speak out against. We are supposed to use our words, our mouths to preach forth the good news of Jesus as it relates to these kind of events.

And when we speak out the word of God, it is the word of power. You—Dune reference again, right? The Weirding modules, words of power. Your voice is what shatters the powers of darkness around us. Now, I would say word plus deed. We want to throw that in as Dave H. did at the end of his class this morning in the benevolence class. It’s word and deed. We’re not out there to kill people. We’re out there to redeem people. We’re not out there to condemn this world as our Savior wasn’t there to judge the world. Ultimately, he’s there to save the world. And that’s what we’re going to be doing. We’re supposed to speak forth, shine forth as lights. And God says when we do that, we have words of power to change the culture.

God says that he’s bringing about—whether we’ve gone into darkness as a culture—he’s bringing the light of day again through the proclamation of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in its full context.

Now, part of that word that we speak that changes the world is the words that we sort of left last week’s sermon with where Jesus tells people who will not believe on him, who are willfully ignorant, are enslaved to sin and death. He tells them, “You’ll seek me. You shall die in your sins. Where I go, you cannot come.” Part of our word to the culture around us must be a call for them to consider their eternal destinies.

I know some of the young people are still scratching their heads all week about one of the questions on the children’s outline. Who’s this Stace guy? The Stacy, this Arthur Stace. What’s the word he wrote? Well, he lived in the late 1800s, early 1900s in Sydney, Australia. He was a drunk who became a Christian. And after he was saved, he took it upon himself to walk around for 30 odd years around Sydney, Australia, where he lived. And he would write, or whatever it was, the word “Eternity.” Eternity. He wrote it over half a million times in the course of his life in Sydney, Australia.

Now, this is kind of contemporary stuff. The last time the Olympics were in Australia a few years back, they actually showed in Sydney, Australia—one of the streets has now a sign on it that says “Eternity.” It’s a reminder of the history of Sydney, Australia. But it’s Arthur Stace who wrote that. Why did he write that? Because he knew that the last thing men want to think about is the consideration of their eternal destinies. What happens when they die? He knows that we live in a modern culture that tries to put images of death as far away from us as we can. But we need to think about death. It’s why Good Friday is a good time to celebrate, to think about, meditate on the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and his death.

I tried to get my family to watch Wit this Good Friday, but they were having none of it. We watched a different movie still along the same lines, but Wit is a movie, a contemporary movie. Emma Thompson’s in it, about a woman who is a professor of English literature and specifically specializing in 17th century poetry and very specifically specializing in the works of John Donne. Now, John Donne was—probably many of you have heard of him—was a Puritan poet and became pastor or preacher. And Donne has written a number of excellent poems about his love for God, wonderful poems, and one of them particularly was the focus of this movie, Wit.

The poem is called “Death Be Not Proud,” and if there’s ever a good occasion to quote from that poem it is today, on the day of Resurrection. It is a way to remind ourselves of what Arthur Stace reminded the people in Sydney, Australia—of eternity, of death. What is it about? The whole movie—the woman has got cancer. She’s diagnosed with cancer. Very first scene, the entire movie is her dying and she dies. But the movie shows how she becomes more human through her suffering, how she comes to understand death—certainly not as insignificant to our lives, but in the context in which it should be found.

John Donne’s poem, “Death Be Not Proud,” is cited several times in the movie, and I’m going to read it here. It’s only 14 lines long. Here’s the poem from John Donne:

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so. For those whom thou thinkest thou dost overthrow, die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow. And soonest our best men with thee do go, rest of their bones and souls’ delivery. Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, and dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, and poppy or charms can make us sleep as well, and better than thy stroke. Why swell’st thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally, and death shall be no more. Death, thou shalt die.

You see, Donne’s poem is a celebration of Resurrection Sunday. It’s a celebration. The Lord Jesus Christ has put death to death for those that are called, for those who believe that he is indeed Yahweh. He is the God of all eternity. He is the second person of the Trinity who came to suffer death for us that we might not die. And so death, while looked upon as some great power in the eyes of the world, death is not that for us. Death is a transition.

The movie really centered on the last line and really it’s kind of this last four stanzas: “One short sleep past, we wake eternally, and then in parallel fashion—’death shall be no more’; semicolon; “Death, thou shalt die.” And in the movie, Emma Thompson’s teacher says that semicolon is wrong. But another scholar has determined that really the proper punctuation that Donne intended there was a comma instead of a semicolon.

Well, what difference semicolon? The difference is that Donne is a Christian man—according to this movie at least—would not have given death a semicolon. As we move from life to eternal life through death, it doesn’t deserve a semicolon. The whole point of the movie is it’s a very little thing as we move from this life to eternity in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s only a comma. It’s only a comma.

Now, the consideration of eternity, putting it in proper perspective, bringing the fear of God to those who want to deny eternity or who have false hopes in some other means of salvation, and then bringing the relief to that fear. “It was grace that caused my heart to fear, and grace the fear relieved”—comma—only for those who walk in the newness of life of Jesus Christ, who went through Good Friday that we might go through to the Resurrection Sunday power that he has given to us.

A consideration of eternity is an essential part of what we teach our culture and what changes us as people. You know, I have in the past suffered from anxiety attacks, years gone by. Whenever they come, I’m always reminded of my sin. I’m always reminded of eternity. And maybe you have things you fear or things that happen that cause you to think of death and bring you some degree of fear. That’s good. That’s a healthy thing from God—to consider death—because God says when we consider death, when we consider eternity, it’s not irrelevant to how we live our lives.

I always come out of those acts a better man, more committed to do the will of God in my life. When we go through trials and tribulations, God convicts us of our sins and reminds us that a consideration of eternity and our pending death in the context of that makes us better husbands today, makes us better wives when we recognize that short is the time before we’ll stand before the judge of all eternity and he’ll say, “How did you do? Shine well. Well done, thou good and faithful lampstand.” Thus a consideration of eternity reminds us of these things and makes us shine bright through those who conquer through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I want to make four very simple points now, building on all of this, for the sermon today. I just want to say basically four things. This freedom that Jesus Christ says—he says, “I’m going away. I’m going to die and be raised up. You’re going to lift me up.” He refers to his resurrection. He refers first to his being lifted up on the cross. But then on the Resurrection, he’s going back to heaven from where he came from. And he says that those who believe on him in light of that eternal message shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.

How are we freed by this work? And I want to say first of all, we’re freed to follow the light.

Remember Jesus says, “I am the light of the world. Those that follow me—certain things will happen.” Not enough to think about the light. Not enough to look at the light and consider and ponder it. Jesus says if he’s the light of the world in this whole section of John’s gospel, we’re supposed to follow that light. We’re supposed to be children of light, right? So we’re freed to be able to do that. We couldn’t do that apart from the freedom of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Secondly, we’re freed from bondage to sin. The Bible says sin exercises dominion over you. Can and Jesus Christ delivers us from bondage to sin so that we can shine as lights again.

Third, the Bible says we’re free from a fear of death and it relates that to our enslavement and our bondage to sin.

And fourth, we’re freed to see ourselves as we truly are: children of God.

All right. First, we’re freed to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, the light of the world. And what I’ve done here is just given you five different ways—these are from Barclay’s commentary. I didn’t come up with these, but he talks about how in the context of the New Testament, this following that Jesus uses is used in five different ways. They’re very closely related, but they all have a little different emphasis.

And first, Jesus—the word follow means to follow someone as you would a captain. To follow someone leading you into war or into a battle. Now, we follow our captain, the Lord Jesus Christ. We follow him into the war that the world represents to us as we go about converting men and nations through our words and our deeds, through shining as him. We’re to have an understanding that following Jesus is not like following some weak, needy guy that doesn’t quite know where he’s going. He is the commander in an army. And we are supposed to follow him as our great commander. He is our King and he is specifically our commander in the army. And we’re to follow him as good foot soldiers. Do you do that when Jesus commands you? Do you follow him quickly and obediently?

You know, several of you have gone through that course “Raising Kids God’s Way.” One thing that stuck for me from those courses is this idea of immediate obedience. No interval is supposed to be between the command of Jesus, the commander of our troops, and what we do in response to that command. Why? Well, they train you at boot camp to move quickly. Your very life may depend in a military conflict on whether you obey immediately or not, or if you decide to think about it. Not only your life, but the life of the other troops that you’re serving next to also may depend on your being trained in immediate obedience. That’s part of the liturgy of the church. We say raise your hands. We say stand up, sit down. We say come forward now. We say stand up, sit down, and go out and fight. Right? We command you because you’re supposed to be learning to obey quickly the commands of the Lord Jesus Christ as we go into the world.

Secondly, we’re supposed to follow our master. The word used—follow here, the Greek word—can mean a student learning from a master. He follows him around. Whenever the master decides to speak, he learns from him. We should know God’s word, right? The master speaks. We want to be around wherever he happens to speak so we can hear that word and appropriate it into our life. The Lord Jesus Christ is our master. His word is heard. He’s our commander in the world. Well, you think about it. You think about what the commander might tell you and you decide whether or not you want to obey.

Christian world? No. If you’re sure Jesus has given you a command, obey it. Obey it now. Obey it quickly. In the world, well, I can figure things out. I don’t need to go and apprentice with the master.

Christian world? No, you apprentice with the Lord Jesus Christ. You pay strong attention to his word. You know his word. You’re not apathetic about that. And you take yourself to wherever you can go and learn more about the master’s word.

Third, this same word is used in terms of our teacher—well, that really is what I was just talking about. I got the master one wrong. See, I make mistakes. We all make mistakes. I was just talking about the teacher. Actually, the master has a servant following him. And we are servants of the Lord Jesus Christ—not just in terms of following into battle, but following into every other area and endeavor that he calls us to do.

And then fourth, Jesus is our counselor. We’re to follow him as our counselor. Daniel talked about God dwelling in light in Daniel chapter 2. He was given the interpretation of the king’s dream. And he says this: “Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, for wisdom and might are his. He changes the times and the seasons. He removes kings and raises up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and secret things. He knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with him.”

God is the one with whom light dwells. And not only are we being instructed in God’s word, but when we have particular need to make good decisions about what we’re to do, when we have a need for wisdom, through our disciplined study of the master’s word and when we need to apply that in difficult ways, Jesus is our counselor. We’re to follow his advice in difficult situations. We’re to seek wisdom by going to the one who possesses wisdom in the context of eternity.

And then finally, we’re to follow our King, our civil magistrate—not just our warrior King, but the one who shepherds and maintains his people. We are free to do all these things: to follow the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We know the truth. The truth has made us free so that we can enter into that kind of following of the light of the world.

Secondly, Jesus Christ has freed us from bondage to sin. In Romans 6, we are told that we are enslaved to sin, but Jesus Christ has made us free. Turn to Romans 6:6.

Knowing this, that our old man is crucified, died with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. So the crucifixion, the death of the Lord Jesus Christ was to the end that we wouldn’t have to serve sin or be enslaved by it. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we also live with him. That’s what Resurrection Sunday is all about.

Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dies no more. Death hath no more dominion over him. Death be not proud—how John Donne says it. For in that he died, he died unto sin once, but in that he lives, he lives unto God. Likewise, then reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. And let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body, but in the lusts thereof.

Freedom. Jesus Christ says the Resurrection day is the day of acknowledging our freedom from sin, that we have died to sin that we might live to the Lord Jesus Christ, to live to God.

Several specifics on this. We are freed from the sin, the bondage to the sin of arguing with wisdom. Now, I’m going to—these first three examples are what the Pharisees do in this account in John chapter 8. You remember he says, “I’m the light of the world.” And they say, “Well, you only have one witness. What’s the rest of your witness?” They start to argue with the light of the world. They argue with the one who is wisdom incarnate. They argue with wisdom.

Now, this is a common device in teenagers, and if you get offended, teenagers, I am sorry, but this is who you are in Adam. You argue with wisdom. You do it perpetually. Teacher says something, parent says something, mom says something, older sibling says something, and you argue with it. Your first instinct in Adam—right, that’s what the Pharisees do. Jesus says something, boom, they start to argue with wisdom. You don’t have to do that anymore, teens. You’ve been freed from that.

Apart from an appropriate appropriation of the Lord Jesus Christ, an appropriation of that resurrection life, you are doomed in that cycle of arguing with wisdom. And when you get older, if you don’t learn the lesson while you’re a teen, you might learn it when you get older, but if you don’t, you may still argue with wisdom. And it’s going to get you in big trouble—in your vocation, with your family, with your church. I’ve known many a grown man who just argues with wisdom. They don’t sit and listen. They don’t try to figure out what their functional superiors are saying and that maybe they know something more than they do. No. Wise in their own eyes, arguing with wisdom. God says he breaks us of that.

You know, I’m so pleased that we entered into the confederation of Reformed evangelicals. We had to submit to a group of men that we didn’t know who they were really. We thought they were pretty good guys. We knew that they weren’t paedobaptist yet. We knew that they didn’t believe in the same kind of liturgical stuff we did. Confessional statement to let in different kinds of people into our church. If we did it, we had to sacrifice. It would be right thing to do to argue with wisdom, to not enter into affiliation with the broader body of Christ. God has blessed us with that. Got kids going over to Idaho now to go to New St. Andrews or to go to University of Idaho. Praise God for that. Send our kids away to college and have them go to a good church at the same time. That’s becoming more paedocommunionist and more liturgical like us on top of it all. Praise God.

But you see, we have to learn not to argue with wisdom, to submit ourselves to those who maybe even know don’t know as much about something as we do in the context of something you might know that your employer may not know, for instance. So we have to learn—we can be freed from that bondage of arguing with wisdom.

Secondly, we can be freed from the sinful tendency we have in Adam to seek credentials instead of truth. This is what the Pharisees in arguing with wisdom—they say: “You bear witness of yourself in verse 13. Your witness isn’t true. We need credentials, man. We don’t want to just hear the truth. We need to see your diploma. We need to see your, you know, your calf skin or whatever it is. We need to know what credentials you have.”

This is the same thing the disciples ran into. Peter gets up and preaches and gets hauled before the religious authorities. Well, where’s your education degree, man? You have to go to seminary. You can’t do this. See, we tend to want to seek credentials as a way to divert ourselves away from the truth of the gospel. And God says that’s who we are in Adam. We see it reflected in the Pharisees. That’s who we are. We got to break ourselves of that stuff. We have to respond to truth and not seek credentials.

Third, we’re delivered from mocking. This is the next thing the Pharisees did with him. He says that his Father is a witness to him. Well, who’s your father? Where’s your father at? Joseph’s probably dead by now. Where’s that dad of yours? You can see it in Psalm 22 that we read. You can see it throughout the scriptures as Jesus is brought to the crucifixion on Good Friday. He is mocked. And the scriptures tell us quite clearly in Psalm 1 that’s the natural tendency of man. There’s a left hand and a right hand. Be blessed if you don’t take that left-hand path. What’s it like? Walking in the counsel of the ungodly, standing in the way of sinners, sitting in the seat of the scornful—mockers.

Now, again, young people growing up, this is your tendency in Adam. Don’t be surprised when you find coming out of your mouth arguments with wisdom. When you find coming out of your mouth mocking language to brothers or sisters, mom or dad, authorities—maybe under your breath, maybe just in your mind. Don’t be surprised when that happens. That’s the work of Adam flowing through in covenantal fashion as it were upon you. But understand that when you got sitting in your seat and then you rise up from the grave—you rose—rise up from that stuff. Soon as you say it, confess it. “Oh, sorry, brother or sister. Please do pray that I’d be delivered from mocking and scoffing.” That’s what they did to our Savior. Don’t do that to one another. Don’t mock authority. Don’t mock your brothers or sisters. Don’t mock those under your authority. Don’t be mocking and scoffing. That’s what the Pharisees did. And we’re delivered from that. We’re released from all of that. That’s the good news. The liberty, the freedom we have is a freedom from bondage to those.

Apart from appropriating the work of Christ, you are in bondage to mocking. You are in bondage to arguing with wisdom. But in the risen Savior—no. All that has been laid aside. God says that they mocked him, but we’re not supposed to be like that.

Fourth, we’re to have no apathy. We’re delivered from the sin of apathy to the King’s word. The Pharisees were apathetic to the word of the King. And these are just, you know, I just think this is so prevalent in our culture. Downstairs in the handout rack in the C portion of it, there’s the final exam for the Psalms class for my 16 to 19 year old class. Again, 13 week class, went over to 16, 17 weeks. Take it home, parents. See if you can pass it. Probably you can’t. We don’t know the King’s word. We know little bits and pieces, but we don’t know the flow of it.

When you recognize that Psalm 22 is right at the center—dead on, dead on—in the center of the first book of the psalter, well, that tells you something, doesn’t it? It talks about the centrality of the whole psalter reflecting the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then when you get down to the fourth book and the King is coming, and you know at the dead center of that is the call which we sang this morning in pre-Sunday school time to sing praises with musical instruments. And at the center of Psalm 98, it tells you to use musical instruments to praise him. Well, then that tells us something about New Testament worship. The King has come, blow the trumpets, play the guitars, let’s make some holy noise celebrating God.

See, we just don’t know this stuff. I’m going to start Proverbs next week with my kids. We don’t even know as a Christian church after 2,000 years—2,000 years—we have only begun to figure out where the real chapter breaks are in the book of Proverbs. It’s an enigmatic book. The only thing people do is take little proverbs here and there, but there is definite structure to that book. The church is just now beginning to understand. We must rejoice in the freedom from the bondage of apathy to the King’s word.

If we’re going to follow him, he says that the sheep follow him. They know his voice. What does it mean they know his voice? Well, they know his words, right? They know his word. They follow him. How are we going to follow the King’s word if we don’t know that word? We have to apply ourselves diligently to know it.

You know, we’ve got these Sunday school times now set up and we’re trying to buttress the training that Christian parents give their kids by giving them comprehensive overviews of every book of the Bible over 13, 14, 15 years. Lord, grant us that we can do that.

You know, in Hebrews 5, Doug gave me this text as part of the teacher training material provided for me for our Sunday school teachers this year. Great text. The writer of Hebrews says, “We have much to say, hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing.” Verse 12: “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you.” You ought to be. In my 16-year-old class, mate, you see, as adults, he’s not writing to just priests or just teachers or just Bible instructors. He’s not writing to the Bible college. He’s not writing to the, you know, college of cardinals or something. He’s writing to the Hebrews church. Different people—by this time, you ought to be teachers. Men, women, you should be teaching your kids the scriptures. But though we should be teachers by this time, you need somebody to teach you. I need to be taught the Psalms and Proverbs so that I can teach the kids. That’s how bad it is. Your pastor needs that.

Now, there’s always education saying that we live in a time of a famine for the word of God, a true understanding and knowledge of it. And we must apply ourselves to knowing this word. It’s folly to say that we’re really trying hard to follow the King if we don’t know the King’s words. We’re freed from that bondage. If you find yourself apathetic—hard to get up Sunday morning to go to Sunday school class, hard to open your Bible up and get together with a few friends to have a Bible study—understand: in Adam, that’s who you are. You’re held in bondage to that sin.

Romans 6 says apart from an appropriation of the Lord Jesus Christ, the freedom of this day bursting forth: rising up as strong action. Men and women, men in action, women in action, boys and girls in action. Apply yourselves and you’ll be freed from that bondage.

Fifth, we’re freed from the bondage of apathy to the King’s presence and others. I just picked a few things here that I thought were central. We need to know his word. And you don’t get the word in isolation. Proverbs says that a man isolates himself and rages against all sound wisdom. To isolate yourself is to rage against wisdom and maturity. To commune with other people is to enter into that study. We must commune with one another to hear the King’s voice.

Now when he said the sheep hear my voice, know my voice, that voice comes through the audible voice—they hear. Are you a sheep of Christ? Isaiah says he died for his sheep. Did he die for you? Okay, you’re a lamb, right? Okay. Where do you hear the King’s voice? If you’re supposed to know the King’s voice, when do you hear it? Little voice in your head? No. You hear an audible sound as you gather with people who teach you, exhort you, encourage you, recreate with you, and have fun with you, using the King’s words to basically form what our content of our speech is to one another.

You’re hearing Christ’s voice right now through the preaching of his word. Nothing less than that. That’s what he says here. The sheep hear his voice. Well, if we’re going to hear his voice, we have to be around his people. You go on a desert island and hear little voices in your head. Probably not Jesus talking—probably somebody else. But you surround yourself with Christian friends. You enter into the fellowship of the church, into that extended family. And you hear his voice.

Now we’re prone in Adam not to do that. We’re prone in Adam to isolate ourselves and rage against all sound wisdom, to pull back from people. People are tough. They challenge you. They don’t do things as nice as you want. You don’t treat them as nice as you want to. They’re hard. But that’s what we’re called to do: to commune with people.

Next, we’re freed from this bondage to willful blindness. You know, if Jesus is the light of the world and that’s what the Resurrection is about—how do we know that apart from a recognition of the darkness outside of Christ? Jesus is the light of the world. Well, I seem to be doing okay. I have a lot of light. What do I need Jesus for? Turn the lights on. Sun comes up. I can kind of figure things out. You see, we don’t really believe our blindness or darkness apart from Christ. And that’s one problem we have—this willful darkness.

In Adam we always think we got enough to figure it out, apart from God’s people, apart from God’s word, apart from Jesus being the light of us. He frees us from that bondage and he says, “No, be like this. Pray to me.” When you pray, you acknowledge your need for me. You see, prayer is central here, I think, to avoiding this sin, this enslaving sin of willful blindness. Pray. Acknowledge your dependence. That prepares you to receive words from other people. That prepares you to study God’s word. It’s a recognition and a statement to God that you are blind, utterly blind without him.

And finally, the last sin that we’re delivered from that I want to mention here briefly in passing is immaturity. And I’ve talked about this a lot, but you young people need to hear it a lot. And us older ones that didn’t hear it a lot when we were young, we need to hear it a lot.

“Do all things without grumbling or disputing that you may be blameless and harmless sons of God, those light-bearers without rebuke, shining as lights, as lights as the lampstand of God, children of light, sons of light, light-bringers in the midst of a dark world.” You see, when we go out, when we grumble against one another, grumble against our parents, grumble against our bosses, dispute, get bad attitudes—it’s like the light’s going out. You’re just turning down the oil to the lamp and you’re little. In fact, you sort of suck light up. You’re a black hole walking around ruining other people’s light. Don’t be a black hole this week. Shine as light for the King.

“Do all things without grumbling and disputing and for goodness sake, children, don’t answer back.” First Timothy rather 2:9 and 10 says, “Exhort servants to be obedient unto their masters, to please them well in all things, not answering again, not talking back.”

Children, learn this lesson so that you don’t get to my age and still find yourself grumbling and disputing and wondering why this goes wrong and that goes wrong. And I put the dirt on the patio as I did this week, and now I got to sweep it all off because the sand was too wet. And I—children, we want much better for you. We want you to understand that if you follow the Lord Jesus and he says, “Move the dirt here,” and the next thing the Lord Jesus tells you is move the dirt over here and then move it over here, you obedient will say yes, sir. Do this. That’s okay. That’s not answering back. You know what answering back is though? Not pleasing your parents. Man at work. You know, you have this grumbling, disputing attitude. Answering back—don’t do it. Shine his lights.

In Adam we’re enslaved to all that stuff. In Christ we’re removed. We have freedom—not to grumble or dispute.

The four words are: Study. Study God’s word. Commune with God’s people. Pray so you can recognize your darkness. And the last one is bear. Bear whatever it is you have to bear. Maybe a cross moving this thing around here and there, not knowing better. Maybe you have to bear up with your parents and they’re not doing real well when they’re sitting. Maybe bear up. You know, in the movie Wit, the woman who has to bear up with cancer and die of it, meditating on John Donne’s poem, her last name is Bearing. She is bearing up the entire movie. Bear with what God has given to you. Shine as lights.

And third, Jesus has freed us from the enslaving fear of death. Single point here. Hebrews 2:14 and 15. You’ve heard me say this—some of you before. It’s so important to the Christian life. Why is it that we tend to grumble and dispute? Why is that? Now I think these next two points answer it. Verse 14 says, “In so much then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared in the same—crucifixion, Good Friday—that through death he might destroy him, that he might, you know, make him less important, that he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is the devil.”

Jesus has destroyed the devil definitively at the cross. The history is a mopping up exercise. That’s what we’re involved with. He’s destroyed him. In verse 15: “Release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”

This is a very important psychological point in true Christian psychology, understanding the human mind and spirit at work. Why is it that we get upset when difficult things happen to us, when our health doesn’t go right or the task doesn’t go right or when we’re not treated right? Because we fear death. We think it’s going to kill us. Now, maybe not outright—that particular moment—but we’re fearful. This text tells us that we have been all of our lifetime subject to bondage—bondage to what? Sin, through the fear of death.

And there are good theologians who say that for Christians at least—maybe for everyone, but for Christians at least—the highest motivating factor to personal sin is fear of death. You fear it. Now, maybe you don’t acknowledge that to yourself, but that’s what the Bible says holds you in bondage. That’s why this is a momentous day in the history of the world, because this day: Death be not proud. Death, thou shalt die. We don’t need to fear death anymore. Death is not even a semicolon for us. It is a little comma as we move from mortality to immortality.

The entire poem by John Donne is a meditation on death’s sting being gone because of the work of the Savior. We don’t need to fear death. That’s why we can not sin so much. If we believe that we’re not going to die, then we don’t have to be so frightened of doing this, that, or the other thing. Even if we do die in the body, we’re going to heaven to be with Jesus and all those that we love who have gone on before. This is exceedingly important to grasp.

Little children, I’ve exhorted you to be not grumbling and disputing, but I exhort you now to believe that Jesus has conquered death for you. You can watch Wit and not be depressed, so to speak. You can be pleased to meditate on your pending death. The Puritans—and this may be overdoing it—used to have their grave clothes, their burial clothes hung up in their closet their whole life. And they look at them as a reminder of mortality, that they’d be better people in this life. That’s maybe overdoing it a bit, but we don’t need to be fearful of death.

God says that fear of death holds us in bondage to sin. Why don’t some of you guys—you teenage boys, probably, and some of you girls—you know, want to stand up for that “up from the grave” stuff? You’re embarrassed. Why don’t men sing out more? You’re embarrassed. What’s it got to do with death? Well, it’s death of your reputation. Death takes a lot of forms. And you’re fearful. You don’t want to seem stupid. You don’t want to teach your kids because you might stumble around, mumble, and it’s not that you don’t want them to know the Bible. I know every one of you do. You don’t attend to it and frequently because there’s a fear factor there that maybe you’re not even admitting to yourself.

God says, “Do the stupid thing.” What did Brett Baker when he was here a couple years ago at the dedication say that Doug Wilson told him something that really changed his life. I think it was something to the effect of, you know, we’re all goofballs. Just understand you’re a goofball and you’ll be okay. Well, that’s kind of what it is. We’re all going to make mistakes. Like I did—very outline I preached from here made a big mistake. You’re going to make mistakes. You’re not going to die. Your reputation won’t die. God says when you think that way, always thinking of yourself, your own ability to sustain yourself, it holds you in bondage to sin.

And then the other great thing that holds us in bondage to sin—and this is probably the height of it—and this is the last point. Jesus frees us from this fear of isolation. You know, if you see a small child, they can go through the worst of difficulties, things that would freak us out a lot, but they sort of know mom will take care of them, right? We go through difficulties as men, and we don’t really—oh, the church is good and extended family, but we don’t really feel there’s a net under us as we do this high-wire act, as we go about trying to be these action men in our business, or action men in terms of our families or in terms of the church or preach the headship of men—the more you’re sort of up there on the tightrope all by yourself working without a net. And it’s frightening. It’s frightening and we feel isolated. But God says that the freedom we have is a freedom that is directly related to our appropriation and understanding of who we really are, that we are the children of God.

In Romans 8:10, we read, “If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh to live according to the flesh. For if you live…”

[Transcript ends]