piece of the word faith. But I want to start by asking a question. In my office,
there is kind of the names or titles or attributes of Jesus, that he is the way,
the truth, and the life, and has a little kind of Bible address for where you find
that. But I want to ask you, before I give you mine, what is kind of your favorite
imagery or who Jesus says he is or attribute of Christ that you find in the
Bible? Anybody? The light of the world, absolutely.
Though, huh? Hang on Tom, hold on to that one because you and I have something in
common, so we'll wait on yours. Over here? Savior, absolutely. Yeah. Friend.
Emmanuel, God with us. Healer, up in the balcony. Like, oh wait, he saw us. Yes,
you're up there. Teacher, I'm not gonna continue until the balcony answers. That's
still not the balcony. Oh, a good one. They're all staring at me. You can't see
they're all staring at me. Oh no, I'll wait. There's 50 of you up there. One of
you. Hunter, what about you? I'll start calling more by name. They're testing me.
I have three boys, under 12.
Hope of the world. Was that in the balcony? Thank you, let's give the balcony a
hand. Yes, the balcony woke up. Okay, good. Tom, what was yours? Amen. The good
shepherd. Has been, always will be my favorite imagery of kind of our
relationship with Christ, Christ's relationship with us. Obviously, the 23rd
Psalm is a big one, but I want to jump and start with John 10. So, we're gonna
read the first 11 verses. Truly, truly I say to you, he who does not enter the
sheepfold by the door, but climbs in another way, that man is a thief and a
robber. But he who enters the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him, the
gatekeeper opens, the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name
and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them and
the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow,
but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers. This
figure of speech Jesus uses with them, but they did not understand what he was
saying to them. So, Jesus said to them, truly, truly I say to you, I am the door
of the sheep. All who come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did
not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and
will go in and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. I
have come that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good
shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. So, not only do we
have Jesus as good shepherd, he's also the door. Now, if you remember, we did
that, Mike, how long ago was that? The door sermon series for Lent. First here,
oh wow, the door, yeah. So, that was during 2020, beginning of 2020. And that
not only is Jesus the door, which, yeah, I'm not surprised a lot of you didn't
say that one, even the balcony, because that's not one that comes to mind, that
Jesus calls himself the door, that he is the door of the sheep pen. He is also the
shepherd. He's a lot of things. But that imagery of being hemmed in, of being
known by the shepherd, the sheep knowing the shepherd's voice, and the part which
is so convicting, that with confidence Jesus says that the sheep hear his voice
and he calls him by their name and he leads them out. He goes before them and
they follow him because they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow.
Jesus is confident that his sheep will not follow another voice. Yet, if I asked
each of you this week, did you follow something of another voice that led to
sin, I'm gonna go almost 100% of us would say yes. But Jesus is confident that his
sheep will not follow other voices, but that is the wrestle we have with our
depravity every day. And I don't know what the week was like, and I was thinking
about it during the last song of the set and then the offertory. I would love to
just have all of us one by one talk about the week. There's something, I don't
know what it is, this is a little bit of an audible, that there's someone here or
a few of us here that had really bad weeks. And I don't know about you, but I
needed to hear that I'm hemmed in this morning. That Jesus is the door. That
there are times I want to kick that door open, I want to go do my own thing, and I
want to say enough with you, Shepherd, I'm gonna go. Yet we also know that out
of that 99, and you know I'll be that one for this example, you could be one in
your own example, that we go astray. Guess what? He still goes and finds us too. And
there's something powerful about that, and I think, I really do, I think that's
what Jim Osterhaus was getting at with this last piece. Where in TULIP we call
perseverance of the saints, he's calling it held by God. And the reason why is
because the sheep know his voice. So let's go over just where we've been as we
wrap up. The F, fallen humanity. The A, adopted by God. The T, or the I,
intentional atonement, I know how to spell. T, transformed by the Holy Spirit,
and finally held by God. And being held by God is such a personal thing. And it's
an amazing understanding of God's relationship with us. And I don't know
about you, but I need that today. I need the promise that God is holding me, and
it's something, I know we all probably need daily, weekly, monthly, every moment
that we are alive. If we're honest, we need to be held by God. Yet we struggle
with it. And we see this in the life of our children. That our children desire
independence, we know we've hit a new stage of life. Because as kids are
younger, they follow you everywhere, right? The term locked bathroom does not
apply to them, right? Because they want, they just were ever, and they seem to
want you right when you need to answer nature's call, right? That's something
that happens a lot. But then all of a sudden something happens as we get older,
and this thing called independence happens. When all of a sudden our kids
don't want us around. Now how many of you, be honest because you're in the House of
the Lord, how many of you when you hit that stage of life, you celebrated it
immensely? Yep. That wasn't a lot of you. That's interesting. Maybe you're still
struggling with it. But how many of you when that independence hit, you mourned
it? Ray, you don't have to do this. You can raise it high. And I think there's
half of you that have no idea what I'm talking about because you didn't raise
your hand for either of them. And you're like, wait, independence? Our kids are
supposed to have independence? Let's go. I don't know. But we do the same thing
with God. At some point we develop a sinful independence. At some point it's
no longer in our mind that it's a have to. That our faith can sometimes become
optional. Notice how I said sinful independence. And it's things like this,
things like the doctrine, the third article of the fifth doctrine of the
Canaan's Adore, Perseverance of the Saints, which I'll get to in a second, is
defining how we are to live our life. That you and I are called to live a life
held by God. That when people see our life, they should see someone who has
the security, the confidence, the maturity that we are being held by God.
That come hell or high water, God's got us. But I think we struggle with that, or
at least I do. Because when things don't go my way, yesterday was my wife's
birthday and we had reservations with her folks and we had a assembly to go to.
All the entire, I am not really paying attention at all. For some reason I'm
fixated on there's going to be traffic on 1894 and we're not going to get to
Cooper's Hawk in time. Thank you for laughing at that. But it wasn't funny.
Not only did we get out just fine in time, we were at Cooper's Hawk 20 minutes
early. And I thought to myself, how dumb am I that I allowed a new experience for
my son for me to be so preoccupied with time. Like what is Cooper's Hawk going to
say? No, you can't eat here anymore. No. But I allow myself to have the anxiety
over a situation that I don't have control over because I demand control.
Friends, that is sinful independence when it comes to our relationship with God.
Now, I could also go on the other side and go, God really doesn't care if we go
to Cooper's Hawk or not. I don't think the master of the universe is really
worried about any of that because I don't think he worries. It's fun when you get
it here because there's so much that goes on. And to me, the understanding of
needing to be held by God and understanding that I should be and desire
to be held by God I think is the biggest sin that I struggle with when it comes to
this, that there are times, and if we're honest, maybe you feel the same way, we
don't want to be held by God. Because if we're being held by God, that means he's
the one doing the work. He's the one in control. Or if we're going to look at it
in a sinful way, he's the one controlling us and we don't like it. But what was
Jesus saying to his disciples in John 10? That the sheep know my voice. They will
follow me no matter where I go. And the only time, right, that they would in his
example, but what we do is we hear the voice of the stranger and we say, oh, this
must be our new shepherd. This must be our new God. And we do that every day. The
sin of this or that or whatever will call to you, say, hey, Jim, no, come this
way. Hey, Jim, get out of your situation and worry about getting to Cooper's Hawk
on time and let that anxiety ruin that situation. And my family knows when I
think I'm going to be late for something, how does that normally go? Yeah, they're
all just staring at me. We don't know what to say. It doesn't go well, right? It
doesn't. And I need to let that go. It is a constant reminder that I am not in
control. And that's a good thing. Why? Because we are being called to persevere
in the fact that we are being held by God every day, that he is the one holding
us. Because of these remnants of sin dwelling in us and also in the temptation
of the world and by Satan, those who have been converted could not remain standing
in grace if left on their own resources. This is the canons adored. But God is
faithful, merciful, strengthening them in the grace once conferred on them and
powerfully preserving them till the end. That God is preserving us in everything.
He is telling us no matter what the week you just went through was like or the
week you will be going through, God's got you. God wants you to know that all the
time. That God's the one that's got you. He's the one holding you. And to me,
that is so powerful. And it's hard not to think of being held by God. And there are
days that I just need this and I praise the Lord that he's given me a wife that
will just not say anything and just hug me. Because I know a lot of you aren't,
but I'm a hugger. How many huggers do we have? Everyone else in the room just got
real uncomfortable. But understand, there's so much that can happen in a hug.
To me, hugs are powerful. And I have in my notes, sorry if this creeps you all out.
Okay, I guess that's what I was thinking this week. But what do we like about a
hug for the huggers? If you're not a hugger, I don't want to hear from you. But
if you are a hugger, what do we like about hugs? That's my very first point.
Comfort, yep. Security, that was my next point. You don't get to talk anymore.
Okay. Others, yeah. Kindness, yeah. What a great answer, right? That to show
kindness to someone, they give a hug. My wife is kind to me a lot because I need
that and she hugs me a lot and that is a great thing. Anything else? Yeah.
A connection, absolutely. Yeah. Others? There's two more that I have in here.
Huh? I thought you said mercy. I was like, whoa, alright, that just took a turn.
No, personal, absolutely. Yeah, Nancy. Love slash friendship, absolutely.
That was one of mine in here as well. Intimacy, that, okay, now you want to
participate. Go ahead, Patty. Safe, right? You said safe? You just take somebody
else's? That's right, none of you wanted to talk but a minute ago so it's fine.
But, yeah, being safe. That when my wife hugs me, right, I feel safe. I feel
safer. Hopefully when I hug my kids, they feel safe. Anyone else? I'm looking for
one more. Hmm? Accepted, that's a good one in the back. Wanted, absolutely.
Daniel, when the Michigan Wolverines conquered the world and won the
national championship, what did we do? We hugged, right, out of excitement. It was
great and not against our HR policy and understand that we can be excited and
want to hug, right? I mean, Dan, you felt the opposite way yesterday, right, when
Purdue lost. You probably didn't want to hug anybody, right? You didn't. And so
understand that we, there's so much that can happen in a hug. And
four years ago, I told myself I wasn't gonna cry, four years ago there was a
picture of a hug that wrecked me. Because I don't know if it was someone, I think
it was someone from Crown Point. It was after Lynn died and they sent me this
pic. And I practiced this. And the caption was, this is your sister's first
day in heaven.
Just look at it. What do you see in her face? Joy. Anything else? Safe. Relief.
Love. All good things. And then in more of a comical way, after my, and I don't
know if a lot of you ever met Lynn. Lynn was a little bit shorter than me, you
know, and that kind of hug with Jesus would work. And then someone said this to
me when my pa died, who was 6'6 and like 280 pounds, and they sent that to me and
my first thought was poor Jesus. You know, like if that was in fact what's
happened with him. But understand that, I mean, this picture, it means so, I wanted
to print it out but I couldn't because if I saw it in my office or at home
every day I would just cry. But like, there's just so much. You know, a picture
says a thousand words and I think this says a million. And just the
understanding of a hug, the understanding that seeing this picture, I just
wrote my notes that my sister had ran a race. She had fought the good fight of
faith. And though I'll never be fully okay that her race was only 36 years
long, I can guarantee because my sister was a hugger that she hugged Jesus like
this. That it was just pure, unabandoned joy. Joy that we will never know on this
earth. Joy we will never understand no matter how many kids we have, no matter
how great our marriage, no matter how many times our team wins the whatever,
right? That joy, that is something different because that is joy complete. A
completion of a journey. So then on the flip side, I thought to myself, what about
us still here? What about us still running our race? What about us still
fighting our good fights? Still fighting our daily battle against sin and
darkness. I think that's the writer of the Canons of Dort, Jim Osterhaus, in his
book. I think that is what he's trying to convey with this doctrine, with this
understanding that we are still being held by God though the world around us
doesn't want it. The world around us wants to rip us from our relationship
with God. The world around us wants us to just love ourself and that is it. So I'm
gonna move Ken's Bible and where's Jay? Jay, you want to come up? Everyone say
hi Jay. I'm gonna use Jay as a sermon illustration, okay? He has zero idea what
we're gonna do but he was okay with it and so I appreciate that. I did ask his
parents first. So this understanding of being held by God, I need two more
volunteers and I'm just gonna go right in this room. I'm gonna have Jesse and
Jim. Can you guys come up? Why you come on up too? That's fine, you come up too. You
guys stand right over here. Nope, you're not on the stage. So I don't know if,
hopefully this will make sense, but when we talk about having just nasty stuff
going on in the world, right? Things that want to rip us away from our relationship
with God. There is a difference here that I think a lot of us need cleared up and
what our relationship with God is like. So I apologize to all three of you, but you
guys are representing sin and death, so thank you. And in this scenario I'm
representing God. So I don't do this often, but this is the understanding of
what I believe this doctrine actually means. That every day we are on this edge,
whether we believe it or not, that there is a whole force against us that want us
to be completely separated from God. That Satan is there and will send whatever he
can to try to rip us away and try to get us isolated. And I've said it before, not
that Satan wants a relationship with you, he doesn't. He just wants you to not have
a relationship with God. He just wants you to doubt. So Jay, as you live your
life, right? You're what grade? Fifth grade. You go to what school? What are some of
the things you like to do in life? Yeah, I don't buy that. Sports, let's do sports.
Yeah, okay, just sports in general. He just likes sports. But Jay is growing in his
faith. Jay is a leader in Lighthouse. Jay is going to be in junior high next year.
That's scary. And not because you'll be in junior high because my son's the same
age. But understand that he's growing. And one day he will understand that life,
just turn this way, is this way and that there are going to be things that are
going to try to grab a hold. Go ahead. Why get in there? And they're going to try to
pull you. Okay, they're going to try. Not too hard. Okay, we didn't sign a waiver
for this. All right. I mean, that is a strong... No, keep going. That is... I mean,
is that comfortable? You're laughing, but it's kind of more of a nervous laugh,
like I don't know what's going to happen. Are they going to pull my arm off? Are
they going to pull me off the stage? All that kind of stuff. But for a lot of us,
now stick this hand out. For a lot of us, we think that our relationship with God
is like this, right? Hold on. Right? We think God's just standing here allowing
all this to happen, right? You guys can pull. There's three of you and only one
of me. You know, like all that, right? That's uncomfortable, right? And then
unfortunately for some of us, you can let go. You guys can pull. Don't pull them
off though. That we think that happens. We think that all of a sudden God's like,
no, I'm good. I'm going to let you handle that. But what this doctrine, what this
understanding of grace actually is, keep pulling, that it's not Jay holding, right?
And it's not just God doing this, but it's God doing this. That this is a picture
of the Lord going, Jay, I know you're going to go through it, right? I know
you're going to have hard times. You're going to have tribulations. But in the
end, let go. None of that matters. Let's give him a hand, okay? You can go sit
down, thank you. In my head, I had that super dramatic with like smoke machines
and all this kind of stuff and Michael W. Smith, but you get it. You understand
that for a lot of us, we think it's our faith has to do with, our salvation has
to do with, our perseverance in life has to do with how strong our grip is.
Friends, understand it is not about your grip. It has always been about God holding
you. Romans 8 says this, who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulations or distress, persecution or famine, nakedness, danger
or sword, as it is written, for your sake we are being killed all day long.
We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. But friends, hear this promise
today. No. In all things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
For I am sure, and hear this, neither life or death nor life, nor angels nor rulers
nor things present or things to come nor powers or height or depth or anything in
all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our
Lord. I want you to walk out today understanding you cannot be separated
from God. But what about all of us that feel like it already has happened?
What about all of us that things have been going not well? Things have been
going very wrong in life. It is time to just come back to center. It is time to
seek that forgiveness. It is time to understand that when you go astray, and
we all do in life, that not only does the shepherd come get you, but he brings you
back within that gate. He wants you to understand that you are hemmed in. So
what does that look like in 2024? No. In all of these things we are more than
conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither issues at work,
issues at home, issues at school, maybe even issues at church, that neighbor who
can't stand you, that family member you have zero relationship with, that sin
that just keeps dangling that carrot of whatever it is that says no, no this
would be much better. Or maybe the anxiety of self, the lack of self-esteem,
the lack of self-awareness, the lack of whatever internally going on in all of
us. All of that is covered in the fact that nothing will ever separate us from
the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. So friends understand today that when
Christ says he is with you always, he is. And now he's gonna...