//a.newcitynow.com/sermons/20190217-aBetterReality.mp3
A sermon by Adam Barcott
February 17 2019
Jeremiah Chapter 17, verse 5 through 8. It is page 375 if you’re following along. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we do an Old Testament reading. Then we do a New Testament reading for the preaching. This is so that we get the whole word of God. We’re getting parts each week from both old and new. This is from the Prophet Jeremiah and he says,
Thus says the Lord. ‘Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.'”
This is the Word of the Lord.
As we anchor our hearts for the New Testament reading, let’s just take a second, a couple of seconds for silence. “Lord, we rest in you, and we ask that you would begin to work in us, that kind of trust where we can trust the Lord even in times of drought and anxiousness and that you would produce your fruit. Thanks Lord. Amen.”
We’ll read from our New Testament. It’s from the book of Luke. We’ve been following along with Luke’s gospel, chapter 6, verse 17 through 26. That’s page 503, if you wanted to follow along. It’s a good story about Jesus interacting with his people.
Luke chapter 6, verse 17.
Luke 6:17-26And he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and he healed them all. And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, ‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets. But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Woe to you when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.'”
That’s the reading of the word of God. Thanks be to God.
Yeah, you liked that story. It’s a feel good Sunday. Whoa, man. There’s a lot of woes. Did you know Jesus said that? I’ve never seen the woes of Jesus tattooed on a back at Typhoon Lagoon. Never. Not once. I’d love to. I’d respect that person and go, “Whoa, that’s a weird verse to put on yourself.”
This is a story worth wrestling with, especially for Americans. We live in a land where we have a lot of stuff. It’s a really interesting and powerful passage for us as we comprehend our story as being under the story of God. This whole idea of Epiphany, that God has made himself known to us. He’s come to us, and it’s like this “Oh!” moment. We’ve been discovering, “Oh! We have a better beginning and baptism.” “Oh yeah! God calls us his children and cleanses us.” “Oh! We have a better ending.” “Oh yeah! We’re going to be resurrected, and he saves the best wine for the end.” “Oh, he gives us a better word. A word that works on us and is a better work. So we speak his word. That’s where the power is.” And then last week the idea was, “Oh! We have a better mission. He does the work and we get to be with him.” We’re aligned with something else. There’s a better story than just the story of you survived.
There’s a lot of other stories we can create for ourselves, and they’re not all bad, but are they sustainable? For me, this is where it comes down to, can you sustain the story you are working on or at some point is it in the hands of an employer or in the hands of bad luck on the road? Bad luck with weather? What is guiding your story? I’m saying because of Jesus, we have a better story. It’s better than just what we can create or what’s just going to happen to us. We are the happenings to the world. We don’t have to live and let things just happen to us anymore because the creator of the world has come to us. He’s given us his son. And so now we live with him. And so I believe today we are invited to a better story, a reimagining of our lives with the God of life. We have a better reality. That’s what I want to talk about. What’s real? What is actually real?
Do you remember David at the dentist, one of the first YouTube videos? We know that kid. He’s in our network by the way. He’s up in Lake Mary. David at the dentist. His big quote was, “Is this real life?” Because he’s on novacaine or laughing gas, right? He’s like eight years old, asking, “Is this real life?” It’s pretty funny to watch a kid struggle with what’s real and what’s not real. That’s who we are, people. We laugh at it. It’s funny. And he made a lot of money on it, so don’t feel bad for him. That’s what’s real. But it’s the question, “What is real? What are you? What is real?” You have to use your experience, use your eyes, your ears, and what you’re experiencing. There’s a reality that you’re living in, but is it the same for everybody else?
David is under laughing gas. His reality is different than my reality right now. And so it’s kind of a miracle. How do we even get along? Because what’s real? You know, what’s real news? What’s real?
This is where Jesus breaks in and he says, here’s what’s real. Let me, let me tell you what’s real. And he goes down to this plain. It’s the sermon on the plain. There’s a sermon on the mount, and this is called the sermon on a plane. It’s a flat area. And the multitudes are coming to him because he has something that’s real. He has something that they need because their reality is they’re struggling for days, for years. Who knows? But they’re struggling with some kind of emotional sickness, with some of physical sickness, or spiritual sickness. And they’re coming to Jesus because he has a promise. He’s offering something that they need, so they go to him. And what is he offering? He’s offering his Word. He’s teaching them. They’re hearing him, and they’re being cured. These people that went to Jesus understood their reality, “I need help.”
I need to, I’m going to follow this guy from Nazareth, the wrong side of the tracks, a little podunk town. Nothing good comes from Nazareth. But I heard this guy from Nazareth can heal people, so we’re dropping whatever we need to do to go. Because the reality of my life is awful. I’m suffering. I’m struggling. Demon possessed people went, emotionally tormented people went who were mourning and sad about death, destruction, and injustice all around them. It’s just straight up sick people who are going to Jesus because Jesus broke into reality and then he breaks into their reality. He breaks their reality, which is nothing will ever get better.
Have you been there? Are there things right now in your life that you just stopped praying for because you think the reality is, “I’m just always going to struggle with this, so I’m not even going to bug God anymore.” It’s just always going to be this way. I’m done. That’s your reality, and you’re stepping into it. Your reality now is sadness and hopelessness. It is what it is. Grow up and let’s just walk through it. Doesn’t that feel kind of right, but it felt wrong when you started, but then it kind of felt right. Like you’re saying, be strong through it. Right? It’s confusing because our reality and the broken world says you can rise above it on your own. Work harder.
But the reality also is maybe you can’t, maybe you will always be broken. We need a new reality, and that’s where Jesus comes in and says, “Here’s the reality. I’m the God of life. I’ll speak words and heal you.” Get up, people get up. You need eyesight? I’ll touch your eyes. We see. I’ll just speak. Demons come out of people, tormenting spirits. Jesus disrupts our reality. We can’t just assume that we know what the reality of the world is, because it’s broken.
It’s a reality that death is final, but because of Christ, we’ve come into a new reality which is death is not final. Life is eternal. Life is final, because the king of life has broken into our reality and spoken. And what’s amazing is he’s reversed everything we know about God. This story is completely backward. Jesus is healing people. Then he turns to his disciples and says, “Here’s what the Kingdom of God is like.”
Everything you and I spend our days trying to avoid are the things he says are good. I try to avoid being sad, being hungry, being hated, being poor. Do you spend your day looking for those things? Jesus says, “That’s my kingdom.” Then he says all the things that we have, the things we’re really proud that we have, he says, “Woe to you because you have enough food, because you have money, because you laugh now, and because everyone loves you. Woe to you.” I don’t know about you, but I just want to dismiss it as a weird Bible story.
It’s hard, but I want to break down what’s happening. Jesus is redefining our reality. He says, “Let me break into your reality and restore the hope that I can actually bless you. Now let me tell you how it’s going to look.” In the Kingdom of God, blessed are the poor for they shall receive God’s reign now. Blessed? How are we blessed? How is this a blessing to us? How are you blessed when you’re poor? It’s awful. Jesus is trying to show his disciples a couple of things. He’s lining up the story with the prophets, the priests, and the kings.
Before Christ, you would have to get clean to go to God. Before you go see a priest, you have to be clean, because if you touch God, you die. He’s so pure, it’s like touching the sun. It’ll melt you. You have to stay away from unclean people. If someone’s sick, you don’t touch them, because now you’re sick. Now you’re unclean and you have to be clean. Then here comes God, breaking into our reality, and he says, “I not only see you, I hear you, and I touch you, and you can touch me. See, that’s a whole new reality. He’s a priest. Jesus has come and he says, “You can touch me.” That’s absurd.
Think of the most famous person right now. You can’t get near them, and you might love them. You can’t walk up to them, get them to give you eye contact. We have people in our city who are panhandlers, right? I don’t know if they’re always homeless or not. We assume a lot of things, but what are the things you never do to a panhandler? Basic, rule number one: don’t make eye contact. Do you talk to them? You try not to. Do you touch them or let them come up and just touch your neck? Touch you at all? No! Because when you’re disenfranchised and you’re poor, no one looks at you. No one talks to you. No one lets you touch them. There’s no embrace. We don’t do that.
I’m not saying you ought to. I’m just introducing the confusion, because the son of God does that. Because the reality for him is he knows us all, and he says, “I’m going to break in and change your reality. Come to me and if you don’t come to me, I will come to you.” And that’s what he’s done. He’s come to us, but then he announces like every good king, “Here’s my kingdom. You’re going to feel like failures, but don’t worry. It’s going to be good later.”
If you’ve just been healed and you’ve had that encounter with Jesus, you love him. And when you hear this world’s going to be hard, but it will be better, you stick with him, because what you saw was enough to say, “What else do we have? I’m going to stick with Jesus.” He says to you very clearly, “This world is not created for you.” The world of sin and death is no longer your natural habitat. You’re always going to have a sense of poor, poverty, either real, tangible, poverty, spiritual poverty, or emotional poverty. You’re going to experience that. I know I do. That feeling that you’re not good enough. That you’re supposed to be a Christian, and you did that sin again. You didn’t want to look at the homeless person. You’re poor. But the good news of Jesus is, “Yeah, I know you’re poor, but I’m reigning now. I have the resources for everybody, so lead people to me. Look to me, and I’ll take care of you.”
Do you have any rich friends? Or even just a friend who’s going to pay. You go out to eat, and you say, “I’m just going to have a water and a small fry.” Your friend chimes in with, “I got it.” You respond, “Oh, then I’ll have a milkshake and a double whopper.” It changes. We start to live. We are poor, but the reign of God has begun. His presence is with us.
We’re sad because we see ourselves not living up. You haven’t lived up to loving God with your whole heart and loving your neighbor as yourself. You haven’t. And as you get to know Christ, you recognize that and saw, “I’m so sad. I’m also sad about the real injustices around me, I’m sad. I mourn.” But you’re now blessed, because you know that you will be satisfied one day. There will be justice. You will laugh. You will be full.
But then you have, “Rejoice when everyone laughs at you and hates you.” I don’t like that one at all. I want to be liked. I want the Christian world to think, “Adam is amazing! Boy wonder starts church.” I’m like, “Yeah, yeah!” And you all would be excited about that. “You did it, Adam! Yeah!” And then we’d read this verse and be confused and say, “I don’t know.”
What Jesus is saying is that the false prophets always said what the people wanted to hear. “We’re okay, worship whatever you want. Think whatever you want. You get to be God.” And Christ breaks in and breaks that reality and says, “No, you’re not God.” When you’re a god of your own world, you are responsible for your fullness, for being full, for laughing, for having a good time, for being comfortable. It’s up to you, but Jesus dethrones all other kings and says, “I’m king, but right now you live under other kings. Until I fully finish my reign while you live here, you’re going to be sad, because all the other kings hate me. They crucified me. I’m a threat to their power.” Because you love Jesus, you’re going to walk through poverty. You’re going to miss some opportunities. You’re going to be accused. They aren’t going to like you, but rejoice because they killed the prophets and they killed the son of God. Rejoice because they hate you. That’s hard. But it’s not hard if we know we’re lined up with Jesus.
Now within the blessings of his kingdom, he’s not asking you to try to fabricate sorrow and be falsify sadness. God sent His Son who walked through these things for you. This is why we trust in Jesus. He perfectly fulfilled all this. He was hated, and he was hungry. He was sad, so praise God.
Because of Jesus’ experience, I know I’m going to experience sadness, but I know my hope is in the future. He’s going to fix it all. He’s reigning. I’m trusting the work of Jesus, not the work of myself. I’m too poor. I can’t afford to do enough. I’m not good enough. He says, “I forgive you. I gave you my son to die for you, now trust me. I’m setting up this kingdom.” We’re building this kingdom where Jesus is king.
The last part, the Woe, is a prophet’s warning. It’s what the prophets would say, “Woe to you.” And the temptation for us is to think, “Well, am I missing it? I don’t want to miss the Kingdom of God.”
Our reality is upside down. Jesus is trying to make it right side up. We don’t have to search for food or distract ourselves and make ourselves happy. We don’t have to try to do that, because it’s been turned upside down. We have a king who gladly gives us the desires of our hearts. Jesus isn’t against laughing. He’s not against being full and eating. He’s for it when he can give it to you, because he can keep giving it to you. When you get it on your own, it runs out. Everything good runs out sooner or later.
I’ve got like a 12 pound bag of gummy worms that are almost gone. I got them for Christmas. I can’t justify that expense. It has to be gifted to me, and it’s almost out. Everything ends. And Jesus says, “Woe to you. If you’re under a system of another king. That king, that system of government, whatever it promises, it cannot deliver forever and ever. It will fail you. So woe, to you. Woe to you if you think that’s the way of life.”
He’s coming to break into our reality. He opens our eyes. He gives us the Holy Spirit. He does all the work. That’s the good news. This is his kingdom. His kingdom is beginning in us where we’re learning to say, “Wait, I feel really sad about not being able to provide for myself.” “I’m struggling, but my new reality is I asked the God of the universe to provide for me, right?” And Jesus says, “Right, this is your kingdom.” Blessed are the poor, because the poor say to God, “I’m really sad because I can’t control things.” And God responds, “Come to me you who are weary and sad, and I’ll give you rest now. Be assured, I’ll give it to you forever.”
“People don’t like me Lord, but I’m just saying what you said.” God says, “I know. You’re in good company.” This is a whole new reality. It’s a reality where Jesus is responsible for you. So what do we do? We do what the crowds do. Just go to him.
We spend a lot of time trying to defend ourselves with, “I’m pretty good.” But in God’s kingdom, you don’t have to defend yourself. You can roll over and say, “I’m guilty, Lord. I have this sin in me. It just always makes me go that way. Forgive me.” He says, “Now you’re walking in a real reality. This is real life. Let me love you.”
I hope that’s good news. This reality is rest. It’s hope, and it’s rejoicing. Whatever you’re struggling with, whatever brokenness you’re trying to fix on your own, whatever you’re trying to mend or you’re trying to hide, you can offer up to God and say, “God, forgive me.” That’s what the Lord’s Supper is about. That’s what his word’s about. Jesus comes to you. He’s not hiding from you. He’s not making it difficult. He loves you. He’s patient. He’s creating a world for you where we will never have to worry about hunger and sadness and injustice and being hated. That sounds good. That’s the reality I’m longing for, and I’m putting all my trust in Jesus for it. Are you with me? Let’s do it so that we can stumble and bumble through this reality together knowing that we are under the God of forgiveness and love, death and resurrection.
“Thank you, Lord. Help us to grow into this new reality. It’s hard. The old reality screams and accuses and confuses us all the time. But in the name of Jesus, we put on the truths of your new reality where you are king, and you’ve already begun to reign in our hearts and our minds in the church. You’re slowly going to take over the world until one day it’s all made physical. This is our hope. Every other plan of attack is hopeless, because nobody else and no other system has ever died and risen again from the dead. So we confess Jesus Christ as Lord, and we thank him. Begin to make this more and more a reality in each of our lives. We ask in Jesus’ name, Amen.”
We confess this new reality every week, because it’s hard to believe. As we scatter, and we come back, we remember, “Oh yeah, Jesus is our king. He’s good. He’s loving.” We confess together, so we know we’re not alone. We confess with those who’ve gone before us for thousands of years. Let’s stand and confess the Apostle’s Creed together. It’s on page B. And again, creed just means what do you believe?
What is it you believe, Christian? “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and earth, And in Jesus Christ his only son, our Lord. Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born by the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into hell. On the third day, he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. From there, He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen.”
We thank God for all the gifts that he’s given us in this new reality. And part of the new reality of living with Jesus is that you can’t out give God. You can become incredibly generous, because God provides for you. God’s the one who provides for everything to work in your mind, gives opportunities to work, allows things not to run out, air conditioners to keep working. He does it all. We praise him so we gladly give to his word being spread on earth as it is in heaven, because we think it’s worth it. So we give back and then as we do that, we prepare ourselves.
This is a whole new reality for us. You’re not alone. You’re not just part of a little community. You’re part of the body of Christ, the enduring bride of Christ. God has purposely set up these things for us to touch, to taste, to know, and to rest in. At the Lord’s Supper, the night that Jesus is betrayed, Jesus is willing to die for this whole new reality where people don’t die, where life wins. And he says, “Now I will become the sacrificial lamb.” He breaks the bread, and he says, “This is my body which is broken for you. I’ll die for you.” Can you believe it? That’s why we can afford to be poor. He died for you even though you deserve to be poor. Jesus says, “I want you to take and eat of it. I want you in the act of eating it to be united to me. I’m in you, and I’m growing you just like food grows your body. Over time you feed a baby and years later it looks like Wimberly. It’s kind of amazing. The same way he takes the cup, the cup of wrath, the wrath of God, and he drinks of it. He says, “I take the wrath of God, and this is now my blood. It’ll be shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins. If you can drink of it and eat of it, you are a part of my body.” As we come to the Lord’s Supper, the Lord’s table, we come in a posture of poverty. That’s the only way to receive it. And then thanksgiving. We come in that position, and we say, “Lord, forgive me.” It’s at the table where you hear God say “For the sake of my son, I forgive you.”
Let’s pray, “Father, we thank you for this meal. We thank you that we can come to you, and you forgive our sins. It’s too good to be true. That’s why it’s called the Good News, the Gospel. I pray that you would create more and more faith in us. You give us faith. It’s by your grace. We are saved through the faith that you work in us by the preaching of your Word. You make these things life giving, and we thank you for them. And I pray, Lord, forgive us our sins. You already have, and you continue to and restore our faith. Build our faith in us as we partake of your body and blood. We rejoice that you have died for us and that now you live for us. Bless us. In Jesus name. Amen.”
Pastor Adam was born and raised in Seattle Washington always sensing God’s call to pastoral ministry. While attending Christian College he met Val, a nice girl from Orlando.