A Reading From The Book Of Jeremiah 20:7-13
A Reading From The Book Of Psalms 69: 1-18
A Reading From The Book Of Romans 5:15-19
The Holy Gospel Of Our Lord Jesus Christ According To Matthew 10:16-33
Sermon by Rev Dr Pastor Jimmy
In 1845, history tells us of a lost expedition. British explorer Sir John Franklin led an expedition to discover the Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic. And history will look to him as a hero for all of the discoveries that he made during those explorations.
But in those explorations, some significant things happened. We know that the ships were well built. We know that the crew was experienced because of all that they had put into preparing for this expedition.
We know that they carried enough supplies for them to last and to live for years as they were going through this expedition. But something happened in the middle of that expedition, and every one of those 140-plus crew members died, including Sir John Franklin himself. They crashed on King William Island in Canada.
Something had gone terribly wrong through this exploration. Historians still debate what the main cause was, but what they know to be sure is that somehow they had gotten off course. Somehow they had lost their bearings in trying to navigate through the Canadian Arctic.
And that's an important lesson for all of us. If your bearings are off even slightly, every step in the wrong direction takes you farther and farther away from safety. The problem is not merely that you're moving.
The problem is that you're moving confidently in the wrong direction. A few degrees off today becomes hundreds of miles tomorrow. Now, the same thing is true for us spiritually in our lives.
We have an opportunity to make some adjustments today, but in order for us to make those adjustments, to get ourselves back on track, we need a compass. And in using that compass, we need a true north, a fixed point that doesn't move. Paul, in his letter to the Romans in chapter 5, tells us that Jesus is that fixed point.
It's no surprise that everything in history leads up to him and then flows from him. We know that scripture says that he is the beginning and the end, that everything flows from him. And so what we know to be sure in this moment, in us understanding what it means to follow the better Adam, is for us to understand why that even is needed.
What does the text tell us? It says that Adam turned humanity away from its fixed point. Turned humanity away from its fixed point, and it offers us one of the clearest explanations of the human condition. We talk about discipleship and instruction and catechism a lot in our church, and we do that with our students, and we are doing that with our members who are wanting to go deeper into discipleship and wanting to be received or confirmed before when the bishop comes in August.
Catechism is important because it trains us. And the very first question that you learn when you are in the process of discipleship is what is the human condition? What is the human condition? Paul doesn't begin in describing our personal sins, although we are all sinful and in need of a savior. That's what the human condition points to.
He doesn't start with our personal sins. He begins with Adam's. Verse 19 of Romans 5, he says, For as by the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners.
Adam was humanity's representative. You know the word Adam isn't like a name that God picked because he thought it was cool and he wanted to start with the letter A because, you know, he wanted to be original. It wasn't as if there was like a list of baby names that were important when you were creating the world that you would find at Crackle Barrel, and God went through and said, this is the most popular name when you were born.
Right. That's not what happened with Adam. The word Adam means mankind, humanity.
And there's a play on words when you read it in the Hebrew scriptures. Ha adamah. And it means mankind of the ground.
And we know it was made from the dust of the earth. But that name Adam stands for humanity, mankind. It doesn't mean a cool name, bro.
Like it's actually showing us that Adam is a representative for humanity, that he was the representative for humanity. And what happened when he rebelled? That compass needle that points us to where we need to go of the human race, all of humanity, because he's the representative for all of humanity. When he rebelled, that compass that points us to where we need to go swung away from God.
It swung away from God. And so instead of them looking toward God, what do we see that sin caused humanity to do? To hide from God. To hide from God.
To turn away from God. To leave where God was because of their fear and their shame. Everything became disoriented.
You ever been disoriented? Time or two, right? In those moments, it's hard to get your bearings, right? It's hard to know where is straight, where is left and right. And we get all disoriented. And in that, things begin to get out of order.
They begin to become disordered. What follows in the story of the human race, after this representative of the human race rebels, and everything gets disoriented, sin follows. Sin entered the world, and as a result of sin, death entered the world.
That's why we can confidently say that even though there are people who make examples and try to explain things, death entered the world when Adam rebelled against God. Sin and death were a consequence of the fall. Alienation followed.
Broken relationships followed. Not only with God, but with each other. What do we see happening shortly after the fall? Not only were they separated from God, but now their relationships with each other began to sever.
And we're still trying to fix that today. Every Sunday we gather, and we ask the Holy Spirit to cleanse the thoughts of our hearts. And then we remind ourselves of what the law summarizes.
That we are to love the Lord with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our mind. And to love our neighbors as ourselves. Why do we say that every week? Because we're still working on it.
Yeah, but I want you to say something new. Well, let's figure this out first. Say something different.
No. Because we still need help here. We still need help with our relationship with Jesus.
We still need help with our relationship with each other. Alright? So we're still working on it. We're still trying to fix things through the Holy Spirit.
He's still trying to repair and to rebuild what sin has broken. Creation is broken. Things don't happen the way that they should.
Hearts have been broken. Our affections have become disordered. We love things we shouldn't love.
We pursue things that we were never created or destined to pursue. Because our hearts are, as Prophet Jeremiah said, desperately wicked. And deceitful above all else.
Everyone in this room, whether you're a father, or whether you're a mother, or whether you're someone of influence. To another person, a mentor, a brother, sister, aunt, uncle, coach. Every one of us, in some way, shape, or form, knows what it feels like to hand something down to someone else.
That blessing of hearing someone say, when I die, this is going to be yours. I'm going to hand these things down to you. Sometimes it's a skill, right? You have a skill, and so you teach someone else that skill.
And then that skill continues to live on through them. Sometimes it's a family trait. You have these characteristics, the things that are just specific to your family.
And so you pass down those family traits. In some cases, it's debt that you pass down from family to family. And that's not necessarily a good thing, but it is a reality sometimes.
What do we know about Adam? As the representative of humanity, what did he pass down to all of us? A spiritual inheritance that none of us asked for, but all of us possessed. Thanks, Adam. We all possess the same nature.
We have this disposition toward getting off track. The prophet Isaiah reminds us that all we like sheep have gone astray. Pull a sheep out of the ditch, and what happens? Sometimes they jump right back into the ditch.
We are prone to wonder, right? Prone to leave the God that we love. That's the human condition, and that's what Adam has passed down to us. And this is important.
For you and I, if we aren't fixed on that point, that doesn't move, if we aren't fixed on Christ, which is what we hear in Scripture, fixing our eyes on Him, right? The author and finisher of our faith. The pioneer and the perfecter of our faith. If our eyes aren't fixed on Him, then we are governed by our bent compass.
And that compass is often manipulated and affected by environment. We need a compass, something that guides us, but in that, we have to also look for that fixed point. What is a bent compass? It's a heart that naturally points away from God.
He's given us a heart, but what did the prophet Ezekiel prophesy? I want to take that heart of stone, and I want to give you a heart of flesh. It can be molded, it can be shaped. Proverbs teaches us to guard our hearts above all else, because out of it flows the wellspring of life.
A heart that naturally points away from God. This explains why humanity can be brilliant and broken at the same time. Like Alfred Nobel, who invented dynamite.
Also created the Nobel Peace Prize. To try to correct some of the damage that had occurred because of that invention. There's a paradox at work.
We can be brilliant and broken. We can look at humanity and society and say, Man, this is brilliant! That person is broken. That's why music can be so influential in our lives.
We can hear it and say, Man, that's such a moving song. It's such a moving lyric. But then also go, What? That person is broken.
Their life is a wreck. But they're brilliant! We've got this nature inside of us. We've got this change inside of us.
We build hospitals and bombs. We write symphonies and commit atrocities. Why is this? Because we carry both the image of God, and in doing that, we are all owed the right to be treated with dignity and respect.
Because we've all been created in the image of God. Which means we have the capacity to be good. We have the capacity for morality, for relationship, to create things.
But because of sin, we often destroy things. Our relationships are broken. Our morals become corrupt.
Why is that? Because we also carry the wound of Adam. We also carry the wound of Adam. We are created in the image of God, but we also carry the wound of Adam.
That's why I'm so thankful that this passage in Romans 5 helps us understand how God pivots all of this around this glorious word in the beginning of verse 15. It says, But the free gift is not like the trespass. What does Romans 5 teach us? That Adam brought death.
Adam brought death, but Christ brings life. Adam brought condemnation. Christ brings justification.
Adam brought separation. Christ brings reconciliation. Paul intentionally compares these two men.
He's showing you the juxtaposition. Adam stood at the headwaters of old humanity. Jesus stands at the headwaters of a new humanity.
He's the firstfruits of the resurrection. He is the new Adam. Adam failed in a garden.
Jesus obeyed in a garden. Adam reached for a tree in disobedience. Jesus climbed a tree in obedience.
Where Adam brought death through one act, Christ brings life through one act. Why the gospel is not only simply that Jesus forgives our sins. The gospel is that Jesus creates an entirely new humanity.
Which is what Paul can say. If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. They always pass away.
Jesus at this moment, and he's always been this, but in his incarnation and through the gospel work of his death and his resurrection and his ascension and his enthronement in heaven, he has become the fixed point. The visible fixed point in our lives. He is the new reference point.
He is the new direction. He is the new true north. Whether you're a father, a mother, a mentor, someone who has influenced others.
For me as a father, I know that I'm called to point people to Christ. I'm called to point my children to Christ. But for some of you, it might be a mother.
It might be a sibling. It might be an aunt or an uncle. It might be somebody else in your life who you choose to view as family.
We have that responsibility and that privilege to point others to Christ. Today, because it is Father's Day, we have gifts that we're going to give to all the men in the church. They're in the back.
We want you to take one or a couple if you would like to give them to someone else. They're compasses. We're going to give you.
On the back of those compasses, there are words that you can hold on to that can remind you how important it is for us to fix their eyes on Jesus and for us to focus on Him. Now, we're not giving the men compasses because they're better navigators because we know that's not always the case. It's possible.
I can say that it has happened before that men have gotten lost, but in the course of them getting lost, have been unwilling to ask for directions. I know personally, I have successfully made it home from Florida by way of Richmond. This is a slight miscalculation.
Made it home. I don't know what the problem is. So we make jokes about that because we know some of that's true, but really I think the important thing is if we are identifying that the Lord has given us an opportunity to be in covenant relationship with Him.
We may not have had somebody who has led us or directed us in our lives for most of our lives to Christ, but through His providence, He has made a way to open our eyes for us to be in relationship with Him. Now we have the opportunity and the responsibility from this point on to point people to Christ. The deeper question for us is not whether or not we are good navigators.
It's what direction are we setting for the people who follow us? What direction are we setting for the people who follow us? Every one of us, if we have someone in our lives and all of us are influencing someone, we operate almost as a compass. Every father, every grandfather, every mother, every grandmother, every aunt, every uncle, every member, every mentor, every one of us is functioning as a compass. Every husband, every wife, in some ways, is functioning as a compass.
And people are taking cues from us. They're watching us. They're watching how we live, what we prioritize, what we fear, what we love, what we pursue, and ultimately what we worship.
What we worship. Why the greatest responsibility for us is not just providing material things for those around us, it's providing direction. It's providing direction.
It's not just, look at me, it's follow me as I follow Christ. You know what's fascinating about compasses? We have those for you all, and all the men get compasses if they would like them. But compasses operate on a magnetic north.
In other words, they depend on the magnetic forces to govern them, right? But that actually can change. So if you're just following a magnetic north, we learned from Sir James Franklin that that can get you off track. So what you have to do when you're navigating with that compass... Now again, we were created for relationship with Him, so our hearts, although they are bent away from God, understand the flow towards Him.
Sometimes our hearts, as we're navigating this, God is speaking to our hearts, He's revealing Himself to us. What do navigators need to do when they're using a compass that sometimes gets off-skew? They have to find that true north, not just the magnetic north, that fixed point at the top of the Earth's axis. And so then they have to make calculations on their maps, on their coordinates, to factor in the magnetic north versus the true north, because it shifts.
And I think that's interesting for us, because a compass can become affected by nearby magnetic fields. We think about our compasses as the heart, right? We've got to be careful. If a compass is there, you put it near a metal, and it begins pointing somewhere it shouldn't.
Same thing can happen spiritually. If we get too close to the things that draw us away from God, then our compass begins to shift other ways, because remember, we're naturally affected by that. We're affected by these other things in our lives that pull us away from Him.
Many people are trying to navigate life, but they're not connecting their lives to a fixed point. They're not connecting their lives to Jesus. And as a result of that, they are following the magnetic force and pull of what culture calls us to follow.
Culture doesn't say follow a fixed point that is unchanging, right? Immutable, impassable, right? Solid. They don't say follow this. Follow Jesus, the fixed point of all creation.
No, they say follow your feelings. Follow your truth. Follow your desires.
Follow your heart. That's the magnetic pull of the world. But what does Jeremiah, again, say about our hearts? And there it is.
Desperately critical. Deceitful above all else. A broken compass, a bent compass, cannot correct itself.
A broken or bent compass cannot correct itself. It must be recalibrated. How do we recalibrate our bent or broken compasses? Through Christ.
Through scripture. Through prayer. Through worship.
Through thanksgiving. Through repentance. And ultimately, through the work of the Holy Spirit.
And so every one of us should be asking ourselves this question today. What is currently pulling me away? What is currently pulling my compass away from Christ? Is it success? Is it money? Is it relationships? Is it politics? Is it comfort? Is it fear? Is it bitterness? Whatever captures our heart eventually determines our direction. Where your heart is, there your treasure, right? Your treasure is there, your heart will be also.
What we value, what captures our heart eventually determines our direction. That's why the gospel message in our liturgy spends so much time talking about the heart. Because it was established to restore us back to an orderly life.
Our hearts are focused on Jesus. So Romans 5 provides for us one of the deepest passages in scripture. And Paul is discussing this idea of federal headship hearings, not telling us that people get lost at the real drama.
Everybody gets lost. The real drama is humanity follows a representative. We all follow somebody.
We're all being led by someone. Adam represented humanity. Christ represented humanity.
And so if every compass points somewhere, because every life follows someone, we can see that if we follow the way of Adam, then we will be led away from God. We will be led away from God. But Christ has become the better Adam for us.
He is the faithful son. He is the righteous king. He is the true north for every human life.
In the invitation of the gospel today for us, recalibrate our lives back to him is simple. Stop orienting your life around yourself. Can you hear me now? Yes, sir.
Stop orienting your life around yourselves. One of the things that we were talking about after first service, that it's just a wonderful blessing that God has given us this opportunity. And I encourage you men to try this.
When we got the compasses, I was in my office, which is just right over here. And I was holding the compass, and my desk faces that way. And I was looking at the compass, and I was trying to figure out why the compass was pointing to me.
Right? At least it's broken. But then I started turning my chair, and I realized the compass was moving. When I got this way, the compass wasn't pointing to me anymore.
It was pointing north, right? Because that's kind of how the church is geographically located. And I think that's pretty powerful imagery to think about. If we look at our sanctuary here, right? If you're facing this way, that compass is going to point at you.
And everything in life is going to be about you, because that's what the compass is pointing at, right? But if you turn your eyes toward Jesus, the compass is no longer pointing at you. It's pointing at him. And then your life becomes directionally focused on Christ, which is what he called us to do, right? If anyone is going to be my disciple, they must first decide themselves, pick up their cross, and follow me.
That's how we orient our lives. That's how Christ becomes our true north. We need to turn the compass toward Christ.
Because when Christ becomes our true north, we're still going to face storms. We're still going to face storms. You're still going to walk through valleys.
You're still going to encounter suffering. But you will never be lost, because you know where your fixed point is. And we are constantly drawn back to him.
Through the light of his word, and the power of his Holy Spirit, he is constantly leading us on. Because today, all of us probably need a little recalibration. You might be perfect.
And you're clear-eyed and fixed on Jesus, and nothing is getting you wrong. Praise God for that. And I'm thankful that his word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, so that if we are drawn away by something, if our compass gets pulled away, our hearts are drawn to other things, we have a fixed point that we can return back to.
I think we're all still working on our relationship with him, and our relationship with each other, right? Let's take a moment and ask the Lord to help us with that. In this prayer of confession, we're going to ask God to help us. And then we're going to receive those comfortable words after we have the absolution, and we're going to rise together in peace.