23-0730p Transcript

For Jesus had been counted (0:37) worthy of more glory than Moses, as much more glory as the builder of a house, has more honor (0:47) than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. (0:54)

Preacher: Scott Reynolds

(0:55) This is interesting because Jesus is the builder of God’s house is what’s being told here.

But we (1:02) also know from Hebrews, the first chapter, and from John chapter one, that Jesus is also the (1:12) builder of everything, which is implied here when it says for every house is built by someone, (1:18) but the builder of all things is God, which is actually the second person of the Godhead. (1:26) Because Hebrews chapter one said that the father made all things through his son. (1:35) So the contractor is the father and the actual builder is Jesus.

Now Moses, verse five, was faithful (1:45) in all God’s house as a servant to testify to the things that were to be spoken later. But Christ (1:52) is faithful over God’s house as a son, and we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence (2:04) and our boasting and our hope. (2:09) We’ve been going through a progression here at Westside (2:17) in our studies since 2015.

2015 till now when we were without a preacher and had to more or less (2:33) find our own way. And we went through Romans and we went through Hebrews, and we came to (2:45) an understanding that there were elementary teachings and there were solid food teachings. (2:54) Hebrews giving us a list in chapter six of the subjects, six topical subjects (3:03) of elementary teachings that the writer there says are foundational, that are the foundation, (3:11) not laying again the foundation of the six topical subjects.

And we went into (3:20) this book also, Hebrews chapter three, Jesus being our high priest of our confession (3:28) and looking at what that meant. What was the confession all about? And that’s where we learned (3:35) that the confession was the rock on which Jesus would build his church. (3:45) It’s not Peter like some religious people like to think.

Peter is not the rock. (3:52) They don’t use the same word. Therefore you shall be Peter and upon this Peter I will build my…​ (4:01) That’s not what he says.

They’re different words. Peter is not the rock. (4:08) Peter identified the rock and Jesus said that’s correct.

And it was Peter’s confession. (4:19) And Jesus is the high priest of our confession. The confession and what did Peter say? (4:30) You are the Christ, linking him to the Old Testament.

You are the Messiah. If the New (4:36) Testament were written in Hebrew instead of Greek, he would have said, or it would have been written, (4:44) you are the Messiah, the son of God. So Peter made the connection that Jesus was not only the son (4:55) of God, but he was also the Messiah that was spoken about in the Old Testament.

There’s the (5:02) connection. So we have been going through a progression of learning elementary teachings, (5:11) learning some solid food. We went on to Romans and learned about righteousness because the Hebrew (5:18) writer tells us, if all you know in chapter five of Hebrews, if all you know are the elementary (5:24) teachings, you are not acquainted with the doctrine of righteousness, which sadly I wasn’t aware of (5:36) the doctrine of righteousness before we did this Roman study.

I learned that as hopefully you did (5:44) too in our study in Romans. It’s not an elementary teaching. It’s not for outsiders.

It’s not for new (5:53) Christians. Paul told the Corinthians that when he came to them, he gave them milk, not solid food, (6:01) because they weren’t able to handle it, which is exactly what the Hebrew writer told his audience. (6:08) You need milk, not solid food.

And Peter will also say that he taught milk and not solid food (6:17) to certain people because they are not able to handle it. You have to grow a little. (6:26) So we understand that there’s, you know, a rightly dividing of the word, we think, (6:33) is the Old and New Testament, which it could be.

But you know what else it is? (6:38) The elementary teachings and the solid food. You don’t teach them the same way. (6:44) God doesn’t present them the same way.

Elementary teachings are taught by rote. (6:52) Repent and be baptized for the remission of sins. That is an elementary teaching.

(7:00) Hebrews 6, 1 and 2 tells us baptism, teaching us instruction about baptisms, is an elementary (7:05) teaching. [Hebrews] chapter 6, 1 and following tells us that as many of you who have been baptized, (7:18) have been baptized into the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, you’ve been united with him in death (7:26) and raised with him. That is not an elementary teaching.

And he’s not presenting it to (7:33) new Christians or outsiders. He’s teaching the depth of baptism is actually an elementary teaching (7:46) and solid food, depending on what part of baptism you’re talking about. Is it a command that we (7:54) need to do? Yeah, that’s elementary.

It’s elementary, Watson. That’s what we need to do, (8:04) that we are united with him and crucified with him through baptism is not an elementary teaching. (8:13) There’s some depth there.

God has put significance in that, baptism. And that is (8:24) to be presented to people who are spiritual people who are able to discern that, okay, (8:33) so it’s not, I’m not saved by the work of baptism. I’m saved by my faith and obedience to God (8:43) that I believe he can do what he promised.

And that is why baptism saves me. Not because it’s (8:52) some magical process that when you go under the water, it washes your sins away. It does (8:58) symbolically through the death of Jesus.

Okay, so we’ve gone through a progression. (9:10) We then looked at a couple of years ago, I looked it up because I was going to use that as a basis (9:18) for my sermon tonight. The building metaphor that Jesus said, I will build my church upon the rock (9:29) and we did that two years ago.

And I had to revise it a little bit (9:35) and look at it. But when we went through that, even two years ago, we got to the point (9:44) where if you, if anybody has in their email, and you have that available on your phone or (9:55) whatnot, and I did attach the link to the outline that I’m using. (10:05) So you can look at, you can get it if you don’t have it available now later.

(10:13) But we saw that the confession of Jesus is the bedrock. It’s the rock upon which (10:23) Jesus would build his church. Jesus is not the bedrock.

He is the cornerstone that is built (10:35) on top of the bedrock. Well, the best I could do at that time, two years ago, was that Jesus is (10:44) the Christ, the Son of God, which is Jesus again. Tells me though, okay, so the bedrocks, Jesus is (10:50) the Christ.

And it didn’t dawn on me until after seeing Del Tackett’s The Truth Project, in his (11:02) first, what he calls tours, the first lesson, he talks about what is truth. And in that, (11:11) um, Jesus came, you know, and what is truth is what Pilate answered when Jesus told him that, (11:26) Pilate asked him, are you a king? And he said, rightly, and he said, I have come (11:31) for this purpose to testify to the truth. And Pilate’s response was, well, what is truth? And (11:40) probably sarcastically, as if, you know, if there’s such a thing as truth.

And today, by the (11:47) way, absolute truth is considered, you are considered to be ignorant today if you believe (11:59) there is absolute truth. The world today does not believe in such a thing as absolute truth. (12:11) So Pilate says, what is truth? And we are referenced in 1 Timothy chapter 6, (12:22) verses 12 and 13.

Paul tells them to fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold of the eternal (12:31) life to which you were called, and you confess the good confession that Jesus is the Christ, (12:38) the Son of God, is what the good confession is. In sight of many witnesses, I charge you, (12:44) verse 13, therefore, before God, who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus, (12:52) who before Pontius Pilate testified the good confession.

Well, you know, Jesus didn’t say he (13:03) was the Christ there. He didn’t say he was the Son of God. He acknowledged that, okay, so Pilate (13:13) thought he was a king, and so he is.

But you know what else he said? I came at that very discussion (13:21) right here before Pontius Pilate, he says, I came to testify to the truth. What’s the rock, (13:29) the foundation, the rock that the foundation sits on? Truth. What’s truth? How would you answer (13:40) Pontius Pilate? Del says, truth is what is really real.

Truth is reality. Jesus' church (13:56) is based totally and 100% on reality, what is really real. And you know what the world is (14:09) giving us? Lies.

I am impressed with the study that Del Tackett brought up, the Truth Project, (14:24) and we’re trying to work this out. I don’t know how this is going to work out. Mike, me, Tom, (14:34) Jim, and John are all studying this material, and we want to be able to, it’s intended to be (14:45) presented in a video.

There are video lessons that are about an hour each that just are filled (14:57) with tons of knowledge, tons of information about a biblical Christian worldview. For example, (15:09) what does God think about the state, government? Does he know anything about government? Well, (15:17) first of all, he’s the ruler of the universe. Hopefully he would know something of government.

(15:24) He’s the ruler of nature. Hopefully, again, he would know a little bit about government. (15:31) Well, what does the Bible have to say about government? Do we base our decisions (15:40) on our, you know, though they are maligned and we are told lies that they weren’t religious, (15:50) the founders of our nation based this form of government that we have on the Bible.

(15:59) They got a lot of their ideas straight from the Bible. The least religious of them, (16:07) Benjamin Franklin, chastised the others when they were trying to come to agreement on the (16:14) Constitution for not being religious enough, for not conforming to the Bible enough. I am (16:23) impressed with what he has and who would have thought that when you build this, when Jesus (16:30) said, I will build my church, he was talking about him being the cornerstone, the foundation, (16:38) and then we are supposed to build something on top of that.

We are. Where do you get that idea? (16:49) 1 Corinthians chapter 3. Who would have thought? (16:57) Verses 9 through 17. 1 Corinthians chapter 3, 9 through 17.

(17:06) For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s building. Verse 10.

According to the grace of (17:16) God which was given to me as a wise master builder, I, Paul says, I laid a foundation (17:27) and another builds on it. Who is that other that builds on it? We don’t build the foundation. (17:38) We will see that.

But let each man be careful how he builds on it. So each of us are to build (17:47) on the foundation. What do we build? How to be a Christian? I’m not being facetious, (18:02) but that’s what we do.

We are, consider us being a choir. (18:13) And our practice is to teach the choir members to go out and get more choir members. (18:22) But you know what that doesn’t do? It doesn’t help us be a choir.

It helps us to have larger (18:31) numbers in the choir. But what instruction about being a chorus is there? Where’s the melody (18:42) instruction? Where’s the harmony? Where’s the songs? Where’s the singing? We need to go (18:54) and get members. But that’s not all we’re supposed to do.

Where’s all this other instruction? (19:05) I like to sing bass. Where’s the bass instruction? Where’s the theory on harmony? (19:17) Where’s the theory on conducting the chorus? Another builds on it. (19:28) 4, verse 11, chapter 3 of 1 Corinthians, no one can lay any other foundation than that which has (19:36) been laid, which is Jesus Christ.

If we go back, there’s more there. You can read it, (19:45) because we are a temple of God and God’s spirit lives in us is what he’s telling us there also. (19:52) But it wasn’t until I saw the Truth Project that I saw someone actually build (20:09) on the foundation.

I’m impressed with that. He wasn’t telling us how to be a Christian. (20:21) He wasn’t telling us whether baptism was important or not.

He wasn’t telling us anything (20:29) about denominations or what kind of a chorus we could be. He was building on the foundation (20:41) biblically, starting with the most important premise, the rock on which it is built, (20:51) truth. It’s impressive.

You know, he is a doctor, Dr. Del Tackett. He’s not a medical doctor. (21:05) He’s not a philosophical doctor, Dr. Philosophy.

He’s a doctor of computer science, (21:17) which is right where my expertise is. I don’t have a degree in computer science, (21:32) but that means he’s a logical thinker. If you’re going to program computers, (21:38) if you’re going to do things in information science, anything to do with a computer, (21:42) you have to be logical, because the machine will not allow you to be otherwise.

If you think (21:50) you’re good at logic, try writing a program, and the machine will tell you if you are or not, (21:58) because it can only process logical statements. And if it’s not logical, it won’t work at any rate. (22:14) So I think he’s done a fantastic job of analysis, and I hope that we can all get behind it, (22:23) and hopefully it will be soon.

And if you’re interested, we need to contact one of the five (22:32) of us. We’ll also be reaching out, but I’d like us to be starting, even though we’re not finished (22:40) with our studies ourselves, engaging, to use his term, with the congregation soon. (22:49) Because what did Del build on top of the foundation? A biblical Christian worldview.

(23:04) You. Because the Bible has absolutely everything to say (23:10) about everything there is that happens to deal with humans. Labor, (23:21) philosophy, God, man, sexuality.

And as you can see from this morning’s lesson, by the way, (23:32) did you notice how prominent sexuality is in the degradation of man? (23:43) In moving, who would have thought, in moving from simple to full to, (23:55) help me out here, what’s the last guy? Yeah, whoever he is. (24:04) Scoffer. And the scoffer, who was paying attention this morning? And the scoffer, (24:11) you know, in Italy, they outlawed, they didn’t outlaw, they made it against the rules in Italy (24:26) to end their beauty pageants for men to participate to end women’s beauty pageants.

(24:37) So you know what happened? 100 trans men, that’s women who pretend that they’re men, (24:46) signed up for the beauty pageant. They’re militant. They destroy.

The scoffer, (25:00) what’s the other term? Gives them over to something mind. Depraved mind. Thank you.

(25:13) God gives them over, the last of the three, to a depraved mind. Tell me what we see (25:22) in the world going on. Politicians, they are crafting, at this moment, a hate crimes bill (25:37) that will make it against the law with penalties to misgender someone.

To tell them that they’re a (25:48) female when they want to say they’re a man, though they are a biological female, (25:54) will be a hate crime with penalties. Tell me, I forgot the word again. (26:08) What is it? Depraved.

That’s not depraved. Tell me that’s not lunacy. (26:17) Tell me they haven’t lost their mind as Nebuchadnezzar did.

He wasn’t in his right (26:25) mind. These people are not in their right mind. How do we deal with that? You remember what he said (26:36) today? Made it a point several times.

If we’re going to change people, (26:45) we have to build trusting relationships and diligent prayer because it’s God who makes the (26:58) change. But we need to put the effort into building relationships. That, you know, for me, (27:10) I’m looking at that.

That sounds tough. That sounds difficult. (27:17) Del was in an interview with Focus on the, he’s not with Focus on the Family anymore, (27:23) but they interviewed him recently because he has come out with another project called the (27:31) Engagement Project, which he’s talking about how do you engage with people who are irrational.

(27:40) And so he was talking about that and he said, he brought up a story. He lives in Colorado and he (27:46) has land and his neighbor has some land and his neighbor had to cut a road across his property (27:53) to get to the neighbor, for the neighbor to get to his property. And he wasn’t happy with that.

(27:59) And he said it started snowing and he was working on, he was working on loving your neighbor and (28:06) his neighbor got stuck in a snowdrift in the new driveway. And he goes, God, come on, (28:16) I’m working on loving my neighbor because I don’t got time to go out. (28:22) And see, but he did.

He went out and met his neighbor and helped him out. And he said he had (28:28) started to build that relationship. But he thought it was funny that what he was actually working on (28:34) at the time was loving your neighbor when he wasn’t really happy with his new neighbor.

(28:41) At any rate, it sounds difficult. But people aren’t going to change and they’re not going (28:51) to listen to us if we do what we have in the past and attack and argue and tell them they’re (29:02) going to, you’re wrong, you’re going to hell. Why should they even bother listening to us? (29:09) At any rate, the outline there, I didn’t go through everything that was there, (29:14) but I did pretty much say what I had on my chest.

(29:20) I’m really, he’s evangelical. He’s not Church of Christ. (29:27) But he’s not talking about any of those differences and he’s not promoting any of (29:32) those differences.

But he is showing how to build on the foundation. I think it’s really, (29:40) really valuable. If we have no idea of what a worldview is or what the Bible has to say (29:49) about the different aspects of our life and how we interact with the world, then we probably have (29:59) the mindset of the world.

And he’s talking to evangelicals, the people who think they’re really (30:06) religious. And he’s saying most of them are conformed to the world because they don’t know (30:15) what a biblical worldview is, what it looks like. I think we’re in the same boat.

(30:23) Many of us are influenced by what we see in our media, in our news, in our culture, (30:34) what’s our view in slavery, what’s our view in politics? And you can see it. We don’t know. (30:48) How does God view things? That’s what we need to find out.

So hopefully we’ll be able to do this (30:55) relatively quickly and get to people. It’s intended to be a small group study. So I don’t, (31:04) hopefully we won’t be doing it here because, you know, what we’re not doing here is building a (31:10) relationship in this type of setting.

You can build a relationship in a small setting with (31:21) people, four or five people all grouped together for a period of time looking at the same information (31:30) and you can actually start to build relationships that we just don’t, you know, (31:38) all those Romans classes, all the classes that we have on the book of John and Peter (31:48) and all the things, nobody got as much out of those as Jim did. And I got a lot out of Romans (32:00) and hopefully you did too, but I doubt you got as much as I did out of that study (32:07) only because it was my study and I had to put a lot of effort into it. (32:14) In a smaller setting is far more ideal in teaching than what we’re, than here.

So I’d (32:24) rather not have a class, you know, we do have a projector and we have a screen, (32:28) we can set it up and we can show it, but it wouldn’t have the same impact (32:34) as if we did it in a more intimate setting, consistent and in prayer. Make God a part of (32:45) our learning. He wants us to build on the foundation he gave us.

He didn’t give it (32:53) completed. He has a job for us. You know, Jesus is the king of kings.

We are kings, (33:02) we are royalties, Peter tells us, we’re royal priesthood, we’re also kings. (33:08) We will rule, Hebrews tells us, chapter five with him. Reign, it says we will reign with him.

(33:20) You know what was required of a king in Israel? He had to copy down for himself his own copy (33:33) of the law. He had to write it down. He couldn’t just have somebody else do it and give it to him.

(33:42) God required of his king, which we are, to pen his own copy of the law. We have a job (34:02) in building on top of the foundation that’s been given us. The foundation, by the way, (34:07) which Jesus is the cornerstone, the stone which everything aligns to, Paul and the prophets.

(34:16) You know, we like to say the old law was nailed to the cross, which it was. (34:25) But you know those prophets, Paul said right there in Ephesians, Ephesians chapter two, (34:39) verse 20, being built, well let me do 19. So then you are no longer strangers and foreigners, (34:46) but you are fellow citizens with the saints and the household of God being built on the (34:53) foundation of the apostles and prophets.

The prophets are a part of our foundation. (35:07) God put the prophets of the Old Testament into his church foundation. Jesus Christ himself being the (35:20) cornerstone and it’s all aligned to Jesus.

We look at the prophets through a line to Jesus, (35:30) in whom the whole building fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord, (35:35) in whom you are also built together for a habitation of God in the spirit. (35:42) So hopefully we’ll be able to do that. We’ll extend the invitation for anyone who needs it.