Reflecting God's Character Through Grace and Action

1) "You ever try to do something good, and you end up doing, something bad? Maybe for some, you know, you were trying to demonstrate your own independence with parents, but you broke trust a little bit because you were trying so hard, and that created distance. Maybe you're one who, you're really trying to work. You're trying to bring it home for the family, but because you're working so much, you're actually neglecting family, and it's turning out bad, and resentment is beginning to build." [00:55] (24 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2) "We all know what that's like. We're in this series called The Applause of Heaven. We've been going through so far the first part of the Sermon on the Mount. This was the Beatitudes. Remember what the Beatitudes are? These are truth statements where Jesus is saying, this is what it's like for those who are going to live in proximity to Yahweh. If they're going to get to know him and develop his heart more and more, they're actually going to... They're going to start acting more and more like Jesus. They're going to be merciful when they're tempted to not be." [02:14] (27 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3) "There's a theologian named Athanasius in the fourth century. He had a great way of explaining how to understand Jesus as the image of God. He said, when Adam was made, he was said to be this. He's made in God's image. And it's kind of like a portrait was made of Adam. And a portrait of Adam was really, in some ways, a portrait of God. You know what God is like because Adam was made in his image. But then the fall happened. And when the fall happened, human nature fell and got corrupted and corroded. And Adam became something that he wasn't at all. He became vicious. He became angry. He became adulterous. He became murderous. He became all these things. And it marred the image of God. In fact, it marred it so much that nobody remembers what the original image looked like." [03:27] (45 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4) "He is the image of God. And he will show everybody this is what God is like. You've lost the image. Here it is again. It's in the person of Jesus Christ. When we see the image of the invisible God, Jesus Christ, now we understand what God is trying to say. And now we understand this is what we're trying to, with his help, be conformed to. This is what we're supposed to be like. This is the man." [04:33] (24 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5) "I'm the one who obeys all the laws and explains to you the way God really is. And see, once these people got this, once these people listening to the Sermon on the Mount, once they can get this, they get free. See, now, unlike their instructors and the people that were modeling for them, now they don't have to be preoccupied with getting every little thing right. They don't have to be preoccupied with creating divisions between people because some are better than others. They don't have to be preoccupied with their moral record because Jesus Christ has already solved that problem and fulfilled the law on their behalf. They don't need to go back and now fill up something with regard to the law that's empty. Jesus already did the whole thing. Now you can just walk as someone who is forgiven. You're just forgiven now. If you've trusted Jesus Christ, you are just forgiven. That's your identity." [11:36] (54 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6) "And what we find is that once kingdom subjects are no longer preoccupied with themselves, and when you're preoccupied with yourself, let's just clarify, you're not serving anybody when you're focused on you. Even if you're kind of playing like you are, even if you're serving somewhere, you're not really serving if you're really just focusing on you. Now, once your focus is not on you, because you don't have to keep your moral record perfect, Jesus is already doing that for you. Once you're there, now you can focus on glorifying God by doing good. Glory means, when we glorify God, that means we do things in such a way that people can tell where it really is. We can tell where it really is. We can tell where it really came from." [16:48] (40 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7) "You are the salt of the earth. Salt in Jesus' time. It's not that it was never. It was never used for flavoring, but it was primarily used as a preservative. Meaning folks, they didn't have any refrigerator. So if they're gonna have some fish or beef or whatever they've got, they're gonna have to salt it. So salt is understood as this is a preservative. It keeps the moral decay away. And my people, Jesus says, you're going to be that preservative for the world. Let me give you an example. Because you might be, Christians are, kind of have a bad reputation right now in world history, but it has not always been so. And I want to show you one of the reasons why because Christians have consistently improved society." [19:01] (38 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8) "Guys, do you see your lineage? Do you see where you come from? Do you see the kind of people you are? So it's not time to be quiet right now. Now, you do it with gentleness and you do it with respect, but we speak up and we say, you know, that's just really not the way of God. God doesn't want it to go that way. He wants it to go this way. And we start with us. And when we do that, we begin to leave a Jesus -y taste in people's mouths. That's what he wants. That's how he wants us to be the salt of the earth. He wants people to be around us and they go, go, wow, you're just different. There's something different about you." [21:26] (33 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


9) "Here's what else they do. Transform people now. They illuminate the way. They illuminate the way. You're the light of the world. City on the hill can't be hidden. What does light do? Light makes clear what's actually there, and it casts out. It casts out darkness. That's who God says his people are. You make people aware of what's really there, and you cast out darkness. Now, in Jesus' time, remember, there's no, like, street lamps. There's nothing, like, around, you know, the wilderness, like, oh, here's where we are. It's all pitch black, man. So when you see a city at night, it's lit up. So they didn't have street lights there either, but many of the cities were made of limestone, and they were very bright. And so even, like, torchlight, it'd shine off the sides of those buildings, and it would be very bright. You'd be off in the distance, and you'd be like, oh, my gosh, there's a city over there. It's obvious. And that city is telling you something. One of the things it's telling you is, you might want to think twice about going on in the darkness." [25:26] (54 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


10) "I'm not gonna try to like, I'm just gonna be salt and never say anything about it. No, there comes a time, pay attention, when Jesus is teeing you up, my precious, you don't have to be like one of these online people. You don't have to know all the answers. You don't have to be right. All you have to do is say, this is what I've seen. This is what I believe. This is what Jesus did for me. And I know he'll do it for anybody. And you let Jesus take that, man. Just let him take it. And the one thing you need to do differently than the Pharisees, I need to do it, you need to do it, is we need to say, Jesus is the way and I am not. I'm not the way. Jesus alone is the way. Our church isn't the way. The way, the way our culture behaves around here isn't the way. The things you've seen at other churches, that's not the way. Jesus is the way. So if you've seen any other ways and it doesn't quite do the portrait right, you're not the way." [28:47] (51 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)