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The interesting thing about this week that we're in, and I just want to tell you, this is the week for a reset. I love Christmas, I love 4th of July, I love Memorial Day and Labor Day, but there's no date like a reset date other than Resurrection Sunday.
I so agree. I am me, I am so with you.
Yeah, absolutely.
If there's ever a day for a holy reset as you're ramping up this Holy Week towards Sunday, that's a day when you can celebrate that your sins have been nailed to the cross and that our God is alive, and he's at work in you now. So whatever is left unsurrendered, you've got something that's just kicking your tail over and over again. Make this Sunday a day of consecration. Give it to God and watch him move. Well, we're in Holy Week, and one of the questions is, what's
the chronology of everything that went down? The cursing of the fig tree, the clearing of the temple. You see the betrayal of Judas, you see the washing of feet. All these things have some chronology and some kind of method to this whole thing. Doctor Jim Coakley, big dog Prof. Here at Moody. How about that for a bio? And one of our elders at 180 Chicago and he's with us right now. How are you, my man?
I'm doing great. Yeah. No, you're right that this week there's so much that's happening. And Christmas, we spend a whole month on the incarnation, but we hardly have enough time within between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday to get all of the events that took place in this week.
Okay. Which gospel account do you like to go to when we see him flipping over the money changers table? Because there was huge exploitation of people coming for Passover to make sacrifice. What's going on with that narrative, and what passage do you love to use?
Yeah, I like looking at Mark chapter 11 Because he mark does something that is very special. We call it the mark and sandwich. Basically, what he often does in this whole gospel is he'll sandwich between a central event, something on either end of it. And so we have the cursing of the fig tree on one end, and then we have the cleansing of the temple, as we so call it. And then we have him going back
by that fig tree. And so they're all connected. And so I like that passage because we really see clearly what the theme is of what happens with this so-called cleansing of the temple. And that even is something that we need to clarify. Because what is cleansing? Is it cleansing? Is it cursing what is really going on here? And that's why some scholars call it the temple incident, because it leaves it a little more open.
To touch on this chronology thing, though, for just a second. Why is it important? And some people try to undermine little different aspects of Scripture when they see what looks to be a different chronology. To me, it's just each author. The gospel is highlighting different aspects of all the events in in the life of Jesus, most particularly Holy Week. What do you say, Jim?
Yeah, I totally agree. And I think this is where we see a great example of it with today's events. When we think about Palm Sunday or Coronation Sundays, I like to call it that took place when, of course, Christ is announcing himself as the King and Hosanna is being shouted. But then it says that again we have these events, and if we look at John's gospel, we can see he has it early in the ministry in
John chapter two. But all of the rest of the gospel writers put it at the end of the Gospels, in the first day of the Holy Week.
So he walks into the temple. He's already coming in with fanfare, riding on a donkey. And which is what's crazy about this is that he chooses more than just to fulfill Zechariah nine nine. He chooses to take the posture of an unusual king, not one setting himself up above or on par with the kings of this world, but actually lowly, taking a posture of humility and then whiplash. He goes into the temple and he starts flipping over granite tables. What do you say?
Yeah, that is the kind of more schizophrenic nature that we have him being and sense riding in that sense of humility. But two donkeys are something that Kings Road Solomon, when he was coronated, basically probably did the same path that Jesus did down to the Gihon Spring to be coronated when he was there. And David said, put him on one of my donkeys. So this was a very clear royal kind of significant event. So it wasn't that
he was just riding a lowly, lowly animal. It's just that this was what Kings did when they would be coronated. Because kings on horses without saddles, they're going to be undignified. Uh, and so they're going to fall off. And so even throughout the book of judges, we see leaders sons riding donkeys. So this is a pretty common kind of beast of burden that's used for carrying kings.
That's fascinating. So was that exclusive to the Jewish people or was because the common nature of war and warriors, even in the Roman Empire, wouldn't have been a donkey per se?
Oh, no. And this is why kings riding around kind of doing their normal royal duties. Uh, if you're going off to war, you're definitely riding a horse. But if you're riding around town doing official duties or going to be coordinated as king, you're riding on a donkey. And so that's the thing. Now, we do know that Christ is going to come riding a white horse someday. Yeah.
So he's coming.
In. He's coming in with the great judgment.
Okay. What's going on in the cleansing of the temple? Let's just touch on that quickly, and then I'm going to carry it over because I want to get into the weeds on it. Big picture. What's happening?
Yeah. Like we already mentioned, we have him cursing the figs. Uh, the fig tree that's not producing. Now, of course, people bent out of shape with. Well, how is it that Christ, uh, already knew that this was not the season for figs? Well, that's the point, is that he's using this as an illustration, as a parable, as it were. Uh, and when we look at all of the Old Testament again, I was fascinated by the passages like Isaiah five talking about Israel
as a vineyard and not producing fruit. And so we're going back to that fruitfulness kind of imagery. And we have this great temple. Uh, it's all, as they say in Texas, all cattle and no all hat and no cattle. Yeah. And so it's the idea that it should be a place of prayer. And I think that's what Mark and other gospel writers emphasize. And instead it's become this place for marketeering kind of work. And it's not so much that commercialization is happening that that's not a problem in
and of itself. It's where it's happening and what price they're charging to people for these animals. And so then he changes. He turns over the money changers tables. And then, you know, again, we see the fig tree and its the being, in a sense, withered. And it's really a foreshadowing of the temple, uh, kind of, uh, in a sense, uh, in a sense falling off of all of its accolades and it's being shown as totally vapid.
Yeah. And reference for sure to 70 A.D. and and then beyond. Okay. Coming up here in a moment. Jim Coakley. Doctor Jim Coakley with me in studio here. We're going to tackle application because it's one thing to go, oh, these are the events. It's another thing to say, so what does that matter to me? The cleansing of the table. And how do we apply it to our lives today? Hang on.
She was trying to earn her way to God, but God showed her she didn't have to. Ali is in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
My house shall be called a house of prayer. But you made it into a den of robbers selling pigeons. Probably at increased sum of money because. yeah, they got a captive audience. Got to make sacrifices. But they were ripping off more than that, weren't they? Jim, doctor Jim Coakley is with me right now. Uh, professor, here at Moody Bible Institute, one of our elders at 180 Chicago radio in Chicagoland. This den of thieves metaphor goes way deeper than just a commerce problem. Right, Jim?
Yeah. Because in a sense, we look at Mark quotes, all of Isaiah's 57 verse where it says, my house shall be called a house of prayer. And Isaiah goes on to say, for all the nations within the temple complex, you have the big temple with the Holy of Holies and everything else. And then you have, you know, the court of the women, and you have the court of the Gentiles. And there is debate about where this incident took place with him changing over the money tables. For
a long time I've waffled. Is it on the Herodian street that we go to when we take tours to Israel and see it there on the corner, or is it up on the Temple Mount? I'm starting to lean now towards it was up on the Temple Mount, because this is where the court of the Gentiles was located, and they're taking space over for people from all nations to come to this temple during Passover. And they're reallocating that space for commercialization, and then they're charging exorbitant rates.
Some even say even for a dove, a pigeon is 25 times the going rate because they have, in a sense, a, you know, a monopoly on the market that people are going to pay just to have. And that was for a poor man's offering. And so they're they're really ripping off the poor. And I think when we look at the prophets and what they're crying against, it's abuse of the poor not allowing others to come in, kind of reclaiming space for their own selfish gain. And we see
that over and over again. And by Jesus quoting from Jeremiah seven, the temple sermon from Jeremiah, he's really getting into their craw and really taking them to task for their wicked abuse of these temple practices.
You know, I was sharing this yesterday in a message that it seems to me that what was ultimately being ripped off here was equal access to God, which is what prayer is. There's no passage cost for entry, and they've taken a house of prayer. And by way of commerce, they've cut off some people from feeling like there was access to God. And the beautiful thing about prayer is it's the ultimate level playing field. I mean, princes and paupers, everyone can go to God in prayer. So how do
we apply this? How do you take this crazy event from 2000 years ago? And how does this ring true in our lives today? How do we relate to people? How does it work, Jim?
Yeah, I think a couple of easy kind of low hanging fruit kind of things. One is we need to make sure that our temple is cleansed. And so we think about the fact that how are we presenting ourselves to a holy world? Are we living one way and not saying another and doing another. And so this is then the challenge in a sense, because this temple should have been a place for all nations to come and pray. But it wasn't because they were taking it over for
other things. Is there something we're allowing to take over our temples that we need to, in a sense, remove?
Good word.
But then also exploitation. Again, we see the heart of the gospel, the heart for the care, for the underprivileged, for those who are poor. And they they abuse that. And that's going to always fall under a clear, you know, in a sense, in a sense cursing from God because that's not the way it's supposed to be. And so I think those two things are really easy things is what are we doing to, in a sense, make it more accessible for others who are maybe got challenges to
come to the Lord? And how are we cleansing our own temples, as it were?
You know, it's interesting because if you look at this experience of clearing the temple, you see that there's a ease of Access that a blockade has been put up to to all nations. I love your observation. Being on the Temple Mount, by the way, and the area for the Gentiles now being nudged away because we got to make more room to sell sacrifice of pigeons and the
like at an inflated number. But, Jim, it's it's so easy in our own minds to set up who we think has access to God, how we look at people. And this can be a danger for people that have been in the church for a lot of years. What do you say to that? Because it can be a slow drift where we begin to have a even a mindset that, okay, this person's in. This person is out
or this person's reachable, this person's not reachable. The beautiful thing about access to God is whosoever will still may come, right, Jim?
Yeah. And I think we saw that in your heart yesterday in your message, where you talked about during a giving portion. The idea is somebody had given a large gift and you were glad you did not know who it was, because it might have a tendency to, in a sense, you know, give them more access, more favor, more let their voice speak louder than others. And then we dealt with, as you know, with another individual who
had some challenges in our church. And, you know, how do we then in a sense not say, well, I need to only go to those who have money, who can help us advance our financial objectives and not really also display the heart of God loving people who are broken and need to do 180. So this is a this is a lesson for all of us to keep on relearning, isn't it?
Yeah. It's powerful. All right. I'm going to I'm going to give you an opportunity wide open. As you look at Holy Week, what is your favorite aspect of Holy Week?
Oh my. There's so many things because I like I like the, you know, the literary features, the theological features. Certainly the bookends of anointing is there. But I love the little incident where, of course, Peter denies Christ three times by a charcoal fire, and then same word is used the only time it's used used twice in the Gospel of John. Charcoal fire. We get to Jesus after the resurrection, where he's announcing to Peter and asking the question, do you love me? Do you love me? Do you
love me? Again, that three fold denial, three fold questions. But what is it that our Lord does? Is he's preparing a fish breakfast for Peter by a charcoal fire. And so the place that Peter denied the Lord a charcoal fire, is the same place that Jesus was restoring Peter. I mean, that's powerful. That shows again that our our Lord was focused that week on what he was doing to minister to his disciples and to us as well.
You know, the amazing thing about Holy Week, Jim, is it's a golden opportunity for us to consecrate our lives again. And this isn't just once a year. This is why I'm not big into I love goals, but ordering our life in such a way that we live each day with such a well-ordered life that we're aimed at the glory of God and the good of others. What a golden opportunity, though, to prepare for Resurrection Sunday and say, this is a holy reset in my life and we
can look at all the different teachings. You look at the life of Judas. God, don't make me one that walk. Be one that walks away. You look at the the metaphor of feet. We know that beautiful feet bring good news. We see the feet of Judas walking away. We see Jesus washing feet. My goodness, how we walk matters, right, Jim?
Oh, it sure does. And I think that's really, you know, the beauty that we could spend the rest of our days just contemplating on just the effects of this week in terms of our walk. And that's the beauty and sadness, really, of why we only spend, you know, eight days speaking on, you know, the death, burial and resurrection and Palm Sunday, where we have so many more spiritual themes that could really help us in our daily walk and walking by
the spirit and taking that path along with Jesus. And I look at the Apostle Paul, he goes through the same events he's going through, you know, mock trials. He's having a meal with his, uh, with his friends on the boat before it's shipwrecked. So it's almost like this is a pattern, a paradigm for the Christian life. We're going to go through persecution. We're going to go through things just like our Lord did. But the gospel goes forth. I love the last verse of the book of acts.
It goes forth unhindered. Uh, and that's the beauty of why we go through these things and remember what our Lord did in this Holy Week.
Love it. Okay. Final question. What's the fresh thing God's doing in Doctor Jim Coakley's life right now?
Oh, uh, again, uh, I just dealt with this just over the weekend, my wife realized I was spending a little more time on an app that I shouldn't have. And it wasn't bad. It was just a game. But I just realized it was taking time away from from her and from things I need to be focused on. No, I need to have some, you know, outlets and some recreation. But it's the idea I need to have more healthy ones. And so again, I'm just like everyone else. I need to constantly revisit those kind of things.
That's healthy to hear. I think everyone breathes a sigh of relief like, oh, good. If Doctor Jim's getting on a game a little bit long, that's that's you know what, Jim? I thank you for being vulnerable like that because I think sometimes we can give people a facade, unintended facade, you know what I mean, Jim?
Yes.
And we need to let people know we're all on this path of discipleship.
And I shared that with a young guy at our church yesterday. Just did, you know. Yeah, I shared it, you know, and so I shared it with with Caleb. And he was I could just see him, him kind of just smiling because, you know, he realizes that. Yeah. I mean, these are challenges we're going to face the rest of our life.
I love it. Doctor Jim Coakley Oh, by the way, if you want a phenomenal I, I'm going to I'm going to plug this one because my wife says it is the book. I don't know if we got this link ready to go. We do super day. Okay. This book, my bride says, is the book that has had more impact of her understanding how the Bible fits together and seeing things as she reads that she had never seen before. They're great. Yeah. Isn't that terrific? But.
So, thinking about Holy Week, I was thinking of these same techniques all the way through. And, you know, out of order. And, you know, again, time management, all these things that are principles in the book are really at play in this Holy Week.
Yeah. Beautiful. All right. Super guy. How do the folks get a link for a resource that might fuel their Bible reading like it did my bride.
Text the word fresh. That word fresh will get him the link to 14 Fresh Ways to Enjoy the Bible. So the word will be fresh. That number again is 805 five, five, 78, 98. And you'll be texting the word fresh.
Do you feel stuck or paralyzed? Are you ready to break free? Here are your questions answered. It's time for ask Pastor Carl.
The issues cited in a little note that I received. And we're going to give you the portal how to get in your questions about discipleship, overcoming stuff, anything to help you take your next step with Jesus. That's what I'm tackling here Monday mornings. Bottom of the hour. And this is you know, this is a very typical type of email that I would get. So I protect your identity here. But Pastor Carl, my heart is broken. I'm having such a hard time healing. I feel like it's
never going to happen. I'm trying, but all my baby steps don't feel like enough. Here's the cliff notes to my story. I'll protect identity here a little bit. I got divorced a year ago. I was married 20 years, and during that time my ex-husband was abusive. Abusive in almost every way. But for me, the worst was the verbal and psychological abuse. It changed me. Now there's little themes in here I'm going to pick up on. Okay. I wish I could say that it made me stronger,
but that would be a lie. It made me fragile. It completely unraveled the very fabric of who I was. I thought that after the divorce, things would get better. But that hasn't been the case in the last year. I've dealt with the death of my marriage, the trauma and all the abuse and my ex dating, getting engaged in just a in a few weeks, getting remarried. Oh, you can feel it, can't you guys? Yeah, I've been reading my Bible, though. I struggled to get it done
some days I've been doing a lot. All caps of praying. I listen to messages. I've gotten some counsel. Been in therapy, worked out, and tried unsuccessfully to even eat healthier. I've done all the stupid positive affirmations that never work. But despite all my efforts and all my baby steps, I'm still broke and traumatized and have no self-esteem. I don't feel like I've been healed at all. I feel stuck in this place of mourning and self-hatred. Pastor Carl, how
do I heal? How do I start thinking positively about myself? How do I get unstuck and move into what God has planned for the next chapter of my story? Thanks for listening. And then her name. Sister, we love you. And my heart breaks for you. I want to tell you a couple of things that are pretty unconventional here. First off. First off, You having some a little bit of indignation about your ex-husband sauntering off into a new marriage?
That is normal. That is okay. And you know what I want to tell you in Imprecatory prayer might be in order here. What's an imprecatory prayer? We find it all over the Psalms. We find Psalms that say, God, the pit that they've dug for me. Let them fall in it. God, the the thing that I'm up against right now. God, you see it? Would you please make the wrongs right? And there's an interesting Psalm. I don't have it open right now. Let me flip to it
here really quickly. Psalm 112. This is you ready for this man? This is. This is the way to. I know this sounds crazy. This is the way to get back at spiritual knuckleheads that you've had in your life. This is the way to get back. Psalm 112. Listen to this. Praise the Lord! Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments. His offspring will be mighty in the land. The generation of the upright will be blessed. Wealth and riches are in
his house, and his righteousness endures forever. Light dawns in the darkness for the upright. He is gracious, merciful, and righteous. It is well with the man who deals generously and lends, who conducts his affairs with justice. This all this is saying is keep walking rightly. Order your life to do the right thing no matter what. For the righteous will never be moved. He will be remembered forever. He's not afraid of bad news. His heart, his firm trusting in
the Lord. His heart is steady. He will not be afraid until he looks in triumph on his adversaries. He has distributed freely. He has given to the poor. He is. His righteousness endures forever. His horn is exalted. Look at the payoff. Verse ten. Last verse. The wicked man sees it in his anger. He gnashes his teeth and melts away. The desire of the wicked will perish. The best way to deal with the pain of adversaries, even in this
case an ex-husband, is to outlive them. Now you might say, and she said, I'm worse off for all of this. I'm not okay. This trial hasn't made me mature and complete, lacking in nothing. Like we find in James one two
through four. Here's what I would say. This is the lost art because I hear a thread in what you're saying, sister, and the thread is a lot of getting busy reading the Bible, going to church, doing a lot of praying, listening to The messages gotten wise counsel doing all the stupid her quote stupid positive affirmations that never work and I couldn't agree with you more. Here's what I would say. First,
David got down. I mean discouraged, he was so discouraged he was panting like a deer for flowing streams of water. His tears were his food day and night. Yeah. Salty tears. And those tears were screaming one thing. Where's your God? Whoa! These things I remember as I pour out my soul. And then he speaks to himself. Why are you so downcast? Oh my soul. And why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. My soul is cast down within me.
Therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan. Deep calls to deep as the roar of your waterfalls. All your breakers and your waves have gone over me. Here's what a lost art in our world today. In fact, I had a young man come up to me and said yesterday, he said, that thing that you said about spending five minutes alone with God in the morning just to hear him, not to talk to him, just to hear him. Is one of the greatest things I've ever done in my life. Just a young man. Here's what
I need you to hear. I need you to sit alone with God early in the morning. Pour out your heart to him and be silent. I want you to have armed yourself before you sit down alone with him, with passages of his goodness. The fact that he sees your pain. The fact that he knows what you're going through, his providence, his love, the faithfulness of God cited all the way through the scriptures. And then gently, in the
quietness of the dark, say, my soul is downcast. Lord, help me with the grace to put my trust in you. Whether you feel far away or close by, my soul magnifies Nafis, you begin to rehearse the truth of God's power, his providence, his goodness. Is it hard? It's hard. But I am encouraged when I get into moments of deep discouragement. And I do that. David had a downcast soul and he spoke to it. Put your hope in God. It's not hope in Bible reading. It's not hope in doing
lots of praying or talking with God. It's listening to him. It's a lost art. Spending time alone with God. Let the tears fall. It might be your breakfast that day, but I'm convinced God will feed your soul. That's what David said. It's one other thing I want to add. Get with a friend or two, please. Leaves, get with a friend or two. Have someone who can bear those burdens with you, weep with you, and encourage you and point you back to God.
She's a choreographer extraordinaire and everything is Greek to her. Super die is in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
Even the Windex bottle, it's all Greek to her.
Everything.
Every bit of it is Greek to her. Okay, I want to break something down for you. We've got a golden opportunity in me and super dire. Yeah, we're buddies on this one, aren't we, kiddo? Resurrection Sunday?
Absolutely my favorite.
Isn't it the best day of the year?
The best.
It's better.
Week.
I know some of you are Christmas hounds. I get that, but.
Well, the thing about Christmas, I was going to say the the Christmas holiday is setting up for what happens this Sunday. I mean, we're celebrating because Jesus is here and he's going to do the thing that he does this upcoming Sunday. Yeah.
And by the way, Christmas, when did it find out when it was first celebrated? It's relatively new compared to celebrating the resurrection of Christ.
Oh, yeah.
Boy, the keys are in there. There's fire coming off those things right now. He's burning.
On.
It. You already got.
It. 336 A.D..
I was going to guess 400, so I was off 70 years.
That's pretty good.
Um, it's it's interesting because. Yeah, 300 years. Those poor kids never got to get up on Christmas Day.
What a bummer.
For 300 years, they never, never had Christmas. But. But they had Easter.
Easter.
And and that's the point. Listen, here's here's. And I love Christmas. So don't be thinking that now I love Christmas, but Easter. Resurrection Sunday. Are you kidding me? This is the day for a holy reset. Let me give you some fuel for your belly. Titus two I love this passage. Verse 11 and 12 for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions. And to live self-controlled, upright and godly
lives in this present age. I want you to make Resurrection Sunday a holy reset. I want you on Friday to nail to the cross. And we're actually going to be doing this at one in Chicago at our Good Friday service. I just gave away something that's going to be an incredible treat. We're going to be nailing to the cross symbolically, not only the sins of the past, but even the battles of the present. And we're going
to be believing God for resurrection power. Why? Because the tomb is empty and his grace has graces appeared, training us to renounce ungodliness. Worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Wow. See, Resurrection Sunday is a day when you can say, God, I renew my commitment to you. Get anything ungodly out of me.
Worldly passions squared away. Give me self control. Help me live upright and godly in this present age. Watch what God can do. Make it true of you this Resurrection Sunday.
Do you feel stuck or paralyzed? Are you ready to break free? Hear your questions answered. It's time for ask, Pastor Carl.
All right, boom crew. I need you to know something I want to. I don't care how long I'm here on radio. Monday mornings at the bottom of the hour. I want this to become a place where we get after it like we haven't even yet. What do I mean? Our commitment here is to help you take your next step with Jesus. I've learned some stuff about discipleship over the over over the years. I'm mainly the school of hard knocks. I've got sacred scholars all over my body,
physically and in my heart. Sacred scars are beautiful things, and some of you still have wounds, and God wants to take those wounds and turn them into sacred scars. Isn't that kind of a cool metaphor? Um, so here's what I want you to do. As we give you a link here, I want us to and we're going to do this. I'm going to answer a question here in a moment, but I want to give you a link right now because I want to banner ad this.
I want to get after these questions of not the hypostatic union, and not how many angels can fit on the needle on the pin of a needle or anything like that. That's that's Michael Ray Dolnick stuff on Open Line. Um, but what I want to get after here is discipleship questions. What's got you stuck? How do you overcome? What's holding you back? What sin are you battling with that you need victory on? And I'm going to tackle these things
head on. And and I'm going to protect your identity as I'm about to with a letter that came in to me here. And it doesn't need to be a long letter. It can be a few sentences, but if you've got questions related to discipleship, I want to get after them. Now, some of them come in and they're so similar I try to bundle them together. And so I'm there's no way I'm going to respond to these emails personally, but I will on air. Okay. And so get them in knowing generally speaking, there's a lot of
people struggling with something. You are super di. How do they get questions in here?
Real simple. Get those questions in by texting the word pastor. takes the word pastor to 800 555 7898. The word is pastor and the number is 805 five five 7898. The info will come right to your phone.
Yeah. Okay. Carl. Pastor Carl, I listen to you daily on Moody in the morning. Thank you. First off, I listen to your story of your walk with Christ. It brings me so much joy because I feel there is hope for my son going to leave his name out. See how honoring I am here, guys. He is so lost with anxiety and rebellion. He's such a wonderful kid, young man who has so many struggles with life in school, loss, anxiety. I know he now this is where I want you
to listen closely. I know he knows Christ, but he is so far from him. He has gone to Christian schools his whole life. Sitting in chapel. I have prayed over this young man, but some days I see no hope. My heart breaks for you and I feel your pain. It's hard. Would you please pray for. Gives her boy his name. And I will to come to the end of himself. To give his life fully to God. Blessings
from a mother whose heart is breaking for her son. Okay, so I'm not going to mention the woman's name here, but I want to talk to you, sister and all you other sisters and brothers who feel the same thing. I hammered this last Friday and I'm going to get after it again. I want you to be clear on something. Being in church or a Christian school, or going to a youth group or all these different spiritual activities are zero indicator that your kid is in Christ, zero that
that has nothing to do with it. Now we talk a lot about Matthew seven here. But preaching in the name of Jesus, baptizing in the name of Jesus, and doing mighty works in the Jesus, did not pre-qualify any one to go to heaven, because Jesus said to many who would say that I never knew you. Okay. And plus, the goal here isn't getting fire insurance so that you avoid hell. The goal here is the abundant life. So
this mom's barking up the right tree. There's a presumption that we make that is often flawed, and that is that going to church and even having indications of maybe even getting baptized. We got a baptism coming up at 180 Chicago, and I had a precious girl come up to me that's just begun following Jesus six months ago, raised in a in a tradition that she got baptized young and with tears in her eyes from another country. She says, pastor, I need to get baptized. I said,
you do. awesome because now she is a repentant follower of Jesus Christ. So here's what I would say. I had Sean McDowell on with me when I was guest hosting for Chris Brooks last week, and he said something profound. He has asked, anecdotally, 30 adult kids that were raised in the church to great parents. Imperfect but great parents. Please don't wear this. Your kid has their own free will. Don't condemn yourself. Own anything you can own, but don't
condemn yourself. And he asked 30 kids, have you? Did you ever come to the point in your life where you were broken over your sin and you repented of it because you knew you needed a Savior? Only one responded yes, out of 30. Doctor Sean McDowell is a Apologists who deals with issues of today in profound ways. He's Josh's son. Great kid. That further undergirds my firm belief that many kids that we're praying to get fully alive in Christ have never been alive in Christ. Am
I saying that or all are in that group? No, I would say there is the one out there out of 30, but I think that's a good rule of thumb. Given the preponderance of evidence. And look at the ten virgins in what Matthew 25, the ten virgins waiting for the groom to come. They're all dressed up the same. They all got lamps in their hand. Only five of the ten have oil in their lamps. The other five didn't have. And I believe it's representative of the Holy
Spirit filling their life. They were not alive. They had no light. They had no juice for light. So here's what I want you to do. I'm going to give a resource out that is very important. Calling all parents with kids that you want them to be fully alive in Christ. You might need to be praying that they would come alive in Christ. There is undeniable zeal to be plugged into the church. When you are plugged into Christ,
and Christ is in you. So I want you to grab this resource, and I want and I'm going to keep hammering this more and more because it's something we got to get after the it's it's titled nine Ways to Know You stand with God and he stands with you. And this is why it's such a great tool for parents. You can use this. And by the way, people that say, oh, I'm not supposed to be looking at fruit baloney. Of course you are one for expressing judgment. No. To love
people well. And if you look at this, you'll see characteristics, although imperfect, but are characteristic of men and women who are in Christ. Men and women. Boys and girls. So look at it. Pray through it. If this is not characteristic of your kid, start praying that they would. Be found by Jesus. More than fully committed to Jesus. Because you can only be fully committed to. And I would call that the sanctification process. You can only be fully
committed to someone that you are first born into. So take it away, somebody.
Yeah. The title again Carl's talking there. That blog nine Ways to know that you stand with God and God stands with you. We'll get that to you. Just text the word stand. The word is stand to 805, 55, 78, 98. Text the word stand 805, 55, 78, 98.
You know, we had a text that came in while I was sharing the story, said, I'm a grandmother raising two grandsons. I'm experiencing the same as that. Mother, please pray for my grandson. I'm not going to say the name. We will. So, father, these two young men that are have been brought to our hearts this morning, we pray. And for these that are grabbing this blog right now, this represents hundreds, maybe thousands of kids the parents long to see born again. Lord, we pray right now in
the name of Jesus. Holy Spirit, move across this land, across this globe and take kids that were raised in church and bring them into Christ for sure. And we pray it in Jesus name a men.