Tangled Typology

Call to Worship

Hymn

Salutation

Psalm

Confession

Let us humbly confess our sins by kneeling before our God

God, our heavenly Father, We confess to You, that we have surely sinned against You in thought, word, and deed; Not only in outward transgressions, but also in secret thoughts and desires that we are unable fully to understand, but which are all known to You. We are in need of deliverance from Your enemies and our infirmities. For this reason we flee for refuge to Your infinite mercy, seeking and imploring your forgiveness and deliverance, Through our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Let us spend time in silent prayer confessing our sins

Amen and Amen

Absolution

Please stand and lift up your head to hear the good news - which comes to us from Isaiah 43:25

Isaiah 43:25 ESV

“I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.

Church, the Lord has blotted out your transgressions and forgotten your sins for his own sake. There is nothing you can do to earn salvation instead it is the free gift from God gifted to your through the work of Jesus on the cross. His blood was spilled for you, his body broken and bruised, and he went to defeat death on your behalf. And is now your mediator, and at this very moment has interceded on your behalf. It doesn’t matter what you think and it doesn’t matter what you feel, but what matters is what God has declared. And God has told you church, that he will not remember your sins. Therefor as an ordained minister of the gospel, I declare to you that your sins are forgiven. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirt.

So lift up your hearts

We lift them up to the Lord

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God

It is good and right to do so

Truly it is fitting, right, and beneficial to give thanks to You at all times and in every place, O Lord, holy Father, almighty and everlasting God. Therefore, with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, and with the church on earth, we praise and magnify your glorious Name, evermore praising You and singing...

Sanctus

Old Testament Reading

Our old testament reading comes from Job 19:23-27

Job 19:23–27 ESV

“Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!

This is the word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

Epistle

Our epistle reading comes 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5

2 Thessalonians 2:1–5 ESV

Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things?

2 Thessalonians 2:13–17 ESV

But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter. Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.

This is the word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

Gospel

Please rise out of respect for the gospel reading, which comes to us from the gospel according to St. Luke 20:27-38

Luke 20:27–38 ESV

There came to him some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died without children. And the second and the third took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died. Afterward the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife.” And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.”

This is the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ

Praise be to you O Christ.

Nicene Creed

Let us now confess our unified faith with the words of the Nicene Creed

People of God, what do you believe

WE BELIEVE IN ONE GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

AND IN ONE LORD JESUS CHRIST, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made; who, for us men, and for our salvation, came down from Heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the virgin, Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into Heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge both the living and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

AND WE BELIEVE IN THE HOLY GHOST, the Lord, and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the Prophets. And we believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church; we acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.

Amen.

Sermon

Don’t confuse the message. Our sermon tonight comes from the gospel According to St. Luke the 20th chapter

Let us Pray

Holy Father,

Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight. Thank you for Christ, our rock and our redeemer. The lamb who takes away the sin of the world.

In the name of Jesus we pray, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God age after age,

Amen

On September 27th, 2941 of the Third Age, according to Shire reckoning of course, a young hobbit named Bilbo Baggins went on a grand adventure. This particularly brave and bold hobbit was tasked with being a thief, for Bilbo was the one who would help the 13 dwarves steal back their gold from the great and mighty dragon, Smaug. But what is so extraordinary about this story, is that Bilbo becomes one of the worst hired hands to ever exist. For yes Bilbo does help the dwarves reclaim their gold, he ends up stealing the arkenstone, the greatest treasure from Thorin Oakenshield. And as you read this delightful story, you come to realize that Smaug was never the true villain, yes he was evil, but Smaug was really pointing towards something else.

Smaug was the placeholder, the representative, and I am in a church so I can use this word, the type that was pointing to the greed and malice within the dwarves hearts. Thorin, the great and mighty leader, falls to this desire to have all the gold and share none even with those with a rightful claim. The true evil that we see in this story is the lust for riches that is hidden in the hearts of the dwarves.

And whenever we read the hobbit, as we should all do very often. We need to make sure that we read understanding what Smaug is pointing to. We need to be faithful readers and understand what types and shadows are pointing us to towards. And we are so bad at this. Especially when it comes to our bibles.

We get stuck reading in the book of Leviticus and we can begin to believe that the blood of bulls and lambs are true sacrifices and Jesus was just an analogy for this. But the bible teaches us that Jesus is the true sacrifice and bulls and lambs were always pointing us to the coming Messiah. This is happens all through the bible, Jesus is the true high priest not Aaron. Jesus is the true king not David. Jesus is the true prophet, not Moses or Isaiah. We have to make sure that we are careful to understand this when we read our bibles. And as we look at our passage today, we are going to see that the Sadduccees do not understand this. And they miss it in one of the most common ways that happens even to this day, concerning marriage. If you have your bibles please open them to Luke 20, and we are going to look at how some people misread the bible, we will see how Jesus points to the true interpretation, and we will see how glorious God’s creation is.

Lets look at Luke 20:27

Luke 20:27 ESV

There came to him some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection,

As we come to this part of Luke, we need to know that Jesus has finally come to Jerusalem. He is in the beginning stages of his passion, of his steps to the cross. And while in Jerusalem we see that there all these different groups of people are attempting to find some sort of ammunition to charge Jesus. The scribes and chief priests had questioned him, and then the spies from the chief priests, and now the Sadduccees come trying to trap Jesus with their questions.

The Sadduccees are an interesting group of people. This is the only place that Luke mentions them, and they are a relatively young Judaic sect. They seem to have first appeared in the 2nd century BC, so less then 200 years from this story. And they were a group of elites. They were financially well off and held to some strange beliefs, they rejected any belief regarding a resurrection. They were a small group, not very popular among the common people, and they held to this weird heretical belief, you can think of them as the scientologists of Jesus’ day.

And this group is going to come and question Jesus. They are are going to attempt to trap him so that they might have some form of charge against him. That through this interaction Jesus may finally be stopped.

Lets look at their questions - Luke 20:28-33

Luke 20:28–33 ESV

and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died without children. And the second and the third took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died. Afterward the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife.”

So the Sadduccess come asking Jesus this question. And we can picture this, here is this group that denies the resurrection so they probably have used this question before. They have probably debated the Pharisees and scribes and thought we have him, this question is going to completely stump Jesus.

Hannah and I used to campus ministry back in Kansas. And we would see this all the time. We would be doing a bible study or evangelism and you’d run across an atheist or agnostic and they would have these questions that they thought would completely puzzle us. If God is good why did he destroy the Canaanites, or the bible is full of errors and is mysoginistic or whatever it is. And you almost just wanted to laugh when they would ask you this. Here is someone who has read one text, yanked it out of context and never thought that there might be a reasonable answer.

This is what the sadducees are doing. They come to Jesus and ask him this question, and think that if the resurrection is true then there is no possible correct answer that he could give. So they begin by quoting the scriptures, they say Moses wrote that if a man’s brother dies without having any children, then the man must takes his brothers wife and have children and raise up the children for the brother. The brother of the man who died becomes responsible for continuing the blood line of his brother. And this is true, this command is seen in Deuteronomy. So they begin by quoting the law correctly. They understood it, but they have missed the bigger picture.

We see this as the question continues, they say not only has this man died, but then 6 of his brothers marry the woman and all die. So this question is taken to a logical absurdity. This is a reductio ad absurdem.

Kids, maybe youth group - any of you know what that means? Its where you take this idea, that has some validity and then take it to an extreme impossible scenario. You know I say this to my kids a lot, I’ll look at them and say hey stop being weird, or you'll end up all alone and living with your mom and I forever.

This is what the Sadducees are doing, they take this idea of marriage and the resurrection, that they don’t even beleive in and giving the most complicated situation possible. And all they have really done is show that they don’t understand the law that they claim to be teachers of. They have completely missed the point of ressurection as well as marriage.

And Jesus is going to respond and show them how foolish they really are. Luke 20:34-36

Luke 20:34–36 ESV

And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.

Jesus responds by pointing them to the truth that they have missed. He says that the sons of this age they marry, but the those are worthy to gain the resurrection, to come into the new age, the new heavens and new earth, they do not marry. These people cannot die, but instead are equal, or like the angels, they are sons of God, they are the resurrected ones.

And we read this, and we think, thats great Jesus, but it doesn’t really tell us anything. This leaves us with more questions than answers. I have often said this one of the passages of scripture that I personally struggle with most. I love my wife, just this past week she and my kids went and took a vacation in arkansas, and I stayed here and worked, and it was awful. I hated every minute of it. I love my wife and to think of eternity as her not being my wife is hard. Why is this? And I know that if I struggle with this, the issue is with me, not with the bible. So what is the reason that this passage is so difficult.

And the reason is, what Jesus is telling the Sadducees and us as we read this, is that we do not properly understand marriage. We think of this relationship in our lives as the highest points of life. Go watch any disney movie or rom com, and the couple instantly falls in love and lives happily ever after and it is the greatest moment of their lives. But this is a lie. It’s not true. And its not even a sneaky lie, scripture tells us this isn’t the case, because we see in the bible that marriage, the covenantal relationship between a man and woman, is not about us.

Ephesians 5:32 ESV

This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

Marriage is not about us, marriage is a type that is pointing us to Christ and his church. Marriage is the symbol that God has placed in the world to tell people about Jesus and his bride. Marriage is always about Jesus. Jesus is the true groom and his church is the true bride and marriage is the lesser thing pointing towards the more glorious truth. Marriage is the lesser thing.

And this needs to be how we view marriage, and this should affect us in 2 distinct ways.

First, if you are married, you need to have a theological understanding that marriage is pointing to something greater. And your duty, your job as someone married is to tell the truth about the greater truth. Your marriage is a public declaration about Christ and the church and you must not lie about how Christ loves his bride and how the church submits and honors Christ. This is the basis for the belief that this Church holds that marraige is between one man and one woman who are in a covenantal bond. Any other kind of relationship is lying about Christ. There are not two grooms or two brides, so we reject homosexual relationships. Christ does have two brides so we reject polygamy. Christ does not consumate a relationship with those outside of his covenant so we reject premarital sex. Christ does not look lustfully at those not his bride so we reject pornography. We reject and condemn all these things because at there core they are lies about Jesus. And we must see marriage as a public declaration about Jesus and his church, if we don’t we will be the sadduccees who read the scriptures but don’t understand the main point.

The second point we need to take away from this, is that the lesser thing is pointing to something more glorious. Jesus tells us in this passage that we will no longer be given in marriage, but not because marriage is bad but because there is something much greater than marriage that we will experience. No one who is married will be cheated by the resurrection, instead they will enter into a glory unimaginable, something that so far outshines marriage that all we can do is fall on our knees and worship God.

Imagine trying to go to a saint in the Old Testament, and you watch them slaughter their bull and you say to them, hey in the new covenant you wont need to do that any more. They would look at you like you were crazy, what do you mean no more sacrifices. How will we be able to approach God without the blood of bulls. Well its because of something that is so much greater. And thats what marriage is. That is what the sadduccees didn’t understand, these people who didn’t believe in a resurrection couldn’t understand the idea of something greater than the life they currently have. They couldn’t picture that the life they knew was pointing them to some better. They couldn’t see this because they didn’t have eyes to see and ears to hear the scriptures. Which why Jesus is going to turn the scriptures back on them to show them this truth.

Luke 20:37–38 ESV

But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.”

Jesus now turns the scriptures back on the Sadducees, they have tried to trap him with the Law and so Jesus also goes back to the law to show them their folly. Jesus goes to Exodus chapter 3 and interprets the passage of Moses approaching the burning bush. Jesus explains that when YHWH appears to Moses he appears to him and tells him that he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Why? Because these three men are the forefathers of Moses and they are not dead as the Sadducees think of it. Instead through their relationship with YHWH they have life and life eternal. God is the God of the dead but of the living.

Jesus is saying to these teacher, these deniers of the resurrection, that you cannot be worshippers of YHWH because YHWH is the God of resurrection. Jesus is saying to the Sadducees, you have missed the entire point of the scriptures, because if you deny the resurrection, then you deny who God himself claims to be.

And do this is to completely corrupt and miss the message of the scriptures. These men were trying to trap Jesus but as the bible tells us those who dig a pit will fall into it, and the Sadducees have fallen into their own pit. A pit of rationalism, of hardening their hearts, of not believing the truths of scriptures.

The Sadducees were at their core early rationalists, they only believed in what they could see and touch. And the message of Jesus, of Christianity is don’t be a rationalist. Church, don’t be a rationalist. The scriptures are incompatible with rationalism, the belief that our human reason and senses are the highest authority, because the scriptures point to a God who does amazing things in this world and does not align with what makes logical sense to us. Christianity is a religion that clings tightly to the scriptures and understands that God works in his creation how he pleases.

Have you ever thought of the wild things that Christians believe happen as historical fact. Things that we know took place because God tells us so. As Christians we believe God created the world through speaking, that serpents have talked, that a flood covered the entire earth, that the Israelites walked on dry land through the red sea, that a donkey talked, that Samson killed 1000 men with the jawbone of a donkey, that David killed a giant, that Elijah was taken to heaven in chariots of fire, that God himself came in the flesh and died on the cross, and that yes you and I will be resurrected one day in the new heavens and new earth into a glorious world that is beyond our imagination.

You cannot be a Christian and be a rationalist. You cannot be a Christian, a follower of Jesus and be a Sadducee. Because they have confused the message of the scriptures.

In C.S. Lewis’s book the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, we see a great showdown between Aslan and the White Witch. The White Witch trades Edmund the traitor for the life of Aslan. But she does this because she does not understand the magic that governs Narnia. Though she understands that a traitor’s life belongs to her, she has missed the important piece that when an innocent one sacrifices himself for the traitor, that death itself would reverse. And as such the stone table is broken and Aslan rises victorious from death. For Aslan was there when Narnia was sung into existence, he is the one who’s voice created life and the rules for living.

Church don’t be the white witch, don’t be the Sadducees. For Scriptures points to the glorious reality that is the resurrection. It points us to hope in Christ. It points to a life that is far greater than how live now. We can get so easily entangled in the web of logic or reasoning or trying to appease the rulers of our day who the think the scriptures are preposterous. But don’t confuse the message. For our God is the God of the living. The God of the resurrection. The God of Abraham, Issac, Jacob, and Moses.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen

Let us pray.

Almighty God, graciously grant that Your Word, which we have heard, may be inscribed inwardly on our hearts. As we receive Your Word meekly with pure affection, may our hearts be filled with love and reverence for You. Cause us to bear the fruit of the Spirit and to live in holiness, diligently following Your commandments. And may it please You to use us to lead those who are lost, wandering, and confused into the way of truth. All this we pray for the honor and praise of Your name, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit reigns now and forever, age after age. Amen

Offering

Now that we have heard from the Lord let us respond with our tithes and offerings

Please rise with hands upraised to sing the doxology

Doxology

Passing of the Peace

The peace of the Lord be always with you

And also with you

Let us offer one another a sign of peace

30 Seconds

The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof

The world, and all that dwells in it

Pastoral Prayer

Church pray with me:

Oh Holy Father, almighty and love itself,

Bless and grow the church in Antigua and Barbuda. Bless the East Caribbean Baptist Mission and greatly grow its work to see this small island nation praise the one true God. Be with the large Anglican presence in these islands and bless them with unity around orthodoxy and a love for your scriptures. Thank you for the religious freedom you have granted our brothers and sisters in Antigua and Barbuda and let this majority Christian nation thrive and honor you.

Oh Father, bless our own nation. Grant us a mass revival and please let the people of our land repent of their sins. We are a people of unclean lips and we pray that you would show us mercy and give us new hearts. Bless our president, governor, legislators, judges, mayors, and the leaders of Williamson County. Let these people in authority come to know you and loudly proclaim that Christ is King. Bless your people with peace and send us godly rulers to lead us in this country.

Bless, grow and flourish the churches of the CREC

Give peace to the CREC church and pastors in Ukraine

Strengthen the Uzbek mission churches

Establish and grow Seldon College in Oxford, England

Bless and grow Christ Church in Boerne

Bless and grow Christ Fellowship in Taylor

Strengthen King’s Cross in Budha and help them finish their renovations in their new building

Bless and grow Exodus Church in Wichita, Kansas

Bless and grow Georgetown Church of the Nazarene and reward them for their hospitality to us

Bless us here in Georgetown at King’s Covenant

Bring unity around orthodoxy to the churches in our city

Drive abortion, transgenderism, sodomy, pornography, and divorce completely out of our state

Cast down our idols of humanism, feminism, post modernism, identity politics, and false religions in our land

Strengthen our will and give us resources so every Christian child can receive a Christian education in our city

Continue to form us as warriors of the cross, with the weapons of worship and song

Bless Naomi and Luke Allsup, and let them both recover from the birth

Bless Hannah Hargrave and her baby

Bless Ashley Maeier and her baby.

Please heal Rev. Burk Shade

Cause us to honor our marriage vows

Bless the parents of our congregation with wisdom and grace

Send a great awakening upon Georgetown and revive our youth

Bless our singles with spouses

Heal the sick among us and lift up the broken hearted

Make us fruitful with children at King’s Covenant and may our children never remember a day they did not know you.

We thank you in the name of Christ Jesus our Lord and we pray with hands upraised as he taught us to pray saying:

Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

Eucharist

This table that we have now come to is in itself a typology. For the meal that we eat together this night, is pointing us towards the glorious marriage supper of the Lamb. A feast where all of Gods people shall join together in joy and celebration. And so we come to this table rejoicing in the simple signs that miraculously unify us to Christ and we eagerly look to the day where all of the saints in history will gather together. This table is for the saints, If you have been baptized in the triune name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and not under church discipline by any Christian church. Then come and eat.

The Lord Jesus on the night that he was betrayed, took the bread and gave thanks, let us give thanks:

Holy Father, we pray that as we receive this bread that you would grant us union with your Son. May our own flesh be cast away as we are made new through the glorious gift of his body that you have given us. Feed us Oh Father with the body of Christ that we may be one with him as he is one with you. In the powerful name of Jesus, Amen.

And when he had given thanks, he broke the bread saying this is my body which is for you. Do this as my memorial

As the bread is being passed we will sing - Sould Adorn Thyself

Church this is the body of Christ broken for you, take and eat celebrating all that he has done

In the same way he took the cup and gave thanks, let us give thanks

Holy Father, as we take this cup of blessing we remember the holy and precious blood of Jesus, that was shed on our behalf. May the blood Christ cleanse and renew us all and strengthen us as your people. Unite us to Christ through the blood of the new covenant that we may walk in holiness and righteousness all our days and participate in the glory prepared for us. In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.

When he had given thanks, he said this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it, as my memorial

As the cups are being passed we will sing - Soul Adorn Thyself

Church this is the blood of Christ, poured out for you. Take, drink and celebrate what Christ has done.

Song of Simeon

Please rise for the singing of the Song of Simeon

Commissioning

Departing Hymn

Charge

Benediction

Three Fold Amen