Matt Delves
A slave to sin no more
I never get sick or tired of this infographic.
(rough notes)
My enjoyment of Him is the means in which I most glorify Him.
God has given us a mind to find the right views of Him through a book.
There isn’t anything better than fullness of Joy forever.
A worker with you for your Joy.
Who cares about the world? That is a horrible inference from the talks given.
How does embracing the truth not produce indifference with the world but rather an evangelistic zeal?
2 Corinthians 8:1-4, 8
We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God granted to the churches of Macedonia: 2 During a severe testing by affliction, their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed into the wealth of their generosity. 3 I testify that, on their own, according to their ability and beyond their ability, 4 they begged us insistently for the privilege of sharing in the ministry to the saints, 8 I am not saying this as a command. Rather, by means of the diligence of others, I am testing the genuineness of your love.
Thesis: you can’t pursue your maximum pleasure unless you share the gospel.
Be motivated to go in the direction of earnest and cheerful giving because it is an expression of your love.
This is an amazing picture of how love occurs in the Church. It is such an astounding and compelling love.
Grace came down and people got saved in Philipi. Jailor, slave girl,
Affliction came about. Through their affliction, their joy became abundant. Their joy wasn’t in circumstances.
Joy abounding. Rooted in grace. Rooted in God.
Christians must be happy regardless of circumstances.
Living in a prosperous land such as Australia or America is dangerous as our joy can be closely tied to our prosperity.
Their extreme poverty has overflowed in an abundance of generosity. The poor people under affliction pleaded that they be able to provide for the saints.
Two definitions of love from the text 1. Love is the overflow of the joy in God that meets the needs of others.
The word overflow can sound a little too automatic and a little too passive. When a glass gets full it spills. Love involves more than passive spilling. It requires effort and can end up killing.
If grace is missing then what comes out isn’t love.
2 Corinthians 9:7
Each person should do as he has decided in his heart—not reluctantly or out of necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver.
If you are teaching your people to be indifferent in their giving you are teaching them to sin.
God wants one kind of giver. That is a cheerful giver.
Romans 12:8
if exhorting, in exhortation; giving, with generosity; leading, with diligence; showing mercy, with cheerfulness.
The bible is indiscriminate in its use of happiness language.
Get Bible meaning into the words used.
Joy is not superficial or incompatible with pain.
Romans 12:15
Romans 9:2
that I have intense sorrow and continual anguish in my heart.
2 Corinthians 1:6
If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is experienced in your endurance of the same sufferings that we suffer.
2 Corinthians 1:8
2 Corinthians 11:8
Acts 20:35-38
In every way I’ve shown you that by laboring like this, it is necessary to help the weak and to keep in mind the words of the Lord Jesus, for He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ 36 After he said this, he knelt down and prayed with all of them. 37 There was a great deal of weeping by everyone. They embraced Paul and kissed him, 38 grieving most of all over his statement that they would never see his face again. Then they escorted him to the ship.
Do not burden others.
How is it love if by taking a meal to a sick person so that you may get joy? Because we desire to include the other people in our happiness. We want to see them in heaven with us.
God loves a cheerful pastoral visit. We can’t love people if we aren’t happy in God.
Hebrews 10,11,12,13 Four chapters that show that you love people and it is powered by your persuit of God in Jesus.
Hebrews 10:32-34
Remember the earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings. 33 Sometimes you were publicly exposed to taunts and afflictions, and at other times you were companions of those who were treated that way. 34 For you sympathized with the prisoners and accepted with joy the confiscation of your possessions, knowing that you yourselves have a better and enduring possession.
We have a better and abiding possession, which is Jesus, than those possessions than we have now.
Psalm 16:11
You reveal the path of life to me; in Your presence is abundant joy; in Your right hand are eternal pleasures.
All that they lost, they counted as gain because they chose to pursue Jesus.
Hebrews 11:24-26
By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter 25 and chose to suffer with the people of God rather than to enjoy the short-lived pleasure of sin. 26 For he considered the reproach because of the Messiah to be greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, since his attention was on the reward.
Jesus is a greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt. He was looking to the greater reward to come.
Hebrews 12:1-2
Therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses a surrounding us, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, 2 keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that lay before Him endured a cross and despised the shame and has sat down at the right hand of God’s throne.
Jesus himself had his eyes on the reward.
Love flows over from joy in all that God has done for us in Jesus!
Hebrews 13:12-14
Therefore Jesus also suffered outside the gate, so that He might sanctify the people by His own blood. 13 Let us then go to Him outside the camp, bearing His disgrace. 14 For we do not have an enduring city here; instead, we seek the one to come.
(rough notes)
Colossians 1:15-20
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For everything was created by Him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities— all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17 He is before all things, and by Him all things hold together. 18 He is also the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He might come to have first place in everything. 19 For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, 20 and through Him to reconcile everything to Himself by making peace through the blood of His cross — whether things on earth or things in heaven.
These things mean within the trinity that whether intrinsically His or The Fathers.?? (check that from audio)
Everything exists to display Christ.
There is the trinity to come to terms with.
It isn’t wrong to say that the universe exists for the glory of God or to say the glory of God the Father.
2 Peter 3:18
18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
2 Theselonians 1:12
so that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified by you, and you by Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Hebrews 13:21
21 equip a you with all that is good to do His will, working in us what is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ. Glory belongs to Him forever and ever. Amen.
Passages that show Jesus reflecting the Fathers glory Jude 25
to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority before all time, now and forever. Amen.
Philippians 1:11
filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.
Romans 16:27
to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ—to Him be the glory forever! Amen.
Philippians 2:11
and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Third group of texts that show these two glories are one glory because we have a trinity.
Titus 2:13
while we wait for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 4:11
If anyone speaks, it should be as one who speaks God’s words; if anyone serves, it should be from the strength God provides, so that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ in everything. To Him belong the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.
2 Corinthians 4:6
For God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ.
Preach Christ in a profoundly theocentric way.
Romans 11:36
For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.
God accomplished the display of His glory in creation and redemption through Jesus.
The love of Christ for sinners should be really big.
You can’t know love apart from the love of Christ for sinners.
John 11:1-6
Now a man was sick, Lazarus, from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped His feet with her hair, and it was her brother Lazarus who was sick. 3 So the sisters sent a message to Him: “Lord, the one You love is sick.” 4 When Jesus heard it, He said, “This sickness will not end in death but is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus. 6 So when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was. 7 Then after that, He said to the disciples, “Let’s go to Judea again.”
Don’t miss the ’so’ in the passage. Why did Jesus let Lazarus die? Look back at verse 4 which answers the question. It was done for the glory of God. So that we can see as much of Gods glory as possible.
The ultimate end of love is not me, but God.
Why does God, whom loves me so much and makes much of me, do so for His glory?
It is a greater love displayed by God to make Himself your glory rather than yourself.
The human heart is made for God and He loves His children infinitely.
You are precious to God and the greatest gift He has for you is for Him to be your treasure, your God.
We are designed to enjoy God forever.
The cross was planned from eternity 1 Corinthians 15 Revelation 13:8
The cross is an event in History Jesus Christ died under Pilate.
The cross was in the event an achievement. It happened at one time It was accomplished and applied (John Murrey) The wrath if God was absorbed by Jesus for His elect - Romans 8:3
What the law could not do h since it was limited by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending His own Son in flesh like ours under sin’s domain, and as a sin offering
Galatians 3:13
Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written: Everyone who is hung on a tree is cursed.
Sins were covered. Colossians 2:14
He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it out of the way by nailing it to the cross.
He completed a perfect righteousness for us.
Christ became obedient unto death. Therefor Christ had highly exulted Him.
Philippians 2:8 is the setup for 3:8
2:8 He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross.
3:8 More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of Him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them filth, so that I may gain Christ
Believe is part of the Gospel, even though you say believe the gospel.
There is no good news if it is by works.
The offer to faith alone apart from works is essential
applied by the Holy Spirit to all believers
Reconciliation.
Eternal life becomes mine
the gospel is not good news until we realize it takes us somewhere
2 Peter 3:18
For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring you to God, after being put to death in the fleshly realm but made alive in the spiritual realm.
Christ must become for us redeemer and reward. Sacrifice offered and satisfaction enjoyed.
Jesus purchased for us fellowship with God.
Preaching Christ means preaching the gospel.
God himself is our reward.
2 Corinthians 4:4-6
In their case, the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For we are not proclaiming ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your slaves because of Jesus. 6 For God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ.
They can’t see Jesus as ultimately beautiful.
God opened your heart to see the glory of Christ.
Some people are arminian to the core. They have no idea how they got saved.
Preaching Christ is preaching what is conversion.
2 Corinthians 3:18
We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.
How do your people get changed?
How do they fall out of love of money?
Be holding the glory of the Lord we are being transformed.
The reason it works that way: When we see Him we are more satisfied with Him. When we admire Him we tend to be like what we admire.
(rough notes)
There is a vast importance in using our minds in the service of God. Not failing to serve God with all our mind, heart, soul and strength.
Acts 1:4-11
4 While He was together with them, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the Father’s promise. “This,” He said, “is what you heard from Me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” 6 So when they had come together, they asked Him, “Lord, are You restoring the kingdom to Israel at this time?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or periods that the Father has set by His own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” The Ascension 9 After He had said this, He was taken up as they were watching, and a cloud took Him out of their sight. 10 While He was going, they were gazing into heaven, and suddenly two men in white clothes stood by them. 11 They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come in the same way that you have seen Him going into heaven.”
At the start of the book of luke and acts, Luke takes lengths to explain the supernatural events that occurred at the time.
The first supernatural account is that of an angel talking to Zacheria.
The second supernatural account is that of Jesus ascension.
Luke knows what the prime objection is. He knows that people have and always will object to supernatural events. Even those who believe in God don’t believe supernatural events.
zacheria’s heart shows his disbelief.
The first attacks on the Christians were by the sadducees who denied any resurrection. They were the religious people.
If you believe in prayer yet don’t believe in a supernatural God, you have nothing to say.
It’s not just atheists that reject the supernatural.
Why the ascension? Since Jesus was appearing and disappearing for 40 days why did he rise up?
Luke points out that Jesus was taken up. Lifted up. He went up and the cloud received Him out of their sight.
When Jesus ascended, he took over authority. It is symbolic. He went up to sit at the right hand of the authority on high.
Jesus ascension was observed.
Jesus ascension was attested to.
Luke is getting across what the supernaturalist denies. The ascension was visible. Jesus was taken up and will come in the same we that you saw Him go.
In the same way Jesus ascended, He will return.
There is the future goal. Jesus is going to return. It will be visible.
The return if Christ is integral to the Gospel.
We are called to turn from sin to God. We are called to wait for His return.
Jesus coming has massive consequences for believers as we will all stand before God and be judged for the works that we have done.
The context of the ascension is the matter of the restoration of the Kingdom to Israel.
The orthodox Jews believe that Jesus never saved anyone.
Because of the resurrection, the disciples recognize that Jesus use of death, the ultimate weapon of the enemy, and breaking it shows His power.
The disciples don’t ask “are you going to restore the Kingdom?” But instead “are you going to restore the Kingdom to Israel ’now’?”
The question of why doesn’t end all pain and suffering is what is given at the start of the book of acts.
What is meant by the word Kingdom? Why does there appear to be this space between the first and second coming of our Lord Jesus?
To the Pharisees Jesus said, look the Kingdom of God is among you.
To His disciples, Jesus said don’t believe those that say the kingdom of God is here or the kingdom of God is there. For no one knows when the kingdom of God will come.
The disciples and the Pharisees didn’t see that the King was standing in front of them. Jesus was identifying Himself as the King.
The seeing and identifying that Jesus is the King is a spiritually identified truth.
There is a spiritual component to the Kingdom.
The Jews were looking for an outward, political Kingdom to bring freedom from the Romans.
Since sin came by a lack of trust in God, so must there be an element in restoration and forgiveness come through a trusting in God.
When Jesus brings His Kingdom, it will come with complete visibility.
Jesus kingdom is not of this world. This is what Jesus told Pilate.
The disciples ask, are you going to do it now? Jesus responds by saying it is all organized, it will happen, but it is not for us to know. We are to be witnesses to the ends of the Earth.
Where do we stand in History?
Miracles and healing show Gods restoration of things. Though why isn’t everything restored? Because the time for all things to be restored has been promised though has not yet come?
The day of Pentecost came and the Holy Spirit was poured out. This reminds us that there is a Jewish calendar.
Those feasts point forward to Christ. Christ is our Passover lamb. There has been fulfillment in Christ.
Any farmer will tell you how good a harvest is going to be. Look at the first fruits. Jesus is the first fruit of the resurrection. Look to Jesus to see what life to come will be like.
Passover, first fruits, Pentecost. All happened. So what about the three other feasts?
Tabernacles? Isaiah 25 - God promises to make a feast in the mountains.
The Lord of Hosts will prepare a feast for all the peoples on this mountain — a feast of aged wine, choice meat, finely aged wine. 7 On this mountain He will destroy the burial shroud, the shroud over all the peoples, the sheet covering all the nations; 8 He will destroy death forever. The Lord God will wipe away the tears from every face and remove His people’s disgrace from the whole earth, for the Lord has spoken. 9 On that day it will be said, “Look, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He has saved us. This is the Lord; we have waited for Him. Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation.”
It is no mistake that the book of revelation ends with almost these exact words.
There is a space between the incarnation and the return. The existence of this space will raise many questions. This is why the book of acts goes to such length to address these questions.
The biggest reason to trust God is the cross.
Bearing shame and scoffing rude, in my place condemned He stood.
God has not remained distant but has become part of it.
God is sensitive enough to your heart that He will be the one to wipe away the tears from your eyes.
(rough notes)
Matthew 24:34-40 - 34 When the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they came together. 35 And one of them, an expert in the law, asked a question to test Him: 36 “Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the greatest and most important command. 39 The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. 40 All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”
Feelings are important in pursuing God.
The neglect in being obedient to God by pursuing Joy is ripe within the Church today. We must be obedient to God as he commands us that we pursue Joy.
Delight in God. Treasure God. This is what is means by following God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength.
If you love God, there will be a result. You will obey God. Loving God yields obedience.
2 Corinthians 1:24
We are workers for their joy.
Right thinking about God exists for the right feeling about God - thesis of the talk.
Logic for the sake of love Doctrine for the sake of delight Heads exist for hearts Knowing the truth for admiring the truth
Thinking exists for the sake of affection. They are both true though they aren’t equal.
Knowing doesn’t hold the ultimate place. It is treasuring, admiring, trusting, longing for, et cetera that are how we correctly relate to God.
If your affections aren’t based upon right thinking, then you aren’t honoring God.
Affections must be based upon our thinking.
God is not honored by affections which aren’t grounded by right thinking about God.
They have a zeal for God that doesn’t accord to knowledge and that ends up with the going to Hell. You can have a passion for God yet be lost.
You have to think. Consider it. For the Lord will give you understanding.
Since God gives the illumination you need to think over it.
God gives you understanding as you think over the texts.
Think and pray.
Reason, demonstrate, prove things. All from the scripture.
Paul knows that the mind of the flesh doesn’t receive the things of the spirit.
Paul knows that the Jewish people in the synagogue are dead. They have no spiritual life.
Paul reasons with them and argues with them.
God changes peoples lives through preaching that is filled with reason, logic, proofs.
We can’t short circuit this by abandoning the word of God.
Spirit and truth.
Spirit and word.
The Holy Spirit opens peoples hearts to give head to the word of God.
Jesus himself expects people to use reason and logic to look at the time. Jesus is asking them why they don’t recognize Jesus as the messiah through logic.
The heavens are telling the glory of God.
When it comes to thinking and talking. Jesus admires clarity and forthrightness.
Don’t evade questions and avoid telling the truth.
2 Corinthians 4:2
2 Instead, we have renounced shameful secret things, not walking in deceit or distorting God’s message, but commending ourselves to every person’s conscience in God’s sight by an open display of the truth.
If you knew you would have different actions and affections.
We need to know things, lots of glorious things.
It is filled with glorious truth.
We must be equipped to teach. That is a qualification for an elder.
God is into hierarchy.
Teachers are responsible for opening up the word.
When you say the whole council, you imply that there is something of unity and coherence in the whole.
It is our job to find and discern and explain the whole council. It is our responsibility. It is hard work. It is thinking work.
2 Timothy 2:15
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who doesn’t need to be ashamed, correctly teaching the word of truth
The workman should not be ashamed.
God came in the flesh, Jesus was not a book.
When Jesus left, he left behind apostles and prophets who are the foundation of the Church and what they left behind was a book.
What we are given as special revelation is a book.
We must learn how to read. It is an intellectual exercise.
To read well is a grueling intellectual exercise.
The bible is a chain not a string of pearls.
We must get to what each for is for.
Ephesians 3:4
By reading this you are able to understand my insight about the mystery of the Messiah.
Everywhere the Church has gone, schools and hospitals go as well. We think (teach poeple) and serve (help people)
Matthew 7:7-12
7 “Keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep searching, and you will find. Keep knocking, and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who searches finds, and to the one who knocks, the door n will be opened. 9 What man among you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! 12 Therefore, whatever you want others to do for you, do also the same for them—this is the Law and the Prophets.
Jesus is using reason and logic. There is thinking required to understand. It is a logical argument.
God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.
The only way we may glorify God is by knowing Him rightly and rejoicing in Him rightly.
