The Firehouse Church in Bremerton, WA

June 7, 2026, Message by P. Kevin Clancey Transcript coming soon. The post 2026.6.7 TFHC – Being Filled With The Spirit | Acts 2:1-13 appeared first on The Firehouse Church in Bremerton, WA.

Message by Ats Kagawa Transcript coming soon. The post 2026.5.31 TFHC – Called by Name | Isaiah 43:1-2 appeared first on The Firehouse Church in Bremerton, WA.

Message by P. Thomas Omenta Nyangau Transcribed by Beluga AI. So this evening we have as our guest Thomas Omenta, and he is a pastor in Kenya, East Africa. I’ll be going in a couple of weeks to visit Thomas and see the ministry there. He is doing Bible translations with our friend Eric Roberts for Wycliffe Associates, translating Bibles. Well, he’ll share with you. Translating Bibles basically into the heart language of the different tribal communities in Eastern Africa, helping get those projects going. He’s also working on planting churches. He’s going to share some stories tonight of some of the things God has done through that ministry. I met Thomas over a year ago. He was out again visiting Eric, and Eric and I were planning a Bible study at his house on a Saturday night that Thomas was there. Dallas Elder, the ministry director for Grace Covenant, also happened to be visiting me that same weekend. So, Dallas and I drove down and met Eric for dinner before the Bible study. Thomas was there, and we met Thomas and we went out and we had some barbecue. Very few things bond like good barbecue, so we bonded over barbecue. And I don’t know if it was the barbecue or the fellowship, but Thomas thought, “I like these guys.” We went to the Bible study together and we prayed together. Afterwards, Thomas kind of approached Eric and said, “You know, I haven’t found for the ministry I do I haven’t found a covering in Africa that I’m comfortable with. Would the Grace Covenant consider being my covering?” Eric called us and said, “What would you guys think about that?” I know Dallas is very, very cautious about that. He doesn’t want to just give it. Many times in Africa and other places, Americans have gone in and said, “Oh, yeah, we’ll cover you.” And it has not been a good relationship. The Americans weren’t invested in the relationship. They just wanted numbers. They wanted, “Oh, we’re doing this in Africa,” to have bragging rights. And for the Africans, oftentimes it was like, “Well, you know, Americans got all the money. We just want all the money.” And so, you know, the relationship started on a bad footing in both places. So with Grace Covenant, when we, you know, develop ministries in different countries, we lead with, not money and resources we lead with relationship because that’s what a spiritual covering means. We’re invested in you and your family, and you’re invested in us, and we try to get together. And of course, travel makes it difficult, though we live in a marvelous day and age where you can actually Brian, can you imagine this? You don’t have to ride a bike to Africa. It would take a while even for you. You don’t have to get on a boat with sails and trust the wind. Hopefully, you don’t get swamped by a storm and capsize in Paris in the ocean. It takes you eight months. I was complaining about the plane flight that I’m going to take, that it’s going to be 24 hours and hours in the airport. Then I thought, well, I could be going to Africa 300 years ago and it would’ve been a little harder. So anyway, the world we live in and the technology where Thomas and I can communicate over WhatsApp and etc . And we can travel back and forth as time and resources permit. This makes it easier to establish those kinds of relationships. So we commissioned Thomas as a Grace Covenant pastor. He now serves in that capacity in Kenya, in Thika, which is right outside of Nairobi, the leading industrial city in Kenya. He and his wife and three children are working, as I said, in Bible translations, planting churches, and training and equipping pastors. We are honored to have Thomas here. He is a good brother. And so, can we welcome Thomas here with more than a golf clap? Come on, you can do more than a golf clap. Good evening. Okay. Okay. So, thank you, brother. Thank you. It’s such a privilege and a wonderful honor to be here this evening, to have the privilege to share the Word of God with you. Thomas is my name. I come from Kenya. I’m married. I’m blessed with a family of three. My wife is called Masa Washuka, and my firstborn daughter, six years old, is called Solani Kellen. My son is called Jonathan Baraka, and my last born daughter, Tahila Imani. The Lord has been gracious to us. The last born is 15 months, and together as a family, we serve the Lord. He’s called us to do this work together. We serve with different organizations on Bible translation, both the written, audio, and visual. Now we are using Tango Technology. There is animation that we are using to bring the Bible to the communities so that those who have not gone to school can be able to hear and see the pictures. It is such an amazing experience. This evening, I want to share with us the Word of God from the book of Matthew 5:13-16. And I’ll read: “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It shall then be good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. “You are the light of the world. And a city is set on a hill. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” 13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt should lose its taste, how can it be made salty? It’s no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. 14 “You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light for all who are in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:13-16, CSB) And this is, to me, a very profound portion of Scripture that really encourages me and reminds me every day who I am and what I’m supposed to do. We live in a world where there’s a lot of decay: decay in marriage, decay in society, and a lot of hopelessness, a lot of propaganda, and everything. It seems like everything is dark, and there is so much hopelessness around us. What do we do in those moments as Christians? Do we join and say, “Oh, yes, we are hopeless”? What do we do? One of the things why I love this verse, 13, is that it specifically talks about salt. Salt is found everywhere. It’s very simple, but it has very profound and tremendous benefits. Pastor Kevin shared that we had a barbecue. I’m imagining if that barbecue didn’t have salt, how sweet could that be? You can’t enjoy that food. Imagine having cooked that nice meal that you love enjoying, and you don’t have salt in it. You would not enjoy it. Salt has different things to do with our lives. And part of those things that salt has been presented to us is to help us preserve so that we don’t decay. As we live through life, so many things seem to be falling apart. But Jesus here is talking to this crowd, this part of the Sermon on the Mountains, reminding them, even when there is all this darkness, remember, you are the salt. He is telling you, you are the standard. The world is looking up to you. When everybody around you seems to be losing hope, you are the hope. And this has been the thing that has been me as a missionary has encouraged me to keep going every day to the field to do the work that we do. One of the stories I was sharing this morning I’m gonna go to it. Don’t worry, I’ll keep moving up, back and forth. This story is about a community in northern Kenya called Elmolo. It’s a thousand people only. So being a small community anywhere, that means economically, it’s not very viable. So it’s not mostly taken seriously. For a long time, they have had a drought because of the place where they live. Cattle are dying, and they are losing everything. They have no food. And the media can only say a bit of it. And after that, they leave it on their own. But we kept having this call: “Kindly, can we get help?” And one of the times I talk to Pastor Eric and say, “Hey, Eric, there’s this community up with the north. They are really, really suffering. And the deaths and all these, the pictures we are seeing and nothing’s been done. Can we do something about it?” Because it keeps reminding me: I am the salt, as a Christian. I don’t need to impact the whole world, but as salt, I can impact that section that God has given me. And Eric got a way of us getting some funds, and we went out there, gave them food, but we realized a small, greater need. They don’t have water. For a long time, they’ve been drinking water from the lake, which has very heavy metals, and children who are 15 years old, they don’t have hair because of the heavy metals in the water. The majority of them are sick because of the kind of water they’ve been drinking. And then we went up there and put up these wells. This is the first time those kids came to us when we were doing the pump testing, to come and just pray over the water. That was great joy for them, having clean water that they can drink. Not just clean water they can drink. Because of the presence of the heavy metals in this area, we had to put a reverse osmosis machine to make sure that they have clean water that is safer for them to drink. And when we went there, we did not just do the wells. We finished the wells, and the wells gave birth to a church that is now growing because they saw the love that was shown to them, and they wanted that Christ. And now in this area, we are having a very thriving church. And these wells are continuing, and these people now have an opportunity to gather, not just to get water, but also to share Christ. They are growing. Now, because of that, even other ministries are coming on. I was sharing this morning, the ministry, the Catholic Church has come in and built a school and also the part of the sanctuary. This community now has hope. Why? Because God has called us as a church to be the salt of the world, to go heal the wounds. You know, when we grew up and if I went out and played and I was hurt, my mom could wash me with salt before we go to the hospital. And you feel if you put salt in the wound, it stings it’s not nice, but it heals. And that’s what God has called us to, that we see our brothers and sisters who are wounded out there emotionally wounded, financially wounded, who just need help, who need somebody to talk to. In our offices, people have lost hope. Some of us have lost jobs because of how the economies of the world may be. Even in the darkness of the economies of the world, we have been called to be the salt and the light. You have been called to be the salt and the light, even when the doctor said, “There’s no hope.” But we know one thing: that our hope is in Jesus Christ. It’s not in what the doctor said. We believe in medical science; we honor that. But still, we know one thing: We will still put our hope in the Lord because He has called us to be the light and the salt of this world. Where there’s confusion, to be able to show direction. And that’s what all of us have been called to. This community has grown to be one of the most encouraging points that I’m people that I’m not related to, that you are not related because people gave money for these wells. They have never seen them, and they may never know them. But one of the things that they have given life. They have given light and hope to our people in generations to come. Now, because this community has started an irrigation scheme, they can now grow their own food. Because they have clean water that they can drink, their children now can continually go to school because of this act. That’s what God has called us to. And this is what Jesus is telling the disciples on this Sermon on the Mountain. You are the salt of the world. You and me. He’s addressing us directly and telling us we are the salt of the world. That neighbor that is hurting from something. It’s our duty to reach out and check on one another. That co-worker in the office that we feel everybody feels weird about, and everybody keeps staying away from them. Run into the world and be the light. And this has been the thing that has kept me going every day. Apart from that community, there’s this group called the Sanya community that we started their translation in 2023. The Sanya is in the south coast of Kenya, in an area called Witu near the Somali border. They are the farthest of us, and these are a Muslim community, all through a Muslim community. We had around 15 Christians in it, and we decided to do a Bible translation. I know when we asked for that opportunity to do a Bible translation, all the question was for only 15 people. Yes, Christ loves the 15 people in that community. They are the light of that community, and they are passionate, and they want to have the Bible in their own language. And Wycliffe has allowed us to start that. When they came, they brought an old man. This old man here. And this is the same man here. You see, the guy is 93 years. They brought him for the Bible translation, and he could not sit well on the seats. To me, I was very confused because he’s an imam. He’s not just an ordinary member of the mosque he’s the head of the mosque. And we kept asking them, “How did you do that? This is a Bible, and these two things don’t go together.” “He’s the only one who can help us explain the language better, because he knows the language better.” We made him sign documents that he’s gonna keep the integrity of the Bible. But we said, “We are going to keep checking because we have guys in your group who will keep the checks and the balances.” They did some work, left, and went home. This mango tree is now Grace Covenant Church of 35 people that came out of the Bible translation. They went home and started translation under this mango tree on the road in the village. So that as they every day they met to translate, people could pass and say, “What are you guys doing here?” “Oh, we are translating the Bible.” They joined the discussion. They joined the discussion. But the most amazing part of this is that this man, when they got the Book of John, he called the chairman, said, “I want this Jesus.” That was the turning point. All because the Christians in the community showed him love during the translation. They became the light, and they became the salt. They were never throwing stones at them. Even the ones who came during the translation under the mango tree, they showed them love and welcomed them to come and listen. And when they brought in their opinion of how the Word is supposed to be, they didn’t tell them, “Oh, keep quiet. You’re not Christian. You don’t know these things.” No, they allowed them and gave them an opportunity, and they felt important and they felt accepted. Dabbo gave his life to Christ one morning, the day before they went for the translation because he said, “You know, one thing I’ve been explaining back to you about this Jesus, I want him.” They led him to Christ. He gave his life to Christ. And he said not him alone. He also wants his friends. He invited some few old men who are Yeah, he invited this one, this one here, this one is the one here, and this one. And they are all leaders of the mosque. They gave their life to Christ, and that became a turning point for the community. We had so many people come to Christ because now this guy is telling them about Christ. He has known because he has been hearing and explaining the Scriptures to the team members to write it in their language. The Scripture has been doing something in him because when the Word of God gets into us, it brings transformation. And they gave his life to Christ. Not only him, but he brought many people to Christ through his testimony. Not only that, and he said, “All I’m asking for, please help me hold the Bible in my hands before I die.” We requested for special aspect of getting funds to move quicker, and we got that privilege. And last year we had a privilege 2024, we had a privilege of launching the New Testament of the Sanya community. And you can see the old man, he’s here holding it and with all his friends. And one of his friends, when we did this, he said for him now, he has done God’s work and is ready to go. And God is so gracious. This man, after two days of the lounge, went to be with the Lord, but with great joy. All he said, “Please keep loving my sister. My sister has not given her life to Christ. Show her the love.” Until today, the pastor of this church goes every week to just read the Bible for her, not to tell her to turn into Christianity because she just wants to hear the gospel. And that’s what God has called us to. You may not have the courage, the privilege of knowing a lot of theology to go and explain. Just go read and share. Just go tell somebody Christ loves them, and that causes and transforms a lot. We are the salt whenever we are. We have been called not just to come to church, not to be just members of a congregation, not to just give only, but also be the example. Show love, stretch our hands and help the strangers, stretch our hands and be kind to the neighbors, be compassionate to one another. Because that’s what being the salt means, that that neighbor needs just compassion to feel cared for, feel seen. And that’s what God is calling us to. And I can tell you a lot of stories and how I’ve seen this transform lives of people. This is a community called the Kiptani down in the Kerio in Kenya. We started that translation there in 2023, towards the end. This area has been having a lot of tribal clan clashes for a long time because of cattle rustling. Communities that keep cattle love stealing from one another. Some of this stealing is because of traditions for marriage. During the season for marriage, they steal to go and pay dowry. In the season for circumcision, they will steal so that they can prove to be warriors that have taken enough. And that’s the practice in this area. Because of that, there’s a lot of castle rustling, and it doesn’t end well. People die because of cows. People die because of goats for so many years. And it has grown into a great bitterness that has been passed from generation to generation. There are fathers telling the sons, “Remember, they kill your brother. And remember ” And then that goes down in generations. And we grow as a bitter generation and community. And for a long time, that’s what has been happening. So when they left the translation one of the communities called the Kiptani as they were going home, they were attacked by the neighbors, and two of the four of them were injured. They called, and they were taken to hospital. We helped out with that. Then they asked, “Will it be possible for you and Bishop Atanas to come along and help us with a mediation process?” I was like, “No, I’m not a mediator. I’ve never mediated anything.” And then I was 33 years. I’m like, “No.” And then I tell Pastor Eric, and Eric is like, “God has given you an opportunity. You better take it.” And anyway, we got an opportunity to go down there. But I went there with a lot of questions. I’m like, “Is this the wise thing to do? What am I going to tell them?” And one of the things I just told God, “You know, one thing, as you said I’m the salt. Help me bring favor as we go to that place. Help me bring the healing.” And we went to one person from our board, and we drove and sat there. This was our first meeting with the elders of that community. Not only one, all of them, they came together. The first time we had some, around five goats killed. We ate together. And after eating, now we can talk. And we had a huge conversation. We asked ourselves, “Is this how we want the generations to be for all the years? It’s over 20 years, the same senseless killing happening and stealing and hurting one another. Is that what we want to do?” And after that, the chief said, “We are going to gather together and start having meetings.” And they started having their own meetings. This is them now having their own meetings. And keep asking ourselves what we’re going to do. One of the meetings, they decided to say, “No. It’s high time we tell each other the truth.” This is what the gospel can do. They’re telling each other, “Now we’re going to tell each other the truth. We know who’s stealing. We know whose son is stealing. We know whose grandson did this.” And they wrote down all the names. And we advised them, “Don’t go to the authorities. Just try to mediate this within the community.” And they were summoned and they were told, “We know you and if this is going to happen, this is what’s going to happen. We will take action as a community. Now, because it’s either we, all of us, keep quiet and keep dying, or we take action and live by peace.” And after a while, they made a decision. “We will start returning the cows.” No questions asked. In this area, cows and all the animals every family has their own symbol. So the skin of the cow, with a hot iron, they put a mark on it. So I will know this belongs to that one. This mark is that family. That’s how they are marked. And this picture here, these are not cows being grazed. These are cows being returned because of the gospel. Now the community, after being told, “All the cows that you have that don’t belong to you, return them to the chief’s camp and we will nobody’s going to ask you a question.” These were returned, and I was told that last month 20 more were returned. And they’re doing until now. When anybody’s stealing, they’re like, “No, they don’t belong to you. And I’m not going to be the cause of lack of peace and the death of other people.” These cows have been returned, and they brought a lot of peace among the community. And we did not need to stop there. Then we decided to do this as an organization. We went out and decided to bring the youth together for a youth tournament. And this was fun. For a few months, we made them have their own competition in their own villages, form their own community team that you compete with the other communities. And the one who wins will go home with a prize, and we give them football, and we had a great time together with them for a whole month where we did this. And we did not only do this. In the process, in the field, the young people were greeting one another and saying, “We are sorry for what we have been doing. We have been hurting one another. You are just like me.” They realize they are one. They realize that just the things that have been passed through generations they have been told of the stories of how bad the neighbor is. That has kept them away from seeing the true person that is with them. And this group, as we did this tournament, has brought the youth together. And now they can talk together. And we did not stop there. By God’s help, we got an opportunity to have wells in this community. And we put them along the edges of the communities, so that two communities we share, three communities we share. So that now there are even more reasons to meet every morning and say, “Good morning, good evening,” because they share the water point. And that’s what God has called us to do, because we are the light and we are the salt. Where the people are wounded, go and heal. Where there is darkness, go and show light. Where there is hopelessness, go and give hope, because Christ is the hope of glory in us. And we who are the representative of Christ here, it’s our duty to go out there and share to that neighbor, share to that person on the street, share to that person who lives under shed, share with that person in the hospital who feels it’s over and there’s nothing more for me. There is something more. Because He lives, we can face tomorrow. It doesn’t matter what we may be going through. Because Christ lives, even when things are tough, He is our hope of glory. And I’ve seen this transformation, and it keeps reminding me I am the salt of the world. In my own area, I am the salt. You are the salt of your world where the Lord has put you. And all of us, we are able to bring favor and bring healing and preserve the decaying aspect of the world. Then we are able to heal the world in our own ways. So we don’t need to join the world when everybody is saying, “Oh, we are doomed. Everything is bad.” Yes, things may seem so dark, but we are the lights. Things may seem so hopeless, but we have the hope in Christ. When the world says, “It’s over,” until Christ says it’s over, it’s not yet for us. Let’s go into the world and give hope. Let’s go out there and show them love. Because that’s what God has called us to be. Now we have these young men who have hope of glory, who are showing love to one another because somebody took a step to tell them, “You are better than this. You don’t need to hand your life that way, dying by a spear because of a cow. You don’t need to carry the bitterness of your fathers that you do not know how it started. It’s high time to build a new way, a new path of your life.” And they’re doing that. Last year we’re not able to do this tournament, and they’re trusting God this year that we are able to do this again and bring them together again, that they may have time to share. And when we were doing this, we didn’t just do football. We had guys among them who were sharing Christ. From this group, I remember well, we had around 66 young men give their life to Christ. In the field as they were doing this, we had guys from communities that don’t greet each other, greet each other in the football. We had this fear one of it being that we feared that if they lose, they’re gonna fight. They lost with grace. We were like, “Maybe it’s gonna be bad.” We were like, “If so and so lose, we may find ourselves in trouble.” But the truth is they lost, but they went and greeted their opponents with hugs and joy and say, “Thank you, that was a good game.” And that’s what we are called to do, that we can reconcile that group and that group that is fighting together and bring them. Because that’s what Jesus has come to do. Bridge the divide and give grace to each one of us. What are we doing in our own area? You are the salt in your office. You are the salt in a business. You are the salt in your community, the salt in whatever you’re doing. Are you adding flavor to that community? You are the light. Are you shining it out there, or are we putting it under the table and saying, “You know, I’m shy, I don’t know how to speak well”? Oh, no, you’re just light. That’s all the light can do. And the Lord will do the rest for you. Let’s be the salt and be the light that God has called us to be. Touch one person at a time, one individual at a time, and we will all change the world. You may not go to all these places, you may not go to Somalia, but you may touch the person around you who will be in Somalia tomorrow to transform their lives. I’m telling Pastor this year when he comes for a pastor’s conference, we are trusting God to do this year in December. We want to do this tournament during that time. Now I want to have him come and see the joy that these young people have together. And you could not believe that a few years ago, these people could not see one another. There are communities that could not come together. But because of the gospel and because of taking that step, that we are the salt just to go heal the wounded, now they can talk to one another, they can meet with one another. And the chiefs are still meeting monthly, continuing to keep the process alive and saying, “Hey, what is going on? How are we doing?” And making sure that the peace process, because it takes a while. One of the things now they’re asking is, how do we start doing a women empowerment program to be able to enable the women to have some economical training on doing things together. These are the things that God has called us to do. Go out in the process of bringing them together to do this, we have a definite opportunity to share the gospel. Like in this tournament, we had an opportunity every day. We had a speaker to speak from the grassroots. Every day, our pastors in this community had an opportunity to share the gospel daily with a crowd that had gathered to come and watch football. They could take 30 minutes and share Christ with them. The crowd listened to them, bowed down, prayed, and rejoiced during the game. It brought the community together. That’s what the gospel does. We are the light, and we are the salt. Let’s go out there and give hope to the hopeless world. May the Lord bless you. Thank you. Okay, Pastor, thank you. Thank you. So thank you, Thomas, for sharing that. Three great stories. An impoverished community without drinking water, and Jesus comes in with water and the water of life. And a Muslim community and isn’t God’s way wonderful? Who can translate the Christian Bible into this language? Oh, the imam. Wait, we can’t have the imam do it. And in the process of doing the translation, the imam says, “I want this Jesus.” And then he invites the other imams and says, “You want this Jesus.” And then, in a community filled with violence and bitterness, filled with vengeance you know what an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth leads to? A blind and toothless world. I mean, when that commandment was given, it wasn’t given to say it was given, actually, to withhold over extreme, you know, “you take one of my teeth, I take two of yours” kind of justice. But this is what forgiveness brings. And so, just wonderful stories of the power of the gospel. So thank you for sharing those three stories. Appreciate it. Tonight, Jesus is the salt and the light, and we are here to keep being salty. Turn to somebody next to you and say, “You’re pretty salty. You are salty.” All right. And so, yeah, some of you think you’re salt, but you’re pepper. So I don’t know what that means. The Bible says, “Refresh yourself in the Lord, strengthen yourself in the Lord.” The way we do that is by in faith, not in legalism, but in faith, we just practice the spiritual disciplines. We practice walking with God. We’re intentional about it. We read our Bibles, we say our prayers, we serve the poor. We give our money, and we receive this meal. And so I invite you to strengthen yourself in the Lord with the food from heaven. Manna was the food from heaven. This is our manna. It’s our provision to keep us on our feet in Christ. And so I invite you to come at the invitation of Jesus to His table and to receive His grace. So, dear ones, come. The post 2026.5.24 TFHC – Salt and Light | Matthew 5:13-16 appeared first on The Firehouse Church in Bremerton, WA.

Message by P. Kevin Clancey Transcript coming soon. The post 2026.5.17 TFHC – Marriage and Divorce | 1 Corinthians 7:1-16 appeared first on The Firehouse Church in Bremerton, WA.

May 10, 2026, Message by P. Kevin Clancey Transcribed by Beluga AI. Amen. Okay, dear ones, 1 Corinthians 6:12-20. Last week I had a question for you: Are any of you suing other Christians? And you all said no. Good. This week, this is another important question: Any of you sleeping with prostitutes? No. All right. There’ll be principles in this sermon that will apply, but the specifics, I think you’re free and clear from. So that’s what Paul’s dealing with here. Oh, by the way, I am an encourager, I hope. I pray to be an encourager. I believe flattery is a sin. So I believe telling people things that are lies about them to make them feel good for the purpose that they will think well of you is a bad thing for human beings to do. I think encouragement is a good thing to do. So what I’m saying right now, I believe to be true. I’m not saying this to flatter so that you think, “Oh, what a nice guy Kevin is.” I’m saying this because I think it’s true. And the mothers that are in this room, I highly respect you as mothers. I think you’re doing a great job. I think your kids are blessed to have you. And the devil beats up mothers. I just want to say you’re wonderful. You’re doing great. Your kids are just You all obviously love your children and work tirelessly for them, and I commend you for that. I commend you for that. So now just go home and tell everybody, “Kevin’s a nice guy. He says strange things, according to Karen, but he’s a nice guy.” All right, so 1 Corinthians 6:12-20. Let’s go there and read it. 12 “Everything is permissible for me,” but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me,” but I will not be mastered by anything. 13 “Food is for the stomach and the stomach for food,” and God will do away with both of them. However, the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 God raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. 15 Don’t you know that your bodies are a part of Christ’s body? So should I take a part of Christ’s body and make it part of a prostitute? Absolutely not! 16 Don’t you know that anyone joined to a prostitute is one body with her? For Scripture says, The two will become one flesh. 17 But anyone joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. 18 Flee sexual immorality! Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the person who is sexually immoral sins against his own body. 19 Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body. (1 Corinthians 6:12-20, CSB) And God, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock, our Strength, and Redeemer. 14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. (Psalms 19:14, CSB) Amen. All right, so Scripture is taken out of context. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, eat right and exercise. That’s not what this means. It’s not what this means. Now, can we make other arguments for eating right and exercising? Absolutely. You’ll be in better shape. You can serve the Lord better. Paul says bodily exercise has some profit. But Paul also says, “Rejoice in the Lord always.” And I’ve never seen how those two things are compatible. So I don’t know how to make that work. Yeah, you know, but anyway, that’s not what this passage is about. This passage is 100% about sexual morality. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and that’s what Paul’s talking about. And this is not Paul’s first letter or first correspondence with the Corinthians. We get clues about that all the time. And here’s one of the clues: “Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible, but I will not subject myself to the authority of anyone.” 12 “Everything is permissible for me,” but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me,” but I will not be mastered by anything. (1 Corinthians 6:12, CSB) And so, “everything is permissible,” obviously, is something they’re quoting to him. “We can do this. You said it, Paul. You said ” He goes, “Wait, time out.” I don’t know if your kids have ever done this to you. Like, you said something and then they turn it on you. “But you said I could do this, you know, so that means I can do this.” You’re like, “No, those are apples and spaceships. They’re different. All right?” And so Paul had this debate in the early church around the Judaizers and things like circumcision and then dietary laws. The big crux, the thing that brought the dietary laws to a head, was meat offered at pagan temples as sacrifices and then sold in the meat market. There was a group of Christians who were saying, “You cannot eat that meat. That’s participating in pagan idolatry.” And there were other groups of Christians that said, “No, those are the best prices for meat. That’s where we get it. That’s the bargain shopping place for meat. And so that’s where we get our meat to eat.” And so, Paul’s argument is, “You can do that because that meat is you give thanks to the Lord and it’s sanctified. It is not taking part in pagan idolatry.” But he says, “If someone has a strong conviction about that, then don’t flaunt your Christian liberty. Because if somebody eats that meat, violating their conscience, then you’re actually causing them to sin. Though eating that meat in particular is not the sin, but violating their conscience is the sin.” You get it? And so out of Christian love and charity, you say, “All right, tonight we eat vegetables.” And so you don’t eat that meat. And that’s the argument that the church always had trying to walk the balance between liberty and license. A modern example would be, there are denominations… I got in trouble when I was preaching at the AG Church. For a year and a half I was the interim pastor at an AG Church, and I tried very hard. There are things I disagree with in the AG, but I tried very hard just to avoid those subjects. I felt like I needed to honor them. You know, I’m speaking in an AG pulpit. I should honor their position. I didn’t know, though, that they were total teetotalers. I didn’t know that was a position in the AG, that drinking is a sin; don’t drink. And the argument is, again, a lot of those holiness groups will say that the wine that Jesus talks about in the Bible wasn’t fermented wine; it was grape juice, et cetera, et cetera. I’m not convinced of that argument. But there is an argument to be made against drinking, and that is: drinking causes so much harm in our culture. Drunkenness causes so much harm in our culture that, you know, the world probably would be better if just nobody drank. On the other hand, Jesus drank, I think. And I think the Christian principle is very clear on these things. Very clear to me. Moderation. “I will not subject my body to be under the authority of anything.” In other words, I will not be a slave. Gluttony is a sin. What you eat is not. Jesus declared all foods clean. And, you know, one of the greatest benefits of the New Covenant is bacon. We had Mother’s Day brunch with my daughter and my wife today. We went over to their house at Mother’s Day brunch. We had French toast and bacon and eggs, and I ate mostly bacon. It was wonderful. And that’s how this argument was being used. Paul was saying, “You can eat bacon, you can eat food sacrificed to idols. Jewish dietary laws do not everything is permissible for me; not everything is beneficial. There’s times to refrain from it, but it’s permissible.” So, they were turning this argument on him, saying, “Well, if it’s okay to eat meat sacrificed to idols, it’s also okay to sleep with the temple prostitutes. Everything is permissible to me. Not everything is beneficial.” And he’s saying, “Hold on. Now you’re taking your Christian liberty and using it as a license to sin. Now you’re taking your Christian liberty and using it as a license to sin.” Because the Bible is very clear that thou shall not commit adultery. Sleeping with temple prostitutes, I think most everybody would agree, comes under the heading of adultery if you’re married, and certainly comes under the heading of fornication if you’re not married. And so, Paul is saying to them, “No, don’t.” And again, this general issue of liberty and license, Christians have struggled with for 2000 years, trying to figure out how to walk the golden mean between liberty and license. You know, and the holiness groups will fall off on legalism, you know? They’ll fall off on legalism and kind of denounce Christian liberty. Don’t drink, don’t dance, don’t chew, don’t go with don’t go to movies. And it just becomes hypocritical at some point. I knew a denomination, you know, they would not go to movies. That was forbidden to go to the theater, but they would rent movies back in the day when you had Blockbuster. “Well, if we go to movies, it’s a bad witness.” Well, isn’t it the same if you rent movies? I mean, if somebody’s working at the counter and they’re seeing you rent the movie You know, it’s like And we build fences around sin and think those fences will prevent us from sin. And we’re going to see that some of those fences actually work and others don’t. We’ll talk about that in a minute. But listen, the point is not to sin. But the point is also that you don’t have to make unnecessary rules that Jesus got rid of. Having sex with prostitutes is a sin. And Paul is saying food and sex they’re not the same thing. You can eat what you want. Jesus declared all foods clean. But Jesus also strongly upholds the one man, one woman bond. This is the standard for Christian believers. One man, one woman, monogamous union, till death do them part. That’s the standard, you say? Well, wait, the Bible allows for multiple marriage partners. It allows for polygamy in the Old Testament. Yeah, there are reasons for that in the culture that those people were living in, but God never endorses it. And if you look at the Bible, it never works out well. There’s not one positive case. You got Rachel and Leah. That was a mess. I’m reading through the Bible, and I just finished the story of King Solomon, who started so incredibly well and ended so bad. And what is the Bible’s reason that he ended so bad? His wives led him astray. Listen, one wife might lead you astray, but you might stand a chance. But 700? You’re sunk, dude. You’re sunk. “Solly, build us a temple for our God. Solly, don’t you love me? Solly, build me a temple. You built her a temple. Build me one, too. I want one, too, Solly. Come on, honey. Build me a temple. Come to my temple with me. I don’t like going alone. Come with me.” He destroyed everything. Now, it’s not his wife’s fault. It’s his fault, you know, but he destroyed it. So it never works. Genesis says, “For this reason, a man will leave his mother and father and be united to his wife.” And what? The two not the 700 and the one the two will become one flesh. And then the New Testament reaffirms that. Jesus reaffirms it time and time again. Jesus takes a stronger stance against divorce than the legalistic Pharisees of His time. And Paul says if anyone desires a role of leadership in the church, he must be married to how many people? Must be the husband of what? One wife, one wife. And so the Bible upholds the one man, one woman bond. This is an issue on the mission field, by the way, where Christians are evangelizing Muslims who have multiple wives. And when that Muslim man comes to the Lord, the question is, you know, what do you do with them all? And I think that you walk the balance here between legalism and license. I think the legalistic answer is divorce every one of them but one. I think that’s actually cruel because those women are relying on those men, and their children are relying on that man for their livelihood. I think the best, the wisest answer is, teach your sons that this ends now. This is the last generation of polygamy. Christians ought to be monogamous. And then I think it’s also probably wise, out of your seven wives take care of all seven, but pick one. She’s the real wife now. The other six are going to get mad at that. Or maybe they’ll be relieved, like, “Yay, I get supported and don’t have to do anything.” I don’t know. But pick one. It’s a question that missionaries are dealing with this very day. What do you do with polygamous converts? Because the Christian standard is the one man, one woman, till death do them part. It is irrelevant what kind of food you eat. Yes, it will impact your biological health. And it’s pretty hard to eat a lot of sugar and not be addicted to it and not be mastered by it. You notice Paul says, “I will not come under the authority of anyone.” What happens when you have illegitimate sex with somebody is you come under their authority because you become one with them. In a sense, they own you. They own you. And so food shouldn’t own you, sex shouldn’t own you, tobacco shouldn’t own you, alcohol shouldn’t own you, drugs shouldn’t own you, money shouldn’t own you. But none of these things are necessarily wrong. The problem is when you you cannot have casual sex because sex will always own you. You can eat, and food won’t own you. You follow? You can eat, and food doesn’t necessarily you can become addicted to food, but food won’t necessarily own you. Sex will always own you because that’s how God designed it. Food is for the stomach; the stomach’s for food. Food keeps you on your feet. Sex bonds you with another human being. And we think we have a choice in that. We do not. Our bodies are united with Christ, and we become one with whoever we have sex with. And I’ll tell you, it’s a reason we call it “getting intimate” with somebody. It is the most profound act of intimacy that human beings can experience. And it means you’re connected to that person, even if you divorce them, even if you weren’t married. And you go, you know, you sleep with a dozen people before you get married. Guess what? On your wedding night, there’s 13 of you in bed with that person. You brought all those partners with you because they become a part of your very soul, and it’s hard to get rid of them. I was married a virgin. I’d never slept with another woman. Never have in my life. I’m a one man, one woman guy. However, in high school and college, I made out with a few girls. I kissed a few girls. I’m not going to tell you about whatever base. I don’t know. I’m not even clear what the bases are. Probably a couple times got more than a single. I don’t know. But I tell you, I went to my 25th high school reunion, right? A lot of old friends, a lot of people. There were two girls in that room that I’d kissed. Two women now, 25 years. And when we looked at each other, you know what happened? There is a knowing. Oh yeah, yeah. It’s just a reality. It’s just a reality. And therefore we unite our bodies who belong to Christ with something in an act that Christ has not condoned, does not want to be united with. We take our bodies and give them over. It is more pagan idolatry to sleep promiscuously than to eat meat offered at an idol. As I said, there’s no such thing as casual sex. There’s no such thing as recreational sex. It is all intimate sex, whether you want it to be or not. A one night stand is a lifetime bondage. It’s a lifetime connection. And so don’t do it. We have no right to join our bodies with anyone but our spouse. That’s it. That’s it. And inside of that relationship we’ll talk about this more next week. Sorry, this is only sex talk 101 A. There’s going to be 1 Corinthians 7:1, which talks about marriage. So we’ll talk about it some more next week. I really don’t think I’m preaching to a congregation of rabid, sexually promiscuous people. But I do think I’m preaching to a congregation of people, 100% of you, who have sinned sexually, if you take Jesus’ definition and you’ve ever lusted in your heart. I have never met a human being who was free from that. At least I’ve never met a human being of my gender who is free from that. But I think it’s also true of females. So we have no right to join our bodies with anyone but our spouse. And then the Bible says, “Flee sexual immorality.” Well, wait, doesn’t Paul say, “Resist the devil and he’ll flee from you?” Yes, resist the devil and he’ll flee from you. 7 Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (James 4:7, CSB) You can beat up the devil in the authority of Jesus. It’s your flesh that’s weak. And so there are sins of the flesh and there are sins of the spirit. And let me define the two. You know what a sin of the flesh is, right? It’s where we indulge our flesh to feel good with something outside of the will of God. All right? Be it drug, alcohol abuse, sexual immorality, gluttony, whatever. And Paul says, “Your flesh is weak. You can’t withstand too long of a temptation of those things. So run away, flee it.” If you were to make a bet with me, “Kevin, Sluy’s Bakery in Poulsbo is open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. I want you to go in there with $100 in your pocket, sit there for 12 hours and not buy a thing.” I will not take that bet. I will lose. I will lose within an hour because I’ll see people buying bear claws, cinnamon rolls and apple fritters and pecan rolls and slices of cake. And within an hour I’ll go, “I gotta get me some.” So how do I avoid the temptation of Sluy’s Bakery? I don’t go there. Except on special occasions. I just don’t go there. I was a drug addict. I was a marijuana addict for years as a young man. I haven’t smoked pot in 40 years. There are all sorts of pot stores that have opened up. This is how I know I’m an addict. I know where all those stores are. When I drive by them, my brain marks them. Just marks them automatically. I don’t try to mark them. My wife was saying, “Oh, I’m going to the fabric store.” I go, “We got a fabric store?” “Yes. It’s really huge. It’s right by Fred Meyer. You go to Fred Meyer. How have you never seen it?” Because I don’t give a patootie about fabric stores. I don’t care about fabric stores. I’m so glad my wife isn’t crafty and makes me go to the craft store with her. That would be horrible. But I know where bakeries are, I know where hamburger joints are, and I know where all the pot stores are. And so what have I done with all the pot stores? I’ve been curious a few times. I wonder what the prices are. I wonder what they’ve done with marijuana. I wonder if, you know, they have different strains that produce different effects, and sometimes I have a hard time getting to sleep. I wonder if there’s a kind of strain that’ll help put you to sleep. And, you know, I could just use it I don’t go in them. I’ve never set foot in one, and I’m not gonna. Why? I don’t need that monkey on my back again. I don’t need that monkey on my back. I flee. Now, what about sins of the spirit? Sins of the spirit is when the voice of the devil comes against you and accuses you or God of something that’s not true. It’s the lies that we believe that destroy our lives. So I’m walking I’ve used this example before, but you guys forget stuff, so I’m walking to seminary. I’m in seminary. I’m studying God’s Word. And I’m calling myself just a bunch of bad names, right? We’ve all probably done this. I’ve done it compulsively in my life. “You’re such a loser. You’re such a jerk. You know, you’re no good.” Here’s the one. I’ve actually said this before I even thought about it. I’ll just say it. This one, even, I don’t believe, all right? Loser, jerk yeah, sometimes I succumb to that. But this one I don’t even believe. But I said it. I’ve said it. I’ll say, “Kevin, you’re the worst person ever.” Anybody get that one? Or am I the only guy that bad? All right? Nobody else. Nobody else. Ats? All right, brother, we’re united. You’re not the worst person ever, all right? And neither am I, all right? I told people in Bremerton this morning, “I’ve actually heard I’m the worst person ever.” I said, “You guys really think I’m the worst person ever?” And again, like you guys, there wasn’t a rousing support saying, “Of course not.” It was just kind of, “Six, seven, I don’t know.” But I’m calling myself these names. I’m walking to seminary calling myself these names, and I hear the voice of God. Here’s how I know the difference between the voice of the devil and the voice of God. The devil says, “You’re the worst person ever.” Or the devil says, “Take that bet up at Sluy’s Bakery. You’re the worst person ever.” God says, “Kevin.” He uses my first name. Often when I hear God, He uses my first name. He speaks to me as a son. “Kevin, you know my book, don’t you?” I’m on my way to seminary to study His book in the original languages. Like, “Yes, I study your book. I’m, you know, I’m trying to become an expert on your book. I know your book.” He says, “Do I ever call you those names in my book?” I say, “No, you don’t.” He says, “What do I call you?” “Son. Royal priesthood. Holy Nation. Bride. That one’s a little weird, but I get it. We’re all part of the Church. Friend.” He goes, “Where do you think those names are coming from?” And then Dana Carvey from Saturday Night Live, the old church lady skit, flashes in my mind. “Could it be Satan?” And so when I hear I’m a loser, jerk, worst person ever when those thoughts come into my head, I don’t run away from that battle. I don’t say, “No, be quiet. Don’t tell me those things.” I say, “No, that’s not true. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, here’s who I am. Here’s who I am in Christ.” Several years ago, I had a recurring dream where I was working under a tyrannical boss. And you could never please this boss. And in my dream, I’m always discouraged. Stevin, in one of my dreams, I was working at a horse stable. Yeah, like that would ever be anywhere near the reality with me. Like, oh, yeah, I want to shovel poop for a living. Great. But anyway, you know, the boss isn’t I know when he comes, you know, the inspection is never good enough. And all the dreams was a different occupation, but it was always under this tyrannical boss that you absolutely could not please and you were never good enough for. And so if you have a repeated theme in a dream, chances are that’s a spiritual dream. That’s a significant dream. And so I prayed about it and said, “God, what’s this dream about?” And it took a while. You know, it’s not like I talk about these things and you think, “Oh, it happened immediately.” It took a couple of months. And finally, I have one of those dreams one night, and I’m at a Grace Covenant conference, and we’re getting together for worship. And as we start worshiping, the Lord says, “You’re the boss. Who’s the tyrannical boss whose oppression you’re under?” And God said, “It’s you. You’re the perfectionist that you cannot please because you believe the lies of the devil that everything has to be perfect to please me or whatever.” But He said, “You’re that boss.” And when I told the people at Grace Covenant that, they go, “Well, yeah, that’s obvious.” It wasn’t obvious to me the last two years I’ve been having these dreams, but the minute I said it, it was like, oh, yeah, yeah. I thought about it. You know, I thought, I’ve never had a boss like that. Dallas Elder you know, he’s not like that. My wife’s not like that. Nobody’s like that to me. The leadership team is not like that. I’ve never had a boss like that, except one. Right? And so I started praying. The dream, the interpretation, now the application. What do I do about that? And again, didn’t happen right away. I said, “Okay, Lord, what you want me to do about that?” And about two or three days later, I hear what He says again. He says, “Fire him.” “Fire who?” “Yourself. Don’t be that boss anymore. Fire the demonic voice. And actually, fire the demonic voice behind that, you know, that tyranny.” And so, I felt like the Lord said, “Say it out loud. Say it now.” And I just spoke into the space. I said, “In the Name of Jesus, you’re fired.” And now whenever I feel, you know, whenever that lack of perfection comes and I feel like, oh, my gosh, I’m not good enough. I’m not smart enough, whatever. I just say, I just repeat it. I say, “In the Name of Jesus, you’re fired. You’re fired.” Resist the devil. Resist the temptations of the spirit. You get the difference? Flee the temptations of the flesh. This will help you. Because a lot of people try to resist the flesh, and then they fall time and time again. You know? “I’m convinced I’ve overcome drinking. You know, my AA group’s really working. I’m going to go hang out at the bars.” No, that’s why you go to the AA meeting. You’re learning a new pattern that you find your community there, not at the bars. But when you run away from the devil, that just empowers him. Gotcha. Does that make sense? Flee sexual immorality. All right? But stand your ground and resist the devil. All right. We are temples of the Holy Spirit. The temple is the place where God dwells with His people. The whole story of the Bible is God wants to walk what does God do to Adam and Eve in Genesis? He walks with them in the garden. God wants to dwell with His people. The story of Revelation is what? “I will be your God and you will be my people. And you won’t need the sun or the moon.” Why? Because God and the Lamb are with you, and they will illuminate the city. God is with you. God is with you. When God saves the world. How does God save the world? He comes and dwells with us. “Tabernacles” is the word. When the Word became flesh and dwelt with us, that word, “dwelt” is “tabernacles.” Well, what do you think when you think of the word “tabernacle”? You think of Exodus, the Tabernacle. What was the Tabernacle? The Tabernacle was the forerunner of the Temple. The Tabernacle was the place where you had the Holy of Holies, where God dwelt. And it was the place where God made atonement so that man and women could have fellowship with God. God is the one who wants to have fellowship with us. It’s not like God’s up there begrudgingly saying, “All right, I’ll let you go to the Good Place if, you know, you accept my Son.” No. God does everything He can so that He can dwell with us and we can dwell with Him. And here’s what He does. Before we go to the Good Place, before we get the new heavens and the new earth, what does He do? He says, “I so want to dwell with you, and I can’t wait for you to get here. I’m going to fill you with my very Spirit so that your very body becomes now what the Temple was in the Old Testament, the dwelling place of the Holy God.” And when we come to Him in the name of and in the presence of the Lord Jesus, we find grace and mercy because He dwells with us. He says, “Your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, don’t bring a prostitute into the Holy of Holies. Don’t desecrate the Holy Place.” What we do with our bodies is holy. This is not all a spiritual game, right? What we do with our bodies matters. The Bible is full of instructions on what to do with your body. “Lift your hands,” “lift your heads,” “bow and worship.” When He comes near, we tremble. I tremble. Your body matters. It is now what Michael Heiser would call sacred space. That’s why the holiest thing you encounter in this world is another human being who’s indwelt by God. Don’t despise Christians. They are holy places even if the temple’s in disrepair and the paint’s not good and whatever. Therefore, use your body to glorify God. Use the physical energy you have, use the mind, the brain, your muscles to glorify God. Your intelligence it’s all part of our body. Use your sexuality to glorify God. How do you do that? By uniting with your wife and uniting with your husband and therefore representing, in the very act of your home, the intimate connection between Christ and His church and living that out in an enacted parable of love, faithfulness, intimacy, connection. Listen, what does God want from us? Faithfulness. He wants faithfulness. We’re saved by faith. What does that mean? Allegiance to Yahweh. Commitment, allegiance, faithfulness, fidelity. What’s the biggest sin of the Old Testament? What does Israel get judged for time and time again? Yeah, it’s not rocket science, people. It’s in your Bible. You’ve read it. Idolatry. Idolatry. And what does God call it? Spiritual adultery. Duh. You get the connection? Why is sexual morality so important? Because sexual morality is about union, connection, intimacy, faithfulness. These are the things God longs for from us and marriage, what we do with our bodies in marriage is training ground. How do I learn about faithfulness? I made a promise to this person and I’m keeping it. I’m being faithful. I told my wife, you know, old person mind wanderings every old person has had this thought: “You know, I really just want to die peacefully in my sleep.” And I just said that to her. I just said, “I want to die peacefully in my sleep.” And she says, “Got it.” What does she mean by that? My wife has told me. She said, “Divorce is off the table. I will not divorce. You said if you commit adultery, I will murder you, but I will not divorce you.” So hopefully it’ll be a pleasant death, though I think she’d be pretty mad. It might not be. It might not be. Yeah, I might die in my sleep, but it might be with a pillow over my face. I don’t want to get too morbid here, but, you know, “Got it.” Is the life insurance paid? So it matters. Now, a lot of us can think, “Well, I’ve done that. You know, I didn’t have premarital sex, and I’ve been faithful to my spouse and all that. I haven’t sinned sexually.” And then Jesus comes along, and he ruins it. He says, “If you’ve lusted in your heart, you’ve already done it.” And so, whatever your level of sexual immorality is, I want you to know two things. I want you to know there is mercy. God is looking for your faithfulness, and He’s looking for your faithfulness whatever level you’re at He’s looking for it to start now. Will you be faithful to Jesus and faithful to your spouse? And if you’re not married, will you be faithful to your future spouse? Because premarital sex is committing adultery on your future spouse. And then there’s grace. There’s grace to walk out that process. And if you don’t walk it out perfectly, you go back and repent and are forgiven. Dust yourself off and keep pursuing faithfulness. And there is grace and mercy for you. But don’t quit. Don’t call broke, fixed and wrong, right. Don’t justify your sin and say, “Oh, if my wife was just more affectionate, I wouldn’t do this.” Or “If my husband cared for me, I wouldn’t do ” You know, “This other man loves me, my husband, he ignores me. Blah, blah, blah, blah.” Don’t justify your sin. Don’t justify your sin. Just repent. And then put the right foot in front of the left and the left foot in front of the right and keep going. We’re in the school of holiness. We’re in the school of faithfulness. I don’t know that anybody here’s perfect. I just want to be better 10 years from now than I am now. I want to be more like Jesus at 77 than I am at 67. You know? I want to be more like Jesus at 87 than I am at 67 or 77. “I’m like Jesus.” I want to be there. And the only thing that’ll defeat us is quitting. And so, put your right foot in front of the left, your left foot in front of the right. I can’t think of a better way to practice putting your right foot in front of your left, than your left foot in front of your right, than doing something physically with your bodies tonight. And that is putting your right foot in front of your left and your left foot in front of the right, and walking up to this table of grace and mercy, and once again receiving physically through bread and the fruit of the vine, physically receiving the reassurance of that grace and mercy of God’s covenant with you. So I invite you to use your bodies, not just your mind and your spirit, but to use your bodies to worship God and to walk up here and receive this meal and thank God for whatever. Thank God for the dear person you’re married to and the dear person you’re going to be married to, you know, if you’re unmarried, Isaiah. Or, you know, if you’re expecting your spouse to die soon, Jill, just thank God for that. I don’t think but, you know, now, if I die in my sleep, it could be natural, but there could be a suspect. All right, I’m just saying there could be. You might want to tell the police. All right. Anyway, dear ones, come and eat. The post 2026.5.10 TFHC – Sexual Immorality and Why It Matters | 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 appeared first on The Firehouse Church in Bremerton, WA.

May 3, 2026, Message by P. Kevin Clancey Transcribed by Beluga AI. Lord Jesus, thank you for our time together. Thank you for your Word. And as we dive into it tonight, may your words give us more than Bible information, but give us Bible transformation. Lord, may we be shaped into the image of Jesus Christ, be restored to the image that you created us to have, and to walk as your obedient children. And Lord, use this time, we ask, to shape our lives. We pray it in Jesus’ Name, Amen. Okay. “You turn graves into gardens./ You turn bones into armies./ You turn seas into highways.” The last two, I know where they are in the Bible. Elijah and the dry bones. And of course, Moses and crossing the Red Sea. Where did He turn a grave into a garden? Anybody know? He emptied the tomb, but did it become a garden? Well, then He didn’t turn the grave into a garden. I love the song, but I think the title in the main verse is a stretch. That’s all I’m saying. Isaiah, I’m with you on your literalism here. All right, all right. But I’m going to keep singing it because, you know, I get the general point. God transforms things that are dead and bad, dangerous, into things that are wonderful, good. God causes all things to work for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. Amen. So I took a you just saw me do that, right? I just got to tell you, not that these things are all that reliable, but there was like a 12-minute test to take on where you land on the autistic spectrum. And I just want to say my wife is far further down on the scale than I was. I’m like, “Well, you’re probably not diagnosable, but “ All right. Well, you really want to get in this conversation? So here’s where I’m not. Yeah, here’s where I’m not. Though I can be very literal, I also really get humor and irony. And, you know, my favorite book of the Bible is the Psalms, which autistic people are like, “What?” You know, “Give me the Proverbs.” So, yeah. However, I get bored easily with social interactions when people are talking about things I’m not interested in and have to fight really hard to not check out. So I’m like, all or nothing, right? I go on forever about, you know, and monopolize a conversation about things that I am interested in. You’ve all experienced that. You’ve asked me a five-minute question, and two hours later you’re like, “Okay, enough.” And, yeah, I have some, like, tics. I have some physical, you know, a few physical things that I do that are kind of, like comforting and stuff. So, yeah, yeah, I’m not Rain Man or nothing, but, you know, just saying, just saying. And I think that was just an example of it. The graves in the gardens. Like, hey, wait a minute, that’s not in the Bible. So all you literalists out there go, “Yeah, we’re with you.” All right, so 1 Corinthians 6:1-11. Let’s go there. 1 If any of you has a dispute against another, how dare you take it to court before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? 2 Or don’t you know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the trivial cases? 3 Don’t you know that we will judge angels how much more matters of this life? 4 So if you have such matters, do you appoint as your judges those who have no standing in the church? 5 I say this to your shame! Can it be that there is not one wise person among you who is able to arbitrate between fellow believers? 6 Instead, brother goes to court against brother, and that before unbelievers! 7 As it is, to have legal disputes against one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? 8 Instead, you yourselves do wrong and cheat and you do this to brothers and sisters! 9 Don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s kingdom? Do not be deceived: No sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, or males who have sex with males, 10 no thieves, greedy people, drunkards, verbally abusive people, or swindlers will inherit God’s kingdom. 11 And some of you used to be like this. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:1-11, CSB) May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock, our Strength and our Redeemer. 14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. (Psalms 19:14, CSB) Okay, none of you are suing anybody else in this room, are you? Great. Great. Okay, good, good. I just thought of that. I just thought, you know, that’s another reason to be against divorce, because you sue somebody for divorce. You’re suing another believer. There you go. All right. Well, there you go. Lawsuits are continued evidence of the Corinthians’ immaturity. That’s the point of the letter. Paul is rebuking their pride, and he’s rebuking their immaturity. It’s okay to be immature, but one of the problems with immaturity is immature people think they’re mature, right? Immature people think they’re mature just when they begin to mature. You know examples of that, right? Teenagers who know everything, you know, your teenage kid, they just know everything. And then, like 10 years later, they’re calling you on the phone for advice. It’s amazing how much smarter you get as your kids, you know, grow up a little bit. I remember one time, my 15-year-old daughter, you know, she finally got that little 15-year-old girl attitude going on. Well, you don’t know about adolescent daughters, but they’re a treat. And so, my 15-year-old daughter just told her mother, “No.” You know? “Clean your room. Clean your room.” And she said, “No, I don’t want to clean my room.” And she just, you know, just stood up to her mom and I thought, “Wow, you talk to your mom that way? Come over here, step into this room with me. I’m going to talk to you. How’d you do that? I’ve been trying to learn that for 20 years. How’d you pull it off? That was awesome.” It’s not a true story. That’s the non-autistic part of me. See, I can get a joke. All right, so they’re immature. The first piece of evidence: there were divisions in the church. Remember, we spent a long time on divisions in the church. Second piece of evidence: they not only allow for sexual immorality in the church, they celebrate it. And the excuse is, we are so free in Christ and we’re so forgiven, it’s cheap grace. We’re so forgiven by grace. We can do anything we want and excuse anybody who does anything they want. And now the third piece of evidence by the way, he’s going to get back to sexual immorality. But the third piece of evidence is “There are lawsuits among you.” And this is a sign of immaturity. And here’s what the Corinthian church they were a new church; they were a young church, and they were gifted by the Holy Spirit. All the spiritual gifts are in operation in the Corinthian church, which is great. Spiritual gifts are great, but the gifts were puffing them up, thinking, “Look at us, look at how mature we are because we speak in tongues and prophesy.” And Paul says, “And then you go and sue one another, and then you go and indulge in sexual immorality, and then you go and have divisions.” These are clearly signs of immaturity. Just because you speak in tongues and you get a prophecy right once in a while, it doesn’t make you mature. It makes you gifted. Right? I’m a sports fan all sorts of gifted athletes. Very immature, very immature. And by the way, there’s a lot of them who I really admire their maturity because at 19 years old they’re thrown millions of dollars of money and they don’t destroy their lives, which I would have done at 19 years old. I’d have destroyed my life. So just an aside, but giftedness does not equate maturity. And then Paul, before he rebukes them, or in his rebuke, he actually tells us how amazing our standing is in Christ. He says, “You’re taking your disputes before secular judges. Don’t you know your destiny? Don’t you know who you are? You will judge the world. You will judge angels.” We already have the role, and I don’t know if judging angels I don’t even know what that means. It may mean we get to judge the fallen angels, the demons who have tortured us our whole life. That would be quite a nice assignment, right? And that would be the one time in your life you could say this, or the only other time you could say it is using it as a sermon example to make this point. So, I can say this right now because I’m using it as a sermon example. You can’t just go out and go say this, but that would be the one time you could honestly, without sinning, look at another being, another created being, and say, “Go to hell.” So if you always wanted to say that, maybe you’ll get a chance, maybe you’ll get a chance. All right? Or, you know, do it the sneaky way. Become a preacher and say, “Haha, I can say it in this sermon because it’s still okay.” So now you can go home and say, “My pastor said ‘go to hell’ in the sermon today.” All right, so this is incredible again, a lot of our problems come from forgetting who we are. A lot of our problems come from losing our identity as sons and daughters of the living God, as brothers of the risen king. We are princes and princesses. And so what the Bible often says is, “So act like it.” Now, don’t act like spoiled royalty. That’s what we are. We’re kind of like spoiled tabloid royalty. But that’s not what royalty really is supposed to be like. Royalty is supposed to be noble. You know, read The Chronicles of Narnia. C.S. Lewis has a great understanding of royalty and kings and queens. And that’s what we’re supposed to be like. That’s what we’re supposed to be like. Be who you are in Christ, and then you won’t be who you aren’t. And so, dear ones, lawsuits are scandalous. We disagree with the world, and yet we take our grievances to them? Really? He says these are people who are what? He gives a list. “These are people who are sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, thieves, greedy people, drunkards, verbally abusive people, swindlers who are not going to inherit God’s kingdom. And if you submit to them and if you follow them and you fall back into that world system, you neither will inherit the kingdom of God. Why are you taking your disputes to these people?” And this is to their shame. Isn’t there anybody wise enough in your church to settle disputes? Let me tell you something. It’s still a problem, right? This was not just a problem in Corinth. It’s a problem today. Because, listen, I’ve been doing this a long time. I’ll tell you the number one reason people leave church, the number one unspoken reason people leave church. They’ll come up with all sorts of lame excuses, but I think here’s what it is a lot of times: conflict resolution they’re having conflict with pastor or leadership of the church or another person in the church. And when we have conflict, we typically move into fight or flight. And because it’s wrong for Christians to fight, we flight. And that’s better. Because when Christians do fight, they really fight dirty because it’s wrong to fight publicly. So they fight passive aggressively and get all sorts of spiritual, weird stuff going on. But there’s a better thing than either fight or flight. It’s called conflict resolution. Now, I’m not going to go into an hour discussion on conflict resolution, but conflict resolution is huge. I do it in marriage counseling all the time. I say, “All right, here’s what you do.” And basically, it starts with what your premise is when you find yourself in conflict. Every human being, when we find ourselves in conflict, here’s where we land, here’s where I land: I want to win this fight. I want to win this fight, right? I want to show that I’m right and that other person is wrong because obviously I’m right. It’s self-evident. It’s obvious. The other person is thinking the exact same thing: I want to win this thing; they’re so wrong. And so then we talk over each other. We don’t try to understand the other person. We use manipulation and we get, we just We want to win the fight. No, no, no. Here’s how you do conflict resolution. Here’s the thing I’m going to give you tonight. Not going to give you the whole package, but here’s the thing: Just start somewhere completely different. Married people, this is very helpful. It’s very helpful. Really, all relationships. How can we resolve this conflict? Not, how can I win this fight? When you start there, everything changes. Now the other ingredients, and we’re not going to go into detail because I got other things I want to say tonight. The other ingredients are: learn how to listen until the other person feels understood; learn how to talk where you express your feelings and the nature of the conflict, but don’t attack the other person; learn how to say you’re sorry; and learn how to say, and mean, “You’re forgiven.” Those four things, they really work. And you can resolve conflicts instead of running away. You can resolve conflicts instead of running away. And you know, when you come to somebody and say, “Let’s resolve the conflict,” that’s so much better than the passive-aggressive thing we do, which is, “I just want to tell you this in Christian love,” and then open up both barrels on them. Right? “Here’s where you’re wrong and stupid and mean. And here’s where I’m right and holy and perfect.” No. “Hey, I got a problem “ And a lot of times people don’t even know you have conflict with them. They’re just, you know, like me. I step on people’s toes all the time. You know, I just say insensitive things. I treat something trivial when they’re… Because I joke around a lot and somebody’s coming to me with something serious, but I don’t pick up on it that it’s serious, and I make a joke about it. And then, you know, they’re wounded. Listen, I do this all the time, so I’ve probably done it to you. Sorry. But you come talk to me, all right? You know, I might start by getting defensive, but I’ll work around it and just try to listen to you. So, resolve conflicts. Don’t sue somebody. And if you need help, come to me. People, if you’re in conflict with somebody, come to me. I’ve reffed this. I’ve refereed conflict resolution many times and not always usually with married couples who have gone too far into their fight before they ask for help, it’s harder to referee that match. But you know, early on, when the conflict’s not as big of a stake as marriage and stuff and the deep hurt that people have been carrying for 20 years and all that stuff we can settle this. We can work this through with just a few simple principles, if the parties concerned are really intentional about resolving the conflict and not winning the fight. So there are people who can settle our grievances. There are people in the church who can do this. And listen, when we take our problems into the secular courts, we bring disrepute to the church. “Oh, they’re no better than us. They’re worse than us.” You know, when Christian pastors fight publicly, name call, throw mud, we bring disrepute into the church. We don’t know how to resolve conflict. And Paul says, “Listen, there’s something better than taking it to the court. It is just forgiving the person and being wrong. Walk away. Walk away and forgive the person.” But we have a very heightened sense of justice when we’re the victims, don’t we? “They need to pay. They need to know how much they hurt me, by golly.” What do we say? “I need to get even.” No, you don’t. No, you don’t. Aren’t you glad God doesn’t want to get even with you? Aren’t you glad God doesn’t want to get even with you? Listen, when I have that life review, if Jesus gets picky on me, He’s going to say, “All right, Kevin, here’s the things I have against you.” Huge scroll. And I’ll go, “Oh, my gosh.” And then He’ll say, “Oh, no, that’s just scroll one.” I’ll look behind Him, and there’ll be a mountain of scrolls. Forgive one another. What does the Bible say? Forgive one another, just as God in Christ has forgiven you. Forgive one another, just as God in Christ has forgiven you. Wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God. Two ways Paul is using this here. First of all, he’s saying, why are you taking your disputes to wrongdoers who aren’t even going to inherit the kingdom of God? But secondly, he’s telling Christians, “When you do that, you then are participating in their world. You’re going backwards. You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified. You were set free from these things. And now you’re going back into that whole world. Listen, you got to live in that world, but you don’t have to submit to it. You don’t have to submit to their values. And that’s what you’re doing. And so you’re putting your very salvation at risk here. You’re rebelling against the kingdom of God.” We enter the kingdom of God by grace, through faith. But some people make the mistake of thinking the day we enter the kingdom of God by God’s grace, through faith, it’s all good. No, that’s the beginning. We celebrate new birth, but we also celebrate every birthday when people grow up, until you get my age, then you just celebrate one every decade. And the birthdays are no longer “happy birthday.” They’re like, “Hey, dude, you’re still alive. Great, great. We don’t have as much hope for 90 as we do for 80. But, hey, you made 80.” You know, I’m just glad the way I abused my body, I’m glad I made 60. And you know, I might make 70. I’m getting close. I’m getting close. And you’re thinking, “Kev, you don’t look 70. You don’t look a day over 67 and a half,” which is what I am. All right, so we are saved by grace, through faith. That’s how we enter the kingdom. But we inherit the kingdom through perseverance, and that’s still by grace, through faith. It’s still God pouring out His Spirit on our lives and us believing on Him and trusting on Him and walking with Him. But we inherit the kingdom by perseverance. We got to not quit walking. And there’s an argument in the church about the people who do quit walking. One side says they were never really Christians. That’s why they’ve quit. And there are Scriptures that support that. Another side says, “No, they were legitimate believers and they’ve turned their backs on God.” And there are Scriptures that support that. And that’s a conversation for another day. If you ask me that question, and we’re not in the context of church, where I got other things to say, you will get a long answer, guaranteed. I find there are very few people who like my long answers. However, both the Miller boys seemed like them once in a while. I appreciate that. Jacob once said you know, I gave Jacob this big, long thing. Then I apologized. I said, “Jacob, I’m sorry.” He goes, “Oh, no, I like to poke the bear and see what comes out.” I said, “Okay.” And Isaiah seems to endure them as well. I don’t know if he always likes them, but he endures. He endures them politely. Stevin and Ats, you guys are great on Thursday night, but you know what? You deserve it, Ats, with your questions. You’re begging for it. You should know better by now. You should, be like, “Wait, before I ask you this question, I’m going to order food.” All right. We inherit the kingdom by continuing along that path. But when we continue to willfully rebel, we harden our hearts. Listen, the “once saved, always saved” conversation. I’ll just give you this. People always say, “Well, you think you can sin and lose your salvation?” No, I don’t think you lose your salvation because you struggle with sin. I think you lose your salvation because you no longer want God. Now, where does sin come into that? Willfully, continually rebelling without repentance and seeking to get better, giving up the struggle, throwing in the towel and saying “I’m just going to sin this way” hardens your heart. And so somewhere down the road after you start doing that, you don’t want God anymore. And you already know that, right? Because when you willfully and disobediently sin against God, and then the next day you’re supposed to get up and have your quiet time, how many of you jump into that quiet time? Or are you thinking, “I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to do this”? It hardens your heart. And so you become like the Pharisees, where you blaspheme the Holy Spirit and you no longer believe. And let me tell you I’ve told this before, but let me just remind you of this. When somebody comes to you and says, “You know, I really explored Christianity and I didn’t do it,” or “I was a Christian at one time, but I’ve fallen away.” And a lot of people will give you some you know, philosophical, theological usually it’s the problem of pain. You know, “How can there be a God when, you know, there’s children’s cancer wards, you know, and drunk drivers take out innocent families, and ” And it’s like, “Oh, yeah, you’re right. We Christians for 2000 years have never really struggled with those questions. We’re just a bunch of naive idiots who think, ‘Gee, if you say a few prayers, life will go hunky dory for you.'” It’s like, no, we understand that. I’ll tell you why we understand that. It’s our story. Listen, there’s pain in this room right now, right? There’s not one of us without it. Not one of us without it. And so we get that. I remember one guy. I didn’t know this guy, and I shouldn’t have done this, but he’s on social media and he’s whining on one of my friends’ streams. Here’s what he’s whining about: “I hate those happy, clappy celebration songs in worship because they don’t do anything to help me when I’m grieving and lamenting. My sister just died, and I go to church, and everybody’s clapping and praising Jesus, and I just don’t feel like doing that.” And I should have just not hit the keyboard, but I did. And I started off, “Hey, man, I’m sorry. That’s rough that your sister died. That’s rough. But should the church then reject the biblical admonition to rejoice always?” And that’s all I said. I didn’t give any examples. I should have. Maybe that would have been better. Oh, but he fired back, “How cruel of you to mock my pain.” Now, I really wanted to mock his pain. I wanted to give my dad’s answer to whiny alcoholics when he was a sponsor at Alcoholics Anonymous. You get these alcoholics who would call him, “Yeah, my boss doesn’t like me. My wife’s mean to me. I need a drink.” And my dad, my dad would say, “Never coddle alcoholics, Kevin.” No, he wouldn’t say that. He said, “Never coddle drunks. Don’t coddle drunks.” He said, “When they call me and tell me that, I say, ‘Ah, get off the cross. We need the wood.'” So that’s what I wanted to tell him next. But here’s actually what I wanted to tell him. But I just thought, “No, you know, I made a mistake jumping in this in the first place.” Because I don’t have a relationship with this guy, I don’t have the right to pastor him. But here’s what I wanted to tell him: “You know, you’re right. But you know that little old lady over there who’s clapping and raising her hands? Her husband probably has Alzheimer’s. And that guy in the back row that you’ve never talked to and you think is kind of snobbish? Two years ago, his child died. And that guy over there who just keeps coming, but he’s no longer coming with his wife? That’s because she’s filed for divorce. In other words, dude, those other people who are singing those rejoicing songs? Like, you’re not the only one in that crowd hurting in life. Maybe that’s why Paul told us to sing those songs. Because in the midst of the pain, they give us hope. They reorient our perspective.” I didn’t say any of those things. I just thought them. And I’ll tell them to you. So, dear ones, every person who loses their faith loses their faith not because of the suffering in the world, not because of theological and philosophical issues. And I say “every” and I’m pretty sure this is true maybe you know, “every” and “never” are pretty dangerous statements. But here’s the reason they’re no longer walking with Jesus: Not because of child cancer wards. It’s because you’ve heard me say this. They don’t want to quit smoking weed. They don’t want to quit sleeping with their girlfriend, and they don’t want to hear another tithing sermon because they’re going to do with their money what they want to do and all that. Again, I know there are greedy churches out there who are always hitting people up for money, manipulating people for money, and guilting people into giving money. I try really hard not to do any of those things, the Firehouse Church tries really hard, our leadership tries really hard not to do any of that. So listen, you do what you want with your money. I will never manipulate you or guilt you into giving money. All I want to say is tithe or go to hell. But otherwise I will never be, I will never be heavy handed or manipulative or anything about that. So But again, in my experience, people who say “All the church wants is your money” are not telling you anything about the church. They’re telling you about their attitude toward what they perceive to be their money. “No, I want to do what I want with my money. And I don’t want somebody else with their hand out, saying, ‘Hey, why don’t you give some money to these missions and the poor? And your pastor has no marketable skills, so, you know, let’s employ that poor guy and whatever.'” That’s why people leave. And that’s why people don’t persevere. And that’s 40 years of pastoral experience. People want to excuse their sin. They don’t want to confront it. It’s hard to confront your sin and especially hard to confront the sins that are sticky, right? We love talking about the ones we have victory over, but the ones that are sticky, we get tired of confronting them. We say, “Jesus, I did it again.” He is okay with that. He said, you know, 49 times, seven times. And He didn’t mean that literally. The point He’s making is: you are to continually forgive others and God will continually forgive you. If you confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive you your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9, CSB) But if you go on sinning willfully, not resisting, not struggling, not dealing with it, not confessing, not repenting, you will harden your heart and you’ll walk away. And you’ll come up with some lame philosophical theological reason to do so, to justify the fact you just wanted to be selfish. So there. Persevere so you do not fall back into what? A lifestyle of sexual immorality, idolatry, adultery, homosexuality, thieves, being greedy, drunk, verbally abusive, swindlers. None of those things lead to the inheritance of God’s kingdom. What does lead to the inheritance of God’s kingdom? Walking in faithful love to King Jesus and loyalty to King Jesus all the way to the finish line. Perseverance. And you do that by faith and by the power He provides in His grace. We were washed by God. The pollution of sin is gone. When we stand before Christ, when we stand before God the Father, He will see us clothed in the righteousness of Christ. The great exchange. When we enter the kingdom, we take off the old sin-stained garments, and we put on the garments of Jesus, and we are cleansed from our sins. We’re washed. “What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.” Listen, all religions in the world are the same. Balderdash. Of course, they’re not. There’s no other religion in the world that says there is an answer for the pollution of sin. You see, when sin enters your life, it’s not like this one isolated thing sitting over here. It’s like dye. It’s like watercolor entering into a glass of water. The minute that one concentrated drop gets in, the whole thing gets polluted. The whole thing turns blue. That’s why there’s no such thing as isolation. “Well, I only do this when nobody’s looking and it doesn’t really hurt anybody else.” Listen, if it hurts you, which it does, it hurts other people because you’re less the person that you need to be. Right? If your ship is not sailing correctly, you’ll run into other ships whether you want to or not. I use this example. Suppose you were going to come over to my house for dinner. Suppose you’re going to come over to my house for dinner and I’m whipping up some brownies. You like brownies? I love them when they’re fresh out of the oven and soft with powdered sugar on them. Jill makes great brownies. They’re so good. I used to love them in my pot smoking days, but for another reason. We won’t go there. But now I just love them without the added chemicals. And so I love brownies. Let’s say I’m making you the good kind of brownies, and you’re coming over to my house. All of a sudden, the dog’s making a ruckus in the backyard. So I go out in the backyard to bring the dog in. It’s barking at the other dog at the fence. And those dogs would sit there for four hours and do that because they’re stupid dogs. “Get in the house,” you know, “quit barking at the other dog.” So I bring the dog in. I realize when I came in, I stepped in something that the dog had done, and it’s all over my foot. And so I was stirring those brownies with one of those little red spatulas, you know, those rubber spatulas you use. And so I just, you know, I just take my shoe off, and I use that spatula. It’s pretty good for that. Just gets that all off, right?And I get that all off and then maybe I wash the spatula a little bit or not. But you know, I just, I get that all off and I start stirring those brownies again. Now you come over to my house, and I made those brownies. And suppose before you eat those brownies, I say, “Hey, I gotta tell you a funny story.” And if I tell you that how many of you would eat those brownies? No. Why? Because a little dog doo pollutes the whole batch. Now I gotta say, one of the men that I respect most in this world, my brother-in-law he’s a pastor, he’s a counselor, he’s a wise man. He’s also cheap as anybody can be. I mean, he’s very generous, giving to the kingdom, but he’s so frugal. He’s so cheap. He picked up a penny once in a parking lot and he squeezed it so hard it groaned. All right, so that guy’s cheap. And so I tell him that. I use that story in a church. And everybody’s like, “Of course we wouldn’t eat those brownies.” And he’s doing the math, and he said, he goes, “Well, actually, how many particles of poop actually got in the brownie mix?” And he didn’t do that because he’s a glutton and he loves brownies. He did that because it would be hard to waste all those brownies. You know, it wouldn’t be common sense. But you’ve been washed. I’m doing a pretty good job getting back from rabbit trails tonight, aren’t I? You’ve been washed. God, what can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. All the poop’s gotten out of your brownie mix, all the dye. God takes that blue dye that polluted all that water, and it all comes out by Jesus. The solution to pollution. It’s Jesus. You were sanctified. You were sanctified. You were set free. You were redeemed by God. You’ve been set free from the power of sin. It no longer owns you. You belong to the Spirit, and you are becoming like Christ. And yes, in this world, it’s progressive, and we have leaps forward, and then we have years of struggle. Whatever. It’s progressive. But here’s the promise: He will perfect the work He has begun, and you will be like Him. In fact, He already sees you like that, seated with Him in the heavenlies. The Christian life is becoming who you are in Christ. That’s what it means to be sanctified. you’re becoming who you already are in Christ. And that’s what you are. You have been sanctified. It’s already happened by His work on the cross. And you are justified. God has looked at you and the devil has accused you, and God says, “Not guilty.” The cross in the book of Revelation, it says that He saw Satan fall from heaven. When did Satan fall from heaven? When Jesus died on the cross. Why? Because in heaven, he was the accuser of the brethren, and now his accusations are hollow because Jesus has justified you. “All this is given to you by the gift of God, by the work of Christ, and in the power of the Spirit through God the Father.” The Trinity’s right there in Galatians or in 1 Corinthians 6:11. When anybody wants to argue about the Trinity, look at what it says. “And some of you used to be like this, but you were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified.” In the name of who? The Lord Jesus Christ. By what? The power of the Spirit. Of whom? Of our God. All this accomplished on our behalf by God. 11 And some of you used to be like this. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:11, CSB) And so, the point is, why would we foolishly return to the world’s ways of living? Holding on to your childish sin is so not worth it. It’s so not worth not becoming like Jesus. Let it go. “But I keep going back to it.” Yeah. I promise you, one day you’ll be free. You may need to take more steps to be free. Like, one of the steps you might need to take is stop dealing with this sin alone and confess it to a brother or sister in Christ who you trust. Because I’ll tell you what, when the monster gets out of the closet, the monster gets a lot smaller. Gets a lot smaller. And right next to us, there’s a whole group of people who are discovering that tonight. Stand in front of a group of people and say, “I’m an alcoholic.” And all of a sudden, this thing that’s defeated you your whole life now becomes an enemy that can be defeated. My dad, 30 years, lived that. Lived that 30 years. He came out. He came out and just owned it. Confessed it. Talked about it with a group of people every week. Never took another drink in his life. Now, he never went to Donuts-aholic, but he’s good now. He’s good now. Why would you go back? Why would you go back? Why would you trade in, for a lousy bag of marbles, eternal riches, eternal glory? And so, dear ones, I have two admonitions, two takeaways for you tonight. Takeaway number one. Pray this prayer like I pray almost every day. God, by your grace, I pray that I will be faithful and fruitful to the finish line. I pray that I will be faithful and fruitful to the finish line. I’ll keep putting the right foot in front of the left and the left foot in front of the right. And I won’t let anything stop me. I’m not going to quit. I’m not going to quit this journey. And then the second thing, here’s the second takeaway. Don’t sue Christians. In fact, don’t sue unbelievers. Don’t sue people. I mean, there may be instances that are okay, you know? I don’t know, some kind of accident that wasn’t your fault, you know, or something that, you know, it’s just faulty by the government or something. You can sue the government. I’m okay with that. You know, you got a million dollars of medical expenses, and they caused it. Go ahead. That’s fine. But if somebody was mean to you in church, just forgive them. And if you find you can’t resolve the conflict, just resolve the conflict. All right, so we’re good. Nobody’s here quitting tonight. Nobody here’s going, “Oh, this is my last Sunday being a Christian, Kev. I just want to go back to drinking and chasing women.” No? You’re good. Okay, good. I thought maybe Stevin was right on that ledge, but, you know, it’s pretty good. All right, Jamie. He’d be a fool. He’d be a fool. You’re as good as they come. So Yep, he believes it. All right, dear ones, don’t quit. Turn to somebody next to you and say, “Don’t quit.” Or for those of you who’ve been coming for a long time, like all of you, how’s it go? You cannot lose if you do not quit. All right, memorize the proverbs, but hold on to a few Kevinisms, and you’ll be good. On the night that He was betrayed, He took bread and He broke it. He gave it to His disciples, and He said, “This is my body, which is given for you.” In the same way, after supper, He took the cup, gave thanks to His Father in heaven. He said, “Drink this, all of you, for this is my blood. And in this, it declares the forgiveness of sins.” You’ve been washed. You’ve been washed. You ever feel like you need to take a shower? There you go. You ever feel like your relationship with somebody needs to be renewed? Here you go. Every once in a while, my wife and I go, “Hey, we got to go out to eat.” Why do we got to go out to eat? Because we’re going to sit down for an hour over food, which we both like, and what are we going to do? She says, “We’re going to reconnect.” We’re going to talk. We’re going to talk. We’re going to hang out together. So, whatever it is, this renews our relationship. So come and eat. The post 2026.5.3 TFHC – Lawsuits, Still Following The World | 1 Corinthians 6:1-11 appeared first on The Firehouse Church in Bremerton, WA.

April 26, 2026, Message by P. Kevin Clancey Transcribed by Beluga AI. All right, dear ones. Psalm 25: Teach me your ways, O God. 1 Lord, I appeal to you. 2 My God, I trust in you. Do not let me be disgraced; do not let my enemies gloat over me. 3 No one who waits for you will be disgraced; those who act treacherously without cause will be disgraced. 4 Make your ways known to me, Lord ; teach me your paths. 5 Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; I wait for you all day long. 6 Remember, Lord, your compassion and your faithful love, for they have existed from antiquity. 7 Do not remember the sins of my youth or my acts of rebellion; in keeping with your faithful love, remember me because of your goodness, Lord. 8 The Lord is good and upright; therefore he shows sinners the way. 9 He leads the humble in what is right and teaches them his way. 10 All the Lord ‘s ways show faithful love and truth to those who keep his covenant and decrees. 11 Lord, for the sake of your name, forgive my iniquity, for it is immense. 12 Who is this person who fears the Lord? He will show him the way he should choose. 13 He will live a good life, and his descendants will inherit the land. 14 The secret counsel of the Lord is for those who fear him, and he reveals his covenant to them. 15 My eyes are always on the Lord, for he will pull my feet out of the net. 16 Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am alone and afflicted. 17 The distresses of my heart increase; bring me out of my sufferings. 18 Consider my affliction and trouble, and forgive all my sins. 19 Consider my enemies; they are numerous, and they hate me violently. 20 Guard me and rescue me; do not let me be disgraced, for I take refuge in you. 21 May integrity and what is right watch over me, for I wait for you. 22 God, redeem Israel, from all its distresses. (Psalms 25:1-22, CSB) And God, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock, our Strength, and our Redeemer. 14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. (Psalms 19:14, CSB) So, I’ve told you guys that about two years ago we went through a difficult season. Actually, more than two years ago now, two and a half years ago or so. And I just went through a difficult season. And I remember a preacher once said, when you’re going through a difficult season, read through the Psalms, and when you find yourself, stay there. As I started to do that, I started to read through the Psalms and I found myself in Psalm 25, 26, and 27. And so I wanted to talk tonight about Psalm 25. When I was in trouble, here is one of the psalms where I found myself. For a long time, I’ve liked this psalm. I just like that. “Teach me your ways “ You know, as I’ve prayed in my life through the psalms, one of my prayers has been consistently from Psalm 25: Teach me your ways. Teach me your ways. I want to walk in your ways, God. There are all sorts of teachers in this world. There are all sorts of ways that are suggested to us. But I want to walk in the way of the Lord. I want to follow Jesus. And so, Lord, teach me your ways. And so here he tells us when you are in trouble verses 1 through 7 first of all, trust God. Acknowledge trust in God. And brothers and sisters, here’s just a basic truth: You do not see the big picture. You only know an infinitesimally small amount of what’s going on in your life, in the world, and other people’s lives. And God is smarter than you. Turn to somebody next to you and say, “God is smarter than you.” You know He is. Now, that in and of itself is no reason to trust Him, because lots of people who are smarter than me aren’t trustworthy. They’re wicked. But another thing about God is God is good. God is smarter than you. And God is better than you. He’s good, He’s loving, He’s kind. Jesus said He’s our Father. He has your best interest at heart. And the third thing is that He’s powerful, that He is able to accomplish His will in your life when you trust Him. And His will in your life is going to be good, and even if you don’t understand at a particular moment what’s going on, when all of your life seems to be in chaos and you don’t understand what’s going on, the first thing to do is say, “Oh, God, I trust you.” “Help me” and “I trust you.” Yes, you’ve been listening to me over the years. Good for you. Good for you. Well, if you pray, “Help,” that’s a prayer of trust, right? That’s a prayer of trust. So acknowledge trust. God defeats our enemies. God defeats our enemies. He takes down our enemies. The problems that we have that seem overwhelming, God is able to defeat. We read the story in our Bible study tonight of David and Goliath. And I love what David says. It’s so exciting. Goliath comes to David, and he’s huge, and he’s got this huge spear with this huge you know, everything about him is physically imposing and intimidating. And he’s got total attitude, you know, and he just he’s got it. And he strikes fear in all the whole army of Israel. And David stands there with his little rock, and he says and David can’t even fit into Saul’s armor, right? He’s a pubescent boy. He’s not grown into manly stature. And he says to Goliath, “You come against me with sword and spear, javelin and shield, but I come against you in the name of the Lord God who you blaspheme today. And you said you’re going to kill me and feed my carcass to the birds. But today” I forget if he says “the Lord” or “I will” But “in the strength of the Lord, you’ll die. And the Lord will feed not only you, but the army of the Philistines to the carcasses of the birds.” God’s bigger than the Goliaths in your life. God is bigger than the Goliaths in your life. And the devil tries to intimidate us with those Goliaths. Oh, my gosh, what’s going to happen? Oh, my gosh, what’s going to happen? Well, one thing’s for sure, you don’t know what’s going to happen. What you do know is God is smarter than you, God is good, and God is powerful. And that is Selah. That is a sigh, that is a breath. I trust Him to defeat my enemies. And then I pray, and prayer is an act of humility. And when we pray and we ask God to teach us, He will. When we come to God in humility and say, “God, I don’t know the way in which I should go” James says, “If any of you lacks wisdom ” Well, dear ones, all of us lack wisdom. We don’t know how to face what faces us so often. You know who are the smartest people about raising children? Young married couples who have no children. Because they’ve read two books. And I remember. I remember my wife and I, we were not the first of our set of friends to have children, but there were four sets of friends in Chico, and we were all working in Young Life, and we all, you know, got engaged the same year, and we all got married. It was fun. One couple got married in June, another one in July, another one in August, another one in September. So it was four weddings, but there was no funeral. So we all got married. We were in July, the couple that got married in June they had the first baby. They were the first ones married, and they took off right out of the chute, you know? They got married. Had a baby real quick. And we loved their little son, their little son, Matthew. He was so cute. And we babysat Matthew. And, you know, and he loved Aunt Jill, and I was Uncle Revers. He loved Aunt Jill and Uncle Revers. But, you know they went away for a weekend, and we got to take care of him and everything. But we would watch them parent Matthew, and we would just drive home. You know, we understood it’s tough and all that, but we would just drive home and say, “Well, you know, we’re not going to do that.” Like, they would argue over who’s going to change the diaper, whose turn it was. Because nobody likes changing a diaper. It’s gross. And we’re like, “We’ll never argue over who’s going to change a diaper.” And so that day we made a rule. If you smell it, change it. Which is unfair to my wife because she’s got this she smells like a bloodhound. And I don’t smell that much. And not only that, but I’m wicked. So when Megan was learning to walk, and she was 1 years old, and I could see her walking and the diaper was hanging You know what I’m talking about? You know, on the box where it says 18 pounds, doesn’t hold nearly 18 pounds. I’m just telling you, you know. It’s coming out way before 18 pounds. I don’t know if that’s what the box means, but it’s false advertising. So anyway, Megan would be walking toward us, and I knew my promise. If I smelled it, I’d change it. So, she’d walk toward us, and I just, “Hi, honey. Go to mama.” Didn’t smell a thing. Didn’t smell a thing. But we were so smart. And then we had a baby, and we realized we know nothing. This little creature outsmarts us every day. Lord, I know nothing. Sergeant Schultz, if you’re old enough to remember Hogan’s Heroes: “I know nothing. I know nothing.” Humble me, Lord. Teach me your ways. I want to be teachable. In sports, you know, one of the things they, you know, athletes, especially really good athletes, can be incredibly cocky, and that’s part of their gift. They’re confident. And that’s really, you know, that’s one of the things that makes them great athletes. Like, “I can do this.” But one of the things coaches look for is, are you teachable? I want you cocky, but I want you humble enough to know there’s still stuff you need to learn. Are you coachable? He says, “Repent of your sin for they’re immense. Repent of your sin.” Don’t go to God demanding His power and grace in your life, and God says, “Okay, my power and grace are for you, but turn from your wickedness.” No, God, I don’t want to turn from my wickedness. And it’s not that God is up there saying, “Well then I’m not going to do anything for you.” You can’t receive it because they’re contradictory. The cup has to be emptied of filth and garbage before it can be filled with God’s pure, refreshing, life giving water. They don’t fit together. And then when you’re in trouble, worship. Remember God’s mercy and love. This morning, Derek Haza preached at the Firehouse Church, and he talked about detours. He talked about the children of Israel, and they took a detour. The Bible says they didn’t go by way of the sea through the land of the Philistines because God knew if they faced the Philistines with the threat of war, they would turn around and want to go to Egypt. So, He took them the long way around by Mount Sinai, which was also important. And so it took them longer to get to the Promised Land. But they got to the Promised Land in a relatively short time. It didn’t take them 40 years to get to the Promised Land. They got to the Promised Land in a relatively short time. But when they got there, they wouldn’t enter in. Up to that time before they got to the Promised Land, there are at least three times where they sarcastically say to Moses, “What did you do this for? Bring us out into the desert to die? We would be better back in Egypt.” Well, listen, be thankful and praise God. Don’t be a Christian whiner. Why do they spend 40 years in the desert? Because they wouldn’t let God teach them His ways. They wouldn’t trust Him. They wouldn’t thank Him. Throughout Israel’s history, God is always saying, “Hey, don’t you guys remember what I did for you? Don’t you remember who I am?” We do the same thing, right? We have a whole history of God delivering us in times of trouble, of God answering our prayers and taking us through tough times. And then we had another tough time, and we go, “God, why is this happening to me? What? You brought me this far just to slam me?” No, listen, the quickest way to get out of a detour is thankfulness. And Israel whined. They whined. Now, it’s okay to a certain degree to be a whiner. Job’s a whiner. He had pretty good reason to whine, but he’s a whiner. The Psalms are full of whines. But I love how the psalms end: “But yet I will praise you.” So, you can bring your complaint before God. You can even ask Him, “Why?” Though, again, as Jamie would tell you, because not only is God smarter than me, but she’s smarter than me as Jamie would tell you, “Why?” is not nearly as good a prayer as “Help.” It’s a great prayer. It’s a great prayer. So, worship Him. Remember His goodness, mercy, and love. Give Him thanks and praise. And then worship is bowing down to Him as Lord. And so, you believe in Him, Psalm 25 says, and you keep His covenant. You keep His covenant. What is His covenant? This is the New Covenant that we now have fellowship with God as our Lord and King, and we walk in humble obedience to Him. We don’t have 613 commandments to follow. This morning this is so good. We don’t have 613 commandments to follow. This morning I ate bacon for breakfast. I did not break the covenant. Didn’t do it. It was wonderful. And I was thankful. Lord, I’m thankful I’m not an Old Testament Jew, so I can partake of thine goodness that you made through the greatest recycler in the world, the pig. You give it a rotten apple core and it makes bacon. What a great animal that is. So, remember, keep His covenant. Now, how do I violate His covenant? When I sin against Him and when I sin against others. So by your grace, Lord, by your power, help me to love you, help me to learn your ways to stop sinning and keep your covenant. And then when I don’t, what does He say? He’ll forgive your sin and still bless your life. How many times have you messed up really bad and you thought, “Oh, God’s going to take me to the woodshed”? But you repent and you tell God you’re sorry. And then you go to church and you have the most wonderful experience of His love and grace and mercy flooding over you. And He didn’t even take you to the woodshed. He didn’t shame you. He didn’t spank you. He didn’t scold you. Twelve bad things didn’t happen to you. He just said, “I’m so glad we’re back on the right track, child. Let’s keep going. I love you so much.” He’ll forgive you, and He will bless your life. Psalm 1. We read it. Blessed is the man, blessed is the woman who meditates, chews. Meditate is the word, “chew the cud.” What does a cow do? A cow eats food, regurgitates it, and then chews the cud. That’s how they digest. Well, I’m on a theme tonight, aren’t I? I must be hungry. That’s how they make stupid grass into wonderful ribeyes. So we’re praising God for both the pig and the cow tonight. I’ll get to the chickens in a moment. Not quite as good, but still worthy. God will forgive your sin. He’ll bless your life as we meditate upon Him. Blessed is the man. Do you want a blessed life? Well, a blessed life here’s what we want, right? We want a trouble-free life. I want a trouble-free life. God does not promise a trouble-free life. He says, “In this world you will have troubles. But take heart. Why? I’ve overcome the world. I’m bigger than that trouble. And if you’ll trust me and walk in my ways, worship me, repent of your sins just be my child you will live a blessed life.” You will live a blessed life. A life full of God, full of deep happiness. We sang it. What joy. What joy. What peace. What peace. You’ll become a solid person, a real person, and capable of living forever in His kingdom. And then finally, when you’re in trouble, hope. These three remain: Faith, hope, and love. 13 Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13, CSB) I think hope is the one least preached on. It’s the third sibling. It’s the youngest sibling, right? You have three kids. You go through your pictures, right? And you’ve got a picture of every event of the first child. Rohan is going to be highly photographed. Second child, not so much. Third child “You have any pictures of me when I was a kid?” “I don’t know. Let’s see. I think we got one or two here somewhere.” Yeah. School pictures. Yeah. First child, they drop their pacifier. You call the poison control center. You sanitize it. You know, you go out and buy three new pacifiers. Second child, you drop the pacifier, you run it under some hot water, clean it. Third child drops the pacifier. Dog licks it. This is true, man. I remember we were moving furniture one time, just moving furniture. We’re moving out of my house in Visalia, moving to Oakdale. And furniture. We’re moving heavy stuff, you know, we got all the small stuff or it’s packed anyway and had some friends over, and this is back in the day when I actually would help move heavy stuff. Those days are over. So, I was moving heavy stuff and Katelyn, probably one and a half, two years old, is just underfoot. She’s the youngest, she’s just underfoot. So you’re dodging her and it’s just you’re carrying heavy stuff and she’s not being bad, but it’s like you don’t need to be looking out, you know, for a two-year-old here. And so anyway, it’s like, I don’t know, Jill, you know, but Jill’s busy. She can’t take care of Katelyn. You know, it’s like we pick up a chair in the living room, and that chair is where the kids would watch TV and eat their snacks. Somehow all this snack food you know, the little cheddar cheese crackers, pretzels, Cheerios had made its way underneath that chair. I don’t know how it got through this stuff down, but it was all underneath that chair. We pick up that chair, and underneath is fuzzy, dusty trail mix, right? Just gross. I look at it and go… Then Katelyn, who’s been underfoot and a nuisance, dives in. Now, first child: “Oh, no, no, no.” Second child: “No, don’t do that. That’s ucky.” Katelyn was like, “Eh, that’ll occupy her. That’ll keep her busy.” Yeah, with her it was the Mimi. Yeah, the Mimi. So I don’t know what that has to do with hope. What does that have to do ? Oh, hope is the third child. We speak a lot about love. We speak a lot about faith. We don’t speak about hope. But dear ones, we need hope. And the gospel is full of hope. And Jesus is full of hope. He is the God of all hope. My favorite Easter sermon I preached it this year Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In His great mercy, He has given us a new birth into a what? A living hope. Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Peter 1:3, CSB) Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. You can’t have faith without hope. Hope is what this culture needs. Christians who live with hope have a profound and powerful witness to a culture of hopelessness. I mean, how could we help but be hopeless? Anytime you turn on the TV, right? “Oh, there’s a conspiracy.” You know, if you’re a leftist, you know the fascists are taking over. If you’re right, if you’re a conservative, “Oh, they’re a bunch of corrupt liars,” and they got all these conspiracy theories. And there’s five rich world rulers, you know George Soros and Bill Gates. And I don’t know who the other three are. Oh, the Rothschilds. Yeah. You know, I don’t know who the other two are, but they’re running the whole ship. Democrat, Republican, it doesn’t matter. And they’re just… We’re just pawns on their chessboard. And everybody’s like, “There’s no hope.” Oh, my goodness. Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Jesus Christ rose from the dead. What does that mean? I don’t care about the Rothschilds. I don’t care about Bill. I mean, I hope they’re saved. I don’t care about George Soros, Bill Gates. I don’t care about, you know, Donald Trump being the next Hitler. I mean, all those things, they don’t overwhelmingly consume my life because I know Jesus defeated the devil. We were singing that song tonight. I had a moment. I had a God moment tonight. No one but Jesus. And it talks about when He rose. It talked about a heavenly roar. I immediately flashed to Chronicles of Narnia and the movie where Aslan comes out of the grave and he roars. Then he goes and he gives all the frozen people that the Wicked Queen of the North has frozen, and he breathes on them. C.S. Lewis knows theology, Holy Spirit. And they’re thawed. But then he goes to the battle, and Peter’s fighting the Queen of the North, and she, you know, Peter’s doing valiantly, but he’s just a boy. And she bests him. You know, she just bests him. And he’s lying on the ground, and he’s about to, you know, be impaled by this wicked woman, this wicked demonic thing. And then Aslan appears on this rock above her in all his majesty. And she’s stunned because, “No, can’t be. You’re dead. We killed you.” And then he roars. She takes out her sword. She goes, “Okay, I’ll fight you.” And he roars, and she falls back to the ground. And then he pauses for a moment, and they make eye contact. And then he pounces. And that’s all you see. You don’t see him crushing her, but he pounces. It’s a kid’s movie. It’s a kid’s movie. I wouldn’t have minded seeing the carotid arteries ripped out and stuff. But anyway, they didn’t show all that. And we’re singing that song, and I’m just I’m an old man. I’m corny. And I’m sitting up here, and I begin to cry at Christ’s victory over sin, Satan, and death. At Christ’s victory over sin, Satan, and death. And I just begin to cry. I begin to weep. Obviously, you didn’t hear me wailing. It wasn’t that. But I was kind of like, “Oh, Kevin.” But no, because you know what I was crying about? Hope. Hope. No one but Jesus. Dear ones, I know your life is not perfect. I know you struggle. I know there are things you’ve struggled with for years. I get it. I’m one of you. Don’t ever think, “Oh, he’s a pastor. He knows how to pray.” And hopefully you’ve known me long enough to know. No, he’s a goombah just like me. I know it. But we both know this. We have great hope. We have great hope. And so, when we’re in trouble, we hope. He will and has defeated our enemies. And He will and has forgiven our sins. He will and has been our deliverer. All those things He said, “It is finished. Your sins are forgiven, your enemies are defeated, and I have delivered you.” And now, in our life experience, we are experiencing the reality of all those things in a way that passes through time. But at one particular point in time, when we see Him face to face, we will recognize it is finished. In fact, it was finished the minute I went under those waters of baptism. And I just had to experience the rest of it to prepare me for the kingdom that I now am inheriting with Him. And, dear ones, you have a great hope. If you leave here with anything tonight, leave with hope. Leave with hope. Leave with hope for your culture. I have not given up hope that I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. I do see the goodness of the Lord of the land of living. But I have not given up hope that I will see more and more of the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living until I see a great awakening. Come on, George Whitefield, break out among us. And I live in hope for my kids. And every so often, you know, one of my daughters will call and they’ll be crying. “Oh, it’s so hard. And the kids do ” you know, they all got their drama with their kids and stuff. My son’s got drama with their kids. I got stuff with their kids, real stuff. And as a grandparent, you hurt twice. You hurt for the grandchild, but you hurt for your kid. That’s hurting too, you know, just like It’s a different hurt than being a parent, but it’s still It’s real, you know. And your kids struggle, and it’s like, man, I thought when you left, this would end. No, it doesn’t end. You’re always Mom, you’re always Dad. In fact, when they get a little older and start having kids, sometimes you’re more Mom and Dad because it’s like, “What do I do?” More so with daughters than sons, typically. So, anyway, future advice. But you never stop being a parent. That was a lifetime assignment. Now I got great news for you. They will leave. Change the locks when they do. Just saying. Just saying. And, you know, one of the best things that happened to me, within just a couple of months after they left, the dog and cat both died. So the trifecta, it’s like, whoo. I was a good husband. When my daughter left and Jill was crying, I was very sympathetic. I comforted her. And it wasn’t more than two weeks she’s walking through the house, and she goes, “This isn’t so bad.” I go, “I know.” Last kid had left the house. Empty nest wasn’t so bad. And when the dog died I cared for the dog. I liked the dog. And when the dog died, my wife will tell you I was very sympathetic. Whatever this means, I got it that time I don’t even know what it means, but women like to use this phrase, “He was there for me.” Mostly he wasn’t there for me. And guys are going, “What do you mean? I was three feet away from you.” You know, we’re like literalists. Of course I was there for you, you know? “No, you were emotionally absent.” None of my friends have ever said that of me. None of my male friends have said, “You weren’t emotionally there for me.” It’s like, okay, clueless, clueless. Don’t know. But I made some lucky guesses when the dog died. And, you know, she bragged about me to our kids. Said, “Dad’s been really good through this.” So I was there for her. When the cat died, couldn’t fake it, man. Come on. Empty nest. I wasn’t there for her. I kind of lost points with the dog, too, because she was grieving, you know. I did really good at the immediate. But about two weeks later, she was grieving and she said, “Man, I miss coming home and taking Kyra for a walk. You know, I just really enjoyed that, coming home from work and getting her on the leash and taking her for a walk.” And I said, “Should have told me. I would have taken her to a taxidermist and have her mounted on a skateboard.” That wasn’t there for her, was it? I thought two weeks was long enough to, you know, start bringing the sarcasm, but I think I needed to wait longer. I think I needed to wait longer than two weeks. Oh, well. Live and learn. All right. Dear ones well, the cat, she was always worried because it was mostly an indoor cat, but it’d go outdoors to poop, and you know, it would want to go outdoors once in a while, and we let it. And she was always concerned because of the predators, the coyotes, and the eagles, and the owls and stuff. And she said, “I don’t know, man. I’m so worried an owl or an eagle will get it.” And I said, “I’m pretty sure an eagle’s not gonna get it.” She goes, “Why?” “Well, cause when you’re not here, I strap a trout to her back and it still hasn’t attracted them. So. It’s not working.” I have no idea what any of that had to do with the sermon. All right. Dear ones, have hope. Of all people. Of all people. Oh, yeah. You’re always a parent. I know you got troubles. Yeah. That was a long rabbit trail, wasn’t it? Sorry about that. All right. That’s what old people do. We ramble. I’ll wrap it up. I know you got troubles. Have hope. God is bigger. God is bigger. You know? Aren’t you glad when we ask people how you’re doing, they never tell us the truth? That would be so overwhelming. I kind of want to say, “Welcome to my world.” I do not bear the burdens that some of you bear. Like, I’ve never had a real job. It’s been so cool. But here’s a burden I do bear a lot more than you, probably. When I ask somebody how they’re doing, I get a real answer. And sometimes that is wearying, that is wearying. You end up with a lot of other people’s pain. And here’s what I found, though. I go home and I just ask Jesus. When you tell me your brokenness, I do pray for you. I really do. I go home, I pray for you. I’ll pray for you there. But I pray for you. And I’ve seen God answer some of those prayers for you, too. But if I don’t cast those on Jesus, it does not work. It does not go well for me. And so, I’ve learned. God, I’m a pastor, but I’m an under shepherd. You’re the real shepherd. Shepherd my friends. Shepherd these people that I love. Shepherd their kids. Get them the help they need. That’s typically what I pray. I used to pray, “God give me great advice.” Now I just say, “God, get them the help they need.” It may be great advice through me, but more times than not, it’s not. More times, it’s not great advice through me. It’s some other way. But God will help. He will help. And so tonight, leave with hope. What do you do when you’re in trouble? Well, Christianity 101: you pray, you worship, and you hope. You pray, you worship, and you hope. All right? And then if you want to go back to the beginning psalm, you meditate on His Word. You trust in His promises. God is better than you. God is smarter than you. And God is more powerful than you. And because He’s smarter than you, we humble ourselves. Because He’s better than you and me, we worship Him. Because He’s more powerful than us, and because He’s good and He knows what He’s doing, we trust Him. We trust Him. So, Lord, you told us to do this. And I’m not a symbolic person. I’m a literal person. I would rather have somebody preach the Bible to me than take a mystical meal. But on the night that you were betrayed, you didn’t say, “Go to a weekly meeting and listen to a man or a woman. And the man, the older he gets, the more and longer rabbit trails he’ll take. Take, listen to him or her and try to mine some gold out of that for my Word.” He didn’t say, “Do that on a weekly basis.” I’m not saying that’s bad to do on a weekly basis. It’s good to dig into the Word every day. But you know what He did say to do every time we gathered? He didn’t say sing songs. He didn’t say pray. He didn’t say listen to the Bible. He said, “Every time you gather, do this.” And I love what C.S. Lewis said. You know, the command was take and eat, not even take and understand. And we try to understand it. And the church, in their efforts to understand it, has fought about it for the last thousand years. But one thing, the most symbol-based Protestants and the most literal-based Catholics, one thing they all agree on was they all do it. They all do it. And so tonight, dear ones, in obedience to Christ, come, take and eat and trust that Christ will meet you at this table and continue to work on making you more like Him. Amen. The post 2026.4.26 TFHC – Teach Me Your Ways | Psalm 25 appeared first on The Firehouse Church in Bremerton, WA.

April 19, 2026, Message by P. Kevin Clancey Transcribed by Beluga AI. All right, we’re going through 1 Corinthians, chapter five. We’re in chapter five, so we’re looking at the whole chapter. Paul is done with problem number one. Problem number one, there’s division in the church. “I’m of Paul, I’m of Apollos, I’m of Cephas.” He deals with that pretty thoroughly in those first four chapters and points out their immaturity. Now he’s going on to say, “Here’s something else that you guys are totally missing the mark on.” And that is sexual immorality in the church and their response to that sexual immorality. And so 1 Corinthians 5 talks about that. “It’s actually been reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and the kind of sexual immorality that is not even tolerated among the Gentiles.” It’s worse than going on in the loose city of Corinth. It would be like Paul saying today, “There’s sexual immorality. It’s the kind of sexual immorality that’s worse than what’s going on in Hollywood, worse than what’s going on in San Francisco or New York or Las Vegas. And it’s happening in the church.” He said, “A man is sleeping with his father’s wife.” 1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and the kind of sexual immorality that is not even tolerated among the Gentiles a man is sleeping with his father’s wife. (1 Corinthians 5:1, CSB) This is probably not his mother. There’s probably another marriage, but he’s having sexual relations with his father’s wife. 2 And you are arrogant! Shouldn’t you be filled with grief and remove from your congregation the one who did this? 3 Even though I am absent in the body, I am present in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who has been doing such a thing. 4 When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus, and I am with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5hand that one over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. 6 Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little leaven leavens the whole batch of dough? 7 Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new unleavened batch, as indeed you are. For Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore, let us observe the feast, not with old leaven or with the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. 9 I wrote to you in a letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. 10 I did not mean the immoral people of this world or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters; otherwise you would have to leave the world. 11 But actually, I wrote you not to associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister and is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or verbally abusive, a drunkard or a swindler. Do not even eat with such a person. 12 For what business is it of mine to judge outsiders? Don’t you judge those who are inside? 13 God judges outsiders. Remove the evil person from among you. (1 Corinthians 5:2-13, CSB) God, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock, our Strength, and our Redeemer. 14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. (Psalms 19:14, CSB) So, problem number two: there’s sexual immorality in the church, and it is of a very bad nature. You know, sin is sin, but there are some sins that are kind of worse than others. And in terms of their destructive nature within the body of Christ, he says, “This is a bad deal. And you guys are actually rejoicing in that Christ has forgiven us all and look at our freedom.” This is the epitome of what we would call cheap grace. This is the epitome of what Paul addresses in Romans. He says, “Some say, ‘If grace abounds where sin abounds, let’s sin all the more, so grace will abound all the more.'” And that’s what the Corinthians were doing. They’re saying, “We are just showing how much Christ forgives. We can do anything we want and He’ll forgive.” And there’s always this balance that the Church has to walk in. It’s the balance between license and legalism. License is the error of cheap grace, or the historical word for it is antinomism “against law” that righteous behavior, that following the commandments, that being obedient and loyal and being Christlike doesn’t matter because grace is so big, it forgives all sins. Grace is so big, it forgives all sins. But grace is also so big, it transforms lives and it makes us more like Jesus. And if we’re not pursuing becoming more like Jesus, we’re not walking in grace. We’re walking in license, and we’re walking away from Christ, and we’re in rebellion. The other is the sin of legalism. Legalism is that which, you know, is always trying to protect us from sin by dealing with secondary matters instead of matters of the heart. In other words, legalism is the sin, is the issue that says, “Don’t go swimming with women, don’t dance, because it might lead to lust.” No, the sin is lust, not dancing. All right? “Don’t drink because it might lead to drunkenness.” No, the sin is drunkenness, not a glass of wine. And so legalism is always trying to draw fences. Don’t smoke, don’t drink. Don’t chew, don’t go with women that do. There’s the Holiness denominations. One particular Holiness denomination for years had a legalistic rule against going to the cinema. Don’t go to the cinema. Don’t go to the movies. All right? Now I knew people who practiced that. I know people who practice that. And yet, back in the days of Blockbuster but I imagine now in the days of streaming they would go to the video store, and they would rent videos. They just wouldn’t go to the movies to watch them. I said, “Well, what’s that about if the movies are evil?” “No, we don’t want to give the appearance of evil by going to the movies.” Well, you’re giving the appearance of evil to the person at Blockbuster who’s renting you the movies. Those of you don’t know, Blockbuster is this ancient way of distributing movies to some older people that we used to partake in. And it was new to us. It was like we used to actually partake in we actually had to do this. We actually had to actually go to theaters to see movies. We couldn’t get them streamed into our homes. It was barbaric back then. It was rough. It was rough. But we endured. And so there’s always the sin of legalism. And you see this, you know, portrayed as the self-righteous Pharisee. Sometimes the world will portray us Christians as being prudish and legalistic. But I think now, if you look at religion in America now, we far and away fall off more on the side of license than legalism. I think there’s more cheap grace out there than there is, “Hey, follow Jesus.” So that’s what Paul’s dealing with here. The Corinthians are saying, “Look at how great we are. We’re not legalistic and prudish.” And Paul’s saying, “No, you’re repulsive. You’re not following Christ.” And so, the problem is that there’s no church discipline. And this passage actually talks about the practice of excommunication, the practice of kicking people out. Paul says, “You are proud when you should be mourning. You should be sad at the grievousness of this sin.” He says, “I’m not with you physically, but in spirit I’m with you because the Holy Spirit is one and we’re corresponding through these letters, and I planted this church. And as one who is with you, I have already cast my verdict. This man is guilty of gross sin, and here is my prescription: Kick him out of church.” Well, there it is. All you sinners get out of here. No, that’s not what Paul’s saying. He’s not saying kick sinners out of church. He’s saying if somebody is in unrepentant rebellion, they are hurting themselves and they’re hurting the body of Christ, and they need to be handed and this is a hard word they need to be handed over to Satan. What does he mean by that? He says, “Take away the church covering and the church protection, and just throw them back out into Satan’s world.” There are three kinds of people in the world. There are people who have the wisdom to learn from the elders’ wisdom. These are actually children who take their parents’ advice. My wife was like this. When I was dating my wife, she had a curfew, and she would regularly follow her curfew, which was an annoyance to me because I liked being with her and I wanted to stay out with her longer. Her curfew, I think, was midnight. And she was like, “I got to get home.” And my wife she could fall off on the legalist side. She’d be, “I have to be there 10 minutes before midnight. I don’t want to even push it.” And I’d be like, “Eh, you could come in 10 minutes after midnight and you’d be alright.” And she’d be like, “No, get me home,” and just annoy me. And I said, “Your parents are so nice. They won’t punish you if you come in late after curfew.” And here’s what she said. I always love this. She says, “I’m not worried about them punishing me. I’m worried about disappointing them.” After I was annoyed at her, I wanted actually for us to raise children like her. She learned from the wisdom of the elders. There’s a second kind of person: me. I learned from the wisdom of rebelling against the elders and then learning from my pain. All right? I have a deep commitment to only be stupid once on any particular issue. And when I’m stupid once and I pay the price, I will at least want to have the wisdom of going, “Not going to do that again.” Everybody learns that way to some degree or another, right? Pain is our teacher. It’s like, yeah, that didn’t work. You know, great handymen don’t always hit themselves in the thumb with the hammer. They’ve learned. How did they learn? They hit themselves in the thumb with the hammer enough times to know. “Oh, pay attention to the head of the nail. Pay attention. It hurts when you get distracted.” So, learn from your mistakes. And that’s what Paul’s doing here. He’s not saying, “Hand this man over to Satan so that he’ll go to hell.” He’s saying, “Take this man out of the protective covering of the body of Christ. He won’t learn from the wisdom of the gospel. He won’t learn from the commandments of God. Let him learn from the hardships of life.” Prodigal son. Right? Prodigal son. You won’t learn in your father’s house how good your father is. But I love what it says in that story. He’s eating with the pigs and it says this: “And then he came to his senses.” Pain will bring you to your senses. It can. Then there’s a third kind of people in the world, and they’re the ones who are perpetually stupid. They stay in constant rebellion. The book of Revelation ends that way. As God is pouring out His judgments upon the world, and it kind of says amazed, “And they still wouldn’t repent. They still wouldn’t repent.” And so there are people who still won’t repent. But understand that this excommunication that Paul is prescribing is prescribed out of a motive of love. “I want his flesh destroyed.” What does that mean? I want his sinful impulse crucified, and he won’t bring it to the cross voluntarily, so send him out there and let him experience the cross. You follow? It’s tough love. I have a dear friend of mine and he’s a wonderful Christian man, wonderful father and his mother, who I knew, who’s now passed away, was a wonderful Christian woman. But this boy was trouble. And you can always say, “Well, you know, it’s the parents’ fault.” She was a great mom. I don’t know. I don’t know what happened, but he was he just had that personality, you know, and he was just, he was rebellious and he was drunk in high school and racing cars and crashing cars and, you know, trying to hook up with all these girls. He was just a mess, and he was wreaking havoc on the rest of the family. And on his 18th birthday, he got out of bed hungover and walked down to mooch some more breakfast off his hard-working servant mother. What he saw instead of a plate of warm pancakes or a breakfast for him was a suitcase packed in the front hallway of the house. His mom said, “This is the last thing I’m going to do for you. I packed your suitcase.” He said, “Well, what for?” She said, “You’re out. I’m kicking you out of my house.” “But Mom.” “No, you’re destroying this family. Get out.” To this day, he’ll tell you, best thing ever happened to him. He ended up coming to Jesus because his mom wasn’t enabling him not to. So, some people, you know If you have more than one kid, there’s probably one kid that you can say, “Hey, don’t do that.” They’re like, “I won’t.” There’s probably another kid that, you know, you got to lift them off the ground, drop them in a seat, and then three or four times later, they go, “Oh. Oh, you don’t want me to do that. Okay.” Yeah, knucklehead. Don’t want you to do that. All right, Isaiah, I’m sure you were the first kind, right? Jacob was the troublemaker. Oh, in the Bible, Jacob’s a troublemaker. We know. We know. Isaiah is the faithful prophet. Jacob’s the troublemaker. I got you. All right, so this is an act of love. The destruction of sin and the repentance of the sinner is the goal, the salvation of those involved and the health of the church. When the church embraces it’s one thing for the church to endure sinners. Of course we endure sinners. This is the hospital for sinners, not the hotel for saints. But we don’t embrace and enable unrepentant rebellion against God. We discipline it. And that makes the church healthy, not legalistic and mean and judgmental. I’ve known at least one situation. I was the associate pastor at the time, so it wasn’t my call. There was a man in the church who was divorcing his wife because he was having an affair with another woman, who, before the divorce was complete, was already engaged to this other woman. But on the side, what his wife and the other woman didn’t know is he had a third woman. And his wife, who I think is ridiculously somebody yelled at me for this this morning who I think was a ridiculously foolish codependent, as this other woman was. And they said, “Well, you’re letting the man off.” No, the man is wicked. The man is wicked. But that these women were putting up with it is stupid. He would still go back to his wife while he’s divorcing her, engaged in sleeping with his other woman, and spend the night and have sexual relations with his wife, and she’d be okay with that. And then he was having sex with this other woman that he was engaged to before they got married. And then on the side, he had his third affair going on. And the pastor heard about it and called him in the office. And the pastor should have said, “Go back to your wife.” But he was so exasperated, he said, “Pick one.” And this guy said, “No, I’m living the life, man. I’m living the life. I’m a stud.” And the pastor said, “Then leave the church.” And he said, “I can come anywhere I want. You can’t tell me to leave. I can show up any Sunday morning I want. What, are you going to call the police?” And the pastor said, “If you don’t repent and you’re here on Sunday morning, I will call you out publicly. I’ll tell everybody here what you’re doing and that you’re not repentant.” And so the guy stopped coming. I don’t know if he repented or not. I’m not sure. Oh, by the way, all three women that he was having an affair with, they were all part of the church too. So there can be gross dysfunction in the church. And so that’s what Paul is saying here. It’s for the health of the church. So then who do we break fellowship with? All right, number one, we share bread and do not break fellowship with fellow strugglers. Paul is not saying here, “Don’t have fellowship with people who struggle with sin.” Of course, we have fellowship with people who struggle with sin. The key point there is “struggle with.” They’re not giving into it. They’re not trying to justify it and say, “My behavior is right.” They’re coming with a broken and contrite heart saying, “I struggle with this.” There was a man one time, and we were friends, and we would walk together in the mornings. His struggle was with homosexuality. He struggled with same-sex attraction. And there was a sign, a big billboard outside of town back in those days that was advertising cigarettes. And as it was advertising cigarettes, it did so with a healthy young couple in bathing suits. Because obviously, if you smoke cigarettes, you will perpetually stay healthy and young. It’s advertising. And this healthy young couple was, you know, frolicking on the beach. And you know, it said, “Smoke Marlboros, and you’ll get a guy that looks like him and a girl that looks like her.” Was the message, I guess. So anyway, he said, “You know that billboard outside of town with that young couple up there in their bathing suits?” I go, “Yeah, I know that billboard.” He goes, “Do you ever look at the guy?” And I go, “You know, I don’t. That’s not my struggle. I don’t look at the guy.” I said, “But here’s the truth. I can tell you how many stripes are on that bikini. I look at the girl.” And this is what I told him. I said, “Mike, let’s meet at the altar of Jesus, and I will pray for your homosexual struggles, and you can pray for my heterosexual struggles.” That’s what we do with fellow strugglers. We don’t kick them out of church. We meet them at the foot of the cross, where we all find mercy and grace. That’s what we do. And the other thing we do is we don’t break off fellowship with sinful unbelievers. We don’t break off fellowship with unrepentant unbelievers. Jesus was a friend to sinners. You are not sinning if you go hang out with sinners. You’re okay. You’re supposed to. Who we break off fellowship with is unrepentant people in the church who say they’re brothers and sisters in Christ, yet are in intentional and proud rebellion against Christ. And those are the people we say, “No, no.” Now, it doesn’t mean we don’t talk to them. We don’t say, “Okay, come back to Jesus.” But if they refuse, then let them learn. Let them learn. Hand them over to Satan. By the way, when you skip church, when you and your family skip church not that you guys do, you’re all very faithful but if you’re a twicer, you know, Easter and Christmas, or, you know, once a month or whatever, those other three weeks out of the month, you’re handing yourself and your kids over to Satan. My boys are involved in traveling sports, and so their weekends are taken up, but my kids are very intentional. They ended up going to a church that has multiple services. Why? “We’re going to church every weekend before we play baseball. We’re not going to raise mediocre athletes who don’t know God.” Nothing wrong with sports. Love sports. Love watching my grandkids play sports. But I respect my kids, and they actually left the Firehouse Church to do it, which was hard for me, but I understood it. It’s like, yeah, we got one service, 11 o’clock, you know. And they go on Saturday, they go Sunday morning, they’ll go Saturday night. Because the church has three services on Sunday, one on Saturday night. They’ll make it work so their kids are in church every Sunday, and they’re in church every Sunday. “I don’t want to go.” Of course you don’t. You know, haven’t you experienced this? You’re all pretty experienced Christians. Y’all been hanging around church for a while. Haven’t you experienced this? The Sunday you want to go the least is the Sunday where God meets you the most. There was something there for you. Now you’re sick. I get it. You know, there are reasons not to go. I’m not you know, if you miss, I’m not a legalist here. I’m not going to beat you up if you’re not in church on a Sunday. I’m just saying this is a covering. This is actually a spiritual covering that we experience when we gather together to corporately worship. And it’s good for you. I once told a Baptist preacher in town, I said, “My mom was raised a Baptist.” I love his response. “Didn’t hurt her none either, did it?” Nah, it didn’t. It didn’t hurt her none. So sexual immorality in the church. By the way, sleeping with your father’s wife is not the only thing that’s sexually immoral. In fact, the Christian standard Here’s the Christian standard. Here’s sexual morality. One man, one woman. Monogamous heterosexual union till death do them part. That’s it. But it gets harder than that. It does? Yeah. Don’t lust in your heart. Darn Jesus. I was doing so well till you said that. I was doing so well till you said that. I remember I was walking with a friend one time. Here’s the difference between what I call creation appreciation and lust. It is not sin to look at somebody and say, “That’s an attractive person.” That’s not sin. Okay, that’s fine. I joke about my wife. She likes Denzel. I told her one time. Church was full, it was packed, and I went to her and I said to her, I said, “Honey, in your wildest dreams, did you ever imagine it would be like this?” And she said, “In my wildest dreams, you’re Denzel.” So there you go. That’s my wife. That’s who I compete with. She likes tall black men. She married a short, fat white guy. Go figure. So creation appreciation. That person is attractive. You’re not sinning. I was walking with a friend one time 30, 40 years ago. We had small children. We’re having a God talk. We’re talking about God and raising kids and family. Oh, we’re so holy. The Bible. It’s California, and it’s the middle of the afternoon. Summer in California. It’s 90 some degrees outside. By the way, Washingtonians, you will not die of heat stroke the first day it gets over 80. I’m just letting you know you don’t have to check on your old neighbors. You don’t have to bring the pets in. They’ll be fine. It’s 82, for crying out loud. All right? You’re all right. Just saying, I’ve been here 20 years. It still freaks me out when people go, “Oh, my gosh, it’s 80!” You know, we call that down in the Central Valley of California. February. It’s February, right, Aiko? Yeah, you’re fine. So we’re out walking. It’s probably 95, 98 degrees. Two o’clock in the afternoon. We’re walking. Bet you think we’re crazy. No, the crazy person was the woman we saw. She was jogging in the middle of the afternoon in the California heat. Now, whatever this woman’s health regime was, it worked. She was fit. It’s 98 degrees in California. She’s jogging. What do you think she’s wearing, a sweatsuit? No, no, we’re talking about God, and this very fit young woman comes around the corner not smiling because joggers never do. I don’t care what Stevin says. He was never smiling out there. Whether the endolphins I don’t even know what dolphins have to do with it. I don’t know what those dolphins Everybody says, “I got dolphins.” What does that mean? I got the endolphins. Who cares about endolphins? It’s misery. So she’s jogging, and she’s got this little white, little top on, cut off here. So her whole very fit midriff shows. And she’s wearing 30, 40 years and I still remember. I apologize. I remember she’s wearing these little blue shorty shorts. Little blue shorty shorts, little white midriff, all fit. Jogging. My son and I, “God is good. Oh, we love our wives. We love our kids.” She comes around the corner, we go… Then we’re kind of embarrassed, right? Because we’re being so holy. And we get completely taken off track by Little Miss Shorty Shorts. And he’s Texan, so he looked at me in his best Texan and he said, he said, “Son, the first look is radar.” He’s absolutely right. The first look is radar, you know? God created us to make babies. Make babies with her. No, wait, got wife. It’s what you do after the first look. That’s the issue. Right? So don’t condemn yourself for creation appreciation. All right? But don’t go further. Love your wife, love your husband. That’s good enough. It’s better than good enough. That’s the best. That’s how God created it. So sexual immorality. We deal with it. When do we break off fellowship? When people are in willing, arrogant, prideful rebellion. Like, no, you can’t do that here. You can’t do that here. Now Paul says, “I’ve already judged him.” Oh, people get freaked out over this. “Christians aren’t supposed to judge.” Shut up. You know, when non-Christians look at us and say, “You’re judgmental, you. you’re supposed to not judge.” You know what they’re doing to us? Yeah. We are absolutely supposed to judge those inside the church. And here’s what we’re supposed to judge: behavior. And we’re supposed to judge ourselves. Behavior. It is perfectly legit to call balls and strikes. That’s wrong. That’s right. I had a woman, she was cheating on her husband, and she tried to convince me with a theological argument. She said, “God is love.” She had two little boys, gonna break up this family. Her husband was a good man. He was a hard working man. He loved his sons. He loved his wife. But she was kind of this romance addict and always wanted a fresh thrill, and so she says, “Well, wait, Pastor, God is love, right?” “Yes.” “Well, I love this guy, not my husband, so it’s okay for me to leave for the sake of love.” True love. True love. No, it’s not okay for you to leave. And I’m not being judgmental when I tell her, “No, it’s not all right. You made a promise to that man, and through that promise to that man, you actually made a promise to the children you brought into this world that you wouldn’t destroy this family. Stay with him.” That’s not judging. Here’s the judging we’re forbidden to do: We’re forbidden to judge motives. I actually just did it to her. I said she was a romance addict and wanted thrills in her life. So I’m saying that’s why she did that. I don’t know that for sure. That was my suspicion. But actually, I don’t know that. We’re not allowed to say “because”. “You do that, and that’s wrong” absolutely. “You do that, and that’s wrong, and here’s why you do it. I know you. I know you.” No, you don’t. Listen. One of the most heinous sins and it’s a sin we all hate, especially if we have children, grandchildren is the sin of molesting children. Child molesters, pedophiles. And you hear people talk about pedophiles in the worst possible way. You can be a rapist; that’s bad. But a child rapist People say all the time, “Kill them, string them up, execute them, shoot them on the spot.” And you know what? It is a heinous sin, and I hate it. I hate what it does. I’ve had many people in my office who’ve been molested, and it destroys young lives. I hate it with a perfect hatred. I hate the sin. But you know what I’ve learned? I don’t hate pedophiles. Because every pedophile I know, and I know a few, was molested as a child. And that demon, that demonic spirit entered in. It’s not an excuse. Doesn’t make what they did right. I’m calling balls and strikes. Your behavior is 100% wrong. I have no problem with justice being executed on that behavior, no problem with you going to jail, protecting children. But what I will not do is hate that person. No matter how heinous their crime, I won’t do it. And I will not give up hope that they’re redeemable. I won’t do it because I’m not allowed to. Isn’t it amazing how we are so quick to judge other people’s sin, and we know perfectly why they do it, and yet every one of us in this room has had this conversation with God: “God, why do I keep doing that?” We don’t even know why we do the things we do. Is that not right? We don’t even know why we repeat behaviors that we shouldn’t repeat, but we’re so quick to judge other people’s sin. I’ve never been tempted to gamble. I mean, I like to make bets with friends just because I’m competitive and I have fun with that. But I’ve never been tempted to gamble away my family’s money. I got a math brain. I know the odds are in the casino’s favor, right? I know if I do it enough, I will lose money; they will make money. That’s why they have all the expensive lights and they can give away free drinks. And I’ll never forget this is back in the old days again we’re going through a casino. My wife and I are walking through a casino, and people are playing the slot machines. This is the time where you used real money and you pulled levers. It wasn’t the computer where you pressed in the card that you bought and pushed the buttons. Real money. And they would do this thing, right? They had four behaviors: money, pull, drink, smoke. All right? They’d have their drink, they’d have their smoke, they’d have their little coin of quarters, and they’d have the slot machine. Put a quarter in, pull it, take a shot, take a drag. Put a quarter in, pull it, take a shot, take a drag. That’s what they did. Little dance. And we’re walking through the casino, and I’m looking at this, I’m going, “You’re a bunch of stupid idiots.” I’m judging them. Notice I’m not judging the behavior. I’m not saying, “Gambling is irrational and it’s a waste of money and probably wrong to do, at least at the level you’re doing it.” No, I’m judging their motives. “You’re a bunch of stupid idiots.” That’s what I’m thinking. “You’re a bunch of dupes.” And I start singing walking through the casino. “Give your money to the poor. Give your money to the poor. You’ll be so much happier if you didn’t fund the mob and gave your money to the poor.” My wife goes, “Shh, be quiet.” Now, any man worth his salt, when your wife switches over to be your mama, do you be quiet? No, you sing louder. It’s like, oh, no, you’re not my mother. You don’t get to tell me to be quiet when I’m having fun. “Give your money to the poor.” People are looking. I’m walking through the casino. My wife’s like, “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go. Let’s get out of here. The mob’s gonna come get us. Shut up.” Now, I’m judging their sin like nobody’s business. I’m judging them like nobody’s business. You might ask, well, Kevin, if you don’t like to gamble, what are you doing in the casino? Ah. Because at the top floor of the casino you got it brother. There is an all-you-can-eat. Did you hear those words? That’s a gamble I’ll take because they’re betting they can make money on me, and I’m betting they can’t. Right? That’s my kind of gamble. All you can eat. I’m thinking, you ain’t seen this boy eat. You know, I’ll keep coming back. So, I’m judging them for their sin while I’m fully embracing gluttony. Right? Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Yes, Christians, don’t be buffaloed by the world who says you shouldn’t judge into not calling balls and strikes. Absolutely. Sin is sin. What the Bible says is sin is sin. Call it out. On the other hand, you don’t know why people do what they do, and neither do I. And so you don’t judge that. So, Paul is perfectly legitimized in judging this man and kicking him out of the church, but he does it for his redemption. By the way, if you read 2 Corinthians, this man ultimately came back to the Lord. And then the Corinthians wouldn’t restore him to the fellowship. And Paul says, “Hey, bring him back. He’s repented. Bring him back. He learned.” All right. We are to bring correction to the church, not the world. We’re to bring correction to the church, not the world. We are to build one another up. Now, when I say we don’t bring correction to the world, what I mean is we don’t judge the world. Again, it doesn’t mean we don’t call balls and strikes. It doesn’t mean we don’t work for reform. It doesn’t mean we don’t try to transform the world, but we simply Listen. This happens all the time. If you like to argue on social media, which I like to argue, so that seems like a good place to do it. But I’ve stopped because it’s kind of fruitless. Over 40% of arguments on social media it’s been studied over 40% of arguments are ad hominem arguments that use the motive fallacy instead of arguing against the idea. And people and politicians do this all the time. It’s the lowest form of argument, and it’s name calling. “I don’t have to listen to you. I don’t have to listen to your ideas because you’re a fascist.” Notice how quickly names get applied to people. “I don’t have to listen to your ideas because you’re a commie.” And the minute you label something, then you don’t have to listen to it. You already know. You know, All Wise One, where it’s coming from. And so nobody talks about ideas, nobody talks about solutions. They talk about people. They’re the bad guys; they’re the good guys. No. No. So, yes, we can call balls and strikes in the world, but you can’t blame blind people for being blind. You know this. When you became a Christian, one of the first things you realized was, why are all these people so stupid? Even though 6 months ago you were just as stupid. Right? My wife will say all the time, “That just doesn’t make sense.” No, it doesn’t, because you have 30 years of gaining a Christian perspective and worldview, and you know what makes sense, at least to a greater degree than they do. But you know why they’re doing that? They’re desperately seeking something to grab onto because they’re blind. And if a blind person walked into church right now and tripped over that chair, you wouldn’t be going, “You stupid idiot. Couldn’t you see that?” No, they’re blind. You’d help them. That’s our position with the world. We can tell them they’re blind. That’s fine, but we can’t despise them. You can’t hate. You can’t hate your political opponents. You can’t hate your theological opponents. You can’t hate the atheists. You can’t hate whatever group that’s working against you. It’s hard to do, right? I remember people conservative Christians, will always come to me and say, “We need to pray for a president. We need to pray for our leaders.” And I get people mad at me because they’ll say that, and I’ll go, “Okay, we’ll pray for them this Sunday in church.” I’ll pray for them out loud. I begin by praying for Bremerton’s mayor, Greg Wheeler, who’s a liberal. And then I pray for, at the time it was, who’s the guy? Inslee. Then I pray for Inslee, and then I pray for Trump, and then they get all mad at me. “Why’d you pray for Wheeler and Inslee?” Because the Bible says, pray for your leaders. Oh, wait, I don’t have the version that says, “Pray for the leaders you agree with more than the others.” I don’t have that version. Jesus says, what? Hate your enemies and crucify them in social media? No, he says, “Love your enemies.” That’s one of the ways we’re different people. That’s one of the ways we’re different. We refuse to hate people who are wrong, right? We refuse to hate people who are wrong. And so, wives, you can’t hate your husbands. Just can’t do it. Even though he’s wrong. We know. All right, what do we do with the world? We’re to bring the gospel to the world. We are a light, but not a judge. Now, we can warn the world of the judgment to come. But Paul’s very clear. God is the judge. God knows the intentions of every heart. We can warn the world that apart from Christ, you are going to face the judgment of God. God will judge every intention of your heart. We can tell people that’s going to be the case, but we don’t get to cast the judgment. There’s no worse curse than we can say to another thing or human being than “God, damn it.” We’re making ourselves a judge. “God, you need to damn this.” No. All we do with the things that appear to be damnable to us is we lift them up to heaven and say, “God, I beseech you to save this. Rescue this like you rescued this.” That’s our position with the world. With the church, if I find out any of you are sleeping with your mother-in-law tonight, I’m kicking you out. Shouldn’t I do that? Yeah, I mean, I’m kicking you out. I’m getting the leadership team together, and we’re going to say, “Repent.” And if you don’t come back when the devil beats you up enough, we’ll be here for you. That’s what we do. All right, dear ones, I want to tell you this, though, about your sin because you are repentant, you are humble. I mean, you are; you’re here. You know, hopefully you didn’t come here to show off your spirituality. Hopefully you came here because you know you need help and saving like the rest of us. And if you are, I want to tell you with full assurance, in the Name of Jesus, your sins are forgiven. Not only do I want to tell you your sins are forgiven, I want to tell you that the power of sin over your body, over your mind, over your flesh has been broken. And you will not, you are not now a slave to sin, even though you may feel like it in some ways, and for all eternity, you will not be a slave to sin. You will be free. You not only get the love of God, you get to be like Him. You get to be as good as Jesus. I mean, I’ve gone through the last 45 years of my life just wanting to be as good as Jill and now I get to be as good as Jesus, right? And so He invites you to His table to remind you of that that sin has been defeated. Satan has been defeated. Death has been defeated. Yes, we’re still engaged in the war, but the war has been won. And Christ is the victor. And, dear ones, you are in His family. You are His beloved child. So come tonight and take this meal and be grateful for the nourishment and the love of God. Come and eat. The post 2026.4.19 TFHC – Sexual Immorality In The Church | 1 Cor 5:1-13 appeared first on The Firehouse Church in Bremerton, WA.

April 13, 2026, Message by P. Kevin Clancey Transcribed by Beluga AI. We speak your name, Jesus, over this time together. We exalt you and praise you as the Lord Most High. Come, Lord, and give us the mind of Christ. Settle our hearts to sit before your Word and help our minds not wander, but to hear what your Spirit is saying to us tonight in our time together. In Jesus’ Name, Amen. Years ago, a Christian popular song, popular worship song and kind of—you know, we get in those stages in the contemporary kind of evangelical, Charismatic world where we’re, oh, whatever, Elevation or Bethel or somebody or Hillsong, and we’re singing all the same songs for a while. And years ago, from a group of musicians called House Fires a song came out, and it just kind of was really popular there for a while—”Good, Good Father.” Remember that one? And I remember being down in Arizona with my brother-in-law and sister and Jill and I. My nephew was down at Grand Canyon University; we were visiting him. And we also, as a gift, you know—it was our family vacation. But they all knew—none of them were big baseball fans—they all knew how I love baseball. I finally got to go to spring training, and so we got to see some spring training games. In fact, I got my first baseball ever. You know, in a baseball game when the ball comes into the stands… Sean got one. We were with you and Sean that one night, and he got a foul ball. And Kyler, who we were with that night, I went with him to one game, and it was actually—a guy threw a perfect game. He threw a no-hitter that game. We had gotten there early, and one of the White Sox outfielders threw a ball up, and Kyler caught it. Kyler got a ball, but I never got a ball. And I’m sitting down in the front row because it’s spring training, so I can afford front row seats finally. And I’m sitting down in the front row and it’s the best foul ball ever. You know, you don’t want to get a foul ball with a black eye. That’s—you know, a lot of people would be, “I still got a foul ball.” Just go buy one at the sporting goods store. You know, it’s not worth a black eye. So you don’t want to catch a line drive off the face and then pick up the ball and go, you know, “Consolation prize here.” Now this one was just a weak roller. The batter just hit it, and it was just a roller, and it kind of just rolled right in front of me. The front row seats at spring training are real low, and so it just kind of rolled in front of me. I just leaned over the railing, and I picked it up, and I got the ball. “I got my first ball!” And I turn to look at my brother-in-law, and my brother-in-law had gone to get something from the concession stand. And there was a four-year-old little girl who’d been wanting a ball the whole game. You know, when they were pitching in the bullpen, she’s going, “Can I get a ball? Can I get a ball?” She just, oh, she so wanted a ball. I pick up this ball, I got a smile on my face, I turn, and she’s… So I had the ball for all of about three seconds. “There you go.” Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, I should have, but I didn’t know that she was right there. But anyway. But hey, her dad offered to buy me a beer. So, you know, I didn’t get it. But what’s that? Good on me, yeah. Well, you know, that’s like a… I gotta tell you, either you give the ball to the kid, and everyone’s like, “Oh, what a nice guy.” Or you don’t give the ball to the kid… You know, there’s no, there’s no neutral there. That’s heaven or hell, right? You’re an angel or a demon. And so yeah, so anyway, I had my ball there for a while. So we were down there in Arizona and this song was all the rage in all the churches. We were singing it at the Firehouse. My brother-in-law hates repetitive lyrics, but this song has lots of repetitive lyrics. “You’re a good, good father. That’s who you are. That’s who you are. You’re a good, good father. That’s who you are. That’s who you are. You’re perfect in all of your ways. You’re perfect in all your ways.” I mean, it’s like three lines that just go on forever. I saw this comic one time and somebody said, “What do you do?” And the comic strip, you know, the little bubble where they’re talking? It says, “I write modern worship songs. I write modern worship songs. I write modern worship songs. I write modern worship songs.” But anyway, I went by this church marquee and it said on the church marquee—I loved it—it said, “There’s a good, good chance this Sunday we’ll be singing ‘Good, Good Father.'” I just thought that was a cute church marquee. All that to say, all my little wandering and ramblings to say, we’re going to talk tonight about fathers, spiritual fathers, as we go through 1 Corinthians. As I was preaching this this morning, I thought, man, I should have saved this for Father’s Day. So just pay attention. Know the date, April 12, 2026. And when we hit Father’s Day in June, go on Rumble or YouTube and watch it again. And it is predicated on this whole idea that the universe is predicated on a good Father. And just to bring you back up to speed on Corinthians, because we’ve been a couple weeks out of Corinthians… We, you know, Jamie spoke to us on Palm Sunday, and then I spoke on Easter. Paul is addressing the Corinthian church who were immature, and they were doing about five things that he has to correct in this letter. But at the front of their immaturity is how mature and wise they think they are. They think they’re so advanced. You know, they’re like a teenage child, right? Nobody knows so much as a teenage child. They’re the smartest people ever. They just… they know everything. And, you know, then they get out and they get on their own in the world and pretty soon they’re calling you and saying, “Hey, how do you do this?” and “How do you do that?” It’s like my dad always said. He said, “You know, when you were 16, I was the dumbest man on Earth, but by the time you were 25, I had gotten much smarter.” And that’s kind of how it works sometimes. And the Corinthians, they’re like a teenage child. They’re like an adolescent child. They know everything right now. They’re the smartest people on the planet. And Paul is addressing them about this. He says these five things are really bad. The first thing that we’ve talked about now is that they were dividing. There were divisions in the church, and it wasn’t divisions over some central issue of importance to the gospel. I mean, Paul was divisive over the issue of whether or not Gentiles needed to be circumcised to be Christians. Why? Because he realized that that was at the root of the gospel. Either we’re going back to the old covenant, or we are new. Either the gospel is for the Gentiles, or all you’re doing is just inventing a new system for the Gentiles to come into the old covenant. And so Paul was divisive on that issue. Very divisive on that issue. But here they’re dividing over personalities. It’s not even over doctrine. Apollos is a much more polished speaker than Paul. Peter, he was actually with Jesus. And then there’s Paul. And there were still the Paulites… “Hey, Paul is the one who brought us the gospel.” But understand, Paul is not arguing here for his supremacy over Peter and Apollos. He goes on time and time again and says, “We are all simply stewards, simply managers. Look, Peter, Apollos, and Paul are all on the same team. It’s you guys who are divided. We’re all Team Jesus. And that’s a sign of your immaturity.” And so he rebukes them. And then he concludes finally with a strong rebuke, a strong warning at the end of 1 Corinthians 4. And here’s what he says. He says, 14 I’m not writing this to shame you, but to warn you as my dear children. (1 Corinthians 4:14, CSB) All right. So, he’s establishing the relationship. You are my dear children. Why can I chew you out? Because you’re my kids. You’re my kids. All right? I’ve earned the right to bring discipline because I’ve suffered for you, I’ve sacrificed for you. Listen, mothers, you have the right to discipline your kids. “You can’t do that to me, Mom!” Yeah? I gave you birth. Hello? I fed you; I bathed you; I nursed you; I cleaned you. I cared for you. I held you when you cried. Fathers, you have the right to bring discipline. I fed you; I housed you; I protected you; I played games with you. I have invested deeply in you. And because of that investment, as a father, as a mother, I now have the right to bring correction to your life. I have earned that right. One of the things that bothers me is not when teachers bring correction to me from the Word, but when someone tries to bring correction to me as a personal authority in my life and they haven’t earned that right. One one time this man told me that I would never be a successful preacher because I was overweight, which is a hard thing. It was a shaming thing. You know, “I’m not saying this to shame you…” It was kind of a shaming thing that way. Well, your wife’s fat, you know. Go lecture her. But anyway. But he prefaced it because he was a generation older than me, he prefaced it—and this really bugged me. He prefaced it by saying, “As a spiritual father, I want to speak to you.” And after I got wounded, I felt like going back to him and saying, “Hey, Dad, what are my kids’ names? Do you know the other things I struggle with? What’s my wife’s name? When’s my anniversary? When’s my birthday? When have you invited me into your home? When have I been with you except for 10 minutes at this camp? Listen, if you want to tell me you’re offended that I eat too much and don’t exercise enough, go ahead. But, man, if you want to call yourself a father, we got plenty of those kind of fathers. We got plenty of absent fathers.” And I wanted a spiritual father at the time. I’m 67. I still want a spiritual father. I never had one. I’ve had some men who have come into my life and been really wonderful older men, but none of them have really taken me under their wing. They’ve been good uncles; I appreciate them. But Paul here is saying, “I’m a father.” And this whole gospel is predicated on a father. How does God have the authority to speak into our lives? Well, yeah, because He’s God and He’s great. But you know what? He sacrificed for us. He gave to us. Every time He rebukes Israel, He doesn’t just rebuke Israel. He says, “Hey, remember who I am? I’m the God who brought you out of Israel. I’m the One who gave you this land. I’m the One who prospered this land. I did this for you. I did that for you. I did this for you. I did this for you. And now you’re worshiping these other gods. Not only are you doing that, I warned you, ‘Don’t do that.’ And you’re doing it.” Paul now is asserting his right to speak hard correction into the lives of Corinthians. Why? Because he says, 15 For you may have countless instructors in Christ, but you don’t have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. 16 Therefore I urge you to imitate me. 17 This is why I have sent Timothy to you. He is my dearly loved and faithful child in the Lord. He will remind you about my ways in Christ Jesus, just as I teach everywhere in every church. 18 Now some are arrogant, as though I were not coming to you. 19 But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk, but the power of those who are arrogant. 20 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. 21 What do you want? Should I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness? (1 Corinthians 4:15-21, CSB) May the words of my mouth and meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, Lord, our Rock and our Strength and our Redeemer. 14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. (Psalms 19:14, CSB) Teachers are valuable. They impart truth. I have many teachers. I have countless teachers. Paul is not saying here that teachers are bad. Read books. Steve Gregg is a teacher of mine, right? We’re reading his book. He’s a teacher. I have many teachers. When I first became a Christian, I was so grateful for C.S. Lewis. He just launched me on my Christian walk as this brilliant mind and this brilliant teacher. He wasn’t my dad. He couldn’t be, which is fine. I’d have loved it. Maybe. He might have been a pretty hard dad to live up to. But yeah, he wasn’t my dad. Many teachers, but we don’t have many fathers. We don’t have many people who invest in us in this way. Paul says, “Just as God is a Father, I am a father.” Fathers live truth worthy to be imitated. Teachers tell us the truth. Fathers live the truth in a relational connection with our lives. Paul has the audacity to say, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ.” 1 Imitate me, as I also imitate Christ. (1 Corinthians 11:1, CSB) My earthly father said things facetiously. He was a comedian, you know, like, not a professional comedian, but he was a jokester. And he would just say, “Well, do as I say, not as I do.” But he knew that was facetious. He knew kids don’t do that. They do what you do, not what you say. And I regret this. This is one of my, you know, we all got a handful of regrets. Two handfuls. Maybe a bucket full, maybe a pickup truck full. I don’t know. One of my biggest regrets is that I said this, but it was true. I shouldn’t have said it. I should have had more respect for my father. But, you know, I was talking last week about my drug addiction, my pot smoking addiction. I’m smoking dope in the house one night. My father had gone out with one of his buddies to a soccer game. And he came back, as he always did when he went out and his family wasn’t there to be accountable to—if he went out with one of his buddies, he’d come back drunk, just drunk as could be. And so he was loaded. He was drunk. My mom was angry and in bed. And he was just out in the living room, just drunk as could be. And I come home and I see him. So, I just skedaddle off to my room and I light up my bong and I start smoking dope in my room. Because that’s what they taught me in drug class. I was just following their instructions. Didn’t want to get arrested again. And my father knocks on the bedroom door, and I go and open it. He goes, “Are you smoking dope in here?” And I regret this, but I looked at him, I said, “Like father, like son.” And I closed the door in his face. He didn’t knock on my door again. You know why? He was drunk. But he knew it was true. I’m grateful that my drunk father didn’t react like a lot of drunk fathers would have and went in and kicked my tail. But I wish I hadn’t said it, but it was true. Kids will do what you do more than they’ll do what you say. Now, that doesn’t mean if your kids are acting out in some way, it’s like, “I’ve been a bad parent.” Listen, dads, you haven’t been a bad father if your kids are acting out in a bad way. Your wife was a bad mother, so she jacked them up, not you. Just trust me. When people come in for counseling—ladies, don’t worry. When people come in for counseling—you’ll know that’s a joke in a minute. When people come in for counseling, the first question you get, the first question I ask people that just is like, 90% of the doors get unlocked with this key is: Tell me about your relationship with your dad. All right, bingo. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. We have a winner! All right, so fathers… Still, it’s interesting—I’m not bragging on us because we jacked up our kids in lots of ways, but when we left the United Methodist Church over principle, left a job, left security, I asked my kids about that. Katelyn was just… It was heartbreaking to her because she loved her Sunday school teacher, she loved her church, and she was just a little girl. My older two, though, said, “You know what? When you did that, we came to a deeper realization that you guys were serious about your faith, that this was something real to you, that you make life decisions based on this.” And it’s like, yeah, good, I’m glad you got that message and not the message that, well, you know, if I don’t get a job, you’re not going to get good Christmas presents. Actually, they weren’t worried about that because there was Grandpa. Christmas was covered. All right. Fathers often have many children, and they give responsibility away to trustworthy children. You give it away. That’s what you do as a parent. Right? One of the arts of parenting, and this is the art of discipling people as spiritual mentors, as spiritual mothers, as spiritual fathers—one of the things you do is when they’re young, you have to do a lot for them, all right? Babies can’t change their own diapers, they can’t feed themselves. But as they get older, what do you do? You expand both their responsibilities and their freedoms. You trust them with more, and then when they violate that trust, you bring the boundaries back in. It’s like, “I got to take the driver’s license away for a while, you know. Can’t trust you with that yet.” But you basically do that so your kids grow up and now they can live without you telling them what to do, without you creating those boundaries. And so you, you incrementally, in increments, you give responsibility away and you teach and then you trust. John Wimber used to say, “This is how we bring people into the healing ministry. We bring them along with us and say, ‘Watch us do this.’ Then after they watch a number of times, we say, ‘Okay, what you’ve seen me do, do it. Do it.’ They go, ‘Oh, I can’t do it.’ ‘Yeah, do it. You’ve seen us do it.'” They don’t do that at first. They show them. “This is how we do it. This is how we pray for people. This is how we minister.” But then they say, “Do it.” Then after they do it, he said, “Then we’d bring them back and we give feedback. ‘Okay, boy, that was spot on. You did that real good. Hey, just think about doing this. This is something you could have done in that situation.'” And they teach. And he says, “And then the more and more they do that with us watching and giving feedback, and the better they get, then next we go, ‘All right, now you go out and do it. And take this newbie with you.'” And that’s discipleship. Paul says to Timothy, “As a spiritual father, what I have entrusted to you, now you entrust to reliable men. What I’ve done in mentoring you and fathering you, now you do in fathering them.” As a father of children, we say, “As I fathered you, now you father your children. In fact, do better than me. You know, let my ceiling be your floor. But as I’ve taught you, then you finally go and teach others.” And that’s what fathers do. They teach. God teaches us to grow. We don’t want 35-year-old children playing video games in our basement, smoking weed. “Mom, bring me some food.” No, make your own bed. Cook your own food. You can do it. Drive your own car. We impart and give responsibility away to trustworthy children. Paul says, “I teach the same thing to you in every church.” Fathers are consistent. Parents are consistent in their message. They don’t change their message. They don’t change their message from one child to another one. Now, children are different. You don’t change your message. You may have to change your tactics, right? If you’ve had multiple children, you know that. You have this boisterous, loud, obnoxious boy running around the house, and to get his attention, you got to pick him up by the scruff of the neck and say, “Hey, I’m talking to you.” I have a nephew, kind of a nephew, and he’s playing video games, right? You want to talk to him? You ever try to talk to a boy playing video games? It’s impossible because men are single-focused, right? There’s, like, “Images on screen. Must kill them.” You say, “Hey, hey, hey!” And then you’ll try to—you say, you know, “Hey, I just found out on the news that the world’s coming to an end in six minutes. So you might want to get prepared.” And finally they will—they didn’t really hear that, but they think, “Oh.” Something registered, and they’re like, “That might be important.” And here’s the two words they’ll generally say—my nephew would say this all the time: “Wait, what?” Like, okay, we got him away from that, and now he’s starting to turn his attention towards something else. And I looked at him, I said, “Bradley, on your wedding day, the minister is going to stand before you and your bride and say, ‘Bradley, do you take this woman?’ You’ll go, ‘Wait, what? Wait, I was looking at the shiny ring. Wait, what?'” So, you got to use different tactics, all right? Some kids, they can’t respond till, you know, you get their attention. Other kids, you just say the slightest thing. You say the slightest thing, and they’re like, “Oh, my gosh!” They’re mortified. My dear wife, she wants to get an A on every test. So she goes in for a job review and she gets these great job reviews. She’ll come home and go, “Oh, yeah, I got my job review today.” A, A, A, A, A, A minus. A, A, A, A, A, A minus. A, A, A, A. And she’s like, “Oh, it was horrible.” I go, “Why? Look at that. There’s two minuses on here. There’s two, like A minus. You know, there were two places. Room to grow.” It’s like, that’s horrible? Man, I’m like C, C, C, C, C, C plus. Oh, I got a C plus. That’s great. They like me, right? And if you got two or more kids, you probably got, you know, they’re probably a variation of that sort of stuff. So your tactics change. Paul’s tactics change to the Corinthians, from the Philippians to the Ephesians, to the Galatians. Wise parents know their children. Wise spiritual mentors know their children. The tactic changed. The message never does, right? The message never does. Paul says, “Listen, Corinthians, I’m not being hard on you. What I’m telling you, I tell to all my churches. I tell everywhere. I teach this, everywhere I go. It’s the same gospel; it’s the same message. I’m not out for popularity.” That’s one thing. Good parents don’t need to be popular. Oh my goodness. God doesn’t need you to approve of Him. You need God to approve of you. God doesn’t need you to approve of Him. Paul didn’t need the approval of the Corinthian church. He says in his letters, he says, “If I were still writing to please men, I wouldn’t be writing this stuff.” Paul is willing that they reject him. The gospel is offensive. Now, don’t be an intentionally offensive person. There are people out there who are jerks and they say, “Well, I’m just preaching the gospel. That’s why I’m being persecuted.” No, you are being persecuted for the gospel, but you’re also a jerk. But for every one of those, there’s another 2,000 of us who are so dang timid not to offend. Like, “I’ll just show them Jesus.” Good for you. Show them Jesus. When are you going to say something? When are you going to risk the offense? I just saw the Great Awakening this week with the story of George Whitefield and his friendship with Benjamin Franklin. It’s a worthy movie to see. And you know, Whitefield and Wesley and those preachers of the First Awakening, they got hit with more rocks and more rotten fruit as they would go into these mining communities, in these poor neighborhoods, and preach the gospel. And Wesley—I mean, I just read his journals. He’s amazing. Little five foot three guy, tiny man. And these big miners would come up with clubs and pitchforks and rocks, getting ready to disrupt the meeting. And instead of saying, “Oh no, here they come,” Wesley would get down off the pulpit, walk to the front of their captain, a guy twice his size, you know, with a club or a pitchfork, and rebuke him in the Lord. Often, he would convert that captain, and then that captain would become his bodyguard. “I got my boy, John. Nobody touch John.” It would happen time and time again. Whitfield, they show this picture, and it’s an accurate description of the First Great Awakening. He goes to his first coal mine to preach. He starts to preach, and they just say, “Get out of here. We don’t want to hear from you. Get out of here.” And they begin to pick up rocks, and they hit him with rocks, and he, you know, he kind of backs up, and he just climbs right back up in his little handmade pulpit, blood running down his face, and he continues to preach. And within minutes—and this is not just Hollywood. This happened in history. In minutes, they’re on their knees, repenting of their sins and coming to Christ. And then a bloody Whitefield goes out there and loves them and lays his hands on them and prays for them. The Great Awakening is born. People who love risk being hurt. If you’ve been a parent, your kids maybe have said this to you, you know, “I hate you, and I’m not going to talk…” I remember when our oldest daughter was mad at us. She didn’t say she hated us, but she was… It was drama, man. It was drama at the time. And she was good. But this was one of those times, you know, her life’s ruined, and we’re terrible, and this family is terrible. And finally, she just looks at us and goes, “I’m just going to go in my room and not talk to anybody. Close the door, and not talk to anybody.” And she stomps off. And I turn to Jill and I say, “All in favor say aye. That’s the best thing she said in half an hour. Like, it’s like, hey, why didn’t I have that idea? Why don’t you go to your room, shut your door, and not talk to anybody? Everybody would be happy. That’d be great. That’d be great.” She’s all right now. She made it. And one of the reasons she made it is we didn’t need to be popular. We didn’t say, “Oh, please don’t do that. Don’t go to your room. We’ll let you blackmail us with a hissy fit.” Paul is not after popularity. He’s after spiritual children. He’s after spiritual children. Fathers test the claims of their children. They don’t tolerate arrogance. They don’t tolerate arrogance. It’s like, “Yeah, I can do whatever I want.” Maybe, but not in this house. You can do whatever you want. Of course, you have to find somewhere else to get food because I’m putting locks on the pantry and the refrigerator. Yeah, do whatever you want. The Corinthians are getting arrogant. They say, “Oh, Paul, he’s gone, right?” Notice how brave people are when the opponent is gone. You know how much smack they talk when the opposition isn’t there. Guys do this. Wussy guys. We do it all the time with our wives. “Yeah. She didn’t boss me around. She didn’t tell me what to do.” Then they get a phone call, right? “No, no, honey, no, no, no. I’ll be home real soon. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m coming. Don’t worry. Don’t worry. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I’ll get milk. Yeah, it’s all good.” Way to go, John Wayne. Way to stand up to that woman. But if you ever see somebody who’s talking smack to an enemy who’s not there, that’s false bravado. I do it. I do it. “Yeah. I told them.” Yeah, in my car driving up here and they weren’t there, and my imaginary argument that I always win. I told them, put them in their place. Paul says, “Okay…” Here’s what they were saying about Paul: “Apollos is a better speaker. Peter was with Jesus. You’re not that impressive, Paul. You’re not that impressive. We have better speakers here in our church right now than Paul ever was.” And Paul’s like, “Okay, okay, well, Lord willing, I’m going to come to you, and let me tell you this. Behavior is more important than talk. Don’t tell me what you got. Show me what you got. Show me what you got.” I have been burned. As I look back in years of ministry, there are certain scenarios that I’m susceptible to, certain traps that I’ve fallen into more than once. And here’s one of them: people who talk a good game, but don’t play a good game. I get so excited when somebody shares vision with me, shares passion with me. I think, “All right, this person’s on fire for the Lord. They’re coming along.” And I’ve put them oftentimes in positions of influence, responsibility, and leadership, and they weren’t ready. Now I look at two things, the two T’s. You talk a good game. Where’s your commitment of time and where’s your commitment of money? Time, and treasure. I tell young people—I had one guy come to me and say, “How do I become a foxhole Christian with you, brother?” That’s a good statement, isn’t it? “You want to be in a foxhole with me and fight the devil? Yeah, I’m with you, brother.” How to be a foxhole Christian… He was already a timer, like a lot of young people. I said, “Good. Tithe.” “But that’s not exciting. I want to go out and witness with you on the street to the homeless.” That’d be great. Show me the—what’s that movie with Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding Jr.? Something like that. Show me the… Yeah. I forget the name of the movie, but yeah, show me the money. Jerry Maguire. Jerry Maguire, yeah. The classic line: “Show me the money.” And I always hate to say that because people say that I’m being self-serving. “You need to give money to this church.” That’s not it at all. I don’t care. I can retire. Jill and I can retire tomorrow. I don’t need your money. We’ll be all right. We’ll be all right. No. Show me where your heart is. Your wallet reveals your heart, as does your calendar. Those are the two—you know, and then, you know, just general attitude and how you treat people, all that kind of stuff. But play a good game. Paul goes to the Corinthians, he says, “Oh, you’re talking. Show me.” And then he says things that just are really interesting to me. Listen, he says, “Fathers carry real authority.” That’s what this whole passage is about. Fathers carry real authority. The kingdom of God is a matter of power, not a matter of talk. It’s a matter of real authority. It is the power of a transformed life. People who are worthy to be spiritual fathers are people who have transformed lives. They don’t have to be perfect, but they’re walking it out. It’s not how clever you are. It’s not what a good CEO you are. It’s not how slick you are. It’s not how big of a crowd you can draw. Are you living the power of a transformed life? Are you different? Listen, there are preachers all the time who are popular and you know, time and time again—evangelical, Charismatic, whatever—time and time again are caught what? Committing adultery. No, I get it. Life’s hard; people stumble. Nobody’s perfect. We give them all the excuses, but doggone it, love your wife. “Yeah, but this other woman understood me. My wife doesn’t.” Your wife does understand you. That’s why you like this other woman. You got her conned. Love your church enough, love your family enough not to do that. Get some help. Tell a buddy, “I’m struggling with this.” But live a transformed life. Walk in the power of the gospel. Walk in the power of the gospel. I’ll tell you what, some of the people that have impacted me the most have not been preachers, authors, Christian leaders. They’ve just been people in churches that live out the gospel. There was a man I used to go to prison with to do prison ministry—two men, two gentlemen. They’ve been doing it for 20, 30 years. They’re both school teachers. One worked for the state or one worked for the county. One was a schoolteacher. Every Monday night, week after week, month after month, year after year, they’d go out and they’d share Christ. They’d sing praise. They’d go out in a van. We’d get the church van. There’d be like six or seven of us. But these two guys were the guys who were just consistent. They did it all the time. They invited me to do prison ministry. So I said, “Yes, I’ll do it.” And I got a lot out of doing prison ministry. Oh, it was so hard, though, because of my sports love and addiction. And I already had to give up football on Sundays because, you know, it’s the one day a week I work, so, you know, I couldn’t watch the football games on Sundays. And they would leave to do prison ministry—the church parking lot was right across from my house—and I’d see them gathering for the van to start going right when this would happen. And if you remember, Monday Night Football… Dun, dun, dun, dun. The opening thing. And it’d be like, “Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun…” Can I call in sick tonight? I never regretted walking away from that TV screen and getting in that van. That’s one of the best times of my life, going to that jail and talking to those prisoners. But, you know, what was a great time as an ordained minister, a seminary-trained theologian? Going to the school of what it’s like to follow Jesus with those two old guys. And I would just watch them and something inside me would start to… “I want to be like that when I grow up. I want to be able to go to prison Monday after Monday after Monday, leading prisoners to Christ. Nobody recognizing it, nobody caring. With such joy coming back and sharing testimonies. Not just joy coming back, joy going out there.” You know, these guys… I have a Bible from one of the guys and his wife given to me in 1984. It’s the NIV Study Bible. It’s on my desk in my office in Bremerton. It’s tattered. It’s ripped from Jerry and Ellen Cease. The other guy was Bob Felt. I was in a church as an associate pastor filled with people whose lives were transformed by the gospel, and they humbly walked in the power of the gospel. They humbly walked in the power of the gospel. Why do fathers have authority? Fathers have authority when they walk in the power of the gospel. And I say this to you, it’s more my problem than yours. But live for impact, not for recognition. Get your recognition in heaven. As if you’ll care—when Jesus says, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” you know, none of us are going to care, “Yeah, but am I in the top 10%?” Even Jill won’t care at that point whether she gets—Jill never does it for recognition anyway. She’s one of the most humble people I know. She just is a, you know, perfectionist. But live for impact and you’ll carry the authority of Christ. Just be an authentic Christian and people will respect. I mean, it’ll just happen. Not everybody will respect you, but the right people will respect you. Signs and wonders. The power of signs and wonders. I think when Paul says the gospel is not just a matter of talk, but it’s a matter of power, you know, what are the Corinthians saying? “You’re not very impressive in your speech, Paul. Apollos is a much more eloquent speaker than you.” Paul says, “Yeah, I cast a demon out of you. How is that for eloquence? I laid hands on your mother-in-law and she got well. How is that for smooth speech?” He carried power. And I don’t even know what he means by this next statement, but I believe it’s not an empty threat. Never make empty threats to your kids. Parents, never make empty threats to anybody. When I watch old Westerns, right? And the old gunslinger is talking to the new gunslinger and the new hot shot’s like, “Yeah, I can do this, and this.” He says, “Well, son, never draw your gun unless you’re ready to use it. When you’re drawing guns, there’s no bluff. You’re not bluffing. Never draw your gun unless you’re ready to.” Never bluff. Spiritual fathers never bluff. And Paul tells—did you read that last sentence? Paul says, 21 What do you want? Should I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness? (1 Corinthians 4:21, CSB) You talk a big game. You want a power showdown? I don’t even know what a Pauline power showdown would look like. Yeah, yeah. Ananias and Sapphira tried that. Ananias and tried to fool the church with how spiritual they were when they weren’t. How’d that work out for them? I remember we were having revival in Oakdale. All these kids, all these high school kids, they’d come to the healing and communion service. We’d be praying for them. We just had fun. We had fun in the Spirit. I don’t know if we took it too far or not, but we had fun in the Spirit. And I’d pray for them and they’d all flop and fall, and then they’d all try to gang up on me and make me fall. They’d all pray for me, hoping that I would fall. But it was just fun. They would come and go bam, bam, bam, bam. They’d be dropping at my feet. Bam, bam. Like, “Show me something, kids. Show me something.” It’s fun, you know, whacking kids. I also remember no empty threats. I also remember one time, my son. My son, 3, 4 years old, he’s disobeying. He said that “I’m a 3 or 4 year old. And this is… I’m a draw a line in the sand today, Dad.” I didn’t get up that morning saying, “Boy, I hope my son draws a line in the sand.” But he did. I said, “You got to go to your room. Knock it off.” “I’m not going to knock it off.” “All right. You got to stay in here till you knock it off.” “I’m so mad at you.” “All right, I can live with that.” He said, “I’m gonna hit you.” “All right. If you hit me, I’ll hit you back.” And his little hand starts going in motion. And as his little hand was coming down to hit my arm, this hand was coming up to hit his thigh, butt area. And so, it went like this, like, bang, boom. I got bang; he got lifted about 6 inches off the bed—boom. He’s not done. You know what he said next? Yep. “That didn’t hurt.” Through a trembling lip. “That didn’t hurt.” I said, “Okay.” And I’m so glad my son showed he was a wise man at this point. He had hope. There was hope for him. I said, “Do you want one that does?” “No.” We were both glad he said that. I was so glad he said that. He was glad he said that. One night, a friend of mine had me and a bunch of his adult friends over for his son’s 18th birthday. It was cake, party, cigars… His son had his first cigar. All right, welcome, you know, welcome to manhood. Here you go. You’re a man now. You’re with the men, eating meat, drinking foofy cake, doing man stuff. And he said, “All right, I want each of you men to tell my son a life lesson.” They were giving life lessons. I was, like, close to last. I probably went the longest. Imagine. And so the guy who spoke before me was a prison guard. I don’t remember anything I said, but I remember this. I said, “There’s three kinds of people in the world. There’s people who learn from their father and their fathers and the elders. They learn the wisdom of the Bible, the wisdom of their parents.” And I say, “Those people will not go through life trouble free.” You listening, Micah? It’s important you listen to the wisdom of the elders. Those people will not go through life trouble-free, but they will have less trouble than others. Those people who you think, “Oh, they’re dumb. They’re a generation ahead of me. They know. They don’t know stuff.” Yeah, they know stuff. Being a teenager is no different now than it was in the 1820s. You know, you have cell phones now. They had, I don’t know, horses. I don’t know what they had. Got to watch those devil horses, man. They’re tough, but, yeah, so learn from the elders. So if you don’t learn from the elders, you will have unnecessary pain. Everybody has pain, but there will be pain that your stupidity will create. And sure enough, this kid, one of the things we told him that night is, “Hey, don’t sleep with a crazy woman.” There was a guy there who had been in prison, and he said, “Yeah, before I got straightened out, slept with a lot of crazy women.” Says, “That’s not good. That’s not good. Basically, don’t sleep with a crazy woman.” Well, about seven, eight months later, that boy’s in my backyard saying, you know, he’d had his first girlfriend. He said, “Yeah, we did some stuff.” And he’s like, “I wish we had never done that. I wish we had never done that.” Yeah, he didn’t learn from the elders. Second way you learn, though. And I had hope for him because he was like, “I wish I hadn’t done that.” And he said, “I’m not going to do that again.” He learned from his mistakes. If you’re too stupid to learn from the elders, then let the pain of mistakes teach you. Let the pain of mistakes teach you. And so I said, “Be the first kind of person. But if they’re not the first company, at least be the second kind of person. You’re going to make mistakes. Learn from them. Don’t waste a mistake. Don’t waste pain that you caused. If you did it and it really hurt, don’t do it again.” That’s why gifted carpenters don’t hit their thumb very often when they’re hammering. Why? “That hurts. That really hurts.” Well, stop doing it. I was out with my son one time. We’re playing catch. Ball tipped off his glove and hit him in the face. He was crying. I think I comforted him. I remember I comforted him. But what he remembers is not that I went over and comforted him. He remembers I looked at him and said, “That hurt?” He goes, “Yeah.” I go, “That’s what the glove’s for.” Right, Micah? If you don’t want to get hit in the face, catch the ball. Nobody ever got hit in the face by catching a ball. Catch it. That’s what the glove’s for. Catch the ball. You won’t get hit in the face. Guess what? Never got hit in the face again. Smart boy. He learned from his mistake. But then I pointed to the prison guard. I said, “If you don’t learn from the elders and you don’t learn from your mistakes, you’ll be hanging out with him.” That’s where you’re going, right? What’s the number one population in prison? Repeat offenders. One of my favorite lines from the movie years ago—Jim Carrey, Liar, Liar. Anybody see that movie? He got this curse put on him, and he was a habitual liar, and he got this curse put on him. His son made a wish that his dad would quit lying, and so he couldn’t not lie. So he had this perpetual criminal that he was always, you know, getting off as a seedy lawyer through loopholes. And so, secretary says, “So and so called again. He got arrested for, you know, going through the roof of a house and breaking in. He wants to know what your counsel is.” He says—I won’t use the profanity—he says, “Tell him, stop breaking the law, blinkety blink!” My wife and I, we always say that. Stop breaking the law. Hello, I don’t want to go back to prison again. Here’s a way. Don’t break into a house. Learn from the elders. Learn from your mistakes. Are you going to? Listen. There’s going to be pain. But who wants the maximum amount of pain? I’ll take the minimum amount of pain. Dear ones, you’re here tonight. This guy’s up here yakking at you about the wisdom, the greatest wisdom that the human race has ever known. And I don’t know if I’m a father or an instructor to you, probably somewhere in between that. But I do tell you in love, and I do love you and care for you. Learn from this. Let the words of Paul speak to you. Let God come to you in comfort and peace, not with the rod of discipline, but if you do, if He does, have the wisdom to learn from that. But, dear ones, listen to your Father. And if you want to be a spiritual mentor, mother, father to others, live it out. Live a life, transform. Be a Jerry Cease and a Bob Felts, and just live a life before young people, old people. By the way, can be a spiritual parent to somebody older than you. It can work that way. But live a life of the gospel, and you may not get recognition in this world, but God will use you to shape lives and make disciples. Jesus Christ said, “Make disciples.” He didn’t say, “Make converts;” he said, “Make disciples.” And then he even said, right as Paul said to Timothy, “Go. What I’ve taught you, you do.” And then he said, “And then entrust it to faithful men.” Paul teaches Timothy. He tells Timothy to entrust it to faithful men who then will teach other faithful men. You find somebody who teaches you, then take what they teach you and teach somebody else. And then tell them, right? If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day; if you teach man to fish… Listen, it’s not that hard to teach a man to fish. I mean, you watch these fishing shows on TV. You think it’s rocket science. No, put a worm on a hook. Not that hard. You can teach somebody how to fish. You can teach somebody how to follow Jesus. Say, “Here, do what I do.” Wouldn’t it be great to have a life that was worthy, where you could actually say and still be humble and say, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ”? Anyway, I won’t stop preaching. Help him, Jesus. Come get communion. That’ll stop me. Take this meal with thanksgiving. Jesus is here tonight and he showed us the good, good Father. And so let God father you. He wants to feed you. That’s one thing fathers do, they feed their kids. So come and eat. The post 2026.4.12 TFHC – Spiritual Fathers | 1 Corinthians 4:14-21 appeared first on The Firehouse Church in Bremerton, WA.

April 5, 2026, Message by P. Kevin Clancey Transcribed by Beluga AI. So John 20. “But Thomas (called “Twin”) was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples were telling him, ‘We’ve seen the Lord.'” I love that. We’ve seen the Lord. Listen, don’t believe this progressive yuck nonsense. Oh, Easter, winter… Every year, winter turns to spring and your garden regrows and caterpillars turn into butterflies. No, no, no. A dead guy got up and He was seen. More than seen, as we’ll read here. “So the disciples said, ‘We’ve seen the Lord.’ But then Thomas said to them, ‘If I don’t see the mark of nails in His hands, and then more than that, put my finger into the mark of the nails and put my hand into His side, I will never believe.’ A week later, His disciples were indoors again, and Thomas was with them. Even though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ “Then He said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and look at my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Don’t be faithless. Don’t be faithless. Believe.’ “And Thomas responded to him, ‘My Lord and my God.'” 24 But Thomas (called “Twin”) one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples were telling him, “We’ve seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “If I don’t see the mark of the nails in his hands, put my finger into the mark of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will never believe.” 26 A week later his disciples were indoors again, and Thomas was with them. Even though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and look at my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Don’t be faithless, but believe.” 28 Thomas responded to him, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:24-28, CSB) At least Thomas wasn’t halfway. “I don’t believe.” And his response to believing was worship. That’s what “My Lord and my God” is. It’s an acknowledgment. It’s an act of worship. It’s acknowledging that you’re God and I’m not. You’re smarter than me. You’re bigger than me; you’re better than me. And so, he proclaims, “You’re Lord and my God.” And then Jesus said, “Listen, because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are the Millers, the Johnsons, and the Kagawas, because they have not seen and yet believed.” 29 Jesus said, “Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” (John 20:29, CSB) That’s the new Poulsbo Firehouse Version translation of the Bible, 2026. Yeah. Blessed are you who haven’t seen. One another, you’re blessed because you have believed. The evidence, as Jamie showed us so well last week, is compelling. But you have come to the same conclusion that Thomas did. And right now we’re going to sing songs. And in those songs, we’re going to proclaim, “My Lord and my God,” the risen Jesus. “And Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of His disciples that are not even written in this book. But these are written”—why? John’s consistent. “So that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His name.” 30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. 31 But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:30-31, CSB) So, yay, good for you. You believe. So, let’s proclaim our love, our allegiance, our devotion, and by the way, our wonder. Never lose the wonder of Easter. Never lose the wonder of Jesus Christ and the resurrection. For a day, be a new Christian again. Be a baby Christian. Be a 4-year-old walking through the gates of Disneyland for the first time. So let’s worship. We praise you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We praise you tonight. We have seen enough to believe, so we lay our lives into your hands and we trust you. Lord, we don’t understand it all. Much confusion, much grief, much struggle. But like Peter said, where else am I going to go? You have the words of eternal life. There is no one but Jesus. There’s no place else to put our hope and trust and love. We thank you for a great salvation. We thank you that every year we gather together and we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. But actually, every Sunday we gather together and celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ—changed everything. We thank you tonight in Jesus’ Name, Amen. All right, we’re going to be in 1 Peter 1:3-4 tonight. Before I get there, tell you a story about a grandpa and his grandsons. This is not autobiography, autobiographical, but this Grandpa was a preacher, and his family was visiting from out of town Easter Sunday. He called all the kids forward to do a little Easter kid sermon. He got them up and said, “Anybody know what this week that came before Easter is called?” Nobody raised their hand. Finally, his little grandson raised his hand, and he said, “Yeah, Timmy, what’s this mean?” Timmy said, “It’s the Passover week where Jesus came to Jerusalem before He died.” Grandfather was so proud. “Yes, yes. Does anybody know what happened on what we call Good Friday?” Nobody raised their hands. Little Timmy raises his hand. Says, “All right, Timmy, what’s what?” “That’s when Jesus died on the cross for our sins.” Grandpa was so proud. So proud. “Sunday morning, here we are on Sunday. Why are we in church today? Anybody know what happened on Sunday morning?” Timmy was, you know, he wanted to wait and see if somebody else got the answer, but you know, they couldn’t. He raised his hand. Grandpa says, “What happened?” Says, “Jesus rose from the dead, Grandpa. He got out of the grave.” Grandpa’s like, “Ah, you’re right, you’re right.” Finally, Grandpa says, “And what does that mean for us?” Little Timmy raises his hand. Grandpa says, “What does it mean?” He says, “Well, if He saw His shadow, He was going back in. We’re going to have winter for six more weeks.” Close, so close. I read this testimony this morning from a friend of mine in Kansas City. And now my phone’s wigging out. Oh my gosh. Technology is wonderful, but sometimes it makes a promise that it doesn’t keep, and then it gets frustrating. Here it is. Michael Sullivan, a friend of mine in Kansas City, wrote this this morning, and I read it, and I was touched by it. And it’s not—it’s very subtle. It’s just a great story. And it is concerning the Muslim dreams. And we’ve talked about, I’ve talked about that before, that the last 30 years or so, Muslims all over the world have been having Jesus dreams. And Muslims believe that God reveals Himself—Allah, you know, Allah reveals Himself, they believe, through the Quran and a good imam, a good teacher telling you what the Quran means. So they trust that. But the other thing they believe is that God speaks in dreams. And so dreams are very powerful to Muslims. About 30, 40 years ago, Christians all across the West began to pray for what we call the 10/40 window, which is 10 degrees north of the equator to 40 degrees north of the equator. Throughout Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, this is where the majority of the world’s population lives. These are the huge populations of the world that live in that region. And it’s also the least Christian region of the world. In Northern Africa and the Middle East, Muslim. As you move further to the east, you get into regions that are strongly Hindu. And then a little further, you get into regions that are Buddhist. And those three major world religions, along with other things, Shintoism and others, exist in those regions. Christians began to pray that missionaries would find effectiveness in those areas and that there would be moves of God in those areas. And it’s been happening. One of the ways it’s been happening is throughout that region, these stories just keep coming up time and time again of Muslims having dreams where a man in white, this glorious man in white, appears to them and does something for them or tells them to go somewhere. And it’s Jesus. Jesus is revealing Himself to Muslims in dreams. And so here’s a story. “More than 20 years ago, I traveled to Israel with nine other ministers. During that amazing trip, we were invited into the home of a prominent leader within the Palestinian Authority. “At one point during the visit, he called for his wife and their 12-year-old son to join us. We were seated in a large room, chairs lining three of the four walls, forming a quiet circle of attention. With a gentle smile, he nudged his wife and asked her to share her story. She was radiant, steady, yet carrying something deeper than words. “She began, ‘Over 12 years ago, I was pregnant with my son and facing serious life-threatening complications. One night I had a vivid dream. A holy man dressed in white… He came out of a tomb. He walked toward me, placed His hand on my shoulder, and said, “Everything is going to be all right.”‘ “She paused, her eyes softening as she glanced toward her son. ‘And here we are.’ “Then everything grew still. She looked slowly around the room, making eye contact with each of us. Tears gathered in her eyes. Not of fear, but of recognition—settled knowing. And quietly, almost reverently, she said,”—I love this line—”‘It wasn’t Muhammad who came out of that tomb.'” Dear ones, it wasn’t Muhammad that came out of that tomb. “Her husband beamed with a humble kind of pride, and she and his boy left the room. Happy Easter to you all.” It wasn’t Krishna who came out of that tomb. It wasn’t Buddha who came out of that tomb. It certainly wasn’t the God of scientific naturalism who came out of that tomb. Every world religion, every atheistic religion, which is what scientific naturalism, modern atheism is, it has dogmas, it has creeds, it has—oh my goodness, does it have hard-headed, stiff-necked fundamentalists. Every world religion says basically this: you need to follow that way to get either a good life, to get a ticket to a better afterlife, to avoid being in trouble, whatever—you need to follow that way. Only one man came and said, “I’m the Way.” And okay, why should we believe Him? I’ll tell you. A dead man got up, in history. Now, other people have been raised from the dead in His name. But He got up, as He said, on His own accord. That doesn’t mean He drove out of the tomb in a Honda. He got up; nobody laid hands on Him, nobody said a prayer over Him, nobody anointed Him with oil, nobody fasted and prayed for Him. They had all given up hope because they knew what you and I know, right? Dead’s dead. Dead’s dead. No. The book of Acts said they could not hold the Author of life. Death could not hold the Author of life. And He rose. And it is simply the most amazing fact in hhis wild, crazy world universe that we live in, and it has changed everything. All creation is now on the road to healing, redemption, wholeness, and kingdom glory because that day it all got raised with Him. Our resurrection is based upon His resurrection. Our beloved animals’ resurrection is based upon His resurrection. And here’s the amazing theme: seems like Romans says their resurrection through our resurrection. Just as we are drawn up into Christ, so our beloved—so this worldly creation, this world is drawn up into Christ through us. Because God gave Adam and Eve what? Stewardship over this creation. You know what Jesus did for humanity? He took it back. So your beloved pets will be there. I tell my wife. I tell my wife, “Your dogs, your beloved dogs. When you go, they will come. You know the greeting you always loved? They’ll be there to give you that greeting. Of the four dogs we had, three of them will be there.” Poor Barney. Barney the Beagle. I don’t have much hope for Barney the Beagle. But the other three were flawed, but they were Christian dogs. They were saved. If they were redeemed, if they were redeemed in you—if you loved them. Did you love them? Did you love the goldfish, Isaiah? Did you love the hamster? What was the hamster’s name? Sarah. Sarah will be there, buddy. Sarah 1 and Sarah 2. Did Isaiah know it was Sarah II, or did Sarah 1 die and just replaced it real quick? So, yeah, all right. One of my favorite Easter verses is 1 Peter 1:3-4. 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead 4 and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you. (1 Peter 1:3-4, CSB) May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord God. 14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. (Psalms 19:14, CSB) Praise be. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. How can God be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ also be equal with the God and Father? Well, it says He’s the Lord. And that word is reserved for God. And it’s a mystery that God is one. And yet He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And the Son, who is fully God, yet also fully human, submits to the Father. Why? He’s modeling to us what humanity is called to do. And yet He’s also modeling to us who God is. And then the Spirit comes, and the Spirit is God. Because the Spirit knows the mind of God, gives us the mind of Christ, the mind of God, and draws us into Christ, who lifts us to the Father. And the Trinity just works and envelops us into this beautiful unity with God. And Jesus says, “Father, I’ll pray that they be one as you and I are one. And they’ll be one in us.” And God is just bringing, reconciling all things to Himself through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And so He’s worthy of our praise. Now we praise God because He is worthy of our praise. And you notice we’re created to praise worthy things. I remember my wife and I went one night on our little date night. We went to see the musical Hamilton, and we saw Jamie and Sophia and Riley there. You know, when they were all done with that wonderful performance, that wonderful musical performance, you know, portraying a slice of American history… and it was done well. It was great. It was wonderful. And what did people do? They got on their feet, and they gave honor and praise. And I knew I was taping the Super Bowl, and I was preaching up here and, you know, just as I’m winding up my sermon, I hear fireworks. I really didn’t want to know the end of the game, but if I was going to know the end of the game, I knew those fireworks meant it ended how I wanted it to end. Nobody in the Pacific Northwest was setting off fireworks for the Patriots, so people were celebrating the achievements of young, phenomenal athletes. Now, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with that. It’s an expression of appreciation. However, there’s plenty wrong with making those things idols. I remember I was with some buddies and big Seahawks fans. They said, “Are you going to cancel church if the Seahawks are in the Super Bowl?” It’s like, no. I am a big Seahawk fan, but I am not an idolater. Jesus comes before the Super Bowl all the time. All the time. Now, you know, if Jill interrupts me for the game, I don’t—that’s second. That’s something else. Like, she comes before Him most days of the year, but not in the Super Bowl. It’s like… So praise is befitting to things that are praiseworthy. It’s okay to tell your wife she’s beautiful. It’s more than okay. It’s good. It’s okay to tell your husband he’s wonderful. It’s okay when your children achieve well, to say, “Good job.” It’s okay even, you know, to say to your dog, “Atta boy.” But God is the One, the creator of all those things. We always, as Christians, we always take our praise from the creation and acknowledge the Creator. Who made those actors gifted? Who made those athletes? Who gave those athletes that muscle memory and that great intelligence so they could perform that way? Who made my wife and gave her to me? Who made my children and gave them to me? And so, we praise God because He’s worthy. We don’t praise God because somehow, He needs it to feel okay about Himself. God’s not up there going, “Oh, man, this holy week was rough. You know, there was Muslim violence and things going on in the world. And oh my gosh. And you know, I don’t know what’s happening here. And trying to get a hold of the President of the United States, but he keeps hitting that send button. It’s like, don’t do it, man. You know, he won’t listen. You know, my Spirit…” Anyway, just… He’s not up there going, “Oh, this is tough.” And then all of a sudden He goes, “Oh, shoot. This morning, Isaiah got up and said, ‘Thank you, Lord, and I praise you.’ I feel much better about myself. I’m so glad Isaiah gave me an attaboy.” No, He doesn’t need that. He likes it when you do it. But here’s another reason we praise: you actually become like that which you worship. You become like that which you focus on. Whatever you put your attention on, you’re drawn to. That’s why when we teach our children to drive, we don’t tell them to look at the big boulder on the side of the road that they don’t want to hit. We don’t tell them to always pay attention to their rearview mirror. Glance at the rearview mirror, glance at the boulder. But what do we tell them to do? In fact, we don’t even tell them to look at the road right in front of you. Right? When you drive like that, you’re going to be driving very erratic, and it’s a little counterintuitive, right, because where am I going? No, if you want to actually take the turn smoothly and get to where you want to go, what do you do? You lift your head and you look down the road. You focus on where you’re going. You focus on the goal, and that gets you there. And so, when you praise God, it is actually a means of becoming like Him. I bet none of you came to church tonight completely self satisfied. “I’m about as good as I can be, you know, I’m about as good as I can be.” No, you know, you’re a work in progress. If I asked each one of you, “Do you want to be a better person?” everybody would raise their hands, you know. Now, you know, some days I feel pretty good about myself. Some nights, some mornings, I wake up and I roll over and I put my arm around Jill and I go, “Lord, she’s so lucky.” I mean, you know. You know I’m talking about, Brian. Yeah. So anyway, but I realize… I realize that I want to be a better person. I pray it all the time. I want to be like Jesus. I say it every couple Sundays; I say it in here. We want to leave this room more like Jesus than when we came in. Praise will get you there. There’s other things that will get you there. Humbly serving others, letting the Spirit… Filling yourself with the Bible so the Spirit can use Scriptures in your life. Having active communion, not only through praise, but through prayer with God. All these things will make you more like Jesus. So, praise be to the triune God. And here it goes. Because of His great mercy. His great mercy. God has great mercy. God has forgiven our sins. And we needed the forgiveness of sins. God has extended mercy not because of anything we did. We didn’t climb mountains. We didn’t swim oceans. We didn’t earn a merit badge. We didn’t do all these accomplishments. We didn’t get an A on the report card. We just came like the thief on the cross. Dear ones, the difference between the goodness of Jesus and our goodness is much greater than the difference between our goodness and the goodness of the thief on the cross. And just like the thief on the cross, we just have to say, “I’ve messed up my life.” How do you know? “Well, hello? But today, will you remember me?” Which was his way of saying what? Mercy. And what did God extend for him? Mercy. God’s great mercy. Jesus Christ died for the forgiveness of sins. Your sins in the Name of Jesus are forgiven. Therefore, repent and believe. Listen, it’s one thing to say, “God, I want you to forgive my sins.” There’s two kinds of sorrow. One’s a fake sorrow; one’s a true sorrow. True sorrow is, I’m sorry. I truly am sorry for what I’ve done. Because I recognize I’ve hurt you. I’ve hurt other people. I’ve hurt myself. What I did was wrong. There’s another kind of sorrow, and it’s fake sorrow. I’m sorry I got caught, right? “Do you know how fast you were going?” And you, precious Christian, you look at that officer without any hesitation at all—you lie. “No, I don’t know how fast I was going. How fast? Oh, golly gee.” And what are you thinking all the time? Dang. Wish I’d seen him. Not dang, I wish I was a better driver. Sorry we got caught. That’s not real sorrow. That’s not repentance. I got caught one time for smoking marijuana. Don’t worry. Since last week, I’ve given it up. I was a teenager, and I was with a friend, and we were up in the car parked out in the woods. And this cop comes up, and he busts us. He goes, “Here’s how I knew what you guys were doing.” He said, “Sitting down the hill, I’m looking up, I wonder what that car’s doing. And I kept seeing these little lights go on, like, oh, I know what they’re doing.” So he came up, and it was my marijuana, not my friend’s. So actually, I didn’t get busted for smoking marijuana. I got busted for possessing marijuana. And so I went before the judge, and he said, “Well, okay, you know, you got, you know, this will go on your record. You got to pay a fine, or you can go to, you know, six Wednesday night classes of drug education, and this would be completely wiped off your record.” I’m down, I’m down. So I went to six Wednesday night classes of drug education. And what they taught us in there—it was actually a very good class. They taught us what all the different drugs do to you, which is very helpful. It’s like, okay, you know, they educated us. And then they said, “How many of you got caught for weed?” Raised my hand. This poor little old lady was in there. Her brat son was growing weed in her backyard. So she got busted, not him. “Well, you know, I didn’t know what it is. I thought he was growing a flower, you know.” So anyway… You knew marijuana was on the way to legalization. You knew they didn’t take it that seriously because the lady said, “All right, how many of you got caught because you were sitting in a car smoking outside? Don’t do that. Cops will see that all the time. Here’s how not to get busted. Smoke at home.” Well, then my parents will bust me, but okay. But, you know, and she basically didn’t tell us marijuana was bad and we shouldn’t do it. Just said, “Here’s how not to get in the system, you know, smoke at home.” And I wasn’t sorry for my habit at that time. I was sorry for it later. In fact, the teacher emphatically said, because the classes were three hours long, we got like a 20, 30 minute break, you know, halfway through. And she said, “Listen, nobody go out to your car and get high during the break.” I did every time, because, I mean, it’s a three-hour class. How are you going to endure that without a buzz? You’re thinking, “That’s my pastor?” That’s your pastor. That’s a new story. I know. And you’ve been all these years. All these years. So I could tell you how not to get caught. So go home, you and your mom got out the back porch, enjoy some Maui Wowie. So, no. Repent and believe. Later in my life, and you’ve heard that story, I repented. I said no. I want Jesus, not addiction. So, Jesus is Lord God. In His great mercy through Jesus our Lord. He is fully God and fully man. He conquered sin, He conquered death, He conquered the devil. And so repenting and believing is believing in Jesus our Lord. Thomas said, “My Lord and my God.” He is not a modern evangelical in this sense. He did not say, “My Savior. And maybe someday my Lord.” Never said, “My Savior.” Do not disconnect Savior and Lord as some people do. There’s actually theological movements that do this. Do not disconnect Savior and Lord in the Bible. Jesus is your Lord. He is your King. You align yourself with His kingdom. I mean, He’s your Master. You’re going to have to serve somebody. Serve Jesus. Serve the One who conquered sin, conquered death, conquered Satan, and who loves you enough to die for you. We used to go out on high school campuses with Young Life, and one of our credos was “Earn the right to be heard.” In other words, go out there and don’t just start shouting the gospel. Go out there and love these kids, develop relationships. And then when they trust you, you’ve earned the right to tell that. You know, “Why you do this, man?” Because of Jesus. You’ve earned the right to be heard. Your kids, you know? My dad used to say, “Do what I say, not what I do.” You know, he said it kind of humorously, but that’s—but it doesn’t work, right? And so Jesus earned the right to be heard. He earned the right to be heard. And all creation then, praise be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In His great mercy, He gave us a new birth. 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Peter 1:3, CSB) All creation gets to be born again. So mercy is the forgiveness of sins. Grace is the new birth. Grace now is a new life that has come inside of us. It is the power to live a new life. It is Holy Ghost now living inside of us and making us like we all said earlier, we want to be more like Jesus. How do we get to be more like Jesus? I gave, you know, worship God, receive the Holy Spirit, step one. You know, one of the most popular phrases today when people choose sexually deviant lifestyles is, “Hey, be your authentic self.” I’ve seen Kevin’s authentic self. Let me tell you what Kevin’s authentic self is: selfish, greedy, manipulative, mean, sarcastic, insecure, addicted. I used to tell people, they say, “What have you been addicted to?” I said, “I think everything but gambling, workaholism, and compulsive exercise.” You know, I just… I mean, Stevin, sorry to say, I’ve never seen a smiling jogger. Never seen a smiling bike rider either, especially going uphill. I see grimaces. So I pass them in my car, pass them in my Camaro. Look at my rearview mirror. Oh, that must be rough. But really, really, I mean, it’s like, what haven’t I been addicted to? What haven’t I? You know, I got that—I don’t know what that is about some people… if a little bit is good, right? A lot is better. And it doesn’t work that way. A lot enslaves you. And so I don’t want to be my authentic self. But when you’re born again by the Spirit, you get—to use today’s parlance—a new authentic self. And you know who that authentic self is? Jesus. Because the Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus. Now I want to be my authentic born again self. And in fact, the Bible says we are seated with Him in the heavenlies. So let me tell you, once you come to Jesus, what the rest of your life is going to be: becoming who you already are. Because that’s what it says. This inheritance is in heaven for you. It’s imperishable, unfading, unblemished, and it’s kept in heaven for you. You are already—you know, the Bible says you will become like Him. But in God’s mind, in God’s view of time and history, that is such a sure thing. He doesn’t wait. You have already entered the kingdom. And your inheritance is sure in Him. It is sure in Him. You have an inheritance. You know, when I was a kid, I always coveted my friends who were richer than me because I didn’t know that most of the world was poorer than me. And so, you know, my friends who had more toys—I told you the story about my daughter, right? You know, she got concerned, she finally kind of reached that realization that, hey, mom and dad could die. And her aunt and uncle, my sister and brother-in-law, lived in town. And we were both middle class, but they were a notch—they had more toys than us. They had a boat. They had a trampoline. They had a swimming pool. They had a big screen TV. We had none of those things. We didn’t need any of those things. They had them. You don’t want a boat. You want friends with a boat. You don’t want a pool. You want friends with a pool. We’re the smart ones. But anyway, you know, Katelyn was all… she was crying, you know, and she’s like, “Well, Mommy, what if Daddy dies?” And you know, just like, “Well, Mommy will be here. She’ll take care of you. And it’s highly unlikely that until you’re, you know, really old, Daddy’s gonna die.” “Well, Mommy, what if you die?” “Well, Daddy will be here.” And then it dawned on her. She says, “Oh, my gosh, what if you both die? What’s going to happen?” And Jill’s like, “Honey, that’s so unlikely, you know. You don’t have to worry. Don’t worry about that. But if it did, you would go and live with Uncle Barry and Aunt Colleen.” “Really?” “Yeah. It’s written down.” “Yes!” Now we have to watch our back. Now we have to watch our back. Now we’re talking. So, you got a rich daddy. You lose out on nothing. You lose out on nothing. How many horses you want? You know? How many bike trails you want to ride, Brian? You lose out on nothing. What do you want to see? How many debates you want to get into, Jamie? What do you want to see? Dear ones… all creation gets to be born again. The Spirit makes us like Jesus in character and like Jesus in power. That’s our new authentic self. That’s our new nature. Love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. Well said. We want to be more like Jesus. It’s happening. But not only do we get to be more like Jesus in character, we get to be more like Jesus in power. Heal the sick, cast out demons, raise the dead, prophesy, speak in new languages, administrate, show mercy, love. We can operate in the power of God. One of my heroes of the faith, John Wimber. I’ve told the story before, but John Wimber became a Christian. He was a rock musician and producer way back in the early days. He was helping produce the Righteous Brothers, if anybody remembers them. But his life was miserable, right? He’s living in the music scene, the Hollywood scene. He’s drinking, he’s smoking, his marriage is on the rocks. He’s got four little kids at home. He’s spending all his time away from home because, I mean, the guy’s not stupid. He’s got four little kids at home. But, you know, his wife’s miserable, and she’s unhappy in the marriage, and she’s telling him, “I want a divorce.” And that just makes him sadder. And so he drinks more. It gets worse. One day, he’s out walking and wondering what he’s going to do with his life, and he sees a guy wearing a sandwich board sign. And the sandwich board sign on the front says, “I’m a fool for Christ.” And Wimber said, “Yeah, I looked at that and I thought, you sure are, man.” He says, “But then the guy walked by me on the backside. It said this: Whose fool are you?” He goes, “Huh.” Well, his wife, in her desperation, started to go to a neighbor’s house who was a Christian, and he had a home Bible study. And she was drawn to Jesus. And Wimber said, “She changed. She was no longer bitter, no longer angry, even though I was still the same guy. She was loving, she was kind.” And he goes, “What’s going on?” And she said, “Well, come with me to this Bible study.” “I don’t want none of that.” “Well, come.” And he came, and he met a man by the name of Gunner Payne. And Gunner Payne was this gentle Christian neighbor, Not ordained, but just a godly man. And through Wimber, going to that Bible study led him to Christ, and he became a Christian. So he started going to Gunner Payne’s church. And it was a Quaker church, a Friends church. And they were cessationists, you know, and they were—early ’60s, suit and tie, organ music, church. Wimber would go, and he said, and this is back in the early 60s, so you have to understand different culture, right? He’d go to church, and the first Sunday he went to church, he goes, “Where are the ashtrays?” You know, he was hanging out in bars and nightclubs, and everywhere he went, there were ashtrays. He had not smoked for an hour and a half for a long time. And then he’s a professional musician. Now he’s listening to some lady play the organ like she had mittens on and playing these, you know, 1600s songs. And he’s like, “Oh, I guess. I guess, you know…” And he had picked up an old King James Bible, and he thought, “Well, the Bible says you got to suffer. I guess that’s what this is, you know.” And every Sunday, you know, he’d have his big King James Bible. He was reading it, and the Bible was impacting his life. Not even the stuff Gunner Payne was teaching him, you know, and he was reading the Gospels, and he’s reading about these miracles. And he was like, “Oh, my goodness, what’s happening here?” And so he’s outside, and he’s smoking a cigarette. Because he was smoking a cigarette, nobody would ever talk to him. And now here at the Firehouse, if we see you smoking, I’ll invite you over to my house on Monday night. You know, come, you know, have a cigar with us. But anyway, nobody would talk to him. Finally, this one elder came up to talk to him. He said, “That’s not right.” So, he comes up and he talks to him, and he says, “Brother, have you been washed in the blood of the lamb?” Good Christianese. And he thought, “Well, that sounded gross. Is that what they do here? Is that what I got to do next?” He said, “Well, I don’t know. I don’t even know what that means.” The guy told him, “Well, it means your sins have been forgiven by Jesus.” “Oh, I wish you had just said that. Yeah. Yeah, that’s happened. Yeah.” Then Wimber asked his question, and he said, “When do we get to do the stuff?” That became kind of a Vineyard statement—doing the stuff. “When do we get to do this stuff?” And the guy said, “What stuff?” He said, “The stuff in your book.” And he says, you know, “Like, be good people?” “Yeah, that. But the other stuff.” “Well, what do you mean, the other stuff?” “You know, lay hands on the sick, raise the dead, all that. When do we get to do the stuff?” And the guy said, “Oh, we don’t do that anymore.” And I love this line. Just always thought this was the greatest line. Nobody else thinks it’s funny, but I thought it was funny maybe because of my past. Wimber just looks at him, he goes—he points to the church—he goes, “You mean, for that I gave up drugs?” But anyway, eventually he started the Vineyard full of signs and wonders and miracles. They got to do the stuff. That’s what it means. That’s what grace means. That’s what it means to be born again, like Jesus in character, like Jesus in power. And now we have a living hope. What does that mean? Our hope starts now. It’s hope for a better me, as we’ve already talked about. It’s hope that we grow into our authentic selves. It’s hope for our dear ones, that though they are lost and though they are struggling, they’ll be found. And even if they aren’t lost, we know that they struggle. And we know that the same hope that I have, they have. The same Jesus who rose for me, rose for them. And it’s hope for the world. And if you think the world is getting worse, you’re wrong. You look at all the chaos. People always look—people are just prisoners of the moment. There’s a lot of chaos going on in the world. I don’t deny that. People look at that and go, “Oh, my gosh, I long for the good old days.” No, you don’t. I’m old enough to remember the ’60s. You know what we were doing in the ’60s? Building bomb shelters because the Russians were going to nuke us. You know what we were doing in the late ’70s and the early ’80s? Experiencing housing rates at 18% interest rates because inflation was out of control, and gasoline lines. And you look back at the ’60s and go, “The ’60s were good.” Oh, really? How many political assassinations happened then? “Well, the ’50s were good.” Yeah, KKK were still heroes. “What about the greatest generation? My parents’ generation?” Oh, you mean the generation that endured two world wars and the Great Depression? Great times. “Yeah, but the people in the early 1900s, they could look back on the good old days.” Yeah, the Civil War. No, people who think everything’s terrible now and was great in the past just have bad memories or know nothing of history. I’ve used this example before. You think now is bad and the past was great. Good. Transport yourself back 300 years, have a toothache, and go to the dentist. Then come back and tell me about that experience. “Well, I had a bad toothache, and I went to the local blacksmith. He had no anesthesia, but he had a bottle of whiskey. And then he had a pair of pliers. And then I got an infection that almost killed me. And there were no antibiotics, but I barely made it. It was great. It was, man, the good old days.” No, ever since the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, the world’s been getting better. You do not want to live in the Roman Empire, or the Greek world, or anywhere in the East during that time, and certainly not in the jungles. Jesus Christ changed history. All science, all culture, all medicine, all civility that we have in this fallen world, I say, is because of Him. He changed history. So we have hope. And we have a hope that is forever. It is a hope that is imperishable, undefiled, unspoiled. It is an inheritance that will never end. This isn’t the real game. It’s real in this sense: This game determines the next one. I’ve been watching the Final Four in college, and here’s the deal. You lose, you’re out. You win, you go further. But we’re playing a game we cannot lose because we’re with the One who rose from the dead. And this inheritance is kept for us by Jesus Christ Himself. Dear ones, you have entered the kingdom of God, and one day you will inherit it. One day you will die, but you will not die. Jesus says that so clearly. It’s like one of those statements that seems confusing, but it’s so clear: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will never die.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. (John 11:25, CSB) And then He says, “But though they die, yet they live.” And the testimony of many people, after many people, is this: “I never lost my consciousness. I went from laying in that hospital bed,” or “I went from that mangled car,” or “I went from that fire. And all I knew is I’d never felt better. And then it got better from there.” Because what? That man who came out of the tomb for that woman I spoke of at the beginning, He came out of the tomb for you. And He’s going to walk up and He’s going to come to your face. You say, how can He do that with everybody? It’s not a problem for Him. And He’s going to walk up and He’s going to come to your face. And because you repented, because you were like, you were better than Thomas, you hadn’t seen but you believed, He’s going to say, “Blessed are you, my son. Blessed are you, my daughter. Well done, good and faithful servant. Now enter the inheritance that I won for you, that the Spirit guided you to, and that my Father has prepared for you.” World without end. Christians used to say that. World without end, life without death, pain, suffering, sorrow or grief. The pains of this world are a certain path to the glory of this world and the glory of the next. And they are inseparable. You’ve got to go through the pain, but they are also incomparable. No grief you’ve ever experienced, no dark place you’ve ever been to, is in any way comparable to the glorious light that will bathe you forever. So, dear ones, praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In His great mercy, He’s given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that’s imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you. 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead 4 and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you. (1 Peter 1:3-4, CSB) Appetizer time. One day we will sit down at the feast with our King, as He’ll marry us all as one unit, not polygamy, as one bride. And we’ll be at His table. And that will be a glorious feast. This is a foretaste of heaven. It’s an announcement that your sins have been forgiven. It is filling of the Holy Spirit, filling of that power to live that new life. And it’s a foretaste of heaven. And so come and eat the food of God for the people of God. The post 2026.4.5 TFHC – A Living Hope | 1 Peter 1:3-4 appeared first on The Firehouse Church in Bremerton, WA.

March 29, 2026, Message by Jamie Johnson Transcribed by Beluga AI. Okay. Well, thank you, Kevin, for letting me share some thoughts tonight. I had a couple of thoughts of what I wanted to share, but being Passover, I thought it was also fitting, like Josh did, to talk about the death and resurrection of Jesus. And so, we’re going to talk about it based on some reasoning, logic, and historical evidence. And why this topic is important to me—a few years ago, when my first student went through mock trial—so, not Sean—my first group I led through mock trial, I came across a series on RightNow Media called Cold Case Christianity, which is by J. Warner Wallace. He looks at the historical evidence of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection from the perspective of a forensic detective. I thought that was pretty interesting because I hadn’t heard that too much. And then also, I’m really interested right now in the idea of the intersection between culture and religion, and why they’re not integrated anymore. Often, I think Christians are accused of having blind faith, and I think we often accept that as a truth. And having a blind faith is not the same as having a reasonable faith in something that is probably true. We have reasonable faith in a lot of things that are probably true, so why can’t we apply that to Christianity as well? For example, I believe my grandmother’s maiden name is Maudlin, because that’s the name that’s written on my mom’s birth certificate for her mother. My relatives also believe that her name, maiden name, was Maudlin. And I have never asked my grandmother, she’s now gone, what her maiden name was. So I don’t have a personal eyewitness account of hearing her say that, but I think it’s reasonable for me to believe that that was her maiden name. Perhaps Christians should approach the gospel from a similar perspective and have more confidence in what we believe. So we’ll look at two things tonight. One is reliability of the Gospel authors from a forensic perspective, which is J. Warner Wallace’s idea. And then we’ll look at rational evidence and some forensics from The Case for Easter, which was by Lee Strobel. And I really liked when Ats used some slides that showed, I think, it was a Rembrandt painting. So you’re going to see a bunch of different Western civilization paintings of Jesus’s perspective. A Life on Jesus, okay, so this being the Last Supper. And so that’s where we’re starting from, is the Last Supper. One thing before we get to the forensic idea is this notion of presuppositions. We all have presuppositions, these axioms that we believe are true, that are true because they are true, and they can’t be proven. We forget that we have these inherent beliefs. And one of those beliefs currently that people have is that supernatural things are not possible, that they cannot occur, whereas in the past people had believed that that was something that was true. So with that presupposition in mind for skepticism, we have to ask ourselves, are we willing to believe in the notion that supernatural things can occur. And since you’re all here, and it would appear that you believe that Jesus is God, you don’t have this presupposition dilemma. But that is a problem for people with whom we are conversing about whether Jesus is real or not. So what are the odds that Jesus could have died and come back to life? We’ll answer that in a minute. Okay, so for part one: reliability of the Gospel authors from a forensic perspective. When we look at evidence from J. Warner Wallace, being a detective, he was saying that there are two kinds of evidence that we use in court. One is circumstantial evidence, and the other is eyewitness evidence. These are what we use to determine whether the facts presented in the case are truthful. So the best evidence is eyewitness testimony because that person was there and saw it and can talk about it. The other one, the circumstantial evidence, is also called indirect evidence. And that’s everything else, like DNA sampling, fingerprints, all that sort of thing. That’s all circumstantial evidence. In his situation as a forensic detective working on cold cases, all of his evidence was circumstantial or indirect because there was nobody around that had been an eyewitness to whatever the 30-year-old case had been. So, do we discount circumstantial evidence in court just because we don’t have an eyewitness? And he would say, no, absolutely not. The jury is asked to consider both direct evidence, eyewitness, and indirect evidence, circumstantial, both as valid forms of evidence. Okay, so if that’s fine, then let’s see what we have in the Bible for both eyewitness accounts and then circumstantial evidence. And the first one is, are your eyewitnesses credible? There are four check marks to determine whether the eyewitnesses are credible. And so in your mind, I want you to think about the apostles that were there with Jesus and then wrote the gospel and told us about it. So were they at the scene? Did they actually observe the situation? That’s number one. Is there a way to corroborate the witness’s story? Are there other people who verify that what they’re saying is true, that they say the same thing? Has the witness changed their story over time, or are they consistent in their story? And could the witness somehow be biased or motivated to lie? If those four things check out, then we can trust that the witness’s statement is pretty reliable. Now, keep in mind that different eyewitnesses of the same situation are not going to have the exact same story. There will be differences in details. And actually, J. Warner Wallace says that’s really a good sign because they shouldn’t have the exact same details. If they did, then it’s likely that they’re colluding together, and now you need to mistrust it once more. The variation in their accounts is the gold standard or the hallmark of reliable eyewitness statements. So don’t let the differences that we see in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John disturb you. It’s actually a good thing. And the second thing is: could they have been conspiring to tell us this story, like they had they made up this story and it’s a conspiracy theory? So, for a conspiracy theory, you need five things. We shall remember this the next time we have a Covid. One, we need the smallest number of conspirators . 120 people, 500 people. There are different accounts of how many people actually saw Jesus at various times alive after He died. So that’s not a very small number. Two, you want to hold a conspiracy theory for the shortest amount of time possible so that you don’t have to extend your lie over a long period of time. Unfortunately for the apostles, the theory is now at 2,000 years, and so that’s a really long time to hold to your conspiracy theory. Or in their case, before they died, right? A couple, you know—60, 70, 80. They also need to have really good communication between each other so they can keep their story tight, which they didn’t because they were traveling and being sent all over the world, and their communication was letters. It would be better if they had kept it within the family and not among strangers. The further out the relationships, the harder it is to keep the story tight. And so that’s no good. And the last thing is, in order for the conspiracy theory to remain solid, the people that are conspiring should feel no pressure to change their story. And we know from how the apostles died, there was a lot of pressure for them to change their story, and they didn’t. So it’s perfectly acceptable for us to conclude that a conspiracy theory is not what they were trying to accomplish because they did keep their story consistent over time with a large amount of people with very little communication amongst them. They were not family, and they were under extreme pressure. That leads us back to our evidence idea, so let’s throw away the conspiracy theory idea. I don’t know if you get that too much these days in terms of a refutation for why Jesus isn’t somebody’s preferred God. But for us to convince ourselves, do we think there is enough evidence portrayed in the biblical stories to sustain the truth of it? J. Warner Wallace says there are four levels of standards for criminal trials for evidence, and the highest evidence is for felonies or murders. In that case, you need to be able to believe beyond a reasonable doubt. There’s never 100% certainty of facts, and nobody ever tries to say beyond a shadow of a doubt; it’s a reasonable doubt. Oftentimes, when the lawyers pick jurors, they’re looking for someone whose mind can be changed one way or the other because if somebody’s very dogmatic in their perspective for or against this crime, they usually aren’t picked for the jury. So keep that in mind the next time you have to go to jury duty. Be very dogmatic about what you believe, and you’ll have a good chance of not being picked. So we’re looking for a reasonable doubt. And if that’s good enough for a criminal trial, why can’t that be good enough for if we put Jesus on trial? And furthermore, be prepared, as you are already, for an attack on Christian beliefs. Because just because people have refutation doesn’t mean that their side is true or that your side is wrong. And often the thing that is your strongest piece of evidence is the thing they will attack the most. In our case, the case is being made that the historicity of Jesus is the strongest piece of evidence that we have and therefore the most attacked. So expect possibly somebody to say, “It’s a conspiracy theory. These guys made it up. You don’t have enough evidence to back up your claims,” or they attack your strongest argument. And a little fact about the reliability of the eyewitnesses. Are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John reliable? Were they really there? And how can we date the books? Were these gospels written early enough that they could have been written by people who actually did see Jesus? We know that Luke wasn’t directly involved with Jesus’s ministry. There were a few things that help us with understanding the book of Luke and Acts. But we can place the time frame for when Luke wrote his book, which was likely around 60 A.D., so 30 years or so after Jesus died and came back. And the book of Luke, which we know he wrote before he wrote Acts because he said so at the beginning of Acts, was probably written in the early 50s. Things that help us know that it wasn’t any time after 70 A.D. that he wrote Acts are that he didn’t mention the destruction of the temple or the siege of Jerusalem. If those things haven’t happened when you write your book, then it’s likely that you won’t mention that. He does mention several people’s deaths in Acts, but he doesn’t describe the death of Paul or James or Peter. And we believe that Paul died between 64 to 67 A.D. So again, if it didn’t happen while he was writing it, then it’s likely his book predates 64 A.D. and that’s where they get down to about 60 A.D. An interesting thing that he writes in there is that he writes in chronological order, and people compare that to the book of Mark, which isn’t necessarily written in chronological order, but yet he references Mark. So we believe that Mark was written before Luke. Okay, so in terms of like these overlapping stories, and does it fit into the timeline of facts that we know outside of the Bible, the Gospels pass that timeline test of overlapping stories. Okay, and then are they internally consistent and are they externally consistent? So in crime cases, you will really like to get unintentional eyewitness support in which another witness can fill in gaps for details that this witness didn’t mention. We talked about that variation in eyewitnesses’ stories. Also having more than one witness helps establish the validity of evidence. A classic example of this from the Bible is when Caiaphas asked Jesus, “Who hit you?” when He’s being tortured. We don’t see in one of the Gospels where Jesus actually had been blindfolded. And so it would make more sense to understand that He didn’t know who hit Him because He was blindfolded, versus in one, the other account when it seemed ridiculous that He didn’t know who hit Him because He was being hit by somebody right there. Another thing that Warner Wallace points out is that there are gospels that were written after these gospels that we take as canon. And in those gospels—I don’t know about them, but this was interesting to me—they mention Jerusalem, but they didn’t know the names of the local area, the towns, or the typical names for Jewish people at the time of Jesus. And so that adds to some skepticism about whether those particular gospels are valid or not, whereas the gospels that we have, they have all the names right, and the Jewish people’s names right. External evidence that would help us would be something like archaeology. Is there any archaeological evidence that points towards Jesus’s situation? And he brings up the Book of Mormon. I didn’t know this either, that there are names in the Book of Mormon, places in America where things happened, and yet we haven’t had any evidence, archeological evidence for that, and it’s been two, almost 150 years at least since the Book of Mormon came down. And so that doesn’t cooperate for them. But we do have in the New Testament the claims that are verified by non-Christian authors, such as Tacitus, who said things about Jesus. So even if there had not been any gospels, there are still enough robust non-Christian authors from that time period who do make comments about Jesus and Christians. So we have internal evidence validation and then external evidence as well. Another thing that is important is the chain of custody of your evidence. Thinking back to that, like did they keep their story up over a long period of time? Multiple reports written over time that link the evidence to the past is essential. And in the case of the Gospel of John, two of John’s students were Ignatius and Polycarp. They became local leaders in the church and wrote letters, and they had their own students. One of Polycarp’s students was Irenaeus. Is that how you even say it? Irenaeus? Irenaeus. Irenaeus. He also was consistent with what Polycarp had told him. Polycarp was consistent with what John had told him, and John was consistent with what Jesus had told him. So that’s just taking us up to about 200 AD, which I think is a pretty good example of seeing that chain of custody handed down through the generations. All right, and then lastly we have to think about the motivation of why people would lie. Why would these guys lie? Why would they conspire? And according to J. Warner Wallace, there are three reasons why you would lie: for money, relational lust—or sex… money, sex or power. Right? Respect, influence or position. Well, they didn’t make a lot of money. They didn’t have a lot of relational lust that we see, or that was mentioned about them. So possibly it could have been for power, where they were wanting respect or influence or some kind of position. And maybe the most premier example would be Paul, who was quite powerful before he became a Christian. He was well educated, he had a position of authority, and that position crumbled after he became a Christian. And so even for that power or authority, it doesn’t make any sense for him to be motivated to lie. So lastly, can we believe the bias of Christians? Christians wrote these stories. Can we believe that their eyewitness accounts are true because they are Christians? If we went with only non-Christian evidence, that would be pretty shaky because they don’t care. They don’t have any motivation for it. Do we take the eyewitness accounts of a person who believes versus the non-eyewitness account of someone who doesn’t believe? And maybe that’s where a bit of our problem today is, right? We don’t believe that. That’s a good question to ask people. Do you believe that John actually was a friend of Jesus and walked with Him? And then if you do, have you read what he had to say about what Jesus was talking about? But if they don’t want to accept that, it would be like saying—in the story that J. Warner Wallace gives, he talks about a woman who was a bank manager. This guy comes into the bank to rob the bank, and he has this bank teller under his control, and she’s handing him the money. And the manager, recognizes this man that came in, and it was a high school buddy of hers. She had known him since high school. She walks up to the teller and she sees a look on the teller’s face, and she realizes that this is not an ordinary transaction. It took her a minute to realize that what she knew of this man in high school—he was a nice guy and the last person she would ever expect to be a bank robber—was now standing in front of her, robbing her bank. So she didn’t believe that he was a bank robber, but she’s now eyewitnessing this situation. So which one would we believe? Someone who wasn’t seeing it and couldn’t think it was possible, or someone who is actually watching it? So I think that helps us secure that it’s okay for Christians to be the eyewitnesses to this story, and they do have a vested interest in telling the story, but they got no gain from it. No financial, relational, or power gain from it. Okay, so he takes you through like a series of eight short films where he discusses all that that I just mentioned in 10 minutes. And his conclusion is that there is robust, cumulative, credible evidence that makes the Bible reliable and true. It was written early enough. The Gospels were written early enough to be written by eyewitness accounts. It was corroborated by other witnesses. It didn’t change over time, and they weren’t biased towards lying, which are all the things that we would use in a court case to determine whether somebody should get the death penalty or not. So why can’t we use the same type of evidence for proving the existence of Jesus? So how improbable is it that Jesus was the Son of God? And I, I have a love-hate relationship with statistics because I think you can prove just about anything you want with a statistic. But there is a mathematician named Peter Stoner. He wrote for the American Scientific Affiliation, and he analyzed eight specific prophecies about Jesus that were made. He came up with the conclusion that it’s 1 times 10 to the 17th power. The most common comparison we have is, you know, looking for a dime or a quarter—something very small—in Texas, filled with golf balls, I don’t know how many, whatever it was, two feet tall or something like that. It’s just ridiculously improbable that Jesus could fulfill all those prophecies, which is pretty interesting, right? We’re just talking about the unexpected, where Jesus doesn’t do what people expect Him to do, and yet He does exactly what He knows He’s going to do. Another statistical probability from someone who’s not pro-Jesus, an atheist, said that the likelihood of Jesus existing is about 33%. He had like six pages worth of pieces of evidence that he was using to prove that in all of his formulas. But I think it’s good to point out with probabilities that probabilities don’t mean something is impossible. It means it might be unlikely or it might be likely, but it doesn’t mean it can’t happen. And even though he says it’s not likely that Jesus would exist, I think that makes the case even stronger because Jesus is a miracle. He did what nobody expected Him to do. He was perfect, and the ability to do that is miraculous. So anyway, it doesn’t really matter because surveys show that 80% of Christians believe in Jesus out of a sense of relational tie, and 20% respond to a commitment to Christ, and very few actually respond to reason. So even though the argument is, you know, that we’re unreasonable and we have a blind faith as Christians, even when you bring reasonable evidence to the argument, they reject it anyway because it’s not—I think, Kevin, as you say, it’s never a head issue, it’s always a heart issue. So I think you can turn it around, though, and say that even though it’s improbable that Jesus lived, that makes it all the more probable. Okay, can we go to the next slide? We’re going to talk about… Oh, I’m sorry. I want to talk about the medical evidence. So that was from J. Warner Wallace and his ideas about evidence and using that to build your own confidence, your own apologetic for why you believe in Christ. Okay, but is there medical evidence that shows that Jesus actually died? Because some people say maybe He didn’t. There’s this idea of the swoon theory where He fainted on the cross, and they took Him down, and then He came back. He revived in the tomb. He never actually died. So did He really die? I put up this picture. Can you go to the next picture, please? There’s a picture of Gethsemane. Oh, you’re just going along, or go back to way back. Keep going, and you’ll end up on a picture of Gethsemane. Maybe that’s the end. My very last slide. Yeah, there you go. The Agony at the Garden by Bellini from 1465. So this idea… Could Jesus actually sweat blood in the garden? That’s an account that is in the Bible. And according to a doctor named… something—we’ll find his name somewhere. Anyway, Lee Strobel had a long conversation with him. And this doctor said that it is possible to sweat blood. It’s a condition called hermatidrosis, and it’s associated with severe psychological stress in which the anxiety can cause the release of a chemical which breaks the capillaries in the sweat glands. And so the sweat will come out, tinged with a little bit of blood. And when—I think it was John that talks about the blood and the water that comes out… Oh, no, I’m sorry. That was a different, that’s different blood. Anyway, it’s possible to bleed through the sweat. I can’t imagine what kind of stress that must have been to sweat, or to be so stressed to the point that the capillaries break in your sweat glands. Okay. Go to the next one, please. This is Jesus before Pontius Pilate. The next one, please. Right. They end up flogging Him brutally, a minimum of 39 lashes for a Roman flogging. The whip had braided leather thongs with metal balls and sharp bones, pieces stuck in it. The point was that the balls would cause bruising. It’s kind of like, you know, when you pound the chicken flat for frying. So they’re pounding Jesus’s body flat, and then the bones are shredding the muscle to the point that His spine was most likely exposed by the deep cuts in His back. They were whipped from the shoulders all the way down the back to the buttocks and the back of the legs. These lacerations would cause ribbons of bleeding flesh. The veins, the sinews, and even the bowels could end up being exposed through a flogging. Many people didn’t survive the flogging who were destined to be crucified. It was a tremendous amount of pain, and it would cause hypervolemic shock, which is the loss of a large amount of blood. You can go to the next one. Hypervolemic shock can cause the heart to race because it’s trying to pump blood that isn’t there. Your blood pressure will drop because you don’t have any blood, and it will cause fainting or collapsing, which is consistent with Him stumbling on the way up to Gethsemane. The kidneys will stop producing urine, and the body will crave fluid to replace that blood loss. We can recall where He says He is thirsty. So He is most likely in hypervolemic shock as He’s staggering up the road to Calvary. And when He collapses, the guards call in Simon to carry His cross. So, according to this doctor, Jesus was already in a serious to critical condition before He was nailed to the cross. And historians are unanimous in this idea that Jesus did survive the beating and did go up on the cross alive. The next slide. Okay. And then being on the cross, the pain caused by this—I’m a word geek, so I just enjoyed learning that there was a new word that was created because of Jesus’s situation, and it’s called excruciating. And it means “out of the cross.” I hadn’t put that together before. So His pain was excruciating. He was hoisted up on a crossbar—or first He was laid down and attached to the crossbar. Then that crossbar is hoisted up onto the vertical stanchion that they leave up permanently. The nails were driven through the feet. The nerves in the feet would be crushed by the nails. They were 5 to 7 inch long stakes that were driven in. This would cause excruciating pain. The weight of His body on His arms… they most likely would stretch the arm to an additional 6 inches and cause the shoulders to be dislocated. And we think back to Psalm 22, where His bones were out of joint. Prediction there, or prophecy. The belief is that the nails are actually driven through the wrists and not through the hands because if they had been driven through the hands, most likely His bones would have broken under the weight of His body, and He would have fallen off the cross. So they put it in through the wrist because the two bones there will force almost like a locking position to hold the arms up. Also, there’s a nerve there called the median nerve that runs through the wrist, which would have been crushed by the nail. Think of it like—the description was, the pain of hitting your elbow and then taking a pair of pliers and squeezing and crushing that nerve that you just hit on your elbow. It would be absolutely unbearable. Okay, the next one. So that didn’t kill Him though. That just got Him up there. And Kevin’s described the crucifixion before, but this time when I was looking at the evidence, I had forgotten that when they’re there, the weight of the body is actually holding their lungs open. So, it’s almost like they’re inhaling and can’t exhale. They have to push up on their feet, push their body up to exhale, which of course is going to cause more pressure on those foot spikes. The nails are going to lock against the tarsal bones of the foot. And the back is being scraped along the post, the wooden, full-of-splinters post that He’s tightly nailed to. So they’re trying to lift their body to exhale when they’re being crucified. They continue to gasp for an exhale until complete exhaustion sets in. They can’t lift their body anymore because of that exhaustion. They go into respiratory acidosis, in which the carbon dioxide in the blood increases to the point where carbonic acid increases the blood acidity. Carbonic acid will cause an irregular heartbeat. Jesus knew He was dying because of an erratic heartbeat, possibly. And then He says the words, “Lord, into your hands I commend my Spirit.” And the conclusion is that he died of cardiac arrest. That hypervolemic shock can elevate the heart rate because of trying to get the blood to move around. That will also contribute to the heart failure besides just complete exhaustion. And the result of cardiac arrest in that position resulted in the collection of blood around the heart, where we see the pericardial effusion and also the pleural effusion, which was the water around the lungs. And this is where in John 19:34, they talk about when they spear His side to verify that He really was dead, that water and blood came out because it was consistent with the type of death that He died. So—Dr. Matherell is his name, is the one who said there was no doubt that Jesus was dead according to the description given in the Gospel. So, He was really dead. Another prophecy that is mentioned, right, is that they didn’t break any of Jesus’s bones. In the case of the two criminals that were crucified with Him, they did break their bones because that would speed up their inability to raise their body up to exhale, so they would die more quickly of asphyxiation. Exodus 12, Numbers 9, and Psalm 34 are consistent that we don’t break the bones during the Passover. And it’s because no bones, His bones were not broken in John 19. The spear in the side confirmed in Zechariah 12 and described in John 19:37. There’s a mention of the Roman soldiers who would have wanted to make sure He was dead because it would be very unpleasant for them to have a prisoner escape for which they were responsible for the execution of that prisoner. So they speared Him in the side. He was dead. All right. Another crucifixion painting by Raphael. Okay, just in case you hadn’t heard of the swoon theory, which I had not… In 1835, a German theologian named David Strauss thought that maybe Jesus had faked His death. And the questions that were asked—Lee Strobel asked—that I thought were really good, was even if He hadn’t died, He would have been so maimed, so torn to pieces, who would want to follow Him? He certainly wasn’t the king that they expected. He didn’t, okay, overthrow the Roman government. He didn’t bring peace and joy, and now He’s a bloody mess. Would that be someone you would actually follow? It doesn’t sound consistent with the resurrected body that He claims He’s going to have. Furthermore, Dr. Matherell says it’s medically impossible for Him not to die, so the swoon theory notion has been debunked. Dr. Matherell’s credentials are that he wrote an article in 1986 in the Journal of the American Medical Association regarding this, the account of Jesus’s death. So it even got published in, you know, what we would consider a very reasonable, rational article that people think tells the truth. Okay, next one. Okay, so He dies and they take His body down, put Him in a tomb, and then there’s a missing body. So how can we be sure that He wasn’t still in the tomb, that He ever went into the tomb, and where did the body go? And the empty tomb is that enduring symbol of His resurrection. So, in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says that the resurrection is the key to Christianity. If Christ had not been raised, our faith is futile, and you would still be in your sins. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. (1 Corinthians 15:17, NIV) So not only is it key to our salvation, it’s symbolic and literal, right? His power over sin and death. And it’s the basis of our hope, and it’s the miracle of miracles for someone to bring themselves back to life. You can go to the next one. Apparently, many criminals that were crucified were left on the cross, and they would be eaten by birds, or they might be thrown into a common grave because nobody was claiming them. There is one theory out there that Jesus’ body was dug up from a common grave and it was eaten by wild dogs, and that’s why we don’t have a body anymore. But that’s not consistent with the story in the Gospel, which says that Joseph of Arimathea came and asked for His body. And Joseph is an unlikely character because he was a member of the Sanhedrin. And the Sanhedrin had voted unanimously to condemn Jesus, although I think it was—was it in Luke where it mentions that Joseph wasn’t at that meeting? So he didn’t vote. Apparently, he abstained from voting, which he’d already become a Christian, so that probably wouldn’t have worked out for him anyway. Like, “Maybe I don’t want to vote today.” So it wasn’t in his best interest to be known as a friend of Jesus. Can you go to the next slide, please? And the next one? Okay, so here He is coming down off the cross. Strobel points out here that 1 Corinthians 15 is considered creedal to the early church and was even considered an early creed that they recited. And I’ll read it for you. It’s 15:3: 3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance : that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. (1 Corinthians 15:3-6, NIV) So the formula is that He was crucified, He was buried, He was resurrected, and then He appeared to a lot of people. And a summary of what the Gospel teaches. I didn’t realize that about 1 Corinthians 15 repeating what had become a mantra, so to speak, for early Christians. And without it, right, it wouldn’t have mattered. It’s in Luke 23 that Joseph of Arimathea said… “and a man named Joseph who was a member of the council, a good and righteous man, and that he had not consented to their plan in action. A man from Arimathea, a city of the Jews, who was waiting for the kingdom of God. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.” 50 Now there was a man named Joseph, a member of the Council, a good and upright man, 51 who had not consented to their decision and action. He came from the Judean town of Arimathea, and he himself was waiting for the kingdom of God. (Luke 23:50-51, NIV) So most New Testament scholars do agree that the account of Jesus dying and being taken to the tomb is reliable based on the evidence. So why was He not there? There is a Jewish tradition where they would gather the bones. It’s almost like the Catholics, I think. I don’t know if the Catholics still do it, but they will, after a year or so—is it a year that they go back and they collect the bones of the dead people and put them in a box? Now they got them in a box. So they wait for the flesh to decompose, and then they put them in this box. That was a Jewish tradition as well. Some people thought, well, maybe they would collect the bones of Jesus and put it in a box until the resurrection of the dead of Israel, that God promised that He would come back and save them all. The next slide. Part of the tomb… construction was such that there’s a groove in which the large stone was rolled down to cover the door of the entrance to the cave that was the tomb. And then there was a smaller stone that was put next to that large stone in order to secure it and keep it in place. And it would take a couple of men to be strong enough to move—the small stones, no problem, but getting that large stone rolled back up the incline would have been difficult for the people that we’re told first saw Jesus and the empty tomb after He came back to life. And then a note is that the Roman guards are only mentioned in Matthew. So whether the Roman guards were there or not may or may not be as important as the women who saw Him. Although it is important if you think, according to the 18th century critics who suggested that the disciples stole Jesus’s body, then the guards could have stopped them. But it doesn’t explain why the disciples believed that He was resurrected to the point where they never recanted their story. And the Jews had a good reason to hunt that, you know, hunt that down. In Matthew 27, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate and they said, “We remember that while He was still alive, that deceiver, He said, ‘After three days, I will rise again.’ So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise His disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that He had been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.” 62 The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. 63 “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ 64 So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.” (Matthew 27:62-64, NIV) And this is that part in Matthew where Pilate says, “Okay, take a guard and make the tomb secure and put a seal on it. Post a guard.” 66 So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard. (Matthew 27:66, NIV) But that didn’t stop Jesus. You can go to the next one. One more. Okay. All right. Dr. William Craig, who’s a PhD and a doctor of theology, has written many books and is known for his writing about the intersection of science, philosophy, and theology—he has some comments about why it’s likely that Jesus came back to life: The discovery of the empty tombs, even though they’re described differently from various gospels, if we apply the same criteria that we would apply to other ancient literary sources, then the evidence is firm and plausible enough to conclude that the tomb was indeed found empty. The example given is when Hannibal crossed the Alps. There are two very different accounts of how he did that to attack Rome. And yet everyone still agrees that Hannibal did, in fact, cross the Alps and defeat Rome with his elephants. So if we can believe that is true, then why can we not believe that Jesus, the story of Jesus, is true? Okay, five arguments for the empty tomb. Paul mentions it in 1 Corinthians 15 and is considered—his account is considered reliable because that’s that creedal recitation of the early church. Jesus’s tomb site was well known, and it was easily verifiable if it was still occupied. Mark’s account was from very early on, around 37 AD, and was considered too early of an account to be corrupted by later conspiracy theories. And Mark’s Gospel is attributed to Peter’s account. By the way, in Mark, the first person that Mark mentions is Peter. And the last person he mentions in Mark is Peter. He minimizes Peter’s embarrassing moments the most of all four gospels. So the next time you read Mark, see if you notice that about Peter looking a little bit better than he might have by his friends. Mark’s account is considered very simple, and it’s not puffed up by legendary actions or details. The fact that the tomb was found by women is compelling because that’s also an embarrassment. Women were less than in that society, and so they shouldn’t be the ones to have this great honor of seeing Jesus alive. Furthermore, the Jewish scholars from the time were arguing what happened to the body and not about the body that’s still in the tomb. So there’s a presupposition that the body isn’t there anymore and that perhaps they stole it. It never went there in the first place, but they recognized that it was not still there. Some people have suggested that the women went to the wrong tomb. In 1907, someone named Kirsopp Lake suggested that. And if that were true, it would have been easy to find out where the right tomb was and corrected the situation. And the Jewish authorities would like nothing more than to say that Jesus was in fact still dead. In 1835, a man named David Strauss claimed that it was all a legend. And that’s why Mark’s account is pivotal for us, because it’s early on, it’s fairly stripped down, it’s simple, and it seems to be a credible account of the actual events. So why do crazy theories seem more plausible than believing something that we think is impossible, that Jesus could become alive again? Is it reasonable to believe in miracles? And now we transition from historical evidence into a philosophical question. Can we believe in miracles? And are miracles simply things that we don’t understand yet? But that doesn’t mean that they don’t have reasons for being. We believe in a lot of miracles that we don’t call miracles anymore, like electricity. That’s pretty miraculous. Airplanes, pretty miraculous. And so it seems impossible because the probability is very small that someone could do this. But as we said with statistics, just because it’s improbable doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. So I think we can agree that Jesus was very dead. His wounds were too great for Him to continue to live in His body, and that it would take a miracle to bring Him back to life. And that would be consistent with what God would do, something miraculous, and that it wouldn’t actually contradict scientific evidence to have a miracle answer. But it does require believing that God exists. And if God exists, it’s possible that God took an action in history at a point in time and space, and that we don’t understand because we don’t understand how time and space work from our perspective. Sir Norman Anderson, a renowned legal scholar from Britain, said, “The empty tomb is the veritable rock on which all rationalistic theories of the resurrection dash themselves in vain.” Okay, so the resurrection—we’re going to say it happened because it seems like the most reasonable answer to what could have happened. But was He seen after that? Was He seen alive after the tomb? So we go to the next slide. Gary Habermas, who’s a professor at Liberty University, he’s written seven books on resurrection. He has something to say about this. He got his PhD from Michigan State and from Oxford. And he said there’s too many examples, too many eyewitnesses’ accounts of Jesus appearing to people for it to be impossible. Jesus appears to Paul, a very unlikely person to receive such an honor. In 1 Corinthians 9, he appears to Peter; he appears to the 11, and then to 500 more. He appears to Paul. That Corinthians 15 passage was considered creedal. He makes a case for when Paul visited Peter and James in Jerusalem prior to his earliest visit to Corinth, that he was actually conducting what’s called a historeo, which is an investigative inquiry, as noted in Galatians 1, because James and Peter were eyewitness accounts to Jesus’s death. So he was conducting an investigation. It seems reasonable, considering the type of writing that Paul does for us later, right? And Peter’s account, according to a Jewish New Testament scholar, which is a rare thing, his account was strong enough to be on par with an eyewitness statement in 1 Corinthians. So that’s our strongest evidence there that what they said was true. The eyewitnesses that saw Jesus, right? That chain of custody. They said, “We saw Him.” So, who else did He appear to? He appeared to Mary Magdalene, John 20. He appeared to other women, Matthew 28. He appeared to Cleopas and one other on the Emmaus Road, Luke 24. He appears to many disciples in Luke 24, later on in verse 33; the apostles again in John 10; to Thomas, because he wasn’t there the first time in John 20; again with the apostles in John 21; to the disciples in Matthew 28; and then on the Mount of Olives in Luke 24; and in Acts 1. So we have quite a few accounts from various gospels to various people saying they saw Him and touched Him and ate with Him. We’re almost done. Okay, one more. You can go down to the next one. This is Jesus eating with them. So John Drain, who’s a scholar, said the earliest evidence we have for resurrection almost certainly goes back to the time immediately after the resurrection event is alleged to have taken place. This is the evidence contained in the early sermons in the Acts. There can be no doubt that the first few chapters of Acts, that its authors have preserved material from very early sources. And Habermas agrees with him and said the resurrection was undoubtedly the central proclamation of the early church. From the very beginning, the earliest Christians were convinced that they had seen Him alive after His crucifixion. So if it was good enough for them, is it good enough for us? And why do others refute that claim? Going back to J. Warner Wallace for an eyewitness, if each witness that had seen Jesus was called into a court to testify and be cross-examined for 15 minutes, it would take from breakfast on a Monday, every 15 minutes a new witness telling their story, until dinner on Friday to hear them all. So it’s 129 hours of straight testimony that we would be hearing. Sir Edward Clark of the British High Court said, “To me, the evidence is conclusive. And over and over again in the High Court I have secured the verdict on evidence not so nearly compelling. As a lawyer, I accept the Gospel evidence unreservedly as the testimony of truthful men to facts they were able to substantiate.” Okay, the next one. So in conclusion, we could say eyewitness account is valid in court, and the eyewitness accounts that we have in the Gospels are reasonably accurate. That Jesus did die on the cross, that His tomb was empty, and that His disciples and others saw Him after the resurrection. They ate with Him and touched Him. And the theologian Michael Green says, “The appearances of Jesus are as well documented as anything in antiquity. There can be no rational doubt that they occurred.” And that “The main reason why Christians became sure of the resurrection in the earliest days was just this: they could say with assurance, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ They knew it was Him.” Okay, the next one. And J.P. Moreland said similarly that “The disciples were in a unique position to know for a fact whether Jesus had returned from the dead. They saw Him, they touched Him, they ate with Him. They knew He wasn’t a hallucination or a legend. And knowing the truth, they were willing to die for Him.” And then the last picture. Oops, one more. There you go. So hopefully that will give you some more tools in your tool bag of refutation against the “Jesus was a legend or a myth or just a nice story, and that He was a good man, but He wasn’t really the Son of God.” Knowing that that’s their strongest argument against Jesus, but also knowing that even though your defense of His historicity isn’t going to change their minds, hopefully it will convince you of what you already believe. And I like this little recipe of, like, it all boils down to three things: That we believe and we receive and then we become. So let’s go and share that with people. All right, thank you. I think I’m supposed to do something else. No, Kevin’s going to do something else. Great stuff, great stuff. It is fun. She talked about Mark being the earliest gospel and Mark being the Gospel of Peter, and I agree with that. Mark was also there. He was an eyewitness. I’m not sure if he ever is recorded as an eyewitness to the resurrection, but he was certainly an eyewitness to the Garden of Gethsemane. In Mark 14, as Jesus is being arrested, He said to them, “Have you come out with swords, clubs, as if I were a criminal to capture me? Every day I was among you teaching in the temple, and you didn’t arrest me, but the Scripture must be fulfilled. Then they all deserted Him and ran away.” Reminds me of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Run away. 48 “Am I leading a rebellion,” said Jesus, “that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? 49 Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest me. But the Scriptures must be fulfilled.” 50 Then everyone deserted him and fled. (Mark 14:48-50, NIV) All right, well. “Now, a certain young man wearing nothing but a linen cloth was following him. They caught hold of him, but he left the linen cloth behind and ran away naked.” What is the relevance of that to our Christian theology? I don’t know. But it is Mark putting his signature on this gospel, right? Because who would remember running home naked, scared to death that Romans were chasing him but the young boy who had to endure that, right? And so Mark’s saying, “Hey, I was a young man. I was just, you know, I was hanging out in the bushes watching all this, and they saw me. I ran away, and I grabbed my linen cloth. I ran home buck naked.” He remembered that night. So anyway, I just thought that was interesting. The other thing that you spurred in my memory was the picture of the dinner at Emmaus, the road to Emmaus. And the two disciples did not recognize Jesus until what? When did they recognize Jesus? He opened their eyes. Yep. Yeah. He broke the bread. He broke the bread. And so you want to know Jesus? Come to the meal. He’s still breaking the bread. And here’s the thing about the resurrected Christ. This is not pie in the sky, “oh, I can hardly wait till I die and get to meet Jesus.” Yes, you get to meet Jesus. But here’s the One you get to meet: you get to meet the One you’ve always known. The kingdom is now and not yet. It will be consummated, and it will be awesome, but it is not some distant reality. My kids mock me now. I’m 67, and my kids mock me. They find amusement in that, and that’s fine, because I’m still able enough to mock them back, so it’s mutual. But they, you know, I preached all these years, and they listen to all my sermons. And you’ve seen it all these years, too, right? And I say, you know, here’s the thing. I always say, “What if you walk away from God and then you repent? You’ve walked two miles away, and you repent and you turn around. You think you have to walk two miles back, but the minute you turn around, where’s Jesus?” There you go. Stevin’s seen it many times. My kids go, “Hey, dad, where’s Jesus? We know where Jesus is. Right there.” I’m glad you know that. Thank goodness you got a father who taught you that. That’s right. He’s right there. Where’s your dad right now? He’s right there. So at communion, I don’t want you to laugh when you receive communion, but when you receive communion, guess where Jesus is? Right there. Right there. He’s right there. It’s at His invitation. He wants to reveal Himself, and He does so in His body being broken, His blood being poured out. And now He is alive. He’s alive forevermore. Next week’s our week, people. It’s our holiday. It’s our holiday. Whoever brings the most friends next week, what should we give them? What’s that? We’ll give you an “atta boy” or an “atta girl.” All right, whoever brings the most people to church next Sunday. We’ll fish for twicers. Bring a twicer. We’ll go fishing for twicers. Come to this meal. Come and eat. The post 2026.3.29 TFHC – Born to Die appeared first on The Firehouse Church in Bremerton, WA.

March 22, 2026, Message by P. Kevin Clancey Transcribed by Beluga AI. All right, dear ones, here we go. 1 Corinthians 4. Here’s what you need to know—same argument. All right? The Bible’s divided up—chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, chapter four. Paul is still dealing with the very first problem at Corinth that he presents. Corinth, he just presents one problem after another. He deals with about five of them. The first one is this: I follow Apollos, I follow Cephas, I follow Paul. And he goes on for five chapters telling them, “Nah, you got that wrong.” All right? So still going on. Still going on. I follow Wesley. I follow Calvin. I follow Bethel. I follow this reform movement. I follow the Pope. I follow the Bishop of Canterbury. And Paul just says, “Who’s Apollos? Who’s Peter? Who’s Cephas? Who’s Paul?” And here’s what he says, who they are: 1 A person should think of us in this way: as servants of Christ and managers of the mysteries of God. 2 In this regard, it is expected of managers that each one be found faithful. 3 It is of little importance to me that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I don’t even judge myself. 4 For I am not conscious of anything against myself, but I am not justified by this. It is the Lord who judges me. 5 So don’t judge anything prematurely, before the Lord comes, who will both bring to light what is hidden in darkness and reveal the intentions of the hearts. And then praise will come to each one from God. 6 Now, brothers and sisters, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying: “Nothing beyond what is written.” The purpose is that none of you will be arrogant, favoring one person over another. 7 For who makes you so superior? What do you have that you didn’t receive? If, in fact, you did receive it, why do you boast as if you hadn’t received it? 8 You are already full! You are already rich! You have begun to reign as kings without us—and I wish you did reign, so that we could also reign with you! 9 For I think God has displayed us, the apostles, in last place, like men condemned to die: We have become a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to people. 10 We are fools for Christ, but you are wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are distinguished, but we are dishonored! 11 Up to the present hour we are both hungry and thirsty; we are poorly clothed, roughly treated, homeless; 12 we labor, working with our own hands. When we are reviled, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; 13 when we are slandered, we respond graciously. Even now, we are like the scum of the earth, like everyone’s garbage. (1 Corinthians 4:1-13, CSB) And may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, Lord, our Rock, our Strength, and Redeemer. 14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. (Psalms 19:14, CSB) I am of Apollos. I am of Peter. I’m of Paul. Anybody from the ’60s? I’m of Mary. Peter, Paul, and Mary? There you go. So, Paul says, “No, let me tell you who Peter and Apollos and Paul are. We’re no big deal. We’re household servants.” That’s the word he uses. Doesn’t use the word doulos here for bondslave, but he uses a word that means “household servant.” And he says, “Not only we’re household servants, we’re stewards.” So, what is their specific role? Any of you watch “Downton Abbey” when it was back in the day? Yeah. Big “Downton Abbey” fans? I bet you were a “Downton Abbey” fan. Oh, you weren’t. Okay. Yeah. So, it’s right up your alley. So, I went to the “Downton Abbey” movie with my wife, and when we were walking out of the movie, she said, “You love me, don’t you?” I said, “You bet. You bet I do.” So, yeah… But in that house, they had the upstairs. It was the classic British upstairs, downstairs. You had the upstairs aristocrat, the downstairs servant. And the head of the servants, the man in the gap between the upstairs and the downstairs was a very proper, very dignified—in fact, he was much more dignified than the upstairs crowd. Very strict, but also compassionate—the butler. Paul says, “I’m a steward of the household of God. Apollos and I and Peter, we’re stewards. We’re butlers. You guys are saying, ‘I bring my allegiance to that butler, to that butler, that butler.'” He says, “How foolish. Your allegiance belongs to the Master of the house. Apollos handles the mysteries of God revealed in Jesus. I handle the mysteries of God revealed in Jesus. Peter handles the mysteries of God revealed in Jesus. We are not the big deal. Jesus is the big deal. We point you to Christ. You come to Christ through us. But it’s Him. It’s Him.” And we do it today. We pick popular, either historical or current leaders, and we hold them up as these great apostles, and they inevitably fall, and then we’re crushed. It’s like, well, dear ones, we put them in an impossible place, in celebrity culture. God never intended pastors, apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers to be celebrities. Butlers aren’t celebrities. Except for Batman’s butler. What was his name? Batman was Bruce. What was the butler’s name? Alfred. Thank you, Joe. Alfred. Butlers aren’t celebrities. Here’s what Paul does. Here’s why Paul has had such a great impact on history. It’s really quite simple. He did what he was told. “Paul, you converted Pharisee who used to call the Romans and the Gentiles dogs… I want you to go be my apostle to the Gentiles. I want you to tell the Gentiles that I am Israel’s promised Messiah and now I am their hope of the world.” You know what Paul said? “Gotcha.” And he went and they beat him up. They threw rocks at him, they whipped him, they threw him in jail. They fought with him, they argued with him. You know what he did? “I’m going to the next town. That’s what you told me to do.” Mark quit. Got hard. Mark came back; he redeemed himself. The first trip got too hard. “This can’t be God’s will. It’s hard.” Excuse me? This can’t be God’s will; it’s hard. If it’s God’s will, it’d be easy. The path would be smooth. He’d clear the path for me. Doesn’t it say He makes the mountains come down and the hills rise up and the path is level? Yeah, He says the path is level, but you still get blisters. There’s still criminals on that path. In fact, He says quite the opposite. He says, “If you are faithful to me, you will be opposed, you will be slandered, you’ll be persecuted.” And he just goes from one town to the other with just amazing courage. And all he’s doing is what he was told, and 2,000 years later, we’re talking about it. Finally, he got to Corinth, and God had to give him a dream and says, “Yeah, they’re not going to whip you or throw any rocks at you in this town.” He’s getting a little skittish. You could give him a break. We’d have been skittish a lot sooner than that. When every town you go into, they about kill you? God says, “Go to another town.” “Okay.” He is a faithful steward. He has responsibility for the household of God to dispense the truth faithfully. And that’s what he did. He answers only to one Master. My favorite book on pastoring is called The Art of Pastoring. I’ve read it many times. Ministry Without All the Answers, written by David Hanson. If you ever want to go into being a pastor… every wannabe pastor or every young pastor that I talk to, I say, “Read that book.” And it’s about a guy who pastors two small churches. He’s not a celebrity. Unfortunately, his book became so popular, became a celebrity. But before that, he wasn’t. And he was a fly fisherman in Montana. That’s what he loved to do. He loved to pastor, and he loved to fly fish. And he’s in this little broken-down church in Montana with a space heater that didn’t work and walls without insulation. It’s 32. It’s, you know, it’s like 10 degrees below zero outside with a 30-degree wind chill. He’s got a jacket on, working on his sermon. And he says, “These are not bad people. They don’t have money to fix the church. And they, you know, they want me down here working on my sermon.” But then he says, “You know what? There’s skunks underneath the foundations, so the place smells like skunks.” You know, we think pastoring—megachurch pastor and lights and TV ministry and cameras. Now that’s 90% of the pastors are there. But here’s what he said. He said, “What keeps me in this job, it’s not the money. It certainly isn’t the building.” He says, “The people are good,” he says, “but I don’t work for them.” I’ve had people, you know—none of you guys do this. I appreciate it. But I’ve had people… “We pay your salary, so do what we want.” It’s like, I don’t work for you. That’s not the call. I serve you. And here’s what the service is supposed to look like: Faithfully dispense the truth. That’s it. Tell you the truth. He answers only to one Master. And we all—that’s all of us—we answer to only one Master. Nobody else is your judge. I had this, you know, back when I cared as a young man… I cared what people thought. You know, I was always trying to take a poll of the congregation. Do they like me? Do they not like me? I thought they liked me at the time. And this principal, this retired school principal came out—big, tall guy, wise guy, had a deep voice. John Matthews. Walked out of the building one day and he said, “Kevin, other people’s opinion of you is none of your business.” And he walked on. Up until that time, I thought people liked me. But when he said that, I thought, what? What opinions? What’s going on? It was a great word, but at the time, it got me a little paranoid. I thought they liked me. “Other people’s opinions…” Man, but I’ve lived by that word. Other people’s opinion of you is none of your business. You don’t judge yourself. You don’t let other people judge you. You wait for God. And you know what He says? “And then praise will come to each one from God.” 5 So don’t judge anything prematurely, before the Lord comes, who will both bring to light what is hidden in darkness and reveal the intentions of the hearts. And then praise will come to each one from God. (1 Corinthians 4:5, CSB) If you live for God, you will get your praise from God. And I guarantee you, when you and I get our praise from God, John Matthews will prove himself as a prophet. Other people’s opinion of us is none of our business, and it does not matter at all if God looks at you and says, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Now, you won’t do this because you’re a good servant, but you could turn to all those people who criticized you and say, “Neener. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.” You will receive your praise from God. For doing what? Doing what you’re told. Doing what you’re told. God is the judge of our faithfulness. You can’t judge me. I can’t judge me. Only God can judge. And He will reward the faithful. Be faithful. The root problem in Corinth and the reason they’re worshiping Cephas and Apollos and Paul instead of Jesus, the reason in the first century they’re already forming Christian denominations is because of the sin of pride. “I know who the true man of God is.” These men of God weren’t claiming that. Nowadays they do. Nowadays they say, “I’m the real voice. Listen to me.” But back then… That’s why Paul’s aghast at this. He says, “I never told you to follow. I never told you to set up First Paul at the corner of, you know, Prostitute and Licentiousness in Corinth. I never told you to do this. Peter never told you to do this. Apollos never told you to. None of us came in saying, ‘Hey, what those other guys are saying is about 90% right, but I got the 100% version.’ I said we’re all just butlers. But you think you know better. You think, oh, that’s the one. That’s the one. Peter’s the real pope. That’s the one.'” And he says, “No. What makes you so smart? What makes you think you’re superior? You know, how are you different than other people? You’re not. You’re not. Why do you boast? Why do you think I’ve received special wisdom? You haven’t. Don’t go beyond what is written. Everything you have is from God. Why do you boast as if it isn’t? It is. You have accomplished nothing. You have simply received a gift. You’re not smart enough to figure out Peter, Apollos, or Paul, Corinthians.” Two years in the church and we think we know stuff. I see it online; it drives me nuts. But I get involved in it because, you know, I get kind of sucked in because I like to argue. But I don’t… I work really hard to shut my… Don’t type, don’t hit send. Just if it bugs me… But oh my goodness, people use the H word quick. “That person’s a heretic.” And actually they don’t even know their church history because that person is actually articulating—how many of you heard of the kenosis theory of the Incarnation? Kenosis is a Greek word for emptying. That Jesus emptied himself. And there was a well-known Charismatic Pentecostal pastor who said everything Jesus did—and he said it awkwardly. He articulated the kenosis theory. I don’t even know if he knew the kenosis theory, but he articulated it accurately but awkwardly. He said everything Jesus did was as a man, not as the Son of God. Well, that’s not theologically correct. But his point was the kenosis theory: that Jesus actually emptied himself, set aside His divine privileges on earth, and the power that operated through Him was the power that He received from submission to the Father through the Holy Spirit. Now, that is actually, not a universally held Christian theory of how the Incarnation works, but people started calling this man a heretic for saying Jesus wasn’t the Son of God. He quickly revised his statement and said, “No, Jesus is the Son of God. He always was the Son of God. There was never a time He wasn’t the Son of God. When He was on the earth, He was fully the Son of God.” And you know, he tried to backtrack and clarify his statements and people said, “No, no, you said Jesus wasn’t the Son of God. You said He was just a man. And that’s Nestorianism and that’s…” And they, you know, they did a quick Google search and came up with a big word. And none of these people—they’re all like, they’re all like young, reformed guys and they’re all like, you know, jumping down the sky. John Owen, one of the most quoted and honored Pilgrim reformed theologians fully embraced and articulated—guess what? The kenosis theory. You know who else articulated the kenosis theory? I’ve heard him. He preached it. I heard him. The late John MacArthur said it. But these people: “Oh, that’s a heresy.” You don’t even know church history. Ooh. That’s what I want to tell them. You young, immature… I don’t, though. I let somebody else argue with them because I don’t want to be there. All I want to do is come to you guys each week—like Paul says, I do not know if there are any bad motives in me. I’m not aware of any. I really am not. I’m just like, I don’t feel like I got this other agenda going on. I just want to tell you what the Bible says, and I want to see you prosper in Christ. I really do. I just want to see Jesus come alive in each of us. Me, too. That’s what it is. That’s who we are. Now, it’s amazing, because we’re butlers, we’re humble servants, and yet we’re also sons and daughters of the King. But how do we get there? And this is the truth of the Christian life. How do you get high? By going low. By going low. I told you guys last week, my humbling experience with my ladies who pray for me. You know, “I want kindness.” “You have kindness, Pastor. But we’ll pray for that.” “I want encouragement.” “Oh, you’re a good encourager. But we’ll pray for that.” “I want wisdom.” “Oh, you’re wise. But we’ll pray for that.” “I want humility.” “Oh, we’ll pray for that.” Golly, that was quick. They answered it quick, too. It was like, oh, boy. But that’s how you go high. You go low. Humble yourself. Little ’70s, ’80s praise chorus that we used to sing in Young Life. And it was just a round. You’d sing it in a round, and it was just real simple. “Humble thyself in the sight of the Lord.” And then the women kick in: “Humble thyself in the sight of the Lord.” You know it, Aiko? You know that one? Yeah. You could do the women’s part if you want, but you won’t do it, will you? Just leave me up here hanging, won’t you? Yeah, yeah. God bless you, introverts. Love you. “And He will lift you up… ” And what do the ladies sing? Yeah, yeah. “Higher and higher.” “And He will lift…” Humble thyself in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up. And Jesus says whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Whoever exalts themselves will be humbled. 12 Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. (Matthew 23:12, CSB) One of the most confusing passages in the Bible is when the Bible says—you know, Moses, it is said, wrote the first five books in the Bible. But in the first five books of the Bible, it says Moses was the most humble man who ever lived. And I thought, you know, if an editor didn’t insert that, it kind of defeats the point, doesn’t it? Because humility is the one virtue you lose once you recognize it. “I’m so humble. Dang. Lost it.” Paul contrasts the humility of the apostles to the pride of the Corinthians. Man, this is so different than… Listen, there’s no sin in being a megachurch pastor. There is sin in flaunting it. There is sin in flaunting it. And Paul gives this list that is the exact opposite of people who flaunt their Christian position. He says, “You want to know what an apostle looks like? Apostle doesn’t look like, you know, the guy flaunting the biggest ministry in town. Here’s what an apostle looks like. You say you reign;” he said, “we’re just beginners. We’re fools for Christ. You boast in your wisdom. We’re weak, but you talk about how strong you are.” He’s being sarcastic with the Corinthians. He says, “You’re so honored, but we’re dishonored everywhere we go. We’re poor, but you’re so rich. And everywhere we’re slandered and abused, we respond in kindness to our persecutors and mockers.” Want to be an apostle? There’s the job description. There’s the job description. The apostles should be the most humble, the lowliest. You know, young men… there’s a movement among young men, and it is to reassert masculinity as the head of the house. And I’m actually, I like the idea. I think, you know, we fell off the horse one way for many years, and I think we’ve fallen off the other side of the horse. And I think men need to be men again. You know, I do. You know, this one feminist woman, she came to me and she was complaining. Kind of ironic. But she says, “Where are all the John Waynes? You know, where are all the John Waynes?” But here’s where it goes off tilt, kilter. “That’s right. I’m the man of the house, and what I say goes. That wife of mine better be a tradition—a trad,” they call them, trad wives. “She better be a trad wife. A traditional wife. I married myself a trad girl. Traditional woman. Her job is to cook for me, clean for me, raise the kids. I’ll buy a gun and protect everybody from all the bad ‘uns out there and make a bunch of money so everybody can eat.” It’s like, no, no. You wanna be the head of your house. Good. You should be. You should lead. You know what leading means? You take the first bullet. That’s true. You’re a protector. I always said, if somebody comes into my house and I’m there alone, and they say, “I’m going to shoot you and steal all your stuff,” I’ll probably say—I don’t know, I’ve never been put in the situation—but I’d like to say, “Go ahead, man, aim well. I’m going to heaven, you’re going to hell, so I’m not going to kill you.” But if my wife is there, my grandbaby’s there, I’m calling Sophia, saying, “Bring your gun, sister. Shoot them dead.” I hear you’re a good shot. Okay, I’ll call Orzo. I don’t have a gun, but I’ll take a baseball bat or whatever. They get near my grandkids, they get near my wife, there’s a different reaction, right? Well, what does that mean? That means if you want to be the head, you exist to serve them. You know what a successful man is? A man whose wife and children shine, not a man who makes the most money. Pastors… Oh, my goodness. Pastors get together—I don’t know if you knew this—pastors get together and you know who we talk about? Y’all. We actually wish we were general managers, like a baseball team, because we’d trade some of you. “I’ll give you two steady tithers for some young prospects,” you know? “Okay, that’ll work. Yeah.” So, you know, it’s like—we don’t do that, but, I mean… And, you know, good pastors don’t do this, but some pastors, you get around, and the first question they ask is never, never how much money you make. Because except for a few exceptions in the pastoral ministry, that’s a way too discouraging topic to talk about. But here’s what they ask, right? You know what they ask? What do they ask? “How big is your church?” Man, 16 tonight. 30, 33 this morning. It’s just… I’m bumming because. What’s 33 plus 16? I want 50. Golly, one short. Couldn’t you bring a friend, Sophia? Hey, I count myself twice. I’m in both those numbers, so really they’re just 48 individual people, but I’m at both services. I count twice. All right, what is the lesson? To Corinthians and to us? Be a humble servant. That’s it. Just do what you’re told. You have a call. “Pastor, I don’t know what my call is.” Well, then do what’s in front of you. Likely is, that’s your call. I don’t know, Jamie, you know what your call is? I think so, too. But how’d you get started? How did you enter into that call? Because God gave you a clear call to honcho all homeschools in northern Kitsap County, or did God just say to you, “You know, you’re a mom, and your kids… public schools are crazy now, why don’t you teach your kids?” And you said—and as a mom, you followed your call to be a mother, and a good one, in my estimation. And do you know what? More important what Sophia thinks. But anyway, you know what? You know what? You end up stepping into this thing where, like, 300 parents and volunteers, and you got Stevin working like a dog, and in the middle of March Madness, when I just want to watch basketball games on TV, you get me down there to do stuff, and Jan’s down there, and Brad was down there, and Josh, and, man, what did you have, 50 people? You probably had 25 of us down there. Hard to say no to, right, Stevin? Yeah. And you stepped into that. How do you find your call? Do what’s in front of you to do. “Well, Lord, I don’t know if I’m supposed to minister in St. Louis or Los Angeles.” Well, while you’re figuring it out, preach the kingdom, raise the dead, heal the sick, cast out demons in Bremerton, Poulsbo, Silverdale, Hansville. While you’re figuring out your call, there’s Jesus stuff right in front of you. And dispense your duty faithfully. “Lord, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I think I’ll go talk to my neighbors about Jesus. Invite them to our Bible study.” And you find out later, oh, that was my call. Just be a faithful—get up tomorrow morning, say, “Lord, I want to be a faithful follower of yours today.” And you will fulfill your call. You’ll step into it. You might recognize it 10 years after you’ve been doing it. “That’s what I’m supposed to do.” Some people recognize it already. “That’s what I’m supposed to do,” right? Other people, it’s like I tell you, I recognized my call early. So early, I denied it. I became a Christian and started listening to other speakers. And I’d listen to other speakers and go, “Well, he’s all right, but I’d say it this way.” My mom said, “Now that you’re a Christian, what do you want to be?” Honest, flat out, I remember my words. She remembers. Before she died, she remembered my words: “I’ll do anything but be a pastor.” And God’s up there and goes, “Oh, now I know what we’re telling them to do. I got it now.” Just live it out, live it out. All we have is from Him. You got no reason to be proud. The Corinthians were proud. That’s how they used spiritual gifts. We’re going to get to this, but that’s how they used spiritual gifts. By the way, that’s Paul’s rebuke to them with spiritual gifts: “I speak in tongues more than you do.” We still do that, right? “You’re a second-class Christian if you don’t speak in tongues.” I mean, that’s still kind of the insinuation of some, that you’re the spiritual elite. I speak in tongues. I’ll tell you exactly why I think God gave me the gift of tongues. Not because I’m spiritually elite, but because I became a Christian and I am a left-brain rationalistic nerd. And I’m studying the Bible and I’m trying to figure out arguments to convince people to be Christians, and I’m going down that path, you know, to become kind of the legalistic Bible scholar, Bible arguer, debate winning… Listen. And I was a nerd. I was a sports nerd. And this was a new place for me to invest my nerdom. So, I’m going for it. Only as I’m going for it, I have a terrible prayer life because I’m not into a relationship; I’m into information. Theology, philosophy, history. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with being an apologist. It’s great for those who do it. But I mean, I was such a nerd. I was this close to being a Calvinist probably. I can say that safely here. I didn’t say it in Bremerton this morning because there’s just people who resemble that remark. I was one of them. I couldn’t pray, but I did have the sense of reading the Bible to say at least one good prayer. And here’s what it was. “Lord, teach me, help me pray.” I realized that I was spiritually not elite, but that I was deplete. And my guardian angel realized it, and the Heavenly Father realized it. And so my guardian angel looked at the Heavenly Father… This is my picture of what happened in heaven. I could be wrong on this. This is just Kevin’s speculation. It’s not in the Bible. I’m going beyond what is written. My guardian angel up in heaven going, “Father, that boy you assigned me to?” “Yeah?” “That boy can’t pray a lick.” Father goes, “I know, I know. He’s a bad prayer. He likes to read the Bible and oh, man, he gobbling up C.S. Lewis. That’s all good, but he can’t pray.” “What are we going to do, Father?” “I got a plan.” So, I’m in Young Life in college in Chico, and this nurse who all of a sudden got started hanging out—she was a rationalist too, but all of a sudden started hanging out with these Pentecostals. And she got transformed. And I’m smart enough to notice she’s different. She’s actually better. Kind of more in love with Jesus. One night she goes, “Kevin, you got to come with me to meet these people.” “Okay.” You know, hey, back then, any girl says, “You got to come with me,” I’m like, “I’m down.” So we come. Now in the car, we start driving around, driving around Chico. She goes, “I don’t know where they live.” “Okay.” “But I know what her car looks like. And I think I know the general area of town in which she lives.” So, we’re going up and down streets, and I’m thinking, this is the most ridiculous thing ever. And she goes, “There it is. That’s her car.” Nine o’clock at night. These people have no idea. She has not called them, talked to them. She’s just dragging me along. She gets up—well, they’re Pentecostal Holiness people. You know what they were doing at 9 o’clock at night? They were in bed. They’re asleep because they got to get up at 4 o’clock in the morning and pray for three hours or whatever they do. They’re in bed, but they come up. Rub their eyes. “What? Oh, Mona. Good to see you, sister. Who’s this fella?” “It’s Kevin. And he wants to be baptized in the Holy Ghost.” I never said that. She just said, “Let’s go meet these people.” And they go, “Hallelujah! Praise you.” They were awake, man. They didn’t take nothing. They were, they were wide awake. “Yes. Come on in, young man. Come on in. Oh, Jesus, this is a glorious day. Oh, Lord. Hallelujah. Hallelujah, Jesus. You want to be baptized in the Holy Ghost?” “Oh, I think I am. I don’t know. I think I got the Holy Ghost.” Said, “No, you got to get the full Holy Ghost. Here, we got a list here. You got to renounce all these things.” And it’s all about other world religions. They read off eight things that I had to renounce. I couldn’t renounce any of them because I didn’t—there were things like, “There is absolutely no truth in other world religions.” Like, no, there’s lots of truth in other world religions, just not the truth. But they told me I had to renounce all those things. But then, thank the Lord, they never held me accountable to that. They just read the list. They didn’t ask me, “Have you renounced these things?” In my mind, “I don’t renounce any of those things.” They didn’t care. They were on to the next thing. They said, “Well, son, get on your knees and pray.” I said, “How do you want me to pray?” “Well, just thank God in English until you run out of words.” I go, “Okay, that’ll be quick. Thank you, God. You’re good, God. I love you, God.” So, I get on my knees, I start saying stuff like that, and they just, they’re on me, man. And they start praying. But they don’t start praying like my evangelical friends. They do a couple things different. They never use the word “just.” Don’t they know that’s how evangelicals are supposed to pray? “Lord, we’re just so glad you’re here. We’re just so…. You’re just so good. We just love you so much.” Evangelical prayers, they’re consumed with justice. I mean, now it’s like one of those things, when you see it, you can’t unsee it. Every time I get in a praise circle, I’m going, here it goes. The “just” prayers are out. I mean, they use the word “just” 450 times in every prayer. And I just do the same thing. So. But these were not “just” prayers. And the other thing they did different, they didn’t use the word “just,” and they didn’t take turns. You get an evangelical prayer circle, people are very respectful. They’re like, “Your turn to pray, my turn to pray. We all pray.” You know, some people don’t pray, but, you know, we all take our little turn to pray. It’s very polite, very orderly, very good. No, no, no, no, no, no. Mona and these two dear old people, they’re all talking at once. They got their hands on me, and they’re all, “Hallelujah, Jesus! Oh, God, give you the glory tonight. This is a wonderful night, and you’re a wonderful God. And we’re just going to pray that your Holy Spirit just comes upon this young man and fills him to overflow. And hallelujah, Jesus. Oh, God! Give the glory to God. We praise your holy name. Hallelujah, Jesus! Oh, God. Oh!” So they can start going off in tongues and interspersed with “hallelujahs” and “praise Jesus.” And I’m just down there on my knees going, “Thank you, God. You’re good, God. You’re great, God. I bless your name, God. You just gave me a great salvation, God. You’re just so awesome. God, I just want to thank you tonight. God, I just want to say that, you know, I don’t know what these people are doing, but, God, I know you’re good, and I know you died on the cross for my sins, and I can’t renounce all those things. But, you know, if you have something for me here that I’m missing out on… Okay, so, God, I lift you up, and…” Oh, man, you thought they were turned on before. “Hallelujah, Jesus! You got it, boy. You got the Holy Ghost.” 30 hours. 30 hours. I couldn’t stop. I went to bed that night, I called Jill, said, “I got tongues.” She goes, “What?” “I got tongues. I’ve been praying in tongues.” But then I did something that the Pentecostals wouldn’t have liked. I went to the Charismatic Catholic movement in town because one of my Young Life friends, her mom was a Charismatic Catholic, right? And so, she heard about it, and she had the same reaction. “Praise the Lord. The Holy Spirit’s hitting Young Life.” And she wanted us all to be Catholics. Her deal was, “You guys all need to reform the Catholic Church. We need young people like you who are in love with Jesus.” So I go to this Charismatic Catholic group, and they weren’t country, “hallelujah” Pentecostals. They were doctors and lawyers and, you know, accountants. They were all professionals, but they believed in the Holy Spirit, and they just talked about the Holy Spirit. And this was a little bit more my speed, right? It’s like, all right, this is like, this is like Poulsbo and Bainbridge Charismatics, not Bremerton and Port Orchard Charismatics, all right? It’s a little bit more my speed. And so I’m like—and I’ll never forget the funniest thing happened that night. And my whole point on this is saying I received tongues. Not because I’m better than anybody but because I was more desperate. I wasn’t spiritually elite, I was spiritually deplete. But I’ll never forget that night. First time I saw people slain in the Spirit or go down in the Spirit. They had us all stand up, and the leader came by and laid hands on people and prayed for people. And there was a catcher who went behind each person. He prayed for me, and I didn’t go down. It was years, years later before I ever went down. But you know, other people, a few, not everybody, you know, no big deal. But I just will never forget. It was just the funniest thing to me at the time. My friend’s brother and sister-in-law were at that group, and they stood up to pray, and he put his hands on her sister-in-law. And the catcher was standing behind the sister-in-law. And as he was, the brother fell. And for some reason, it just struck me as so funny. I’m just sitting there, I’m watching this catcher. It just struck me as—and I just thought, “Can’t outsmart God.” You know, God’s like, “This guy’s going to hit the floor tonight. He needs to hit the floor.” So anyway, be humble. Nou want to be happy? One simple rule to being happy, it really is. There’s one thing, one. There’s one thing to make you happy in this world. It’s a world of woe. You can’t count on circumstances to make you happy. That will crush your spirit. Bad stuff happens. Here’s what will make you happy. Live with gratitude. It’s the old, you know, the old wisdom—sometimes the best wisdom—count your blessings. Whenever I start going, “Oh, my gosh, I got this, I got this, I got this, I got this, I got this,” and that stuff starts to pile up on me, I do two things when I recognize that I’m feeling like just… I just go through seasons where other people’s pain climbs on my shoulders, right? We all do. And you’ve just heard this story of woe and this heartbreak, and this is going on with this family… As a pastor, you get that. You know, I get in this room. I know what’s going on in your lives. I know your joys, but I also know your pains and your heartaches and your heartbreaks. And there are times… And here’s what I do. I just… Then I remember 1 Peter 5:7: “Cast your cares upon Him.” And I just go through that list, and I just say, “Lord, I want to love this person through this, but I can’t fix this. It’s your problem, not mine. Lord, this is your problem, not mine. Take this dear person that I love and, Lord, get them the help they need.” And then the other thing I do is I just go, “Oh, my goodness. Who’s got it better than me? Who’s got it better than me? Nobody’s got it better than me. I’m married to Ms. Jill. Nobody’s got it better than me.” And if I forget that, she’ll remind me: you have it so good. I do. I was FaceTiming my grandkids this morning after church, and they are happy to see me. Three years old and one year old, and we’re just talking on the phone. Nobody’s got it better than me. And I get to pastor you all, like the nicest church. The best kept secret in Poulsbo is how nice this church is, how sweet you all are. And you’re good to me. Better to me than I deserve. You really are. Don’t stop, by the way. I’m fine with that. I’m fine with that. All right? And you just count your blessings. And what happens when you count your blessings, Jan? What happens when you count your blessings? You’re lifted up. You’ve gone through your share of heartache, haven’t you? And you still come in here with a smile on your face. What’s your secret? You praise God and you give Him thanks. I know you. You’re a good example to people, all right? Keep hanging around her, Marsha. She’s a good influence on you. She’s a good influence on you, too. Count your blessings and then live with hope. Faithful service is rewarded with the praise of God. Live for that day. Live for that day. It’s coming. It’s coming. All right. I said last week, I said, “Man, I think I’m in the fourth quarter.” And my wife meant—she says things wrong, and it ends up being the exact opposite of what she meant. She meant to say, “Hey, you might have longer than you think.” And she said, “But there’s overtime.” But the way she said it is, “You might be in overtime,” which sounded like I have less time than ever. Going, “What?” And she goes, “No, no, that’s not what I meant. That’s not what I meant.” So it’s like, “That’s what you’re hoping, isn’t it? That this is like sudden death. Oh, yes. Sudden death over time.” Exactly. Faithful service is rewarded with the praise of God. God’s approval and rewards are infinitely greater than the passing praise of men and the riches of this world. It’s just the way it is. Eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor the heart of men and women conceived what the Lord has prepared for those who love Him. And C.S. Lewis is just my go-to on this. The New Testament rustles with inexpressible problems—I mean inexpressible glory. Paul says suffering… Romans 8:17-18 has seared themselves into my mind this year, that suffering and glory are inseparable. Pain and glory are inseparable. But then the very next verse says this: They are also incomparable. That the sufferings of this life cannot be compared to the glory to be revealed to us. And I believe that glory is already being revealed to us and in us as we walk out this life. And so I know it is painful and hard to be human on Planet Earth and to be a follower of Jesus. I get it. I’m with you. And I also know that, as C.S. Lewis said, don’t be like “a child making mud pies in the slum because you don’t know what is offered by a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” That’s why we read John Burke’s book, Imagine Heaven. It’s coming. You can’t get off that train. There are trains you can get off of, but you can’t get off that train, dear ones. April 15th is coming. According to the United States government, you can’t get off that train. Right? The two things that are sure: death and taxes. I don’t know. You can get off that train, but you might go to jail. You won’t typically go to jail for making a mistake on your tax returns. You will go to jail if you don’t file one. So go ahead and file one. There are some mistakes you can actually go to jail for too. But anyway, not going to get into that. I already did. But that’s—you can’t get off that train. You are rapidly, rapidly—60 seconds a minute, 60 minutes an hour, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 28 to 31 days a month, 364 or 65 days a year, depending on the year—you are rapidly heading to a face-to-face encounter with the One from whom you will receive your praise. Even you young ‘uns. Even you young ‘uns. Isaiah, you’re on that train. Live for it, hope for it, rejoice in it. That day is coming. Amen. Amen. Here’s a meal of hope. A meal of hope and thanksgiving. It’s a foretaste, right? Appetizers. You go out to a nice restaurant, what do they give you? An appetizer. Here’s what an appetizer is. It’s a trick to get you to eat a lot of that, you know, pay money for that. And then, and then, you know, well, then you buy something else and it gets you going, gets you started. But here’s the deal. The whole point of an appetizer in true dining is this: You think this is good. You think bacon-wrapped jalapenos are a treat. But wait—you fish eaters, I don’t understand you—ribeye is coming. Steak is coming. You think being in church and hearing the Word of God and being filled by the Spirit and speaking in tongues with a bunch of Pentecostals for the first time—those are glorious experiences. You think all that is good? Eye has not seen or ear heard. But this is our appetizer. There’s a feast waiting for us. And Jesus invites us to this table to remind us of that feast. His body and blood were shed. Feed on Him in this life, and you will fully become like Him as you already are becoming. That will fully be realized in the next. Isn’t that great? Isn’t that the greatest of all the promises of the New Testament? You will be like Him. Anybody walk in here today and just think, “I want to be a better person”? I think that every day. Every day I wish I was a better man. Guess what? It’s promised. I get to be. I get to be. One day I’ll be as good as Stevin. Even better, I’ll be like Jesus. How good is that? Come and eat. The post 2026.3.22 TFHC – Servant and Steward | 1 Corinthians 4:1-13 appeared first on The Firehouse Church in Bremerton, WA.

March 15, 2026, Message by P. Kevin Clancey Transcribed by Beluga AI. I’m always struck by that song, Build My Life. In the middle of that song is a great prayer—just four requests that song makes that I just think, man, just make those part of your daily prayer. “Open up my eyes in wonder.” What a great prayer. Lord, open up my eyes in wonder, man. Never lose the wonder. I love little kids because they have wonder, right? You know, the first time you take them to Disneyland, like… And, you know, we can become so cynical and jaded. You know, I heard this comedian, he said, “You know what we ought to do when we watch the Olympics?” He says, you know, “These incredible athletes, but they’re all so incredible that we kind of forget about it, right?” He says, “Put like a normal person in that race and let them run with the athletes. You know, just put one of us in that race, you know, or put one of us on ice and let us skate with those skaters.” You know, I’ll do that—I’ll watch a football game and some receiver, some, you know, guy who runs a 4.3, 40-yard dash… I could run a 4.3, 40-yard dash if that was 4.3 days, you know? It’s like, what’s so hard about that, right? And so, he, you know, blazes by this wide receiver. The quarterback throws this, you know—which would be for us, way too hard a pass to catch. You know, it’s going so many miles an hour, spiraling, and it hits his hands, and he drops it. I’m going, “What the… They pay you to catch those balls. What are you doing?” It’s like, yeah, right. You know, I’d be like ducking and like, “Somebody’s going to hit me.” But we lose the wonder. So I love that. Never lose the wonder. And then the second part is, “show me who you are.” Right? “Open up my eyes in wonder; show me who you are.” If you want to never lose the wonder, ask God to show you who He is. You know, Moses—”Show me your glory.” It’ll kill you. You know, John, who walked with Jesus, laid his head on Jesus’s chest. And yet Jesus now in the book of Revelation, is approaching John in all His glory, and John, like, just falls at His feet like a dead man. 17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. He laid his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid. I am the First and the Last, (Revelation 1:17, CSB) Lord, show me who you are. And then third supplication of that little song: “Fill me with your love.” Fill me with your Spirit. Fill me with the Spirit of Jesus. And then mission: “Lead me in that love to those around me.” Isn’t that a great little prayer in that song? Those four supplications, those four requests. That just always struck me in that song. And there’s a man who will be celebrated in two days who did that. And his name, he’s called Patrick of Ireland, who, by the way, was not Irish. But in two days, we’re going to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. My last name is Clancy, so you better believe I’m already bringing out the green. All right? I’m already wearing the green. If you’re not Irish, you can just be, you can be honorary Irish on that day. Because my Irish father, though he was as much French as he was Irish, though he never admitted it. He always said, “Kevin, there’s only two kinds of people in the world, the Irish and them that want to be.” But anyway, we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, and we think it’s a day for, you know, marching, you know, just celebrating Irish ethnicity. And that is not the point of it all. St. Patrick was English. He wasn’t Irish. And then we also, you know, celebrate—it’s like it’s a holiday of drinking beer and drunkenness and dyeing rivers green. And, you know, and wearing silly green clothes and, you know, all that kind of stuff. But actually, St. Patrick was a marvelous man. It wasn’t about drinking. I grew up in that culture. I grew up with a lot of beer drinking, Karen. You know, they weren’t Wisconsin. They were Minnesotan, but they would challenge those Wisconsin. And, you know, Irish Catholic background, a lot of drinking in that heritage. You know, one of my great, great, great grandfathers, one of my relatives came. You know, he immigrated from Ireland to America. And every day he would go into a bar, and he’d order three beers after work. Just order three beers. And he’d get them all at the same time. And the bartender finally said, “Why don’t you just let me pour you one at a time, so they don’t lose their head and their freshness?” He goes, “Oh, no.” He says, “You don’t understand.” He says, “You know, when I left the home country, my father and brother, I left them behind. They stayed there. And I told him every day I’d have a beer with them. And so, this one’s for me, this one’s for me brother, and this one’s for me father.” And the bartender said, “Well, that’s a lovely tradition. That’s a lovely tradition.” So, he’d come in and get his three beers and then go home from work. And one day he came in, he ordered two beers. And then every day, he started just ordering two beers. The bartender got to thinking, says, “Oh, my gosh, his father died or his brother. This is so sad.” You know? “What happened?” So one day, the bartender goes, “Oh, I’m sorry.” He goes, “What is that, man? What are you sorry about?” He says, “Well, did your father die or your brother die? you’re only getting two beers now. Which one of them is gone?” He goes, “Oh, no, no, no. They’re fine.” He says, “Well, what went on?” He says, “Well, me wife, she took me down to the Baptist church, and they told me I couldn’t drink anymore. But it doesn’t affect me father and brother, none.” So that’s how I grew up. But that’s not what St. Patrick is about. St. Patrick is actually an incredible story in church history. You know, I’ve heard people pray, can a nation be changed in a generation? Well, in one case, it was—not only a nation, but actually… If you want to read a wonderful book, it’s by a scholar by the name of Thomas Cahill. And its intention is not necessarily to propagate Christianity, though the book does. He’s very pro what Patrick did and very pro the Christian movement. But he just tells the story of—the title of the book is How the Irish Saved Civilization. And what happened was, he tells the story of St. Patrick going to Ireland and converting the nation in about a generation and raised up these radical disciples of Jesus, these monks and nuns. And these monks began about the business of copying all ancient literature. They copied all the literature, all the literature of the western world. They were copyists, you know. And of course, they copied the Bible, and they copied, you know, all the holy writings of the church. But not only that, you know, the Greeks and the Romans and everything. And it wasn’t long after that that the Roman Empire was sacked. A lot of Western civilization would have been lost to us if it weren’t for the Irish monks who copied all that down. Then after the Roman Empire fell and Christendom, in its first stage, collapsed in Europe, it was actually the Irish monks who went back into northern Europe and then moved south. They re-evangelized Europe and evangelized lots of Europe that hadn’t been evangelized up till that point. And it happened because an island, a small island, was thoroughly and deeply converted to Christianity in about one and a half generations, an incredible story. It started with this young man named Patrick, who was not Irish; he was an Englishman. But he lived on the coast, the western coast of England. Often, if you lived in a small village on the western coast of England, you were a target. You were prey to Irish pirates. Irish pirates would come over the sea, and they’d do what pirates did. They would raid a village. They would kill the men and take or rape the women, and they would take the children often and turn and make them slaves. Well, that happened in Patrick’s village. His father and mother escaped, but he did not. He was captured and taken back to Ireland, where he became a slave. As a young boy, when he was captured, he was not devout. He was kind of a young teenager. And even back then, young teenagers liked to carouse with their friends. And, you know, that was kind of his reputation. You know, his parents were Christian, and he kind of, you know, “All right, whatever.” But that was what he was when he was enslaved. And he went to Ireland, and his job as a slave was to be a shepherd. Up in the hills, he was often alone and taking care of the sheep. During those times, Patrick became very close to God. In his desperation, he drew close to God and became a young man of prayer and devotion. One night, he had a dream. And in the dream, God showed him the way of escape from his slavery in a lot of detail—what path to take, what road to take, where the forks in the road would be, and which way to go. He showed him the boats that would ferry him across certain rivers. Then He showed him the very ship that would take him back to England, and the captain who would allow him to board that ship and go back to England with him. And so, Patrick packed up his goods, slipped away during the night, and escaped his slavery, followed the dream, and sure enough made it back to England on that ship. Well, he completely had committed his life to Christ. And so, he became a priest, and then he was a very good priest. And so, he became a bishop. And he was reaching the age of retirement back then, which was probably about in his early or mid-40s. That was the retirement age. So that would have been 20 years ago for me. I don’t know what I would have done this last 20 years. I don’t know if I retire now, what I’d do. So, you can’t get rid of me yet. So anyway, he retired, or he was going to retire, and then he had another dream right before his retirement. And in that dream, he saw an Irish pirate, the kind that had kidnapped him. And like Paul’s call to Macedonia, like Paul’s vision when he went to Macedonia, Patrick had a vision in this dream. And the Irish pirate said, “Come back to us, holy boy, and teach us the ways of God.” And so, because the first dream had led him to so much success, he followed the second dream. He rounded up a band of monks and nuns who were willing to be missionaries with him, and he returned to Ireland. Ireland at that time was completely pagan. It was, if you know anything about the Druids, very much nature worship, very much similar kind of forerunners of what we would call New Age mysticism. They were very spiritual people, a very superstitious people, and just enslaved by these spirits who they worshiped and sought to find meaning from. He did something different than typical Roman evangelism. He didn’t just go in and present the gospel. What they did was these monks and nuns would go into a village, and they would live among the people and work among the people—what we would call today incarnational evangelism. They kind of would earn the right to be heard by being good neighbors. And then they would pray for people, and signs and wonders and miracles would happen. And they said, “Wow, these people are in touch with spirits.” And, you know, the druids, like Moses before Pharaoh, Pharaoh’s magicians, their miracles were more impressive than the druids’ miracles, than the druid signs and wonders. And so, people began to convert. Then other villages would ask them to come. And, you know, it’s like if you watch these old movies, Ireland wasn’t like this unified nation. There was a little kingdom here and a little kingdom here and a tyrant and a ruler over here. You know, very much clannish, but these other kings, you know… and if you converted the king back then, the whole village, you’d say, “All right, we’re all Christians now. All right, king said that we’re all Christians now.” And they began to convert Ireland. And then they would raise up other missionaries from among those villages. But then he encountered spiritual warfare. He encountered devastating loss. The little group of priests and nuns he had brought back, they were living in an encampment, ready to go into their next village. And Patrick was out doing some business out, you know, I don’t know what he was doing, but he was gone that day, and he came back, and that little encampment had been invaded by Irish raiders. They’d killed some and taken off the rest. And Patrick loved these men and women that he’d been working with. He never saw them again. Never knew what happened to them. They just kidnapped them and took them to be slaves somewhere or whatever they did. And Patrick was devastated. He went out and he prayed and he said, “God, I quit. It’s too painful. It’s too hard. I quit. I’m retiring.” And God spoke to Patrick and He said, “No, you aren’t.” He said, “Pick yourself up. Go back and form another band and complete the work that I’ve assigned you to do.” God is gentle. God is caring. God is love. And sometimes His love is manifest in tough love. And Patrick did it. And, you know, we talk about, can a nation be changed in a generation? Probably took about a generation and a half after he died. There was more work. You know, Ireland wasn’t thoroughly converted, but it is said, you know, the legend is, oh, you know, chased the snakes out of Ireland or did this, you know. No, no… We don’t know, you know, that history that far back can be a little obscure. But we do know this: Ireland was almost completely pagan in the late 300s, and by the early 500s, it was almost unanimously Christian. In less than a hundred years, actually, it was in the mid-400s, a nation had been thoroughly converted to Christ and was, for about the next century, the strongest missionary movement that Europe knew during the next hundred years. Not only missionary, but scholarly, like I said—preserved the ancient writings of Western civilization. And that’s how the Irish saved civilization. So, this St. Patrick’s Day, if you’re going to have a beer, at least have it, you know, you know, just yay, yay for the Irish who saved civilization. Now, whatever your ethnicity is, I’m sure you got some good stories about that, too. So, you know, pick your day, share your stories. There have been saints and heroes in every culture, but St. Patrick really is one of the most remarkable characters in Christian history. He really is, and he deserves better than kind of the way we honor that day today, just as kind of a proud festival, and excuse to drink, of Irish ethnicity. That’s not what the day is about, not at least historically. It is about one of the strongest revivals in the early Christian church that God has used throughout history to help shape the world. So that wasn’t even a part of the Scripture I’m going to read. Oh, Romans 8:28 is true of St. Patrick. He was enslaved, and God used that for good. He suffered great loss. God wouldn’t let him quit, and He used that for great good. Romans 8:28. “For God causes all things to work for the good of those who love Him and have been called according to His purpose.” 28 We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28, CSB) Doesn’t say here that all things are good. Some things will be very hard, but they are not—the cross of Jesus was very hard, but the resurrection was bigger. The resurrection… all of hell tried to put Him in the tomb and He got up. So whatever life hits you, know God is bigger. God is bigger. And you’re never too young. And here’s one for us, a few of us anyway—you’re never too old. You’re never too old. You know what’s not in the Bible? Retirement. It’s not in the Bible. What’s that? All right, Isaiah, point killer. Yeah. Abraham doesn’t get to retire. Moses doesn’t get to retire. Paul doesn’t get to retire. You can retire from your job, that’s fine, but you can’t retire from serving Jesus. All right, trump that, young man. Yeah, trump that. Gosh, you raised a kid who knew his Bible. Good on you. Good on you, Karen. Good on you, Brian. All right, speaking of the Bible, let’s get to it, shall we? We’re going through 1 Corinthians. We’re in chapter 3, verses 5 through the rest of the chapter. 5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? They are servants through whom you believed, and each has the role the Lord has given. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So, then, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. 9 For we are God’s coworkers. You are God’s field, God’s building. 10 According to God’s grace that was given to me, I have laid a foundation as a skilled master builder, and another builds on it. But each one is to be careful how he builds on it. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than what has been laid down. That foundation is Jesus Christ. 12 If anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, 13 each one’s work will become obvious. For the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire; the fire will test the quality of each one’s work. 14 If anyone’s work that he has built survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will experience loss, but he himself will be saved —but only as through fire. 16 Don’t you yourselves know that you are God’s temple and that the Spirit of God lives in you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is holy, and that is what you are. 18 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks he is wise in this age, let him become a fool so that he can become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, since it is written, He catches the wise in their craftiness ;20 and again, The Lord knows that the reasonings of the wise are futile. 21 So let no one boast in human leaders, for everything is yours — 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come —everything is yours, 23 and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God. (1 Corinthians 3:5-23, CSB) May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable, Lord, in your sight, our Rock, our Strength, and our Redeemer. 14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. (Psalms 19:14, CSB) So Paul uses three analogies here. The church as a field, the church as a building, and the church and us individually as a temple. And he’s still dealing with the very same problem that we dealt with. Remember, never just read Scripture in isolation. Know the context, and if you remember the context… The Bible wasn’t written with Paul saying, “Oh, this is chapter three, verse so and so.” He just wrote a letter. By the way, we say the Bible is inspired; we don’t say the numbering system is inspired. The numbering system is very helpful. It helps us locate things, it helps us remember things, but it can also teach us to read the Bible in those kinds of—the Proverbs were kind of written that way… But the rest of the Bible is not really written that way. It’s a story or it’s a letter. So, in this letter, in what we call chapter one, Paul lays out the problem. He says, “You know, you here in Corinth, I spent 18 months with you laying the foundation, which is Jesus Christ. And now I hear there are divisions. I hear there are denominations. There’s the Paulites and the Peterists, the Apollonians.” He says, “No, it’s not about Paul, it’s not about Peter, it’s not about Apollos. We are all one. We are all telling you the same story. We’re all pointing to the same Jesus.” And one of the scandals of the church is that, you know, we have so many schisms. And I, you know, I just tell people, how many churches are there in Poulsbo? And there’s only one good answer to that: one. How many clubhouses? I don’t know, 30, 40 or so. I don’t know, not sure. We’re a clubhouse. The church is made up of all those—best I can tell in the New Testament—is made up of all those who repent, believe, are filled with the Holy Spirit. Repent, believe, baptized, and filled with the Holy Spirit. Those are the people who make up the church. And you know, one of the things the Catholics argued during the Reformation is, if you make every man, you know, interpret the Scripture for themselves, you’re gonna have 50,000 denominations. They were right. And so, they throw that at the Protestants. And what I throw back at them is, well, if your leaders weren’t so lousy, we’d all still be one church. If they weren’t so corrupt and wicked… So it’s on you, not the Protestants. Martin Luther had no choice as far as I’m concerned. But we’re a less than perfect body. But God’s making us a perfect bride, and we need to strive for unity. We need to strive for unity. Not lowest common denominator unity. We don’t sell out to be united, but we do need to come to a good understanding of what are first things and what are second things and third things. You know what I’m saying? And I love what John Wesley, the founder of the Methodists—and he never wanted to be the founder of the Methodists. He died an Anglican. But he used to say of Christians who differed with him, “Yeah, but if your heart is as my heart, give me your right hand of fellowship.” And so we can differ on, you know, secondary ideas around eschatology or some other things, but is your heart as my heart? Are you about Jesus? And in all three of these pictures, that’s the point he’s trying to make. And C.S. Lewis does a great job of this in Mere Christianity, says, “Look it, I’m not arguing for a denomination, I’m arguing for Christianity.” And he said, “It’s interesting to me that the people who are most committed to mere Christianity, who are most committed to the core beliefs, are actually closer to one another than they are to people of their same denomination.” And I’ve experienced that. When I was a part—I was a part of the Catholic Church, I was part of another mainline Protestant church. And I experienced, you know, when I was a Catholic, I had more in common with, you know, a Bible-believing Pentecostal than I did with a lot of the people in the Catholic Church who were just kind of nominal Catholics. And then when I was a Methodist, I had more in common with Bible-believing Baptists than I did with the progressive liberal, “we don’t believe nothing but that there might be a God” Methodist. And even today, is your heart as my heart? Is Jesus what it’s about? Not Jesus and this agenda, not Jesus and that agenda, but Jesus. Is he what it’s about? And that’s what Paul says. He says, “Look, Apollos and I were like workers in a field. Yeah, somebody’s got to plant the seed, and somebody’s got to water the seed, and somebody’s got to put the trees in rows, and somebody’s got to prune them. There’s a lot that the farmers do. There’s a lot that we do as co-workers. But you know what we can’t do? We can’t do the miracle of making this little seed grow into this huge tree and fill it with rich, nourishing, vibrant fruit. Who puts the juice in those things? It’s God. God does the amazing stuff.” Who converts people? God. Who heals people? God. Who raises people from the dead? God. Who casts out demons? God. Who transforms Ireland and civilizations? God. Who brings revival? God. Now guess what? He won’t do it without us. We got to open our mouths. We got to go to our neighbors. We got to say our prayers. We participate. We’re co-workers. But dear ones, He really does all the heavy lifting. None of us died for the sins of the world. None of us rose from the grave in our own power. On the other hand, none of us would have believed had not somebody that He sent proclaimed to us the truth of the gospel. And oftentimes Christ comes to us through what? Through a Stevin, through a Karen. You know, He meets us in the faces of our brothers and sisters. He meets us in the faces of the poor. When we serve the poor. He meets us and here’s what He says. There’s this idea kind of floating around that says, well, you know, you just accept Christ and you all go to heaven; you all get the same reward. No, you don’t. There are rewards in heaven. Each one will be rewarded. Are we saved by our works? Are we saved by our obedience to the law? No, we’re saved by our faith in Christ. But that faith in Christ was meant to produce good works in us. And Jesus is very clear. He says, “Not a cup of cold water given in my name will lose its reward.” I used that illustration this morning in Bremerton. I talked about, you know, we got all the homeless around. I say whenever I see a homeless person out there—we got all these water bottles in the church—I always give him a water bottle. You know, I always give him a water bottle. Hey, Jesus, cup of cold water in your name. Eternity, right? Eternity, right? Put another piece of furniture in my mansion in heaven. Eternity. Eternity. And some gal… we had an Isaiah there, too, for crying out loud. She says, “Hey, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” 3 But when you give to the poor, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, (Matthew 6:3, CSB) Said, “Fine, here. Here’s a cup of cold water. Here you go. Here you go.” But I do, man. And sure enough, this homeless guy walked in this morning. And he walks out, and I see he’s carrying three waters. So, all right, there you go, Jesus. Good on the Firehouse Church. And there’s another homeless girl walked in and says, “Do you have any water?” Today’s the day, sister. This is your lucky day. I preached on this. I better deliver. So, I gave her two waters. “Here, take your two waters. God bless you.” But it matters. Each one is rewarded according to his labor. Each one of these pictures, he talks about rewards. The next two, he also talks about judgments and punishments. The church as a building. Paul uses another analogy. He says, “One waters, one plants.” Now uses another. He says, “I’m the master builder, and here’s my part in this building project.” He says, “I’m an apostle. And as an apostle, I go from city to city. And what do I do? I lay the foundation. And here is the foundation I lay. It is Jesus Christ. And when that foundation is in place, and I have taught others there—a Timothy, an Apollos, some elders—I move on. “And what they do is they then build upon that foundation. And what they use to build upon that foundation will be tested and will be judged. Do they cut corners? Do they then become hirelings instead of shepherds? Are they doing it for the money they receive, the praise they receive, and the notoriety that they receive? Have they become Christian Pharisees looking for the praise of men? Or are they shepherds? Are they continually laying down their lives for the sheep and building the foundation with gold? And not cutting corners?” Listen, I am, in my political leanings, all for less government. I just am. It’s like it’s got too much. But I also realized this: our founders didn’t want a lot of government, but they also said this: Unless you have a moral and religious people, you cannot have less government, because people cannot govern themselves if they are wicked. And so, if we think government is overbearing, maybe, maybe it’s on us. You know, I would say—to continue the conversation earlier—I’d say the school system makes a terrible father. They’re not a good father. Why have they stepped in and tried to be a father? Well, you say, well, it’s the government takeover. It’s also because there’s a crying need because there aren’t fathers. Somebody’s got to feed these kids free breakfast in the morning, or they go hungry. And if they go hungry, they can’t learn. Somebody’s got to have after-school programs, or they’re just going to run around on the streets because their mothers can’t come pick them up because they have no man providing for the household. I once heard a very liberal state representative who grew up fatherless, and she said, “I am so supportive of all these government programs, and I want all these government programs. Why? Because they kept me alive.” And I thought, “Well, I do not like these government programs. I think they enable people because people end up relying on them. I think they actually exacerbate the problem.” But I also took her point. It’s like, well, then do something about it. Do something about it. That’s why I pray for revival and renewal. Because one of the reasons that it will transform society is if you want less government, then call upon God to shape our land in such a way that we need less government. Having said all that, building with right materials, right? How many nuclear accidents have the aircraft carriers and subs had for how many years have they been using nuclear power? 30, 40 years. Oh, so 50, 60 years. How many catastrophic accidents have we had? Zero. Yeah. Zero. That’s just not propaganda. I think that’s true. Zero. Now you had Chernobyl. Was Chernobyl a lesson for all of us about the danger of nuclear energy? No, it’s about the danger of cutting corners and being cheap in your work and your processes and not caring about human lives and the environment, which is exactly what happened and exactly why that facility failed so drastically and devastated a whole region that’s still experiencing that devastation. So having said that, I’m not an anarchist. I’m glad our government has building codes and construction codes for roads. Now. I think we’ve fallen off the other side of that horse, quite frankly. I think maybe we’ve gone too far. But on the other hand, I don’t want them to let greedy people cut corners with my kids’ safety and automobiles and buildings. Do you? When a big earthquake hits, you’re going to be glad. You might be glad that they, the government, said, “Hey, you know, from now on you can’t just put houses on top of foundations. You got to bolt them on those foundations.” You might walk away from that going, “Yeah, I’m glad they did that.” All I’m saying is—this is not a political commentary—but all I’m saying is fallen humans will cut corners. But Paul… see, if we’re a religious and moral people, we don’t need the government to tell us not to cut corners because the Bible tells us not to cut corners. And Paul says, when you’re raising your children to be Christian disciples, don’t cut corners. When you’re working in an environment where you’re surrounded by non-Christians, don’t cut corners. Don’t compromise your faith. Pay the price of being misunderstood. Now, I’m not saying be a mean Christian. We got our quota of those. We don’t need any more mean Christians. I’m just saying be a Christian. Be a Christian in your home, be a Christian in your workplace. Look, anybody can fake it for an hour and a half on Sunday night. And evidence points this out. Kids who walk away from the faith—now, if your kid has walked away from faith, I’m not accusing you because it’s not unanimous. You can be wonderful parents and your kids still got to make their own choice. And you can be horrible parents and your kids will make tons of right choices. However, having said that, statistically, you are placing incredible odds in your children’s favor of them remaining in the faith that you raised them in, in the faith of Christ—you are placing incredible odds in their favor, not by dragging them to church; that has a fairly minimal impact, but by living out an authentic example of what they and you heard on Sunday morning before them on Monday through Saturday. Now, you don’t have to be perfect. I’m not saying that. I’m not trying to put pressure on you. I’m just saying they’ve researched this. People have researched this. And it’s like, “Oh, my parents mean this.” My daughter was just talking about it. She was talking about—and again, if you’ve been divorced, I’m not picking on you here. But my daughter was talking about, you know, “We have this nice couple that our kids play sports with.” And my wife just said, “Oh, they, they must be Christian.” My daughter says, “Well, sadly, they’re not. He’s had no real exposure to the Christian faith. She grew up just like me, deeply involved in church. Youth group, loved it. And then she walked away from it all.” And we said, “What was it? College professors?” “No.” “Was it, you know, a boyfriend?” “No. Parents got a divorce and she’s like, ‘Well, wasn’t real for them.'” Well, it probably was, and there are probably other reasons. I’m not trying to be hard on those parents. I don’t know them; I’m not trying to judge them. But I’m just saying that that was impactful, right? They were saying, “Find the right person, pray for the right person, marry the right person, work out your conflicts.” They were teaching her all these things. You learn all these things. And then right there before, it’s like it didn’t work. It impacted her. Now is that an excuse for her? No, the truth of Christ should trump that. And she didn’t walk in that. Her rebellion is her own. All I’m saying is foundations, the materials you use to build with, will matter and they will be exposed. I am always saddened and it just happens so much. Probably it’s always been this way, but now you have so much media, so much social media. And it probably happens in small churches as much as big churches, but small churches just don’t have the notoriety. So, I’m not picking on big churches. Always bothered me when pastors of small churches pick on big churches. Always seemed like kind of petty to me, but nonetheless, ministries, large ministries, large churches are put up on these pedestals and then when they fall and there’s moral failure with the pastor and the board and people find corruption and cover ups and all this stuff. It just grieves me when I see that. But what’s that about? That’s about building with wood, hay, and straw. And inevitably, that gets exposed. The old holiness movement used to say, “Your sins will find you out. Your sins will find you out.” It will be tested. And look, the reward is if you build with good materials, you will receive a reward. But if you cut corners in your Christian walk and witness, it will be exposed, and you will lose that. Though in this case, he says, you will be saved—God will keep His covenant with you, but only as one coming through fire. Now listen, I’ve said many times, “Lord, I just want a seat at the table. I don’t care where I’m at table; I’ll be at the end of the table.” But on the other hand, what I’d really like to hear is, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” I’d really like to hear that. And the closer I get, the older I get, you know, the more kind of eternity presses in on me. The more that meeting with Jesus is like, yeah, that’s going to happen. I used to, you know, acknowledge it was going to happen. Yeah, one day I’m going to go and meet Jesus. And that day—you know, when I’m 30—that day… Yeah, it’s out there. And now I go, you know, one day I’m going to go and meet with Jesus. And that day… You know? Like, I don’t know… 67? 30, I think, ah, maybe 40, 50 years. 67? I don’t got 40, 40, 50 years. It’s like I haven’t done a, you know, a rigorous job of taking care of my health. I’m all right, but, you know, I’m overweight. Yeah. You know, never seen a smiling jogger, so, you know, I don’t do that. Golly, that day, that day’s coming. That’s a train you can’t get off. That’s going to be a great day. But on that day, you got no more chance for those rewards that you got by building right in this world. And it’ll be fine. If you’re at the end of the table, it’ll be fine. And you won’t even be envious of those who are sitting closer to Jesus. You’ll rejoice. It’ll be good. There won’t be envy. There won’t be this big regret. But, you know, the man’s a fool who lives for temporal immediate dopamine rush and satisfaction when eternity is lying before him. Who would invest, make an investment in the stock market if the broker said, “Hey, this is going to go up like crazy in the next week, but you’re not going to be able to take it out for five years. It’s going to crash. Oh, but it’s going to be so fun when you see it go up.” “Here’s all my money.” Like, no. But what if the broker said, you know, “Here, you’re going to invest this. It’s not going to seem like much in the beginning, but it’s going to grow exponentially over the years to a treasure that your mind at this point can’t even fathom.” And you had reason to trust that broker, by the way, because you got reason to trust Jesus. Brian, where would you put your investment? I’ve heard you’re wise about these things. You are no fool, my man. You are no fool. Isaiah, Karen, count your blessings, man. You hooked your wagon, you hooked your wagon to a good man. All right, dear ones, the final analogy. The church as a temple. The temple in the Old Testament, the tabernacle in the temple—the whole reason was this is the place God dwells. And now the New Testament, the New Covenant, which is better than the old covenant—now the temple in which God dwells is in my heart because Jesus fulfills the covenant, the old covenant. Now God’s desire has always been throughout the Bible, “I want to be with my people. I want to dwell among my people.” Now He dwells among us and He dwells in us. And so, you are an incredible treasure. We look at you now and go, “Hey, there’s good old so and so.” If you saw good old so and so in their exalted state, C.S. Lewis says you’d be tempted to worship them. And if you saw an image bearer of God who threw that away on worthless living and faces judgment, you would see an eternal horror like that of which only meets you now in nightmares. But here’s what he says—I love this—in “The Weight of Glory.” There are no ordinary people. Your neighbor is the most incredible thing in the universe that you will ever encounter. And he says if you destroy God’s temple, one of those image bearers who the Spirit of God is living in, if you destroy His church by divisiveness and backbiting and gossip and, you know, grumbling and all those things, greed… He says, if you destroy God’s temple, you will be destroyed. But if you honor God’s temple, God dwells in you and your body and your life will glorify God. Don’t destroy the temple of God. Don’t gossip about people in church. Believe the best and build one another up. I pray at this stage of my life, I pray… It was so funny. I think I told you this last week. But I’m an old man, so I repeat my stories. And you’re kind of old people too, so you forget my story. So, it’s all good. So, I told this story. You know, I went back to Kansas City and Grace Covenant Conference, and I got this church, my second church home. Apostle Pam Brown pastors that church. Dear sister. And these are a bunch of African American, mostly African American, Pentecostals. These ladies and men, they pray at the church, and a bunch of these ladies come to the conference. They really love me, and I love them, and I’ve preached there a few times. These are just great ladies, man. And nothing against you guys, you Northern Europeans, but they are not—man, when you say, “I’m bringing a fire,” they go, “We want the fire, Pastor. We want the fire. Put your hands on me. Pray for me.” They’re falling and dropping, and “Hallelujah!” I made a vow. I kind of just—I didn’t ask God about this. I said, “You know, I’m not gonna do that. They always expect me to, you know, get slain in the Spirit and all that. I’m not going to do that. I’m just going to preach the Word.” And I’m in church, and God’s like, “Who told you that that’s what I want to do?” “Well, God, I don’t want to. You know, I feel like it’s just, you know, kind of the expected thing.” And He says, “Come on, son. Let’s get the ball rolling.” I go, “Okay.” I turn to this lady behind me: “You want to start this?” “Start what?” Put my hand on her, “In the Name of Jesus.” Bam. She drops. I look at her on the ground and said, “That.” And they’re lined up. “I want Jesus.” All right. We’re praying for them and all that. This is great. So, anyway, these ladies pray for me. I have a great time when I’m there. They pray for me. So, we’re at the lunch last day, and they’re like, “How can we pray for you, Pastor?” I said, “At this time in my life, I’m praying for five characteristics.” And they’re so encouraging. I said, “I’m praying for kindness. I want to be kind. I want to be a kind old man, you know, I don’t want to be mean. I don’t want to be, ‘Get off of my lawn!’ You know, I don’t want to be that guy. ‘I hate traffic!’ I want my grandkids to grow up with a kind grandpa, not a grumpy grandpa. So I’m praying to be kind.” And they’re so great. They say, “Oh, we’ll pray for that. But you got that. You got that.” Well, thank you. I said, “I want to be an encourager. I want to be encouraging to people.” “Oh, Pastor, we’ll pray for that. You got that, though. You got that.” “I want to pray for wisdom. I want to be wise.” “We’ll pray for that. But you, you’re a wise man. You’re a good preacher. You’re a wise man.” “Thank you. But I want to be wiser. Also, I want to pray for humility.” “Oh, we’ll pray for you.” Right then, I got a dose of humility. It’s like, there was no, like, “Oh, you got that. You got that.” It’s like, “Oh, yeah, we’ll pray for that. Pray for that.” It’s like right there, that humbled me. It’s like, I recognize that. It’s like, “Oh, yeah, we’ll pray for that. Yeah, we’ll pray for that.” And the fifth one is courage. I want to have courage. Because the older you get, the more courage it takes to live. That’s just the truth of it. I want to have courage. So those are the five qualities I pray for. So, if you ever think about praying for me, just take out your hand. That’s five of them. You know, if you can’t remember, send me a text or an email. I’ll tell you, all right? None of you are going to forget humility, though. You’ll be like, “Oh, yeah, that boy needs humility. Help him, Jesus. Help him.” Pray I can get humility without getting terribly humbled, though. You know, that’s the hard part. Like, humility is great. The process is rough. Like, patience is great. The process is rough. All right, but here’s the sternest warning, right? There’s no warning for the field. There is a warning for the building, that your building will be destroyed. But here, if you destroy God’s temple, God will destroy you. Wow. That may mean the judgment of physical death. If you’re a church killer, a disruptor of the people of God, there may be a time God says, “Well, I gave him time to repent,” you know? But I’m not a Calvinist here, folks. I’m not a Calvinist. I think he’s saying when you continually and habitually, driven by your own ego, sin against the people of God, you can harden your heart to the point of walking away from your salvation, and you will be destroyed. Listen, we all sin some. Don’t habitually sin. What do I mean by that? If you’ve got a habitual sin, I understand addiction, I understand the struggles. My gosh, like, I don’t struggle with stuff? But man, don’t hide that. Don’t rationalize it. Don’t justify it. Bring it to God. Bring it to the people of God and repent. And God will—you’ll get better. God will help you. He can deal with that. What He can’t deal with is somebody who justifies, rationalizes, lies, and then goes about wounding God’s people. Listen, it is scary to me, how often as a pastor, I’ve sat in my office and have somebody, you know, in full adulthood come to me with their broken life, and we dive into the story. It is scary and just bad the number of times where that broken life, a big piece of that brokenness, is rooted as a child, when some adult touched them in an inappropriate and sexually aggressive way. And it is never without consequences. Man, people are just messed up because of that. Women, it is often a real fear of men. Men can’t be trusted. Men hurt. Men are dangerous. For young boys, it is often, “Well, I wasn’t feeling love and affection and this didn’t quite seem right, but it was kind of loving,” and actually can be drawn to it. But it’s, in both cases, it is a destroyer of lives. And quite frankly, I want to—my sister and brother-in-law, we were listening to one of the missionaries at Grace Covenant. They’re working down in Ecuador, trying to show Ecuador how to run orphanages. The Ecuadorian government is asking this Christian couple, because they ran a really decent and good orphanage, to show them how to run orphanages. The orphan system in Ecuador is horrible because the kids are often trafficked, sexually abused, and molested. You know, it’s a gateway to that. And they’re telling them how to, and they’re showing them how to build safeguards against that and make safe, wholesome, and nourishing orphanages for these orphans. It’s kind of a neat story. The government’s reaching out to the body of Christ and saying, “Help us here, help us. We’re doing a bad job at this.” But my sister’s like, “I just want to go down there—when I heard that story—go down there, hold each one of those kids in my arms, and love them.” And my brother-in-law, who’s the justice warrior of the two of them—my sister’s got mercy, he’s got justice, right?—my brother-in-law, I said, “Do you want to go down with her?” He goes, “No, unless I can shoot the perps. I want to shoot the perps.” But here’s the problem with shooting the perps, right? Each one of those perps, why are they perps? Why are they molesting children? Chances are huge that the reason they’re molesting children is because they were molested. And so that satanic evil just, you know, goes through the generations, and we can cut that off in the Name of Jesus. A great thing that God has given us the authority to do. But man, what does Jesus say about hurting one of the little ones, right? Better a millstone. There’s a man I know, older than me, he knows the Bible inside and out. Not a Christian, was raised in a very strict kind of fundamentalist, kind of angry church where, you know, if he misbehaved in church, his dad would take him out and, you know, give him a stern talking to or a stern beating. And all the adults in church were all like, “Don’t have fun. You can’t have fun here.” You know, just that kind of church environment where it’s all like… And he’s rejected the thing because of his childhood. And I just thought, man, the church’s I’m pastoring… I never want—man, I want this to be a place where kids feel loved, embraced, and, you know, and the pastor loves them and the people love them. My kids… It was so great. We take our kids on vacation, and they go, “Hey, are we gonna be back in time to go to youth group? We don’t miss youth group.” That was awesome. As parents, we were like… And we hired this youth pastor, Newbie. They loved Newbie. Newbie was nervous, man. He had always, like, “Oh, gosh.” You know, he always felt—he was a great youth pastor, but he always felt the pressure of it. He was always worried about what the parents were thinking. I said, “Newbie, you’re doing a great job.” I said, “You only got to please me and God, and I’m happy.” He says, “What about my wife?” I said, “That’s between you and her. But I’m your boss. You got to please me. So I’m happy.” But, you know, he came to me one time, when he first started he said, “I was at the Christian bookstore is just overwhelmed with the curriculum.” He says, “What curriculum do I use?” And here’s what I told him. I said, “I don’t care.” I said, “You’re the curriculum. You’re the curriculum. These kids are watching you. Yeah. Teach them something biblical. Teach them something true.” But to this day, my kids love Newbie. If I ask them what Bible study really impacted your life, they’re like, “I don’t know. But we love Newbie.” Because Newbie was an authentic Christian man, and he lived that before my kids. My kids would come home from youth group and say, “You know, Newbie told us we should start reading the Bible every day. We’re gonna go in our room and start reading. We’re doing Colossians. We’re going to our room and start reading Colossians.” And my wife and I are like, “How many years have we said, ‘Read your Bible?'” But, you know, it was like, “My parents told me…” But Newbie told them. “Newbie told us, read the Bible every day.” So we didn’t, we didn’t, like, bring it up. We didn’t like, “Well, we’ve been telling you to do that all the time.” We had wisdom. We’re like, “Hey, that’s a great idea. Man, I wish we had thought of that. Go read your Bible every day. That’s great.” You’re the curriculum. We’re the curriculum. And how we live amongst other people, believers and non-believers, is simply the most important manifestation of Christ in our lives, more than the words we say. The words we say have power or don’t have power based upon the witness we live. That’s why that prayer is so good from that song. Never let me lose the wonder. Show me who you are. Then fill me with your heart. Then when I’m filled with the heart of the Spirit and the heart of Jesus, lead me to those around me. That’s how you build with precious stones. The precious stones are in you. The water that comes out of you is pure and clean and refreshing because it’s the water of life that God fills you with. You can’t give away what you don’t have. And for that, you are greatly rewarded. Walk with Jesus. Walk by the Spirit. Develop a friendship with God. Have intimacy with Him. If you don’t know how, ask Him. Say, “God, I want to be your friend. You are my Lord. You are my master. I serve you as you are my King. You know, I’ll wash your feet, I’ll do whatever in your house, but I also want to be your friend.” Do you know He wants to be your friend. And be His friend, and then your life will bear fruit. Why live for this world? All things are ours. All things are ours. We’re already inheriting them. I’m already inheriting them. I want to one day enter fully into the kingdom. But I’m already walking in the kingdom, right? You’re already walking in the kingdom. You’re already experiencing the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. He’s already answering your prayers. He already overflows your life. I will tell you one of the greatest ways to bear fruit and walk with Jesus is just living a life of thankfulness. Again, don’t slip into grumbling and complaining. My goodness. My wife always reminds me. I think she reminds me of this in direct reference to the fact that I’m married to her. But her point is, “You have it so good.” You know, she’s right. I do. I got a great wife. I got great kids. I got great friends. I am so thankful for y’all. I really am. I’m not one of those pastors that go, “Ew, the Firehouse Church in Poulsbo…” You know? Like, oh, those are wonderful. There are three wonderful families come to that church. Now, if I had my druthers, there would be 30 wonderful families who came to this church. But you three are pretty awesome. You three are pretty awesome. I just want a big family. But you’re great. Every time you walk in, I’m happy, you know? I really am. That’s not flattery. It’s the truth. I love you all. And I feel the same way in Bremerton. But I can slip into grumbling, you know? I get caught because I don’t like traffic. And I’m reminded daily whenever I start grumbling about traffic. What kind of people complain about traffic? Right? I’ve told you this before. People with cars. 12% of the world’s population gets to complain about traffic. The other 88% have to walk or ride bikes or motorcycles without helmets amidst third-world driving. Now, that’ll give you faith. I remember going to Costco, and I’m doing a no-carb thing. Oh, I’m going to eat meat. Gonna eat meat. Go to buy meat at Costco. Go get a little meat at Costco. No such thing as getting a little meat at Costco, right? They don’t sell little meat; they sell big meat. And when you’re there and you’re hungry, oh, that big meat looks good. You know, you go to the store, you can only get one New York steak. Go to Costco, you get a six pack. “Oh, boy. Steaks. Oh, ribs. Oh, bacon. Oh, meat. Meat. Good. Sausage. Good, Brian. Put it on grill. Eat it like a man. Good, Brian. Let’s eat meat. Burgers. Good.” Come home from Costco and realize I don’t have a freezer in the garage. I got this little freezer over my refrigerator. Tiny freezer, not a big freezer. Open it up. About three fourths full. I got all this meat. What did I do? I grumbled. “Oh, now I gotta clean out this freezer and organize everything and gosh—” And all of a sudden I hear the voice of the Lord. “Yeah, poor you, Kev. How much of the world do you think would be grumbling now because they had too much? Because they had to eat steak every day this week to make room in their freezer?” First world problems, right? First world problems. Gee, you’re going to have to grill up a steak tonight or you won’t have room for all your meat. Let me wipe the tears away from your eyes. Poor boy. Be thankful. Be thankful. Everything is yours. We’re like the older brother in the prodigal son story. “Why do you give him everything? I’ve been working for you all these years.” Yeah, you’ve been living in a great house with servants, eating well every night. And you get to inherit all this. What are you whining about? Because you got to go pull a few weeds once in a while? All this is yours. The kingdom is yours. You have entered the kingdom. And you will inherit the kingdom. And it’s bigger than you imagine. Eye has not seen or ear heard what the heart of man and woman can conceive, what the Lord has prepared for those who love Him. All this is yours. And so sing hallelujah. Clap your hands, give praise to God and thanks daily. Wake up every morning and say, “God, thank you. Thank you for a great salvation that is ours in Jesus Christ.” Yes, you have struggles. Welcome to Planet Earth. Look around this room. I know I can name the struggles and the heartbreak of—at least one or two of the struggles and heartbreak of every person in this room. And it grieves me that those are the heartbreaks in your life. But I can also say Christ is the victor, and He is bigger than whatever problems you are facing. And God causes all things to work for the good of those who love Him, have been called according to His purpose. 28 We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28, CSB) And dear ones, you cannot lose. If you do not quit, you cannot lose. All things are yours. And so be thankful. We’re gonna have this meal. It’s the thing Jesus told us to do. He said, “When you get together, do this. Eat bread, drink simple fruit of the vine, because my body and blood were poured out for you.” And it’s such a powerful picture of feeding on Christ. See all the other religions of the world—I’m almost finished, which means only 25 more minutes. You know, when preachers say, “Lastly,” you know what that means? They’re going to last, right? Preachers used to take out their watches and put them on the pulpit. And somebody said, “You know what it means when a preacher takes his watch off and puts it on the pulpit? Absolutely nothing.” But no, I am almost finished. And in fact, I am, because I forgot what I was going to say after I told those two jokes. Aren’t you lucky? So, dear ones, we’re going to take this meal. And it is such a powerful picture of feeding on Christ. On the night that He was betrayed, He took bread and He broke it, gave thanks to His Father. And He said, “This is My body which is given for you.” In the same way, after supper He took the cup, poured it out, gave thanks to His Father in heaven. He said, “This is My blood which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. The blood of the New Covenant.” 19 And he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, gave it to them, and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 20 In the same way he also took the cup after supper and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. (Luke 22:19-20, CSB) We are New Covenant people, which is so much better than the old that the Spirit of God actually lives in us. So, when you take this meal—the word Eucharist means “thank you.” Give thanks. When you take this meal, feed on Christ because you cannot give what you do not have. And if you want to give away Christ in your family, in your workplace, in the world, then feed on Christ. Feed on Christ tonight and please say, “Thank you.” Because He is so willing that He poured out His life to make us His eternal sons and daughters that we might dwell with Him forever. And He already dwells in us. So, thank you, Lord, for this great salvation. The post 2026.3.15 TFHC – The Church, Rewards, Punishment | 1 Corinthians 3:5-20 appeared first on The Firehouse Church in Bremerton, WA.

2026.3.1 TFHC – Spiritual Wisdom | 1 Corinthians 2:1-16 Transcribed by Beluga AI. All right, we’re going to look at 1 Corinthians 2, the whole chapter, 16 verses. So here we go. 1 When I came to you, brothers and sisters, announcing the mystery of God to you, I did not come with brilliance of speech or wisdom. 2 I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. 4 My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not be based on human wisdom but on God’s power. 6 We do, however, speak a wisdom among the mature, but not a wisdom of this age, or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 On the contrary, we speak God’s hidden wisdom in a mystery, a wisdom God predestined before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age knew this wisdom, because if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But as it is written, What no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human heart has conceived God has prepared these things for those who love him. 10 Now God has revealed these things to us by the Spirit, since the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except his spirit within him? In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who comes from God, so that we may understand what has been freely given to us by God. 13 We also speak these things, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual things to spiritual people. 14 But the person without the Spirit does not receive what comes from God’s Spirit, because it is foolishness to him; he is not able to understand it since it is evaluated spiritually. 15 The spiritual person, however, can evaluate everything, and yet he himself cannot be evaluated by anyone. 16 For who has known the Lord’s mind, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:1-16, CSB) Just to let you know, “dear ones” is in no translation. That was my own, my own editorial insertion. However yeah, well, if there ever is a KRV, Kevin’s Revised Edition, don’t worry Kevin’s Revised Version there will be “dear ones” all over the place. It’ll just be there. So, all right, dear ones, which you certainly are to me. Paul is talking about his preaching, and he says, “My preaching came not with human wisdom, not with persuasive words. I wasn’t a gifted speaker, but it did come with power.” There’s power in the Word. Paul preached with power. And the power is the message, not the preacher. The power is in the message, not the preacher. And so it wasn’t Paul. It wasn’t that Paul was he may have been self-deprecating here. I imagine Paul was a, you know, he obviously is a brilliant man. I imagine he was a gifted speaker. But his point was, “No, no, no, no, that’s not why you believe.” And the Greeks were big on that. They were big on gifted orators. Oh, they would have the most pompous, you know, orators and people would judge them not on the content of what they said, but just on their delivery. I remember as I was reading that and butchering it a few places, I remember I had a professor in seminary, and his only job he was a Hollywood actor. And they hired him at seminary to teach us seminary students how to read the Bible. And he would read it like a dramatic script. He was quite good. And then he’d expect us to do it. And you know, we just kind of And he was brutal. He was not gentle in his critiques. Which is good, you know, we live in too soft of a world, you know, so it’s good to be coached hard once in a while. But I just remember he would, you know, he would memorize the text and he would get up there and he would speak the Word of God and you know, you go, “Wow. Oh my goodness. Like God Himself is talking.” But Paul says that’s not the point. As much as that guy kind of thought it was the point. It’s not the point. Just like every seminary professor, they think their class, right? Every professor thinks their class the whole of the thing. I remember I had a professor and he taught on Hosea, okay? A minor prophet. Why do they call it a minor prophet? Not that he didn’t have anything to say. Just like, it ain’t the Gospel of John, buddy. But he was like, “Oh, you don’t understand the Bible unless you understand Hosea.” All right, good enough. You know, on Sunday night I’m a little looser, so you just get my pet peeves and everything. But Paul’s preaching was not a message with his persuasion. How many have ever heard Billy Graham speak? I went to a Billy Graham crusade, saw him speak many times on TV. My assessment: he was not a great preacher. He was not scintillating. You know, I’ve heard many preachers who were, you know, better at the craft, who captured my imagination more, who were easier to follow along with. But you know what? Doesn’t matter, because the power was in the simplicity of his message. Billy Graham knew who he was. He knew what he went there to say, and he said it. And the power of God’s Spirit was on it. And so thousands came forward every time because it’s God’s power, not Billy Graham’s great preaching. God used his faithfulness, not his oratory skills, to great effect. And so the power is the message. It is the mystery that Paul talks about here, the mystery long hidden from the ages. And what is the mystery? The mystery is that the big enemies of humanity, that the darkness of the present age, in which people had been living since the garden, the darkness of the fall sin and Satan and death would be overcome in an incredible way. Everybody thought it would be overcome by great, what? Military victory, might, and power because that’s how the world operates. That’s how the world operates. Our president right now: “Hey, you can’t beat us.” And, you know, that’s strange for Donald Trump to say that, because he’s always been known as a very humble, not overconfident man. But, you know, he’s like, “You can’t beat us. We’re the greatest.” And we people love that. “Yeah, yeah, we’re the greatest. We’re the most powerful.” But, you know, the mystery is this. And all of us could believe a religion like that. That’s how things operate. You know, the Seahawks won the Super Bowl. Why? Because their defensive line couldn’t be handled by the New England Patriots’ offensive line. They were bigger, they were stronger, they were faster. Now, Joe, they weren’t as good as Mean Joe Green and those boys back in the ’70s, I got to give you that. But they were good. They were good, all right. That’s how the world operates. We’re bigger, we’re stronger, we’re faster, we’re meaner. And here we have a humble King. Who’s heard of such a thing? A King who poses as a carpenter, a poor man from a little village who then went to a fishing village of an oppressed people and dies a horrible, humiliating death. And yet there’s power in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ like no other power. Nothing else, quite frankly, quite honestly, quite demonstratively, has impacted the life of people on this planet more than the life of that one man. Literally, He’s changed everything. And it’s still changing. It is an incredibly powerful message that a crucified God would change the world and that a dead man got up from the grave in a victory that makes every military conquest in history look like child’s play. He defeated death. That’s the message. The message is a humble King comes and reinitiates, reintroduces, re-brings His kingdom in a great invasion. It was His kingdom to begin with. It was usurped, it was rebelled against, it was stolen. And guess what? Jesus Christ arrives and the kingdom is now established. The King has come, and through His death and resurrection, His kingdom has been established. Then He ascends to heaven and sends His Spirit, and the thing has been growing on the earth ever since then, so that the prophecy of Habakkuk 3,000 years ago is going to come true before our eyes. We’re going to see it, and we see it happening now. His glory will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. 14 For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord ‘s glory, as the water covers the sea. (Habakkuk 2:14, CSB) That’s the mystery. That’s the power. The power is demonstrated in the simple preaching of the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And then power of signs and wonders. Paul’s also referring to that. He says, “When I came to you, the gospel was demonstrated by signs and wonders.” Throughout the Gospels, throughout the book of Acts, the gospel is demonstrated by signs and wonders. The signs and wonders are not the gospel. The signs and wonders are a sign and a proclamation that Jesus and His kingdom have arrived. How do we know Jesus and His kingdom has arrived? Because devils can’t stand in front of it. Towns committed to idolatry, like Ephesus, fall into great revival, and people are burning their witchcraft books. And the leading silversmith in town, who makes idols to this goddess, starts a riot because he’s losing his business. Because the whole world is being transformed by the preaching of this gospel, and there are miracles happening. In fact, handkerchiefs were going around, and people you know, TV preachers say, “Buy this handkerchief, and somebody will get healed.” Oh yeah, but you know what? He got that from the Bible. Not the marketing part of it. But even handkerchiefs that Paul touched were being laid on the sick, and they were being healed. That’s not that the handkerchiefs are magic. They’re not, but they’re an inspiration to faith. And God moves through that. You know, we anoint people with oil. It’s like, well, what’s magical about the oil? Nothing. It’s oil. But there’s something powerful when the symbol of the Holy Spirit is on the fingers of somebody indwelled by the Holy Spirit, and that person touches another person, and that power is transmitted. Signs and wonders of the kingdom. People will tell you it’s a scandal. It’s a scandal when people use signs and wonders to promote their own kingdom and to make money. And it is a scandal. It’s an embarrassment to the church that people traffic in the things of God and market the things of God. But you know what else is a scandal? False miracles. False prophecies. Manipulative miracles. Manipulative prophecies. Those are a scandal. You know what else is a scandal? A church with no miracles. That’s a scandal. Why? Because there’s power with the gospel. “Well, no, that was just to establish the church in the first century or before the Bible was written,” some will say. And you know the Bible that they revere? You know where it says that in the Bible? Nowhere. “The Bible is the inerrant Word of God.” Well, the inerrant Word of God says Paul preached the kingdom with signs and wonders and great miracles. “Yeah, but we don’t do that anymore.” I know. You know why you don’t do it? Because you’re disobeying the Bible you proclaim to believe in. “Well, I tried and it didn’t work.” Well, try again. “Well, if I tried and it didn’t work, it must mean it’s not for today.” No. Have you ever tried to evangelize a friend and they weren’t converted on the spot? “Yeah.” Oh, then evangelism is not for today. No, keep trying. Anything you try a lot in life, you get better at. “Well, that’s not true of spiritual gifts.” Of course it is. It’s true of natural gifts. If you’re a natural musician, you’ll become a better musician if you practice. Doesn’t mean you don’t have a natural there are people who have musical intelligence way beyond mine. I know because I know people who sat down at 3 years old and can listen to something being played and play it on the piano at three years old. I have a friend who could do that. Okay, that’s an intelligence I don’t have. But you know how he gets better at that? He takes that natural gift and he practices it. As hard as I ever practice at basketball Ats, you too. Neither one of us are ever going to be LeBron James. We’re not 6’9″. We don’t jump out of the building. We don’t have that incredible, you know, kinetic memory. We don’t have that brilliance, that brilliant muscle. That’s the kind of intelligence that we don’t have. Now, you’re a smart guy, but that’s not your primary intelligence. You might be an okay athlete, but, you know, you’re not LeBron. I’m not making you feel bad, are you? No. Okay, good. You’re a smart guy. You got intelligence that LeBron doesn’t have, trust me. You know? You know, Brian’s smart. He’s good with numbers. He’s good with math. He’s good with spatial intelligence. He’s an engineer. He can figure stuff out, solve problems. Engineering, man, they solve problems. Yay for engineers. They know how to get after it. You know who’s really smart and good with number and doesn’t solve problems? An accountant. They just recognize problems. They tell you, “You got a problem here.” Thanks, Einstein. I’m gonna go take my books to an engineer. He’ll fix this. All right. So what was my point? Oh, not everybody gets healed. Man, I wandered down a bunny trail there, didn’t I? Not everybody gets healed. Why not? “Well, because God’s not doing it anymore.” No. We’re not as good at it as He is. Keep doing it. How many months did we pray for Julie? Why wasn’t she healed the first time we prayed? I don’t know. I know she doesn’t have cancer anymore. That’s a miracle. We all witnessed it. Churches need miracles. I know she doesn’t go to this church, but she goes to our church. She’s part of our church. We prayed for her. It’s one church. Got miracles in church. It’s a scandal when you don’t. The gospel is to be preached with signs and wonders and miracles. Revealing Christ is God’s job when we proclaim the gospel. It’s not a matter of winning the argument. I know of very few people who’ve been converted to Christianity through apologetics, that is, arguing for this. Now, I know of hundreds of Christians whose faith has been strengthened through apologetics, and I’m one of them. I love apologetics. I love reading all the reasons to believe. And I am absolutely convinced that we have the most scientific, historical, philosophical, and moral worldview out there. There’s nothing that can compare. And I’ll argue with you on any of those points. I’ll argue with you that we have the best scientific case. Atheists are all hypocrites because they believe in six miracles. Everything came from nothing. Morality comes from matter. Right? Life comes from non-life. That’s three of them. The other three aren’t on the top of my head now, but, you know. Oh, order comes from chaos. You know, they believe in things that aren’t scientifically observable and have no scientific explanation. James Tour is a brilliant microbiologist from, I think, Rice University, and he talks all the time and he argues about the origins of life. He just says, “Hey, molecules don’t work that way. In fact, the more we try,” he says, “the more we try to discover an organic, naturalistic explanation for the origin of life,” he says, “the more we study it, the more we pursue it, the goalpost is not moving closer, it’s moving farther away.” Everything we discover says, “This couldn’t happen.” But then James Tour is also an evangelist on his campus with students and other professors. People ask him, “Do you use these brilliant arguments for creation and the origins of life when you’re leading people to Christ?” “No. Heavens no. I tell them they’re lost without Jesus and going to hell. They need to believe in Him and repent of their sins.” “Really?” “Oh, yeah. That’s what I tell them. So all that other stuff, that’s just icing on the cake. Here’s the problem: you’re a rebel. Repent, turn back to God. God’s made a way.” He gets it. He gets the power of the gospel. Christ is revealed in the simple preaching of the gospel. He’s also revealed in our character. People believe a credible witness more than they believe a not credible witness. Simple as that. If your life in some ways reflects Jesus, your story about Jesus is more believable. I mean, how many of us have heard people say, “Oh ” And they have these wonderful spiritual encounters and these wonderful conversion experiences and their life’s a mess. You kind of go, “Well,” you know, “what did Jesus do for you?” But you have a testimony. And part of that testimony ought to be, without you having to brag about it, it ought to just be obvious to all a transformed character. Love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. Again, people say, “Well, if you’re Christians, you should act Christian.” Well, I act more Christian than I did 10 years ago. That’s the evidence. It’s not that you’re perfect; you’re not quite as good as Jesus. It always scares me, man, when people come to church and they really blow me up. “You’re just the greatest.” Not that I hear this every day. Don’t get me wrong. Every once in a while: “We’ve been looking for a church just like this, and you’re the best preacher ” And all this stuff. Because I always know those folks, and they’re always like, “We are all in, me and my family, we’re all in with this church.” It’s almost like I become nervous around those words. It’s like, “Uh-oh, they’ll be gone in two weeks.” “We’re with you.” And then you step on a landmine from their childhood, right? You don’t even know it’s there. But you know, you’re the idealized daddy that you know, their father was a failure and they transfer that and you’re the idealized daddy. And then you do something their first daddy did, you know, or you say something and instantly you go from Jesus to Satan. I mean, overnight it’s like I’m the hero and then I’m the villain. And I just tell people. I tell people, right when they start telling me, “Oh, you’re the greatest,” I say, “Hey, I’m not Jesus and I’m not the devil. I’m not as good as one or as bad as the other. Just telling you.” But even though I’m not Jesus and I’m not the devil, next year I want to be more like Jesus and less like the devil than I am today.” That’s a witness. A transformed life, a life that lives with godly character, is a powerful witness. It is revealed when we use our spiritual gifts, like I said, when we operate in the power of God. And it’s God who gets the glory, but we become conduits for His power, whether it’s in simple things listen, people say, “Well, the supernatural gifts like healing and prophecy and tongues. But then there’s the natural gifts like helps and mercy.” No, those are supernatural too. Listen, for human beings to be helpful, kind and sacrificial, that’s a miracle because I see how they come out as babies. They’re none of those things. How many babies come out altruistic? How many 2 year olds who you know are saying, “I just want to do this for others”? What do two year olds say? “Mine. Mine. No.” They’re good with that one too. “You need to do what daddy says.” “No!” You know what daddy says? He says, “Oh yes, oh yes. It’s on, kid. And you’re going to lose.” So it is the power of God working through us that reveals Christ. And then He’s revealed in our testimony. You got a story and it’s your story. Not everybody has your story. Where did God meet you? How did God change you? How did God speak to you? And there is power in that testimony. Why? Paul says the rulers of this age would not have killed Him had they known. They wouldn’t have crucified Him. Why is the Old Testament so mysterious? You know, we talk about fulfilled prophecies, but I remember I first became a Christian and I read the Old Testament. Then I read the New Testament, and then Matthew would say, “It’s like the Old Testament said. It, you know, speaks of this prophecy.” It’s like, yeah, I get it, there’s a connection there. But why didn’t the prophet say, “Hey, there’s going to be this guy named Jesus. And believe it or not, His mom and dad aren’t going to have sex, and His mom’s going to have the first virgin baby ever on the planet. Her name is going to be Mary. She’s going to live in Nazareth in Galilee. And Joseph’s not going to believe her for a while, but then he’s going to believe her. They’re going to name Him Jesus. And it’s going to happen on this date, and these are all the things that are going to happen”? All those things are alluded to in the Old Testament. They’re alluded to. And only looking back do people say, “Aha.” Why is that? Because God isn’t revealing His playbook in the Old Testament to the devil. He’s giving Israel and His church, His future church, enough hints and then later to look back and see, oh my gosh, this was the story all along. But He’s not doing it enough so the devil knows the plan. This is true. God tricked the devil, the rulers of this age. You know where Peter in Mark 8, this great turning point in the Gospel of Mark, where the disciples finally get that Jesus is the Messiah, and then for the next eight chapters, they don’t get what kind of Messiah He’s going to be, but they get He’s the Messiah. “Who do you say that I am?” You are the Christ, the Messiah, the King, the Son of the living God.” You know where that declaration was made? The Bible tells us in Caesarea Philippi. But what you might not know about Caesarea Philippi is that Caesarea Philippi was by a mountain in Lebanon, in northern Israel. I think it was Mount Hermon, might have been Mount Hermon one of those mountains and it is called the Devil’s Gate. There’s a cave in that mountain that was believed to be the place that demons entered and left the world. And right in front of that mountain was one of the largest pagan sacrificial cult temples in the Middle East at the time of Jesus. Caesarea Philippi was the hotbed of satanic paganism. It was at that place that Peter says, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus says, you’re right. And He’s saying it as it is. He is taunting the spirits of darkness. He’s taunting. “That’s right. I’m here. I’m here. You know it because I’ve been casting your little critters out of people. That’s why your tool, King Herod, tried to kill all the babies. You know it. You knew something was going to happen. You knew God wasn’t going to do nothing. It’s happening now.” And they panic. They go, “We got to kill him.” Jesus even tells Peter, and like, the disciples, they don’t get it. Jesus says, “Yeah, they’re going to kill me.” And then Peter goes, “Oh, no, I just told you you’re the Messiah.” “I am, but they’re going to kill me.” “No, haven’t you read the Scriptures? That’s not what the Messiah does.” He says, “That’s what this Messiah does.” The next eight chapters, He keeps telling them. It’s almost hilarious, except it’s so poignant. “So I’m going to go to Jerusalem, I’m going to die, and I’m going to rise again.” I think three times. Just tells them flat out. And they always go, “What do you think He meant?” Which, fair enough, He taught in parables, so they were like, often they said, “What do you think He meant?” But this is not a parable. It’s like, “Okay, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to go to Jerusalem. They’re going to hand me over. They’re going to kill me. But on the third day, I’m going to rise.” “Huh Another of those mysterious parables. But when you do come into Jerusalem and you enter your kingdom and we kick butt on the Romans, can James be your secretary of defense, and I can be the secretary of state? Mom says these would be great jobs for us.” And Jesus goes I think that was the first use of the Jewish term, oyvey. Oy vey. You know, “Can you drink the cup I’m going to drink?” “Oh, sure.” “All right. You will. You will suffer. But you know what? You don’t know what you’re asking. 38 Jesus said to them, “You don’t know what you’re asking. Are you able to drink the cup I drink or to be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” (Mark 10:38, CSB) “My father has got those things planned. Don’t worry, James and John, you will be honored. I mean, for all eternity, John, you’re going to write your gospel and tell everybody you were faster than Peter.” Typical guys, right? “Yeah. And we ran to the grave I won.” So He reveals this mystery. And the rulers of this age take the bait and they play right into God’s hand. “We’ll kill Him.” “Good. Because while I’m dead, as I’m getting ready to rise, I’m going to go to your boss’s face, and I’m going to snatch the keys of death from his hand. And then I’m going to go back to that tomb, and I’m going to get out of that tomb, and you will all look in powerless, impotent horror that your reign has come to an end.” He’s trash talking the devil. This makes me happy, by the way, because I’m a trash talker. And now it is sanctified. You can trash talk. It’s okay. Anybody else in here a trash talker? No? You’re a bunch of losers. See how it works? It’s not that hard. It’s not that hard. Joe, you’ve talked trash in your day. Steelers fan? Oh, you’ve talked trash. Yeah, a little bit. I’m going back to Kansas City next week. I go there every year for this conference and I love these dear people. They’re all big Chiefs fans. Oh, you don’t think I’m wearing my Seahawks gear back there this year? I’ll be like, “Where’s the red and yellow, people? Where’s the red and yellow?” And then I’ll preach to them just to see if I can get the crowd back after I totally lose them. It’s a challenge. It’s a challenge. Trash talk them and then try to love them into the kingdom. It’ll be fun. All right. Now we have inherited a great hope. Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived what the Lord has prepared for those who love Him. Oh, my goodness. The rulers of this age thought He was coming back to establish a Davidic kingdom like the one that was around a thousand years before Him. No. They didn’t get the prophecies. He’s that little rock Daniel talked about that is going to crush his every worldly kingdom and spread like a huge mountain over all the earth and dominate everything. And Satan and his kingdom has been destroyed. And it will be destroyed forever. And His kingdom will reign forever. It is an absolute, complete, overwhelming victory. And by our repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, we have, by His amazing grace and mercy, entered that kingdom. And one day, Marsha, we are going to inherit it to the full. All the dogs and cats and animals that you loved through your whole life are going to dance around your feet. You and Stevin and Jill can have a little animal farm out there with all your beloved pets, all right? We’ll come visit you, and we won’t even have allergies. Oh, yeah, and Ats will have… And who? You? Emi? You. Yeah, and you. Yes, all those chickens that you know, you know by name. Now you can’t eat them. I hope you don’t love your pigs that way, because I want some of that bacon. I want you to kill some of those pigs when you get them, all right? Don’t be loving on those pigs, Aiko. I want the bacon. I want a Christmas gift. Come on. You don’t have to give me bunny meat. I don’t want that. Don’t worry about that. You can love on the bunnies all you want, but don’t be loving those pigs, all right? We have inherited a great hope. And now in this world, the greatest way we can demonstrate the greatest gift, one of the greatest gifts we can have, is to have what He talks about here. Not the wisdom of the world, which is overrated, but spiritual wisdom. And the Bible I read Proverbs 8 the Bible just elevates this idea of wisdom. Almost deifies wisdom, almost sounds like in Proverbs 8, when you’re reading about wisdom, you’re reading about Christ. It elevates this idea of wisdom. Paul says in James 3:17, “Wisdom from above is pure, peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and impartial.” And, you know, I have known Christians of great wisdom who are completely uneducated, self-educated. One of the wisest and most read and most revered Christian authors of the 20th century was A.W. Tozer. And he never went to get formal theological education. And yet a brilliant theological mind. Why? Because he pursued spiritual wisdom. And he had it. He got it. He got it. And the Bible says it’s more valuable than gold and silver. It is pure, it is holy, it is beautiful, it loves peace. It brings reconciliation and love. It is gentle. A bruised reed He will not break. A smoldering wick, He will not extinguish. I tell you, the gentle the gentle inherit the world. The meek inherit the earth. The world elevates and worships the strong. But God loves the gentle. The gentle represent His wisdom. Gentle Jesus. Oh, He could be fierce, don’t get me wrong. But oh, my gosh, do you see Jesus with broken sinners? Do you see Jesus with the woman who had an issue of blood and made everybody in the crowd, including Jesus, unclean by touching Him? Made it unable, according to Jewish law, for Him to go lay hands on and heal Jairus’ daughter. Jairus, the rich and powerful ruler of the synagogue. And he comes to Jesus for help. And Jesus is going to go and heal Jairus’ daughter, and this poor, broken, unclean woman touches Him. And her name, for all her life, has been “unclean.” And as this woman is named “unclean” that’s what everybody’s called her for the last 13 years she touches Jesus, and Jesus says, “Who touched me?” And then she’s panicked, right? Because, “Oh, my gosh, I touched the Messiah. I ruined His day. I ruined everybody’s day. Oh, no. I thought I was ” But she was healed, and she was excited, but she was also terrified, and she says, “It was me. I’m the one who touched you.” And the first word out of His mouth for 13 years, the first word out of everybody’s mouth when they saw her was “unclean” and the first word out of gentle Jesus’ mouth after He touches her and she has the faith to get healed is “Daughter.” Oh, if that doesn’t break your heart, I don’t know what will. “Daughter, precious girl, I commend you for your faith.” “But now you can’t go.” “Yeah, I can go see Jairus’s daughter. You know, that issue of blood. Didn’t I just show you I’m stronger than that issue of blood? Don’t worry about, you know “ And then He goes and sees Jairus’ daughter. And again, He’s incredible, incredibly gentle. “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” And she gets up, and everybody’s freaking out, “Oh, it’s great! It’s a miracle!” You know what He does? He says, “Give her something to eat. Being dead’s hard work. She’s hungry.” He’s very practical. He’s very, very kind of like, down to earth. It’s like she’s alive and she’s also hungry. She needs to regain her strength. Give her something to eat. That’s the wisdom of God. It is so beautiful. It is so counterintuitive. I love it. He’s reasonable. I tell you, my wife’s a Christian, and the parts you know, the parts she loves I mean, a lot of it doesn’t make sense, which is really good that she’s a Christian, but she loves, you know It said in Proverbs 8, one of the attributes of wisdom is common sense. My wife says, “Yeah, that’s it.” He’s reasonable. He makes sense. He makes sense. Full of mercy. We just talked about that. Justice and mercy, right? The tension between justice and mercy. But what does James say? Mercy triumphs. God came not to judge the world; the world was already judged. He came to show mercy. He’s impartial. Rich, poor, young, old, black, white, male, female. He’s impartial. There’s no prejudice in God. That’s the wisdom from above. That’s the wisdom we gain when we get wisdom. Well, how do we gain spiritual wisdom? This is so good. Not by going to school. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Some of us went to way too much school. Nothing wrong going to school, Jamie. It’s good. That’s your call. And actually it is. You are called to go to school. You have got a wonderful inquisitive mind. And, and so you know, all gifts and compulsions it’s a thin line. It’s just a thin line. So just walk the line carefully. But you gain wisdom through the Spirit of God. You gain knowledge by going to school. But knowledge isn’t wisdom. There’s information which, by the way, in our culture, there has never been a culture in the history of the world that has so much information glut. I love googling stuff because I’m a sports fanatic, right? And some announcer will say something like this, “That’s the second highest points total by a guard in the last 20 years.” You know what? I am instantly going, “Who’s had the highest points totaled by a guard in the last 20 years? Who was it? I got to know.” You know? “He’s going to become the fifth highest scorer in NBA history.” Well, who’s he going to pass up? By the way, that’s Kevin Durant, and he’s going to pass up Kobe, or he’s going to pass up Michael Jordan as the fifth highest. It was so fun. My grandson Noah was asking me out to dinner, and he plays a game called Sports Trivia with me. And I just bring up all these old sports questions, and he tries to answer it. And there’s this old guy just listening in on us. Joe, he was great. He just turns around, he goes and he just jumps right in. He goes, “I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t help it. When you did that Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain question, I just wanted to say, ‘Bill Russell. Bill Russell.’ I couldn’t ‘” And he started quizzing my grandson, “Who was better, Joe Montana or Tom Brady?” You know, he started going off, and me and this old guy started sharing all our old sports stories. And what’s wonderful is my grandson Noah’s just soaking it all in. It’s like he has joined me in my world, and my wife’s just being stupid. Like I’ll ask a baseball question: who hit the most home runs? And she’s just to be smart like, “Kobe Bryant.” Shut up. Just throws out names randomly. It’s like, oh All right, how’s that only given and received by the Spirit of God? I don’t know. Oh, knowledge. Yeah. What knowledge? Information you know stuff. Knowledge is you know stuff about the stuff you know. So information is: there’s a river; there’s two sides of the river. There’s people on both sides of the river. Knowledge. We’d like to get those two people together. And we have engineers, Brian, who know how to build a bridge. So we’re going to build a bridge. Wisdom. Should we build a bridge? Should we get those two people together? Where’s the best spot on the river to build the bridge? Should we count the cost of building the bridge before we embark on this bridge-building idea? Our government, in my view, is full of information and very full of knowledge. Wisdom…? Yeah, maybe, maybe. And yet the Bible says wisdom is that skill in life that knows what to do and when to do it, what not to do, when to speak, when to be silent, who to marry, who not to marry. Now the Bible will give you some knowledge about that. It says don’t marry an unbeliever. All right. But it doesn’t say which believer to marry. The Holy Spirit gives wisdom. I remember one of the first times I heard the voice of God in my head. It was incredible wisdom. And I’ve told this story before, but it’s worth telling again. I’m an 18-year-old boy and I start dating this girl. And I am falling in love with this girl. Oh my gosh, I’m falling in love with her. And what’s even more amazing is she was falling in love with me, which is mind-blowing. You know, it’s such a great feeling to have this beautiful, intelligent young woman just like swooning over you. It was like such an ego boost. Wow, she’s into me. That’s so cool. And so we’re just falling in love and it’s great. Except I’m an 18-year-old boy. I’m a new Christian. There are parts of my life that are purely unsanctified at this point. And one of those parts of my life was this 18-year-old girl had morals. Well, I’m not sure I wanted a girl with morals. I’m an 18 year old boy don’t be hard on me. I’m an 18 year old boy. It’s like, she’s beautiful. She’s there. She kisses me. What comes after kissing? It’s a nice road. Let’s just travel down that road. Well, see, there were stop signs on that road with her. Dang it. But alas, there were other 18-year-old girls out there. And I had their phone numbers. And I had strong suspicion that those girls did not quite have the same moral foundation that the girl I was dating did. And I thought, “Hmm “ And so, I had information, and I thought I had some knowledge. And the knowledge was every weekend has two nights. It has a Friday night and a Saturday night, so I could date the girl that I’m falling in love with on Friday night. And I had a little black book with phone numbers in it. I could use my little black book on Saturday night and kind of explore. And I thought, “That’s a great plan.” That’s knowledge, not wisdom. So, I come home after a wonderful date with this girl that I’m falling in love with, and I’m thinking, “Who will I take out next week?” And I’m pulling off my sweater, and the sweater’s over my head, and I hear the voice. And here’s what the voice said. It wasn’t condemning. It wasn’t like, “You scumbag, what are you thinking?” No, here’s what the voice said. I can quote it to this day, so clear: “Kevin, there’s nothing out there any better for you. There’s nothing out there any better for you. What are you doing? I’m giving you the best thing besides me you’re ever going to get in your life. I’m handing it to you, dude, and you want to mess it up?” I mean, He didn’t say that. He just said, He just said those first words. “Kevin, there’s nothing out there better for you.” And that was wisdom. Spirit-given wisdom. And so I never used that little black book. I sold it to my best friend for 20 bucks. He was glad. No, I didn’t do that. It’s an idea, though. Probably should have done it. Hey, man, got some leads here. How else do we get wisdom? Ask for it. James says that. Isn’t this great? “If anyone lacks wisdom, let them ask God, who gives generously without reproach.” How easy is that? Hey, God, I got a job offer in Kansas City and I got a job offer in Jacksonville, which, you know, both are good. Both companies are good. Where do I go? I’ve done the pros and cons; it’s a tie. God, I need wisdom. God, I need wisdom. I’m dating. I know two wonderful young Christian women as a young man. Which one should I ask out? I need wisdom, you know. I know the Bible gives me some guidelines, you know, get with a Christian girl. Okay, I got that. Not going to get with somebody who’s, you know but God, I need wisdom. All right, how do I handle this problem at work? How do I handle this conflict that’s come up? The Bible says God gives wisdom generously. Practical guidelines on how to live your life. There it is. Ask Him for it. Now, the only people who don’t get it are the people who doubt. He says, “If you don’t really believe God’s going to give it to you, guess what? He’s not going to give it to you. Because even if He did give it to you, what would you do? You’d doubt it. ‘No, that can’t be from God. I have to go back to my pros and cons list.'” But again, imagine if God said, “Ask me generously and I’ll drop gold bars into your house and bags of silver, and you know, it’ll rain cash, and your whole living room will be filled with hundred dollar bills. Just ask, and I’ll fill your living room with $100 bills every day if you want.” Man, we’d be praying all the time, right? I’ve had this fantasy in my life. What if I found a genie and they said, “Every time you stick your hand in your pocket, you pull out a hundred-dollar bill.” That’d be a good genie to have, right? Just go to the gas station. Oh, I’ll fill up my car. There it is. Go to the grocery store. Oh, I’ll pay the groceries. There it is. Go out to dinner, just right there, just Well, that’s never happened. But you know what’s better than that? When I pray the prayer “Help,” and God gives me help, often with wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. 10 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. (Proverbs 9:10, CSB) Why is that? I’ll tell you why. That’s the only thing it’s wise to fear. There’s only one person in the universe who can save your soul or condemn it. Here’s wisdom. Here’s what the fear of the Lord does for you. It heals you of all people pleasing, which is one of the stupidest things we can do. And yet we’re all so tempted to do it. Who cares what somebody else thinks? Because in the last day, they don’t say, “Oh, look, I put your name in the book of life.” Or, “Oh, here I blotted it out.” Who else can say these words to you that will heal you for all eternity? This is the compliment that will work. I love compliments, but I’ve, I’ve In my life, I fished for compliments. You know what I’m talking about? And when I receive them, it’s a pleasant drink, but it’s empty calories. They don’t work for very long. People will come, they’ll be nice to me. They’ll come and say, “You’re just a wonderful ” Who was it just last week? Troy and Marsha were saying, you know, nice things to me about “Your preaching has really impacted our lives in a great way. We really appreciate it,” and stuff. And I loved hearing that. And if you’ve got stuff like that to say to me, don’t hesitate. Go for it. Say it in front of people. Say it loud. Say it often. I got no problem with that. But I do know this. I also know this. I’ve received that multiple times, and it always feels good, and it never it doesn’t make it home on the drive. You know, by the time I get home, I’m like, “Yeah, but really, I suck.” You know? You know, which I don’t do that anymore either. I’m better now. Used to be that, but now I’m just like… I’m kind of neutral. But you know what? I really believe with all my heart. And I almost weep when I think of this, because I just I yearn. I ask God for it to just be able to look into those eyes and hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” I think that’s going to work. I think that’ll stick with me longer than the drive home. And so I like what you say when you say nice things, but I get it. I used to tell my youth pastor, and this wasn’t true, but he was always worried about what the parents were thinking. I said, “Lookit. You are not going to please all those parents. You know, a lot of them raised little stinkers, and they want you to fix them, and you can’t, so don’t worry about it.” You know, he’d take kids on a mission trip. He says, “Oh, Kevin, I just got to bring them all back.” I said, “Yeah, bring them, most of them back. In fact, at the church, we can make a list of which ones you can leave. Here, if you lose these guys, even their parents will probably be okay with it. You know, there you go.” And I always try, you know, I always tried to relax him because he was so And I said, “Lookit, Steve ” His name was Steve. I said, “Lookit, Steve. You only got to please me and God,” which is not true. But, you know, I was his boss, so I had to put that in there. I said, “You only got to please me and God. And I’m happy.” And he’ll go, “What about my wife?” Well, that’s between you and her. But as far as I’m concerned, it’s got to please me and God. But the truth is, you only got to please God. Fear the Lord. That’s wisdom. Live for Him. That’s wisdom. Do the right thing for Him, no matter what anybody else says or thinks. Here’s a way. Bet you never thought you’d hear this in church. Read your Bible. Read your Bible. There you go. Study the Scriptures. Now, I’ll add some wisdom to that. Read your Bible and then be like Jesus, who said, “If you listen to these words of mine and you do them, you’re like the man who built his house upon the rock.” 24 “Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. (Matthew 7:24, CSB) So read your Bible and do them. And you know, just Nike. Just do it. Now, I got lots of education. I could say that in Greek. I could say “just do it” in Greek. Poiesete. There you go. I looked it up this afternoon. Poiesete. Just do it. That’s wisdom. Do what the Bible says. Finally, humble yourself before God. “God gives grace to the humble, but He opposes the proud.” So when you come here and you lift your hands and you worship God and you sing songs about Him and not about you, and you mean it, that is great wisdom. It is great wisdom to go to church on a regular I didn’t know you were there, Sailor. He perked up, when I was talking about wisdom. It is great wisdom to humble yourself. And finally, the benefits of wisdom. The Bible says, life and prosperity. Psalms and Proverbs. You will have a good life if you pursue wisdom. Prosperity means more than monetary prosperity. It just means prosperity in life. I’ll tell you, I have plenty of money. But you know what? You know where I prosper? I prosper in relationships. Next week, I’m going back to Grace Covenant. That’s another church family for me. I love those people. I love hanging out with those people. I so look forward to our two meetings a year. I just love the relationships. I’m on committees, and I don’t even hate that. We have two committees, and I’m on both of them, for goodness sakes. I can hardly wait till I retire and I can just go back to those conferences and just go out to lunch with those people and hang out. But I don’t even mind the committees because I love those people. I love you. And that’s not flattery, that’s just the truth. Every one of you. Makes me happy when you walk in. Joe, I’m just getting to know you. But as you walked in tonight, I was like, “Oh, there’s Joe.” And it felt like, there’s good old Joe, you know? We’re in. You know, I finally got a football fan in this church, for goodness sakes. Goes for the wrong team, but at least you’re a fan. So got my guy. And Marsha and the Johnsons. They’ve been hanging around since I was young. And you still make me happy every time I see you. Missed you this morning. You’ll walk in tonight, it’s like, “There she is.” And little Sailor pops up his head. I even love him. Wisdom, you will prosper in life. Again, you will build your house on a firm foundation. I remember the 1989 earthquake. Anybody remember that in the Bay Area? So I’m there. I’m at Redwood Christian Park, which was 10 miles from Mount Loma Prieta, the epicenter of the quake. I was in the prayer chapel from 4 to 5. The earthquake hit at 5 o’clock. A bunch of us Methodist pastors were in that little prayer chapel. It was probably our fault because we were praying for our denomination, and I believe we literally prayed, “Lord, shake up the Methodist church.” So it’s probably our fault. Anyway, that earthquake hit, I dove under the pew, but my head was kind of sticking out. There’s a big metal cross on the wall. And I thought, “Oh, my gosh, this little chapel could fall down on top of me, or that cross could just fall off the wall and crush me. Hit my head and crush me.” I thought, “Well, you know, if you’re going to go to heaven and meet Jesus, ‘Well, son, what were you doing?’ ‘I was praying for an hour. Got hit on the head by a cross.'” I know you’re not saved by works, but hey, man, those are good credentials, right? Those are good entry papers. So anyway, the cross didn’t fall on me. But I also remember in San Francisco, many, many further miles away, there were parts of the city that really were devastated that collapsed. And those were the parts of the city that were built on landfill. And why is that, Brian? Yeah. No firm foundation. What’s the name for it? Liquefaction. Yeah, so we had some liquefaction going on. We had jello, all right? But buildings that were built on rocks no jello. Rocks didn’t turn into jello. They stayed rocks. And those buildings stood. Poiesete. Do what Jesus says is wisdom, and it will not stop the earthquakes in life, and it will not stop the storms, and it will not stop the crises and catastrophes. It will not stop disease and death. It will not stop wars and rumors of wars. But it will give you the ability to stand in all of those. You will stand and not crumble. Next time somebody asks you, “Why do you believe in Jesus?” Because I don’t want my life built on the possibility of liquefaction. I don’t want liquefaction going on. They go, “Oh, okay.” And finally, we already talked about this. Discerning life’s choices. Doesn’t mean you’ll never make mistakes. Sometimes you’ll mishear God or misread it, or you won’t you’ll forget to ask for wisdom. But if you want to live a life of good choices good choices pursue wisdom, and God will generously give it to you. And you are doing that by showing up to church, opening up your Bibles, listening to me go on and on. You’re pursuing wisdom. So God bless you for that pursuit. Poisete. Do it. Jesus said, “When you gather together, do it.” He didn’t say, “Listen to a guy talk for half an hour.” He didn’t say, “Sing a half an hour of songs.” Though I think those things are also valuable. But he did say, “Do this.” He said, “Do this.” I love what C.S. Lewis said, who loved to argue, but in the middle of the arguments but he also loved mere Christianity, and he didn’t like Christians always arguing about secondary things. And so, he said, “Remember, our Lord’s command when it came to communion was ‘Take and eat,’ not ‘Take and understand.'” And it’s enough to humble ourselves and say, “Lord, I don’t understand all the mysteries of communion, but you said this was something you wanted us to do.” And so, out of obedience wisdom is obedient out of the wisdom of obedience, I will come now to your table at your invitation and take and eat. The post 2026.3.1 TFHC – Spiritual Wisdom | 1 Corinthians 2:1-16 appeared first on The Firehouse Church in Bremerton, WA.

February 22, 2026 Message by Ats Kagawa Transcribed by Beluga AI. Okay. All right, so… let me just move this a little bit so I can see the screen a little bit better. But yeah, thank you, Kevin, for sharing before. And it was my turn to share today. I’m really encouraged by, you know, the works, the Lord’s timing, and how He orchestrates things. I’ve been going through a little bit of a fearful or stormy time the last several weeks, several months, myself. And as I prayed, this is what the Lord has been kind of showing me, that there are storms in my life. But what I’m called to do is to remain in that storm, stand in the storm as Jesus is there. And that’s where, in the fearful, scary, crazy times, Jesus is going to meet me, or has been meeting me, walking with me closely in that. And that’s where peace is. That’s where peace is, in the midst of the storm. I think where Christ is, is the safest place we could be. So through that, I want to share the account of the storm. And I titled this message today: Abiding in Jesus through the Storm. Mark 4:35-41. So I’m going to quickly read that. I’m reading from the CSB version. 35 On that day, when evening had come, he told them, “Let’s cross over to the other side of the sea.” 36 So they left the crowd and took him along since he was in the boat. And other boats were with him. 37 A great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking over the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38 He was in the stern, sleeping on the cushion. So they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher! Don’t you care that we’re going to die?” 39 He got up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Silence! Be still!” The wind ceased, and there was a great calm. 40 Then he said to them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?” 41 And they were terrified and asked one another, “Who then is this? Even the wind and the sea obey him!” (Mark 4:35-41, CSB) So may the words of my mouth, the meditation of my heart, our heart, be acceptable to you, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. 14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalms 19:14, CSB) So, okay, okay, I’m not in the camera, so I got to move myself. All right, so just going over some background or basics. In this passage, some of the things I noticed, and I wanted to point out, is that Jesus is first of all initiating crossing over the river—I mean, the Sea of Galilee. “Let us cross over to the other side of the sea.” 35 On that day, when evening had come, he told them, “Let’s cross over to the other side of the sea.” (Mark 4:35, CSB) And Jesus is the one who always leads His disciples with all the things that they’re about to experience. This is, you know—according to the Gospel of Mark—this is really early. And shortly after, He appoints the 12 disciples and they’re about to cross over, embark into this new territory, Gentile territory. And I understand that the fishermen often crossed over. It’s not a very far distance. It’s supposed to be like only an hour and a half or so boat ride. And there’s a lot of trade that goes on, and there’s also some synagogues found on the other side. And so there is some interaction and travel going back and forth between the Israelites and the Gentile territory. And yet it was not very common for a rabbi, as a ministry, to cross over to that region. So, you know, Jesus is doing new things, and He’s taking His disciples along with Him. And all the things that happen through this account and the chapter after that, you know, Jesus will lead His disciples through it all. Okay. And the Jewish view of the sea is chaos, danger, and death. It’s, you know, unexpected. A lot of things, storms happen. And so the sea was always considered to be a dangerous place or a symbol of chaos and death. Okay. And here a great windstorm hits. And this is Rembrandt’s depiction of that scene. The waves are high, and the seasoned fishermen, they’re genuinely fearing for their lives. “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to die?” They think that they’re going to die. 38 He was in the stern, sleeping on the cushion. So they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher! Don’t you care that we’re going to die?” (Mark 4:38, CSB) So I was trying to see how frequently these kinds of storms happen in the Sea of Galilee. And I was actually having a little bit of a hard time finding, you know, it doesn’t… it’s a rare, not a common occurrence where this huge windstorm suddenly hits and, you know, ships get flipped over and things like that. There was one in 1992. Do I have a picture of that? Yeah, something like that. And more recently there was another one, but there were like 20 years between any account that’s recorded. So perhaps this was not only a purely natural phenomenon. As we can see from the next chapter, Jesus is heading in to confront the demoniac, and perhaps there’s a demonic resistance to prevent Jesus from coming over. So that’s what’s going on. But how does Jesus respond to this storm? He’s sleeping through it. And it’s a powerful model of faith for the disciples, His unwavering trust in God’s sovereignty and protection despite this life-threatening, scary event that’s happening. So I think Jesus is living out some of the passages that King David preached, or wrote. 8 I will both lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, Lord, make me live in safety. (Psalms 4:8, CSB) Or Psalm 23:4, 4 Even when I go through the darkest valley, I fear no danger, for you are with me; your rod and your staff—they comfort me. (Psalms 23:4, CSB) So Jesus is fully living out that faith in His Father, right? But in contrast to that, the disciples, they’re afraid. And in this passage, there are the two words… what Jesus says—”why are you afraid,” right? That word is delos—I think that’s how you pronounce it. It has a meaning of cowardly, fearful, timid, faithless. So Jesus is questioning His disciples, you know, “Why are you like this?” Right? And then afterwards, Jesus calms the storm, and then they use the word again. In English, it’s the same, you know—afraid, terrified—but actually it’s a different word, phobos. So, you know, now they’ve transitioned from cowardice, you know, fearing over their life to the awe that they have in Christ. They witness this amazing coming of the storm right in front of their eyes. And so that transition… Jesus walks through this transition from one kind of fear, delos, to phobos—awestruck. Okay. And Jesus, as you can see… it’s really amazing to me that He is willing to meet the disciples where they are, at the level of faith that they have. If they had faith, if the disciples had faith just like Jesus has, they would have all maybe slept through the storm together, or at least they wouldn’t panic like the way they did. They probably would have experienced God’s protection through this crazy storm and led Jesus through the entire way. But they didn’t have that faith, and they had to go. But what did they do? They didn’t have that faith like Jesus, but they went to Jesus and they woke Him up and asked for help. By doing so, they got to experience Jesus’ authority over nature and in the spiritual order. Like I said before, by this experience, they’re able to increase their faith. Now their fear—being afraid, panicking, and being cowardly—turns into awestruck amazement towards who God is and who Jesus is. Okay? So either way, with or without the faith of the disciples, Jesus met them. He’s able to handle it and He gets the glory either way. And He’s able to redeem even my lack of faith, the disciples’ lack of faith. And He can bring good out of it. Not only good out of it, but ultimately He redeems it, right? That’s what He does. Jesus is able to redeem all the weaknesses, lack of faith that we struggle with—which is great news. Okay, so in light of fear, the antidote—when I encounter fear, when we encounter fear, the solution… from this passage, we can learn that it is not to try on our own to be brave. You know, pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and be brave and resist that fear on your own. Because really, when life hits, the storm hits, you know, which is completely out of your control—no matter how brave you try to pretend to be… You know, as long as you have control, you can pretend to be brave. But you know, as soon as your situation turns south, I don’t know about you, but I am… I’m just shaking all over. I lose it. I can’t maintain that confidence. I can’t keep on pretending to be confident or be brave. So we need to learn from the disciples. They took their fear and even their lack of faith to Jesus. Abiding in Jesus, in His amazing love, is the antidote to our fear. We were reading C.S. Lewis’s Great Divorce, and I don’t know if you have read it. I highly recommend it. It’s really, really amazing, some of the things that’s been written. C.S. Lewis is really quite something. I’m really amazed. But Sarah Smith is one of the characters that’s in the book. And on this side of the world, she’s a nobody. Nobody knew who she was. Her name is a really ordinary name, but once she died and entered into eternity, she became this great, highly important, glorious figure. And all the people who come into her presence are affected by her amazing love. And the way C.S. Lewis says it is that all the children who encounter this woman, Sarah Smith, become her sons and daughters. She becomes like their real mother. But it’s a different kind of motherhood because with that love that they receive, the kids will go and, in a better way, love their real biological parents. And all men who come and encounter her, they become her lovers. But with that, they can be a more effective, loving husband to their wives. So it’s this completely different kind of love that is possible in her. Well, how does she achieve that? Or how did she become like that? And she shares that she is in Love Himself, implying that she is fully immersed in the love of God. Because of that love that she is in—Perfect Love Himself—she is able to love… that overflows. So it’s not coming from her own, but it’s ultimately God’s love that’s overflowing from her. So she is receiving that. And it’s the same with, I think, each and every one of us. We cannot give what we don’t have. And the only way I can live out a courageous life or a loving life in this world, on this side of eternity, is to receive that from above, from the Lord. 1 John 4:18 says it well: “perfect love casts out fear.” That’s the solution, the antidote to our fear. And yeah, the love used here is agape in Greek. And that’s God’s unconditional, self-sacrificial, and amazing love. And elsewhere in the Scripture, even Apostle Paul, you know… We’re encouraged to—we’re commanded to—love one another. Jesus tells us to love one another. He uses that agape love. 34 “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. (John 13:34, CSB) Even when Jesus reinstates Peter three times, the first two times, you know, “Do you love me?” He asks Peter, “Do you agape me?” Right? And Peter’s response is, “I cannot. I don’t have the ability to agape love you. I phileo you. I can’t do that. But I love you as a friend. I can’t have this unconditional love.” Right? But the third time, Jesus says, “Do you phileo me?” 17 He asked him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved that he asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” “Feed my sheep,” Jesus said. (John 21:17, CSB) So He’s coming down. Jesus will come down. “Fine, I’ll work with what you have. Let’s go from there.” So Jesus is… He will always come down to where I am, where you are. And He will be more than happy to work with you. So that’s what we see. And let’s see. Lamentations 3:22-23. This is in the time where the Israelites are in exile. They completely failed by turning against, turning away from the Lord. And as a consequence, they’re swept away from their promised land and they’re taken into exile. But in the midst of that, still there’s this promise that the steadfast love of the Lord will never cease, and His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. So even to the Israelites who failed so badly, to the point of almost, you know, feeling like being hopeless and having had to live out this terrible consequence of being conquered by another nation and being taken out into exile, God’s love is still there. His mercy is not out of reach. So isn’t that good news that for all of us, you know, God’s grace and mercy? Let’s be accurate there. God’s mercy extends to every situation. We’ll never fall too far away as long as we turn to Him and call upon His name. And of course, ultimately this agape love is expressed in Jesus going to the cross. By us embracing, receiving this amazing love that God has, that’s the only way we can even start to have this agape love back to God Himself and also to one another. Okay, so recently somebody was asking a question: what are you afraid of? And you know, this was in one of the services and the speaker was asking, “What are you afraid of?” And little kids were raising their hands, and what did they say? They were saying, “Spiders.” Yeah, they’re afraid of spiders or, you know, things like that. And I couldn’t come up with anything. Immediately my thought was public speaking. And here, here I am standing in front of you and everybody else. Yeah. But that question really stuck with me. This is about a month ago, I think. But I’ve been trying to write down or think about—trying to be honest—okay, what am I really afraid of? And public speaking… Okay, I’m afraid of public speaking, you know, but why, why am I so afraid of public speaking? I try to keep on asking why and try to go deeper to that reason. But these are some of the things that I can come up with. And part of my testimony—I want to share a little bit later—I was going through this financial instability. And that’s scary. Public speaking, of course. Making mistakes, whatever I’m doing. Or failing. Failure is scary. Showing incompetence, looking foolish in front of others. Showing, revealing some of my shameful things. Losing control over… anything, really, in life. Or being a disappointment to others. Being a bad parent, bad friend, neighbor and colleagues. Also scary… we had some health scares in our family, and you know, that’s kind of scary. That’s fearful. And ultimately, of course, death. Those are some things I could think of, you know, that I’m afraid of. But you know, God is good. Even through our recent book study—we’ve been reading Imagine Heaven, and you know, just to hear about the near-death experience accounts by some people who, you know, died and met the Lord and came back to share what they experienced… You know, it’s amazing. Come to realize I don’t really have to fear death. You know, because of resurrection—and it can easily become a cliche that I’m not afraid because I’m gonna, you know, I can die, but I’m not gonna die. But really, based on some of the people who share who actually went through death, yeah, death is really not gonna happen. It’s almost a continuous transition from now to even more real reality. And there’s nothing to be afraid of. Because of Christ, what He has achieved to conquer death once and for all. So the end part, the final journey on this side of eternity kind of got resolved for me. I don’t have to be afraid of that anymore. But even before that, today all these things are still scary. Okay, I know my end of life is secure, and yet today I have to worry about how I pay my bills or standing in front of people and speaking. And you know, all these worries, all these fears still linger. How do I deal with that? Even as a Christian, I feel like oftentimes… I’m constantly negotiating that. Do I measure up as a Christian? Am I praying enough? Am I reading the Bible enough? Am I devoted to the Lord enough? Am I evangelizing enough? There’s always this fear. Ultimately, will God tell me, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” or “I never knew you”? I thought that was always scary. And is that really how I suppose I’m supposed to operate? Being in fear before the Lord? And when I try to dig deeper to ask why am I afraid of this, I think maybe there’s more to it. And I encourage you to think about it yourself, be honest too. But for me, I think rejection from people and ultimately God is what I’m afraid of. And that fear paralyzes; it causes me to become timid. Once the fear sets in, it doesn’t leave enough room for others because I’m so focused on myself or what I’m scared of. Even good behaviors become a fear-driven thing, so even if I’m trying to live out a good Christian life, am I really doing it out of fear so that I get accepted by the Lord or not? And that’s the problem that maybe a lot of us struggle with. And yet still, the solution to that is what? It is that perfect love, the agape love. We are called to remain in that love, abide in that love. Okay, so… Call to action. When you run into fear—fear is a great indicator, almost like a warning sign on your car, “check engine” sign or something like that. It’s an indicator. I encourage you not to ignore it. But that’s such a wonderful indication that there’s something that the Lord is inviting you to work with Him on, I believe. So that is a time to bring that fear to Him, just like the disciples. “We are perishing!” Or “I am so afraid,” or “I don’t think I am good enough,” “I don’t have enough money.” Bring it. Take it to the cross. Take it to Jesus. Bother Him and abide in Him, and wait and see what Jesus will show you, show me. And I’ve been doing that actually. This past several months—and I shared with some of you too, and I asked permission from my friend Jared, so he said as long as I don’t go too much into detail, I can share. But I’m working, as some of you know, I’m currently working with my friend in a cabinet building business. He owns the business, and he’s running it, and he does really good, pretty amazing high-quality cabinetry, mainly in the Bainbridge area, but also in Poulsbo and anywhere in this North Kitsap region. But he had some fallout with his business partner, and there’s a money issue, and he was going through the brink of bankruptcy. And I’m working there, and you know, we don’t have enough money to get paid, but you know, he’s a believer. We’re praying together, we’re trying to, you know, trust in the Lord. It’s so stressful. I’m just kind of a friend walking alongside with him. But for him, it’s his, you know, his life. He has six kids that he has to, you know, feed. And so it’s been a really stressful, scary time for the people who are involved. And we’ve been praying, and so that’s when the Lord told me to stand in the storm, remain in the storm, because that’s where Christ will meet you. And it’s been quite a crazy journey. But the last three, four months, Jesus has been really showing, making really clear that when we turn to Him, He is so into all the details, and He knows, He cares for us so deeply that He gives us just enough to cling on to and keep going. And He has come up with ways so that we’re now at the point where we were able to evade the possibility of bankruptcy, and the business will probably survive. We’re not 100% sure yet, but… Before, there was no way that it was going to survive. The partner, the relationship issue was going, but—all the equipment, all the machinery, vehicle, everything got into a repo state. So the bank was calling him, asking when they could come and pick up all his equipment. If we lose all this, we can’t do the business, but we still have several projects that we’re in the middle of trying to complete. If you lose the equipment, then all the money that the customers paid us… it’s going to be a serious, big problem. But because of this status, the partner decided… There was a money problem. He was taking some money that he wasn’t supposed to. And because of that, the company was running out of money to pay for completing some of the projects. Because of this financial situation we ran into, the partner decided—initially he was refusing to, but he realized that there was too much risk, and he decided to leave. So he came in and signed a contract to just completely remove himself from the relationship. And this is what my friend, he was trying to accomplish all along. And the day that he came and signed, the bank called again and said, “Actually, we reconsidered your case, and we will give you grace. You can try to pay off, make at least a few payments, and we won’t repossess your equipment.” So all this timing is just perfectly aligned. But the enemy was constantly attacking, and vehicles would break down, something would happen. You know, his truck broke down, and Jamie and Stevin happened to have a car that they were trying to get rid of. And so, timing-wise, you know… They generously donated to Jared. He was so grateful. But you know how God arranged all that… and we experienced that firsthand. And personally too, I’ve been praying and asking the Lord to help me make it through this process, and He’s been just so amazing. A few weeks ago, I was running this machinery to do a thing called edge banding. Basically, the edges, furniture, you have to—there’s a machine that, you know, glues and pastes all this, and we have rolls and rolls of this. And we’re at a tight deadline to deliver these cabinets to our client, and so we’re running full speed trying to complete this. I made a pretty big mistake in the setup of the machinery, so I wasted a huge chunk of this roll of edge banding. We calculate how much we need for each color, and we paint them and we prepare them. I just realized I made a huge mistake. And I got on my knees and I prayed, “Lord, okay, I knew that I wasn’t, you know—I had to be careful, but, you know, please help me, my situation.” And thankfully, the material, we had just enough to redo everything. But what was amazing is when I went to the machine, this was what was left. Basically, this is the end of the edge banding, and the tape is where you can’t use that anymore. And literally, that’s where we were able to complete the, you know, the project. And like, the Lord is telling me, “Yeah, okay, I got you. You know, be careful. But, you know, I got you covered,” right? So I’m so thankful. And this is one amazing—I’m gonna keep this. And, you know, maybe I need to frame this. But there were other close calls here and there. We are constantly having close calls, and yet we’re making it through. The other day, we had this major shipment for the parts that we needed to use to complete some of the projects. And we have this huge packing list on a pallet that comes. We check the packing list, and it’s all there, but a couple of pieces are missing. Once we were about to start installing them, we realized, wait, we can’t find those pieces. Where did they go? We’re looking all over the office, the shop—can’t find it. It has to be here somewhere. Or did we take it to the site? You know, we went over there. We can’t find it. So you know, my partner, he was really, you know, nervous and anxious. “We have to reorder again, but it’s gonna push us several days back again we’re waiting on the mail…” So I’m on my own, praying, “Help me find it, Jesus.” And a few hours later, the package just by itself shows up on the floor of the office. And it’s most likely that there’s a delivery man who came and dropped it off. They couldn’t see us, so, you know… I don’t think it was just miraculously up here. Maybe it was, but I’m still, you know—I haven’t concluded which way or the other. But even if it was a delivery that came in later, it’s strange because the packing list that arrived a few days beforehand should have included all that, and now it shows up right there. No way you can miss it. It was on the floor right there. Oh, okay. Here it is. Thank you, Jesus. So things like that are happening, you know, continuously and just enough to have, you know… And we’re still in the process of completing—there’s one project hopefully next week and a few more down the line that we’re trying to finish. And everybody’s working around the clock, weekends trying to complete so that we can finally kind of get out of the financial difficulty. But yes, I think personally it’s been an amazing… This woodshop that has been such a cause of anxiety and storm, it has become such a precious place for me as a place where I can meet Jesus. One great thing about working in this kind of environment is that you’re just constantly sanding or doing all this work, and I can have an ongoing conversation with the Lord. It’s been such a precious place for me that I can do this. Of course, I’m thankful to, you know, Aiko. She’s at home, I’m away at the woodshop and Aiko’s at home, you know, dealing with the kids and homeschooling. And so I can only do this because, you know, I have a partner like that who’s on the same page with what the Lord is leading us into in this season of our lives. But yeah, so that’s… Praise the Lord and coming to Him in the midst of the storm because Jesus is willing to meet me in the midst of chaos. Either pain or fear or anything that you experience, Jesus is going to meet you as long as you’re willing to turn your eyes and look to Him and call upon His name. So that’s what I wanted to share today. And I want to extend this call to action to everybody. I really, truly believe that the Lord is working in our midst in a powerful way and a new, fresh way this year. I encourage you, this is such an opportunity for us to really experience his amazing agape love. I really believe that that’s the beginning of our personal revival, our newfound excitement and joy and peace that we can find in Christ, which we really need now. So that’s it. Let’s pray and close real quick, and I’ll have Kevin come up and lead us into communion. But let’s pray. Lord, you are amazing. Oftentimes… how many times have I looked at myself thinking I’m inadequate or not good enough? And it caused me so much fear and anxiety in this world trying to be brave and walk confidently. But deep down I know that oftentimes I don’t feel I’m good enough or I’m not competent enough or I’m not smart enough. And yet… That has so many times in the past led me to fear and anxiety and cowardice. But Lord, your amazing love. You invite me, invite us into this perfect love of yours—unconditional, all accepting, loving. And as we dwell in that and abide in that love, we’re so thankful that all fear and guilt and shame is cast away. And we can walk with you with newfound boldness and strength and courage because of you. And Lord, we really need that because that’s the only way we can be effective in this world, and we can effectively spread your kingdom in this world that is in so much need of you. Lord, here we are as we invite you into our hearts, our minds, and our daily lives and all the details. Lord, use us for your kingdom work. We’re so grateful. And Jesus, thank you so much for the cross. You shed your precious blood so that we can have this restored relationship, that we are redeemed, beloved sons and daughters of yours, that we can walk closely with you. So, yeah, thank you so much for today. And yeah, we love you. We worship you for who you are. In your mighty name we pray, Amen. Okay, thank you. Well, I think he does a pretty good job public speaking. On the night that He was betrayed, He took bread and He broke it. He gave it to His disciples. He said, “This is my body which is given for you.” In the same way, after supper, He took the cup, poured it out, gave thanks to His Father in heaven, and He said, “This is my blood which is shed for you and for many. It is for the forgiveness of sins. It’s the blood of the New Covenant.” 19 And he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, gave it to them, and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 20 In the same way he also took the cup after supper and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. (Luke 22:19-20, CSB) And we are New Covenant people. God has made a New Covenant with humanity through His Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. And the very entry point of that covenant is this: your sins are forgiven. As you come to Him, your sins are forgiven. That’s the entry point. That’s not the only point because your sins are also defeated. You will not forever be a sinner. You will not forever sin, but you will forever be immersed in the love of the Father. And throughout all eternity, He desires to show you His kindness. It’s free, but it’s very expensive. All it costs you is your life. But as you lay that down, you will find His life giving you new life. And in this meal, you’re saying “yes” to that. You’re saying, “Yeah, I want the bread from heaven. I want the blood of the New Covenant. I want to be like Jesus. I want to be like Jesus.” And He will honor that. So come and take. The post 2026.2.22 TFHC – Abiding in Jesus Through The Storm | Mark 4:35-41 appeared first on The Firehouse Church in Bremerton, WA.

Feb 15, 2026, Message by P. Kevin Clancey Transcript coming soon. The post 2026.2.15 TFHC – Divisions In The Church And The Wisdom Of God | 1 Corinthians 1:10-31 appeared first on The Firehouse Church in Bremerton, WA.