Exiled (Week 5) - Public Courage, Private Faithfulness - Audio
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Tom Lee pastor here at coast and we are continuing a series called exiles and the idea behind the series is that that God calls us immigrants and strangers in this place our citizenship is in heaven and yet we live in America in Orange County in Mission Viejo or San Juan Capistrano or wherever it is you live. We have a dual citizenship a dual reality and the fact of the matter is and we haven't touched too much on this yet but the truth of the matter is because of that there are going to be times where we bump up against the culture around us okay and and what that is going to ask from us is public courage and private faithfulness and I want to start by telling you a little bit about the story of the the father of the Protestant Reformation Martin Luther we are we're we're children of that we're at the event evangelical so we're Protestant Christians and that doesn't mean as much today as it meant 500 years ago but 500 years ago there there was really just one church in the West and that was the Roman Catholic Church and at that time saying anything the Roman Catholic Church wasn't just a church it was also the government okay you need to understand we don't get this very well because we're living in a country where we you know have the separation of church and state sometimes for the most part and so the state's not supposed to get too involved in church stuff but that's not how it used to be so in 1517 you may know the story Martin Luther nailed 95 theses to the door of the church in Vittenberg Germany and just so you get an idea of some of the stuff that he was talking about he said things like like no one can forgive you but God okay if anyone says that that they're that they've forgiven whatever sins you have like cool and maybe they can forgive you the stuff that's in their own heart that you've done to them but all the other stuff that you've done only God can handle that Martin Luther he said only guy and so the thing is is that at the time a lot of popes and priests said oh you can do whatever you want just as long as you come to me I'll forgive you whatever your heart looks like and Martin Luther was like no only God has a power to do that and the other thing he said is he said you cannot pay your way to forgiveness there's no amount of money there's no amount of good works that you can do to make yourself right with God and other people and at the time that wasn't the case at the time the Roman Catholic Church had gotten to a point where it was like hey you pay me enough money I'll give you an indulgence and your sins are forgiven another thing Martin Luther said is he said that the only authority that we're going to live our lives by is the Bible not by traditions not by our customs not by our habits not by the the cool stuff in the newspaper not by the tithe and the tried and tested pronouncements of theologians we ultimately it comes from scripture alone now at the time that was radical and it's wild that we live in a time where we hear that and we're like yeah I mean obviously at the time thinking those things was dangerous saying those things as we'll find out could have given you a death sentence the first thing I would before we jump into the the scriptures have you taken notes here's what you need to remember okay sometimes it has to be said somebody's got to say it maybe it's you at the time when Martin Luther was speaking somebody had to say the only God it has the power to let go of sins the question was who's going to say it I don't know what needs to be said today but maybe it's you were picking up in first Kings 18 and I want to set the stage for you there's a guy named Ahab he's the king of Israel he's a corrupt king he is he is married to a woman who has helped corrupt him the two of them they go off all kinds of foreign gods and finally at one point Elijah confronts him and this is with the king the one guy with all the power all the all the soldier says he when Ahab saw Elijah Ahab said to him is that you the one who troubles Israel Elijah said I haven't troubled Israel you and your father's house have you did as much when you deserted the Lord's commands and followed the balls now send a message and gather all Israel to me Mount Carmel gather the 450 prophets of Asherah who eat at your wife Jezebel's table hopefully we don't come to a place although during Covid we got pretty close where the government or whoever is in
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Coast Bible Church, PastorTom Bennett, San Juan Capistrano, CA, www.coastbible.org