Hope Blog

▶ 1:11:39

Matt opened by sending the church’s team off to a camp for orphans in Mexico, then
noted that Mandy was away and he had nothing on for the afternoon, so the congregation should get
comfortable and locate the bananas in the coffee shop. He then broke the first rule of public
speaking and gave away the conclusion at the start — as a mercy, he said, because there are a lot
of wrong ways to preach this passage.

Why Ephesians 2 drags Romans 9 into the room

▶ 1:13:05

Paul writes Ephesians to stimulate hope, and his repeated phrase is in him — not
merely because of him, not next to him. In him. This week that phrase runs into the Jew and the
Gentile both reconciled to God, and a dividing wall of hostility that is simply gone.

Matt called the message a dress rehearsal for the fall, when Hope reads Romans and reaches
chapters 9 through 11. Those chapters frighten people because “I will have mercy on whom I have
mercy” sounds like a God announcing he can smash whomever he likes. But why would Paul, brimming
with good news, drop something dark and creepy into the core of the letter he was so eager to
write? The questions are real ones: how can Israel be God’s people and Christians also be God’s
people? How can the first covenant be obsolete while everything God says still stands? He also
asked prayer for Hope’s new friendship with Tiferet Israel, the Orthodox congregation in town.

Paul keeps using Israel’s words for the church

▶ 1:17:47

The tour started with Titus
2:11–14, where Christ redeems “a people for his own possession, who are zealous for good
works” — language God had used of Israel. Then Galatians
6:14–16, where neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, only a new
creation, and peace is pronounced “upon the Israel of God.” Then Philippians
3:2–8: “we are the circumcision.” Matt paused on the insult in that passage — in the ancient
world a dog was not a lap pet but a threat roaming the street.

And then Peter, writing to believers:

Some read that and conclude the church replaced Israel. Matt does not think it can be read that
way — but you can certainly say you have been made part of the Israel of God, and that is nothing
to sneeze at. Besides, the
vine and the branches was said to Jewish people. Outside of Christ there is no life for anyone,
Israelite or not.

Chosen — but chosen for what?

▶ 1:23:12

Present tense, Matt pointed out. Not was chosen. And then a small piece of grammar
that carried the whole message: choosing is transitive. “If I asked you what you did this morning
and you said ‘I ate,’ and I said ‘what did you eat,’ and you said ‘nothing, I just ate’ — that
doesn’t make sense.” Israel was not chosen to sit on a shelf like a knickknack. A nation was made
out of nothing, from two people too old to have children, so that they would belong to him and he
would dwell among them — and so that, in the flesh, on his mother’s side, they would be his
family.

Which is exactly why Romans
9:6–8 can say the word of God has not failed even while “not all who are descended from
Israel belong to Israel.”

Stick figures and Russian nesting dolls

▶ 1:26:42

Here Matt put up drawings he had made himself, apologized for them in advance, and started at
Noah rather than Adam on the grounds that Adam would have required far too many stick figures.
Abraham had eight sons — Ishmael, Isaac, and six more by Keturah, tucked away at the end of the
story where nobody notices. Only one is the child of promise. The promise runs through election,
not through paternity.

Jacob is the hinge. He is a man, and God renames him Israel, and Israel is also a nation — an
individual who contains a people. Matt noted Paul makes that same move with Adam, and the writer
of Hebrews makes it when he says Levi
paid tithes while still in the loins of Abraham. Nesting dolls — which Matt said he dislikes,
because they are full of themselves. It is also a foreshadowing: a single person who is himself a
kingdom of priests. “A Trojan horse of destiny,” he called Jesus, twice.

Mercy, not caprice

▶ 1:29:39

On Romans
9:15–18, Matt was careful. Pharaoh had already decided he wanted to keep his slaves; God froze
a choice the man had made, not a preference he never held. And the point Paul is racing toward is
verses
23–26 — vessels of mercy called from the Jews and also from the Gentiles, Hosea’s “those who
were not my people I will call my people.” God’s choosing to include is an expression of
mercy. We read it as capricious nonsense, he said, and we can stop reading it that way.

Then Romans
9:30–33: Gentiles who were not chasing righteousness got it by faith; those pursuing the law
as though it worked by effort tripped over a stone. The completed work of Jesus is precisely a
stumbling block to anyone seeking righteousness by any other means than grace.

Do not be arrogant toward the branches

▶ 1:33:46

Call the root the covenant promise, or the word given to the forefathers, or the person of
Jesus — Matt’s verdict was that it is six one way, half a dozen the other. “Behind any door you
open, ultimately you find Jesus.” Not a newcomer, either: “Before
Abraham was, I am,” and in 1
Corinthians 10:1–4 the rock Israel drank from in the wilderness was Christ. On Romans
11:11–12 — their trespass meaning riches for the world — Matt refused to let Gentiles feel
superior about it: “I’m not acting like Greeks wouldn’t have done that. They killed Socrates.” And
Romans
11:28–32 settles it. The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

Then how can a covenant go obsolete?

▶ 1:37:26

The fault is with them. God is not sitting there hunting for the reverse gear. And the
terms of the new covenant are the terms he wanted all along — I will be their God, they shall be
my people. Plan A, followed through.

Meanwhile Jesus knows he is absorbing Israel’s vocation. Israel was called to be a
light to the nations; Jesus says “I
am the light of the world.” He told Nathanael “behold,
an Israelite indeed” — and is himself the truest Israelite there could be. Seed of Abraham,
son of David, never sinned. “Talk about advantages,” Matt said. “And all of that is yours.”

One new man

▶ 1:44:34

Which is where Ephesians finally lands. God,
being rich in mercy, made us alive together with Christ; then Ephesians
2:11–13 tells Gentiles to remember they were once “separated from Christ, alienated from the
commonwealth of Israel” — two phrases sitting so close together they nearly say the same thing.

Matt would not let the abolished ordinances be a shrug. Jesus did not put a big fat never mind
on the law; he fulfilled it in his broken body. And there are not two plans of salvation. He drew
the absurdity out: a velvet rope at the judgment, Peter winking someone through a side entrance.
No. “Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life” — now, then, and backwards through every
foreshadowing in the Old Testament.

Full citizens, not half. There is no such thing, Matt said, as a member of Christ’s body and
then a triple golden platinum member of Christ’s body. Not male or female, not kept-80%-of-the-law
or kept 82, not Jew or Gentile. The mystery Paul says was hidden and is now revealed is exactly
this — the
Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body. So the reason he has unity with a Jewish
believer, or with someone from the Congo or Australia, is not a handshake. It is that they are
hidden in the same body, reconciled to the same Father.

Don’t settle for being next to him

▶ 1:53:45

The close was the same one he gave the week before. If you have chips you were hoping to cash —
heritage, a good week, a passage memorized — there is nothing there to stand on. Our standing is
in his identity, not our own.

“Please don’t just be next to Jesus,” Matt said, “related to someone who’s in Jesus, enjoying
being in fellowship with people who are in Jesus. Don’t be Jesus’ buddy. Be in him.” He does not
want people who imitate him from an adjacent seat. That is where life and salvation actually are.
Then he prayed for hope with abundant anticipation, and for faith to stand on the merits of Jesus
and no one else — and apologized, sincerely, for not preaching as long as promised.

▶ 1:11:46

Matt opened somewhere other than the text. He asked the room to pray for Iran, and
he was honest about why: “World leaders, especially presidents, never call me back. But I do talk
to God, and he has a great deal of influence over the hearts of kings.” He prayed for
de-escalation, for stable peace across Israel, Iran and their neighbors, and for the Persian
church — “help them flourish as a vibrant branch in the body of Christ.”

Two challenges before the text

▶ 1:14:39

Two air conditioners, the small playground, and — after the hail — three roofs, all in a short
stretch. The board’s habit of not spending money the moment it arrives is why none of it required
a loan; the new pews they wanted are still waiting. His ask was about commitment rather than the
balance sheet: it does not sit right with him that the same families always carry it. He noted
that he does not know who gives and does not want to. Melinda prepares the statements and keeps a
separate key.

▶ 1:17:20

The second challenge was to pray for the body. Matt described walking the empty sanctuary,
pew by pew — we are creatures of habit and sit in the same places — blessing the people who
belong to each one. If that is too many, start with whoever you greeted this morning. Why ask God
for what he already knows people need? “He cares about my fellow man more than I do. I don’t know
why, but he likes it. He asks us to do it.”

In him — not near him

▶ 1:18:19

Week two in Ephesians, and the phrase that keeps repeating is in him. Redemption in
him. Inheritance in him. Matt’s way of putting it: we do not want to stand in the splash zone of
Christianity. Being surrounded by Christian people, being the child of believing parents or
married to a believer — none of that is nothing, and he did not want to disparage it, but it is
not the thing on offer.

Matt went after a particular distortion here — the idea that the cross twisted the Father’s
arm, that Jesus went so far out of his way the Father figured he might as well be nice to “these
poor pathetic people on this rocky planet,” or that mercy is a tax write-off. “He did that on
purpose. He was premeditated. Even before you begged and asked and fasted and prayed over and over
again, his desire was to bless you.”

▶ 1:22:34

The inheritance of Ephesians 1:11–12
is unearned and enormous, and giving it brings God glory precisely because it is so over the top.
Which is why Matt refused the smaller version of the offer: you are not invited to be Jesus’ buddy
or to study under him like a good student. “He’s inviting you to follow him all the way to his
cross, to join his death through faith, and to share in his resurrection. Christianity is not all
about being a lot like Jesus — that’s too small in scope.”

The Spirit is presence, not a power tool

▶ 1:23:49

Belief, in Ephesians 1:13–14,
is not a deed — it is receiving a gift — and it comes with a seal. Here Matt took a deliberate
detour aimed at his own tribe. As a charismatic he believes the gifts are distributed today; the
correction charismatics need is that the Spirit is not equipment. “It’s like we have a lot to do,
and we understand that what we need is power tools to get more done.” The point of Pentecost is
that Jesus is no longer confined to whichever town he happens to be standing in. He is present
everywhere at once — with us, among us, in us. “His goal and his purposes from the beginning of
time revolve around this topic of intimacy. He wants to be our God. He wants us to be his people.
And he wants to dwell in our midst.”

Faith, love, hope — Paul’s checklist

▶ 1:26:39

When a passage confuses him, Matt looks for the seams. Verse 15 opens for this reason,
which is a good phrase to underline.

Faith, check. Love toward the saints, check. What Ephesus still needs is the Spirit coming in
power to open their eyes to their hope — because it is too big to simply be described to someone.
You will need a miracle to get your head around it.

▶ 1:29:07

That trio is a pattern, not a coincidence. It is the famous ending of
1 Corinthians 13:13,
and it opens Colossians too — faith in Christ Jesus, love for all the saints, “because of the hope
laid up for you in heaven”
(Colossians 1:3–5).
Matt credited Steve for pointing the pattern out, then admitted he was “just blatantly
plagiarizing,” and used the moment to nudge anyone thinking about the Perspectives course to
actually sign up — himself included. “It’s a spiritual gift, RSVPing.”

▶ 1:30:39

A work of faith — Abraham’s faith was something he showed. A labor of love,
because love is not a passive vibe;
Galatians 5:6
has faith working itself out through love, and
John 15:13
puts the greatest love in a deed. And a steadfastness of hope, which means hope takes
choices and some longsuffering.

Matt spent a minute on how badly the culture handles the middle term. Romantic infatuation gets
treated as love’s summit, and feelings come and go — “Oh, it’s Wednesday, I feel like I’m married
to you today. But Thursdays are rough, I’ll see you Friday.” The other counterfeit is love as
self-expression, which he named plainly as including the sexuality and gender debates but said is
bigger than them: it makes love about indulging me. “The Bible’s view is more profound and
enduring. It’s not a feeling and it’s not all about me. It’s an action, and it’s about you.” Which
reaches back to God himself — when we say God is love, we do not mean a detached well-wishing. His
love is sacrificial and active.

So how do you actively hope?

▶ 1:34:37

All three again, and hope has a verb attached: hold fast. Matt allowed himself one clickbait
line — the Bible never actually says anything about going to church — and then made the real
point. The command is to fellowship, not to occupy a building. “Christianity is not like a
low-budget podcast. We’re not just here to listen to a speech. We minister to one another. We’re a
body — we don’t express that like an archipelago of separate brains that just think the right
things.”

▶ 1:36:30

And the object of the hope is not fragile.
1 Peter 1:4–5
calls the inheritance imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven and guarded by God’s
power. It is secure, so you can anticipate it, hold it, and let it shape what you do.

▶ 1:37:30

“Hope is only dumb when it’s in something dumb,” Matt said — pushing back on the usage where
hope is what is left after defeat, the dynamic equivalent of go home. Real hope is trust in a
promised satisfaction that has not arrived yet. He noted, with some pleasure, that this is a
fitting thing for a church called Hope Chapel to take on itself.

Why the enthronement and the graveyard are the same paragraph

▶ 1:39:35

Paul goes from immeasurable power to Christ raised, seated far above all rule and authority,
all things under his feet
(Ephesians 1:19–23)
— and then, without a breath, “you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked”
(Ephesians 2:1–3).
It reads like changing the subject. It is not.

“His victory is our inheritance,” Matt said. Christ stepped into our darkness; we killed him in
our ignorance and hatred; the Father judged him worthy and raised him. Now the enemies going under
his feet are the prince of the power of the air, the forces that hijack and tempt us, mankind
frothing in its hatred of God, and death. Everything that preys on you, isolates you, discourages
you, kills you. His victory over them is your rescue — “much like the damsel in distress in a
movie where the hero saves the day.”

▶ 1:42:20

Then a warning aimed at evangelicals. We are practiced at praying God loves you so much
over the atheist or the pagan, and we forget it applies to the person who has been walking with
Jesus for twenty years. “He’s not just after people who don’t like him. He loves his enemies. He
also loves you. And that’s hard to remember.”

What he plans to show is not a grudging “that was fine, thanks, others did better, you can sit
in the back.” Grace is a gift, not a wage
(Ephesians 2:8–10) —
we are his workmanship, and even the good works were prepared in advance for us to walk in.

The waiting room with one angel

▶ 1:46:46

Matt closed with the ache everyone in the room already knows.
Psalm 16:11
promises fullness of joy in God’s presence, and we spend our lives chasing a thinner version of
it: the beach photo on the principal’s wall, and then you are at the beach and your stomach hurts;
the party down the street where you will finally have deep and abiding peace, and then you get
there and do not know who to talk to. Even the genuinely good times run out. “There’s a peace
that’s deeper that you still haven’t tapped into. You’ve been designed for these things.”

His picture for what is coming was deliberately small and then not: if you were parked in a
heavenly waiting room with a fake ficus and exactly one angel, you would never want to leave — and
that is before you see the place Jesus built with you specifically in mind, and long before the
fiery blaze of his presence.

▶ 1:49:33

So hope actively: think about these things, decide by them, say them out loud, let yourself be
encouraged. It is not indulgent, because the whole project — the bride, the wedding supper, the
redemption — sits on his shoulders and not on yours. This is too important a job to be yours. And
God is not the kind of well-wisher who says go in peace, be warmed and filled, and does nothing;
he chastises humans for that. He intends to satisfy the desires he gave you. Matt ended by praying
Paul’s own prayer back — for the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, for enlightened eyes, that we
would know the hope to which we have been called and revel in it.

▶ 1:09:42

Father’s Day, a hot sanctuary with one working air conditioner in the family room, and a senior pastor who arrived late and forgot his microphone batteries. Before any of Ephesians, Matt spent twenty minutes on two things he clearly did not enjoy raising: a war overseas and the church’s bank balance. Both turned out to belong to the message.

Before the text: praying for Iran, and telling the truth about money

▶ 1:10:15

Earlier in the service Sandy and Miriam — Miriam was born in Iran — had prayed over the Israel–Iran conflict from Isaiah 62:6–7, giving God no rest until he makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth. Matt picked it up: “What if our brothers and sisters in Iran were free? I understand that God uses oppressive situations to grow the church, and I certainly trust his ideas of what’s right better than my own. But I do long for them to be free.” He noted that on essentially every border in the world there are believers on both sides, and prayed for the Iranian church — the one most of the world does not know exists. “It’d be cool if the world looked away and then looked back and was like, wait, what? There’s a thriving church in Iran.”

▶ 1:11:53

Then the finances. Two congregational meetings had shown a healthy margin; the margin is now gone — two low-giving months, a down payment on the small playground that had become a safety problem, and two air conditioners. Matt was careful to say he does not know who gives what and does not want to.

His instinct is to shield the congregation from burden, and he made the biblical case against himself: Paul in 2 Corinthians 11:9 refused to burden the Corinthians because the brothers from Macedonia supplied his need. But then the college story. He had befriended a man living under a bridge near his apartment, asked him what would actually help, and started bringing it — and kept the whole thing to himself so as not to impose. He later apologized to his college ministry for excluding them. “This has been a glory and a joy even though it’s a burden. I love it, and I kept it from you.” Sharing the load made it lighter and made a friendship between two communities.

He also recalled a year and a half of Friday mornings interceding in the back of a mosque, where the treasurer, Mustafa, stood in the one exit with the giving bucket and made eye contact with everyone leaving. Matt laughed at the method and respected the conviction behind it: “He believes in his cause. He’s not embarrassed at all about it.” His own practice is ten percent, set up monthly and forgotten; anything else — meals, cornbread — does not count toward it. The ask was simple: if you belong here and you can give, give, so that the same handful of families are not carrying the church alone.

Why Ephesians

▶ 1:22:22

Matt admitted this one with some embarrassment: Ephesians is a book he has had to read and reread because it does not sink in. “I feel like there’s so much that I’m leaving on the page that I’m not getting from Paul.” So he has spent the year in it more than any other book, and somewhere in the rereading came the sense that the congregation should go through it together.

Verse one: two motifs, immediately

▶ 1:23:24

Two things to underline in the first sentence, Matt said: by the will of God, and in Christ Jesus. Paul mentions his imprisonment in chapters three and four, so this is very likely written from jail, and what he chooses to encourage the Ephesians with is their identity in Christ, the identity of Christ himself, and the purpose of the church.

Seven times before verse nine

▶ 1:24:36

Matt worked it as a series of questions. Where is the blessing coming from? In Christ — not adjacent to him, not indirectly related. In what circumstance did God choose us? In him. For what reason did he predestine us for adoption? In love. How has he blessed us? In the Beloved. By verse nine the phrase has landed seven times, and the plan for the fullness of time is “to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:7–10). Redemption is in him. The lavish riches are in him. The uniting of everything is in him.

Well, we already talked about money

▶ 1:26:56

“Well, we already talked about money, so let’s talk about predestination. It’s going to make it just a full Sunday.” He laid out three readings honestly. Some hold that God, from time immemorial, surveyed everyone who would ever live and chose — this one, not that one. Others hold that the called-out group is precisely those who would freely believe. A third says God’s choice lands on one person: Jesus — and if you find yourself in him, you are chosen, because he is the chosen one.

Matt’s move was not to arbitrate but to insist that the biblical statements are all true at once. Whoever hears his word and believes has eternal life. Whoever believes shall not perish. And he chose us before the foundation of the world. “It’s all true at the same time.”

He did tip his hat to the third camp for one reason: “I can’t find any verses about predestination that aren’t in Jesus.” And all three camps agree where it counts. To the first camp’s temptation — what’s so special about me that he chose me? — the answer is nothing. To the second camp’s — well, I believed — believing is not a work; it is receiving a gift. Nobody in any of the three gets to brag, and all three preach the same sentence: come to Christ so that you may have life.

God does not start what he will not finish

▶ 1:31:02

Verses seven through nine keep pressing the same point from the other side: it is his grace, his wisdom, his will, his purpose. “This is his circus. This is his plan.” Which is why Matt reached for the parable about the king who does not march out without counting his troops and the builder who does not lay a foundation for a tower he cannot top out (Luke 14:28–32). Jesus calls that ridiculous. God would not require of us a prudence he declines to practice himself. He started this. He will finish it.

▶ 1:31:53

Not only redemption — the inheritance too, and the Spirit, since the one who baptizes in the Spirit and fire is Jesus. We are sojourners here, and what we are looking toward is held for us in him.

What is true of us is first true of him

▶ 1:33:02

Matt then ran the same test through three more passages. Romans 8:28–30: those God foreknew he predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son — the destination is a person, and the glorifying of the bride is part of the plan. But then he asked the question underneath it: who, first of all, is the one God foreknew?

“A lot of the things that are true of us are true primarily of Jesus, who is the absolute starting point and foundation for our identity. We’re righteous because he’s righteous. We’re children of God because he’s the eternally begotten Son of the Father. We belong because we’re in him.” 2 Timothy 1:8–10 says the same: saved and called not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, given us in Christ Jesus before the ages began. And Colossians 1:15–18 supplies the reason the phrase carries so much weight — all things were created through him and for him, in him all things hold together, so that in everything he might be preeminent.

In him, not next to him

▶ 1:40:15

Here the message landed, and Matt said he would fumble it and we could clean it up in our minds. The thing he did not want anyone to conclude is that Jesus is so generous the blessing spills out onto whoever happens to be standing near him. “The cornucopia of rich blessings, the table that’s spread before you, the cup that’s overflowing, the bread of eternal life, the living waters — it’s not like next to Jesus for just whoever. Jesus isn’t a cosmic soup kitchen.”

He got specific about what adjacency looks like: being a cousin to Jesus, having God as your grandpa, belonging to a family that is Christian and counting yourself an honorary member. Or liking the church for the church — the people are kind, the hot dogs are great, the lemonade stand is a delight, there is pickleball. “Their cornbread’s not good, but their soup’s good.” None of that is the thing.

And to the objection that it is unfair for Jesus to be the only way to God, he gave the Christian answer rather than a softer one: Jesus is God the Son who took on flesh. Of course God is the only way to God. There is no honorary category for people who are good at certain things.

The closing charge was small and direct. Go home and reread Ephesians 1. “Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.” If you are near him, commit to being in him — today is the day of salvation. And then a play on the verb he keeps coming back to: abide in him. “Please don’t abide near him.”

▶ 0:59:34

Matt opened with a rabbi joke about whether the divine name ends in a
w or a v — the answer being that it sounds like a vuh, which
settles nothing. He used it deliberately. A good deal of what the early church did was
ambiguous in the same way, and Baptism Sunday is a good day to say so out loud.

An ancient practice that was never uniform

▶ 1:00:13

Around the Roman world baptism was usually by dunking. In ancient Syria, by the 200s, they
poured water over the head, because to their minds the best analogy was Pentecost — the Spirit
falling on the church. Go back as far as the record goes and you find Christians in
different places each saying, this is how we do it. Which means the practice is old enough to
have diverged early, because Jesus gave no method, only a command. The Lord’s Supper is the
same: some of the oldest evidence shows a ceremonial bread and cup, some a full meal. The
emphasis was do this in remembrance of me, not, as Matt put it, “make sure there’s
potato salad.”

▶ 1:01:42

Then the hard case. Persecution turned the heat up, and some bishops compromised — made
deals, handed over the scriptures to be burned. What about everyone they had baptized? The
church’s answer was that you do not get rebaptized, any more than you would get remarried
because the man who officiated later failed. “It’s a work of Christ, not the work of a man.”

Pentecost, and why the Spirit came when he did

▶ 1:02:55

The date was not incidental: this Sunday was Pentecost. For Israel it fell fifty days after
Passover — pentēkostē, fiftieth — a day to remember the giving of the law and to honor
God with the firstfruits of harvest. Many who had traveled for Passover simply stayed, so
Jerusalem was full. The disciples had been told to wait, and they were praying when the Spirit
fell with fire and power and they began declaring the glory of God in languages they had never
learned. The commotion drew a crowd, which Matt takes to have been the point.

▶ 1:05:01

Who does the baptizing was settled long before that morning, by John at the Jordan:

Peter’s argument from an occupied tomb

▶ 1:05:37

Peter preaches from “you
will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let your holy one see corruption” — and then makes
the observation everything turns on:

David is dead and, Matt noted dryly, presumably decayed. So the psalm was not about him. He
was a king and also a prophet, and he was speaking about a descendant — one God swore to seat
on his throne (Acts
2:30–32). Jesus is in that royal line, his body did not decay, and because he is raised in
power and will never die again, he can hold the throne unbroken. The promise is not merely kept
but permanently kept.

▶ 1:08:09

And that is what connects the throne to the fire:

David never ascended, but he wrote “the
Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand” — and Peter lands it on the crowd: God has made
this Jesus, the one you crucified, both Lord and Christ. The Spirit on the church is the visible
evidence of an invisible enthronement.

“What shall we do?”

▶ 1:09:47

Even complicity in the crucifixion is not a disqualification. Come if you are thirsty; come
if you are burdened. And all who are far off reaches this room without straining:
“Sometimes we talk about going to the nations. Technically, we are the nations. We’re super
duper far away from Jerusalem. This is the ends of the earth. Welcome to Texas.” Many
generations of children’s children later, the promise still holds, because the qualifier is not
distance or descent but everyone the Lord calls.

▶ 1:12:11

The weight sits on faith, not procedure — so heavily that in
Acts
10 Gentiles receive the Spirit while Peter is still talking, before anyone finds water. Paul
presses the same point on the Galatians: “Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by
hearing with faith?” (Galatians
3:2). Not, Matt said, “because we did extra Christiany stuff.” The Spirit is an inheritance.

Rivers, not a single pour

▶ 1:13:57

The disciples were not in timeout; the delay was about Jesus, not about them. And the image
is a river, which is to say ongoing — “otherwise it’s like a wet creek that was a river.” Nobody
needs to conclude that the day they were baptized was their one Spirit day, that they spent it
badly, and that a second dunking would top up the tank. If you want more — greater gifts,
greater power — the Spirit distributes as he chooses, so be grateful for what you have and ask.
You are not excluded and you are not disqualified for failing to be the apostle Peter.

Into his death, and out the other side

▶ 1:17:32

Going under is a burial. Matt granted the picture is imperfect — Jesus was laid in a new-cut
tomb, not under dirt — and declined to get hung up on the logistics. The part that matters is
that we do not leave anyone under the water. The invitation is to both halves: joined to his
death so we can be joined to his risen life.

▶ 1:19:46

Peter reaches for Noah — eight people brought safely through water
(1
Peter 3:18–20) — and then says what baptism is and is not:

You are not taking a bath. You are appealing to God — and the ground of the appeal is the
same enthroned Christ Peter preached at Pentecost.

Why we need the burial at all

▶ 1:22:31

Most of us quietly grade ourselves against the people around us and come out slightly above
average. That was never the standard. “All
have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift.”
It has to be a gift. “There’s no negotiations up here. There’s no contracts you’re going to
sign. It’s not a low interest loan. You’ll never pay it back.” And the exit door is closed from
the inside: “If
we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.” Matt noted the chiastic shape of those verses
and pointed at the middle — the burger in the sandwich — which is that if we confess, he is
faithful and just to forgive.

The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life
(Romans
6:23) — free to us, not free to him. And the timing of that gift rules out the idea that we
cleaned ourselves up first: “while
we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” If he died for enemies, the person who is
merely hesitant is hardly a difficult case.

At once

▶ 1:26:08

Two stories, and Matt wanted the same two words from both. The Philippian jailer asks what he
must do to be saved, hears “believe in the Lord Jesus,” washes their wounds, and “was baptized
at once, he and all his family”
(Acts
16:30–33). The Ethiopian official, reading a scroll he cannot interpret until Philip
explains that it is about Jesus, looks out the window and asks what prevents him from being
baptized (Acts
8:36). Nothing did. They stopped the wagon.

▶ 1:23:50

Which is why Matt kept undercutting the reasons people give for waiting. Take inventory of
your own faith and the exercise turns absurd — “sometimes when I look for my faith, I’m like, B
minus, maybe C plus. What metrics are we using?” Faith grows, God willing; that growth is not a
new plateau requiring a new baptism. And the practical obstacles are smaller still: check your
pockets, take out the cell phone, and note that there is no rule against being baptized in
slacks. He double-checked.

Three reasons, and the last one is a command

▶ 1:28:02

First, it is an appeal to God for a clean conscience — an expression of faith. Second, Jesus
himself was baptized, and we honor him by following him into the water. Third, he told us to:

Nine people were baptized that morning, one of them offsite with family who could not
travel. The adults and older kids introduced themselves and made their confession at the tank;
the younger ones had recorded and transcribed testimonies so that no one who wanted to speak
would be silenced by nerves. Nobody was coerced. Then everyone gathered under the tree in the
corner of the lot, shared what shade there was, went youngest to oldest, and had a party.