Following Christ Outside the Camp: Embracing Scandalous Discipleship

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:00:00] Mary, the founder of Bada Bada, the whole house, is the wife of Jesus.
[00:00:05] She's like a new user. She's a real human product.
[00:00:07] I want to take a photo.
[00:00:10] She will open it up to go.

[00:00:15] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:00:15] I'm going to go.

[00:00:17] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:00:17] You and Garth are going to sit together and you're in the middle.

[00:00:30] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:00:30] Good morning. Please be seated just briefly. My name is Kevin Graybiel, and I serve as an elder

[00:06:30] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:06:30] here at Christ the King. And whether you've worshipped with us for years, this is your first time, or if you're somewhere in between, we welcome you. If at any point during the service, if you
[00:06:43] need a restroom, you can proceed through these doors behind me on the sides. The women's restroom is closer to this side, your left, and the men's is closer to the right side, but you'll get there
[00:06:53] eventually. Additionally, we do offer a nursery in a time of children's worship during the sermon.
[00:06:59] So kids pre-k to third grade will be dismissed during our time of gospel hospitality.
[00:07:05] Parents can walk those children through the door on the right to go to the chapel and younger children are welcome in the nursery. If that's helpful to you, please proceed through that door and go find the stairs, head upstairs and you'll find where you need to go. Now for a call to
[00:07:20] worship, God calls us to worship him. So would you stand and join me in reading this call and response from Psalm 95? Oh, come, let us sing to the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock
[00:07:37] of our salvation. Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving. Let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise. Oh, come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord, our
[00:07:53] maker, for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Please pray with me. Holy God, we come to worship you today. You are worthy of our thanks and praise, our joyful
[00:08:12] noises and songs. Thank you for calling us your own, the people of your pasture and sheep of your hand. We need you and we seek you now. Please meet us as we worship you today. In Christ's name,

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[00:08:28] amen. Please remain standing for this hymn of praise. Please be seated. So we've arrived at

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[00:11:01] the portion of our service where we confess our sins and rest in God's mercy. This is not a time to beat yourself up or rest in your sinfulness.
[00:11:13] It's a time to worship, to recognize our sinfulness, yes, but also to recognize the mercy God has for sinners and to celebrate our receipt of it.
[00:11:26] So please, join me in this responsive reading from Isaiah 55 as a call to confession.
[00:11:33] And we'll follow it by reading a corporate confession of sin together.
[00:11:37] then there's a short time of silent personal confession so so please respond seek the lord while he may be found call upon him while he is near let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts let him return to the lord that he may have compassion
[00:11:58] on him and to our god for he will abundantly pardon now would you pray with me gracious father we come to you with hearts that wander we confess how easily we are drawn to what is shiny
[00:12:14] but shallow how quickly we trade your steady grace for things that cannot satisfy we have trusted in our own efforts lean on our own understanding and tried to secure what only you can give. We have offered you leftovers instead of our lives, words instead of worship,
[00:12:38] routine instead of reverence. Yet you, O Lord, are not shaken. Your grace is not thin. Your mercy does not run dry. So we come, not with excuses, but with need, not with confidence in ourselves,
[00:12:56] but in Christ alone. Cleanse us by his blood. Steady us by your spirit. Teach our hearts to rest in grace, to rejoice in your provision, and to offer lives that honor you. Thank you that you do not cast us away, but draw us near through Jesus, our perfect sacrifice
[00:13:21] and faithful shepherd amen please join in a moment of silent confession now please look up and hear this assurance of our pardon from ephesians chapter 2 but god who is rich in mercy because of his great love that he had for us made us alive with christ even though we were
[00:13:59] dead in trespasses you are saved by grace he also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of
[00:14:13] his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus for you are saved by grace through faith and this is not from yourselves it is God's gift not from works so that no one can boast
[00:14:26] so let's all respond thanks be to God in Christ we are forgiven please stand for the song of

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[00:14:34] thanksgiving you are worship now with the time of giving tithes and offerings if you're a visitor

[00:18:09] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:18:09] please feel no compulsion to give we'd love to follow up with you and help you connect to the life of our church a great way to do that is to fill out a connect card you can fill it out and
[00:18:19] drop it in the offering basket or you can use the qr code to do so electronically they're in your pews would you guys pray with me for this offering father god we give of what you've given us
[00:18:32] Please bless this offering that we would steward it well and use it well as a church, and that our hearts and affections would be stirred toward you as we consider that all we have comes from you.
[00:18:44] We thank you in Christ's name. Amen.
[00:18:47] Please join in singing as we collect the offering.

[00:18:49] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[00:18:49] Yes, I rest and have made the joy of the greatness of a love so pure, so changeless, satisfied in the joy of...

[00:22:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:22:00] of Children's Ministries here at CTK. It's good to see you again. Okay, let's see. Holy Week, it's upon us. And guys, we've got some fun stuff going on. I'm going to run down, go down the
[00:22:12] rundown with you. So first off, on Saturday, April 4th at 9 a.m., we're having an Easter egg hunt with our kiddos. So yay! Okay, so fun facts. I have a lot of eggs. I do not have stuff to put
[00:22:27] inside said eggs. So if you would like to bring small little trinkets and candy, like for example, a whole thing of Smarties is too big. I know. So like small, small candies, small candies. If you
[00:22:41] would like to drop those off with me, please do. You can put them in my office. I can take them.
[00:22:47] We can put them in my trunk anytime. Yes, I will be stuffing eggs for the next week. So come on by if you also want to help. So yes, so we need candy stuffed. We also, we also need folks to
[00:23:00] hide these eggs. So I do think we have some youth group kids helping us at 8 30 AM. But if you just feel that inclination on next Saturday morning at 8 30 AM, come on down, hide some eggs. We'd
[00:23:12] love to have you. Also another fun thing that is happening at the same time as this Easter egg hunt is our men are having a work day and I think they're making us breakfast. They're going to
[00:23:22] make pancake breakfast so that will be great so after we find all the eggs so the easter egg hunt starts at nine and then it'll be done by like 904 because it's small children and so then when it's
[00:23:36] done we'll all go inside the fellowship hall and have breakfast so you guys invite your neighbors invite your friends invite your co-workers this will be a great time and it's a lot of fun and
[00:23:46] then we'll have breakfast together okay so that's on saturday before easter but a couple days before that on monday thursday we will have a worship service at 7 p.m and then again on good friday we will have another service here again as well at 7 p.m then saturday morning we'll do our
[00:24:06] easter eggs and our pancakes and then the next morning on sunday morning on easter sunrise service we can praise god that jesus is risen at 6 30 a.m at the north carolina museum art museum
[00:24:22] in the circle, right? It's in the circle of the art museum, like all the way on the far side.
[00:24:30] Yes. And so bring your own chair and yes, you'll get to worship together. Then you can leave that place. Come by here at 745 a.m. in the fellowship hall, grab a bagel. Breakfast will be provided.
[00:24:45] Then at 9 a.m. we will have a worship service here. We will also have the exact same worship service again at 11 a.m inside so that day we are having two worship services we are combining with
[00:24:57] temple baptist church and having two services they're the exact same and children in kids worship and above we will not be having kids worship that day so you guys will get to sit and worship and praise jesus that he rose again and conquered death woohoo and we'll do it all
[00:25:16] together. And so, yes, and that'll be on Easter Sunday. And now, Kevin Graybill's back up for a

[00:25:23] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:25:23] pastoral prayer. Thanks, Catherine. So we're going to take a few minutes to continue our worship in a brief time of prayer, and we'll close that time reciting the Lord's Prayer together.
[00:25:36] Your cue to begin praying or, you know, to look around and find the words to the Lord's Prayer will be when I say, and now let us pray as our Lord taught us.
[00:25:46] If you don't know it or you need a refresher, it's in your bulletin and it'll be on the screen behind me.
[00:25:51] So now, would you pray with me?
[00:25:54] Holy Father, we come to seek you.
[00:25:57] We praise you as we watch the beauty of spring unfolding around us.
[00:26:01] The new life appearing in this spring is a wonder to behold.
[00:26:05] Thank you for it and the many ways it points us to you.
[00:26:09] Lord, many of us come with a mixed sense of sorrow and anxiety at what's happening in the world and around us.
[00:26:16] Would you have mercy on us, O Lord?
[00:26:19] Many of us are fearful due to a war in Iran.
[00:26:23] And for some of us, it's the anxiety of not being able to afford rising prices of things, fuel, and goods we need.
[00:26:30] Would you comfort and provide for us?
[00:26:33] And then for others of us, Lord, people we know and love are in the armed forces, and there are real risks to them in their lives. Lord, would you protect them and have mercy? Father, we also sense the immensity of the weight of human suffering in and
[00:26:48] from this conflict and from the others that are around the world. We pray for an end to the conflicts and a cessation of hostilities in the Middle East, and we ask and long for governments
[00:26:59] abroad as well as at home that would treat those made in your image with the respect and honor their due with just laws and just enforcement. Lord, have mercy. Lord, we also pray for our state
[00:27:14] and national legislators that our representatives would be willing to work with each other to pass functional budgets. Lord, there are members in this congregation directly impacted by our lack of budget in North Carolina. Lord, we pray for a budget to be passed that honors you. Lord, have
[00:27:33] mercy. We also lift up our local government and pray for wisdom as our area continues to increase in population. Thank you for the newcomers, Lord. We pray, Father, that our officials would be wise to manage the growth, to welcome newcomers while also caring for those who are already here.
[00:27:51] Lord, have mercy. And Father, we also lift up our own congregation where there are many in our midst who are navigating so much pain and loss.
[00:28:02] Father, would you comfort those facing these difficulties.
[00:28:05] We ask that you give us eyes, Lord, to see those who are hurting around us.
[00:28:11] Grant us willing hearts to care for one another, owning each other's as members of the same body, your body, the church.
[00:28:19] Lord, have mercy.
[00:28:21] And now, let us pray as our Lord taught us.
[00:28:25] Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
[00:28:30] Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
[00:28:36] Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
[00:28:44] And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
[00:28:49] For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.
[00:28:55] Now at this point, we're going to continue our worship with a time of gospel hospitality, as well as dismissing those who are walking their children to children's worship.
[00:29:04] The peace of Christ be with you all.

[00:29:06] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[00:29:06] If you would, grab a seat.

[00:35:01] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:35:01] So glad to see you here this morning.
[00:35:03] I know you could be in a lot of places, including your bed right now, and we're really glad you've chosen to spend your Sunday with us, worshiping the Lord, being together with his people.
[00:35:13] We trust that the Lord has something for every person who walks in the door of our church on a Sunday morning, that no matter where you are or your circumstances, that God has brought you here for a reason.
[00:35:26] And so we're glad to welcome you. My name is Jeff Bradford. I'm a senior pastor here and want to welcome you personally. If we've not met, I'd love to have an opportunity to meet you. We are in the
[00:35:37] book of Hebrews and finishing the book of Hebrews out over the next two months. So if you want to find the passage on which the sermon's based, we're going to be at Hebrews 13. And it's our
[00:35:47] practice to read God's Word out loud together. That's in your bulletin. It's in your pew Bibles, which are brand new. If you find those in front of you, that's on page 1070. Those were donated by
[00:36:00] a member of our church, and we're glad to have those for our congregation to be able to use during worship. So we're going to be at Hebrews 13, verses 9 through 16, and again, 20 through 21.
[00:36:11] So if you join your voices with mine.
[00:36:42] into the most holy place by the high priest as a sin offering are burned outside the camp.
[00:36:50] Therefore, Jesus also suffered outside the gate that he may sanctify the people by his own blood.
[00:36:59] Let us then go to him outside the camp, bearing his disgrace, for we do not have an enduring city here. Instead, we seek the one to come. Therefore, through him, let us continually offer up to God
[00:37:16] a sacrifice of praise. That is the fruit of lips that confess his name. Don't neglect to do what is good and to share, for God is pleased with such sacrifices. Now may the God of peace, who brought
[00:37:33] up from the dead, our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, equip you with everything good to do his will, working in us what is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
[00:37:53] The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever.
[00:38:02] One of the deepest fears of modern life is to be excluded or to be left out, to be not a part.
[00:38:12] And I wish I could tell those of you who are in middle school and high school today, I know there are plenty of you in our church, I wish I could tell you that ends at some point.
[00:38:20] And it doesn't. We have different metrics for this as adults. We have things like how much money you make and where your kids go to school, what kind of vacations you take. But it's all
[00:38:35] still the same thing. Who's in, who's out, who's included, who's not. We have fear of being on the wrong side of our social group, the people in our office, friends. Social media makes this even
[00:38:47] harder where we compare looking online, other people's curated highlight reels of their life with our everyday messy, boring life. And it just makes us feel left out. Anybody feel left out?
[00:39:06] Okay. Maybe two of y'all are honest here this morning. So now you may think that this is uniquely our era, but the writer of Hebrews is talking to, writing to, addressing a group of people who are being told not to be left out of the in-group. And it's kind of a strange context
[00:39:24] for us, but I'll make it really simple for you. Remember that Christianity began not as a new religion, but as a part of Judaism, part of being Jewish. And so one of the things that happened
[00:39:39] early on in the church is the question, what do we do with all these people who weren't Jewish?
[00:39:45] Do they have to act Jewish? Do they have to eat all the things that are on the food laws? Can they have shrimp and crabs or not? Do they need to be kosher? Do they need to dress like us,
[00:39:57] talk like us, look like us in order to be one of us? And that was really, this is why it's describing about the strange and diverse teachings that have to do with food. That's what that's
[00:40:08] referring to. There were some who were saying to the early Christians, this is what you have to do to be a Christian. This is how you know you're on the inside of the camp. You're the in group.
[00:40:19] You're with us. If you don't do those things, you're not part of this group. Now, let's talk about the camp. Now, when we think about camping, we think of a place that's got a little number
[00:40:30] on a wooden plaque, and it's got a fire ring, and it's got a picnic table. That's not what ancient people thought of as camping. Let's put up a picture. This is what they thought of as
[00:40:41] camping. This is a Bedouin tent from way back in the 1950s in Israel. And I tried to look up Bedouin tents today and they all are like glamping Bedouin tents. Whatever. So anyway, I want you to picture, this is the history of Israel. Permanent camping. Camping all the time.
[00:41:01] We're like, camping is fun. Coming home is even better. Camping all the time, not so fun. And a camp was the only place in the wilderness. When the people of God were in the wilderness for years
[00:41:12] and years and years, it was the only place of safety. You don't let your kids go play outside the camp. The camp is where all the tents are close together, where there's safety from robbers,
[00:41:25] safety from wild animals, and safety from exposure to the elements. They're camping, y'all, in the desert. So the camp was the safe place. To be outside the camp was dangerous.
[00:41:38] And so this was, this is the history of Israel, permanent camping. And I just want you to think about how we use that metaphor for camping today. To be in the camp means safety, belonging,
[00:41:50] identity. To be outside of the camp means shame, rejection, isolation. So every culture has people who are insiders and outsiders. So for those of you in middle and high school, a little thought experiment for those of you who remember middle and high school. What did it take to be part of
[00:42:11] the in group? You know. You know who are the in kids at your school, right? You know who are the most popular and most well-liked, and you know when somebody's outside of that. What did it take
[00:42:23] to be part of that group? How did you know you were part? Every camp has something to offer, a way of talking, a way of acting, a way of dressing. That's how camps work. On the inside,
[00:42:37] people are affirmed. On the outside, people are excluded based on whether they have the things.
[00:42:44] Even there's a version of the camp, which I think is really funny. Have you ever noticed that all people who are like, I don't want to be part of any camp have their own camp. Okay. So
[00:42:56] let me just give an example of this for a while. Goth culture was kind of the big, we're not part of any camp. Now what was fascinating to me about goth culture is they all look the same. It was
[00:43:07] all black, black, everything punk kind of look. And it's like, but we all look exactly the same if we're all rebelling against it. And there's a type of being an out group that says we don't
[00:43:20] want to be a part of something that's its own in-group. Have you seen that before? This morning, as we look at this passage, we're going to see two remarkable things. And they're hard. I'm just
[00:43:32] going to give you a warning. This is a difficult sermon. Because what we find is we have a Savior who endures scandal as he goes outside the camp. That's where Jesus goes. He's outside the camp.
[00:43:47] And he calls us to do the same thing. Those who follow him, to be as scandalous people who go outside the camp and live outside of the camp. That's where we're going this morning. So first,
[00:43:58] the scandal of a savior outside the camp. Now, I know that if you are in Wake County schools, you know what Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur mean, a day off. That's what that means in Wake County's
[00:44:14] public school system. So, but I want to tell you in the Bible what those mean. Rosh Hashanah was the beginning of the year, the calendar year. And it was in the fall. And every day, every year at
[00:44:26] Rosh Hashanah, the priest would come out and blow the shofar, this big horn made up of an animal's horn. And it would begin the calendar year in the fall with 10 days dedicated to you thinking about
[00:44:39] God. You think about your relationship with God. It's a time of reflection and repentance. And it led them to Yom Kippur, which means the day of atonement. This is all in Leviticus chapter 16, y'all's favorite book of the Bible, Leviticus. So in Leviticus 16, this is what's described.
[00:45:01] After 10 days of reflection and repentance, this is what happened. The high priest would go that time of year and that time of year only into the holiest place of the temple, and he'd sacrifice a bull for his own sins
[00:45:17] and he'd sacrifice a goat for the sins of the people.
[00:45:20] And then he would appear at the tent of meeting and he'd have another goat.
[00:45:24] So there are two goats that I wanna focus on today with you from Leviticus chapter 16.
[00:45:31] The first one I wanna talk about is the scapegoat.
[00:45:34] So the high priest would bring this goat out to the tent of meeting and he would take his hands and symbolically, he would lay the sins of all the people on the scapegoat. Now, we use the word
[00:45:50] scapegoat in politics and sports when we talk about somebody who's done something really bad and we want to blame them. But originally, the word scapegoat in Hebrew means the taking away goat. And the taking away goat, priests would take the sins of the people, lay them on the goat,
[00:46:10] and then they would drive the goat out of the village, out of the tent village. They want that goat as far away from them as possible. They don't want that goat coming back. That's a loaded goat.
[00:46:22] They don't want that goat coming back in with the sins of people showing up at your tent.
[00:46:27] So it became the job actually over time of a Gentile. They'd get a Gentile, non-Jewish person whose job it was, this is kind of sad, to take that goat way out in the desert, push it off a cliff.
[00:46:44] Nobody wants that goat coming back.
[00:46:47] That's the scapegoat.
[00:46:48] That's the taking away goat.
[00:46:52] There's a moment in the TV show Breaking Bad where this kid, Jesse Pinkman, he's in his 20s.
[00:47:02] He's had a history of drugs and he's been a really troubled kid.
[00:47:06] He's caused his parents lots and lots of pain.
[00:47:08] And they've told him he can't come back to the house.
[00:47:11] But he shows up back at the house.
[00:47:14] And he says, I'm going to do better.
[00:47:15] I'm going to try better. I want to come home. So they let him back in for that evening. Just so happens that the cleaning lady comes through the house that day and she finds a joint, a marijuana
[00:47:27] cigarette hidden in the house. And she comes and brings it to the parents and the parents turn to Jesse and say, you did this. And out of the corner of his eye, Jesse sees his little brother. Now his
[00:47:44] little brother is in middle school, and his little brother is the perfect kid. Little brother has done everything right, has all the good grades, has been the obedient kid, you know that kind, the good kid. And Jesse sees his little brother, and his little brother, the corner of his eye is
[00:47:59] like, because it's his little brother's drugs. And in that moment, Jesse does something remarkable.
[00:48:07] He takes the blame. He becomes the scapegoat. And what happens is what you would think would happen. The parents get really mad. Here we go again, Jesse, get out. And they kick him out of
[00:48:21] the house. And the one who's innocent is sent away and the guilty one remains at home. That's what the scapegoat does. The scapegoat is the taking away goat, taking away the offense. And the goat
[00:48:38] is sent out, pushed off. But there's another goat in Leviticus 16. And both of these goats are referred to in this passage. It's the goat of sacrifice. Now, this goat was sacrificed in the way you think of. Throat slit, blood poured out, the blood taken and sprinkled against the altar,
[00:49:00] the horns of the altar in the holiest place. Why? To satisfy divine wrath for sin. To take the punishment for sin. It was killed to pay for the sins of the people. Now, to be honest,
[00:49:16] If we could take a vote of which goat you like better, most modern people are like, we get and we like the taking away goat. Not so sure about why we need a goat of sacrifice.
[00:49:33] So let me give you an illustration. Used to be on Friday night, people like me back in the day would go on a Friday night to a place called Block Blester Video. Nothing streamed over my TV at all.
[00:49:46] so you'd go on a Friday night and you'd go to the video store and you'd wander around the video store. And because we didn't have a cell phone for the first part of this, it was a, it was a
[00:49:58] guess. So I'm wandering around Blockbuster Video and here's how it works. They had these little boxes with the pictures of the movies on them. And if they had a plastic case behind that, that plastic case actually held the VHS tape that we would take home and stick in our VCR and watch
[00:50:14] it that night. So you'd look around for the ones with the plastic cases behind them. Now, you also played this other game where you're like looking around to watch if somebody's going to put something back, because you might be able to get something better that way. And there was a lot of
[00:50:26] guesswork in this before cell phones of like, how do I know if I got a good one? Is Susan going to like this one? I don't know. So anyway, there's a lot of guesswork around this, but here's what
[00:50:35] always happened in the Bradford household. I don't know if this is other people, but it always came around to the two-day rental period, Sunday, and we'd wake up Monday and realize we forgot to return
[00:50:47] it on Sunday. So then you'd have to go back to Blockbuster and not just turn in the tape. They didn't just want the tape back. You had to pay the penalty. And they wouldn't rent to you again.
[00:51:01] If you don't pay that penalty, the fine for the overdue VHS tape, you don't get to rent anymore.
[00:51:07] And here's why. You have incurred the wrath of Blockbuster. You are under a guilt sentence of Blockbuster and you must pay that fine to propitiate the wrath of Blockbuster. And if you don't pay the fine, it's fine, but you can't rent again. Now, I want to, I use that for an example
[00:51:29] because this is what that second goat, the goat of sacrifice does. It pays off the fine, the offense.
[00:51:38] there is something that needs to be satisfied that is outstanding with God in our sin.
[00:51:46] And I know you don't use this word propitiate, but we propitiate all the time. We pay late fees.
[00:51:53] We say, I'll make it up to you when we do something wrong. We try to do better. Those are all ways of paying, settling the offense. In theology terms, what happens in Leviticus 16 is that there is a taking away goat that expiates, takes away the sin of the people,
[00:52:15] and there's a goat of sacrifice, the blockbuster goat that pays for the wrath, that satisfies wrath. So here's the funny thing. Many people today, we want a Christianity that's got a taking away. We don't want one that has a paying for the wrath. We don't understand that. We want
[00:52:39] a Jesse Pinkman, we don't want a blockbuster. Does that make sense? But if someone killed a family member of yours, somebody you love dearly, and the governor of North Carolina just gave that person a pardon, how would you feel about that? You'd be okay with that? Just taking away the
[00:53:00] offense. Nobody would be okay with that. We say unfair. There's a real wrong that's been done.
[00:53:09] There's something that needs to be satisfied with regard to a debt that needs to be paid.
[00:53:13] something's really wrong it's a real offense these two things together represent what is a full atonement of sin but the removal of god's wrath the settling of the debt and the taking away and of course both goats are they're they're fulfilled by the goat the greatest of all time
[00:53:46] they're fulfilled by Jesus. Jesus is both sacrifice for sin, paying the debt. We read this in Hebrews 9. We can put this up on the screen behind me. He's appeared once for all at the
[00:53:58] culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. For by one sacrifice, he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. He's the sin offering, says in verse
[00:54:09] 11. He's verse 20, through the blood of the eternal covenant, he wipes this away, makes payment, and he's the taking away goat. So in this passage, it says Jesus suffered outside the gate.
[00:54:23] And that literally, that refers to outside the city walls of Jerusalem, outside the gate. Jesus suffered. Golgotha was a trash heap overlooking part of this Hinnom Valley below where people poured their trash. That's where Jesus was sacrificed, outside the gate. He's the taking
[00:54:39] away goat who takes it out. So this is not just geography. This is expulsion. This is deep theological truth. He's treated as unclean. He's executed. It's public shame. He's cast out. And these two come together at the cross. I want you to hear this. We're about to walk into Holy Week
[00:55:03] and we're going to remember what happened on Good Friday. But when a person gets hurt, you get up in the middle of the night and you run into something, you cry out the body part that hurts. So get up in
[00:55:17] the middle of the night to get something to drink, stumble over something, my knee, oh, right? My ankle. Matthew tells us in his version of the crucifixion, he said, Jesus didn't cry out.
[00:55:32] That's too tame. But he screams the words of Psalm 22 from the cross. So when he's on the cross, he doesn't scream, ah, my hands. He doesn't scream, ah, my feet. He doesn't scream, ah, my head.
[00:55:55] He screams, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus is the one who's the sin offering, the sacrifice, who takes away the sins of the world. Both of those are met in him. Hallelujah.
[00:56:15] What a Savior. It's both. Sermon not over. Sermon not over. Because what this passage says is something really remarkable that's really hard for us to hear, which is this. God calls us to follow Jesus outside the gate, out of the camp. This is verse 13. Let us go to him
[00:56:46] outside the camp and bear the reproach that he endured. That's a summary statement of what it means to be a Christian. To be a Christian is not just belief in the goat, the goat of goats, right?
[00:56:59] But it is also to follow him, to follow him, to bear the reproach. It is personal, spiritual relocation. Charles Spurgeon once said in his preaching about this text, he said, Christians must leave the camp of easy religion and join Christ where the world rejects him.
[00:57:22] Notice the order though. We don't join him in receiving that approach in order to be accepted by him. Verse 13 tells us no. Because we've been accepted by him, because this debt of sin has been
[00:57:38] paid and we have been brought in, therefore we join Jesus outside the camp. So this means several things. First, it means this, non-camp identity, non-camp identity. Our identity is no longer based in belonging to cultural groups. For a Christian, you don't need that anymore. We are people who
[00:58:03] follow a rejected king. Our expectation is that people aren't going to really understand us.
[00:58:14] Our expectation is people aren't going to like us. Our expectation is being identified with Jesus means people will mistreat us. Jesus said, if they hate you, hate me, they're going to hate you. We have a new identity that's outside the camp people. We're outside the camp people.
[00:58:33] It frees us from respectability anxiety. We got to be respectable. It freezes from tribalism and rage politics and defensive Christianity. Christians should be the least shockable, least fragile people in the world. Non-camp identity means we need some emotional resilience,
[00:58:50] friends. We live in a victim culture, and to be victimized is to garner a lot of sympathy and power in our culture in some ways. It's a weird reversal. And in a lot of ways, I'm not making
[00:59:04] political statements, but that needs to happen. There's some things where victims need to be cared for and protected. But there's a tendency for Christians to use that label inappropriately of ourselves. We are not victims. Jesus told us, the world will hate you because it hates me.
[00:59:23] Right? Jesus told us this is our expectation. We follow a rejected king. What do we expect?
[00:59:30] Christians should be the least fragile, the most resilient, because rejection doesn't threaten our identity anymore. We're accepted by the king of kings. What can harm me? Second, non-camp home address. Non-camp home address. We have this, verse 14, a lasting city. Now that makes,
[00:59:50] that may sound a little weird. He's switching metaphors from tents, remember the Bedouin tents, to a city. But that makes sense, doesn't it? We're going from temporary to permanent, from canvas to bricks and mortar, right? We're going, a camp is tarps and tents. A city is bricks.
[01:00:09] To people, a people who have a lasting city means that we have a new home address that's permanent and it's not right here. So I'm going to put up a picture here. I remember reading the story. This
[01:00:19] was national news for about a week back in the 70s. Okay. Well, that dates me. There was this guy named Victor Belinko, and he was a Soviet lieutenant who defected to the United States.
[01:00:31] So he flew his top secret MiG-25 and landed it in a Air Force base in Japan and declared he wanted asylum by the United States, 1976. I want to become an American citizen. And that sounds like,
[01:00:47] oh, that's kind of cool, you know. But think about what he left behind. To defect from your country is a radical break. So this guy gave up the Soviet Union, his citizenship. He gave up being
[01:01:06] called Russian. Gave up his primary language, which was Russian. He said goodbye to everybody he knew. Never see them again. And said, my new home address is United States. This is where I now live. To be a Christian, to go away from the camp is to defect. It's to defect. It's a new
[01:01:31] identity based on your new home address. Here's the question for us. In my heart, have I defected?
[01:01:43] Do I want to live with a foot in the kingdom of God and a foot in the rest of the world?
[01:01:51] to defect means everything changes about me. I'm a citizen of a city that I can't see.
[01:01:59] I got a new way of thinking, speaking, seeing. I look at my goods as not my own. They belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. My house is not my own. My car is not my own. Everything I have belongs to
[01:02:11] him. It's all for his use and his glory. Have I defected to live as a campless person in the world in which everybody else thinks they need a camp. I'm talking to you middle schoolers and
[01:02:23] high schoolers this morning, because this is a really hard thing. And I'm also talking to the larger version of the middle schoolers and high schoolers in this room, because nothing's changed inside of you. You still want to fit in. I get it. To defect means we put to death those things.
[01:02:46] We leave them behind. Have you defected? Finally, non-camp purpose. I want to tell you, our church, despite what you see about this being a nice comfortable place our church is not here to be a nice comfortable place
[01:03:01] our church is not to be a safe Christian club it's not to be an anti-world Christian club not a safe Christian enclave that costs us nothing we are a church that since we were founded in 1999
[01:03:17] has never gathered around sameness or socioeconomic status or having the goods and services of a Christian community that's all alike. We've always been an outside the camp church. That's where we've always been. This is founding. Let's go outside
[01:03:38] the lines. We've centered on a kingdom-sized mission for the world. Our elders back in January 2020 said our vision for our church is church planting and biblical justice and cross-cultural discipleship. We really care about those things. You may be like, well,
[01:03:52] I haven't heard y'all talk about it much recently. We're in the process of revisiting our strategies as elders around all those things. But we're not letting them go because this is who we are. We're not meant to be a club. We're outside the camp. We're an outside the camp church. And
[01:04:07] you know what happens in an outside the camp church? It's weird. People are like, I don't get that church. They do things different over there. You know, it's just not very comfortable going to that church. Good. It's not what we're here to try to do. We're here to make a difference.
[01:04:28] back to the beginning of my sermon if being left out and excluded in part of something is something we deeply fear why in the world would we choose to identify with a savior who goes outside the camp how are you going to do that why would you self-exclude yourself
[01:04:43] what in the world would sustain you to do that what would give you the strength to be an outside the camp person it's right here in verse 10 we have an altar from which those who
[01:05:01] worship at the tabernacle do not have a right to eat. Okay, what does that mean? Here's what that means. The priests who served in the tabernacle got the leftovers from the tabernacle. There's a story in 1 Samuel 19 about the priest Samuel. He had two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, and they're
[01:05:21] really bad guys because when the sacrifices came into the tabernacle to be processed, they would take the best part for them instead of the best part for the Lord. The priests were supposed to take, give the best part to be burned up. And they were like, oh, no, burn that up. Give
[01:05:38] that to me. Right? So the best parts were supposed to be burned up and the leftovers go to the priests to sustain their families. That's how they lived. Instead, they were reversing that.
[01:05:49] So the priest ate the leftovers from the tabernacle. And this is what's fascinating.
[01:05:55] The writer of Hebrews is saying, we've got something even better than the priest have.
[01:05:59] Well, there's another altar that's not the altar in the tabernacle. There's other food that's been sacrificed. That's our food. What's he talking about? He's talking about feeding on Jesus.
[01:06:13] In John chapter six, Jesus says, truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in and of yourselves. The one who eats my flesh and drinks
[01:06:23] my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day because my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Anyone, the one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me
[01:06:31] and I in him. Gross. If you're like, gross, yeah, you get it. Feeding on Jesus is an imaginary, but it requires imagination. Let me say that again, because some of y'all just missed that.
[01:06:49] Feeding on Jesus is an imaginary, but it requires some imagination.
[01:06:54] There's an old movie starring Robin Williams called Hook. And it's a movie that Peter Pan is now all grown up and he's a workaholic lawyer and he has to, he goes back to Neverland and he goes back to Neverland and he's sort of reconnected with the lost boys and they keep
[01:07:14] trying to engage him as Peter Pan and he's a lawyer now. He's grown, he's boring, he's tedious, you know, and they keep trying to engage him and they spend this whole day with him and he just
[01:07:26] is completely disconnecting. And they finally sit down to dinner and he's like, oh, I'm starving dinner. So they sit down at the table and they begin to bring out these giant pans and open the
[01:07:36] lid and the steam coming out of them. It smells so good. It's like, oh, I can't wait. You know, the platters. And as they set down the platters, open the lids, there's nothing that Robin can see,
[01:07:50] Peter Pan, sorry, can see in the platters. And then suddenly they start digging in and he looks around and the boys are eating invisible bites off of invisible bones. And they're scooping up invisible soup out with invisible, out of bowls with spoons and eating invisible soup. And they're
[01:08:11] eating invisible corn. We have a picture of this. Here we go. Right? And he is just like, ah, I'm starving. I'm starving. Peter is starving while everybody else is feasting. And I wonder if this is you. I wonder if this is you, if you're a Christian. I wonder if you hear me say things
[01:08:32] about like, hey, feasting on Jesus, that's what sustains us. And you're like, I don't know what you're talking about, Pastor Guy. Because I look around during the Lord's Supper and people are crying, people are rejoicing, people are in my Bible study and they're reading God's Word and
[01:08:49] they seem to be really feasting. And I'm not getting anything from this. You know, you can hear about Jesus and know about Jesus, but not know how to feast on Jesus. You can't see anything.
[01:09:02] Nothing of Jesus is filling to you. Is that you? See, Peter Pan finally has a breakthrough in the movie when there's a food fight and it causes him to sort of drop his guard and get
[01:09:15] really worked up and start shouting back and forth. And suddenly he not only sees, but he tastes.
[01:09:22] the food was never imaginary but it required imagination I think that's another name for faith each week in our church we sit down to the Lord's Supper we say this is a meal and it's never just about the bread and the cup
[01:09:43] it's always about feasting on Jesus now you can feed on Jesus in lots of places you can feed on him in Bible study you can feed on him in silence in his word, you can feed on him in your community group
[01:09:54] you can feed on him in times of prayer but the best and easiest, just like when you come together with the lost voices around a table, you watch, you see. This is a community meal. Every week, my prayer is that eyes are opened.
[01:10:12] And we're like, Jesus is the thing I've been craving so long. He's what I want. That those who come in skeptical or weary or defensive or distracted or objecting, you're like, oh, I see what you're doing here. I see what you're doing here because his flesh is real food and his
[01:10:35] body is real drink. The only thing that can sustain you as a lost boy in this world, see what I did there? The only thing that can sustain you in that is feeding on Jesus. To live outside the
[01:10:48] camp requires a person who knows how to feed on him. In just a moment, I'm going to invite you to do that. Let's pray right now and ask him to meet us at his table. Lord, we thank you for Jesus
[01:11:03] who was sacrificed as a payment, satisfying the wrath of God for us. He paid the debt against us.
[01:11:13] Thank you that Jesus is the scapegoat who took away our sin and went outside the city gate where he was crucified. He was both sin offering, propitiation. He was the taking away expiation father we pray for courage to live as a community that follows you outside the camp
[01:11:36] to be outside the camp people father we confess this is really scary to us we live based on what we see and where we pray for grace today to come and feast on jesus at his table and remember
[01:11:51] how he's been sacrificed for us and also courage to live differently we pray this in christ's name

[01:11:59] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[01:11:59] amen would you respond to god's word together stand and let's sing i'm going to reverse the

[01:15:36] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[01:15:36] order for how we normally do this on the night that he was betrayed jesus christ took bread and when he had given thanks he broke it as he himself would be broken and gave it to them and said this
[01:15:47] is my body broken for you take and eat same way after the supper he took the cup and he gave it to them and said this is the blood of the covenant poured out for you for the forgiveness of your
[01:16:00] sins take and drink and the bible says every time we eat this bread and we drink this cup we proclaim the words death until he comes again jesus said as i told you a moment ago my body is real food
[01:16:16] my blood is real drink we come around this table we remember sacrifice for sin the savior he was sent outside the city gate for our sin. He takes away the sin. And therefore we come as God's
[01:16:33] people rejoicing, remembering that we have an enduring city that right now is not our only today, that we have a future today that's everlasting with the Lord. So let's use this liturgy to call each other to this act of worship, the Lord's table. Blessed are those invited to the
[01:16:53] marriage supper of the lamb for the bridegroom has come and his bride has been made pure let us rejoice and give him glory christ has clothed us in his righteousness bright and pure the spirit
[01:17:09] and the bride say come we come to feast and rejoice with our eyes on the room let me invite those who are helping distribute the elements i want to both fence the table and give a couple
[01:17:20] words of instruction so this table is set for those who are baptized followers of jesus if you have been baptized and you've owned your faith publicly this church or another church we welcome you to this table but if this is your first time in church if you haven't made this public we have
[01:17:37] lots of kids who've probably had something happen in their lives but haven't yet owned that by faith in front of a congregation we ask you not to come and participate in this part of our service
[01:17:47] this is for those who have publicly identified themselves with jesus this is a time where we as a church celebrate we are not sad we are excited we are looking for our true home and
[01:17:59] we are feasting as if we're feasting on jesus and we're feasting as we think about the feast to come i'm gonna give you what you look at the slides there's a way to go you can see all this for
[01:18:09] people downstairs and people upstairs and it tells you which cups you can just follow people in front of it i want to tell you two things this morning especially one we're adding so when you
[01:18:18] come up and take the elements and come to any of the stations are open say your name because we like to invite people to come and participate as jesus does he knows his sheep by name that's why
[01:18:30] we ask you to do that you'll take your elements back to your seat now if you'd like prayer for something this morning we're adding something new to our worship and we're going to have some of our
[01:18:41] leaders of our church they're going to come get their elements and they're going to go back to the what's called the narthex that's the back part of the lobby back there and they'll be back there
[01:18:50] and if you were upstairs you're downstairs and you want somebody to pray with you this morning about anything just come get your elements and walk back down nobody will even notice and go back there i'll be confidential and private so they want to pray with you and do so while we
[01:19:03] partake together so let's come and receive as from christ on hands his body and his blood let's come and feast on Jesus together.
[01:24:51] The weed, is it not the body of Christ broken for you?
[01:24:54] Take and eat.
[01:25:06] Would you hold up the cup?
[01:25:07] The cup that we drink, is it not the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ poured out for us?
[01:25:12] Rejoice, take and drink.
[01:25:23] I'm gonna read this benediction and invite you to respond with the doxology.
[01:25:28] Now may the God of peace who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, the great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant, may he equip you with everything good to do his will working in us what's pleasing in his sight

[01:25:42] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[01:25:42] through jesus christ to whom be glory forever and ever amen go in peace