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Good morning. Um, it has been an eventful week for me, I tell you. Uh, I started working in retail a little over two years ago now, and the first Black Friday I worked. I worked in electronics at Sears. And that night when I got home from work, I said, I am never going to work in retail on Black Friday again. This is the end. And then the next year after Black Friday, I said, I’m never going to work retail on Black Friday again. So then I went and got a second retail job. And then this Black Friday, I got to work two retail jobs on Black Friday. And I am vowing once again before you that I will not work a Black Friday in retail again the whole week. It’s not just the day. The day is strenuous because you wake up really early, but the whole week is just you’re you’re preparing for it. Everybody’s all freaked out because, oh, we’re going to have enough of this. Does everybody know what’s going on? Oh, we’re going to have so many problems. And everybody, everybody else stressing out, that makes you stress out. And so it’s been it’s been a crazy week. But all throughout my the craziness that the week has been, um, there’s just been little reminders and little glimpses that God’s given me that have just brightened my week and helped me get through it and just just been awesome and really exciting. Uh, Monday night at Sears, I was sitting in the office talking to the store manager, um, getting our game plan together for what I needed to do for the warehouse to get that ready for Black Friday.
And then we just started small talking, and out of nowhere, he says, hey, I got a question for you. I was like, okay. He’s like, you’re one of them born agains, aren’t you? And I was like, um, yeah, I guess, like kind of caught me off guard. But I was like, yeah, yeah. I was like, yeah, I’m a born again Christian. Yeah. He’s like, what does that mean? Like, what does it mean to be born again? Why do you like And so my jaw dropped and I started like I was so excited I almost started crying. Um, and so I took the next 15 to 20 minutes to explain to him what it means to be born again and how life is about a relationship with Christ, and that it’s nothing that we can do on our own. And I just got to point blank share the gospel with them for 15 or 20 minutes. And when I asked him, you know what? What brought this on? His stepson, uh, had spent the week with or had spent some time, a few years with his, uh, his now wife’s ex-husband and his wife, so the other side of the family, and he said, there are those born agains they go to a Baptist church and stuff, and there were those born agains.
And when he came back, I noticed he does a lot of things really different that he never did before. Like now, instead of saying GD, he just says, gosh. And and he gave me a couple other examples and he was like, why would he do that? Why would he change? And so then I got to explain to him, you know, how how after we accept Christ and we see the sacrifice that he’s made for us, then it’s it’s not an obligation. We don’t live a different life because we have to. And we don’t live a good life because if we don’t, we won’t get to heaven. But we live a good life because it’s out of gratitude for what Christ had done. And I was so excited when we got done talking. I, like, ran to the back and grabbed my cell phone and texted Greg and was like, y’all can’t believe what I just got to. I was so excited. It was awesome. Um, so last week I was really excited. Um, and this week I’m excited again. And it’s just it’s awesome to see what God’s doing here in Utah. Uh, just the fact that we have the chance to purchase a bar. Um, and that we have a chance to be the first free standing church in northern Utah County. It’s just unbelievable. And the the the sign that that is to the community and to the world around us that, look, God is working in us.
God is here and he is real. Um, and we’re here to stay. It just blows my mind thinking that two years ago now, I came out for a week to visit Nathaniel, and I helped Nathaniel and Mark get the Swift printing room ready, which was about as big as this stage. Um, and we we painted and did all that and got all that ready. And then a year later when I moved out here, two months, we’re getting this building ready to move in because we’re already growing to past capacity there. And then now another year later from, uh, from the time that we move into this building, we’re already looking. We got to keep, keep getting bigger. And it’s just unbelievable to me to see what God’s doing. And that’s that’s why it’s exciting. And that’s one of the reasons I’m excited today. But I am also excited today because we get to continue our series on Cross side, living a life that is solely focused on the cross. Now, last week we looked at the cross and we asked the question, why the cross? Why do we as Christians, glory and find all of our hope and all of our assurance in a horrendous torture device that was brutal and used to kill people. Why do we why do we revel in that? Why do we glory in that? Why do we hope in that? And the reason that we hope in that is because it’s on that cross that Christ atoned for our sins.
And we looked in the Old Testament at Leviticus chapter 16, and we saw that in the Old Testament once a year, they had a day of atonement where the high priest would make sacrifices and atone for the sins of the people. They would offer a blood sacrifice to cover the sins, and they would sacrifice one goat and the other goat. The high priest would lay his hands on it and confess all the sins of the people of the nation of Israel. And then they would send that goat out to represent the removal of the sins. And then we looked at how Christ fulfills both of those sacrifices. And his blood on the cross not only covers our sins, but when he was on the cross, he took on all of the sin of the world, and he who knew no sin became sin that we might become his righteousness. And he took our sins away, and he made that atonement. And that’s why we look to the cross and we glory in this cross. But if we glory in the cross, then that means that we have to have a reaction to the cross. We know why we why the cross is significant, but how then do we react to the cross? And what should our what should our response be to the cross and what Christ did? I turn to Hebrews 13. We’re going to start reading in verse nine.
In Hebrews chapter 13 and verse nine. We’re going to read through 13. It says, do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods through which those who are were so occupied were not benefited. We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned outside the camp. Therefore, Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood suffered outside the gate. So let us go to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. So in verses 11 and 12, it’s referring back to what we just read last week in Leviticus 16. If you look in Leviticus 1627, it says, but the bull of the sin offering and the goat of the sin offering, whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the holy place, shall be taken outside the camp. And they shall burn their hides, their flesh, and their refuse in the fire. And just like those animals were taken outside of the camp and burned, so that sin would be out of the camp, and so that it was away from the camp, so Christ was taken outside of the city gate when he was crucified. They didn’t do it in the city.
They took him out through the gate to the hill called Golgotha. And they they crucified him. And that’s where Christ made his sacrifice for us. So our response to the sacrifice that Christ made and our response to the cross is found in verse 13. It says, so let us go to him outside the camp. The word camp here actually represents two different things to us today. Uh, the first thing that it represents is society or culture, the world that we live in. If you look at verse nine, the warning is, do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings when we’re in the camp. Camp represents society in the world. When we’re in society in the world, the world has a different teaching, a different understanding of life, a different viewpoint than what God has for us and what Christ shows us. And it says, don’t be carried away by that. When you go out of the camp, you get away from that teaching the world today teaches us something kind of along the lines of instant gratification. If it makes you happy, do it. It’s okay. Um, as long as you’re happy, it doesn’t matter. You’re a good enough person. It’s okay to be a little bit bad. You’re generally okay. And basically, it’s. It’s all about you. As long as as long as life’s good for you. Nobody else matters. Nothing else matters. And that’s what society teaches us. And that’s what the world around us teaches us.
You see it on commercials. You see it. You hear it on the radio. You hear it in music. It’s all around us on billboards. It’s instant satisfaction. Nobody else matters. You’re your own boss. You’re you. You decide what’s right and what’s wrong. And if something’s right for you right now. But down the road, it’s wrong for you. That’s okay. You can change your mind. There are no absolutes. But when we leave the camp, we. We leave that behind. We leave that teaching and philosophy behind and we change our mind. And in Romans chapter 12, verse two, Paul says, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our mind in order for us to get out of the world and to leave the camp behind. In order for us to do that, our mindset has to change. It has to be transformed. The way that you transform your life is by renewing your mind. Okay? Your thought process becomes your action process and your word process. What you’re thinking is going to come out either physically in your actions or verbally in your words. And in order for us to live a life that Christ wants, we need to leave this world behind. Stop thinking the way the world wants us to think. Start thinking like Christ. And Philippians chapter two, verses five through eight Paul tells us this. He says, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ.
Think this way. This is how you are supposed to think. Okay, not the way that they tell you. Not instant gratification. And you’re your own boss and it’s all about you. Think like Christ did. So how did Christ think? Paul goes on to explain. He says, let this mind be in you. That was also in Christ, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bond servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. So no longer is life all about me. No longer do I live as long as I am happy. I look at what Christ did and it says, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ. He gave up being God. He was in heaven, where all he had to do was sit there and have tens of thousands of angels sing his praise all day long. Not a bad gig. You just sit there and everybody tells you how amazing and how awesome you are and how holy you are. And he left that, and he comes down in the form of a helpless baby, lives a life as a man, learned the trade of carpentry, which is not an easy trade. It was a rough trade. It was hard work, lived the perfect life, ministered, taught and preached grace.
And then he sacrificed on the cross for you and me. He gave everything for us. And that’s the kind of mindset that we need to have. That is our response to the cross. As we get out of this me first society and we get into this, everyone else first society, and we begin to sacrifice and we begin to give, even if it hurts. Romans 15 three says, for even Christ did not please himself. But it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. The sins of us when we sin against God fell on Christ and he didn’t do it to please himself. He did it for others. Second Corinthians eight nine says, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for our sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich. When we look at the cross and we see the sacrifice that Christ made on the cross, our response has to be, it’s not about me, it’s about the person beside me. It’s about my wife, my kids, my family. It’s about my coworkers, my schoolmates. And it’s about showing them the cross and why the cross is so important. It’s about sacrificing. When’s the last time you sacrificed for someone? When’s the last time you sacrificed something for Christ? You know, right now we’re doing, uh, we’re we’re raising money for two different things.
Do you realize that if you gave up one fast food meal a week for one month out of the year, you could feed an orphan in India for an entire year. That’s it. $6 a week for one month. And you could feed an orphan for an entire year. It’s not a big sacrifice, but it makes a huge difference when we’re willing to think of. Instead of me, let me think about them. Across the world, living in poverty and that what they get each day for for that for one year, what feeds them and sustains them. It’s a little bit of rice, a couple of strips of chicken, you know, and maybe some some vegetables or fruit. That’s all it takes is us sacrificing a super sized number one at the drive through for them to get that for a year, and they’re happy with it. But are we willing to sacrifice? Is the cross so important to us that we’re willing to give that up for someone else? We’re trying to raise money to to purchase a building so that we can be the first freestanding church in northern Utah County. That’s awesome. The only way that’s going to happen is if we’re willing to sacrifice for it. Nathaniel and Stacy are back east right now. He’s actually preaching at the church that I grew up in in West Virginia. He probably just got done preaching this morning, but he’s asking people back East who don’t even know half of us.
He’s asking them, Will you sacrifice so that we can do the work of God, so that we can show the entire state of Utah that God you’re here and God you’re working. Will you sacrifice so that we can do that? And people back east are sacrificing their giving. We’ve got a lot of money coming in from back east. Are we willing to sacrifice for ourselves? Are we willing to sacrifice of ourselves to see this happen? If people that are thousands of miles away that have never even seen Lehi, Utah, that have never even seen Salt Lake City are willing to sacrifice. Are we willing to sacrifice when we see the cross and the sacrifice that Christ gave, it compels us to sacrifice and to give back. Our mindset needs to change. We need to get out of the camp that is society and the world and our culture that tells us to live a comfortable life and make sure that you’re okay. And we say, I don’t care if I’m living a comfortable life, I want to give it all and I want to give it to Christ. And even if it might hurt, and it might mean that I don’t get my number one with a large fry and a couple of extra apple pies, then so be it. I’m going to sacrifice that little bit. If you read in Philippians chapter three and verse five, Paul explains to us the sacrifice that he made.
Philippians three five says, This is Paul. He’s explaining to them why he doesn’t care about the things in the flesh that he’s earned. And he he begins. And he says, uh, in verse four, although I might I might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more. I have earned more on this world than most other people, and my good deeds would have been way better than anybody else’s to get me to heaven. And he gives us a list. He says, circumcised the eighth day of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews as to the law of Pharisee, as to zeal a persecutor of the church. As to the righteousness which is in the law found blameless. But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. He says, look, guys, I’m a Jew of all Jews. If anybody had anything in this world, it was me. He obeyed the law better than anyone. He was a Pharisee. He trained and was taught by a priest. He had political and religious power. He. He had it made. He was set. But he says all that stuff that I gained, that comfortable life, that power, that respect that people had for me, it’s all loss. He goes on to say he calls it garbage. It’s rubbish compared to Christ. And he gave up everything on that road to Damascus, when Paul was going to persecute the church, when he was going to kill Christians.
And Christ stopped him and said, Saul, which his name later changed to Paul. He said, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? And Saul’s conversion experience, he realizes that it’s all about Jesus. And you know what? I’m going to give up all this, and I’m going to live a life that’s pleasing to him. And when he did that, people hated him. Okay, think about it. Put yourself in Paul’s shoes and think about what sacrifice this is. Okay. One day you hate this group of people so much that you’re trying to kill them and put them in prison and persecute them. And this group of people over here likes you for that. Now all of a sudden, you’re on this side, and this group of people now hates you and the people that you were trying to kill and persecute, you’re trying to be friends with, and they’re like, what are you doing? Just yesterday, you were trying to take me to jail and kill me. And now you’re trying to be my friend. And it took him a long time to get the Christians, the group of Christians, to. To understand that. No, look, I’m for real. Christ changed my life. And he went through a time where he had no friends because they didn’t want to trust him. And they thought he was crazy.
And now they wanted to kill him because now he’s on the other side. And Paul sacrificed all those things that he had worked his whole life to earn respect in the community, political power, religious power. And he said, I don’t want any of that. I want Christ, I want a sacrifice so that I can have Jesus verse, verse eight. Then in Philippians three it says, more, more than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish, so that I may gain Christ. When we look at Paul’s life and we see everything that he had, and he loses it all. We might think, man, that might have been. That must have been so hard and so tough. But Paul says I count it as rubbish. I don’t even care. It was like I lost my garbage. Somebody took the garbage out of my kitchen, I lost that, who cares? Because knowing Christ was so much more important. And when Paul left society and left this world and the things that it had to offer, he left the safety of conformity. When we conform to this world and we live a life that this world tells us to live, it’s pretty safe. People aren’t going to hassle you. People aren’t going to bother you. But what Paul shows us is the second application of the word camp.
The Greek word for camp here is the word parabole. And it means a battle array. An encampment or barracks. Sorry, guys, a little. I’ll skip back so you guys can catch up on some of those, fill in the blanks. Um, but this word for camp shows us that we need to leave safety. The safety of our comfort zone. Okay. It would be like what? What the writer of Hebrews is telling us is we need to go to Christ outside of your foxhole. Okay? We’re in a battle. There’s a fight going on, and he says, get up out of your foxhole and run ahead of everybody. Get out of that same year before you feel safe and run to cry to Christ. We’re going through study. Study. He’s taking us through. And they went back to Jerusalem and built the walls. Because the city without walls was defenseless and helpless. In a city without walls wasn’t recognized as as anything. It was just a bunch of people that anybody could come in and raid and and maraud and rob all they wanted. But the walls represent safety. And Christ says, get outside of the walls. Go where it’s dangerous. And he calls us to sacrifice. Go ahead and skip ahead here. Um, so the second thing that the word camp represents to us is safety or comfort. And when we when we leave that safety, Christ told his disciples, um, if you flip to Matthew 16 or Matthew ten, I’m sorry, verse 16 through 25, Christ straight up told his disciples, it’s going to be rough.
He didn’t hold any punches back. He says, behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. So be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves, but beware of men, for they will hand you over to the courts, and scourge you in their synagogues, and you will. You will even be brought before governors and kings for my sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they hand you over, do not worry about how or what you are to say, for it will be given you in that hour what you are to say. For it is not you who speak, but it is the. It is the spirit of your father who speaks in you. Brother will betray brother to death, and a father, his child and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. You will be hated by all because of my name. But it is the one who who endures to that end who will be saved. Christ says, all right, you guys are going to go out and you’re going to teach everybody what I just taught you. You’re going to tell people what I’ve been teaching you and what I’ve been showing you. And when you do that, you’re going to be like a sheep in the middle of a wolf pack. It’s not a good place to be. You’re going to be hated by.