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Hey, you're listening to Cut for Time, a podcast from Faith Church, located on the north side of Indianapolis. My name is Claire Kingsley. I'm Anna Mitchell.

And I'm Dan Breitwieser. Each week, one of us will sit down with the person who gave Sunday's sermon to discuss their message. Cut for Time is a look behind the scenes of sermon preparation, and they'll share with us a few things that we didn't hear from the sermon on Sunday.

Thanks for listening. Welcome to Cut for Time, Nick. How are you? Doing good.

How are you? I'm doing well. How was Grow Weekend? Grow Weekend was exhausting as ever, but it was very fun. I think everybody enjoyed the content and the different speakers.

People are enjoying our relationship with Indianapolis Theological Seminary. We were blessed to have Nicholas Piotrowski there, so it was a great time. Yeah.

How many sessions were there over the weekend? Four if you count Sunday morning, which I do. So it was broken up. Friday evening, we had one, and then got back together Saturday morning for two sessions from nine to noon, and then wrapped it up on Sunday morning with the sermon.

Could you give me a quick overview of what the weekend covered? Sure. So it is designed to kick off our adult education focus for the year, which is, it is written. It's going to be focusing on how the New Testament uses the old.

That's a phrase that comes from Jesus' words in the Gospel of Luke and elsewhere when he's referencing the Old Testament. But we took a specific passage in Luke 24 and broke it down into its three components, where Jesus says, it is written that the Son of Man must suffer, so that was one session, that he must rise on the third day, second session, and that repentance and the forgiveness of sins needs to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. So that was our Sunday morning session, the third session.

And if you're counting, you're like, well, that's not four sessions. Well, Friday evening was a prequel, if you will. I kicked us off Friday evening with our first session that was just on the Hebrew Bible in general.

What was the Bible that Jesus had when he said, it is written? What's he referencing? Where did it come from? How did he understand it and how did his contemporaries understand it? And the big picture was, you know, Jesus' way of understanding the Bible was radically different from those around him, which is why his messiahship looked different than what people expected. The disciples and everyone in Jesus' time sort of expected the messiah to come and take out the Romans, right? Yeah. Could you go into your thought process and as you unpacked the text from Genesis and also Luke? Yes.

Yeah. So I forgot to mention this, that we use the Luke text as kind of a scaffold, but those three things that were written, we find them densely packed into one Old Testament passage. Now that's not to say that Jesus found this written only one place in the Old Testament, but for the convenience of running a cohesive weekend of theology conference, we had one text that we could anchor to, and that was the Genesis 22 account where Abraham offers Isaac.

And in there you find, you know, suffering, rising on the third day, and then a proclamation of the gospel to all the nations. So Sunday morning, the sermon, I focused on that last part of the Genesis 22 narrative where God restates the promise to Abraham, you know. The text says that your offspring will shall possess the gate of his enemies.

And I'm sure that that was interpreted to mean the earthly enemies, the people like in Jesus's day, Rome. I mean, that's clearly the enemy of the nation of God, right? Well, for starters, Jesus didn't conquer Rome. By 300 AD, he had, you know, taken it over with the gospel, but didn't conquer the Roman empire in the way that people would have thought.

The phrase that I used a couple of times in the sermon, and nobody, I'm surprised, grabbed me in the lobby and called me on it, comes from 1 Corinthians 15, where most of our English translations translate it, the last enemy to be destroyed is death, which has a sense of chronology to it. The word there is eschatos, that's where we get eschatology, you know, end times, final things. And it really can mean, even if it is chronological, what it really, the reason it's chronological is not just because it gets there in the course of time, but that that's the most important.

So I chose the word ultimate. The ultimate enemy is death. And Jesus defeated death by rising from the grave.

And that's called the first fruits. So we know that he's already defeated death, which is why we have confidence that we will defeat death as well. Well, he's defeated death on our behalf, and so we will rise from the grave.

So I took that from 1 Corinthians 15, I believe it's verse 17, going from memory there, but where most of our English translations say last, the last enemy to be destroyed will be death. And I chose a couple different times in my sermon to use the word ultimate, as I kind of paraphrase that. I think it's defensible, and it's also carries through the message of what Jesus was trying to convey to his disciples as, you know, I'm not here to wage war, put your swords down, you know, that's not what we're what we're here to do.

There's a gospel, the ultimate enemy of God is sin, sin causes death. It's not Rome, it wasn't Egypt, it wasn't Assyria, it's the impact of sin. And so he took care of all of that on the cross by dying on our behalf, paying the penalty for sin, rising on the third day, demonstrating that that payment was ratified.

And then he's, that's the ultimate enemy to be destroyed, death. Yeah, his, his obedient sacrifice led to our salvation. You said in your sermon, you said, God's blessing is dependent on obedience, but not ours.

And that's shown through Jesus in the New Testament, right? And how is that shown in the Old Testament? Yeah, I was using the example there of the, of going back to the Genesis 22 narrative, where God says something that's sort of surprising. He says, because you've obeyed speaking to Abraham, I will surely bless, which makes it sound like the certainty of his blessing was contingent all along whether Abraham was going to, you know, eventually kick it into gear and get it right. And there's a sense in which that's true because that is what he says.

And so the reason why that's challenging for us is we think, well, the gospel says that, you know, it's by faith, right? Not by works, not by keeping the law. And Abraham's obedience was effective for, you know, all of his descendants. I will surely bless your offspring because you obeyed.

That obedience of one being applied to the many is another big theme in the Old Testament. It comes out right there in Abraham, like I said. It's also really key in the kingship.

So if you think about, let's kind of zoom back. You think of metanarrative and judges, the problem that keeps being recited is that everyone, there was no king and everyone did what was right in their own eyes. And by the time you get to 1 Samuel and the people are asking for a king, there's, people could have questions about this and they can write in or they can contact me.

I'd be happy to take email questions on this. But the summary is a lot of extra biblical literature suggests that the way ancient Near Easterns viewed a king was as a person who kind of stood, mediator is not the right word because that's the word that you would use more for a priest, right? But that stood as a champion for the people. If you think about like the David and Goliath story, what it describes in a battle is, and this happened quite often.

Like, hey, instead of having hundreds of people fight hundreds of people, what if we each just picked a champion, right? So you picked your best, we pick our best and we'll let the outcome of that single fight decide the whole battle. They had that same idea between themselves and their gods. So the Pharaoh, how he behaved, how he ruled could bring blessing or curse for the whole nation, particularly in the ancient Near East.

We saw that. So again, in ancient Near Eastern literature, extra biblical. I take that to mean when you see the people asking for a king, what they want is, hey, don't ask us to get all the millions of Israelites to each perfectly obey the law.

What if we just put forward one and God accepts that challenge? And if you think of it in judges, you've got Israel is struggling because not everybody's obeying. But when they're banished into exile at the end of kings, the reasons are because of the behavior of the king and the king alone. So as the narrative progresses, God's looking at the king.

And if the king is obedient, for example, King Josiah, he behaves well. He institutes reforms and God is pleased with him. And if the kings are worshiping Asherah and Baals and not following the precepts of God's law, then it goes poorly for the entire nation.

And so he accepts that trade and says, sure, if you want to put forth a champion, we'll judge the whole nation on that. And I see that pattern there in the institution of the kings. You see with Moses, too, at Sinai, God's like, I'm going to wipe them all out, start over with you.

Moses says, hey, blot me out, too. He stands in as a substitute and God accepts that and he sees that. So then we get to Christ.

Yeah, it's his obedience on our behalf. He is the head, the archetypal man. Oh, I'm going out of order here.

But man, just thought of this one. Adam. People really struggle with the idea of original sin sometimes.

Adam sinned and so then I'm condemned to death. Yes, because he is your representative head. He represented man.

He represented man before God. And he failed at it. And so then the consequences.

It's not just good consequences. It's the bad as well. So those all come to us.

And now we have a new head. We're found in Christ by faith. And so we're saying I'm in Christ.

So look at Christ's actions as mine. He is my head, king, tribal leader, representative, champion in the court of God. Yeah.

So zooming in a little from like the wider context and focusing on Genesis 22, what's the symbolism there of the representative when it comes to Abraham, Isaac and the sacrificed ram? Well, the sacrificed ram is more of a foreshadow or typology of a substitute ram. But the symbolism in terms of the obedience is what he said to Abraham. Because you have done this and you have obeyed.

I will bless your offspring. It's an indirect blessing because of your actions, Abraham. All these other people are going to receive blessing.

So I think that's really explicit. The symbolism of the substitute ram. And then it comes in and the phrase from the narrator, the editor, whatever you want to say.

It's a topic we talked about on Friday evening. That's why it is said to this day on the mountain of the Lord, it shall be provided. Or he'll see to it.

He sees is the verb that's used there. That he'll see a substitute and accept that in our behalf. And that pattern, then sacrificial system, why lambs and goats were used as a substitute sacrifice for what the people actually owed and then ultimately was fulfilled in Christ.

Jumping forward a little bit after Christ was risen from the dead and he's sending out his disciples and calling them to obedience. You mentioned he didn't unite them over a common enemy. He called them to a mission.

What's the difference in application when it comes to a common enemy versus a common mission? What are its effects on people and what's the ultimate outcome? Oh, it's a good question. Yeah, the idea being he didn't get everybody angry over what had happened to them. So there's one is victimhood.

And oftentimes is a pattern that comes with uniting around a common enemy. We don't really see in the New Testament people, this is interesting, complaining about how poorly they're treated by the institutions around them. Consider it pure joy when you face trials.

Celebrating and singing in prison. That's different than how oftentimes we look at maybe the way that our culture treats us as Christians or if our rights are being trampled on. There's a victimhood mentality.

But Jesus says, listen, it's that person, that institution, whether it's Rome, whether it's US government policies, things like that, that's not the ultimate enemy. And if a church becomes united around, we're going to go fix that. Fixing that is not a bad thing.

That's doing justice work. So I want to be careful there. But that's what defines us, that we're anti this or we're against that instead of the gospel, that Christ has already done this on my behalf.

So what happens differently in application? There's a word for it, and I chose not to use this in the sermon. I'll use it in the podcast because I can maybe take a little bit of heat there. But fundamentalism is the word for it.

It's the term that describes a kind of religious movement where we're more interested in what makes people, I don't know, strict adherence to certain codes, beliefs, maybe. And it's exclusionary. It tends to have that tactic.

But then the biggest issue with that idea, whether you call it fundamentalism or not, is that it presupposes that the biggest problem is not me. The biggest problem is someone else, somewhere else, somewhere external. And what Christ teaches us is we are sinners.

We need his obedience on our behalf. If we need his obedience on our behalf, that means we're not the obedient ones necessarily. And so it can distract us from the personal growth, from the transformation that he's asking us to go through, that he's trying to do in our lives, and distract us into trying to, like I said earlier, fix those around us.

But real Christian maturity is the ability to, even in hard situations, in conflicts, in disputes, in things that could cause division, to look inwardly and say, what did I do? How has my immaturity, my selfishness, my sinful tendencies contributed to this? And how can I be the first one to, whether it's apologize or own my mistakes, how can that bring unity? Because the gospel, if we're united around the gospel, we know we are broken, not just that other person that I disagree with is broken. So if you start there, then whether it brings the unifying outcome that we all would want or not, it brings the heart transformation that God wants for us. So there.

Yeah, the sort of speck in the other person's eye, the log in your own. Oh, yeah, that's a great reference. Looking at the log or the speck in someone else's eye when there's a log in your own, that's a great reference for sure.

Yeah, I think that's the same idea is in there. And the people around Jesus's day, I mean, they were fixated on what was unclean, right, in the surroundings around them, and how they would make themselves look different by being by living clean. And, you know, not eating certain foods and not participating in certain things.

And that was kind of the fixation. And Jesus came along and said, you're whitewashed tombs. Yeah, the problem is inside.

Yeah, that's definitely a that's hard to hear. Yeah, it is. Even though Jesus, Jesus's obedience and sacrifice led to our salvation.

And even though we, we can't necessarily, we can't be perfect, we can't be completely obedient to Christ, how can we still follow in his in his footsteps? And I don't know, live out that, that belief in what is written, that obedience to it. And then, like, how do we keep ourselves open to the Holy Spirit for transformation for sanctification? Yeah, it begins and ends with the gospel, right? We don't just enter the Christian faith by realizing we're sinners. We don't just accept that and accept Christ's sacrifice on our behalf, and then move on to something separate or disconnected from it.

At each point in our lives, you know, as I mentioned earlier, it's realizing that I'm I am, you know, the Adam, I'm the problem, or at least contribute to it. And I need forgiveness shapes how we interact with others. It brings us to gratitude for Christ, and then seeing what he, what is it that he had to pay for in this situation? And that's what confessing sin is about is, I'm now naming and realizing that my selfishness in this situation, or my choice of words, or my way that I treated this other person is a part of what Christ died for, which is sobering, but then also free, because you just he's already paid it, naming that.

But ultimately, he didn't just die for our sins. He rose on the third day and conquered death. So the good news is that we will be raised, we will, we will live with him in his presence, glorifying him in eternity, and the world, the creation that we will live in will be ordered or in the ways that he's designed.

This is a long way around to say, we should be practicing today, the kind of life that we should expect to live. That'll be a good life for eternity. We don't want to arrive.

I think I'm terrible at this. I think this may be a C.S. Lewis paraphrase. But how sad would it be to arrive on the shores of new creation and feel like a foreigner there, that we should be living that citizenry here so that we feel at home there in the new creation? So where do we discover that? Well, Jesus lived a different life, right? I mean, the Sermon on the Mount is him describing what he sees as the renewed life, the spirit filled life that God has designed.

And it was challenging and hard for people. Walk the extra mile. I think the plank and speck comes from that reference as well.

Give a tunic. Yeah. So he's describing the life that will look familiar when he resurrects us.

Live that now because that's what we're going to be living as and in for the rest of our lives. Where did he find that? Where did he get those ideas? He got them in the scriptures. He understood from the scripture, from the original design, created a good order.

He understood not just the letter of the law about how to trade oxen and things like that, but the spirit and intent behind the law of righteousness and justice. And he understood what life was going to look like in the world to come. Yeah.

Which goes back to your session on Jesus's scriptures, on what his Bible looks like, right? So if someone wanted to go back and hear all the other sessions about where you delved into what the Old Testament looked like for Jesus and the other verses in Genesis 22, where could they find that? Yeah, it's on our website. faithchurchindy.com under the sermons. It's going to be found under sermons, and there will be a sermon series that just says it's Grow Weekend.

And it's going to have, I believe it'll have four sessions in it. The first three of those weren't actually sermons. They were the sessions from the theology conference, and the fourth will be the sermon that I preached on Sunday.

Yeah. And what would you personally recommend as far as books or other reading goes for further study? Dr. Piotrowski has a book called In All the Scriptures. So if you're interested in hermeneutics, which is a fancy word for how we read and understand and interpret our scriptures, I recommend his book on that.

That title, In All the Scriptures, actually comes from Luke 24 as well. There's also an organization called The Bible Project. And several years ago in their podcast, they did a series called Paradigms.

So if you go to their website, or if you download their app, you can find the whole series together called Paradigms. And that series goes through a little bit of how we got the Bible, what we expect to find in it, those kinds of things. And even right now, as we record this, this could be years from now, but right now in August of 2026, they're going through a series in their podcast on the Spirit of God.

And it actually maps really well with what we're talking about in terms of living a life that's obedient to Christ and where that comes from. So they have a lot of good resources. I've been blessed and really benefited by that ministry.

And I recommend it to anybody, BibleProject.org. I'll have to check it out. Thanks for the recommendation. Thanks for coming on Cup of Time.

Is there anything we missed that you want to go deeper on? Nope. This has been great. Thanks for taking the time out of your college day to record this with me.

And I look forward to hearing the final product. Sounds good. All right.

Thanks again. Bye. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Cut for Time.

If you wish to submit questions to our pastors following Sunday's sermon, you can email them to podcast at faithchurchindy.com or text them in to our Faith Church texting number, and we'll do our best to cover them in next week's episode. If this conversation blessed you in any way, we encourage you to share it with others. We'll be back again next week.

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