Message Recap
Pastor Dave Dummit kicked off our next series, What if It's True?
He began by affirming our intrinsic value as human beings because we are made in the image of God. He said, "We are not merely the sum total of our achievements. We were created by God." And then he asked, "What if you really believed this to be true?"
If you believe this is true, that changes everything.
He continued to share how creation started as good, but that sin corrupted God's creation. And yet, God is on a rescue mission to restore all that has been lost. What if that is true? Then we can trust that He is good.
And with this, His timing is perfect in restoring all things.
Galatians 4:4-5 says, "But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship."
There’s two different ways to use the Greek word for time right there: kairos and chronos. This is the word chronos, from which we get the word chronology. God strategically sent Jesus at just the right time-chronos.
In fact, the timing and location of Jesus’ arrival fulfilled 300 prophecies. What are the odds of that? Even if Jesus fulfilled only eight prophecies, the odds of this happening are 1 in 1017 power. God has been perfectly timing every part of the story all along.
But it wasn't just chronos timing, it was also the right kairos moment—culturally, politically, and religiously. The Greek language had permeated the world. The infrastructure the Roman Empire had created allowed for travel not just of people but also ideas and religion. This would allow Paul to travel anywhere on his missionary journeys. For hundreds of years, God's people had been sharing that there was one true God. And now, the timing was perfect for that God to show up.
Pastor Dave then shared the analogy of a cross stitch. If you view it from underneath, you simply see a bunch of thread. You can't see the full beautiful picture on the other side. Often our perspective is like that. When we live on this earth, we’re only seeing the bottom side of this whole thing. God is the only one who can see the top. He’s the only one who can see the whole picture. He’s the only one who can see how it’s all going to fit together.
People in Jesus’ day had a limited perspective of what Jesus was there to do; what His purpose was. But at just the right time, according to the plan of a divine author—Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem that set off a chain of events for the most important week in history that culminated into the single-most impactful event in history.
It’s easy to read the stories in scripture as allegories, fairy tales, fables that might contain true principles but maybe were not actual events.
This is not a cleverly devised fairy tale; this is history. These were real events. This is true.
Jesus really did ride a donkey into the city. He really took His place as king of the people, but He wasn’t the type of king they were looking for or expecting.
If that is true, then Dave asked us, "What if it’s true that I can trust Jesus to be King of our lives?"
If it’s true that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a colt—the King of peace entering the city of peace to usher in a kingdom of peace—then it is also true that Jesus aims to be King over our lives today.
Jesus’ death on the cross was not an accidental death of a martyr; It was the predetermined sacrifice of the Savior of the world. This one verse sums it all up. Romans 5:6 says, "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly."
