To Sigma or Not to Sigma
First B Jackson
2024-12-27

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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To sigma or not to sigma. Do you all know what this means? Sigma, do you know what it means? Middle school slang, nobody's up on it. Okay.

Sigma, it's the eighteenth letter of the Greek alphabet. Yes. That is the truth. I heard of somebody that got a note from a kid this week, that at the end of the note, signed off, fifth grader said to the teacher, you're so sigma. That's a good thing, okay?

It's a good thing, but it's in Greek, it's the eighteenth letter of the Greek alphabet. It has two forms in lower case, one looks like this, one looks like this, and it has one in upper case. You probably see that on fraternity houses or sorority houses, and that's the only place you ever see it. Unless you're an accountant where it means to sum up. Right?

There are lots of meanings with sigma. In middle school slang though, this is it. It refers to a person who is independent, self reliant, and prefers to operate outside of traditional social hierarchies. They're not terribly concerned with peer pressure. It doesn't seem to get after them or bother them, but they make bold moves, and often times they're leaders that think outside of the box.

And it's cool and they inspire other people to be able to do the same thing. It is definitely a good thing if you hear it, it's definitely a good thing. Can I get an amen from a schooler? So I hate to break the code for you. I thought about doing the whole sermon in middle school slang.

I am not that cheugy, I just can't do that. So this is Greek. This is Greek to me. This is Greek to y'all. These are the sigmas in this sentence, right, they're highlighted, and it's an interesting one.

I mentioned it last week because we talked about the message that the angels brought. The message that the angels were bringing, glory to God in the highest. This literally says, glory in the highest to God and upon the earth peace in anthropois. Two men are towards people, peace, and then Eudochaea, or is it Eudochaeus? And this is something that has been an ongoing debate for a long long time.

There are ancient manuscripts where the sigma was erased. There are others where it never appeared in the first place. Anyway, I don't want to erode your confidence in the Bible. I think both of them are great, and both of them are true and I don't want to erode anybody's faith. The Texas receptus, King James, New King James, that variety tends to have one and the newer traditions tend to have the other.

Both of them are true, I don't want to erode anything for you, but this is an interesting point. Okay? So, Utopia, this is all capital letters by the way, and there's another little sigma that's called a lunar sigma, where this is normally the form that'd be in the middle of the word, but it's at the end of the word, but it's just little bitty and up high. Eudocheus. Which one is it?

To sigma or not to sigma, that is the question. What does eudocheia mean? And and if it has an s on it, or doesn't have an s on it, a sigma on it, or doesn't have a sigma on it, it doesn't change the overall meaning of the word, it just I'll show you in a minute. It changes just the grammatical form and kind of what the sentence means. So, Utopia means will, goodwill, right?

That's the goodwill. Will or choice, in particular goodwill, kindly intent, benevolence, it's prompted by goodwill, it's out of a full heart. If you hear the way that God described himself in the old testament, he says that he's slow to anger and he's rich in mercy and he is favorably disposed toward people. Okay? So that God is there.

Delight or pleasure or satisfaction with the genitive blah blah blah grammar stuff of the thing that pleases. God's good pleasure comes up a lot. In certain circles, it comes up more, but his delight in people. His pleasure or his satisfaction with people. Desire.

For if something, it's delight in any absent thing easily begets a longing for it. That's a weird sentence. But if you would delight in something that just is not here, there's a desire to see that happen. And so, Udokia, God has goodwill for people. He takes delight and pleasure when people accept the plan that he has for them, the goodwill, the good plan he has for them, and there is a desire in God's heart and in the hearts of his people to see others come to know him.

Does that make sense? Could you hear desire in Joel's heart that the whole of the Western Eastern world would come to know Jesus? Yeah. There's desire primarily. It conveys a sense of goodwill or favor or pleasure.

It's often used to describe God's benevolent intention, his delight towards humanity, and I think if we listen to the world and we listen to them rail about the problem of evil and lots of other stuff, we start to pick up from our surroundings that God must be mean or God must be either not all powerful or not all good, but that's not true. That's not the biblical picture of God at all. Okay? He is favorably disposed towards us. His intention and his delight towards humanity.

In the New Testament, it reflects the divine favor and the gracious will of God. Grace is unmerited favor and God is full of grace. As well as the pleasure desire of individuals in alignment with God's purposes. When you come to know Him, you want for other people to know Him. It is all consuming.

Okay. So, there you go. It's used nine times in the New Testament. If you want to know where they are, Matthew 11, this way was well pleasing in the sight of God. It's God's plan.

It was well pleasing. Luke, parallel passage. Yes, father, for doing so, revealing things to the simple and not to the learned was well pleasing in your sight. You didn't want to make it so hard. You just wanted to be taken by faith like a child, that's God's plan.

Brothers and sisters, Paul says to the Romans, he had never met. My heart's desire, my good pleasure is, and my prayer is for God, for my own people to be saved, that's what he's saying. Good pleasure in Romans one here twice. Philippians. Oh, I love this passage.

So this is great for when you just get aggravated with other churches. Okay? When you get aggravated with other people and you see this, Paul in Philippians one is so positive and so great. He says, some you ought to be sure they're preaching Christ out of envy and strife and they're aggravating to deal with and they're doing it for the wrong reasons, but there are some who do it by eudokia, goodwill. Good goodwill, an earnest desire to have people come to know God.

The latter do it out of love, that's great. Goodwill is motivated by love. Yes, God is love, that's wonderful. Eudokia, knowing that I'm appointed for the defense of the gospel. He goes on to say, either way the gospel is being preached.

Right? If the content is there, God can use it. Here we go. It's again in Philippians, it is God who works in you both to desire and to work for his own good pleasure. He knows what he's doing.

Thessalonians. To this end also, Paul says, we're praying for you that our God will call you worthy of your calling and fulfill every one of his good pleasures, his desire for goodness and for the work of faith with power. God wants to not just save you, but he wants to use you to save others. Okay. So here it is.

Back to the back to the Udokia at the end of this sentence. Udokia right there is nominative right here. It's genitive for you to grammar nerd, you're like, yes, finally. For everybody else, who cares? Nominative, genitive.

These are the translations. So, I like the King James translation on this verse a lot because I love the Christmas songs that sing this translation. Right? Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill towards men, and it is directional. It is saying God has goodwill and He's pushing it towards mankind.

New King James, exactly the same verse. Oh, the King James purple edition, where the names of God are in purple. Why? I don't know, but that's it. Goodwill toward men.

Here's one, the Young's Living translation. If you ever get confused and you say, I wanna know what that literally means. Young's Living is an old, old translation, but it is literal. If you wanna know, you know, where it says heart and it really says gut, you know, use Young Living. Young's Living translation.

Glory in the highest to God and upon earth peace. Among men, and he chooses not to enter into the debate really, goodwill. Okay. Goodwill towards men. Among men, there's goodwill from God.

Okay? Goodwill among men, new testament of our Lord Jesus, savior, Jesus Christ by the American Bible Union 1865, weird translation. But the parallelism here is that glory to God in heaven and on earth towards people, peace. It's transmitted. God has the peace that passes understanding and He can share it, and that's what He's trying to do.

The genitive, and we sing a song in this service a lot. We sung it a couple of times recently, and it's hard to get all the words in there because it's longer. This translation, glory to God in the highest in heaven and on earth, peace to those on whom his favor rests. Okay. That feels like it's not nearly as universal a thing.

Right? It's not as spread out as towards all men. It is peace belongs to those on whom God's favor rests, and that's true. That is true and it's good. Let's keep going.

New Living Translation. Glory to God in the highest heaven, peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased. Do you do you hear the Eudokia in there? Pleasure, goodwill, favor. Glory to God in the highest among those with whom He is pleased.

Glory to God in the highest on earth, peace among men upon whom His favor, on whom His favor rests. Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased. Glory to God in the highest heaven and peace on earth to people He favors. Now that one bothers people. It feels like there are no favorites with God.

James tells us that that's true. There shouldn't be any favoritism with us. Right? But does the favor of God rest on a people? Yes.

The ones who have received him, his favor resides with them. Now, does that mean it's gonna be happy, happy, happy, joy, joy, prosperity till you die? No. But you can be a martyr that's experiencing the favor of God because you believe Him. Glory to God in the highest heaven.

Peace on earth to those he favors. Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men with whom he is well pleased. Wow. He is well pleased with people. He is well pleased with people.

At Jesus' baptism, yeah, it makes sense that Jesus But he is well pleased whenever anybody takes him at his word. ERV, ISR, the Institute for Scripture Research. Esteem to Elohim in the highest and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased. Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth among those whom he favors. That one catches me a little bit.

It feels like it's exclusive. Well, gospel is exclusive. It is the way. There are some who have accepted it and do experience, and actually the last one says, glory to God in the highest and peace on earth to people who enjoy his favor. Ain't that great?

That's a place of peace. When you recognize the gift of God and you accept, oh my goodness, it's Christmas. What better example is that? There are plenty of gifts. Plenty of gifts came in for the angel tree.

Plenty of gifts are coming probably in the next few days. You know. Staff love gift. Praise God. Amazing.

Thank you. Wonderful. But if you don't receive it, this it doesn't mean anything to you to people who enjoy his favor. So parallelism in this would be glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to the ones that God's favor rest upon or the one whom God favors. So this one seems more open and more universal, and then this one seems more kind of smaller group.

Right? Not all will accept him. That's the truth. If you let your brain get locked up with, wow, it's a universal call, but not all will take him. Okay.

You're going to come to this, and always comes to this. I we were part of a Bible study before we moved to the mission field, and we didn't know the terms, Calvinism and Armenianism. We didn't know all those terms, hadn't hadn't run into those, but we could. There was one faction kinda among us. We loved each other and we kept on pulling through it, but there was one fact ion that talked about the plan.

It's the plan. It's God's plan. It's gonna come out just like he said, the plan. And the other one was like, no. No.

God's plan is that we would receive them and we can. We really do have a choice. And so, that's Calvinism and Armenians. It's the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man and those things are held in the Bible in tension. They both are absolutely true.

How can that be? I don't know. It's a mind blow. It just is. This was one of the He's one of the presidents at seminary I went to, but a good friend, he has now passed.

His name's Robertson McQuilkin. He said, it's easier to go to a consistent logical extreme than to remain in the center of biblical tension. Amen. Amen. And we tend to spend time.

Some of y'all, I know you're leaning towards one side, and some of y'all, I know, are leaning towards the other. I say get to be friends with one another. Get to be friends with one another and serve other people. And you won't be heading outward, you'll be heading inward to the center of biblical tension. So there we are.

Now that, I open up and I'm gonna hopefully illustrate some of this. I think that this helps to resolve this. It helps us to get this because if you lock it up and say, wow, if God if the whole elect and predestination, I can't quite get it, it feels like God has made some people just to burn. That is heartbreaking and it is really really hard to deal with. There are some who will not accept his gift, and they will suffer for it.

Galatians four four and five is a great Christmas verse, we're gonna get there in a second. Second Corinthians eight nine is also, and there's one more familiar verse. So this is something that I help, I think helps resolve the plan versus the choice, and it's this, a henna clause. Y'all remember I have carried a scroll out here a couple of times. It's about 30 feet long and I just Those are all the times in the Bible where there's a henna clause where it says, so that.

And it gives us, me as the pastor, preacher, proclaimer, it gives me the place where I can say, this is why God did it because he says, this is why I did it. So here it is. The henna clause plus a subjunctive mood. A lot of stuff for grammar, nerds, and middle schoolers today. It generally shows purpose for an action or the result of an action.

So so that can be the purpose intended or it can be the result. Does that make sense? If a henna clause, if I start off a clause with, oh, did that so that you would blah blah blah. Or I did that in order that the police would not come after me. Right?

Whatever it is. I did something definite so that I have a purpose, and then what comes after that? So here we go. Galatians four four and five. One of my favorite Christmas verses is this, but when the fullness of time had come, at exactly the right time, God who is outside of time introduced himself into the mix, the incarnate son of God, God with us.

God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. That's a great, great Christmas verse. Now, the henna is right there. So that, this is telling what God's good pleasure is. This is what telling what God's goodwill is.

It's telling what God's desire is. He did this at exactly the right time so that what? We might receive adoption as sons. Second person plural subjunctive. That we might receive.

He did this so that we had the opportunity to take it, to accept it, to believe it, to receive it, and to receive adoption as son. Sorry, ladies, but at this time, adoption as a son was was a greater thing than being adopted as a daughter, it just was. So, what this communicates to people that would have understood it, is it offers all of the same privileges as being a child, or as John one would say, to those who believed he gave them the right to be called children of God. Second Corinthians, next verse. For you know the grace, the unmerited favor of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, think about this,

he was in heaven.

Second person of the Godhead, in heaven, he was rich. Yet, for your sake he became poor. If we were to go to Philippians, it says he came and he was in every way just as we are frail, human, weakened. He emptied himself of his divine rights. For your sake, he became poor so that you through his poverty might become rich.

The so that is right there, the henna clause is right there. So that through his poverty you might become rich. So that's second Corinthians eight nine. Now that so that you might become rich is the henna, so that, plus a subjunctive, so that you might become rich in him. So so that you might be enriched.

So note the similar structure, the two verses, it has that God acted. That's an indicative mood. It is an absolute thing that happened in time and space. God acted and he did so with a purpose. The first part is indicative.

God did something so that purpose, and I have to say this. So if if I don't use football analogies very much, but if a coach trains and trains and trains and trains somebody so that they'll be able to kick a field goal when they need to. Right? He might not kick that field goal when he needs to, but the coach is acting so that he can. Right?

He's trying to make that possible. God acted so that what? A verb in the subjunctive mood. In the first one, God acted so that you might receive adoption, adoption as sons. God acted so that you might be enriched in the second example.

So that's subjunctive mood. So here we go. So that you might receive, so that you might be enriched, so you might receive a specific gift since it's Christmas. God acted so that you would receive something. So the hentaclaus tells the purpose in his act and I've already made that abundantly clear.

He wants this. His goodwill is towards you. So Luke two fourteen is saying goodwill towards men. It's out there. Now, what are you gonna do with it?

That's the specific gift right there. So does the mic bother you? I mean, we speak English, we don't speak this other stuff, and a lot of us don't use the subjunctive at all, middle schoolers. No. Just kidding.

We don't use it much in English anymore. It's dying. If you're studying another language, probably the hardest thing to learn in Spanish is the subjective mood. So let me get into that. Quick note on the subjective mood.

Is there an English teacher in here who would love to tell this story? No. The subjective mood, in English it would be like, would that it were so. That's contrary to reality. What did it were so that everybody who's ever been a part of this church in the time that I've been here still was here, but they move away.

It's not true. It's not, but what did it were so? It's I can longingly say that, but the truth of the matter is, it's contrary to reality. Now that's one of the rules for subjective, they're like 30. For the purposes of this sermon, I wanna talk about the main thing that the subjunctive is used for is when more than one will is involved.

If you're husband and wife, you might illustrate this during the Christmas season. One of you might think that that's enough Christmas lights. The other one might think that's not enough Christmas lights. Right? Never enough Christmas lights.

The two wills involved, like, I did that so that, but that doesn't mean you're gonna do like I said. Right? If there are two wills involved, there's a sort of a contingency there that both of them have to agree in order for it to come to pass. Right? So the subjunctive mood, it would be presumptuous for me to to believe that I said it and so you do it.

Right? I mean, even as a preacher, even as a pastor, this is one of the dangers I think of preaching and pastoring is that is that God has said and I am attempting to say exactly what God has said, and then you ought to do it. But that doesn't mean you're gonna do it. Right? So for me, every week, all the time, if if I'm trying to process through what I'm gonna deliver to you, I have to make sure that I've received whatever it is from God's word.

Open my heart to confess my shortfall and frailty and sin and everything else, and ask God with a humble heart to show me what that means, and then let me align up with his will before I ever get up here and lay it out in your lap. Right? That's that's what I hope to do. I hope to do. But the subjunctive mood for this sermon is basically when there are two wills involved.

If you train up your kids so that they'll be able to be good people when they're adults and making their own decisions. You can do everything you can in indicative mood, absolutely, but it's up to them whether they're going to put that into effect or not. Does that make sense? Okay. So that's the note.

So this is a familiar verse. I actually translated it myself to just confuse you a little bit. It's not exactly like you've heard it before, but indeed, indeed, God loved the world. Can I get an amen? He loved it in such a way as this, God loved.

He acted in a very specific way, indicative, no doubt about it. He did this. He acted. He loved in in such a way as this, that He gave. He gave His one and only Son.

He acted. He acted in the context that we understand in, in time and space. He was born of a woman, born at exactly the right time under the law to redeem those that were under the law. The introduction of God into our sphere just as we are. He loved, so he gave, and those are in the indicative mood.

God acted, and he acted for a reason, so that. It's a big deal. The henna clause tells us exactly why God did what he did. He acted so that whoever's putting their trust in him might not perish, but might have eternal life. Now the might still in English is a little bit, oh I might.

Oh gracious in Jackson, really. Like you wanna go skiing tomorrow? Oh, might. Are you going skiing with that person tomorrow? Probably not.

But in this case, the might only introduces the possibility so that we might. He tells what his goodwill is. He tells what his good pleasure is. He tells what his desire is. All you have to do is accept it, receive it, believe it as this verse says.

So that all who are putting their trust in him are believing in him. So C. S. Lewis says it this way, that the son of God, Christ Jesus, became a son of man in order that or so that the sons of men might become the sons of God. To all who have believed, he's given them the right to be called children of God.

That's amazing. That is a great gift. It's really really amazing. And since God is absolutely sovereign, you can spend all your time thinking about that, But consider that we are absolutely responsible too. And what are we responsible for?

We're responsible for the message that we have heard. Now, I'm going share one verse from second Peter. Second Peter three nine says that the Lord is not slack concerning his promise or his desire. He's not slack as some men count slackness. They look at him and say, well God.

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise as some count slackness, but he is as he described himself, long suffering towards us. He's patient towards us in the same way. Right? That his goodwill is coming towards us and he is not willing that anyone should perish, but that all should come to repentance and it's not on him if we don't accept it. He's done everything necessary so that we might receive it.

So my job is to proclaim the message as faithfully as I can. God's sovereign goodness and grace are available in Jesus Christ to whoever will receive him. That's as close as I can get the gospel truth. God's sovereign goodness and grace are available in Jesus Christ to whoever will believe him. The whosoever's in there, right?

It's in there, and that really means it. It's a very real offer. So I just have to ask what your response will be. God is absolutely sovereign. Yep.

Don't get locked up about it. And you're absolutely responsible for

what you do with this message.

You're absolutely responsible for what you do with his goodwill and I can say it extends beyond salvation because his goodwill is that you would keep on carrying that message forward that you'd keep on helping people. So what we do with the message of peace on earth and goodwill towards us makes all of the difference. I'm just gonna ask you if you will allow. Come on up, band. Come on back up.

Will you allow God's favor to rest upon you? He's doing all he can. He's doing all he can. He's done all he needed to do. Lord God Almighty, would you allow for humble hearts, for a softness of heart?

Would you allow for deep deep introspection? Would you allow us to see ourselves as we are? So that we may come into seeing us the way that you see us. Useful, helpful, light bearers, grace carriers, those who carry peace that passes understanding. In Jesus name, that's what we ask for, Lord.

In all of the hubbub and anxiety of the season, we pray that we come to a place of absolute peace and rest. In Jesus name, amen. The altar is open but the song is peppy. I'm here all week. Would you stand?

We're going to sing to go tell it on the mountain.