In this sermon, the speaker shares his experience of taking a German class at Palomar College. He initially signed up for the class without realizing the intensity of the schedule, but he persevered and is now about to take his final exam. He reflects on the detachment he feels working at a church and how it has limited his exposure to the secular world. Through his German class, he had the opportunity to interact with people who don't know the Lord and observed their indecisiveness and lack of purpose. The speaker then transitions to discussing God's love for the children of Israel, emphasizing that God didn't choose them because they were great or special, but out of His goodness and for His glory. He highlights how God's actions in delivering the Israelites from Egypt were meant to bring glory to Himself and reveal His superiority over the false gods of Egypt.

Will you stand with me and open your Bibles to 1st John chapter 2, 1st John 2 starting at verse 12. John there says, I write unto you little children because your sins are forgiven for his name's sake. Uh-oh, cellular telephones. I write unto you fathers because you have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you young men because you have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you little children because you have known the father. I've written unto you fathers because you have known him that is from the beginning. And I've written unto you young men because you are strong and the word of God abides in you and you have overcome the wicked one. Let's pray. Father, as we take some time this morning to look into your word, to examine your word, would you examine our hearts as we prepare ourselves for communion to remember your death, burial, and resurrection, the work that you have done for us, Lord, to bring us near. Lord, would you draw us near this morning and speak to us, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. You can be seated. As Richard mentioned, I have grown up at this church and my family has been a part of Calvary Chapel for quite a number of years. I was here at the church when we were in the donut church a long time ago and have been a part of this church ever since. And as I came near to the time that I was going to graduate from high school about six years ago, I knew that I wanted to serve the Lord. I wanted to follow him and serve him with my whole life. And that being the case, I tend to be one who has goals in some sort of a direction most of the time. So I figured coming out of high school, the best thing to do to pursue that was to go to the Bible College up in Murrieta. And so I went up there for a semester and then the Lord opened the door for me to come on as an intern here and then later as one of the staff pastors here at the church. And ever since I've come back from the Bible College when people in the youth group or people younger than me would come to me and say they wanted to serve the Lord and they wanted to go to Bible College, I'd always discourage them and say, don't go to Calvary Chapel Murrieta Bible College. And they'd kind of give me a weird look. And I'd encourage them to go to one of the colleges in York, England, or over in Austria when the Bible College was in Austria or in Budapest, Hungary, or the one in Germany, in Siegen, Germany. And I never expected that the Lord would say, all right, now you're going to have a little bit of your own advice and go over there. But the Lord has opened the door and it's just an awesome opportunity. But being that I normally have somewhat of a purpose and a direction in mind, I really like this book here, 1 John. And as I was looking at my schedule a couple of weeks ago and looking over things that were coming up, I saw that I was going to be in 1 John chapter 2 this weekend. And so I opened up my Bible and started to read through 1 John 1 and 2. And I was planning on reading through the whole book again because it's pretty short and I like short books. And I got through chapter 2, verse 12, and just stopped there because chapter 2, verse 12 stuck out to me. And I thought, you know, Lord, I think maybe you want me just to think about this for a while. And one of the things that I like about John in this book specifically is that several times in this book he gives us his purpose, his reason for writing. He says in 1 John chapter 1, verse 4, And these things write we unto you that your joy may be full. And then just a few verses later in chapter 2, verse 1, he says, My little children, these things I write unto you that you sin not. And then the verses that we just read a second ago, six times he says, I write to you for this purpose. And he goes on as the book unfolds and he says later on in chapter 2, at the end of chapter 2, he tells them again, these things I have written. I haven't written these things to you because you know not the truth, but because you know the truth. And later on in chapter 5, verse 13, he says, These things I have written unto you that you would believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God. And so he clearly lays out why he's writing this book and to whom he's writing. And he's very specifically writing to believers, to Christians, those who are following the Lord, have believed upon him. And he has a purpose and a goal in mind in writing this letter. About eight weeks ago as I was looking at getting ready to go to Germany, I remember I woke up one morning and I was kind of laying in my bed and I thought, well maybe I should take a German class. And so I got on Palomar College's website and looked around and I saw that yeah, they had a summer course for German and I thought, yeah, that's a good idea. So I figured I'll sign up for it and I paid for it. And then after I paid for it, as I was reading through it and talking with someone, I realized that it was five days a week, two and a half hours a day. And I thought, boy, I've really got myself in for an interesting one here. So six weeks, five days a week, two and a half hours a day. My last class is tomorrow. I have my final tomorrow so you guys can be praying for me. But it was interesting to step outside of the walls of the church here, which working at a church is an interesting experience because in some ways you become a little bit detached from things that are going on in the world and people that are just a part of the world who don't know the Lord. And so I've had many people tell me that they really wish they worked at a church. And sometimes I think, well, you don't really know what you wish for because you really do become detached. And so over the last six weeks I've had an opportunity to go outside the walls and to be in a very secular environment with people who don't know the Lord. There's only a couple of people in my class who I'd say do know the Lord. And it's interesting to meet some of them and to see a very indecisive group of people with no purpose or direction in mind. There's a guy in my class, he's a great guy, a very nice guy. He's got his bachelor's degree in philosophy and he's working on his master's degree in theology. And he doesn't really know what he's going to do after that except he knows he wants to continue to go to school and he's planning on getting his doctorate in something. But he doesn't know what and he doesn't have a purpose for why. And there's several people in my class that are kind of professional students that they don't really have any direction as to where they're going and what they're doing. And they would ask me, so are you taking this class for credit? What are you taking this class for? And I said, no, I'm moving to Germany in a month. And so I figured I'd take this class. It seems like a good idea because I have a purpose in mind and a direction. And that's really the way that I've lived my life over the last several years is that there's a purpose. And I believe that the Lord would have us to be like that as we walk with him. I think that's one of the reasons why the purpose-driven church has sold so many books for the purpose-driven life over the last several years because the Lord does desire that we have a purpose as we walk with him. When Josh and I were doing the youth group, we had decided early on that the youth ministry, all the activities that we would do would have a focus and a purpose, that there would be a reason for everything that we did. And we desired that the Lord would show us what he wanted us to do to keep that as the focus of our youth group while we were leading it. And so I really like John because he has a purpose and he has a focus as he writes this letter. But as I read verse 12 of chapter 2 where he says there, I write unto you little children because your sins are forgiven, something really stuck out to me, and it's not the portion that your sins are forgiven, but that for his name's sake. And if you would, underline that in your Bibles, for his name's sake. Because I believe it's very important. Pastor Jeff, a few weeks ago, he was talking about how we in America view the gospel through a certain American cultural lens. And we read the scriptures through that lens. And a lot of times we don't even realize that we do so, but I've taken more of a notice of it over the last few years as I've made a determination to try and look at the scriptures with an unbiased view. But I see that a lot of times we do have that Americanized cultural lenses that we look through as we read the Word. And sometimes as Americans, we, being the way that we are, think that we are the greatest nation in the world and we're a great group of people and you are a wonderful group of people. And we start to think that Jesus came down in the form of a man to live a perfect life and to die a brutal death and raise from the dead because he wanted to save us really good people. And he really got something good when he saved us, didn't he? And we think that I have so much to offer you, Lord, now that you've saved me, you just watch out because your kingdom, there's a lot going to be going on because you got me in your kingdom now. Now that I'm on the bench, we're going to have some no-hitters going on. And we think like that sometimes. We think that, Lord, you really got a good deal when you saved me. In the book of Deuteronomy chapter 7, when the children of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt and they had wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, they're getting ready to come into the Promised Land and the Lord tells Moses that he wants him to declare the law to the children of Israel once again. And so Deuteronomy is the second reading, the second declaration of the law. And Moses stands and he begins to declare to the children of Israel. The entire book of Deuteronomy is a message that he gave to them. Sometimes you think that Pat and myself are long-winded. Read the book of Deuteronomy. It's a very long message. But in chapter 7, he tells the children of Israel that God has not set His love upon you because you were a great nation amongst all the other nations, that you were large because you weren't. You were a little nation. He hasn't called you and brought you out of bondage because there was something great about you, but because He is a loving God and because He is good. He saved them and brought them out of Egypt and out of darkness into His marvelous light because He is good and for His name's sake, for His glory, that people would get to know Him and how great He was. All the things that He did while the children of Israel were in Egypt, the ten plagues, were to bring glory to God, to turn the Egyptians from focusing on their false gods. Every single one of those plagues correlated with one of the gods that the Egyptians served. And God was declaring to the Egyptians through His people that He is better and greater than all those gods and that He is to be served and that He is worthy of praise. And so He brought them out of Egypt to glorify Himself and He has saved us out of the darkness of this world, this Egypt that we are in, out of bondage, to bring glory to His name. And He has forgiven our sins for His name's sake, that He would be glorified among the nations, that He would be exalted in all the earth. And that's why He has saved us. In Psalm 25, I'm going to be going through several verses, you can jot them down and you can try and follow along, but I'm going to go pretty quickly. Psalm 25, verse 11, there David says, For thy name's sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it is great. King David, the king of God's chosen people, doesn't stand up and say, Lord, because I'm a really good king, and because I killed that Goliath guy, and because I've written so many of these great psalms, and because I'm the great shepherd of Israel, pardon my iniquity and my sin. No, he stands before the Lord and he says, for Your name's sake, because of who You are, pardon my iniquity. It is great. I have great iniquity and so Lord, because of who You are, I pray that You would pardon my iniquity. Then in Psalm 106, verse 8, we read there, Nevertheless, He saved them, speaking about the children of Israel, as they wandered in the wilderness, and as they were in bondage in Egypt. It says, Nevertheless, God saved them for His name's sake, that He might make His mighty power to be known. God saved the children of Israel out of bondage, out of Egypt, out of sin, out of darkness, for His name's sake that He might be made known, that His mighty power may be shown to the rest of the world. Again in Psalm 31, at verse 3, we read, For You are my rock and my fortress. Therefore, for Thy name's sake, lead me and guide me. God, for Your glory, for Your name's sake, would You lead and guide me and direct me. David prays there in Psalm 31. Again in Psalm 79, at verse 9, we read, Help us, O God, our salvation, for the glory of Thy name, and deliver us and purge away our sins for Thy name's sake. Lord, for the glory of Your name, and deliver us and purge our sins away and cleanse us. Not because we're something great, but because You are great and because You are awesome. For Your name's sake, for Your glory, would You purge our sins and cleanse us and lead us and guide us and direct us and be our fortress and be our God. In Psalm 109, we read there in verse 21, O God, the Lord, for Thy name's sake, because Thy mercy is good, deliver You me. Because Your mercy is great, for Your name's sake, deliver me. I need Your deliverance. Psalm 143, verse 11. A psalm of David again. We read, Quicken me or revive me, O Lord, for Your name's sake, for Your righteousness' sake, bring my soul out of trouble. For Your name's sake. In Isaiah 43, verse 25, God is speaking here, and He tells the nation of Israel, and He tells Isaiah, I, even I, am He that blots out Your transgression for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. But it's for His sake, for His glory. In Isaiah 48, verse 9, again the Lord is speaking. He says, For My name's sake will I defer mine anger, and for My praise will I refrain for Thee that I cut Thee not off. Behold, I have refined Thee, but not with silver. I have chosen Thee in the furnace of affliction for mine own sake. Even mine own sake will I do it. For how should my name be polluted? I will not give my glory to another. And so the Lord says, I've drawn you, I've cleaned you, I'm cleansing you for mine's sake, for my glory. And then in Ezekiel 36, you might want to turn there. Ezekiel 36, the Lord again speaking to and through Ezekiel. At verse 22, God tells Ezekiel, Say unto the house of Israel, Ezekiel 36, verse 22, Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God, I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for My holy name's sake. And then He says, Which you have profaned among the heathen, whither you went. And I will sanctify My great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which you have profaned in the midst of them. And the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, says the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. For I will take you away from among the heathen and gather you out of all countries and will bring you into your own land. And then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you. And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and you shall keep My judgments and do them. And you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers and you shall be My people and I will be your God. But He says, this is for My namesake. Not because you've done something great because He says there, you've profaned My name. And yet for My namesake I'm going to bring My grace upon you and give you a new heart and bring you into the Promised Land once again from which they had been taken out. And He says, for My namesake I'm going to do all of this. In Exodus chapter 34, Moses there is pleading on behalf of the children of Israel from Exodus chapter 32 through 34 because the children of Israel, you may know the story while Moses was up on Mount Sinai, the children of Israel had told him that all that the Lord has said we will do. Three times they tell him that back in Exodus chapter 20 and 21. All that God has said we will do and be obedient. And then Moses goes up on Mount Sinai and receives the law from the Lord and while he's up there, the Lord says, go down to your people because there's some bad stuff going on. And they go down there and there's a golden calf there that Aaron said, well, they just gave me the gold and I put it in the fire and out came this golden calf. But that's not really what happened. And so they're worshiping and bowing down to this golden calf that they had made saying this is the God that saved us out of Egypt. And the Lord is ready to destroy them and really it's a test for Moses to see what Moses would do. And Moses pleads on behalf of the people and the Lord declares that He is going to forgive them. And then Moses says to Him, Lord, show me Your glory. And God says, I can't show you My glory because if you see all My glory, you're not going to be able to live. You can't see Me and live. And in Exodus 34, He says, I'm going to pass by you and as I pass by you, I'm going to put you in the cleft of the rock and you're going to see My afterglow, My presence pass by and I'm going to declare My name to you. And in Exodus 34, verse 6, it says, And the Lord passed by before him and He proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God. And now God declares His name to Moses. He defines who He is, the nature of God here in Exodus 34, verse 6. The Lord, the Lord God merciful. I praise the Lord that the very first thing that He uses to define His nature and His name is merciful. Although later on as we go through this passage, we find that He is just. And He will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the generations of the third and fourth generation. He is a just and holy God, and yet the very first thing that He says about Himself is the Lord, the Lord God merciful and gracious and long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, and that by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children to the third and fourth generation. But He says to Moses, this is who I am. I'm merciful and gracious and long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, merciful, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, although I am just. And I won't clear the guilty. But He says, this is My name. And for His name's sake, this One who is merciful and gracious and long-suffering, abounding in goodness and truth, or as Gail Irwin would say, abounding in goodness and truth, for His name's sake, He has forgiven us. And not only has He forgiven us, that would be way more than sufficient for every single one of us, for God to forgive us of our sin. And yet Ephesians declares to us not only has He forgiven us of our sin, but He has given us all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. And He's adopted us into His family. He has made us children of God. Joint heirs with Christ. And not because of who we are, but because of His goodness and because of who He is and for His name's sake, for His glory. It says in Ephesians 2, verse 1, And you He has quickened, or made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, where in the time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the Spirit who now works in the children of disobedience, among whom you also had your conversation or your conduct in times past in the lust of your flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the others. But God, this is who you and I were, dead in trespasses and sins, walking according to the lust of the world. But God, who is rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. By His awesome and powerful grace, did He not only extend His hand down into darkness to pull us out of darkness, but He came down in the form of a man as Philippians 2 tells us in verse 5, that Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but He made Himself of no reputation, taking upon Himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in the fashion of a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Because of His name and who He is, God stepped into the realm of man, out of eternity, and into time, taking on the form of human beings to save us, to glorify His name. Because you see, since the fall of Lucifer, the name of God has been defamed. The very first thing that Lucifer did in the Garden of Eden was defame the name of God, defame who God was, by saying, did God indeed say? He's calling into question our God. Calling into question the graciousness and the power and the awesomeness of our God from the very beginning. Satan has defamed the name of God. And God has come in the likeness of man to glorify His name. To put it in the right place that it should be. Because Philippians 2 goes on to say, Wherefore God has also highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every name. And that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. There's a girl in my class, my German class, and her grandfather was a Jew in Germany during the time of the Holocaust. And just before everything started to get really, really bad in Germany, he escaped with his family and he escaped and fled to Haifa, which is in modern day Israel today. Israel was not a state during that time. And there, while he was in Haifa, he had this girl's mother and she immigrated to America. And then this girl was born here in America and she has dual citizenship here in America and there in Israel. And it's been interesting just kind of talking with her here and there and I walked into class, I believe it was Thursday morning, and I had my headphones on and no one else was in the class and I sat down at my desk and right after I sat down she came walking in the classroom and walked right up to me and I was like, oh, hello, and I took off my headphones, I was like, can I help you? And she said, is it true that you believe that if I don't believe in Jesus I'm going to hell? I thought, boy, that was kind of direct. I kind of bit my tongue and looked at her and I said, Jesus said I am the way, the truth, and the life and no one comes to the Father except through me. She said, in my sociology class, I'm pretty sure that's what class she was talking about, she said we were talking about religious tolerance. And she said, my religion, Judaism, is tolerant to other religions. And I thought to myself, have you read the Old Testament? And she said, but we were talking about Christianity and you guys aren't tolerant to other religions. And at that point I thought that what I had said and what I had shared with her was enough. At that point I didn't want to start an argument with her, but I thought about what she had to say. It's interesting how the enemy has defamed the name of God to say that he is intolerant and to say that he is a mean God because he's going to look at someone and say, I don't know you. The name of God has been defamed by the enemy. And God is seeking to glorify his name and he glorifies his name by coming down into the midst of humanity, humbling himself. God, the God of the universe, humbled himself and became obedient even to the point of death, the death of the cross. The one who there on that day laid himself down on a cross made of wood that he created, allowed a Roman soldier to take a nail made from iron and steel that he had created, that he spoke into existence and allowed it to be pounded through his hand by a man whose breath he was holding in the palm of his hand at that very second. Why? So that he could put his name in the rightful place that it should be. That at the name of Jesus Christ every knee would bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. And he has forgiven us for his namesake and saved us because he is good and because he is awesome and because he is gracious. How beautiful that is. And that's what we do today as we remember that work. As we take the bread, a picture of his body that was broken for us, and the cup, his blood that was shed for us, that he could forgive our sins and our iniquities and remember them no more to put his name back where it should be. Let's pray. Father, I do thank you that your word declares to us that scarcely for a good person would one die. Maybe for a righteous man would one even dare to die. But you show us, you display your love towards us that while we were yet sinners, while we were at enmity with you, you came and died for us. God, teach us to live a life that will glorify you. I thank you, Lord, that your grace, which has appeared to all men as Titus chapter 2 says, teaches us how to live godly, to live a life that is glorifying. God, I thank you that you have forgiven our sins for your name's sake. And as you declare through Paul there in Hebrews 11 that those who followed you by faith you were not ashamed to be called their God. I pray that our lives would be such that you would not be ashamed to be called our God, but that our lives would be glorifying to you this day and through the rest of our lives. And so this morning as we come to the table in remembrance, Lord, would you remind us of the work that you did. And would you fill our hearts not with sorrow but with joy. Thank you for glorifying yourself in and through us by forgiving us. You are our great and awesome King. Teach us to glorify you, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. We're going to spend the remainder of our service this morning in worship and communion. Some of the pastors and the elders will be up in front to pray with you if you have prayer needs. But as the Lord would lead you, come on forward and take of the bread, the cup, back to your seat or kneel down in the front.