Holding Fast

The Trinitarian Work of Christian Unity

2008-07-15T10:48:00.000-07:00

Ephesians 2:11-22

In the Scriptures we might say that we find the overwhelming assumption of the doctrine of the Trinity. Nowhere in the Bible will we find the concise creedal statement, “God is one God eternally existing in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Yet when we study Paul’s letter to the Ephesians we are struck with the clear teaching on the unity of God along with the triune work of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: “there is one body and one Spirit- just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call-one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (4:4-6). In the great doxological sentence of chapter one we find that God the Father accomplishes all things according the counsel of his will (1:11). This purpose is accomplished by redemption through the blood of Christ (1:7). This purpose is applied, sealed, and guaranteed in our hearts by the work of the Holy Spirit (1:13).

This same unified, harmonious work of one God in three persons is found in Ephesians 2:11-22. What is particularly glorious about this passage is that it teaches us that the unity of many believers into one unified body is accomplished by our Triune God. As a body of believers we reflect the image of the Triune God – many members in one body- through the work of the Triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As one body we do not lose who we are as individuals any more than Christ loses his personhood in his unity of essence with the Father. We are called to be unified, not uniform. This is part of the great mystery of the Godhead. There is diversity in the persons and functions of the Triune God. But it is diversity with perfect harmony and unity! And this is the work of God in his redeeming power through the Church.

In Ephesians 2:11-22 we find no less than twelve explicit references to the Trinity in twelve verses: five references to Christ – vv. 12, 13(2x), 20,21; five references to God – vv. 12, 16, 18, 19, 22; and two references to the Holy Spirit - vv. 18,22. God the Father has willed and decreed that a holy temple, a great household, a wonderful family be brought together throughout time and all over the world “to the praise of His glorious grace.”

But his children are rebels and sinners. Ephesians 2:11-13 paints a rather grim portrait of our sinful condition before the just and righteous God. We were “gentiles in the flesh,” the “uncircumcision.” We had no claim to an inheritance before God the Father. We had no place at his table. We were separated from Christ, aliens and strangers to the law of God and his covenant promises. We were at war with God, and at war with his people. We were far off, with no rightful access to God. We were without hope and without God in the world.
How might this hostility be abolished? How might these warring brothers be united? How might this sin be atoned? How will the prodigals, aliens, and strangers be brought into the commonwealth of Israel? By the Triune work of God.

First, by the purpose, decree, and power of God (Eph. 1:3-14). This sovereign purpose of God is the overarching theme of Ephesians, and more than that, the whole of God’s Word!
This purpose is accomplished by the work of Christ. In Ephesians 2:13 we see that we were brought near to the holy and just God by the blood of Christ. Jesus Christ made one body by giving up his own body on the cross. He made one new man, reconciling all men to God through the cross. He preached peace first to the Jew (who was near) and then to the Gentile (who was far off.)

This work of Christ is applied by the work of the Holy Spirit. We see in verse 18, while Jesus did
the work of atonement, the Spirit does the work of granting access. We have access to the Father by the indwelling presence of God Himself in us by the Spirit. We are made a “dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” We are a new household; each of his children by the spirit of sonship (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6). We are brothers and sisters “eagerly maintaining the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (4:3).

As I reflect on Ephesians 2:11-22, I have to ask myself if I typically look at unity in the body through the beautiful Trinitarian lens that Paul gives us in this passage. Try a little exercise with me. Consider a brother or sister in the church you find difficult to get along with. Perhaps they rub you the wrong way, or maybe they have legitimately hurt you in some way. Maybe you have a bone to pick with an elder in the church, or you have issues with the way a fellowship group leader teaches, or how he handled a situation. Now consider him in light of Ephesians 2:11-22 and the work of our Triune God in making both of you one “to the praise of his glorious grace.”

Remember that both of you share a common heritage of sinfulness, exile, separation from Christ, hopelessness, and alienation from God. Without the pure, undeserved grace of Christ, neither of you have any claim to godliness, goodness, nor glory. This tends to level our pride, doesn’t it? Keeps you from “thinking of yourself more highly than you ought” (Romans 12:3).

Next, remember that God chose him before the foundation of the world according to the purpose of His will. God the Father loves this brother as a son and has a glorious redemptive design for his life, and you are part of that design as a member with him of one unified body.

Now reflect of the blood of Christ that was shed to bring both this brother and you near to God. Through the body of Christ, you are now one body. Whatever hostility there is between you, it has been removed by the work of Christ. You were given peace through the cross of Christ. You have both been reconciled to God and this same power is at work to reconcile you to one another.

Consider the reality that you are both members of one household, children in the same family, citizens together of one nation, each fitted into a new structure, a holy temple in the Lord. You are each indwelt by the Spirit of God. The same Spirit that quickened your heart from death to life worked this same regeneration in the heart of your brother! The Spirit in you is the Spirit in Him [are you referring to ‘him’ your brother or ‘Him’ God?...wasn’t sure] and the same Spirit “who searches even the deep things of God” (1 Cor. 2:10). Through this same indwelling Spirit you are together part of the very dwelling place of God.

As we see our lives, our identity, and our relationships through the glorious work of our Triune God, what is it that might impede unity in the body? What human hindrance stands in the way of the decree of God, the blood of Christ, and the work of the Spirit? What sinful struggle or satanic strategy can thwart the harmony and order that is ours through the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. With this Trinitarian vision, heed the call of the Apostle to “maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

Don't Take Your Life Into Your Own Hands

2008-05-20T17:42:00.000-07:00

I know that you are stunned (all three of you) to see a Holding Fast either on this illustious blog page or in your inbox. Well, here 'tis. Sorry for my laziness in posting. Spring is crazy and crazier, and things have slowed down a bit, allowing me to squeeze in time to jot down some devotional words. As well, you need to know this about me- I am not a very fast writer. I always have a lot I think I want to say, but struggle greatly in the saying of it. Many, many a post have begun, and still sit in the cyber dustbin of My Documents.

I'd like to veer a way from Ephesians and look at a passage from my daily Scripture reading. Last night I read 1 Samuel 24-25, the familiar story of David sparing King Saul's life. If you haven't read it, or don't remember it- please read it now.

David is a rising star in Israel and has also been anointed by Samuel to be the 'true' King of Israel after Saul spared Agag, king of the Amalekites and kept the plunder for himself. Saul is seething with jealous rage toward David, seeking to capture and kill him at every turn. Remember the songs that echoed through Israel, "Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands" ? (1 Sam. 21:11) David and his men are on the run throughout the wilderness around Judah, hiding out in the caves. In our passage here, the outlaw band is in the wilderness of Engedi ('spring of the kid', thus the reference to 'wildgoat's rocks' in 24:2), deep within the caves while Saul and his 3000 warriors encamp outside waiting to strike. We can assume that perhaps a spy caught sight of King Saul in a vulnerable spot 'relieving himself' (Heb. 'covering his feet' - a Hebraic euphemism, you know, 'seeing a man about a horse') alone, without his cohort. David is urged by his men to go in and kill the King of Israel, ending their miserable existence as outlaws in the desert and establishing their rule and authority in the land.

David does not kill Saul, instead he cuts a corner from the king's robe to reveal that he could have taken his life and yet spared him. David had the chance to take hold of his destiny, to take his life in his own hands: to kill an hostile enemy, to establish himself as King, to vindicate his name and reputation, to give himself to lead all his followers and admirers in Israel, to show his power and authority to his men, to enjoy the fruit of kingship-wealth, power, comfort, worldly success. David does not take his life into his own hands, but rather continues to entrust his life to God and honor the king. Why? There are a few reasons laid out for us in 24:6-22.

1. David had a tender conscience. We read in verse 5, "afterward, David's heart struck him, because he had cut off a corner of Saul's robe." The NIV says that David was 'conscience stricken', the NAS says that David's heart 'bothered him', and the King James translates it, "David's heart smote him". I find this point especially interesting because there is a real sense in which David had a right to strike Saul down. We remember that earlier, because of Saul's sin and wickedness, God had rejected him as king. David has already been anointed by Samuel to rule over Israel. Saul is certainly in the wrong in doggedly pursuing David and seeking to kill him. David says to his men in verse 6, "the Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the Lord's anointed..." Yet, the anointing was taken away from Saul and placed upon David! What do we learn from this?

Whether or not David had the right or the freedom to strike Saul down is not the issue. David's conscience would not let him. God speaks and testifies to us not only through his word, through the counsel of others, but also through our conscience. Paul says in Acts 24:16, "I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man." In Romans 2:15 we read that the law is written upon our hearts, and our conscience bears witness to it. In speaking about issues of Christian liberty to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 8,10), Paul strongly admonishes them to heed their own consciences and the conscience of others in how they act and in the manner in which they live. John Gill, the great baptist theologian, defines consience in this way:

"It is a power or faculty of the rational soul of man; by which it knows its own actions, and judges of them according to the light it has: some take it to be an habit of the mind; others an act of the practical judgment, flowing from the faculty of the understanding by the force of some certain habit."

Whether or not we feel David would be justified in striking Saul down, David's conscience was denied him this liberty and he could not act against the internal witness God had given him. When we ignore this internal voice, Paul says we become cauterized, seared, unfeeling and hard hearted. In this light, Paul exhorts Timothy to 'hold on to the faith and a good conscience' (1 Timothy 1:19).

2. We find in David's actions a commitment to obeying God above one's personal sense of justice, the need for retribution, and a claim to rights or power. Jesus commends much the same thing in the sermon on the mount, "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake...do not resist the one who is evil but if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also...love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." The Apostle Paul tells us to "bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse...repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all...never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God..." (Romans 12:14ff.) David was not enslaved to his own personal desires for retaliation. David was not cheifly concerned with his reputation. David was not primarily concerned with the judgments of others. God is the sovereign judge of all, and David serves His God first and foremost.

Let's say you have been hurt by someone, maligned, impugned, whatever. Your reputation is at stake, your sense of justice breached, and the wisdom of the world is on your side. Do you assert your rights? Do you assert your power and vindicate yourself and every possible turn? The Scriptures don't call us to be doormats, this is not the lesson. The lesson is, though, that our actions are not in accordance with human perception, along the lines of worldly wisdom, or the sake of personal vindication. We don't serve man, we don't serve self- we serve God and seek to please him in all things. We also recognize that in the final analysis, the sovereign God will judge rightly and we can rest in his ultimate power. As we display this trust in his hand, as we show grace to others in such a trust- we are unveiling the real source of our hope and our life

3. Take note of how David deals with others. When others are calling him to act against his conscience, he opposes them. He does not cave in to the pressures of his men. In refusing to kill Saul, he was refusing them safety, the comforts of home, and insuring that they would be spending more nights in some God forsaken caves. In refusing to heed their advice, to ignore their urgent designs for his future- he was risking the threat of mutiny and rebellion to his ever lengthening list of problems. Nonetheless, he stood down his men, and refused to capitulate to the pressures of the flesh and the world. I think of Paul’s words to the Galatians as he stood down the Judaizers and rebuked Peter for caving to their legalistic demands and perversion of the gospel, “Am I now seeking the favor of men or of God? Am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond servant of Christ.” (Galatians 1:10)

We also see David choose to take the high road with Saul, appealing to the conscience of the King and pleading for justice and grace. David does not taunt the King or mock him. Rather, he honors Saul, even in the face of Saul’s wicked designs to take his own life. Again David is entrusting his life and future not to Saul, but to God who establishes Kings and takes them off their throne. David understands that it is not his place to do God’s job for him. But he can honestly and transparently appeal to his King. Sometimes I think we plot and connive, speaking and manipulating in secret, hoping we might secure victory for ourselves. It is God’s to secure victory, and it is ours to behave righteously.

Just a few lessons from the soon to be King of Israel. It is important to remember these three things as well, in conclusion:

1. David wasn’t always faithful, and was a great sinner. It is dangerous to turn all of this into mere moralism. David was a man after God’s own heart, which refers to a heart of repentance and faith, not perfection and human righteousness.
2. God didn’t resolve all of David’s problems immediately, not by a long shot. Saul continued in wickedness, David continued to wander in the wilderness, and God’s providence led him through a hard road of resolution to his ‘Saul problem’.
3. Ultimately, God judged rightly. The wicked faced judgment, the faithful were vindicated. This is the way of things, and the promise of the gospel is that by faith in Christ the wicked are made faithful, and in the righteousness of Christ the sinner will be vindicated before the holiness and justice of God. We are called to repent of our sin, and believe, entrusting ourselves to God through Christ.

Dead Men Walking

2008-03-17T11:57:00.000-07:00

Ephesians 2:1-10

There was a heartbreaking statement made by Anne Frank, “I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.” Sadly, she would lose her life, and all that she held dear, to demonstrate not the truth of these puerile beliefs but the darkness of the human heart.

Paul spares us any sentiment in his description of the human condition here in Ephesians 2. He doesn’t swoon over the loftiness of the human spirit. On the same token, Paul’s description is not a cold cynicism or embittered disenchantment because of life’s disappointments and loss. Paul states plainly and forthrightly the rather bleak reality of our natural, sinful state apart from God’s grace: “you were dead in trespasses and sins.” The prophet Jeremiah states this reality in such stark terms as well, “the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure; who can understand it” (Jer. 17:9). We are made in God’s image, but are fallen; in our natural condition we are dead men walking. In its litany for the burial of the dead, the Book of Common Prayer puts it rather famously, “in the midst of life we are in death.”

I am always fascinated by how we manage to skirt the reality of sin. It is as plain as the nose on our face. Sin and its consequences are everywhere: crime, poverty, disease, corruption, deception, pain, anguish. Pick up today’s newspaper and you will find a register of humanity’s awful, sinful situation from a local to a global scale. Each morning you look in the mirror and behold the deadly effects of sin – every day renders us a bit older, fatter, and greyer; drawing us closer to our inevitable demise. Yet, we are constantly denying and obscuring the plain reality of the sin around us and the sin within us. This denial in itself is part of the sinful condition. It is a sort of pride, a stubborn unwillingness to recognize our need and inability. We are prone to the same proud hope in self which plagued the Laodicean church in Revelation 3:17, “not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.”

There is a sort of sinful trifecta at work in our depravity outlined in Ephesians 2. Paul says that by nature we followed the “course of this world,” the “prince of the power of the world,” and lived in “the passions of our flesh.” The war on sin is fought on three fronts: the world, the devil, and the flesh. Interestingly, throughout the New Testament we find that the world is a system of ideas, desires, and agendas opposed and hostile to the kingdom of God and the work of the Spirit. This is the city of man: the empires built through human endeavor as a legacy to man apart from God’s power and grace. The world calls us to bow the knee to money, power, human influence, personal autonomy and self service. However imposing and powerful it might seem from our narrow creaturely perspective; this system is fleeting and vain, already under the judgment of God and will one day be destroyed (John 12:31).

Paul says that in our former “walk” we followed the “prince of the power of the air.” Paul calls this prince or ruler (Jesus refers to Satan as the ruler – archon- of the world in John 12:31) the “god of this age” in 2 Corinthians 4:4. We discover that there is a real and actual being in the universe who has set up a kingdom in opposition to God. Peter says that he is a devil (diabolos- accuser, adversary) who prowls about like a lion, seeking those he might devour. Paul’s description of Satan’s domain is interesting, and could mean a variety of things. He has dominion in the “power of the air” which could be translated atmosphere or even foggy atmosphere. Some have taken Paul to mean that Satan is the ruler of the shadowy and dark realm of powers and principalities who are at war with the Sovereign God of the universe. Some take “the power of the air” here to mean that he is the ruler of a passing and empty dominion, however powerful it might seem at any given moment. Certainly we must understand that there is a real enemy, a powerful adversary who wages war against God and his people. He seeks to deceive and devour, enticing humans into his control through the temptations of the world and the desires of our flesh. But his power is limited and restrained by God, and his kingdom is passing away and without any lasting influence.

Lest we remove ourselves from any culpability in this equation, Paul states clearly that we are part of the problem. We are by nature sinners through the trespass of Adam (Romans 5:12, 17). We were born sinners and “children of wrath.” Yet we also actively walked in these sinful desires, we lived in them, gratifying and pursuing our own self interests and fleshly concerns. In our flesh we aligned ourselves with the world and the prince of this world, against God’s rule and design.

This second chapter of Ephesians contains the familiar and glorious witness to the grace of God, “by grace you have been saved through faith” (2:8). Many of us have memorized this verse from childhood. Before Paul exalts the grace of God he uncovers the depths of our sin. The gospel of grace shines forth only in the context of depravity and the darkness of the human heart. We were dead in sin. There is nothing good and righteous in a corpse. We were lifeless, lost and without hope in the world (2:12).

There is another trifecta in this passage - the richness of God’s mercy, the greatness of God’s love and the immeasurable riches of his grace toward us in Christ Jesus (vv.4, 7). Verse 5 begins with a wonderful little word, the conjunction even (Greek- kai). It is one thing for a well man to praise God for a gift, or a sick man to praise God for healing. It is quite another for a dead man to praise God for life itself. It was not in our goodness that God reached down with his grace, it was even while we were dead in transgressions. It was not that God saw any innate potential in our hearts, it was even while we were dead. Our righteous deeds were filthy rags, our hearts were bloodless stones. Even there God’s rich mercy, his great love, his immeasurable grace breathed life.

Open Our Eyes - Part 2

2008-02-21T16:37:00.000-08:00

Ephesians 1:17-23

Part I of this devotional gave us insight into what Paul prayed for all believers – spiritual maturity and an opening of our hearts to see beyond this world and to the riches of the next. Paul prays that we would catch a glimpse of the following: first, hope; second, a glorious inheritance; third, the immeasurable greatness of power. Paul doesn’t elaborate too much on these first two things, but spends four verses fleshing out what he means by the third. Let me point out just a few things from these closing words of Ephesians 1.

First, this power is spiritual. It is not just ‘natural’ or ‘physical’- though it is certainly that, as the bodily resurrection demonstrates. It is in this sense that we must have our ‘heart eyes’ opened up. We do not see this power at work in a natural, or normative, sense. God isn’t levitating chairs or blinking light bulbs in the parlor like some sort of poltergeist. As if this were any real display of power anyhow. Paul prays that we might see with the eyes of faith what is ‘beyond the veil,’ so to speak. Paul is assuring us that the same power that breathed life into the dead body of the crucified Lord, the same power that rolled back the stone, the same power that lifted Christ bodily into the heavens, the same power that established Christ as Lord of the Universe at God’s right hand, this power is at work in us, through us, and for us.

Second, I’d like to focus in on verses 22-23, “And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” When Paul speaks of God’s power at work in ‘us,’ it is important to understand who this us is. Paul says that God’s power is “toward us who believe” and that those who believe are united to the church, which is the very body of Christ. There is a treasure of truth in Ephesians related to this wonderful new creation that God made in Christ, the church. I believe the central truth and theme verses of this letter are found in 3:10-11, “so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord.” There is a lot more to be said about this, but here in chapter one, we see that the power of God is not received, felt, and displayed in our lives individually. We are brought into a corporate relationship to God and the saints, and we are to corporately reveal and unfold the mystery and wisdom of God as the church.

This is a very important point, and is a driving principle in my life and ministry as a pastor, so we’ll linger here a bit. You will often hear me say, “I don’t believe in the priority and importance of the local church because I’m a pastor; I’m a pastor because of the biblical priority and importance of the local church.” What I mean to say here is that I don’t push membership and involvement in the local church because it’s crucial to my vocational success, or because it is in my job description. I push membership and involvement in the local church because I believe it is crucial to the growth and sanctification of the believer and the spread of the gospel to the world. Because of this conviction I gave my life to leadership and service in the local church. The church is not a social club; it is not a therapeutic program; it is not a non-profit community center. The church is the body of Christ, the instrument of God’s sovereign and saving power, the inheritor of all the spiritual blessings of God in Christ, the display of God’s wisdom to rulers and authorities (seen and unseen). The believer who embraces the fullness of this Ephesian ecclesiology, who commits fully to this glorious design of God will see hope to which he has called us, the riches of God’s glorious inheritance, and the immeasurable greatness of his power.

Open Our Eyes - Part 1

2008-02-13T09:17:00.000-08:00

Ephesians 1:17-23

It is good for us to pay attention to verses like Ephesians 1:17. Here is an answer to the question, “How did great men of God like the Apostle Paul pray? And what did they pray for?” We have a partial answer to the first question in 1:16, “I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.” Paul prayed with constancy and fervency. When should we pray? The answer here is ‘whenever!’ or ‘as much as possible!’ We find from verse 16 as well that Paul allowed thanksgiving (over need, anxiety, fear, desire) to rule his heart as he lifted it to God. All the glorious truths of our salvation spelled out in 1:3-14 cause the Apostle’s heart to overflow in thankful prayer for God’s people. In the next wonderful paragraph we discover what Paul prayed for the Ephesians and for us, and what we should be praying for each other.

Paul asks that God might give us “a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him.” Paul desires that God’s people might be full of a heavenly wisdom which equips them to see through the deception of the world, the flesh and the devil. Consider Paul’s words to the Corinthians, “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual” (1 Corinthians 2:12-13). In a real sense, Paul is asking for spiritual maturity. This maturity comes from the Spirit of God, who dwells within us.

What an interesting phrase in verse 17, “a spirit …of revelation.” This is, of course, a reference to the revelatory work of God in the Scriptures. God has unveiled his purpose and design for the universe in the Scriptures. But there is a sense in which we are to have a spirit of revelation. Theologians have called this the doctrine of illumination, the work of the Spirit of God enlightening the truths of God to his people through his word. Paul further defines this spirit of revelation in verse 18, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened…” What a wonderful phrase! First of all, Paul is asking for an enlightenment that reaches deeper and further than that which is seen or known in the natural realm. He is asking for that wisdom and knowledge that allows us to grasp that “eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17).

Paul’s great concern for the Ephesians is that they might be given a heavenly perspective and spiritual maturity that allows them to see beyond the struggles and temptations, even the mundane satisfaction of their daily lives. He asks God to open the eyes of our hearts to “the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.” We must be given spiritual eyes to look beyond the vain and empty hopes of this world. If we are only able to see the material, earthly world around us, then we would be hopeless, despairing people. Imagine having all that this world offers: money, beauty, fame and reputation. Would you be happy? Consider those who have such things. Are they happy? Are they satisfied? The reality is, they are some of the most desperate, unsatisfied people we can imagine. Why? Because they have experienced all the joys that the world offers and have discovered it tragically lacking.

So, what is it that Paul wants us to catch a glimpse of? What is it that our ‘heart eyes’ must see? Hope, a wonderful inheritance and power beyond our imagination…if we follow God’s design for his people.

Thanking God for His People

2008-01-10T19:13:00.000-08:00

Ephesians 1:15-16

You may have heard me joke regarding my own noble profession, “Don’t be a shepherd if you don’t like the smell of sheep.” I’m not sure who coined it, but the saying is certainly true. Another once said, “If it weren’t for people and their problems, ministry would be great!” I recently inquired of a man in our church about how his fellowship group was going. He joked, “Apart from all these messed up people, I love it!” Of course, such exclamations are silly. Ministry is people. What is a fellowship group without people? Yes, people can be difficult; people have problems. These problems can be messy and ugly. And, pastors and faithful servants get the joy of seeing the mess up close and personal. But we press on. We continue to serve people with the good news; we continue to pursue others with Spirit-filled fellowship. We do this not because they are good, or because they are without problems; quite the opposite. People are sinners, and our sin is deep and dark. It brings chaos, pain and ultimately, death. But Jesus’ redeeming love is deep and wonderful. It restores order, comforts the afflicted and breathes forth life.

The struggles of ministry, and the reality of people’s sin and depravity, is only half of the story. Yes, if you take seriously the ‘one anothers’ of the New Testament, you’ll discover that the road of obedience to these commands is dangerous and fraught with sorrow. But we find the rest of the story as we travel along. A glimpse of it is found in Ephesians 1:15-16 as Paul begins his intercession for the Ephesian church. He prays, “…because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.” Paul faced all sorts of ‘people problems’ in his mission to bring the light of the gospel to a dark world. This letter is one of the prison epistles written by Paul under house arrest. He was so reviled by the Jewish leadership that he was framed (Acts 21) and falsely accused. The Ephesians understood the conflicts that go with bold gospel ministry- stubborn opposition, demonic activity and riots (Acts 19). Remember over in Philippians where Paul tells us that there were those who were “preaching the gospel out of envy and rivalry…thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment” (Phil. 1:15-18). Talk about persecution. I’ve never been imprisoned for my faith in Christ; much less received persecution and affliction by so called Christians while in prison! But this was only part of the story.

Consider the striking source of Paul’s joy: the faith and love of God’s people. Consider also that the great bulk of the New Testament canon is not a collection of dry theological treatises, but personal correspondence. We have God’s Word through the letters of love, warning, joy, sorrow, and hope to God’s people. After all, the salvation of people was the great goal of Paul’s ministry. He was “a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles” (Eph. 3:1). This being so, it is understandable that he rejoiced in the faith of God’s people; for people were putting their faith in Christ. He can take hope that as he is in chains, the people of Ephesus soldier on in loving all the saints. This was Paul’s consolation at the end of his life. All had deserted him; no one was with him at his trial. Though he must have struggled mightily with depression and loneliness, we find these stirring words, “But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it” (2 Tim. 4:17). This is the valuable lesson from these two verses in Ephesians, and the whole life of the Apostle Paul: the ministry of the gospel is hard (life threatening, in fact), God is good and people are being saved.

I can say Amen to Paul’s thanksgiving here. Yes, the sheep are stinky (but then, shepherds don’t smell like roses either) but their faith and love are a great joy to me. I love to hear the testimony of people committing themselves to a fellowship group with fear and reluctance only to find the blessing and joy of communion with God’s people. My Dad, a 40-year veteran of pastoral ministry, would be asked what it is like being a pastor. He would respond simply, “I love the view.” Those who give themselves to the mandate of sacrificial service to the body of Christ (whether they are pastors, elders, deacons, fellowship group leaders, or Sunday school teachers) are given a skybox view of the Spirit’s work. Paul faced great struggle and opposition in Ephesus; and he was able to enjoy the fruit of his labors just through the hearing of the Ephesians faith in Christ and love for the saints. This news was a source of unceasing thanks for the Apostle.

This week, whatever difficulties I might face as a pastor, I will resolve to remember the wonderful people that God has given me to work with and for. I will look beyond the struggles and find joy in the reality that I am surrounded by people who are full of “faith in Christ Jesus.” I will find joy, with the apostle Paul, in the many examples all around me of the love of God’s people for the lost and one another. Today, this stinky shepherd will not cease to give thanks for the stinky sheep, remembering them in his prayers.

Never Fear...

2007-12-15T20:58:00.001-08:00

Pastor Erik will be posting more Holding Fast devotions from Ephesians after the first of the year.

Thank God for His Gracious Choice

2007-11-21T08:58:00.000-08:00

Ephesians 1:4

It is Thanksgiving week, one of my favorite times of the year. A time of feasting. There is something wonderful about taking two or three days to eat every kind of glorious dish imaginable (which is better- the turkey leg on Thursday or a thick slice of turkey meat on mayo-enriched Wonder bread on Friday?). A day focusing on giving thanks is fundamentally biblical and distinctively Christian. Thanksgiving as a holiday remains relatively unscathed by the mind-numbing commercialization and secularization of our culture. Christmas is no longer truly Christmas in America, but has become some strange pagan snow festival following the rituals of Halloween in the financial calendar. Thanksgiving is so innately centered upon such a core Christian virtue, that our eucharistic celebration almost defies all attempts at overt commercial defilement.

Yet, there is a silent tension around most tables in the moments before the bird is carved. What are we truly thankful for? Food? Clothing? A three bedroom split plan with two cars and matching kids? To whom is all this thanks given? Do we thank each other? Do we thank ourselves? Our secular commitments thunder forth in that silence, however hard we try to sacramentalize our actions and words around the table. In such secular silence, we must sing forth with all the blessings of the gospel presented to us by Paul in Ephesians 1:3-14. Volumes could be written, and have been, on the wonderful truths strung together by Paul in this incredible 12 verse run on sentence. I will focus on a cardinal doctrine of the Christian faith which is seen by the Apostle as a fountain of blessings to the believer.

We should praise God for his sovereign election. Paul says that we have been ‘chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world’ (verse 4). If you are a Christian, your salvation is not because of ‘works done by us in righteousness, but according to God’s mercy’ (Titus 3:5). We would thank ourselves, if salvation was obtained by our own wisdom or power. But, no thanks to us, it was while we were yet sinners that Christ died for us. In Ephesians 2: 1-3 Paul describes our position outside of the gracious election of God: dead in trespasses and sins, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, living in the passions of the flesh, carrying out the desires of the mind, by nature children of wrath. But it isn’t the voice of a just judge that we hear through the gospel, but rather the calling of a merciful Father. Yes, the doctrine of divine election has rankled many who seek to preserve some degree of human responsibility in the work of salvation. And it should not surprise us that a doctrine that so elevates God and so minimizes human effort should cause chagrin. Nonetheless, praise and thanksgiving should echo through our hearts at the realization of our profound need and God’s wonderful grace in election.

Paul begins here, with God’s gracious sovereign choice, because this is where it all begins for us. It does not begin with us, it begins with God. The Apostle John said it simply and powerfully, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). All of the blessings piled up by Paul in these opening verses flow from the sovereign grace of God: adoption, redemption, forgiveness, revelation, inheritance, the seal and deposit of the Holy Spirit. And what is the basis for his choosing? Is the election of God simply some capricious and arbitrary design? No, says Paul, it is according to the “kind intention of his will” (1:5). This doesn’t solve the mystery of God’s design, and mysterious it certainly is from our very limited and human perspective. But, however mysterious and confounding the doctrine of election might be, Paul assures us that it is anchored in goodness and love, which he calls God’s eudokia (good will, good pleasure, or kind intention in the New American Standard).

This thanksgiving I will give thanks to God for his mysterious, and gracious choice of a sinner like me. I will give thanks to God for all the blessings that flow from this fundamental grace. And in all the questions, the struggles, and the trials that face me and the people of God, I will rest in God’s eudokia. I will never fully understand the design of God in all these things, because his thoughts are not my thoughts nor are his ways my ways (Isaiah 55: 8). But, he promises that all things work together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose, he promises that all things will be to the ‘praise of his glorious grace’, and he promises that all things will find their place in the merciful and kind intention of the sovereign plan.

A Song of Praise for Ungrateful Worry Warts

2007-11-08T06:17:00.000-08:00

Ephesians 1:3-14

I am an ungrateful so and so. I readily confess it. I am also a worry wart. I am easily spun into fear and anxiety at the prospect of want, or the threat of worldly insecurity. In my ingratitude I am like a little child who eats his fill at dinner only to cry for dessert. Ingratitude is selfishness. Ingratitude is greed. Ingratitude is impatience. To state the obvious, it is a failure to be thankful for what we have and what we have been given. Ingratitude tends to highlight in bold relief the ugliness of the sinful heart. It is not just improper desire, but improper desire in the presence of plenty, blessing and grace. Fear and anxiety for the believer is not just natural concern stemming from a frail human condition; it is the failure to consider the abundant wealth of God’s care and faithfulness in the past and his promise for the future. For the one redeemed from sin and death by the free gift of eternal life in Jesus Christ (Romans 5:16), ingratitude and anxious doubt become woeful sins indeed. They are a failure to recognize the greatest treasure of all that is his: namely, the righteousness and life of the Son of God himself.

In Ephesians 1:3-14, Paul offers up a hymn of praise to God as he thinks upon “every spiritual blessing” that is ours as saints through Christ. Paul piles up blessing after blessing that is secured for his people by the work of Christ: election, adoption, redemption, forgiveness, revelation, inheritance, and the down payment of the Holy Spirit. This passage is dense with theological meaning, yet it is primarily doxology before it is theology; it is praise before all else. It goes beyond thanksgiving that flows from the rich blessings offered to us; it is a whole life, a whole being, of praise. The greatest blessing in this hymn is found in the line, repeated three times, “to the praise of his glorious grace” (1:6,12,14). In verse 12, Paul states rather succinctly that the purpose of all of these blessings is that “we might be to the praise of his glory.” This great purpose should transcend all of our worries and anxious concerns. You are a child of God and exist for His glory! What earthly concern can overshadow this incredible truth? The great wonder of our salvation is this: that we become vessels that embody and reflect the greatest thing that exists in the universe – God and his glorious grace. All of the blessings set forth by the Apostle are wonderful, but they are not wonderful because of us and our enjoyment of them. They are blessings that result in the greatest blessing of all- a recognition and vision of God’s character, his person, his power, his glory.

Ephesians is broken into two sections: the first dealing with the doctrinal and theological foundation of our identity in Christ (1:3 – 3:21); the second dealing with our walk and behavior as new creatures and a new community in Christ (4:1 - 6:20). The order of this discussion is important: the indicative of who we are in Christ through the grace of God precedes the imperatives of how we are to walk and live. We find the undergirding truth of both the indicative and the imperative in Ephesians in this three-fold expression of praise. We are elected, adopted, redeemed, forgiven and recipients of every spiritual blessing by the glorious grace of God. We are to be thankful, obedient imitators of God for the “praise of his glorious grace.” Verses 6, 12, and 14 present us with the theme of Ephesians, the theme of Paul’s theology, indeed the very heart of biblical theology: God is the source of all grace, every good gift, and all glory in the universe; by his gracious will we have been made recipients and agents of his grace and goodness in the universe.

As we consider these things, how can we not lift our voices in harmony with our Apostle? How can we not burst forth with thanksgiving? How can we not live a life of joyful hope and blessed contentment? How is it that we so readily give way to anxieties and fears? How can we despise trials and tribulations that become to us, by God’s sovereign hand, a source of transformation and grace? How can we weep at worldly lack when we have every eternal, spiritual blessing through our Savior?

Calvin and Spurgeon say it best, so I’ll leave the conclusion to them:

“Paul tells us that the benefits which are bought us by our Lord Jesus Christ and of which we are made partakers by means of his gospel are so excellent that we must surely be extremely unthankful if we scurry to and fro like people who are never at rest or contented. And then he shows us also what we have in Christ in order that we should so cleave to him as not to presume to seek help anywhere else, but assure ourselves that he has procured everything for us.” John Calvin, Sermons on Ephesians

“O unbelief, how strange a marvel thou art! We know not which most to wonder at, the faithfulness of God or the unbelief of His people. He keeps his promise a thousand times, and yet the next trial makes us doubt Him. He never faileth; He is never a dry well; he is never as a setting sun, a passing meteor, or a melting vapour; and yet we are as continually vexed with anxieties, molested with suspicions, and disturbed with fears, as if our God were the mirage of the desert… ‘I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands’ (Isaiah 49:16). See the fullness of this! I have graven thy person, thine image, thy case, thy circumstances, thy sins, thy temptations, thy weaknesses, thy wants, thy works; I have graven thee, everything about thee, all that concerns thee; I have put thee altogether there. Wilt thou ever say again that thy God hath forsaken thee when He has graven thee upon His own palms?”
C.H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening (on Isaiah 49:16)

Truth and How To Live It

2007-11-01T13:30:00.000-07:00

"Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." Ephesians 1:1-2

While I was in college I began to realize that I really loved two things: theology and the church. I was growing in my faith, a young man out on my own, and I began to realize there was an especially strong desire within me to understand and also to teach and describe theological and biblical truths. During this time I began to serve God in the local church in a variety of ways, from teaching fourth grade Sunday school on Sunday mornings, to serving as a ‘ranger’ in Boys Brigade (a Christian version of Boy Scouts) on Sunday nights, as well as working with our college ministry through the week. Through my growing understanding of God’s Word and my growing love for God’s people, God called me to ‘full-time’ service of the local church. As a pastor I get to do the two things I love: think deeply about God and His Word and help God’s people believe and live out all these wonderful truths.

In Paul’s salutation to his Christian brothers in Ephesus he describes them in two ways: they are “saints who are in Ephesus” and they are “faithful in Christ Jesus.” Paul is introducing the two great themes of his letter in these two clauses. Ephesians is about what it means to be a ‘saint,’ one who has been blessed “with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” (1:3) It is also about what it means to be “faithful,” one who lives according to these blessings. Ephesians is immensely theological and immensely practical. John Stott makes this helpful summary statement about Ephesians, “the letter focuses on what God did through the historical work of Jesus Christ and does through his Spirit today in order to build his new society in the midst of the old.”

Paul was addressing people who lived in a specific place and at a specific time: they are in Ephesus. They lived in Ephesus just as you and I live in Tallahassee. Living in the world brings a host of struggles, opportunities, challenges, and even crises and trials. Amidst all of this we must remember we have been set apart by the work of God. Though we are in the world, we are not to be of it. Likewise, though we are not of the world, we are called to live in it. Paul spends the first three chapters of Ephesians describing and encouraging believers with the glorious truths of who we are and what God has done through Christ for us. He lays out at length the deep theological realities that are to anchor our lives as Christians.

Paul commends the Christians in Ephesus in verse one by calling them “faithful in Christ Jesus.” What does it mean to be a faithful Christian? Paul commits the second half of his letter describing what this faithfulness looks like. In 4:1 he says, “Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” We have a wonderful calling; we have wonderful blessings in Christ; we are anchored in such deep rich truths of God’s Word. Now, how are we to live ‘worthy’ of such things? How are these truths to shine forth in our language, in our behavior, in our relationships, in our priorities, and in every corner of our lives? We are called to be faithful in all of these things, because we are saints of God. And as we pursue faithfulness, we must remember that we are faithful only in Christ Jesus- by His work, and through his power, according to his grace.

Many people make a false dichotomy between the theological and the practical. I hear people say things like, “I am not a very theological person; I just want simple, practical truths.” I also know many who live in the world of theological minutia, yet seem to have a very little grasp on the application of these truths in everyday life. The Apostle Paul calls us to be people who think and believe deeply about God, about who he is and what he has done for us in Christ. Paul calls us as well to be people who act on these truths each day. The heavenly blessings of Christ are to shine out in every part of our lives. For us as Christians, what is theologically profound becomes practically true as we walk in a manner worthy of our calling. One of the great parts of my job as a pastor is to help Christians to be theologians, and remind theologians that they are to be Christians! As we walk through his letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul will hopefully make better theologians and Christians out of us all.

Church Planting In Ephesus

2007-10-16T20:15:00.000-07:00

Acts 19

I’d like us to spend a season in Paul’s letter to the Ephesian church with our weekly ‘Holding Fast’ devotions. The New Testament Scriptures provide us with a wonderful portrait of ‘body life’ in a local church through the first century Ephesian church. We probably have more information about this group of believers over a larger span of time than any other fellowship we encounter throughout the New Testament. First, there is the extended narrative in Acts 19 describing the Apostle Paul’s labors there during his third missionary journey. There is the very personal and tearful sermon delivered by Paul to the elders of the Ephesian church at the shore of Miletus, recorded by Luke in Acts 20:17-38. And of course we have Paul’s prison epistle to the Ephesians, written (depending upon whom you rely) between 58-63 AD. We also have the ‘Pastoral Epistles’ which were written at the end of Paul’s life to Timothy (1 and 2 Timothy), his young protégé whom he had left to shepherd the church in Ephesus, and to Titus, who pastored the church in Crete). Finally, there is a letter to the Ephesian church from the Lord himself, by the hand of John, in Revelation 2, part of the Lord’s letters to the seven churches of Asia Minor.

As I was preparing for our time in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians for our college retreat and for this weekly exposition, I was fascinated by the way in which Jesus planted churches through the Apostles. In the book of Acts we find a intriguingcombination of the Apostles exercising wisdom and strategy with a faithfulness to God’s Word and reliance upon supernatural intervention. We can learn a great deal from the birth of the Ephesian church in the book of Acts, as well as Paul’s exhortations to the church in his letter some years later. I pulled some of the rather interesting methods that the Lord used in starting this fellowship in Ephesus from Acts 19. We might do well to consider them.

1. Start with a ‘launch team’ of 12 men filled with the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues and prophesying (Acts 19:7).

2. Find a venue where you might have some influence (for Paul it was the synagogue) to boldly proclaim the gospel and reason with people daily about the kingdom of God. Do this every day for at least three months, or until people are thoroughly sick of you and begin persecuting you (Acts 19:8-9).

3. After you are kicked out of this venue, find a place to rent out and continue this business of preaching, teaching, reasoning and persuading daily. Do this for about three years (Acts 19:9-10).

4. Pray for wacky and miraculous things to happen. Cast out evil spirits and such (Acts 19:11-16).

5. Pray and preach in such a way that people are filled with fear and Jesus is praised (Acts 19:17).

6. Hold a prayer meeting that includes an extended time of public confession (Acts 19:18).

7. After your time of public confession, have a big bonfire party and burn a bunch of books (Acts 19:19).

8. After your time of public confession and book burning, collect massive amounts of money from the people for the mission of the gospel (Acts 19:19).

9. Hire a pastor who refuses to let you pay him, has absolutely ridiculous strategies and goals for his ministry and the mission of the church, and leaves young and inexperienced men to take over the ministries he begins (Acts 20:34; 19:21-23).

10. Stir up a city wide riot by preaching against idolatry and pagan worship (Acts 19:23-41).

11. Don’t be surprised by, and actually anticipate, encouraging and uplifting promises from God like, “Bonds and afflictions await you in every city!” (Acts 20:23)

12. Have another prayer meeting, encourage the folks, and leave (Acts 20:1).

It is interesting that there is nothing in Acts 19-20 about what kind of praise band you should have, how much parking should be available, whether or not you should serve Starbucks at coffee break (and spend more $ on that than you do on global missions), how casual your hip and cool pastor should dress, or getting up to speed on the latest philosophical trend. Rather, there is a strong emphasis upon the proclamation of the gospel (even above the ‘contextualization’ of the gospel, not that these need to be mutually exclusive); the need for repentance and transformation; a radical obedience amidst moral chaos; bold and courageous leadership; the confrontation of worldliness and satanic schemes with the truth and grace of God; and a clear,Christ-like love for the lost and a desire for their salvation at all costs.

We find in this narrative something of how God births a church and how he intends a church to be maintained and sustained. Do such things mark our efforts in planting and sustaining healthy churches today? Are your expectations for ‘church life’ in line with God’s Word, which plainly calls the mission of the church a cosmic struggle against “principalities, powers and rulers of the darkness of this world” (Eph. 6:12)? Perhaps you are more inclined toward the idols of American comfort, convenience and consumption? Let’s meet the challenge of Acts 19 and Paul’s letter to the Ephesians as we seek to honor his commission and calling upon our lives as his children and as the family of God.

Word Along the Way

2007-10-09T02:41:00.000-07:00

Luke 24:13-35

What are the marks of a true church? What are the marks of a true Christian? The second question echoes the first. There have been many books with many lists and criteria that would get us close to some sort of answer. But the reformers have given us the simplest answer. The two marks of the Christian church are: the faithful preaching of the Word and the right administration of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. If our second question above is indeed like our first one, then it follows that the true Christian finds himself in some active and faithful relationship to God’s Word and in some active and obedient relationship to the sacraments. I’d like to look at the first part of this ‘reformed’ definition of the true church through the lens of the familiar and fascinating story of the risen Christ’s appearing to the two disciples along the Emmaus road in Luke’s gospel.

The Set-Up

Here in Luke 24 we find ‘two of them’ – presumably of the band of Jesus’ followers – walking away from Jerusalem on the first day of the week, the Lord’s resurrection day. We need to consider a subtle point from Luke’s story at the outset of this passage. In verse 13 we find these disciples walking away from Jerusalem. This story begins with two grieving and confused disciples turning their backs on Jerusalem. Luke tells us later in Acts 1:4 that somewhere in the midst of these meetings with the risen Christ, the disciples are commanded not to leave Jerusalem and wait for the promised baptism of the Holy Spirit. Of course these disciples have not yet received such a command, but I believe Luke intends for us to see in these wandering disciples that the human inclination in the midst of despair and frustration is to turn tail and run. The Scriptures are full of exhortations toward endurance and faithfulness amidst the struggles and trials of discipleship. There is no attempt in the New Testament to hide the reality that the early church faced its fair share of apostasy and desertions.

In verse 18 we discover that one of these disciples was named Cleopas, who is never mentioned again in the New Testament. The other is unnamed. Mark gives us a brief synopsis of this Emmaus road interaction with equal ambiguity in Mark 16:12-13. I believe that there is a sense in which Luke intended to obscure the identity of these two men, not only because their identity was just that- obscure- but so that we might be the more able to put ourselves in their sandals. In a sense these two represent the collective consciousness of the followers of Christ after the tumultuous events of the previous week. Their leader was delivered up to the Romans by the hand of his own people, denied by his closest friends and died the death of a common slave upon the cross. It was the third day and there has been no earth shattering epiphany of the resurrected Lord, except to some of the women (and who would believe that!) These two are confused, frustrated and, most of all, beset by a profound sadness over all that has transpired. As we dig into this passage there is a sense in which we should begin to see that perhaps that mysterious disciple is meant to be us. As such we find more than simply a narrative of one of Christ’s resurrection appearances. It becomes a call to those so prone to wander to endure and find strength in the Word of Christ.

The Word for Wandering Disciples

We discover along with these two disciples what is to be one of the marks of a true believer and a true believing community. The Christian and the Church are to be marked by a faithful commitment to abiding in God’s Word. Jesus said it plainly in John 8:31, “If you abide in my word, then you are truly my disciples…” A true Christian church is a church that is built on God’s Word, preaches God’s Word and obeys God’s Word. The true Christian is one who feeds upon God’s Word, is sustained by His Word and embraces God’s Word. Of primary importance is the place of God’s Word in the life of a church and in the life of a believer. We see this demonstrated in the Apostle Paul’s urgent charge to his young protégé, Timothy: “Preach the Word!” (2 Timothy 4:2). Don’t tell interesting stories, don’t surf the web for helpful dramatic skits, don’t spend your time in this committee and that—just preach the Word. As a pastor I can tell you that every week is filled with Satanic, worldly and fleshly strategies to keep me from doing just that. And you can testify that the same goes for us in our personal commitments to Christ. God’s Word is called the sword of the Spirit (Eph. 6: 17), it is living and active (Heb. 4:12), it is the very breath of God that gives life (2 Tim. 3:16). Yet, somehow we become consumed with a thousand other commitments throughout our day other than what should be our foundational and life giving commitment- to abide in God’s Word.

A Hidden Jesus

Let’s look at how we are taught by Christ to be disciples who abide faithfully in God’s Word in Luke 24. First, Luke makes sure that we understand that while it was Jesus himself who drew near to them along the road, we find that the eyes of these two disciples were prevented from recognizing him. Why would this be? It wasn’t that these men were dull, and I don’t think it was that Jesus was unrecognizable in resurrected form (this seems to be the inference from Mark’s gospel, but certainly isn’t the norm of Jesus’ resurrection appearances.) Luke indicates that there is a reason for this blindness to Jesus’ identity. It seems that Jesus was teaching them to be sustained by his Word rather than his physical presence. Jesus had promised his disciples that he would send his Spirit who, “will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you” (John 16:15). A season is coming when Jesus would go to the Father, but we are not to despair. He has given us his Word and his Spirit, “so that our joy may be complete” (John 15:11). Jesus taught these two disciples in a living picture what Peter would remind the struggling persecuted church, “though who have not seen him you love him; though you do not see him now – you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy” (1 Peter 1:8). We long to see the Lord, ‘face to face’ (1 Cor. 13:12), but until then he has given his Word to comfort and strengthen us.

The Lord’s Rebuke

Consider also the nature of Christ’s rebuke of these two disciples in verses 25-26. They confess themselves that they heard the report of the women- yet did not believe; that they heard the report of the empty tomb- yet did not believe. Yet, Jesus does not chide them for this. Jesus says they are foolish for being slow of heart in believing, “all that the prophets have spoken.” They are guilty of neglecting the Word of God, and so are despairing and turning from Jerusalem. Those who search and know the Word of God, from the Law to Prophets to the Epistles, will discover and treasure the Christ who is revealed and magnified in it from first to last. In the book of Acts we find Spirit-filled Apostles recounting all of history through the Scriptures and revealing how they reveal God’s redemptive plan. Through the Word of God, by the Spirit of God, a band of common fishermen went from despairing traitors and deserters to bold apologists armed with the whole counsel of God’s Word. Jesus intends such wisdom, boldness and joy to mark all those who are called by his name.

A Pattern of Teaching

I think Luke 24:27 is one of the most fascinating verses in the Bible. Wouldn’t you love to have an outline of this Bible lesson given by Jesus on that seven mile stretch from Jerusalem to Emmaus? If only we had an MP3 we could download! Jesus ‘interpreted,’ or as it says in the King James version, ‘expounded’ everything concerning himself in the Scriptures. The word used here is a derivative of the Greek word hermeneuo- where we get our word for the science of biblical interpretation, hermeneutics. It means exactly what is indicated in our English translations. Jesus ‘explained,’ he drew out all that God’s Word had to say regarding himself for these two disciples. Jesus preached the gospel to these two through the entire canon of Scripture!

But our longing to hear what was said on this very special Sunday night service so many years ago is to miss Luke’s point; even worse, it is to miss Jesus’ point! We need to rejoice that the same Word that was opened for these disciples has been opened for us. We should be filled with the same fire in our bellies, and compelled in the same way to make an about face in our sad walk away from Jerusalem. Not only has Christ given you his Word, but he has given you “a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints…” (Eph. 1:17-18). Jesus gave his disciples a pattern for learning, growing and obeying him. Open the Word and let him teach you - from Moses to Revelation.

A Wonderful Transformation

Jeremiah said that if he tried to suppress or silence the Word of God it became “like a burning fire shut up in his bones” (Jeremiah 20:9). The Lord declared to the prophet, “Is not my Word like fire…like a hammer which shatters a rock in pieces?” (Jeremiah 23:29) In the passage before us we find our main characters echoing this same sentiment. For those who love God and bear his name, his Word has such a striking effect. We can testify to this sanctifying ‘heartburn.’ There are times when the Word seems to apply very personally and directly to my life and my specific circumstances. We must of course be wary of highly individualistic interpretation, yet we can never forget that all application must in some sense be very personal. For these two travelers, it wasn’t just that they had urgent news of the resurrected Christ that turned them back to Jerusalem. There had been an inward transformation through the preached Word that brought an immediate obedience. Luke brings us full circle in this story: from disillusionment and sadness with our backs to Jerusalem to an encounter with the risen Christ and his Word to a bold and urgent return (at night no less!) to Jerusalem to bring good news to the eleven apostles.

A healthy church is marked by such constant and ongoing transformations. One of the marks of the vibrant Christian life is not merely growth in obedience but ongoing encounters with the living Christ in his Word. Such encounters must bring forth obedience. As you walk the road, don’t be foolish or slow in believing. Pick up the Scriptures and meet with the risen Christ, letting his Word kindle a fire in your heart. As you travel, the Savior has a way of rerouting the journey for the sake of the gospel and his glory.

Worshiping a Tempted Savior

2007-09-23T17:17:00.000-07:00

And He came out and proceeded as was His custom to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples also followed Him. And when He arrived at the place, He said to them, "Pray that you may not enter into temptation." And He withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and He knelt down and began to pray, saying, "Father, if Thou art willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Thine be done." Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him. And being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground. And when He rose from prayer, He came to the disciples and found them sleeping from sorrow, and said to them, "Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation." Luke 22:39-46

It is difficult for us to wrap our minds around the sufferings of Jesus. There is first the reality of the scope and magnitude of the utter humiliation, rejection, and pain of the crucifixion. The cross is the pinnacle of human suffering and so, in many ways, outside of our experience and imagining. But there are also the doctrinal complexities surrounding the death of God’s own Son. Christ’s weakness, temptations, and passion are at once a tremendous comfort and perplexing truth for the believer. On the one hand we rejoice with the writer of Hebrews that, “since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death” (Heb. 2:14). On the other hand we are confounded by the thought of the God of the universe, through whom all things were made (John 1:3; Col. 1:16), actually and truly enduring human weakness and in fact experiencing temptation. Facing – and embracing - the truths of Christ’s divinity and humanity, especially at the point of understanding his atoning work, is critical to biblical, orthodox, and historic convictions about the person and work of Christ.

Luke brackets this brief scene in Gethsemane with the exhortation to the disciples, “Pray that you may not fall into temptation” (NIV). Before we look at how Jesus practices what he preaches, we must ask what exactly Jesus means here. These verses could be translated, perhaps more literally (as in the NAS and KJV), “pray that you may not enter into temptation”. I opted for the NIV translation ‘fall’ because it communicates more clearly the biblical reality that temptation is inescapable, yet we must stand under it faithfully without giving in to sin (1 Cor. 10:13; 1 Timothy 6:9; 2 Pet. 2:9). Either translation of the Greek verb eiserchomai is allowable. But, there is an important distinction here, lest we think that Jesus is calling us to pray that we might never experience temptation. Quite the opposite is the case. Jesus is not only exhorting us to stand up under the weight of temptation, and in a sense he promises that such temptations will come (Luke 17:1).

The writer of Hebrews says, “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin” (4:15). Let’s not breeze by the power of this statement. Sometimes I think we allow the perfection of Christ to overshadow the fact of his sympathy with our weaknesses. This goes something like, “Yes, sure Jesus was tempted. But he is Jesus; certainly he doesn’t understand what it is to struggle and not be Jesus, like poor me.” But a closer look at Hebrews, and in fact the entire gospel account of Jesus’ suffering should compel us to a deep adoration of Christ as our sympathetic high priest. Jesus knew the full weight of temptation and the full power of sin in that he never gave in, in any capacity. This deepens his priestly identification with us. Because of his perfection, he understands the weight of sin more, not less.

Consider as well that Jesus had the power at his disposal to cause all the forces of hell that were pressing in upon him to cease. Yet he did not utilize his divinity to alleviate his suffering. This is, in a sense, what Paul means when he says that Jesus, “did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped” (Philippians 2:6). Here in the garden Jesus is “very sorrowful, even to death” (Matt.26:38), yet he prays, “Thy will be done”. An angel is attending to him and giving him strength, but Jesus does not command the angel to fight against the coming crowd and its treacherous ringleader. Luke tells us that his agony at the prospect of receiving the sins of world caused his sweat to pour like blood, yet he continues in prayer. Upon finding his disciples asleep in a sort of anguished exhaustion, he offers a gentle rebuke and the exhortation to follow his pattern of prayer in the cosmic struggle against the world, the flesh, and the devil.

In the garden we meet with a Savior who teaches us how to face temptation and how to battle sin. We are to pray. I like to read Jesus words in verses 40 and 46 a little differently than the construction may allow. But it helps us to learn the essence of Jesus’ exhortation. We naturally read these verses, “Ask the Lord to keep you from sinning under temptation.” But we may also read them in this way, “The Lord will keep you from sinning under temptation through prayer.” Notice that here in the garden that we have an example of a prayer request that is answered immediately. The answer is no. But with the answer comes strength to endure. And the strength to endure comes through prayer.

The Son begs, “Father, if it be your will, take this cup from me…”

The Father replies, “That is not my will, but I have given an angel charge over you, to lift you up…”

The Son cries in return, “With your strength I will pray the more earnestly, not my will, but yours, be done.”

In the final analysis we must not reduce this passage to a lesson on facing temptation, or how to pray earnestly. We do indeed find such lessons here. But these lessons pale in comparison to the great truth that grabs us in these eight short verses. This truth is proclaimed in Hebrews 12:2, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” This truth is the gospel, the reality that “God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). This truth calls us to obedience in the face of temptation. This truth calls us to pray to the Father, as Jesus did, “not my will but yours, be done”. But most of all this truth calls us to worship Jesus as we meet him --in the manger, in the garden, on the cross, and at his Father’s right hand. In every place we find one “made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people” (Hebrews 2:17).

An Invitation to the Impossible Christian Life: Part Two

2007-09-10T10:42:00.000-07:00

Lessons Learned from Lepers

Let’s recap Luke 17 so far.

We are never to cause anyone to stumble.
We are to rebuke our brother and forgive our brother his sin up to seven times a day.
If we even had the smallest ounce of faith, this is possible. Sadly, it seems that we do not, or perhaps our understanding and grasping of this faith is twisted and bent.
Our obedience outside of biblical, living faith is merely the duty of a servant and warrants no favor or grace (and is indeed, impossible.)

What does all this mean? How are we to live? How are we to please God? How are we to obey him?Do all of God’s demands lose their force in the face of our inability? Do all of Christ’s commands have any value if it is a hopeless cause? I think Luke intends us to stare with frustration at the page here. He wants us to feel the weight of God’s Law and our duty to serve him through it. He also wants us to feel the impossibility of this task. And so he tells us the story of Jesus and the ten lepers.

Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, "Jesus, Master, have pity on us!" When he saw them, he said, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were cleansed. One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him-- and he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, "Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Rise and go; your faith has made you well." (Luke 17:11-19)

There are three things to learn from this event. First, we are lepers. A leper has no rights, they are society’s castoffs. They can demand nothing from others, from the world, or even from God. They are cursed, lost and without hope. This is you and this is me. In our sin and depravity we should expect no favor, but rather judgment and the force of God’s righteousness. Paul and the Psalmist tell us plainly, “there is no one righteous, no not one.” Therefore, “every mouth is shut, and the whole world is held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.” (Romans 3:10-11, 19-20) The best we can do in the face of a righteous God in our sinful condition is cry out with the lepers, “Master, have pity!”

Secondly, we learn that God loves us anyway. Christ leaned in to hear the lepers cry. Jesus showed compassion and grace to those lowliest of the human race. And, even more than this, God alone has the power to heal our sinful condition. With just a word Jesus heals the lepers. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for those who had been living in solitary pain and grief for years to see their sores cleansed with a word. Through faith, by grace (even the faith of a mustard seed, the grace of just a word from Christ) all the demands of the Law are met in Christ. Listen again to the glorious words of Paul in Romans 8: 3-4, “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

Lastly, we discover a difficult, painful, yet powerful truth. All ten were cleansed, but only one returned. This means that nine continued to ‘walk according to the flesh’ and only one began the ‘walk according to the Spirit.’ Ten were healed, but only one received grace.
In Luke’s gospel we are presented with a portrait of the true Christian life: A life that can be lived only by faith that is the gift of God; a life that can be lived only by the transforming and healing power of God’s grace; a life that can be lived not according to the world or the flesh, but by the power of the Spirit.

Take special note of the leper who returned. Luke tells us that not only was he healed, not only was he thankful, but he was full of praise. His life was now a life of joy and worship, not of duty and slavery. His life was a life of favor and grace, not of works and wages. This is what happens when one accepts Christ’s invitation to live the impossible Christian life.

An Invitation to the Impossible Christian Life: Part One

2007-09-04T07:12:00.000-07:00

A Portrait of Faith and Grace

The Bible is full of absolutely impossible commands. Consider Deuteronomy 10:12-13:

“And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the LORD's commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?”

What does God ask from you? Well, it is plain. Walk in all his ways. Serve him with all your heart and soul. Observe all his laws. That’s it. Got it? Good. Now you better get to work. The Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets are full of these sorts of exhortations. Jesus said it plainly, “If you love me, you will follow my commands.” He wasn’t kidding when he demanded of the rich young ruler, “if you want to be perfect, go sell everything you have and give the proceeds to the poor.” Or when he boldly demands of his followers that they, “be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.”

We tend to respond in one of three ways in the face of these exhortations. Either you are filled with pharisaical zeal and proud determination to indeed obey the entirety of the Law, or you are forced to cower under the weight of your dark, sinful heart and woeful inability. Or, perhaps you roll up your sleeves and give it the old college try. In any case, you lose. If you start out like a Pharisee, your pride condemns you and sin will find you out. If you simply cower under the weight of sin, well, the commands remain and your sin is ever before you. If you move out with a naïve and innocent zeal to please God with your piety, you will fall short before you can say, “scripture memory”.

Is Jesus just trying to frustrate us? Are these empty commands, considering our utter inability to realize them? Are we or aren’t we to be ‘perfect’?

I think that Luke is trying to answer these questions in Luke 17:1-19. Upon first glance, these verses seem to contain three or four disparate sections. But Luke is not just stringing a few different stories and situations together without any apparent theme or structure, there is method to the madness. Let’s take a look at the first section in Luke 17.

Jesus said to his disciples: "Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. So watch yourselves. "If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, 'I repent,' forgive him." (17:1-4)

Verses 1-4 present us with more of these seemingly ‘impossible’ commands. If you cause a little one to sin, it’ll go better for you if you just tie a big stone around your neck and jump into the ocean. Yikes. How about this one? You must forgive your brother, even if it is up to seven times in a day. Who’s going to repent seven times in one day? No one I know. And, even if they did, who is going to actually put up with this? I might forgive someone seven times in a year, or month maybe, but not in one day! Elsewhere Jesus says we are to forgive those who repent (remember, we are to forgive the repentant) even up to 490 times (Matthew 18). I know people, and Jesus knows them a lot better than I do, and this is, quite simply, impossible.

The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" He replied, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it will obey you. (17:5-6)

It is fitting that the apostles cry out in the next verse with exasperation, “Increase our faith!” They did not say, “You got it, Lord,” or “Sounds reasonable, Jesus.” They are filled with dread at the magnitude of the Lord’s demands. And they rightly understand the only possible route to satisfying them is not via works righteousness or stoic determination. It must be by faith. Remember, ‘without faith it is impossible to please God.” God tells us plainly, but we grow tired of listening, that the Christian life is impossible – without faith. But there is so often something faulty in our view of faith – exemplified by the apostle’s cry. So Jesus responds with two lessons for the apostles.

First, he tells us that in regards to faith, ‘quantity’ is not the issue. Even the smallest pinch of faith (if we are to evaluate faith in such ‘human’ terms) can throw trees into the sea (lots of stuff getting hypothetically thrown into the sea in this chapter.) Jesus seems to be saying that there is a ‘quality’ problem in their faith. Their view of faith is weak because it is rooted in a hope and focus upon the possessor of it and human evaluation of the effects of it. Rather, proper faith is rooted in the giver and source of it, and his evaluation and promises regarding the effects of it. Saving and living faith has its eyes upon God and his promises, not self and its accomplishments. Ephesians 2:8-10 so famously tells us that faith is not from ourselves, “it is a gift from God.” Even our obedience is not ours, it is also a gift of God, which he “prepared in advance for us to do.”

"Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, 'Come along now and sit down to eat'? Would he not rather say, 'Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink'? Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.'" (17:7-10)

Here Jesus gives us another lesson on faith and obedience. I think the title of this little parable should be, “The service of a servant is nothing spectacular.” A servant should not see his duties as any great shakes. He is, after all, a servant. That is what servants do. A servant cannot expect anything from his master. After a long day the servant cannot demand gifts and grace. He must get supper ready. Jesus says something even more shocking still in these verses. Yes, God’s commands are heavy, but even if we were to accomplish them all, we still merit no grace because of it. It is our duty. We cannot say, “Look God! I obeyed your law!” and expect congratulations. That is our duty. All else is sin. Mere duty and sheer obedience is nothing spectacular, even if it were possible…which it isn’t.

Let me give an example of this sort of thing. Have you ever been at one of those kitschy restaurants where the server mighty actually sit down at your table while taking your order? I’m not a fan of this. I like the distance between waiter and patron. I know this sounds awful. But, this is why I go OUT to eat. I want someone to politely take my order and courteously and efficiently serve my meal. I really don’t want someone sitting down and complaining about their aching feet or how long their shift has been. I want to say, “Hey, this is your job. Quit complaining and get my bloomin’ onion.” But, this is in essence what Jesus is saying in verse 10. Even if we do obey God (which we do not), it is only our duty, and merits none of his favor. The apostle Paul put it this way, “Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.” (Romans 4:4-5) Grace is the only hope for a servant. The gift of faith, by the sheer grace of God, is the only hope for those facing the impossible Christian life.

Thus far in this passage from Luke we find the unbearable weight of the law and the demands of God. We discover that even our pathetic attempts at obedience and piety is the duty of a slave and does not merit the favor of a son. In part two of this devotional we will discover that, sadly, many choose to live under the weight of sin and slavery to the world and the flesh, rather than in the power and grace of God.

Daughters of Song

2007-09-01T05:41:00.000-07:00

My Mom, Susan Braun, has begun blogging! Many of the women of Four Oaks this summer have discovered what a great teacher of God's Word she is, now you can keep up with her insights, musings, and exhortations in the blogosphere.

Here's her bio and blog description:

I am a 64 year old wife and mother of 5 adult children, grandmother of 13 grandchildren. My only claim to fame is my relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ for 43 of these 64 years. The Lord has allowed me to be involved with the women of his local churches in bible studies, women's ministries in California, Illinois, Florida, Cambridge, England, Nevada, New Jersey and back to Florida in our retirement years. My husband is a pastor, teacher of the word of God, director of Project Hungary - a translation project for Hungarians, and just plain wonderful man. We are members of Four Oaks Church in Tallahassee, Florida. I want to make this a shared blog with my daughters, Robin St. Denis and Kristen, and daughters-in-grace, Karen, Tori and Rachel.

Enjoy and be edified, encouraged, and strengthened through my Mother's work in the Word.

Fire From Heaven

2007-08-27T19:06:00.000-07:00

"When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him. But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. And they went on to another village." Luke 9:51-56

It is the pastime of every people and culture to reject their prophets. A lot of this has to do with the fact that prophets tend to be weirdos and zealots. There is also the truth that, ‘a prophet is never welcome in his hometown.’ But there is a deeper force at work here. Just ask Jeremiah (Jeremiah 20:3), John the Baptist (Mark 14:3-11) or John the Apostle (Revelation 1:9). People do not want to be told the truth. Maybe truth in the abstract 2+2=4 sort of sense, but not in the ‘you must not have your brother’s wife’ sort of sense. The first sort of truth helps us count our money. The second calls us to give our money to the poor. Prophets are, quite frankly, nuisances to our quiet lives of moral anonymity. So we shouldn’t be surprised that Jesus was rejected by his hometown, a Samaritan village, the Roman Empire, or enlightened postmodern culture.

Jesus was indeed, ”despised and rejected of men.” There are important lessons for us in these six verses. We tend to operate in one of two ways when we face the scorn and rejection of people. On one hand, I have a deep desire to please people and cannot bear to have anyone at odds with me. I want to be on everyone’s dance card at the ball. There is a strain of good here; it causes us to be careful with our words, attitudes and actions. We will watch ourselves as to not bring any unnecessary offense; that we are not being contentious or malicious toward those we are called to serve. But this can easily lead to an inability to speak truthfully and honestly in the face of sin . For many believers (especially pastors and church leaders), the fear of bringing offense can become a roadblock to speaking prophetically and biblically, as they ought. This is a real danger facing our increasingly latitudinarian evangelical church. In the face of such an ethos, the response of James and John in the passage at hand is a breath of fresh air. I concur with one commentator that “the genius for indignation has disappeared, and it is refreshing to see men who feel deeply any disrespect to Christ, any injury to his cause” (Charles Erdman, Commentary on Luke’s Gospel).

On the other hand we may tend toward an overzealous, hard and biting response to those who defy or reject us. This is the sin of the ‘sons of thunder,’ James and John, in our passage. Now, it is important to see that their desire for fire to consume the stiff-necked Samaritans is not entirely without biblical precedence. There are manifold examples of God striking down the rebellious and insolent. God has set his face against those who have opposed him. In 2 Kings 1:1-16, we see Elijah rebuke and call down judgment upon Ahaziah, the hard-hearted Samaritan king. Perhaps James and John were seeking the Messiah to operate with such prophetic authority against the Samaritan village. Note from the text as well that the Samaritans turned Christ and his band away, “because he was heading toward Jerusalem.” This is a reference not merely to the somewhat famous animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans, but to their opposition to his Messianic ministry and purpose. In this sense, the indignation of the disciples is understandable, however misplaced and inappropriate.

I have never asked Jesus to consume anyone with heavenly fire. (I have come close.) So I understand the brothers’ passion for their cause. As a pastor and preacher, I struggle greatly with opposition to my ministry. Much of my struggle, though, is not against principalities and powers, but with flesh and blood. And this is backward. If there is opposition because I am a fool, nave or tyrant, then such struggle is from God and for my good. If there is opposition because my ministry is like Jesus’ – full of power and truth, that penetrates the heart and provokes the hard conscience -- then this is from God and for the good of my hearers. So, I should not struggle against flesh and blood. I should not call down fire on those who oppose me. I should live sacrificially through the cross, as Jesus did, regardless of opposition and rejection.

And so, Jesus rebukes the brothers. We are provided with a living picture of the truth that “God did not send the son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him” (John 3:17). I find it interesting that perhaps the Samaritans’ foolish rejection of the living God only sped Him on His way to provide atonement for their sin. I find it interesting, as well, that Jesus does not rebuke the Samaritans here, but the disciples. It is a grievous thing to scorn the Messiah. But, it is a more grievous sin of the disciples that they should strive against the lost with anger and misplaced zeal, rather than with the grace and power of the gospel. The anger of men does not work the salvation of God (a loose paraphrase of James 1:20). Jesus’ rebuke, rather than concession to the disciples’ request, is a great grace to the Samaritans; for soon a day would come when the good news of Jesus’ work on the cross would be preached in their midst and there would be “much joy in that city” (Acts 8:8). Peter, John and Phillip would one day return to Samaria, “preaching the gospel to many villages of the Samaritans,” perhaps the very village of Luke 9.

There is a wonderful irony in this passage that compels and comforts me in the face of rejection. James and John asked Jesus to send fire down upon the Samaritans and received a rebuke from their master instead. The apostles would soon see the purpose in that rebuke. It wasn’t that Jesus wanted his disciples to wink at sin, or that he took lightly the hard hearts of the Samaritans. It wasn’t that he wants us all to ‘just get along’ and not be harsh with one another. It wasn’t that he wanted to give the disciples a lesson is godly Christian character. The rebuke was part of a sovereign plan. This plan would not come about through the disciples’ angry judgments, or indignant struggles against flesh and blood. This plan would come through the work of the cross, which Jesus had set his face resolutely toward. The irony is that James and John’s request would indeed be granted by Christ. But it would come through a detour around this village and via the destination of the cross. Jesus would bear the judgment owed to the hard-hearted Samaritans, so that those hearts might one day be melted through the power of the Spirit…like fire from heaven.

Drinking New Wine

2007-08-21T20:32:00.001-07:00

And they said to him, “The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink.” And Jesus said to them, “Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.” He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, “The old is good.” Luke 5:33-39

It is difficult to understand how bizarre Jesus was to the first century Jews and Jewish leadership. We can be pretty hard on the Pharisees and scribes, and for good reason. The gospel writers do indeed cast these guys in a pretty bad light. Jesus had very hard words for the Pharisees and scribes, calling them at different times: ‘sons of snakes,’ ‘tidy tombs,’ ‘blind guides,’ liars, hypocrites and thieves. We need to be careful, though, that we not point a bony self righteous, pharisaical, finger at the Pharisees. I think a broader intention of the Spirit’s purpose in presenting the Pharisees to us is so we might point the finger at ourselves. The best villain in a story is one deeply hated not simply because he is a caricature of evil out there, but the embodiment of evil in here-- in our own heart and in our own soul.

Luke draws us into Jesus’ incredible public ministry beginning with his rejection in Nazareth, the deliverance of a demonized man in Capernaum, the healing of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law and many others, the calling of the disciples, the cleansing of a leper, the healing of a paralytic, and the salvation of tax collectors and sinners. We are meant to be a bit breathless at the glorious display of Messianic power and grace by the time we get to the different exchanges between Jesus and the Pharisees in 5:21, 30 and 33. We are also meant to be angered by the unbelief and hardness of heart in these leaders who should be hailing Jesus as Messiah and Lord, not calling him a blasphemer or wondering why he is feasting with sinners. How can they ask questions about fasting while the blind see, the lame walk and the captives are freed?

I am reminded of a worship service several years ago that was particularly sweet. There was an outpouring of grace and an acute awareness of the Spirit’s power and the Savior’s love that night. As people sat in the sanctuary in prayer, and as others trickled out in quiet reverence, a man walked briskly up to me and told me that he was offended by how loud the music was. I stood there deeply disappointed as the cold water of his criticism dripped off me.

The essence of what the Pharisees are asking Jesus in Luke 5:33 is, “Why aren’t you doing it the way things used to be done?” There is another question buried in there as well: “Why aren’t you doing things the way there supposed to be done?” And a third: “Why aren’t you doing things the way we do them?” The truth is, we all ask these questions in different ways and in different contexts. Why is the music so loud? Why are their hands raised? Why is he talking to her? Why is she wearing that? What’s with the robes and organs? That service was too long. That service was too short. I didn’t like …I am concerned with …Go ahead and fill in the blanks.
We must be careful here. I believe the lesson in Luke 5 is not, ‘don’t judge people in worship’. That lesson is found in Scripture, and we must heed it. There is also a time for discernment; for a wise, Spirit-filled testing of the spirits. There are appropriate times and opportunities to ask questions about how we worship and how we live. But this is not the truth being pressed in upon us here.

The question about fasting is in many ways like the question of the Samaritan woman about what mountain God’s people should worship on. God is not concerned with mountains; outward forms of worship, such as fasting or feasting; or with days and months and seasons (Col.2:16-17). With the coming of the Messiah, and the inauguration of a new covenant, the ‘new wine’ is poured out -- where the law is written upon the heart (Jer.31:33), the heart of stone is turned to a heart of flesh (Ezek.36:26), and where we are washed with pure water (Ezek.36:25). And the new wine was flowing everywhere in this inaugural season of Jesus ministry. The wine flows and brings healing. The wine flows and opens the eyes of the blind. The wine flows and opens the hearts of tax collectors and sinners. The wine flows and crushes the power of demons. The new wine fills us with a whole new perspective, a whole new mind, a whole new heart, a whole new life. And the old questions, the old concerns, and the old constraints are ‘exploded’ by the power of the Spirit, the new wine of Jesus. With the power of the Spirit’s work, with the transforming grace of the Savior, we come to see all these questions as completely and entirely secondary.

As I read of the Pharisees trying to pour the new wine into their old, stretched and tired wineskins, I think of my own self righteous, Pharisee heart. I think of how much of my time and energy is consumed with self-oriented concerns, questions and conflicts. I too often have measured and gauged the new wine of God and tried to contain it in my own flesh-fashioned vessels. I think of how sad it was that Jesus and his disciples are feasting and celebrating while the Pharisees are trying to affix these new patches of Spirit-filled worship to their old worn out jeans.

Jesus wants me to come inside with the disciples, tax collectors and sinners, and eat the feast he has set before me. He has given me a fresh, new heart -- ready to stretch and flex and grow as he calls me to drink deep of the new wine.

Strange Providence

2007-08-18T08:16:00.000-07:00

The Book of Esther

It is a strange thing that the book of Esther is in the Bible. This historical narrative is very different than many of the other 66 books of inspired Scripture. There is no mention of God, no mention of the Law, no mention of Israel, no mention of worship, and no mention of prayer. It is a distinctly ‘Jewish’ book because of its prominent theme: the deliverance of the Jews (who are mentioned some 38 times in the book) from the hand of vile Haman and the tyrannical rule of Xerxes. Nonetheless, there is a good deal of ‘moral ambiguity’ in the story, such as the disturbing idea that Mordecai would allow his niece (whom he was raising as his daughter) to become a concubine and plaything of a pagan king . There is the dubious nature of Mordecai’s insistence that Esther not make it known that she is a Jew. What are we to make of Mordecai’s indignant defiance of Haman’s demand for honor (there is no biblical reason, necessarily, that Mordecai could not bow before Haman) which sparks the whole crisis in the first place? And what of the brutal slaughter of the enemies of the Jews in chapter 9? How are we to treat this difficult verse, “the Jews struck all their enemies with the sword, killing and destroying them, and did as they pleased to those who hated them” (9:5)? And this is not to mention the historical difficulties the book presents, there being very little external evidence to support the story. It is difficult to pinpoint when all this occurred and find compelling archaeological evidence which might verify its claims.

Have I provided you with enough distrust of God’s Word yet? I know , I know. None of this was presented in the movie, “One Night With the King” (I won’t waste time with the ridiculous veggie tales story- but I will ask, why is it ok to twist and fabricate God’s Word for our children? Just a question…) In fact, in that strange quasi-evangelical-hollywood-esque portrayal of the book of Esther, Xerxes is a hunky dude with a lot of charm and a hankerin for postmodern notions of love and romance. The real Xerxes, or Ahasuerus (which sounds a lot like ‘king headache’ in Hebrew)- as he is called in the text, was an awful, vile, twisted tyrant who was as incompetent as we was impulsive and as violent as he was foolish. But, he had a way with motivating his subjects (he buried hundreds of slaves up to their necks for the animals to snack on their heads for not completing a highway in time), threw a great party (a 187 day feast we read about in chapter 1), and was quite a fierce warrior from all accounts.

I won’t answer all the questions I raise here. I raise them all simply to lead you to the ultimate theme of the book of Esther: the strange and glorious providence of God. The book opens with a pagan fratboy of a king ruling over a drunken, chaotic empire. God’s people are introduced in chapter two as exiles in this pagan and godless land in the person of the lovely Esther who seems tragically caught in a web of sin and destruction. We are meant to ask some important questions as we read. We are meant to ask the questions that faced the exiles of Babylon (which is the historical period of the narrative, circa 486-465 B.C.). These are the questions of all who wander as ‘aliens and strangers’ in a seemingly godless and chaotic world. Where are you God? Why don’t you speak? Why don’t you act? What is to become of your people? Why do the righteous suffer and the godless prosper? If you are all powerful, why won’t you reveal your power now? Real exiles feel such questions. And, by God’s grace and inspiration, the book of Esther was given to all such exiles. That they may see the invisible hand of providence in all circumstances through the eyes of faith. That they may continue to call upon the name of the God, though he seems silent and distant.

The theologian Louis Berkhof defines the doctrine of divine providence in this way, “the cooperation of the divine power with all subordinate powers, according to the pre-established laws of their operation, causing them to act precisely as they do.” That’s a good definition, but maybe you are still scratching your head. So I’ll let the Heidelberg Catechism speak on this doctrine as well:

Providence is the almighty and ever present power of God by which he upholds, as with his hand, heaven and earth and all creatures and so rules them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty- all things, in fact, come to us not by chance but from his fatherly hand. (Catechism Q/A #27)

The book of Esther makes this glorious doctrine known. It seems that Persia is ruled by a godless tyrant. But, this is not so. Xerxes is under the mighty hand of God to serve his purposes in the world for his own glory. Vile Haman rolls the dice to choose a day on which the Jews might be destroyed. But, ‘though the lot is cast in the lap, every decision is of the Lord’ (Prov. 16:33). What an awful situation that Esther is in, but we soon discover that ‘she has come to the kingdom of Ahasuerus for such a time as this’ (4:14). We see over and over again that God confounds the plans of men and turns the tables on the evil. The book is urging us to be of good courage in the struggle against sin and the plans of the wicked, “for we walk by faith and not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7).

In this book we see mighty men brought low. We see orphans become heroes. We see ordinary people face extraordinary struggle and become portraits of God’s redeeming love and prevailing grace. The book begins with a godless feast, with each man ‘doing as he desires’ in the kingdom of this world. The book ends with a triumphant remnant of warrior exiles feasting and worshipping their wonderful God who has, “turned their sorrow into gladness and their mourning into a celebration; that they should make days of feasting and gladness, days for sending gifts of food to one another and gifts to the poor” (9:22).

Aren’t you glad for the strange books of the Bible? Aren’t you glad for the strange, yet wonderful, providence of our God?

Feeling Overwhelmed?

2007-08-08T13:38:00.000-07:00

Nehemiah 2:9-20

Tuesdays are often rough for me. Mostly because I have to get up at around 5:15 am to be at Elder prayer. I know you might wish you had a pastor who is always up at 5 to pray, but you don’t . Sorry. Another reason I believe Tuesdays are hard is because they are begun with the heaviness of the prayer needs of the church body. I know you might wish that you had a pastor who is always full of smiles and mirth, who doesn’t get ‘down’ because of the burdens of spiritual warfare, but you don’t. Sorry. Tuesdays are rough as well because they often feel relentless in their pace. We pray for the church from 6 to 7, the pastors meet from 7 to 9, the staff meets from 9 to 10 or so, then I meet with individual pastors and staff from 10 till lunch. Now, when I say ‘rough’ what I mean is really ‘overwhelming’. There is just so much to do, so many people who need to be met, ministries that need planning, crises that need resolving, books that need studying, sermons that need preparing, emails that need corresponding, mail that needs shuffling. (Not necessarily in that order.) You might say, “Erik, dude, you need to reschedule some of those things!” But, that’s not the point.

I read of the account of Nehemiah’s night journey to inspect the walls of Jerusalem and wonder what it was like for him to stand at the rubble and consider the task that God had laid before him. It had to be overwhelming. I’m sure he must have said with the Apostle, ‘who is sufficient for such things?’ (2 Cor. 2:16) He was to lead the exiles out of Babylon, he was to rebuild the wall, establish worship, and fight the enemies both without and within the camp. He was called to be a politician, prophet, pastor, teacher, general, builder, reformer, and man of God. What an overwhelming prospect.

Life is overwhelming. Ministry is overwhelming. God’s purpose and calling upon us is overwhelming. I take a few lessons from Nehemiah 1-2 as I consider the overwhelming nature of ministry and life in general.

First, we find that it is impossible to face the struggles of life in our power. The calling, the equipping, and the doing of it must come straight from the sovereign of the universe. Nehemiah tells us in 2:12, “And I told no one what my God had put into my heart to do for Jerusalem”. God put this overwhelming calling before Nehemiah. Nehemiah wasn’t contriving these things. It wasn’t his pet agenda. It wasn’t his own ‘vision’. All this was by the word of God through the prophet. All this was by the design of God. And God led Nehemiah in the dead of night to see that this was a God sized task. I think of one of my favorite verses from the letters of Paul, “To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me” (Colossians 1:29). Paul places the work of ministry soundly in the hands of our all powerful and gracious God, yet he doesn’t remove the means by which God accomplishes this work, namely, us.

Second, note where it is that Nehemiah goes when he is faced with the devastation of Jerusalem and the trouble that faces God’s people. In Neh. 1:4 we find Nehemiah weeping, mourning, fasting, and praying. God thunders in His grace and power in such places. If you think God’s right arm flexes in your comfort, then you are one who needs desperately the story of Ezra and Nehemiah. God works wonders through these men, not primarily in their building and working, but in their prayer and fasting. I believe that I will not know the goodness and grace of God without the daily reality of the overwhelming nature of ministry driving me to my knees. God overwhelms me so that I might run to the words of Jesus, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). If you are not overwhelmed in ministry and in the calling and demands of God upon your life, then perhaps you are not in a good place. It is a hard lesson, but still wonderful and glorious, to learn ‘affliction without being crushed, confusion without despair, persecution without being forsaken, being struck down but not destroyed’. Great men and women of God do not accomplish great things without these lessons.

Lastly, we see the response of Nehemiah after his night journey to Jerusalem. He is resolute in his proclamation of God’s purpose for his people, “Come, let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer suffer derision” (2:17). Nehemiah rallies the people behind God’s cause, and he faces down the naysayers with the truth of God’s promise, “the God of heaven will make us prosper, and we his servants will arise and build, but you will have no right or portion in Jerusalem.” He is steadfast in the cause that God has placed before him and unwavering in his fight against those who oppose it.

Learn these three things from Nehemiah 1-2:

Be overwhelmed by the call of God through the gospel and know that it is a work of grace or nothing at all!

Fall on your knees and beg for the Lord’s help and power if you are to accomplish anything of value for the kingdom!

Rise up, anoint your face with oil and be glad! God is for us, who can be against us?

Tuesday is looking better already.

The Hand of God: for good or for wrath?

2007-08-07T13:06:00.000-07:00

My comments today are not drawn from today’s reading, but a few verses back in chapter 8 verse 22:

“The hand of our God is for good on all who seek him, and the power of his wrath is against all who forsake him.”

Ezra boldly, and perhaps a bit proudly, asserted this powerful truth before the King Artaxerxes. Now, with a dangerous passage to Jerusalem before them, Ezra’s bold claim will be put to the test. After having made such a bold claim regarding the power of God, and the righteousness of your cause, do you dare ask a pagan King for assistance on your journey? If the hand of God is for your good, do you need to ask for a pagan cohort’s protection?
This causes me to ask a few questions of this text:

1. What does ‘the hand of God’ mean?

2. What is meant by ‘God is for good’ in such a statement? Must everything go swimmingly for us if God is for us?

3. If not, how do we understand the ‘good’ of hard, yet providentially ordained circumstances, from the ‘wrath’ of God against those who are disobedient and wicked? (Put another way, aren’t there many who are receiving wrath for disobedience, all the while claiming it is providential goodness through hard circumstances? Aren’t there many who see providential struggles which are for their good, who see such hard circumstances as God’s ‘wrath’? How do

4. How do we stand in such truths? How do we maintain a firm position in the truths of God’s goodness to the righteous, while walking in humility in light of our sins and failures?

First, let’s look at this phrase, ‘the hand of God’. There is that ‘plain meaning’ of this phrase that we should be able to get right off the bat. The ‘hand of our God’ is metonymy- part for the whole- expressing the reality that God is directly working in some situation or another. He is displaying his power and purpose in some particular circumstance. We find this phrase (it is especially popular in Ezra- 7:6, 9,28; 8:18,31; and in Neh. 2:8,18) reveals a very special and evident working of God’s providence on behalf of his people. There are times when God is at work in ‘extraordinary’ ways, His power is seen and understood in a peculiar and ‘heavy’ way.

You might ask, “Isn’t God always displaying his power and purpose in all circumstances?” And the answer is yes. God’s hand is always at work, his power is always being manifested in ALL things, and nothing is outside his sovereign reach. That is, in a sense, what Ezra is speaking about in his words to Artaxerxes: God is at work in all things – for the good of those who seek him and for wrath against those who forsake him. All things are designed for either one purpose or the other- the good of his people, or the punishment of the wicked. He was calling Artaxerxes to recognize God’s power, either in blessing or in judgment, as paramount. Each of these things – the blessing of his people, and the punishment of the wicked- are ultimately good, no matter how dark the circumstance may be or how difficult it is to accept God’s wrath against the wicked. They are both ultimately good for the same reason: all things are designed by God, ordered by God, and done by God for one purpose, for ‘the praise of his glorious grace’(Eph. 1:9). His glory is His own ultimate purpose and design. The Apostle Paul says, and we all know it by heart, “we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

And this leads us to the second question. Does God’s good intention for us always mean that things will go ‘well’ for us? Now, ready yourself, because people don’t like this answer. But, it is the answer of Scripture. In one sense the answer is yes, if by ‘well’ you mean: ‘all things will be for the glory of God’. But, of course, this is often not what we mean. We often mean that we will have the job we want, make the money we need, have good health, and raise kids that don’t embarrass us. We mean ‘well’ or ‘good’ in the worldly sense. But the purpose and design of God is that all things will be ‘well’ for us, when it is for His glory. And all things for His glory are good and ultimately for our joy. Consider the immediate context of Paul’s rather famous words of Romans 8:28. He is speaking of ‘the sufferings of the present time’ (8:18), he speaks of ‘the whole of creation groaning’, he speaks of the reality of the created – and fallen – world’s ‘bondage to decay’, he speaks of a ‘hoping in the unseen’, of the ‘Spirit helping us in our weakness…interceding with groaning too deep for words’. Later in 8:35 he speaks of being ‘more than conquerors’ through ‘tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, and sword’. Can all this be spoken of as ‘good’? Can we see all of this as ‘the hand of God’? As his ‘blessing’? Indeed we can, we must, when all is seen from the redemptive purposes of God to bring glory to himself through all things, especially through us and our struggles in this world.

Next we might ask how we know the good of God’s hand from the judgment and wrath of God against evil. In one sense, when we are redeemed by God to be ‘to the praise of his glorious grace’, then we can know that we have moved from judgment to life. Paul tells us in Romans 8:1 that ‘there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’. In and through the work of Christ, “God is for us, who can be against us”? All struggles are for our good, even if they might be his discipline for a season.

As those whose faith is in a mighty and powerful God, we are called to humbly trust that these bold claims we make are true in the face of seemingly insurmountable situations. How do we live in such ‘bold humility’? I think we find the answer in Ezra 8:23, “so we fasted and implored our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty”. A constant theme in Ezra and Nehemiah is this theme of fasting and pleading with God. Ezra 9-10 is filled with cries of confession and repentance over sin, brokenness in the face of abounding wickedness, and humble pleading in a season of overwhelming struggle and affliction. These returning exiles of Ezra/Nehemiah are seeking God through his Word (cf. Neh. 8 and the reading of the Law), seeking God through prayer and fasting, and seeking God through humble yet courageous faith. They model for us the believer who is equipped supernaturally to ‘read God’s providence’ in a special and unique way. And even when the work of God seems inscrutable, these bible filled, fasting and supplicating people are able to leave the mystery of God’s design in His own hands.

And so we boldly proclaim that as we seek the Lord his hand his with us, all the while humbly warning a lost and rebellious generation that His just anger awaits those who refuse and forsake him.

Joy and Weeping in the Already and Not Yet

2007-08-03T06:14:00.000-07:00

But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy, 13 so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away. Ezra 3:12-13

Ezra records the events of the rebuilding of the temple as if they were happening at breakneck speed. Indeed, compared to the languishing away of an entire generation of God's people over 70 years in captivity, the events that have occurred since Cyrus' wonderful edict should startle and amaze us. Some 43,000 Israelites have risen up, stirred up in fact by the Lord, to return to Jerusalem for the rebuilding of the Temple. We are not sure how long it has been since the waves of exiles began their return, but 3:1 tells us that when the seventh month came, Jeshua the priest, and Zerubbabel, one of the leaders of the Israelites, re-established covenant worship in Israel with the rebuilding of the altar, the offering of sacrifices, and the observance of the feast of booths.

In 3:8, Ezra tells us that in the second month of the second year of their return to Jerusalem, Jeshua and Zerubbabel re-establish the Levitical priesthood 'to supervise the work of the house of the Lord'. Once the foundation of the Temple is laid, all the people gathered for worship and praise.

Ezra now records a very interesting element of ‘this world’ worship. At the point of praise over the mighty acts of God, there is a loud weeping over the sins of the past, over the glory that was once upon these foundations in Solomon's Temple. We read that 'the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people's weeping'. Until we are with the Lord in the new heavens and the new earth, there is always the mixture of joy and weeping, happiness and sorrow, praise and lament in the worship of God's people.

We live in an age of vain sentimentality -- particularly in our evangelical Christian sub-culture. I have often poked fun at 'Christian' radio that is constantly urging us to be 'positive and encouraging'. There is certainly some good here, especially when most of the garbage on the dial is anger, lust, greed and banality. But we should be careful that the only notes we strike are in that 'positive and encouraging key'. In this we miss (or at least we choose to ignore) a good portion of the whole counsel of God's Word. Consider our Psalm for today, Psalm 30, which is filled with that mixture of praise and lament:

To you, O Lord, I cry,
and to the Lord I plead for mercy:
"What profit is there in my death, if I go down to the pit?
Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness?
Hear, O Lord, and be merciful to me!
O Lord, be my helper!"

Yet, it moves from lament and pleading for mercy, to this:

You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;
you have loosed my sackclothand clothed me with gladness,
that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever!

There is 'a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance'. God has begun his great redemptive work of grace in our lives. His kingdom and power are indeed 'already' here. We can bask each day in his goodness. We could spend each moment singing his praises, our hearts filled with joy. His salvation has come in the person and work of Jesus Christ. If the Israelites returning to Jerusalem could glory in the foundation that was laid, how much more can we glory from this side of the cross, having seen Jesus, 'the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature' (Heb. 1:3). But, there is also the reality that we are 'strangers and aliens' on the earth, we still 'sojourn in Meshech and dwell in the tents of Kedar' (meaning we are still 'wilderness wanderers').

Consider as well our reading today from Mark 8. It is a glorious passage of the mighty miracles of Christ. We should praise and worship Christ as we consider his works in Mark's gospel account. At the same time, there is the painful reality in all these acts of the presence of sin: the hungry crowds, the unbelieving Pharisees, the blind and the lame, the foolishness of the disciples, the impending cloud of the death of the Messiah. Of course, with the coming of Christ, 'the time is fulfilled, the kingdom is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel' (Mark 1:15).

At the same time, that time has 'not yet' come. At that time, God will 'wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more'. Until that time, there is still sin and death, grief and mourning, crying and pain. The 'former' things have not yet passed away. In Ezra 3, as in all times where there is both joy over the blessings of God and sorrow over sin and death, the chord of sorrow over 'former things' was struck by those seasoned Israelites in the worship service, as were the notes of joy and praise.

I think of my prayers for our new little girl, Chloe Eloise. As I consider the wonders of this gift of God to us, and to the world, my heart is filled with joy and with praise. But, there is always that note of uncertainty, of lament, as I lay my child before the throne of grace. Will she live to be an old woman with a whole lifetime of service to God? Or will she be taken away by the mysterious hand of providence as a child? What joys await us on this journey as a family? But, then again, what sorrows? Will Chloe grow up to serve and love the living God through Christ her Savior? Or will she turn away from the grace of Christ and give into a life of rebellion and enmity towards God? My prayers are always fraught with fear, anxiety, and pleading with God for mercy.

If I am reading the Psalms right, God calls his people to lament. He beckons us to come with our fears and cares. And in such pleading and striving against the world, the flesh and the devil, he comforts me. His comfort does not seem to come with a slap on the back and a nudge under my chin ('Be positive! Be encouraged!'), but with an embrace mingled with sovereign mercy and almighty power. This embrace says, 'I am God and there is no other!' This embrace says, 'Trust me with your life and with your little ones, for I am good.' This embrace says, 'weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning.'

At such times of sovereign care, it is difficult to distinguish tears of mourning from tears of joy. And this is the way our gracious Lord would have it until his hand wipes the tears away.

The Straight Story

2007-08-02T08:19:00.000-07:00

Ezra 1: 1-4

We live in an age of cynicism and doubt. Interesting, seeing as how it is the 'information age' and all that. The deal seems to be, that the more the secular mind knows, the less it believes. Worse than this are the current fads sweeping the church which glory in doubt and cynical unbelief. The purveyors of these new movements call it, 'glorying in the mystery', or some such nonsense. Not that there isn't mystery. Of course there is. But mystery in the Scriptures is different than just lazy, foggy, and jaded thinking. Mystery is where humanity leaves off and divinity steps in. The mystery is that God's ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. The mystery is that there are 'secret things' belonging to God. But there are 'revealed things' as well. A lot of them. A whole book full. A universe full, in fact. The Scriptures tell us that Jesus and his gospel is the 'mystery revealed'. Because God has revealed himself in this way, we able to speak truthfully, and honestly. We are able to give people the straight story.

Ezra gives us the straight story. And what makes this straightforward narrative so striking is the most incredible and unbelievable nature of what he says:

His narrative is an account of fulfilled prophecy.
Jeremiah spoke the word of the Lord.
Cyrus (the most powerful leader in the world) is an instrument of the Lord.
Aftern 70 years of devastation, exile, apostasy, sin, compromise, syncretism, and separation, God is fulfilling his covenant promises to His people.

The post/modern mind, whatever that is -perhaps better to say the skeptical, unbelieving mind -should consider a few things:

1. Now, if this prophecy is fulfilled, then God's word is true and must be regarding as truthful (and not just a 'story' with some good principles that we try to glean amidst all the archaic foolishness).
2. If Jeremiah spoke 'the word of the Lord', then we discover that God does indeed speak authoritatively and truthfully, through the organic inspiration of the writers of Scripture.
3. Cyrus was 'stirred up' in his spirit by God. God is sovereign over the universe and over the destinies of men, and over the kings of the world (1:2). God is no pawn to our individual wills, it seems to be rather the opposite here in the prologue to Ezra's book (see also 1:5).
4. God has a redemptive plan, driven by a deep and abiding covenant love, all of history moves along its lines and toward its consummation.

These striking statements by Ezra, and their attending implications, are put forth simply and without much fanfare. This is primarily because Ezra and God's people are full of faith. While they no doubt are filled with joy and awe at God's work- they are not surprised. This is what God said he would do! This is who God is! No doubt, as we read on, the naysayers will come. Doubters will cast aspersions. The enemies of God and of truth will fight his work and the work of his people. But, these things will not be said of God's faithful, covenant keeping people. Those who are full of faith will continue in trust of their prophecy fulfilling, truth revealing, sovereign and faithful Master. And they will keep on with a sword in one hand and the trowel in the other (Neh.4:17-18).

So, let's be filled with the faith and hope of Ezra in a day of unbelief and skepticism.
Let's be like Ezra- unafraid and unshaken by the mysteries about us, but certain in the straight story of the good news of Jesus Christ. Through this good news we are able to join the exiles - "remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ" (Eph. 2:11-13). By the sovereign grace of God, our hearts have been stirred up to put our faith and trust in God. And we proclaim the straightforward truth of His word, in all of its incredible glory. The unbelief of our age does not curb our zeal, but rather should provoke and promote a passion to share the truth, the straight story of God's glorious gospel.