Torches and Bonfires

The Spread of Death (I) - Romans 5:12

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Nale) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:02:00 +0000

Introducing Romans 5:12-21

This morning we come to a passage that is both fascinating and very helpful. If we grasp what Paul is teaching in these verses, we will be able to understand how it is that Jesus’ life of righteousness can be imputed to us. Remember, at the heart of the gospel is this idea of imputation. Everyone do me a favor and say the word “imputation”. The idea of imputation is that something accomplished by one person is justly accredited to another person’s account. At the cross, the sin that I had done was imputed to Jesus. My sin was placed on His account, and God treated Jesus as though He had done the things that I have done. When we believe on Jesus, the perfect righteousness that He accomplished in His life is imputed to me. Jesus’ righteousness is placed on my account. God treats me as though I have been perfectly obedient and faithful.

This idea of imputation is the basis of why God can save people and still be just. It is imputation that allows God to be holy and punish sin while saving sinners. If we lose imputation, the gospel falls apart, and Christianity is a lie. That is how important this idea of imputation is.

Paul’s purpose in these nine verses is to help us understand why it is that Jesus’ perfect obedience to the Father even to the point of death can be credited to you. Have you ever wondered about that? Doesn’t it seem strange that Jesus can be punished for my sins, and that I can be rewarded for Jesus’ perfection? Is that really just? It reminds me of that story about the whipping boy – whenever the young prince misbehaved, the whipping boy would be called to receive the whipping. The more the prince misbehaved, the more the whipping boy was whipped. One boy was committing the crimes, the other receiving the punishment. That doesn’t sound right, does it? Wouldn’t we say that you should punish the one who committed the crime, and reward the one who was truly obedient? So how can God do the opposite?

The way Paul explains this is by pointing us to the Old Testament. In particular, he wants to point us to an Old Testament type. We talked about this when we preached on Isaac as a Type of Christ in Genesis 22. If we want to read our Bibles well and understand its meaning, one of the most important concepts for us to grasp is that of types and antitypes. Everyone say the word “type”. Everyone say the word “antitype”. Both of these words are biblical words. This isn’t some idea that theologians came up with – the Bible uses these words.

The word type comes from the Greek tupos and referred to something that been stamped with the impression of something else. So, for example, a king’s seal would be stamped onto a declaration. The mark left on the document would be an exact impression of the emblem on the stamp. It’s like when we take a cookie cutter and press it into the cookie dough. The cookie dough now bears the same image as the cookie cutter.

In the Bible, a type is something that bears the image of something else. It is a copy of it. The antitype is that of which the type is a copy. The antitype is the original, the type is the copy.

Where is this used in the Bible? In many places. Over and over again – particularly in the Old Testament – we run into people and things and events that are types of things to come. In Genesis 22 we talked about how the many ways that Isaac was a type of Christ as he was about to be sacrificed by his father on Mount Moriah. Isaac was a picture – an imperfect picture, but a picture nonetheless – of Jesus and His own willingness to be sacrificed by His Father. So you have Isaac carrying his own wood up the mountain to the place where he would be sacrificed. Jesus would carry His own cross to the place where He would be crucified. Isaac was born miraculously. There were prophecies tied to his birth. He was the beloved son of his father. He was a faithful and obedient son. He kept silent as he came to the place of sacrifice. He willingly allowed himself to be bound. Over and over again we see in Isaac a picture – a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ. Jesus was the antitype that was coming, Isaac was a type that was pointing to Him.

In 1st Peter 3, Peter tells us that the flood of Noah, through which 8 people passed safely on the ark, was a type of baptism. The flood of Noah was a picture of how those who follow Christ will pass safely through water into salvation. Noah’s flood was a type of baptism.

In 1^st Corinthians 10, Paul tells us that just as many Israelites left Egypt and began to head towards the Promised Land, but died in the wilderness due to unbelief, so this is an example to us of the many who will start the journey to heaven but will fail to reach it due to unbelief. Paul uses this word tupos – type – to describe the Israelites dying in the wilderness, and he says that it points to our day.

In the books of Acts and Hebrews, we learn that all of those many laws given in Exodus about how the tabernacle and the Temple were to be built did not come out of nowhere. They were given as a type of the true Temple – the true holy place – the place where God dwells in heaven. I don’t know of a single aspect of the tabernacle and temple that was not a shadow pointing to some reality concerning Heaven. This is why all of those laws in Exodus and Leviticus should not be boring to us – they point us to some of the most exhilarating truths in the world!

Here, in Romans 5, Paul wants to help us understand how God can bless us for Christ’s obedience and punish Christ for our disobedience by pointing to an Old Testament type. This is one of the most important if not the most important type in the Old Testament. He was a real person, the first man, and his name is Adam.

From Adam we can learn about this idea of imputation. What Paul does in these verses is he reminds us of how Adam is like Christ and points to Christ. But that’s not all. Paul also shows us how Christ is even greater than Adam. Remember, types are always pictures of the antitype, but they always fall short. The tabernacle and the temple were designed to be a picture of heaven itself, but they were certainly not heaven itself. They were a picture, but they were far short of the real thing. There are some ways in which Adam points us to Christ. These ways help us understand imputation and the gospel. But there are also some ways in which Christ is far better than Adam. This is where Paul is taking us.

Paul’s Flow of Thought in Romans 5:12-21

Now, don’t get confused by this passage. What happens in these verses is that Paul starts making his point in verse 12, but then interrupts himself. He gets sidetracked. He’s not chasing a rabbit in verses 13-17. But as he wrote verse 12, he realized if we are going to understand what he is saying, he needs to back up and explain some things. In particular, he knows that there are questions that need to be answered, and objections that need to be addressed. So verses 13-17 are a parenthesis in which Paul is trying to help us along. Then, in verse 18, he starts all over with what he was going to say back in verse 12. He makes his main point in verses 18-21. So, verses 18-21 are what Paul really wants to say, and the verses leading up to 18-21 are preparing us for those verses.

Romans 5:12-21 in History

Now, we will spend several sermons on these verses. I want you to understand how pivotal they have been in history. These 9 verses have been at the center of controversy ever since the days of the early church. It was these verses that God particularly used to protect the gospel from being lost and destroyed in previous days. I dare say, it were it not for these nine verses, the men who wrote sermons and books about them, the gospel would have never made it to you and me, and we would not be saved.

Let me give you just one example from history, and it is a very important one. We’re going back to the 400s AD. A controversy was brewing among the people of God. On one side was a man named Pelagius. Pelagius was born in Ireland in the year 354, and he became a British monk. He lived in Rome for a time, until the city of Rome fell in 410, and after that he lived in Jerusalem. Pelagius was a teacher and a writer, and he had great influence on many of the Christian leaders of the day. On the other side of this controversy was Augustine, the bishop of Hippo in Northern Africa. Augustine too was an influential teacher and writer, as well as a pastor.

The controversy began with a short and simple prayer that Augustine wrote which became very well-known among the Christians of the day. Augustine’s prayer was this: Lord, grant what you command, and command what you will. In other words, Lord, command us to do whatever You desire us to do, but also, give us the will and the ability to do it. Have you ever prayed a prayer like this? Lord, command of me whatever you will, just help me have the strength and the ability, and the heart to do it.

Pelagius did not like this prayer. The prayer seemed to assume that God might command us to do something we cannot do. The prayer seemed to suggest that when God gives us commands, if He does not also give us grace to obey those commands, we won’t obey. This was ridiculous to Pelagius. Surely God would never command a person to do something he cannot do.

What do you think of that? Does God have the right to command of us something we cannot do? Because Pelagius thought that this would make God unjust, he determined that Christians in his day had misunderstood the teaching of Scripture. Man cannot be dead in his sin and unable to do any good on his own. For then God would be wicked in calling people to love Him – for how can He command them to do what He knows perfectly well He cannot do. Therefore, here is some of what Pelagius taught:

1. When God created Adam, Adam was good.

2. Adam did not need grace to do what God commanded of him. He could do whatever God commanded in his own power.

3. Adam willingly chose to sin, and it was his sin that brought painful consequences to his life.

4. Death was not a result of Adam’s sin – death was a part of God’s good plan from the beginning.

5. Despite Adam’s choice to sin, his human nature remained inherently good.

6. Every human being is born in exactly the same condition as Adam, namely, inherently good.

7. Every human being is able to do whatever God commands without need for His grace.

8. It is possible for a man to live and never sin.

9. Christ died to set a good example for us of what love and sacrifice look like, not to save people from bondage to sin.

Now, if you were listening closely, and if you know your Bible, you know very well that Pelagius’ teaching is dead wrong. But this was before the days of the printing press. This was before every Christian had his own personal Bible to read, as they can today in America. What’s more, Pelagius’ teaching really fit with the Roman culture that still pervaded much of the world at that time. So Pelagius’ teaching began to gain ground, and before long there were a lot of people – including highly influential people who agreed with him.

Things got dicey when one of Pelagius’ followers, a man named Coelestius, sought to be made a leader in the church in Carthage. The other leaders learned that this man denied that Adam’s sin affected anyone but Adam. They learned that this man believed that all people are born inherently good and that even people’s sins cannot change the fact that they are essentially good at heart. The more these leaders took the beliefs of Coelestius and compared them to the Scriptures, the more concerned they became. Instead of being made a leader, Coelestius was ultimately excommunicated for believing such false doctrines.

Coelestius left Carthage and went to Ephesus where he was received and made a church leader in the church of Ephesus. Dear friends, let us hear this. The church in Ephesus is the church to which Paul wrote the book of Ephesians. The church in Ephesus was an important church, blessed with great teaching and great leaders. Not only Paul, but Timothy, and later the Apostle John had taught the people there. But here we are a few centuries later, and this church is neck-deep in false doctrine. The church of Ephesus can no longer really be called a church. They are denying the gospel of Christ, and embracing Pelagianism – the view that all people are inherently good and that we do not need God’s grace to be perfect and keep His commands.

Dear friends, do we not live in a culture that is very similar? Do not most of the people around us believe that people are inherently good? Are there not many who look to Jesus only as One who set a good example of how to live? Are there not many who believe that we can be as good as we need to be if just dig deep into ourselves and do it? No grace of God required.

That’s Pelagianism, and it threatened Christianity in the 400s. By God’s grace, men were raised up who showed that Pelagianism is a direct contradiction of God’s Word. Synods were held. Remember, a synod was a meeting that could last days, weeks, even months or years in which Christian leaders examined a person or an issue according to the Scriptures and made a pronouncement. The first time a synod was called about Pelagius, he recanted his views. He declared himself to be orthodox and denied that he was teaching the things he was teaching. He was a coward before the Synod. We know he was a coward, because he did not truly renounce his views. After the synod he wrote book after book defending what we now know as Pelagianism.

Two more synods were held, both condemning Pelagius for his views. They said, “We declare in virtue of our Apostolic authority that Pelagius and Coelestius are excluded from the communion of the Church until they deliver themselves from the snares of the devil.”

Nevertheless, there were still many who were listening to Pelagius and being brought into his teaching. Finally, in 418, a council was called in which over 200 Christian leaders came together to deal with the controversy. They denounced Pelagius and his views. In 431, at an even more important council, Pelagianism was declared a heresy and has been renounced by true Christians ever since.

Why do I tell you all this? Augustine was the man who probably did more than any other to show just how unbiblical Pelagius’ views were. His writings were used by God to save the Church from falling away into utter false doctrine. We could go so far as to say that had it not been for Augustine and those like him who defended the faith, the gospel would never have survived into 500s AD, much less to the 21^st century. Our salvation was at stake in these controversies of 1500 years ago. It was God who protected His Church and protected His gospel. God was loving us when He raised up Augustine to fight the good fight against Pelagius.

Dear friends, it was Romans 5:12-21 that were the most fundamentally important verses in the whole debate. It was particularly from these verses that Augustine was able to convincingly expose Pelagianism for the terrible lie it is.

So as we come to our study of this passage, let us be aware of how God has already used it for our good, centuries before we were even born.

Competing Interpretations

Now, with our remaining time, we’re just going to stick our toes in the water of this passage this morning, and we will jump much further in next week. Look with me at verse 12: “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned…”

One common view of this verse goes like this: The death referred to in this passage is not spiritual death, but physical death. Paul’s point here is to tell us why people die. He takes us back to Adam and reminds us that death is the wages of sin. Adam sinned, and therefore, Adam died. This reality explains why there is death throughout humanity. People choose to sin at some point in their lives, and therefore, people die.

At first hearing, that view of this passage may sound just fine. In reality, it has serious problems. Let me mention two major problems with that view:

1. That interpretation fails to deal adequately with the word spread. What does Paul claim to be explaining here? He claims to be explaining how death came into the world, but more than that, how death spread from Adam to the rest of the human race. Do you see those words? Paul says, “and so death spread to all men”. That word so means “in this way”. “In this way,” Paul says, “death spread to all men.” In what way? What is the connection between Adam’s sin and death and our sin and death. In the view I just shared, there is no connection. Adam was a sinner. We are sinners. But there is no connection between us and Adam. It just so happens that we have chosen to sin like he did. He died for his sin, we die for our sins, and there is no connection.

Sadly, the idea of some seems to be that the only reason Adam is even mentioned in this verse is because Paul is reminding us of who the first sinner was. They would reject the idea that Paul is looking to Adam as a type. No, in their minds, the only reason Adam is being brought up to remind us that he was the first sinner. But if that was Paul’s aim, he messed up! Adam was not the first human being to sin. Eve was the first human being to sin. Do we really think Paul didn’t know that? Of course he knew it. So Paul’s aim is not to inform us of who the first sinner was. His aim is to show how it is that death came to affect the entire human race. And in that context, he does not draw our attention to Eve, but to Adam. There is a connection between Adam and his sin and death and us and our sin and death.

2. This interpretation that misses the connection between Adam and us fails to deal adequately with the last two words of the verses. In particular, that interpretation misses the significance of the fact that Paul uses the past tense. Paul does not say, “death spread to all men because all sin.” He says, “death spread to all men because all sinned.” Speaking of the entire human race, Paul uses the past tense and says that death has come to all of us because we all sinned.

So why does Paul use the past tense? What is the connection to Adam? I have two suggestions to make. We don’t have time for both, so we will have to pick up here next Sunday. But here are the two suggestions that I think clear up what Paul is saying: 1. The death that Paul is speaking of in this passage is primarily spiritual death, not physical death. 2. When Paul says that all sinned, what he means is that we all sinned and died when Adam sinned and died. Paul is not talking here about the sins that we commit during our lifetimes. Paul is talking here about how the entire human race sinned corporately in Adam. When Adam sinned and died, the entire human race sinned and died. We are a race of the living dead. And only through Jesus Christ are dead people made alive.

Let me close this morning by explaining the first suggestion, and then we’ll pick up with the second one next week:

Suggestion 1

Suggestion 1: The death that Paul is speaking of here is primarily spiritual death. Paul is not primarily trying to tell us how physical death has come to affect the human race, but how spiritual death has come to do so. Physical is attached to that. But spiritual death is the main issue. How do we know? Because that is what Paul has been talking about through the whole letter to this point.

The issue that Paul has been dealing with in Romans so far is that human beings – all human beings – are sinners under the wrath of God. Paul has been trying to help us understand the gospel. He started way back in Romans 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel…”, and he has been unpacking the gospel from there all the way to here. His focus in all these chapters has not been on how God saves people from physical death. No, Paul’s focus has been on how God saves people from spiritual death.

This spiritual death has two aspects to it. The first aspect of spiritual death is the deadness of our own souls to God. We are dead in sin. We are so bound to sin, and so captivated by it, that we do not care for God nor listen to His will. Remember Ephesians 2:1? Speaking of who we were before Jesus saved us, Paul says, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.” Here is the natural condition of the human heart. Spiritually speaking, it is dead!

Pelagius and many in our own day believe that man is inherently good, able to do whatever God commands us to do. The Scriptures say the opposite. Remember Romans 3:10-12? “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” This is the death Paul is concerned about. Spiritual death.

How did human beings come to be this way? Adam was created good. God looked at His creation and called all creation very good. How is it that little baby boys and little baby girls are now born with wickedness already in their hearts? Jeremiah 17:9: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” How did mankind get this way? Paul’s answer: when Adam sinned, we all sinned. When Adam died spiritually, it was the spiritual death of the entire human race.

The other aspect of this spiritual death is that mankind is now by nature under the wrath of God. Pelagius denied this, and assumed that from birth people are in God’s good favor. But the Bible is clear that because people are inherently wicked, they are also from birth under His righteous wrath. In Ephesians 2, when Paul is reminding Christians of who they once were, he not only says that they were dead in sins and trespasses, but he says this: “[we were] following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” The wrath is God’s, all people by nature are objects of that wrath. This is why when Paul began unpacking the gospel in Romans 1, the first place he started was the wrath of God. The great danger the hangs over all humanity – the great thing from which we must be saved – it is the wrath of God. The death that Paul is talking about in Romans 5 is both the spiritual deadness of our souls and the death that is the wrath of God. Often the Bible calls this the second death. It is a picture of hell itself.

How is it that God’s good creatures – human beings – came to be under His wrath? How is it that we are by nature condemned and headed for hell? I will try and show next week that when Adam sinned, all humanity sinned, and when Adam himself came under the curse of the wrath of God, all humanity came under the curse of the wrath of God.

Just as Adam represented humanity when he sinned and died, so Jesus represented a new humanity when He obeyed to the point of death. Adam represented humankind in the Garden, and when he sinned, we sinned. A curse is upon us all. But Jesus represented His people in His perfect life and death, and for those who believe on Him, the curse is reversed and we have blessings instead. Surely goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our lives. Jesus is the second Adam, but whereas Adam failed and brought death to us all, Jesus succeeded, and brings life to the world.

On this day, may Christ bring life to any in this room who area still dead. May Christ bring life to people from every tongue, tribe, and nation, who are still dead. He is the way, the truth, and the life.

Dear friend, are you still spiritually dead? Are you still enslaved to sins? Are you still an enemy of God, living your own life your own way? If you were to die today, would God allow you into heaven?

If God is causing you to sense your own deadness right now, run to Christ. This is a good sign, if you are sensing your own deadness. Declare your need for Jesus. Throw yourself upon His mercy. He is compassionate and kind and full of love. He will save all who see their need of Him and turn to Him.

Let’s pray.

Sunday (1/29) at MHMBC

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Nale) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:21:00 +0000

This Sunday night we will be having a special Psalm Sing and Chili/Soup Fellowship at 6pm. Among other things, this will be a time for us to pray over the Edwards' before they head to Mozambique for two years. In the morning service we will begin a new and important section of Romans (5:12-21) which will occupy us through February. Here is the order of worship for the 11am service:

Call to Worship:
Psalm 47:1-9
Singing Together:
Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken
Psalm 67
Reading Through James:
James 3:1-18
Singing Together:
How Sweet and Awful
Missions Moment:
Christian Schoolteachers
Sermon:
"The Spread of Death - I"
Romans 5:12
Closing Song:
O Church, Arise

We're Expecting an Exciting Day Tomorrow at MHMBC

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Nale) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 23:11:00 +0000

Tomorrow morning's service will be special as we take a few minutes to pray over Mark Anderson and install him as the newest deacon in our chuch. The message will continue our current focus on Romans 5 and will center on verses 9-11. We will be singing some of our favorite hymns, including "Holy, Holy, Holy" and "The Love of God".

Our study in the evening service is entitled "The Bible and Entertainment". We will spend a few minutes trying to think biblically about the role of entertainment in our lives and the kinds of entertainment that we engage with.

We'd love to see you tomorrow at MHMBC - you can learn more about us here.

Romans 5:3-5 We Rejoice In Our Sufferings

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Nale) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 10:52:00 +0000

Introduction:

“More than that…” says Paul. He has been unpacking for us the blessings that come to Christians the very moment they first believe on Jesus. Whether the person is eight years old or eighty-eight years old, rich or poor, male or female, black or white, the moment that person runs to Christ in his heart, these things are true. These are awesome, glorious realities.

Verse 1: By believing on Jesus, we have peace with God. Our sins no longer stand between us and God. He is no longer looking upon us with holy wrath and anger. Christ has fully borne all of His righteous anger at the cross. Christ has removed our sins from us as far as the east is from the west. There is now peace between us and God; we are no longer His enemies, but are counted His friends.

Verse 2a: By believing on Jesus, we have access into the grace of God. Not only are we at peace with him, but His merciful favor is upon us. We are now His children, and He our Father. Every single second of every day His goodness and mercy are following us, protecting us, upholding us, working all for our eternal good. We have the awesome joy of being able to commune with God through prayer and His Word.

But that’s not all.

Verse 2b: By believing on Jesus, we now rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Here is a wondrous gift that we’ve been given. There is coming a day when we will behold God in all His glory, and will see His face, and will even share in the glory of His holy character. We will behold and participate in the glory of God. That day is coming for us, brothers and sisters. We don’t deserve it. It’s a gift of grace.

We look forward to that day. It is our hope. It is our eager expectation. Remember, the word hope isn’t referring to something that may or may not happen. Our hope is our earnest waiting and longing for something that has been guaranteed to us by God. That day of beholding God’s glory and sharing in it is still in our future, but the hope that we have as we look forward to that day is with us this very moment, affecting our lives right here, right now. That hope brings us incredible joy now. We rejoice today in the hope of the glory of God.

And now, as we come to verses 4-5, we find Paul saying, “More than that…” He’s not done yet. There is more to be said. As he spoke of the hope of the glory of God, something else came to his mind. By believing on Jesus, Christians, have joy even in our sufferings.

Here is the main point of verses 4-5: Christians have joy even in their sufferings. Why? Because this hope of beholding God’s glory and participating in God’s glory grows and increases as we suffer well. Hope welling up in our hearts that one day we will be with God brings us great joy. And what causes even more of this hope to be produced in our lives? Sufferings.

How Sufferings Produce Hope

Wait a minute. How in the world does that work? How do sufferings – painful trials and tribulations – cause us to have even greater hope? Thankfully, Paul tells us. It’s a chain. It’s a progression. Each thing leads to another. Suffering produces endurance; endurance produces character; character produces hope.

So there are three steps in the progression. Let’s take them one at a time:

Step 1: Suffering produces endurance.

First, let me tell you that the word Paul is using here is not a word for some small inconvenience. It’s a word that refers to genuinely hard and painful suffering. This is the kind of suffering that most people would say, “There is no way you can rejoice in that suffering.” It hurts badly. Look over at Romans 8 and see the kind of suffering Paul is talking about. Notice the list of verse 35: Tribulation. Distress. Persecution. Famine. Nakedness. Danger. The Sword. Look at verse 36: “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

When Paul is talking about suffering, he’s not just talking about a little bit of hardship. He’s talking about being stoned as he was. He’s talked about being beaten with rods and being slandered and being hated by people. He’s talking about being shunned by your own family as many of these early believers were. He’s talking about physical pain, emotional pain, poverty and threats of violence. Remember, he’s writing to Christians in Rome! He’s writing to Christians in Rome in the 50’s A.D. – Nero is in power. Paul himself will likely have his head removed from his body in Rome around a decade after writing this. Nero would take Christians and sew them up in the skins of wild animals and then throw them to dogs until the dogs had torn them apart. He would dress them in shirts made stiff with wax and set them on fire as lights in his garden. The first true wave of Roman persecution is less than ten years away when Paul writes this. But already Christians were experiencing real hardship.

Over and over again in the book of Acts we see Christians being beaten or imprisoned and yet responding with joy. We remember Paul and Silas singing together in the Philippian prison at midnight. Why? Why was suffering a joy to them? Paul says here the suffering produces endurance.

The word used here is used of a soldier who in the midst of a tough battle continues to fight though he is receiving blows himself. He is being hit with fists or hit with arrows or hit with a sword, but he continues to fight and fights until he has his victory.

The endurance that Christians must have is endurance in faith. We continue to submit to Christ, to trust Him, to follow His ways, even when it is hard! Even when it costs us dearly. It is he who endures to the end that is truly saved.

How do you know if a piece of gold is real? You test it. One way to test it is by putting it into the fire. The dross will burn away, and you will soon know whether you have true gold or not.

Similarly, how can I know whether I have true faith or not? How can I know whether the faith in my heart is true, God-given, saving faith? How can I be sure that the hope I have of beholding and sharing in the glory of God is well-founded? I don’t want to stand before God on the last day and find out that I’m a counterfeit, a fake, a hypocrite. How can I know that my faith in Christ is the real thing? Answer: you test it.

Sufferings are God’s way of testing our faith. And if our faith is real, then even in the midst of difficult hardships, we will hold fast to Christ and keep trying to follow Him no matter what. But there’s more to it then that. Sufferings not only test our endurance, but they actually help produce it. If the seeds of true faith have been planted in your heart, then suffering is one of the means of grace that God will use to cause that faith to grow. Because when you have trusted Christ through a hard time, and you get to the other side, and you see how faithful he has been to you, you will be even more eager to trust Him in the next valley. Suffering not only tests the endurance of a Christian, but actually produces greater endurance in the Christian. We become more stable, have greater security and peace in our hearts, because we can look back and say, “I went through this, and it was tough, but Christ brought me through it. He kept m y heart trusting Him, kept my heart rejoicing in Him, and I now have even greater confidence that I am His and that one day I truly will behold the glory of God.”

Suffering is a real gift to us from God. Christ has borne the greatest suffering; our suffering is just a little chip off of His cross. As great as our pain may be, it does not compare to the hell that Christ bore for us on Calvary. Our suffering is carefully measured out by God, and is given to us to help us. He is the Physician of our souls; the sufferings He sends our way are the pain of a remedy being applied to our wounds. He is healing us.

It isn’t like this for unbelievers. Sufferings do not produce endurance in unbelievers – they have no faith to endure in to begin with. When suffering causes someone to hate God, to curse God, to turn completely to self or the stuff of this world for solace – it’s a gift from God to help that person see how far away from God he is. But ultimately, if he does not believe, that suffering will only be a small part – a foretaste – of the just punishment he will receive for his wicked sins and rebellion. Suffering for unbelievers is an expression of God’s wrath; suffering for Christians is an expression of God’s love.

So, step 1, is that suffering produces endurance in Christians.

Step 2: Endurance produces character.

Do you see that in verse 4? We’re following the progression, the links in the chain. What is this character that is produced in us as we endure in faith through suffering?

Well, admittedly, this is a hard word to translate. It’s a word that Paul made up. There is no record of this word ever being used before Paul, and he uses it seven times. The idea seems to be that of someone who has been tested and approved. This is not a rookie; this is a veteran. This is someone who has been through the fire, and he now has good reason to believe that he is the genuine article. Isn’t it interesting that often the most loving, humble, and wisest of believers are those who have been through the hardest lives? They’ve walked with God through incredible difficulty, but He has been faithful to them. He’s kept them this far, and now they are longing for the day when they will go to be with Him forever. Through each trial God was weaning their hearts off of this world, causing them to long more for the world to come. Now, they are longing for Christ like never before. They can say with Paul, for me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. That’s the kind of character that is produced in us as we trust Christ through pain.

Step 3: Character produces hope.

God brings trials into our lives. If we are truly His, we endure – though sometimes with great difficulty – and we continue to submit to Christ and love Him through hardship. This endurance – fighting the good fight, running for the prize – produces in us a character that gives us good grounds for the hope that one day we will truly behold the glory of God.

Thus, not only do we rejoice in the hope of that future day, but we can look Monday with all of its trials in the face and rejoice in them, too. We can rejoice in cancer. We can rejoice – even through tears – at the loss of a loved one. We can rejoice in a lost job and a tough financial situation. We don’t rejoice in the pain itself, or the circumstances themselves. But we rejoice because we know that even through these God is sanctifying us, preparing us for heaven, growing our hope for that future day. This isn’t a superficial, whimsical, shallow joy. No, this is a deep-seated joy in your heart that is an anchor to you when the storm around you is like a hurricane. This is a strong joy, a joy that can only come from believing these things and resting in the Savior who makes them all true.

Hope Does Not Put Us to Shame

But what if it isn’t true? What if we endure these trials, place all our trust in Christ and follow Him, all in the hope that one day we will be with God…and then it doesn’t happen? The world looks at believers and the way we live our lives and thinks, “What foolish people!” They don’t go to those movies. They hold to strange principles. Look how many hours they waste away in church. Here’s a man who is suffering through cancer, and he refuses to curse God. Here’s a woman whose child has been taken from her, and she is still declaring her allegiance to Jesus. What’s wrong with these people?

There’s the possibility of shame today, as the world looks at us and our hope and laughs. That day is never coming. You keep saying that Jesus is going to return and bring all these things to pass – where is He? It’s been two millennia now! Come on, when are you going to admit that you’ve been sucked in to a big charade?

There’s the possibility of shame in the future. We stand before God and find out that Muslims had it right all along. It’s about works, and making sure your good deeds outweigh your evil ones. Jesus is no Savior. Won’t we feel foolish then?!

No. These things are not a real possibility. Our hope does not put us to shame. That day that we are longing for will come. It is certain! How do we know? Verse 5 says, “And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

Here we have the coming together of objective truth with subjective feelings. God’s love has been shown to us objectively in Christ. He came. He lived. He died. He rose. He reigns. These are objective realities, and God has loved us and is loving us through them. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. God loves His people, and that is why Christ is working on their behalf this very moment. This is why Christ is preparing a place for us, and will return again to gather to us to Himself. These are objective facts. But how do we have certainty in our hearts that these things are true?

God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. As we hear these truths. As our eyes are opened to see these things and we are given the ability to believe them, our hearts become full with the love of God. Here is the great difference between the one who hears the gospel and believes and the one who hears the gospel and does not. The difference is the Holy Spirit of God. As one hears the gospel, it’s the same old message he has heard before. It strikes him as boring, or foolish, or unbelievable. But another person hears that gospel and as he hears it the Holy Spirit begins to bring into his very soul the reality of the love of God. That person hears of Christ dying on the cross, and his heart breaks, and before he knows it his heart is swelling with the realization of just how much God has done for him.

You see, ultimately, it is the Holy Spirit that testifies to our hearts that these things are true. The world doesn’t like this. The world wants some sort of scientific proof that the Bible is the Word of God. They want undeniable evidence that Jesus rose from the dead. They want an indisputable sign that Jesus is returning and that a day of God’s glory is coming. But God has given many of these things already, and wicked human hearts find ways to reject them. Real assurance of salvation – real confidence that I am Christ’s and He is mine – real certainty concerning the truth that God loves me and is bringing me to a glorious day – these only come to our souls in one way: through the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit uses all the means of grace (preaching, teaching, Bible-reading, singing, praying, Christian fellowship, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and yes, even great suffering) to bring to our hearts a real and abiding sense of the love of God. This internal witness is the greatest witness of all to the truth of God and His gospel.

Justification By Faith

Now, what does all this have to do with justification by faith? Remember, Paul’s overarching main point is that these are the blessings that became ours the moment we first believed on Christ and were made right with God. How does all that we’ve been talking about fit with that?

The answer is obvious: none of these would be true for us had we not been made right with God. If there was no peace between us and God, but His wrath still hung over us, could we rejoice in our sufferings? The whole flow of the text is that through suffering we grow as Christians and have even greater reason for hope that one day we will behold God’s glory. But if we are not right with God, we don’t want to behold God’s glory! If we are not right with Him through Jesus Christ, but are still counted as criminals in His cosmic court, then the last thing we want is to behold Him. Like Adam and Eve in the Garden, we want to run from Him! We want to escape from Him!

It is only by believing on Jesus and following Him that the hope of beholding God’s glory and sharing in His glory becomes precious and sweet to our souls. Everything is rooted in justification by faith. Dear friends, are you believing on Jesus? Have you been made right with God by resting in Christ and committing to follow Him for the rest of your life?

There is another connection between these verses and justification by faith. Justification by faith – the idea that sinners can be made right with God by believing on Jesus – is the heart of the gospel. It’s the great way that God has made for us to know Him and be with Him. It is as this message is preached and heard that the Spirit often comes into someone’s heart and brings to them that mysterious sense of the sweet love of God. This means that if we have people who we long to see saved, the gospel is the message we should be preaching. We should be telling our friends of the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man and the way made for us to be right with Him by faith. We should be telling them about the great love of God given to us by providing this way for us in Christ. As we tell these things with our lips, we should be praying that the Spirit will come and do that work that only he can do so that they too will trust Christ and set their hope on one day beholding the glory of God. If the Spirit comes and does that work, then they too will have reason to rejoice in suffering and to have hope in their hearts.

Maybe you’ve heard people say that Christians are too heavenly minded to be any earthly good. The idea is that Christians are so focused on the great day to come that we aren’t of any use here today. I think that’s rubbish, especially here in our culture. More often than not, Christians seem to be so caught up in earthly stuff that they are of no heavenly good. They are wasting their lives on passing things and eternal matters are left neglected. Yet Paul seems to be saying in these verses that one of the great gifts we have in Christ is the gift of being so heavenly minded that it makes a world of difference in this world right now. The hope that we have of being with God forever affects us so that even the hardships of this life can be faced with joy. We are able to sacrifice more, to take greater risks for God, to give more of ourselves in love to others. We are able to be more devoted to God and to do all that He asks of us. Why? Because we know what is ahead.

Dear friend, is this you? Have you believed on Christ? If so, do you see the great hope you have in Him? Are you longing for the glorious Day that is ahead of you, when you will be with God in all His fullness and will live in glory? Is that a prominent theme in your life?

Does your spouse know that you are longing for that day? Do your children know that this is the hope you have? Is it an active hope, affecting the decisions you make?

Or is this hope just an afterthought to you, the last page of the book of your life. If you are thinking biblically, you know that this life is just the preface, the prologue, the beginning before your life really gets started. But if you are thinking in a worldly way, then you think little of heaven, and just see it as the last paragraph of the last page of the book of your life. Is being with God forever an afterthought to you, or is what you dream about? Is it the greatest gift you can imagine, the one you have received in Christ, the one that gets you up in the morning and helps you sleep soundly at night?

The nearer we draw to death, the more this hope should be abounding in us. What is it that will help you face death with confidence and joy if it is not the hope of what is to come immediately after you take that last breath? Dear Christian, for you, to be absent from the body is to have the greatest thing ever – it’s to be present with the Lord!

In Exodus, a law was established by God so that if a man had to pawn off his bed-clothes, it was required that they be returned to him by nightfall. God says, “For that is his only covering, and it is his cloak for his body; in what else shall he sleep?” (Exodus 22:27). William Gurnall says, “Truly, hope is the [Christian’s] covering, wherein he wraps himself when he lays his body down to sleep in the grave. ‘My flesh,’ says David, ‘shall rest in hope.’”

Here are the great gifts we have the very moment we first believe. Peace with God. Access into His amazing grace. Joy springing from the hope of the glory of God.

Do you know what it is to have these things? Do you what it is to live in them? Run to Christ. Rest in Christ. Live in Christ. Submit to Him. Learn from Him. Know that He loves you. Trust Jesus, and may these blessings continue to mark our lives. Let’s pray.

How We Seek to Care for Children at MHMBC

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Nale) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 02:55:00 +0000

Here's the link.

Romans 5:1 Peace with God

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Nale) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 20:11:00 +0000

Peace with God

Romans 5:1

January 1^st, 2011

AM Service

Introduction:

In one moment, everything can change. You have a choice: go to this college, a different college, or no college. The decision you make affects the rest of your life. This decision shapes your future. Should you take that job which requires you to move to another city? The decision you make may affect the rest of your life, for good or ill. Consider marriage. In one moment, everything changes. You used to be an independent person, but now you are part of a pair. Your heart and thoughts and your actions are tied to your spouse till death do you part. For better or worse, your life has changed. Many of you have known that moment when you hold your baby for the very first time and know right then and there that you will never be the same. The consequences of that moment will last your lifetime. Your heart is tied to that child, for good or ill.

These opening verses are all about helping us understand how that one moment when we first believed on Christ changed everything. When a new believer comes to Christ he doesn’t fully understand everything that is happening right then and there. There is a radical change that takes place. We will spend eternity coming to grips with all of the glories of what happened in that moment. Here, in verse 1 of chapter 5, we see set before us one wonderful effect of our believing on Jesus Christ. This is an effect which became true the moment we believed and remains true of us from that moment on till forever. Here it is: we have peace with God.

Do you see that word Therefore? You may have heard the saying that whenever you see the word therefore in the Bible, you should look back to see what it is there for. The word therefore means that whatever follows is based on what has just been said. In this case, Paul has been speaking for half of chapter 3 and all of chapter 4 about how a person is made right with God. Being made right with God is called justification, and the way that Paul has argued for us to be made right with God is by faith in Jesus. He is writing to fellow believers in Rome. He is writing to people who like himself have believed on Jesus. So, in this context, in light of what he has just said, since he and they have been justified by faith, they have peace with God through their Lord Jesus Christ.

Let’s talk a little grammar for just a moment. This verse is made up of a dependent clause and an independent clause in our English translations. A dependent clause cannot stand on its own; an independent clause can. The first part of this verse (“Since we have been justified by faith”) is the dependent clause. The second part of this verse (“we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ”) is the independent clause. The first part of the verse supports the second. The second part of the verse is the main point. The first part of the verse helps us understand the main point.

The independent clause has a subject: we. Who are the we? Well, we see in the first part of the verse that the we are those who have been justified by faith. It includes Paul and the Christians in Rome he was writing to. But it also includes every person who has ever truly believed on Christ. The we here refers to believers – to Christians. What about Christians?

The independent clause has a verb: have. There is something that Christians have. What is it?

For that, we look to the direct object. What is the direct object? It is peace. Christians have peace with God. So here is the central doctrine of Romans 5:1. Christians have peace with God. Not Christians can have peace with God. Not Christians will have peace with God. Not Christians may have peace with God. This is the truth set before us: Christians have peace with God.

Outline

Now, here is our outline for unpacking this doctrine. I want to make three points, all of which I think are very clear in this verse: 1. This peace with God is a wondrous thing. That’s where we will spend most of our time. 2. This peace with God is through our Lord Jesus Christ. Apart from Him we would not have it. 3. This peace with God is ours on the basis of our justification by faith.

Let’s dive in:

1. This peace with God is a wondrous thing.

I say this peace with God is wondrous because it is the very first blessing Paul mentions after explaining the way of salvation. He is going to mention others, but this is number one on his list, which means that he must see this blessing as being particularly precious. But why? Why is peace with God such a special thing?

Let me mention 5 reasons:

First, this peace with God is wondrous because it is a genuine peace. The peace we have in Jesus Christ is not merely a feeling of peace or the prospect of peace – it is actual peace with God.

You see, people all around us have counterfeit peace. There are people we live among every day who have feelings of peace in their souls. On man has lived a decent life. He has not committed any major crimes. He has not murdered anybody. He’s tried to be honest with folks and to pay his bills and to treat others the way he wants to be treated. He doesn’t have any sort of relationship with Christ, but compared to others he’s a fine fellow. He knows it, too, and there’s a sense of peace in his heart. Surely he is okay with God. This is counterfeit peace.

Beside him is perhaps a lady who has fallen into false doctrine. Maybe she attends a mainline church where she has been taught that all people will ultimately go to heaven. Or maybe she has become convinced of atheism and doesn’t believe there is a God at all. By being persuaded to believe these things, she no longer worries about the possibility of not being right with God. She has a sense of peace in her heart that she is fine with Him, but this peace is built on a faulty foundation. It isn’t genuine peace.

Here’s a man who made a decision for Jesus. He attended an evangelistic rally and there walked the aisle and asked Jesus to come into his heart. He prayed a prayer and even cried a bit. True, he hasn’t exactly been following Jesus since then. Jesus hasn’t affected the way he treats his family or spends his money or behaves at work. But he was promised that the decision he made secured his peace with God. He looks back on that day and still has sentimental feelings about it. He’s not worried about his future with God. He has peace. But it’s not the real thing.

There’s a lady who feels very secure in heart that she is fine with God. She knows so much. She has been going to church since she was a little girl, and she can quote Scripture backward and forward. She’s an ace at theology and can talk with anyone about the ins and outs of soteriology, ecclesiology, eschatology and any other ology you have in mind. She knows so much that often she can come to the preacher after the Sunday service and give him a list of corrections – he misquoted this verse and took this one out of context and explained this doctrine in an unbalanced way. Surely with all of this knowledge she must be in God’s grace – she has peace in her heart.

None of these are real peace. Satan has said to these folks, “Peace, peace,” where there is no peace. They are walking a path to hell, and they are walking it with no fear or trembling, sure that they must be okay.

You see, true peace isn’t established first in our hearts, but in the courts of heaven. Real peace with God includes the full removal of God’s anger against us. Real peace includes us being made the object of His love and blessing. Our crimes have been paid for. God’s anger has been spent out on Christ in our place. Christ’s righteousness has been accounted to us and God’s love for His Son’s righteousness is now directed to us. Peace with God must first be a heavenly reality before it can be a true experiential reality. If God has not declared peace with you, then your feelings of peace are misguided.

This genuine, heavenly, God-declared kind of peace is only found through faith in Jesus Christ. If He is ours and we are His, then He stands this moment before His Father as the grounds of all our peace. He is our peace with God. He has made it so that we are declared reconciled with God in the courts of heaven. And if the peace we have in our hearts is based on this declaration of peace, then it is the real thing.

Praise be to God, this kind of peace is an immutable peace. It does not vary with the weather. It does not vary with your feelings. It is not as though you have peace with God when you are being faithful and obedient, but if you sin that peace is suddenly gone. This peace that Christians have with God is permanent.

If this peace was dependent upon you and your actions it would be as secure as an unanchored boat in the midst of a hurricane. That is to say, it would not be secure at all. But this peace isn’t dependent upon you and your actions – it’s dependent upon the person and work of Christ – and Christ is permanent. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Thus, this peace that Christians have with God is a permanent, immutable, forever kind of peace. You are truly and forever reconciled to God!

Second, this peace with God is wondrous because it is peace with God. He is the Creator and ruler of all things. He holds you in His hands and has every right to do with you as He pleases. Your eternal happiness or despair is in His hands. What will come of you and what you will experience is determined by Him.

What’s more, He knows you through and through. He knows every cell in your body and he is intimately familiar with the depths of your soul. He knows your every longing and your every thought. He knows the very worst of your sins. He knows better than you do the twisted and wicked desires that are hiding in the recesses of your heart. He knows whether you truly desire Him and delight in Him or prefer yourself instead.

Why is peace with God so precious? Because God is the One who is all-wise and can lead us to eternal joy. He Himself is the fountain of all joy. If deep down you long to be happy and satisfied, content and at peace, here is the One to whom you must come. You don’t want to be at war with the One who has in Himself everything your soul so desperately needs! Peace with God is precious because God is precious and knowing Him and belonging to Him is the greatest reality any person in this world can ever know!

Third, this peace with God is wondrous because of the consequences that would be ours if we did not have this peace. Surely this describes some of you in this room! There are certainly some here who do not have peace with God, but are still at enmity with Him, and these consequences will be yours. They would have been mine, too, and everyone else’s in here were it not for grace.

Think about the consequences in this life of not having peace with God. Everyday, those who do not have peace with God live with God’s wrath hanging over them. If they are not aware of this then they are sadly living in a state of deception; if they are aware of this they live in a state of fear. Those who do not have peace with God cannot lay hold to His promises. Christ is not a help for them in time of trouble, nor is He working all for their good. Day after day they continue adding sin upon sin to their record, all of which they will have to pay for in the end. God’s wisdom is available to them, but they don’t want it, and following their own wisdom they cause themselves and others all sorts of misery and heartache. The greatest joy they know is a joy in worldly things; they have never tasted the greater delight in God. They are enslaved to sin. Such is the case of those who do not have peace with God.

But think also about the consequences in the next life of not having peace with God. Here we ought to all tremble. Psalm 68:1-2: “God shall arise, his enemies shall be scattered; and those who hate him shall flee before him! As smoke is driven away, so you shall drive them away; as wax melts before fire, so the wicked shall perish before God.” Right now, it is the merciful patience of God that holds back His righteous wrath from breaking out against His enemies. But God’s patience towards the wicked is not infinite. Infinite patience with wicked people is wicked itself. No, God’s patience will come to an end, and those who have continued to reject Him and to live in rebellion against Him will find themselves without any hope. Jesus said that God’s enemies will be cast into outer darkness, into a furnace of fire, into a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. God’s patience is a dam which holds back His wrath, but the dam will be brought down, and His wrath will come rushing in. It will come when Jesus returns, and it could be any moment now. Refusing to make peace with this God is foolish – the consequences are more terrible than you can imagine.

Fourth, this peace with God is wondrous because of the incredible obstacles that were overcome for us to have it.

There was the obstacle of our sin and God’s holiness. This was not small problem. How can God be holy and just and yet treat criminals like us with such blessing? What would we say of a ruler or judge who made peace with a criminal, refusing to punish him for his crime? Throughout the Bible judges who do not uphold justice or condemned by God. God cannot be God and treat sinners like us with kindness. This obstacle was so huge that it took Jesus coming to earth and representing His people to overcome it. Christ had to take our sin upon Himself, and be punished as though He had committed our sins. Remember Romans 3:26? Christ had to come and bear our punishment in our place so that God could be just and the justifier of us who believe. Here is the great cost of our peace with God – the very humiliation and suffering and death of God Himself! God died that we would have peace with Him! God permitted His Son to become one of us – a frail human being – so that He would experience the suffering and hell His people deserve in their place. Our peace with God was purchased by the blood of Jesus. Every drop of His blood was worth more than this universe – and yet He shed it that we would be reconciled to God. Colossians 1:20 – He has made peace by the blood of His cross.

Yet even this isn’t the end of the story. For there was still the obstacle of our enmity against God. Do you see verse 10? Before we were saved, we were enemies of God. God was working through the great cost of the death of Jesus to make peace with us, but we didn’t want peace. Romans 8 says that the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, and that is who we once were. That is who some of you in here still are. You may say some nice things about God. And you’ll love Him as long as you think that He is obsessed with you. But when you realize that God is holy, and His will crosses with your will, then it is that your true colors show. When God makes demands of you that you don’t want to submit to, and declares that He has the authority to tell you how to live, then the condition of your heart is exposed.

So you see, not only are we separated from God by our sins, but by nature we don’t want peace with Him. Jesus overcomes this obstacle by sending His Spirit to us and changing our hearts. He causes us to be born again so that we see with different eyes. We come to God and believe on Jesus only because Christ has first done a work in our hearts, removing our enmity and placing a desire for God there instead. We were dead to God; Christ makes us alive. Our hearts were like hearts of stone towards God; Christ gives us a heart of flesh – a heart of tenderness that responds to God’s words of warning and love.

So you see, there were great obstacles that keeping us and God apart. You and I were helpless to do anything about these obstacles. We were blind and on our way to hell utterly uninterested in making peace with God. God has done everything – absolutely everything – through Jesus Christ in order for us to have peace. This peace becomes ours the moment we believe, and even that faith is a gift from God given to us by Jesus Christ through His Spirit.

If all these other reasons haven’t shown you why Paul lists this blessing first, and why peace with God is such a wondrous thing, let me mention just one more. This peace with God is wondrous because of the numerous other blessings that peace with God brings. There are so many other blessings that depend on this one. Let me just name off some. When we have peace with God, we receive…

1. …a loving relationship with Him, which is the best thing imaginable.

2…. peace in our hearts concerning our future safety and security.

3. …God’s very Spirit indwelling us so that we and Him become one.

4. …the gift of His character being born within us.

5. …the promise of glory to come.

6. …a basis for hope in the midst of the most difficult trials of this life.

7. …grounds for unspeakable joy.

Now, having shown you something of how wondrous this peace is, let me move to our second point from this verse, namely…

2. This peace with God is through our Lord Jesus Christ

He is Christ, the Anointed One, the Messiah. He is the One that was promised from the beginning of our Bibles. He is the One that would set right all that went wrong in the Fall. Adam was disobedient and brought the curse; the Christ would be obedient – even to the point of death – and would bring blessing. Peace with God is ours only because Christ came and lived perfectly for 33 years, accomplishing perfect righteousness on our behalf – the very righteousness which is now accounted to us. The moment we believe on Jesus we are dressed in His righteousness. God loves righteousness – it describes Himself. God cannot be at war with righteousness, for He cannot be at war with Himself.

But it wasn’t just through His perfect life that the Christ brought us peace with God. It was also through His substitutionary death. That is why He is not only called the Christ, but Jesus, which means Savior. Jesus laid down His life to save His people. He bore the wrath of God that His people deserved in their place on the cross. Thus, not only are we who believe dressed in the righteousness of Christ, but our sins have been paid for and removed – they are as far from us as the east is from the west. And not just our past sins, but our present and future sins. They’ve all been taken care of and are gone forever.

Yet all that Christ did for us wouldn’t matter if it wasn’t actually applied. A medicine does nobody any good if it isn’t actually taken. It is through faith that all that Jesus is for us becomes ours. And Jesus gives us that faith and sustains that faith in our souls. He is the One who sends the Spirit and causes people to be born again. He is the Author and the Finisher of our faith. He has the authority to save whom He chooses and to reconcile whomever He chooses to God. That is why He is called Lord.

We have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have peace with God through His perfect life, His substitutionary death, and His work as the risen and exalted King. He is our peace.

Now, finally, notice that…

3. This peace with God is ours on the basis of our justification by faith.

Here is the way of salvation. Here is how the peace provided in Jesus Christ becomes ours. Heaven and hell, everything depends on this.

Listen to J.I. Packer – I’m going to read this slowly so you can catch every word of this: “…the doctrine of justification by faith is like Atlas: it bears a world on its shoulders, the entire evangelical knowledge of saving grace. The doctrines of election, of effectual calling, regeneration, and repentance, of adoption, of prayer, of the church, the ministry, and the sacraments, have all to be interpreted and understood in the light of justification by faith. Thus, the Bible teaches that God elected men in eternity in order that in due time they might be justified through faith in Christ. He renews their hearts under the Word, and draws them to Christ by effectual calling, in order that he might justify them upon their believing. Their adoption as God’s sons is consequent on their justification; indeed, it is no more than the positive aspect of God’s justifying sentence. Their practice of prayer, of daily repentance, and of good works — their whole life of faith — springs from the knowledge of God’s justifying grace. The church is to be thought of as the congregation of the faithful, the fellowship of justified sinners, and the preaching of the Word and ministry of the sacraments are to be understood as means of grace only in the sense that they are means through which God works the birth and growth of justifying faith. A right view of these things is not possible without a right understanding of justification; so that when justification falls, all true knowledge of the grace of God in human life falls with it, and then, as Luther said, the church itself falls.”

Is there anyone here this morning who does not have peace with God? Do you want it? Do you want to be reconciled to Him? Do you want to have Him as your heavenly Father and not as your heavenly Enemy? You can! But there is only one way. You must turn to Jesus Christ and submit to Him. You must entrust yourself to Him. You must believe on Him. Justification by faith – being made right with God by faith in Jesus – this is the only way to peace with God.

Let me tell you how it happened for John Bunyan. John Bunyan had been a notoriously wicked man – a man widely known for his wickedness. When he got married his wife had brought with her to the marriage a couple of godly books which Bunyan began to read and which began to affect him. He began attending church and listening to preaching. Yet his conscience was full of fear and agony because he knew how wicked he had been. He knew that God was too holy to make peace with a sinner like him. Listen to what happened:

“But one day, as I was passing in the field, and that too with some dashes on my Conscience, fearing lest yet all was not right, suddenly this sentence fell upon my soul, Thy righteousness is in Heaven; and [I thought] I saw, with the Eyes of my Soul, Jesus Christ at God’s Right Hand. There, I say, was my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could not say of me, He [lacks] my Righteousness, for that was just before him. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of Heart that made my Righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my Righteousness worse; for my Righteousness was Jesus Christ himself, the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

There it is! Peace with God comes not by our works or how we are feeling from day to day. Our peace with God rests in Jesus Christ as we rest in Him.

I love this quote from Bunyan – listen carefully:

“I remember that one day, as I was traveling into the Country and musing on the wickedness and blasphemy of my Heart, and considering…the enmity that was in me to God, that Scripture came in my mind, “He hath made peace by the Blood of his Cross.” By which I was made to see, both again, and again, that day, that God and my soul were Friends by this Blood; yea, I saw that the Justice of God and my sinful Soul could embrace and kiss each other through this Blood. This was a good day to me; I hope I shall not forget it.”

So this morning I have a word for Christians: brothers and sisters, you are at peace with God through Jesus Christ. Don’t doubt it. Don’t deny it. If you are trusting Christ, you are reconciled to God.

I have a word for unbelievers: you too can have peace with God. Turn to Jesus and trust Him. Submit to Him. Follow Him. I pray you will.

Let’s pray.

Worship at MHMBC (1/1/12)

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Nale) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 16:07:00 +0000

Tomorrow we begin our study of Romans 5-7. These chapters will be our focus for most of 2012, and I am praying that God is going to do some very exciting things as we unpack these passages throughout the year. These are awesome chapters that are immensely helpful both theologically and practically. We'll be looking at 5:1 in the AM Service and 5:2 in the PM Service.

Here's the order for the AM Service:

Prelude

Welcome

Opening Prayer

Responsive Call to Worship

Psalm 8

Singing Together:

“Arise, My Soul, Arise”

Psalm 67

Reading through James

James 1:1-18

Singing Together:

“It Is Well With My Soul”

Missions Moment:

Update on the Mausts

Offering

Sermon

“Christians Have Peace With God”

Romans 5:1

Responding in Prayer

Responding in Song

“I Will Glory In My Redeemer”

Benediction

Worship on Christmas Sunday at MHMBC

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Nale) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 19:02:00 +0000

Prelude

Welcome

Opening Prayer

Responsive Call to Worship

Psalm 40:1-5

Singing Together

“I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day”

Lighting the Christ Candle

Brian Thompson Family

Singing Together

“Good Christian Men Rejoice”

“In Christ Alone”

Praying for the Sermon

Offering

Sermon

“The Government Shall Be Upon His Shoulders” (Isaiah 9:6)

Responding in Prayer

The Lord’s Supper

Congregation

Benediction

“Joy to the World”

Is Christmas Pagan?

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Nale) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 18:41:00 +0000

Too often we hear the view that Christmas was originally a pagan holiday of the Roman Empire meant to celebrate the god of the sun. As the Empire became more "Christian", they simply changed the reason for celebrating. According to many, there was no reason at all to believe that Jesus was born in December, but foolish men wanted to continue to give the empire a reason to indulge in drunken revelry. Many who hold this view believe that celebrating Christmas is a sin because of these pagan origins. What do we say to this?

The historical record shows that Christianity was exploding in growth in the Roman Empire in the 200s A.D., and that they were already celebrating the birth of Christ during the days of winter. There was an assumption here. The assumption was that God created the seasons to be a picture of His works in the world. Look with me at Genesis 1:14: “And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and for years…” Do you see that word signs? The early Christians, whether rightly or wrongly, took this verse to mean that the seasons were meant to teach the works of God in such a way that dates represent works of God. So, for example, they understood the first day of Spring to be March 25^th. And since Spring is the time in which new life begins to appear after the Winter, the early Christians assumed that March 25^th was also the day on which God began to create the world. March 25^th to them was a yearly reminder of how God brought life out of nothing. Many also believed that it was on March 25^th that the Lord Jesus Christ was conceived in the womb of Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit. They believed this because they saw Jesus as the first of the New Creation. It just made sense to them theologically that He would be born on the same day they thought the world was created, March 25^th. And if Jesus was conceived on March 25^th, when would He have been born? Add nine months to March 25^th and you get December 25^th.

Now, let me be clear. There are very few biblical scholars today who think that Jesus was born in December. The general consensus based on the fact that shepherds were with their sheep in the fields and other factors is that Jesus was born in the Spring. But those who try and argue that the early Christians simply Christianized a pagan festival are probably speaking erroneously. In the 200’s AD Christians were already celebrating the birth of Christ around the time of the Winter Solstice, and it was then that the pagan emperor Aurelian instituted the pagan festival as an attempt to counteract the rising influence of Christianity. That pagan festival fell to the wayside as Rome became more and more influenced by Christianity. Ultimately the celebration of Christmas was designated to December 25^th by the Christian leaders of the 300s – the same Christian leaders who gave us the great creeds about the person of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity. These were not ignorant men trying to dress a pagan celebration in Christian clothes – these were believers who were seeking to serve God’s people. So the argument of Christmas being a pagan celebration is false.

This Sunday (12/18/11) at MHMBC

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Nale) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 00:21:00 +0000

This Sunday we will have two of our church members preaching in our services. We are excited about having Merle Hendricks and Mark Anderson bring the Word to us.

Here is the order of worship for Sunday morning:

Prelude

Welcome

Opening Prayer

Responsive Call to Worship

Psalm 89:1-8

Singing Together

“Angels from the Realms of Glory”

Lighting the Wise Men Candle

Brad & Janet Joyner

Singing Together

“O Come, All Ye Faithful”

“Speak, O Lord”

Praying for the Sermon

Offering

Sermon

Merle Hendricks - Matthew 2:1-12

Responding in Prayer

Responding in Song

“Before the Throne of God Above”

Benediction

Ten Reasons to Trust Christ While You are Young

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Nale) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 02:19:00 +0000

Ten Reasons to Trust Christ While You are Young

Psalm 71:5

December 11^th, 2011

AM Service

Introduction: The Passage and My Goal in This Sermon

King David is likely the author of this psalm. He wrote it when he was an old man. He has been walking with God for many, many years, and now, he is praying that his God will sustain him in these last days of his life. In particular, it sounds as though this psalm was written when David’s son Absalom was rebelling against him. The gist of the psalm is captured in verses 17-18:

“O God, for my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come.”

In verse 4 we see that David is praying for God to rescue him from the hand of wicked men. In verses 5-6, we learn that David is not calling out on a God he has known for just a little while, but a God that he has known since he was young:

“For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O LORD, from my youth. Upon you I have leaned from before my birth; you are he who took me from my mother’s womb. My praise is continually of you.”

David is an example of a man who trusted God and loved God when he was young. He recognizes that even before he was born he was in God’s hands and dependent upon God, and that it was God who delivered him from his mother’s womb. He walked with God from a young age, and it was God who cared for him to this very day. Here is why David has confidence as he calls to the LORD in his old age – he has seen God’s faithfulness to him as he has walked with God over the decades before.

The Bible presents to us a number of men who knew God from their youth. David, Samuel, Josiah, Timothy – these men were mightily used by God and were remarkable witnesses for God in their generations. In each of them we see the benefits of having come to faith at an early age.

Here is the doctrine that I want to bring before us this morning: It is a blessed thing to trust Christ in your youth. Let me say that again: It is a blessed thing to trust Christ in your youth.

Now, while I trust we will all gain from what I going to say this morning, my focus is particularly on those in this room who are young. I’m thinking of everyone from age 3 to age 40. If you are in the first half of your life, I want to you to particularly listen to me this morning. Teenagers, I want you to particularly listen to me this morning. Kids, listen. This morning’s sermon is a call for you to trust Jesus. This morning’s sermon is a call for you to follow Jesus. I don’t know where all of you are in your hearts. I don’t know how many of you do trust Jesus and are trying to follow Him and how many of you are not. But this morning I am speaking directly to you. It is a blessed thing to trust Christ when you are young.

If David and Timothy and Josiah and Samuel do not get your attention, think about Jesus Himself. Think about how He trusted His Father and walked with God even when He was young. I want you to do the same thing. There are many in this room who came to Christ later in life who would do almost anything if they could be in your shoes, having the opportunity to be a Christian earlier in life.

This morning I’m giving you a list. It’s a top 10 list of sorts. I want to give you ten reasons from the Bible why trusting Christ in your youth is a wonderful thing. I hope you will hear this as a call for you to trust Jesus and follow him.

10 Reasons to Trust Christ in Your Youth

1. Christ is calling you now.

He wants you now. Jesus has not waited until you are 40 or 50 or 60 to call you to salvation. Right now, on this day, Jesus is calling you to believe on Him. He’s calling on you right now through this message. Many of you have been coming to church here for years, and have heard the gospel preached over and over and over again. Each and every time it is Christ who is blessing you. Billions of people on this earth have not heard the gospel as you have, but in God’s providence, you have! Jesus has brought this invitation to be His and to follow Him to you. And He’s bringing it to you now, while you are young.

Imagine a man coming to a young lady wanting her to be his wife. He says to her, “I’ve made every arrangement for us to be married. I desire to lead you and guide, to protect you and provide for you, to cherish you and nurture you. I love you deeply. Take my hand and follow me and be mine.” Imagine that young lady looking at that man and saying, “Yes, I will be yours. But let me wait a few decades. Let me chase after other things. Let me spend these younger years of my life pursuing other things. I’m glad you love me and want me to be yours, but I’d prefer to do my own thing. Maybe when I’m 40, or 50, or 60 – then I’ll be your wife.” What would we think of such a response? Is that how you are responding to Christ?

2. This issue is the most important that you will ever encounter in your life.

Friends, in life there are two roads set before you. There is the road of trusting Jesus and following Him, which leads to eternal life. There is also the road of following your own heart and doing what you desire, which leads to eternal death. The most important issue you will ever face in life is deciding which road you will take. Don’t think for a moment that you can say, “I’ll wait till I’m older, then I’ll decide.” You’ve already decided! Every moment of everyday you are choosing to either follow Christ or not. If you are not following Christ now, then you are already walking down that path that leads to hell. It is sheer grace that Christ is giving you an opportunity now to turn away from your sins, to turn your back on the path you’ve been walking, and to come to the straight and narrow.

It is unwise to neglect something this important. How many people die every year because they have a pain in their chest or some ailment in their body and they refuse to deal with it. They don’t want to go the doctor. They don’t want the uncomfortable experience of being poked and probed, and so their cancer or heart disease or whatever it is goes unchecked and they die. How many more are there who know deep down that something is wrong with their soul, and that they are not in good standing with God, but they refused to deal with the issue. They would rather ignore it and keep their minds dwelling on silly, passing things than deal this all-important manner. The Great Physician of your soul is calling you. He has a diagnosis for your problem – it’s called sin. He has a prescription for your problem – it’s called applying His blood to your sin. All you have to do is turn to Him, trust Him, stop living your life your own way and follow Him. His blood will be applied to you and you will right with God. Don’t neglect the Great Physician!

3. Heaven and hell are realities.

This isn’t a game that we are playing. Heaven is a reality. Hell is a reality.

Almost everyone in America believes in heaven. Almost no one in America believes in hell. Isn’t that interesting? What do you think that tells us about the human race?

Some assume that God’s warnings about casting people into hell are an empty threat because they cannot imagine a day in which humanity will stand before God’s throne. They cannot imagine a day of global catastrophe in which this whole world is consumed in fire. They cannot imagine a place called hell. These people are materialists at heart. They believe in what they can see. They believe in what they have known all their lives. But the idea that the world as they have known it could forever change and never be the same – that history could end and that heaven and hell can exist – that is beyond their ability to grasp.

I have only one question to ask: Is it safe or wise or reasonable to presume that because I cannot imagine a day of final judgment or a place called hell that these things therefore cannot be? Is it not a logical fallacy to say that if I cannot imagine it, it must not be? What kind of arrogance says that the course of this world must be determined by what my finite, puny, human mind thinks is normal and conceivable?

Moreover, has not God given us shadows of the things to come? Do we not have the account of Sodom? Do we not see entire cities destroyed by major hurricanes and sweeping tsunamis? Can we not look at the ancient city of Pompeii, destroyed by the fiery lava of Mount Vesuvius, which came upon people so quickly that we have the fossilized remains of people who were overcome by it trying to flee, and see a little picture of what God tells us is coming? Can we not look into the white-hot blaze of our own sun and see a picture of the pure and righteous wrath of God that will consume this world in fire? Have you never had a nightmare from which you were only rescued by the mercy of waking up? Could this not be a warning to you that there is such a thing as a nightmare from which you will never wake up?

Others assume that the threat of God’s eternal wrath is laughable because it doesn’t fit their own estimation of what their sin deserves. You see, almost no one will claim to be perfect. Almost everyone will acknowledge that they have sinned – broken God’s laws. But most hold a very low view of sin. They cannot imagine that just one of their sins is enough to warrant an eternal hell! That kind of justice seems ridiculous to them.

To which I only ask this question: Are you so sure that your estimation of what your sin deserves is more accurate than God’s estimation of what your sin deserves? Are you so sure that though He made the laws that govern us, and though His laws are infinitely perfect, and though he is infinitely worthy of perfect obedience, that your estimation of what your sin deserves is right and what God has revealed in the Bible about what your sin deserves is wrong? Do you trust yourself or God?

4. Your future isn’t guaranteed.

There is no guarantee that you will be alive this evening. There is no guarantee that you will be alive tomorrow. Christ is calling you to follow Him now.

Let’s try another picture. Imagine that you are locked in an empty room. You cannot get out. Slowly, little by little, the temperature is increasing. Each and every moment you stay in that room, the room gets hotter and hotter. If you stay in that room, you will die. There is a voice on the other side of the door. It is the voice of Christ. Dear sinner, I have unlocked the door. Come out to me and be saved. Come to me! Why in the world would you say to Him, “Let me wait awhile. Let me stay in here awhile. When I’m ready, I’ll come to you.” What if you wait too long? You know the story of the frog in the pot. Put a frog in boiling water and he’ll jump out, but put the frog in cool water and slowly increase the heat and he’ll stay in until he dies. In the same way, the gospel of John says that all people who are not trusting Christ are under condemnation. This moment you are under the wrath of God. And every moment you stay outside of Christ, in your room of blindness and darkness, you come a step closer to that wrath being unleashed upon you in hell. Don’t be foolish! God is like the lion Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia – He is good, but He is not tame. He is a God of love, but He will also be righteous. At some point the cup of your sins will be filled to the brim and God’s patience will end. Hell will come to you. Not because God is wicked, but because He is good, and you are wicked.

5. Refusing to trust Christ when you are young makes it harder to trust Him when you are older.

Everyday you live apart from Jesus, refusing to follow Him, you are living in sin. You are sinning all the time, doing what you prefer rather than what He would have you do. Each and every one of these sins has a hardening effect on your life. Have you ever noticed this? Have you ever noticed that once you’ve sinned in some way the first time, it gets easier the second time? Every day of unbelief is another day in which you are walking the path that leads you further away from Jesus. Young people, surely you’ve seen that older people, especially if they are not mature Christians, tend to become more and more stubborn. Your soul is like slowly drying cement, and if you continue rejecting Christ for so long, your heart will harden that way. Today you are in church; keep walking the path of rejecting Jesus and you probably won’t be in church when you are older. You won’t hear these gospel messages. You will indulge yourself in trivial things and spend your Sundays in worldliness. Preachers will still be preaching the gospel, calling you to salvation, but you won’t be there to hear it.

Don’t keep walking that descending staircase that takes you farther away from Christ. Come to Him! Trust Him! Is His Spirit speaking to you right now? Is there not something in your soul compelling you to give yourself to Christ? Is He worthy of being followed, worthy of your love, worthy of your allegiance. If you follow Him, you will be in good hands. Continue to reject Him today, and you will find it even harder to come to Him tomorrow.

6. He will keep you from so many sins and their painful consequences.

I mentioned earlier that there are many in this room who wish they had followed Jesus from an earlier age. That’s because when we follow Jesus, pay attention to His Word, submit our hearts to what He says, He leads us well. He is not a shabby shepherd. He is not an incompetent Shepherd. He’s a Good Shepherd.

Choosing to go another way, to do what you want to do instead of following Christ – this has painful consequences. Do you think you just say whatever comes to your mind and there not be consequences? People will get hurt, and you will do great harm that one day you may greatly regret. Do you think that you can indulge in worldly music and worldly entertainment and there not be consequences? If you continue to pollute your mind and heart, you will be come a pollution to everyone in your life. Do you think you can hang around who ever you want to hang around and there not be consequences? Get too involved with ungodly people, and you will find yourself committing sins that at one time you thought you would never commit.

Sexual immorality. Drunkenness. A vulgar mouth. A hateful, bitter attitude. A heart full of idols. Pride and self-centeredness. These things will hurt you. They are landmines that will destroy you. And if you refuse to trust Jesus, refuse to follow Him, you will ultimately give yourself to some of these things. You may say now, “I would never do such things”, but mark my words, the seeds of them are already in you. And unless you find help in Jesus Christ, your life will be the opposite of a blessing – you will be a curse to those around you.

By God’s grace, there are some in this room who did come to know Jesus while they were young. They had their share of sins, but thankfully, Jesus spared them from many. Because they were praying and reading their Bibles and learning the truth while they were young, they didn’t indulge in some of the things their friends did. Because Jesus had won their hearts, they refused to participate in certain sins. And God spared them the consequences.

Young people, you can be spared from so much misery if you will just hear this and take it seriously. Trust Christ now, while you are young, and learn from Him. Be His disciple. Rest in His love. Obey His commands. You will find that we call Him wise for a reason.

7. You can be of great use to Christ even now while you are young.

We live in a culture that more or less tells young people to stay immature until they reach 30. The television shows, the music, the overall culture of adolescence is one of triviality. Young people are wasting their lives on who likes who and what’s cool and what’s not. Everyone wants to be unique and yet fit in, to be special and yet be a part of a clique. Actually, its not everyone. There are a few rare young people who have found all that they need in Christ, and while their peers are all wasting their lives on teenage foolishness, these are living radically for Jesus and changing their world.

I learned something back in the days when I was a youth minister. I learned that even middle school students could handle deep truths. I witnessed for myself what it looked like for 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th graders to get a glimpse of the glory of God and to begin to care about important things. I saw students who were hungry for the Bible, students who cared for their friends and longed to see them won to Christ. Some of these students would stay up way longer than they should have talking about end times and Calvinism and how to best make a difference in this world.

Young people, you could be of great use to Christ right now. Or have you bought into the lies of our culture? Teenagers, do you know how our culture belittles you? When parents tell us that they have teenagers in the home, we are expected to pity them. We are supposed to assume that all teenagers have a rebellious angst that must be expressed. Teenagers have no respect for authority; they make foolish choices. They are prone to smoking and drinking and drug abuse and sexual immorality. They are engrossed in media and worldliness and are not capable of thinking seriously about important things. And of course, everyone knows that teenagers cannot handle responsibility and should not be trusted.

Teenagers and wisdom are incompatible. Teenagers and submission are incompatible. Teenagers and purity are incompatible. Teenagers and seriousness are incompatible. Teenagers and responsibility are incompatible. Teenagers and faithfulness are incompatible. Have you believed this lie? Or, dear teenagers, do you know that you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you?

Let me just remind you, dear teenagers, that you don’t have to be like the typical immature teen of our day. George Washington had mastered geometry, trigonometry, and surveying by age 16, and his fellow peers considered him to not be very bright. By age 17 he was the official surveyor for Culpeper County, VA, travelling through unsettled territory as a frontiersman measuring and recording unmapped territories. His tools for measuring were heavy logs and chains. He was doing a man’s job – and he was doing so, because he was a man.[1] At age 22 Washington was a lieutenant colonel, at 23 commander and chief of the entire Virginia militia.[2]

David Farragut was ten years old when he began serving as a naval cadet on the warship Essex. At age 11 he was in his first battle, and at age 12 he was given command of a ship.[3]

Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, began training as a nurse at age 11 and took her first position at age 14.[4] Benjamin Franklin was apprenticing at his older brother’s printing press at age 12 and writing pseudonymous editorials at age 15. Louis Braille, who was blind, invented the first Braille system of reading at age 12. Mozart started composing at age 7. Andrew Jackson was fighting for America’s independence at age 14. George Parker (of the Parker Brothers) invented his first board game at 17. Davy Crockett was exploring the frontier on his own at age 12. Audie Murphy won 33 combat and other service decorations during his teenage years. And on and on we could go. John Newton was sailing slave ships with his father at age 11 (a profession he would later repent of). John Owen graduated college at 16 and earned his Master’s degree at 19 (a practice not that uncommon for young men in his day).

At age 6 Henry Alford wrote a small book entitled The Travels of St. Paul. By age 8 he had penned a collection of Latin odes. Not long after turning 9, Alford finished compiling a History of the Jews, as well as drawing out a chronological scheme of the events of the Old Testament. At age 10 he produced a series of sermons which were entitled “Looking Unto Jesus”.

So the youth of the past were fighting battles, writing books, making music, coming up with inventions, and exploring the frontier. Many held important jobs in society and were treated as adults, not as children.

Adults in this room: Compared to these I’ve mentioned, you may be thinking that our young men and women today seem rather immature. But it’s not mainly their fault. We are the ones who tell out teenagers “If you put your mind to it, you can do anything,” and then act amazed when they can make their bed on their own.

Friedrich Heer, a historian, writes about what life was like around the year 1800. He says,

“Around 1800, young people of both sexes could reckon on being considered adults as soon as the outwards signs of puberty made their appearance. Girls attained marriageable age at fifteen…Boys could join the Prussian army as officer cadets at the age of fifteen. Among the upper classes entry to university or to a profession was possible at the age of fifteen or sixteen.”

It is interesting that throughout most of history and still in many cultures today, young men and women married once they reached their teenage years. Many of these couples had multiple children before they themselves were age 20. Today we think, “Oh, our teenagers are far too immature to handle marriage and parenting” and we’re probably right. But they are not too immature for biological reasons, they are too immature because they have not been expected nor equipped by the adults around them to grow up and take responsibility.

Why do so few teenagers today even want to rise above the rest and become mature, responsible, faithful young adults even in their teenage years? It’s because they want to fit in. They are looking for love and security and happiness in their hearts, and so they must act like their friends. But this is not true for the teenager who comes to Christ. Christ saves your soul, forgives your sins, and brings you to God. He guarantees your eternal future. Christ is the fountain of everlasting joy and peace. You can become a greater blessing to your friends by finding all you need in Christ and pursuing wisdom rather than whimsy, godliness rather than the fad of the day. You can be useful to Jesus now – follow Him!

I’m running out of time, so let me just mention the last three.

8. You can lay a great foundation today for future usefulness.

Not only can you be useful to Christ today, but if you start following Him now, you can begin laying a foundation to be useful when you are older. You can begin learning doctrine, memorizing Scripture, hiding God’s Word in your heart now and it will serve you well when you are older. You can begin learning how to care for people, love people, talk to people about important things now so that you will be well-practiced when you are older. Following Christ today will help you follow Him better when you are older.

9. You can have a greater reward in heaven.

Christians are commanded to store up treasures in heaven. We do this by living for eternal things. We do this by giving ourselves to loving others, serving God, and obeying Christ. Start young, and you will have a greater reward. Waste your youth on things that are passing, and why you die, you will have nothing from all of those wasted years. Spend your youth on things that matter, and when you die, the fruit of what you did will last into eternity.

10. It is a great thing to die having walked with God for a lifetime.

Young people, listen to this. It is a sweet, sweet thing to die knowing that the God you are about to meet is a God you have known from your youth. David, in his old age, had an intimate relationship with God that had been developed over his whole life, beginning when he was young. Here is One Friend who will always be with you – a Companion for your entire life. Christ will never leave you nor forsake you. Why not go to Him now, walk with Him now, talk to Him now, learn from Him now, be a companion to Christ now? You can spend the entire rest of your life with Christ and when you die, the Savior that you are calling out on while on your deathbed will not be a stranger to you, but your precious Lord who you have walked with for generations. This is a sweet , sweet thing, so I hope you will consider it.

Close:

So young people, here are ten reasons why you should imitate David’s example and trust Christ now, while you are young. Hear each one, let each one resound in your heart, and by grace go to Christ today and resolve to trust Him and follow Him all the days of your life.

Trust Christ now, because it is a great thing to die having walked with God for a lifetime.

Trust Christ now, because you can have a greater reward in heaven.

Trust Christ now, because you can lay a foundation for future usefulness.

Trust Christ now, because you can be useful to Christ now.

Trust Christ now, because He will keep you from so many sins and their painful consequences.

Trust Christ now, because refusing to do so will make it harder to trust Him in the future.

Trust Christ now, because a future opportunity is not guaranteed.

Trust Christ now, because heaven and hell are realities.

Trust Christ now, because this is the most important issue you will ever encounter.

Trust Christ now, because He is calling you now.

Christ is a mighty Savior and Lord. Submit yourself to Him and be His. It is the way to eternal life and peace. Let’s pray.

[1] Do Hard Things, Alex and Brett Harris, p.31

[2] Ibid. p.55

[3] Ibid. pp. 31-32, 55

[4] Ibid. pp. 32, 55

Tomorrow (12/11/11) at MHMBC

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Nale) — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 19:15:00 +0000

Tomorrow morning I will be preaching a special message from Psalm 71:5 concerning reasons why it is a great blessing to trust Christ while you are still young. Tomorrow night is our Christmas program and church-wide Christmas party. All are invited!

Welcome

Opening Prayer

Responsive Call to Worship:

Psalm 84:1-4

Singing Together:

“Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”

Lighting the Shepherds’ Candle:

Seth McFarland Family

Singing Together:

“While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks”

“Joy Has Dawned”

Praying for the Sermon

Offering

Sermon:

“Ten Reasons to Trust Christ While You Are Young” (Psalm 71:5)

Responding in Prayer

Responding in Song:

“How Deep the Father’s Love For Us”

Benediction

Jesus the Life of His People

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Nale) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 01:30:00 +0000

This past Sunday's Thomas Brooks inspired sermon on Colossians 3:4

Introduction

This morning I would like to prepare our hearts to take the Lord’s Supper by focusing on four words in verse 4: “Who is your life”.

The context of these words is Paul’s instruction in verses 1-2. We are to seek the things that are above. We are to set our minds on spiritual things, not on worldly things. We are to care about God, His purposes, and His work in this world. We are to care about souls. We are to care about those things which really matter – not earthly treasures like money and possessions, but spiritual treasures like patience and kindness and love and mercy. These are the things we should be pursuing. These are the things that should occupy our minds.

Paul gives us three reasons that we should have our minds set on heavenly things. The first is a past reality. The second is a present reality. The third is a future reality. The past reality is found in the words: “You have died” in verse 3. As Christians, we have experienced a real death, the very death that we symbolize when we go under the water in baptism. We have died to sin. We have died to our old way of living. We have died to being consumed with the cares of this temporal world. No longer are we to live for things that are passing away; we are to live for kingdom purposes. We are to live for things above.

It’s a strange thing that sometimes even after a person has died there can still be spasms and movements in the body. The heart may have stopped beating, the brain may have stopped its waves, and yet there can be a muscle spasm in the dead man that sends an arm up into the air and then down again. In the same way, the old man of who we once were has truly died. There are times when he still acts out, but these are just the spasms of a dead man. Soon, when God makes us fully perfect, even these will be gone. At the core of who we are, a radical change has happened. We are a new creation in Christ. The old has passed away; the new has come. Here is the past reality: we have died to worldliness and sin. Therefore, set your mind on things above.

There is also a present reality, namely, that our life is hidden with Christ in God. We see that in verse 3. This very moment our life is hidden with Christ in God. But what does that mean?

The subject of this statement is our life, and here it refers to that spiritual vibrancy in our souls. This is that eternal, abundant life that is in our hearts that trusts God, loves Him, and finds delight in Him. We used to be spiritually dead – we did not have this life. Now we have it – a genuine spiritual vibrancy that believes and loves and obeys God. Just as physical water, flowing from a river, brings refreshment and life to our bodies, so living water – the Holy Spirit of God – flows from Jesus to us, refreshing our souls and giving our souls real life.

But the amazing spiritual life that is in our souls right now is like a stream – Jesus is the ocean. This is the sense in which our life is hidden with Christ in God. Christ is the source of our life, and He is seated in heaven with God. We cannot see Him – He is hidden from us. But He is the source of our life. It is His character being developed in us. This new spiritual vibrancy in us that trusts God, loves God, serves God – it’s the same spiritual life that is in Jesus. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. If we have life, it is because Jesus is creating in us the very same life He has in Himself. Take Him away for a moment, and life that is in us dries up and we become spiritually dead again. Thus, our life is in Him, and He is in heaven with God. Matthew Henry says, “Christ is at present a hidden Christ, or one whom we have not seen; but this is our comfort, that our life is hid with him, and laid up safely with him.”

Now, since the One in whom we have life is in heaven, and He is concerned about heavenly, spiritual things, should we not be concerned with heavenly things, too? We’ve died to earthly living; it is spiritual things that now matter to us. Christ is spiritual. So we should set our minds on things above.

Then there is the future reality. Jesus, who is our life, is going to appear, and when He does, we will appear with Him in glory. We are not yet fully glorified. The life of Christ in us has not yet come to maturity. We still live in these dying, old creation bodies, and our souls are not yet fully purified. But when Jesus returns, all that will change. Our bodies will be glorified, and our souls will be perfected. This earth as we know it will pass away – we will dwell with Jesus in glory forever. We will be conformed to His image. Therefore, as verse 5 says, we should put to death that which is earthly in us. We are to pursue heavenly traits and heavenly characteristics – the very character of God.

Now, in this context, we find Paul say these four words: “Who is your life”. “Who” is a pronoun, and as many of you know a pronoun is a word that replaces a noun in order to avoid repetition. It stands for another word. In this case, the “who” is Christ. Christ is your life.

Who is the you in this verse? It is Christians, those who belong to Christ. So Paul is saying that Christ is the life of His people. Dear Christians, Jesus is our life.

Now, what I would like to do over the next few minutes is open up five ways in which Jesus is our life. As it happens, each of them starts with an “s”. After each one we’ll take a moment to apply that point to our own lives.

1. Jesus is the Source of Our Life

First, Jesus is the source of our life. If there is spiritual life in your soul, Jesus is the One who put it there. There is no other source. Love for God, faith in God, submission to God – these things do not come naturally to us. By nature we are dead to these things. The kind of life that is characterized by these things is the kind that can only be given to us by Jesus Himself.

After all, we can’t receive this life from someone who doesn’t have it themselves. If I ask you to give me a dollar, and you don’t have a dollar, you can’t give me one. In the same way, if what I need is real, spiritual life, the only Person who can give it to me is someone who has it. There is only One – God Himself – Father, Son, and Spirit. The Father chosen to make Jesus the One from whom we receive spiritual life.

John 1:4: “In him was life, and that life was the light of men.”

John 5:26: “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.”

John 5:21: “For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.”

The Father is life. He has life in Himself. Jesus is the image of the Father - Jesus derives all His life from the Father. In the same way, we derive all our life from the Son. Jesus gives life to whom He will.

1^st John 5:12: “Whoever has the Son has life; whosever does not have the Son of God does not have life.”

APPLICATION: We should be humbled and grateful that Jesus has given us this life. We cannot boast in this life that we have. What do we have that we did not receive? Our spiritual lives were a gift of grace. Luther said, “If any man ascribes anything of salvation, even the very least thing, to the free will of man, he knows nothing of grace, and he has not learned Jesus Christ rightly.” No, we can take no credit for the new life we have – no more than we take credit for our physical lives. Jesus has set us favor upon you and me, dear Christians – though we are so undeserving – and has raised us from the dead spiritually. You and I are not better than other sinners. We are not less deserving of hell, more worthy to be God’s children. No, the life that we now have is the result only of sovereign grace. And all we can say is thank you, Lord Jesus. For the Son gives life to whom He will.

2. Secondly, and very mysteriously, Jesus is the substance of our life. Jesus is our life in the sense that our Christian lives are actually Jesus living in us. Have you ever considered this? Every moment in which you live spiritually, it is actually Christ living in you. We are but a branch – He is the vine. We are but a member of the body – He is the Head who is carrying out His life in us. Galatians 2:20: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” Philippians 1:21: “To live is Christ”. If you are alive spiritually, loving God, delighting in God, living for God’s glory, then the life that is in your soul is the very life that is in Jesus Christ being given to you and being exercised by Him in you.

Friends, do you see the intimacy and unity that Christ has with us who are His people? Christ is so intimate with us – so truly One with us – that it is His life that is being lived in us. We are distinct from Christ, and yet we are One with Him. It’s as mind-boggling as the Trinity itself. We are distinct from Jesus – He is the Son of God and we are not. He is to be worshipped; we most certainly are not. Yet we are now one with Him. We are united to Him. His life is in us. He has put His own Spirit in us and is living in us just as much as a vine is living in each of its branches. Friends, every moment that you are led by the Spirit, walking in the Spirit, doing spiritual things – it is Jesus doing those things in you and through you. The mind of Christ is being developed in you. The heart of Christ is being developed in you. You are a living, breathing, thinking, acting being, and yet it is God – it is Jesus – who is at work in you so that you will and do according to His good purpose. Christ in us – the hope of glory! Jesus is the very substance of the life that is in us. It is His life in that is in us.

APPLICATION: We should marvel at and find security in the wondrous union we have with Christ. Christian, do you see how loved you are? A man, when he has fallen in love with a woman, and wants to share his life with her, will propose to her and take her as his wife. Jesus loves us. For whatever reason, He has made us His own and shared His life with us. Even now we are His in a sacred union, and shall be His forever. Can you think of anyone else in this world you would rather belong to? If anyone was going to put their life into you, can you think of anyone you would rather have do that than Jesus Christ – the very Son of God! This is the One who is mighty and yet meek, righteous and yet compassionate, urging us forward into holiness and yet being remarkably patient and forgiving. He is the true lover of our souls. We have failed Him again and again, treated Him with such disregard, and yet He united Himself to us to be His forever. What can we say to this but Alleluia!?

3. Jesus is the sustainer of our life. It isn’t as if Jesus comes to us, gives us life by His Spirit, and then leaves us on our own. Rather, our spiritual life requires sustaining. It must be maintained. Remember, our spiritual lives are under attack from our own flesh, from the world around us, and from Satan and his minions. We have enemies that want to see this new life we’ve found wither up and die!

Yet Jesus will not allow this to happen. In order for this life we have to be destroyed, one of three things would have to happen: 1) Our souls would have to cease to exist. 2) Jesus, who is the ocean of life, the One from which all our life comes, would have to be destroyed. 3) There would have to be something that could overpower and interrupt the Holy Spirit’s work of bringing the life that Jesus gives to our souls.

Now, number1 can’t happen, because our souls can’t cease to exist. Souls are never-dying entities. Souls will exist forever – that is how God created them. Our souls will eventually dwell forever in heaven or dwell forever in hell, but our souls will not and cannot cease to exist.

Number 2 can’t happen either, for who is there that can destroy the Lord Jesus Christ? He has all authority and all power. He is far more powerful than the devil – He created the devil. He is far more powerful than this world: He could destroy it all with a single word. Our life is with Christ who is in heaven with God – who can touch Him to do Him harm? Let us North Korea fire their most dangerous missile as high as they can into the sky – it won’t reach the Lord Jesus Christ. And even if it could, it would do Him no harm. Jesus will eventually return to this earth, and when He does so, every enemy will be put under His feet. Jesus is indestructible – our ocean of never-ending spiritual life can never be destroyed. Our Savior and Shepherd is invincible.

So the only other way our spiritual life could be destroyed is if something could overpower and interrupt the Holy Spirit of God who acts as the Postman in this whole thing. The Holy Spirit is the One through whom Christ gives us spiritual life and keeps it alive in our souls every moment. Yet who is there who can over power the Holy Spirit? The Spirit is the Spirit of Christ. The Holy Spirit is often referred to as the power of God Himself. The Spirit is our Savior’s right hand, accomplishing His purpose. The Spirit is as indestructible as Jesus is. So every moment of every day, Jesus by the Spirit sustains our spiritual life.

Our spiritual life, if we have it now, will never end. This is why the Bible calls it eternal life. It is everlasting life. We are united to Jesus forever, and we branches will never be disconnected from our heavenly vine.

APPLICATION: We should look at the trials and difficulties of this life in a different way because of the confidence we have that our spiritual, abundant, eternal lives will last forever. Two passages come to mind:

Romans 8:18: For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

2^nd Corinthians 4:16-18: So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

If I am not sure that this spiritual life Christ has given me will last, then my life is sure to be full of anxiety and worry, and the trials I face will only make life harder to live. But because I am sure that this life is an eternal life, and that my soul is secure in Christ, I can face the trials of this life with a new perspective. They are hard, but they are not worth comparing with the glory ahead. They hurt, but they are light and momentary compared to the weight of glory ahead. How can we not rejoice that Christ has given us a kind of spiritual life that not only gives us peace in eternity, but peace right here and right now in the midst of our trials? Our Savior has been so good to us.

4. Jesus is the sustenance of our life. This is a remarkable thing. Jesus continually, moment by moment, sustains our life, and He does so through means of grace. He uses the Bible and prayer and Christian brothers and sisters to sustain our spiritual lives. Yet in all of these things, what He is ultimately doing is leading our souls to behold Him! It is as we see Him that our spiritual life is sustained. It is as we experience Him, adore Him, feast upon Him that our souls are well-maintained.

“I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.” (John 6:48-51 ESV)

Jesus sustains our lives by leading our souls to feast on Him and His glory. The more we see Him, the more we look to Him in faith; the more we look to Him in faith, the more He meets our faith with more grace, more blessing, more LIFE.

APPLICATION: We should seek to feast on Christ often through the means of grace that He has provided. Seeing that it is through the Word of God and prayer and Christian fellowship that Christ causes us to see more of His glory and have our spiritual lives strengthened, why would we not take advantage of these things as often as we can? If we want our physical lives to be strengthened, we make sure we eat appropriately and exercise. If we want our spiritual lives – that part of us that experiences faith and hope and love – to be strengthened, then we need to feed our souls and exercise faith. Every day we should be laying out a Thanksgiving feast before our souls – the glories of Christ revealed to us. And as we enjoy them, thinking about Him in our minds, loving Him in our hearts, joyfully submitting to Him with our wills, so we should look to Him in faith and find real nourishment for our souls.

5. Jesus is the strengthener of our life. He not only sustains our spiritual lives, but He strengthens our spiritual lives. Psalm 28:7-8: “The LORD is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him. The LORD is the strength of his people; he is the saving refuge of his anointed.” The idea is that when we feel the life within us beginning to waver, we can cry out to Him for renewal. When worldliness is affecting us, and our love for God is beginning to be drowned out by love for other, lesser things, we can call out to Jesus, “Lord, help me!”

More than that, throughout our lives Jesus is gradually increasing the life that we have, causing us to abound more and more in spiritual vibrancy, conforming us more and more to His own image, until the day when we will be perfect as He is. From that day forward we will be forever secured in perfect, abundant, eternal, spiritual life forever.

APPLICATION: We should cry out to Jesus for help anytime we feel that our spiritual lives are beginning to suffer decay. Since He is our life – the ocean from which we draw all spiritual vitality – it should be obvious to us that when we are beginning to dry up spiritually, we should look to Him for help. I say it should be obvious, but when our hearts are beginning to harden and our spiritual lives are beginning to suffer, sometimes the last thing our hearts want to do is commune with Jesus. Sometimes the last thing we want to do is spend time pleading with Him to strengthen us.

In those moments, we must pray for His help to even pray. We must say to Jesus, “Oh Lord, help me! I don’t even want to pray – see what a desperate condition I am in. Please come help your weak servant.”

To get ourselves to that place of prayer, we may have to preach to ourselves first. Remember David preaching to his depressed soul in Psalm 42? “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.” David preached to his own soul, and sometimes we must do the same. “Soul, see the danger you are in. See your sad state. Don’t keep yourself away from Christ – run to Him in prayer and plead with Him to refresh you again and to strengthen you.”

Dear Christians, Jesus is our life. He is the beginning of our spiritual life, the end of our spiritual life, the One who sustains our spiritual lives and is its sustenance. He is the very substance of our spiritual lives, giving Himself to us, living within us. Dear friends, should we not look upon Jesus as our all in all? Should He not be precious to us?

Listen to Thomas Brooks: “Oh, it is this Christ that is thy life; it is not thy husband, it is not thy child, it not this or that thing; neither is it this ordinance or that, that is a believer's life. No; it is the Lord Jesus Christ that is the author, that is the matter, that is the exerciser, that is the strengthener, that is the completer, of a believer's life. You prize great ones; the Lord Jesus Christ is great—he is King of kings, and Lord of lords. You prize others for their wisdom and knowledge: the Lord Jesus hath in himself all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, Col. 2:3. You prize others for their beauty: the Lord Jesus Christ is the beautifullest of ten thousand, Cant. 5:10. You prize others for their usefulness: the Lord Jesus Christ is the right hand of a believer, without which he can do nothing. The believer may say of Christ as the philosopher .said of the heavens, Take away the heavens, and I shall be nobody; so take away Jesus Christ, and a believer is nobody—nobody to perform any action, nobody to bear any affliction, nobody to conquer corruption, nobody to withstand temptation, nobody to improve mercies, nor nobody to joy in others' grace. Oh, prize Jesus Christ!”

Church, do we not see how without Him we are nothing, and yet with Him we are the apple of God’s eye? With Christ we are made holy and precious in God’s sight; without Christ we are detestable to Him. In Christ we are made pure; in Christ we are made God’s children; in Christ we have every spiritual blessing. What more can I say to compel your heart to love Christ? Young people, do you love Christ? Do you cherish Him? Do you prefer Him above anything this world offers? Is He better to you than your friends, than Facebook, than your favorite hobby? Does He truly have your heart?

Christ is our life, and praise God, when He appears again, so we who know Him will appear with Him in glory. May God hasten that day. Let’s pray.

A Christian Perspective on Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Nale) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 13:51:00 +0000

(I preached this message last year; it tries to pave a middle path between two extreme views of Christmas.)

In the recent Christmas episode of a popular television show, the main characters broke out into a song about the meaning of Christmas. Each character sang a line reflecting what Christmas meant to them: The lyrics of the song went like this:

Christmas time is a time to sing,

That’s what Christmas is for.

Christmas can even be a Hanukah thing,

That’s what Christmas is for.

For a huge percentage of this country and planet

It’s about the birth of Jesus Christ,

And for the rest of us it’s still a good time

To remember that its good to be nice.

Music and cookies and liquor and trees,

That’s what Christmas is for.

Video games for two straight weeks,

That’s what Christmas is for.

Hanging out with the people you love

And saying, “I love you.”

That’s what Christmas is for.

After this song, the main character of the episode who has been struggling with the meaning of Christmas says this:

“I get it. The meaning of Christmas is that Christmas has meaning, and it can mean whatever we want.”

What do you think about that? How should we as Christians respond to this kind of thinking?

Many Christians would become very upset about such statements. They would argue that Christmas is about the birth of Jesus and that we must “Keep Christ in Christmas”. Many seem to think that Christmas is a holy day established by God Himself to honor His Son, and that people sin by not spending December 25^th in celebration of Christ’s birth.

Other Christians argue the very opposite, that the Christmas holiday has its roots in paganism and Roman Catholic superstition, that it always has been and always will be a time of idolatry and greed and indulgence, and that in reality Christmas has nothing to do with Christ. Let the world have their Christmas, but Christians should stay away from it.

I had planned until Friday to continue in Genesis today. But at the last moment I decided what it might be helpful for us this morning we take a brief detour from our study of the life of Abraham to address this question: How should we as Christians view the Christmas holiday? Let me say upfront that this question is not as easy as you may think to answer. This is a very difficult question. But my prayer is that I can at least offer a few words of biblical counsel that will help us make the most of this time of year as we seek to honor our Lord.

Have your Bibles open, we will be looking at a several different passages together to help us think through this question.

Proposition 1: The Celebration of the Christmas Holiday was Instituted by Man, Not Christ

Let me begin with the most fundamental, and for some people, the most shocking truth about Christmas: it was instituted by man and not by Christ. If I were to ask you to turn to that passage of Scripture where we are taught to set aside December 25^th to remember the nativity of our Lord, you would not be able to find such a passage. Yes, the birth of Christ is recorded for us in the Bible, but a command to set aside a particular day to emphasize and celebrate that birth will not be found.

This has a couple of important implications:

1. Christmas is not a sacred day. Christmas may be a special day for us, but we must not make it a sacred day. We must not treat our Christmas celebration as though we are obeying some commandment of God to keep December 25^th different from other days.

Old Testament Israel had several sacred days established by God for them to observe by sacrifice or feasting. But all of these pointed to the day of Christ, the One who gave Himself as the ultimate, once-for-all-time sacrifice. He Himself is our Bread of life; we feast on Him by His Spirit and His Word. The shadows have given way to the reality. The holy days of old are no more.

The holy days of the Old Testament were signs pointing to Christ. When you are driving south down Interstate 95, you pass sign after sign after sign telling you that South of the Border is coming. Have you seen those signs? There are many of those signs, all meant to get the attention of the travelers and to inform them of what is coming up. But once you pass South of the Border, and that last billboard that says “You Missed Us, Turn Around!”, the signs stop. Of course they stop. It would be a foolish waste of money to put up signs about something travelers have already passed.

In the same way, the holy days of the Old Testament served as signs pointing to the fact that Christ was coming. But now that He has come, we are not to keep observing the signs. Rather, we are to go to the real thing, to Christ, and find our joy in Him! And though South of the Border is often kind of a disappointment to the people who stop there, Christ is not. He is the fountain of living waters that never fails to satisfy the thirsty soul that truly longs for Him.

Turn with me to Galatians 4:9-11: “But now that you have come to know God, or rather, to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days and months and seasons and years! I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.” So you see that for the Apostle Paul, continuing to observe certain times as holy was absurd. It was as absurd as trying to find food at a sign for Wendy’s rather than at the actual place. What’s more, it was an affront to the Lord Jesus. By continuing to observe these holy days, the Galatian Christians were dishonoring and diminishing the fact that Christ had come.

All this is to say that we must not treat Christmas as the Old Testament saints treated their holy days. We must not think of Christmas as a divinely appointed holiday.

2. The second implication, then, is that it is not a sin to fail to observe Christmas in a certain way. If someone chooses not to celebrate Christmas at all, they are not dishonoring God. If someone spends Christmas talking about Santa Clause and reindeer, while we might can talk about the wisdom or foolishness of that, they are not dishonoring a commandment of God concerning the keeping of a sacred day. Those who say “Keep Christ in Christmas” as though God has demanded that all people everywhere observe December 25^th as a day of celebrating the nativity are mistaking their traditions for the Word of God. It’s interesting that so many people who spend the rest of the year living in unbelief and disobedience towards our Lord Jesus Christ can become very upset when they think someone is not keeping Christ in Christmas. It reflects a real confusion about what God has and has not commanded. It reflects a real confusion about what really matters to God. Forget keeping Christ in Christmas – the question is are you honoring Christ on your average Monday? Are you honoring Christ in your workplace? Are you honoring Christ in your home? Is the miracle of the incarnation – the miracle of God becoming Man in order to accomplish our salvation – is that a miracle that grips your heart and brings forth your praises regularly throughout the year?

Proposition 2: Christmas Can Be A Time Of Real Spiritual Benefit to Christians

My second proposition concerning Christmas is this: Christmas can be a time of real spiritual benefit to Christians. There are some who teach that Christians must avoid Christmas altogether. They think that it is nothing but paganism in religious garb.

They argue first of all that Christmas began as a pagan celebration. They argue that once Christianity took power in the Roman Empire, the pagan festival of the Winter Solstice was simply relabeled as the celebration of Christ’s birth. When they picture the early Christmas celebrations, they picture pagans continuing a long tradition of gluttony and drunkenness and sexual immorality on December 25^th, only now they are doing in Christ’s name instead of in worship to the sun in the sky. These pagan roots mean that we should not celebrate Christmas today.

The reality, however, is far different than is often portrayed. The historical record – at least according to what I could find – shows that Christianity exploding in growth in the Roman Empire in the 200s A.D., and that they already were celebrating the birth of Christ during the days of winter. There was an assumption here. The assumption was that God created the seasons to be a picture of His works in the world. Look with me at Genesis 1:14: “And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and for years…” Do you see that word signs? The early Christians, whether rightly or wrongly, took this verse to mean that the seasons were meant to teach the works of God in such a way that dates represent works of God. So, for example, they understood the first day of Spring to be March 25^th. And since Spring is the time in which new life begins to appear after the Winter, the early Christians assumed that March 25^th was also the day on which God began to create the world. March 25^th to them was a yearly reminder of how God brought life out of nothing. Many also believed that it was on March 25^th that the Lord Jesus Christ was conceived in the womb of Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit. They believed this because they saw Jesus as the first of the New Creation. It just made sense to them theologically that He would be born on the same day they thought the world was created, March 25^th. And if Jesus was conceived on March 25^th, when would He have been born? Add nine months to March 25^th and you get December 25^th.

Now, let me be clear. There are very few biblical scholars today who think that Jesus was born in December. The general consensus based on the fact that shepherds were with their sheep in the fields and other factors is that Jesus was born in the Spring. But those who try and argue that the early Christians simply Christianized a pagan festival are probably speaking erroneously. In the 200’s AD Christians were already celebrating the birth of Christ around the time of the Winter Solstice, and it was then that the pagan emperor Aurelian instituted the pagan festival as an attempt to counteract the rising influence of Christianity. That pagan festival fell to the wayside as Rome became more and more influenced by Christianity. Ultimately the celebration of Christmas was designated to December 25^th by the Christian leaders of the 300s – the same Christian leaders who gave us the great creeds about the person of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity. These weren’t ignorant men trying to dress a pagan celebration in Christian clothes – these were believers who were seeking to serve God’s people. So the argument of Christmas being a pagan celebration is false.

Of course, some Christians reject Christmas because of its connection to the Roman Catholic Church. The word Christmas does come from the two words Christ and Mass. As the Church of Rome became the Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages, moving further and further away from the Bible and deeper into superstition and man’s traditions, they began to practice the idea of transubstantiation. They taught (and still teach) that when one takes the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper, those elements actually become the real body and blood of Christ and through those elements grace is given. Rather than grace being given through the truth being conveyed in the Lord’s Supper, the Catholic Church fell into a kind of mysticism that separated the grace of God from His Word being displayed in the supper, but instead saw God’s grace as actually being attached to the elements themselves.

We should reject this teaching – it is not from the Bible. And yet it is what Catholics today call mass – the gathering of Christians to receive God’s grace in and through the bread and the wine. And since Christmas comes from these words Christ and Mass, some Christians think that Christmas must be rejected as a Roman Catholic holiday.

Again, this is wrong. First of all, by calling Christmas Christmas, we are in no way affirming the Catholic practice of mass. We call Thursday Thursday even though that name comes from the Roman God Thor. Thursday is Thor’s day. If you call Thursday Thursday, does that mean you believe in the god Thor? Of course not.

But even beyond that, originally the word mass didn’t refer to what it refers to today. In the early centuries of the Church, the word mass was simply a word that referred to the worship service. Going to mass was going to the worship service. So celebrating Christmas does not make you a Roman Catholic or imply that you affirm their false teachings about the Lord’s Supper.

There are many more reasons why some Christians argue that Christmas is a worldly holiday to stay away from. Some argue that having a Christmas tree in your home or in your church building amounts to the same thing as the pagan idolatry of the past, when people made idols out of trees or used trees as locations for worship. The most commonly used text in this regard is Jeremiah 10:1-5. Look there with me:

“Hear the word that the LORD speaks to you, O house of Israel. Thus says the LORD: “Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the nations are dismayed at them, for the customs of the peoples are vanity. A tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman. They decorate it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move. Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them to do good.”

Friends, Jeremiah here is contrasting the idols of the pagans with the true God. In the next verse he says “There is none like you, O LORD…” These idols have no power nor will. It is man who cuts down the tree. It is the craftsman who carves the tree into an idol. It is man who decorates the idols with silver and gold. Man must carry the idol – it cannot walk or talk. Compare that to the God of the universe, the One not created by man, but rather, who created man and sustains us and makes us able to walk and talk! That’s Jeremiah’s point.

Now, if you cut down a tree and bring it into your home and seek to worship a false god by praying, offering sacrifices, and burning incense before your tree, you are acting in great sin! But is that really what the Christmas tree in you home is about? If so, get it out of there. But I’m guessing that is not what it is about.

Ralph Woodrow, in his book Christmas Reconsidered, says, “Inspired prophets often used the tree as a symbol of that which is good. A man who serves the Lord is "like a tree planted by the rivers of water (Psalm 1:3). The righteous flourish "like a palm tree" and grow "like a cedar in Lebanon" (Psalm 92:12). They are "trees of righteousness" (Isa. 61:3). Wisdom is "a tree of life" (Prov. 3:18). The blessing of long life is likened to a tree (Isa. 65:22). Those who overcome eat of "the tree of life" (Rev. 2:7). God's people are symbolized by an olive tree (Rom. 11:17). These and many more references show how trees can symbolize good things.”

Jeffrey Meyers has an excellent article that you can find online that addresses a lot of these questions and that I know has been helpful to me. For now, though, let me just say that I think what matters is not whether or not one has a tree in their home, but the motives in ones heart. If we use trees either as a fun decoration or as a tool to point us and our families to Christ, we need not think that we are acting in the same vein as the pagans of Jeremiah’s day.

I hope by addressing all this you are seeing a middle road. One ditch says that Christmas is a divinely ordained holiday and we sin if we don’t keep it and keep it well. On the other side is a ditch that says having anything to do with Christmas makes you a friend of the world and an enemy of God. I would suggest that Christmas is a time that can be of real, spiritual benefit to Christians. It is a time in which God through His providence brings the message of the incarnation – the message of Christ humbling Himself and coming to earth as a man to die for sinners – to the fore of our lives.

Let me mention 5 Ways in which Christmas can be beneficial to us and our families:

1. Christmas can cause us to love and adore our Savior more. At this time of year we sing songs like, “O come let us adore Him.” If we obey those words, and actually take time as individuals and as families as a church to think of Jesus coming to earth as a man, our love and adoration for Him can increase. Look with me at Philippians 2:5-7: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”

Think of all that we see in our Savior when we read verses like this! We see His love for His Father, willing to submit to His Father’s will. We see His awesome humility, willing to set aside the glories of being God for a time, refusing to grasp on to them, making Himself nothing in order to accomplish His Father’s purpose. We see here the greatness of Christ’s love for us. Think of all He gave up to accomplish our salvation! Think of the hell we deserve! What mercy and compassion Christ showed by pitying us to this extent, that He would make Himself nothing that we would be saved. Friends, if we choose not to get too caught up in the hustle and bustle of the season, but instead take time to let the season remind us again of these precious truths, this season can be a means of grace in which our love for Jesus grows and expands.

That’s exactly what I and the other pastors who have been putting together the Christmas service for Wednesday night are hoping for. We want this to be a service in which we come together to think about the glory of Christ and how His miraculous birth made possible the gospel and our hope for salvation.

2. A second way that Christmas can benefit us spiritually is by encouraging us to live out the character of Christ we see in His incarnation. Look at Philippians 2:5-7 again. Notice that our Savior took the form of a servant. The incarnation took place so that God the Father and God’s people would be served. Our Savior said that He came not to be served, but to serve. Remember how He knelt down and washed His disciples’ feet. In this time of year, the humility of Christ and His willingness to serve others is regularly brought before us. Now, aren’t we Christians? Don’t we profess to follow Christ? Is this not a reminder and an encouragement for us to humble ourselves and give ourselves in service to others? If the path to eternal glory for Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords as the second Adam came through humility and sacrifice, should we expect it to be any different for us? Is not the path to great blessing and joy a path of humility and service? It is not truly better and happier to give than to receive?

This is the great danger in the way the world celebrates Christmas. For many children in particular, the message they could take away from Christmas is that Jesus came into the world so that I can receive and receive and receive. The tenor of our culture is that Christmas is about getting.

Or, for others, its about giving, but its about giving to exalt yourself. Which child will give the parents the best present this year? Which person will give them most creative or the most perfect present? We give, but the giving is still out of pride rather than love.

These are dangers we must guard against. Humility, service, sacrifice, love – these are the themes that should characterize Christmas. Why? Because these are the attributes that characterize our Savior, the very standard of all that is good and perfect and pure.

3. A third way in which Christmas can benefit us spiritually is that it often brings for us opportunities to speak to family members and friends about our Savior that we might not have otherwise. Many of us long to be useful to Christ. We long to see people we love know Him and worship Him. We long to be an instrument He uses to win souls. Is there a better time for this than Christmas? Will many of you not be gathering with friends and family members during this season? Will the subject of Christ and the reason He was born not be a natural subject for you to talk about at this time? Christmas is an evangelistic opportunity for us – let us not waste it!

4. A fourth way that Christmas can benefit us spiritually is that it provides many meaningful opportunities for parents to teach their children. Daddy, Mommy, why do we do these things? Why do we have a tree? Why do we put those ornaments on there? Why do we give presents? One of the best ways to teach your children the gospel is to seize these traditions and make them as Christ-centered as possible. This year our family tried doing what is called the Jesse Tree, in which every day we read a passage of Scripture from the Old Testament pointing to the coming of Christ and then hand an ornament that symbolizes what we learned about Christ from that passage. And just as the Old Testament saints were waiting for Christ’s coming, so we are now waiting for Christ’s second coming.

I know families who use the advent candles in their homes as a special opportunity to read Scripture and talk with their children about the importance of Christ. Family worship is something we should pursue year round, but Christmas provides so many unique opportunities for instructing our children well. Let us not let them go to waste.

5. A fifth and final way that Christmas can benefit us spiritually is that it draws our attention to those around us who have greater needs than ourselves. When we hear the Salvation Army bells ringing outside the stores where we shop, or learn of brothers and sisters in Christ who have no place to be on Christmas, these things should move us to a fresh compassion and a new earnestness to show love to those around us in need. Let me urge us all not to spend hundred and hundreds of dollars on people who already have so much that we struggle daily with the temptation to love this world more than the next. Rather, consider ways to imitate our Savior by giving to those who are in dire need. Physical need. Spiritual need.

Care for our brothers and sisters in Christ. Give to help the cause of missions. Remember, there are still billions of people on this planet who do not understand why the birth of Jesus means so much to us. They do not know why He came. They do not understand the gospel message. There are men and women who God has raised up to try and reach these people with the gospel – but they need money to do so.

So, I would encourage us in two ways this morning:

1. Let us have a proper perspective of Christmas that does not fall into the ditch of making Christmas sacred nor the ditch of making Christmas pagan.

2. Let us make the most of this coming week for the eternal good of our own souls and the souls of our families.

Let me close with my own version of a quote attributed to Charles Spurgeon, though I’m not positive that he said it. This quote reflects my own sentiments for us all. This was originally spoken on a Christmas Eve, I’ve added just a couple of explanations to it:

"Now a happy Christmas to you all; and it will be a happy Christmas if you have God with you…'let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavend bread of sincerity and truth.' Do not feast as if you wished to keep the festival of Bacchus [the god of drunkenness and indulgence]; do not live tomorrow as if you adored some heathen divinity. [But] feast, Christians, feast; you have a right to feast, [for Christ is yours and you are His!] Go to the house of feasting tomorrow, celebrate your Saviour's birth; do not be ashamed to be glad; you have [good reason] to be happy. Solomon says, 'Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works. Let thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no ointment.' "Religion never was designed to make your pleasureless.” Recollect that your Master ate butter and honey. [So] go your way, rejoice tomorrow, but in your feasting, think of the Man in Bethlehem; let him have a place in your hearts, give him the glory, think of the virgin who conceived him, but think most of all of the Man born, the Child given. I finish by again saying, ---

"A HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL"

Let’s pray.

Tomorrow (12/4/11) at MHMBC

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Nale) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 01:06:00 +0000

Tomorrow morning is a Lord's Supper service. As we prepare our hearts for this ordinance, I will be preaching from Colossians 3:4 on what Paul means when he says that Christ is our life. Tomorrow evening we will be finishing our study of Jacob's life with a look at the legacy of his brother, Esau.

Prelude

Welcome

Opening Prayer

Responsive Call to Worship:

Psalm 93

Singing Together:

“God Rest You Merry Gentlemen”

Lighting the Joseph Candle:

Sherwood Joyner Family

Singing Together:

“O Little Town of Bethlehem”

Renewing Our Church Covenant

Singing Together:

“The Power of the Cross”

Praying for the Sermon

Offering

Sermon:

“Jesus the Life of His People” (Colossians 3:4)

Responding in Prayer

The Lord’s Supper

Benediction:

“Blest Be the Tie”

A Walk Through Genesis 35

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Nale) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 01:57:00 +0000

This morning we come to the end of our study of the life of Jacob. There is another message to go in this series, but it concerns Genesis 36, which is about Esau and his descendants. When we come back to Genesis in some months to study the life of Joseph, we will see Jacob in his old age. But for now, we are at the end of our study of Jacob’s life.

What I want to do this morning is read through the chapter with you paragraph by paragraph. I’ll give a few words of explanation about each paragraph, and at times I’ll stop for a moment of application. Let’s remember that our Savior inspired this chapter by His Holy Spirit for our eternal good, and so we should approach each paragraph as eager disciples ready to learn what we can. Let’s jump in:

Let’s begin by walking through the text. Let’s read verses 1-4 first:

God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there. Make an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.” So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and change your garments. Then let us arise and go up to Bethel, so that I may make there an altar to the God who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.” So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods that they had, and the rings that were in their ears. Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree that was near Shechem.

Do you remember Bethel? Bethel is that place where God first changed Jacob’s life. He was fleeing his brother Esau, headed to his uncle Laban’s, and in a dream God spoke to him. It was there that Jacob declared his trust and allegiance to God. It was there that the deceitful, self-centered man we had known to that point began to change. Jacob had erected a pillar there to mark the place, and he had given the little city there a new name: Beth-el (“house of God”).

Now, almost 30 years later, God tells Jacob to leave Shechem and head to Bethel. Jacob is to dwell there with his household. He will erect an altar there and will worship the true God there. Jacob has built an altar there in Shechem, and he has been worshipping the true God there. Now God says it is time to move. If you remember the terrible events of Genesis 34, you can imagine that Jacob was probably quite ready to move, too.

Jacob instructed his household to do three things as they head to Bethel: First, they were to rid themselves of their foreign gods. This meant giving up any idols they had been praying to. Second, they were to purify themselves. This probably meant washing their clothes, bathing their bodies, and abstaining from marital intimacy for a time. Third, they were to change into different clothes. All of these things represent the great change is happening in Jacob’s household. Jacob is consecrating his family to the LORD. He sees this journey to Bethel as a holy journey, the beginning of a new day for them. Let’s have no more of the kinds of behavior seen in Genesis 34. This family belongs to Yahweh, Jehovah, and from this day forward Jacob intends them to act like it. Moses instructed national Israel to do the similar things before they came to Mount Sinai. There, the nation of Israel would meet with God and officially become His people. So here, the man Israel is about to meet with God in a special way in Bethel, and God will pronounce again His promises upon this family.

The family gives to Jacob all their idols. They give him their earrings, which were probably amulets with images of foreign gods on them. These things were very common in the ancient world and were often thought to have magical powers. Jacob took all of these things and buried them under a tree near Shechem. This is no common tree. This is the tree by which God appeared to his grandfather Abraham so many years ago. Abraham had built an altar by this tree. This burial of the idols represents the death of worshipping the gods of the Canaanites, and a new commitment to worship God and God alone.

How important it was for national Israel to hear this story as they are on their way to the Promised Land! Remember, Genesis was written by Moses under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and national Israel headed to Canaan was the original recipient. Those people were being tempted to worship Canaanite gods, too. The message of this passage for them is: You are Israel, the children of Israel, and he rejected the worship of these pagan gods. So should you.

Church: we are the true Israel. We are the Israel of God, as Paul says in Galatians. We are to be those who have thrown away our old gods and given our allegiance fully to the true God. Is that true of you?

A god in your life is something which occupies your intellect, receives your affections, and dictates your actions. If your spare time is mostly spent thinking about football, and your heart finds great delight in football, and you begin allowing football to dictate your actions so that other activities and interests must play second-fiddle to football, then that is your god. It could be a host of other things. It might be your job. It might be your children. It might be music. It might be your own comfort. Dear friends, whatever it is that is competing with God for supremacy in your mind, heart, and will, you need to bury it. You need to put that god in the ground – die to it – and consecrate yourself to One who is worth of your thoughts, worthy of your affections, worthy of your obedience.

Jesus has given you every reason to do this. After all, is there any god this world has to offer that can compete with Him? Is any other god a true god? Can any other god save you from hell, bring forgiveness of sin, or make you holy? Can any other god meet your deepest needs, satisfy your soul, or bring eternal peace into your heart? Can any other god work all things for your good or give you a never-ending heaven in which you will be surrounded by His glorious presence forever?

here are a millions things in this life that it is good for us to love, but there is only One in this life whom we should worship. It is okay to enjoy football, if you can do it for Christ’s sake. If watching a football game refreshes you and helps you prepare yourself to get back out there keep running your race, then watch it! Love your job if you can – it is better to love it than to hate it. Certainly love your children. All of these things are well and good as long as long as you keep them in their proper place. Christ must be preeminent.

Is He?

Verses 5-8: The God of the House

Let’s read verses 5-8:

And as they journeyed, a terror from God fell upon the cities that were around them, so that they did not pursue the sons of Jacob. And Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him, and there he built an altar and called the place El-bethel, because there God had revealed himself to him when he fled from his brother. And Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died, and she was buried under an oak below Bethel. So he called its name Allon-bacuth.

Remember, after Jacob’s sons wickedly killed all the men of Shechem and wreaked havoc on that city – even taking the women and children captive – Jacob was afraid that the natives of the area would rise up against them and kill his whole household. Instead, under God’s providence, the opposite happened. Even though Jacob’s household was not a vast number, the cities around them did not pursue them. We are told that a terror from God fell upon those cities. It was only because of this terror from God that Jacob and his family made it safely to Bethel. This is a reminder to us that God is providentially watching over us, and that He works often in unseen ways to bring our souls safely to that last day.

Notice that when Jacob arrives at Bethel, he gives the place a second name. He calls the place El-Beth-El – “the God of the House of God”. Jacob had originally called this place “the house of God” because it had seemed to him that it was at this place that God interacted with the earth. Remember, in his dream he had seen a staircase from heaven to earth at this place, with angels ascending and descending it. But now it appears that Jacob has grown a great deal since that first encounter with God, and he recognizes that the important thing about Bethel was not the place itself, but the God whom he met there. This God didn’t just reign over this one particular city, but reigns over the universe. It was this God who was with him when he was at his uncle Laban’s. It was this God who made him prosper there. It was this God who delivered him from Laban’s hand, and then from his brother Esau. It was this God that he worshipped at Shechem. For Jacob, the emphasis is no longer on a place, but a Person.

Dear friends, it is so important that we ourselves don’t mix this up. We want our little corner here in Rocky Mount to be a special place. We want to take care of these buildings and these grounds, for they are being used for good and godly purposes. We know that God has moved and is moving in the hearts of His people to give generously for these things, and it would be wrong of us to treat our meeting place with disrespect.

But that said, we must never forget the reason our little corner here exists. It is not simply that we may have buildings. It is that we might meet God in a special way here. Here is where two or more gather in His name, and He is with us in a unique way. This building is not the Temple of God – but we as Christians united in one body are that Temple. This building is not the Church – we are the Church. It is in our gatherings for prayer and the receiving of the Word that we truly meet with God. He teaches us. He encourages us. He convicts us. He gives us greater glimpses of His glory. He causes us to rejoice and He causes us to tremble. He causes us to sing with joy and He causes us to weep over lost neighbors. Here is the great privilege we have received: not that we have buildings and land, but that we get to meet in a special way with God Himself!

As Matthew Henry points out, the comforts that we receive here do not come from the house of God, but from the God of the house. Everything we do here is empty if we are not meeting with God here.

Mount Hermon, are we meeting with God here? Is He teaching us, even now? Is He present with us in an active way, His Spirit doing things in our hearts? Oh God, work among us! Leave us not to ourselves here, or all of this will be a silly, ritualistic game!

Now, it appears that the nurse of Jacob’s mother Rebekah, a woman named Deborah, died, and was buried here in Bethel. We are not given any details about whether Deborah had come to live with Jacob and his household, whether this means that Jacob’s mother had already died, etc. Rather, the point seems to be that she was buried under this tree and for ancient Israel this was a landmark that they would know. Jacob named the oak tree where she was buried “The Oak of Weeping”, and this reflects that Deborah was truly loved and cherished by the family. It is a strange thing that practically nothing is said about the death of Jacob’s mother, but we have this brief obituary concerning her servant.

Verses 9-15: The Promises Re-Issued

Let’s keep reading in verses 9-15:

God appeared to Jacob again, when he came from Paddan-aram, and blessed him. And God said to him, “Your name is Jacob; no longer shall your name be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.” So he called his name Israel. And God said to him, “I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body. The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you.” Then God went up from him in the place where he had spoken with him. And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he had spoken with him, a pillar of stone. He poured out a drink offering on it and poured oil on it. So Jacob called the name of the place where God had spoken with him Bethel.

Probably the most important thing to note here is that God is now clearly taking the promises He made to Abraham and make very, very clear that they belong to Jacob. Jacob has heard these great promises from God before, but now he is hearing them as one who has walked with God and has learned from experience God’s faithfulness.

This passage parallels God’s covenant with Abraham in Genesis 17 in many ways. Both begin with “God appeared”. This is the last time that God will appear like this in Genesis. After this He will communicate mostly through dreams. We can assume that this “appearing” is like the ones before – God appearing in the form of a messenger, “the angel of the LORD”, probably the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus Christ.

Both in Genesis 17 with Abraham and here with Jacob we are told that after God spoke He “went up” from them. In both passages God speaks of Himself as “El Shaddai” – God Almighty. In both passages we learn of a name change: from Abram to Abraham, from Jacob to Israel. Similar phrases and words are used, including the language of being fruitful, having kings come from their own bodies, etc. God speaks to Jacob in almost exactly the same way He did to Abraham to make clear that it is through Jacob and his (soon-to-be) 12 sons that the promises will come true.

Of course, these promises have everything to do with us. Jesus is the ultimate son of Abraham, the true Israelite in Whom all the promises are yes and amen. The church is that nation of nations, that kingdom of people from every people group in the world. We are inheriting Canaan, which includes the entire universe. All that Abraham and Jacob longed for they have now received through Christ, and so have we.

What was Jacob’s response to hearing these promises? He worshipped God. We are told that he set up a pillar here, though scholars disagree as to whether this is a second pillar or whether he is renovating the one he had set up here thirty years earlier. He pours out a drink offering. He acknowledges that he has been greatly blessed by God and declares his trust and allegiance to Him.

Mount Hermon, Jacob set up this pillar to remind him of what God had said to him here. It was a public testimony of the promises he had received. You and I have received absolutely amazing promises from God. Where do we look to be reminded of these promises? By God’s grace, we have them on the pages of our Bibles in black and white. Here is an incredible encouragement to us, that we can look again and again to God’s Word, and be reminded of what God has said to us. God has not appeared to us in Person, but He speaks to us through His Word by His Spirit just as surely as He spoke to Jacob at Bethel.

Verses 16-21: The Death of Rachel

Let’s look at verses 16-21:

Then they journeyed from Bethel. When they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel went into labor, and she had hard labor. And when her labor was at its hardest, the midwife said to her, “Do not fear, for you have another son.” And as her soul was departing (for she was dying), she called his name Ben-oni; but his father called him Benjamin. So Rachel died, and she was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem), and Jacob set up a pillar over her tomb. It is the pillar of Rachel's tomb, which is there to this day. Israel journeyed on and pitched his tent beyond the tower of Eder.

Here we read of the birth of Jacob’s 12^th and final son, Benjamin, and the death of Rachel. Rachel called the boy’s name Ben-oni, which means “Son of Trouble” or “Son of My Sorrow”. Jacob renames the boy, calling him Benjamin, which means “Son of My Right Hand”, or “Favored Son”. Rachel was the wife that Jacob had loved so deeply for so long, and altogether she gave him two sons: Joseph and Benjamin. Favoritism will still plague Jacob’s life, and Joseph and Benjamin will be particularly loved by him over the sons of Leah.

Rachel was buried in a tomb near where she died, in a city called Ephratha, which we know as Bethlehem. This city would become a part of the inheritance that God gives to the tribe of Benjamin, which is rather appropriate since it was here that Benjamin was born.

The only other point I would make about this is to remind you that earlier we heard Rachel declare to Jacob, “Give me children, or I will die!” Here we see the irony of her words. God’s providence often has this irony too it. Rachel spent a long time failing to be content with what God had given her. In the end, God giving her what she wanted cost Rachel her very life.

The pillar Jacob set up at Bethel was to be a reminder of a wonderful time in his life; the pillar Jacob set up at Bethlehem was to be a reminder of the sorrow that soon followed. Dear Christians, as part of the Israel of God, let us acknowledge that this mixture of happiness and sadness is our lot in this life. God has not promised us a bed of roses here today. But His promises about tomorrow certainly brought Jacob comfort as he grieved his wife, and God’s promises to us about tomorrow should bring comfort to us through the trials of today.

Verse 22:Reuben’s Sin

Now, look with me at the first part of verse 22:

While Israel lived in that land, Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father's concubine. And Israel heard of it.

That’s all that is said about this incident here. Reuben committed incest, taking this concubine-wife of his father, the mother of his half-brothers Dan and Naphtali, and becoming intimate with her. It is likely, however, that this was not mainly about Reuben’s lust. Reuben was doing two things here: 1) he was making sure that Bilhah could not become the chief wife and supplant his own mother Leah. Leah had been neglected by Jacob for a long time; with Rachel dead, Reuben was not going to allow this concubine wife to now become Jacob’s favored wife over his mother. Second, it is well known that in ancient times that the power transfer from father to eldest son would often be accompanied by the father’s concubines becoming the sons. This is what happens in David’s life when his son Absalom rebels against him, seeking to seize the kingdom. Absalom very publicly became intimate with David’s concubines to try and show that the power was now his. Similarly, Reuben seems to be exerting himself against his aging father as if to say, “Now I’m in charge of this household. All my brothers and their families and their servants will look to me and honor me.”

Do you think Reuben’s plan worked? It did not. It backfired. This is expressed clearly in 1^st Chronicles 5:1 which says of Reuben, “…he was the firstborn, but because he defiled his father’s couch, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph the son of Israel, so that he could not be enrolled as the oldest son.” Esau lost his birthright as the firstborn son when he sold it to Jacob for a bowl of stew; Reuben lost his when he rebelled against his father and committed incest.

What is Jesus teaching us here? Among other things, I think He is teaching us not to proudly exert ourselves over others and try and demand their respect and honor. If we are respectable, people will respect us. God exalts the humble, but He puts down the proud. Ambition is a good thing when it is ambition for the glory of Christ. But ambition for the exaltation of self is a wicked, wicked thing – the very nature of Satan himself – and we would do well to throw those kinds of attitudes far away from us.

I wonder, are there any of us who are trying to exalt ourselves in the eyes of others? Are you doing wicked things to get honor from others? Are you boasting in yourself? Are you acting unscrupulously? If you humble yourself, trust Christ, and do what is right, then you will be truly honorable, and you will receive honor at the appropriate time. Leave those things in the Lord’s hands; don’t follow the example of Reuben.

Verses 22-26

Let’s p ick back up at the end of verse 22 and read through verse 26:

Now the sons of Jacob were twelve. The sons of Leah: Reuben (Jacob's firstborn), Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. The sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin. The sons of Bilhah, Rachel's servant: Dan and Naphtali. The sons of Zilpah, Leah's servant: Gad and Asher. These were the sons of Jacob who were born to him in Paddan-aram.

Here they are. Twelve men who will become twelve tribes which will make up God’s nation in the ancient world. With Benjamin now born, they are complete. This picture of the complete family of God will appear throughout the Bible. It is no accident that Jesus will choose for Himself twelve apostles. Jesus told them that they would sit on twelve thrones, ruling the twelve tribes. Revelation teaches that in these last days God will save 144,000 people for Himself – 12,000 from each tribe. The picture there is of completion. The Church is the true Israel, and God will fully save each and every one of His elect until the kingdom is fully built. Not one person whom He had chosen to give to His Son will be overlooked. Let Satan and the world do all they will, God will have His full Israel, the full citizenry of the kingdom being given to His Son.

Verses 27-29

Finally we come to verses 27-29. Let’s look at these together:

And Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre, or Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had sojourned. Now the days of Isaac were 180 years. And Isaac breathed his last, and he died and was gathered to his people, old and full of days. And his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

Here is the death of Isaac, Jacob’s father. Esau and Jacob, now at peace with one another, come together to bury him. We are told that Isaac was “gathered to his people”. This phrase doesn’t have to do with burial, because it was used of Abraham when Abraham was being buried nowhere near his fathers. Rather, the phrase speaks of something that happens between death and burial. The body is buried, but the soul is gathered elsewhere, to a place where ancestors are. Even in Genesis, before God has fully revealed the realities of heaven and hell, there is the understanding that people have souls which go somewhere where there are other souls at death. Isaac when to heaven, where he joined not only his physical ancestor Abraham (his dad), but his spiritual ancestors – those of faith who had gone before him.

Friends, one day, unless Jesus comes back first, we too will experience this. You will breathe your last. It could be today. It might be years from now. But you will breathe your last. Your body will be buried. And your soul will be gathered to your people. The questions is this: Who are your people?

Are you counted among those who have known the true God? Are your people those who have rested in Christ, followed Christ, and been saved by Him? Are you a part of the true Israel, the Church? Are you a Christian?

Or will being gathered to your people mean that you will be gathered to hell? Will your soul go to the place where those who never repented and never stopped hating God go to receive His righteous wrath forever?

Friend, hear the good news! Isaac was a sinner like you and me. Jacob was a sinner like you and me. These men and many like them deserved the judgment of God. But God came to them with promises, and called them to believe those promises. They trusted God by faith and were saved. God was so gracious; He did everything necessary. All these men had to do was turn from themselves and trust Him, the wise and good God. So also, God comes to you with promises. He is speaking to you right now with this promise: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved!” God has done everything necessary for you to be forgiven of your sins and to have eternal life. All you have to do is stop trusting yourself, being your own god, living your own life your own way. Instead, run to Him! Acknowledge how good and wise and wonderful He is. See that Jesus is a wonderful Savior, able to lead you and guide you down paths much better than you would go on your own. If you trust Him, He will lead you safely to Heaven, and His own blood has purchased heaven for you. You will become God’s child and when you take that final breath, you will be gathered not only to where the saints of the past are, but to where God Himself is in power. Friend, when you die, you can go to be with God forever. You can be gathered to your people – the people of faith. The people saved by God’s amazing grace.

Will you trust the Lord Jesus Christ? I pray that you will. Let’s pray.

This Week (11/27/11) at MHMBC

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Nale) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 21:34:00 +0000

We have lots going on during the upcoming month of December, so I won't try and cover it all here. You can check it all out at http://mhmbc.net. This Sunday we will be looking at Genesis 35 in our next to last sermon on the life of Jacob. We also kick off the advent season. Here is the order of worship for Sunday:

Prelude

Welcome

Opening Prayer

Responsive Call to Worship:

Psalm 66:1-9

Singing Together:

“Joy Has Dawned”

“Gentle Mary Laid Her Child”

Lighting the Mary Candle

Singing Together:

“What Child Is This?”

Praying for the Sermon

Offering

Sermon:

“A Walk Through Genesis 35”

Responding in Prayer

Responding in Song:

“I Will Glory In My Redeemer”

Benediction

A Sermon for Senders

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Nale) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 21:00:00 +0000

A SERMON FOR SENDERS: SUPPORTING THOSE WHO HAVE GONE OUT FOR THE SAKE OF THE NAME

3rd John 1-8

Introduction

“Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”” Matthew 9:37-38

“Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.” John 4:35

Many of us in this room are Christians. As Christians we have tasted and seen that the LORD is good. His patience is good. His wisdom is good. His love and mercy and righteousness is good. Now, as we follow Christ, we are developing more and more of an appetite for goodness. We are losing the taste we once had for evil things. By God’s grace we are learning to detest selfishness, foolishness, laziness, pride, lust, bitterness, and a thousand other sins. We are finding that we would rather have their opposites: generosity, wisdom, a solid work-ethic, humility, purity, love. We are growing in holiness, and we want to keep growing.

There are few things that have a greater sanctifying effect on us than being actively involved in the work of international missions. When we take an active interest in the nations, we look away from our own problems and our own issues and begin to concern ourselves with the greater need of the lost world around us. Unbelievers are consumed with themselves – we should not be. Christ has taken care of us, and He is taking care of us (even if we are in a great trial), and He will bring us safely to the end our days in this life. Missions teaches us to stop spending every waking moment concerned with your immediate issues and to give yourself in radical sacrifice to seeing the world reached with the gospel. Regularly considering the lost condition of this world, the persecution of our brothers and sisters in hard places, the difficult work of missionaries, we are humbled and our thankfulness to God is increased. There is a wonderful sanctifying effect that takes place when we are involved in missions. We want to be holy; we get involved in missions.

As Christians we are also learning to love our fellow man. We believe that every human being is going to live forever. Every human soul was created to live for eternity. We believe that there is a place called heaven, and we believe that there is a place called hell. With no apologies, we confess that billions of people on our planet today are going to die and go to hell. They will suffer there. Their suffering will be just, but it will also be terrible. We deserve to be in hell too, but we heard the gospel and believed. There are millions if not billions on this planet who have not had that opportunity. Love for our fellow man demands that we be passionate about missions. Spurgeon said, “If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for.” We love others; we get involved in missions.

Ultimately, however, our chief motive for being involved in international missions is love for our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Father loves His Son, and has chosen to give His Son a Bride – a kingdom – of redeemed people who will reflect His image and love and serve Him forever. Christ is worthy of love and adoration, and God the Father has worked all history so that a people who offer up such worship to Christ will be created. We are a part of that kingdom of people, and there are many more to be added to our number. God has chosen to give His Son people from every tongue, tribe, and nation, to sing His praises. We love our Savior, and we long to see Him honored by peoples from all over the world. He is worthy. He is worthy. He is worthy. Christ is worthy, and therefore, we get involved in missions.

Senders and Goers

When it comes to missions, there are two distinct roles that we can take. The first is to be a goer. A goer is not merely someone who goes on a short-term mission trip. A goer is what we call a missionary and what the Bible calls an evangelist. When we hear the word “evangelist”, we tend to think of someone who travels from church to church preaching “revival” services. But in the Bible an evangelist is a man raised up by Christ to go to places where there is no community of believers – no church – and to preach the gospel. If people believe and are saved, then that man helps to establish a church there, appoints elders, helps the church have a solid foundation, and then moves on to another place. We call these people missionaries, and I pray that God would call some in here to be missionaries – to be goers.

Is there anyone here with a heart burning to see people who have never heard the name of Jesus hear? Centuries ago there lived a man named Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf. He said this, you see if it’s how you feel, too: “I have but one passion: it is He, it is He alone. The world is the field and the field is the world; and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ.” Could it be that there is someone here who thinks of the countless millions in India and Indonesia and Vietnam and North Korea and the Middle East walking in blindness and your heart beats faster as you dream of going to them with the good news? “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news.” May God raise up such people in our midst!

But there is another role. Behind every one of these goers – these missionaries – there is to be a whole group of senders. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But how will people call on a Christ in whom they have not believed? “And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?”(Romans 10:14-15 ESV)

The truth is, the majority of us who are Christians are called to be senders. Now, don’t just assume that is you. You need to be sure that God has called you to be a sender and not a goer. You should re-examine this often, for God may have you be a sender today but a goer tomorrow. But most of us are called to be senders. We may go on a short tem mission trip, but we primarily stay here in with our local church family fulfilling our vocations for the glory of God, doing all we can here to support those who are out in the lands of darkness.

What does the Bible say about senders? One of the most important passages on this subject in my view is found here in this often overlooked book of 3^rd John.

Intro to Text

What do we find here? John is writing this letter probably from Ephesus. He is an old man, now. It is likely that Peter and Paul are both dead. In fact, he may even be the last living apostle when this letter is written. The other eleven, including Matthias (who took Judas’ place), have all been martyred. John himself was thrown into a boiling cauldron and would have certainly died had God not miraculously intervened. John is the apostle whom God particularly used to train up the next generation. Paul had his Timothy. John likely had an influence on several younger men, the most famous being Polycarp, who was burnt to death for his faith as an old man under Emperor Marcus Aurelius.

This letter is from John to a man named Gaius, a man who had been converted under John’s ministry. This is why John calls him his child. John has just heard news from some travelling missionaries that they had received hospitality from Gaius when they were in his area. This past week Merle and Libby hosted our guest, Mark Chanski, and made sure that he had all that he needed. They provided him with a place to sleep, food to eat, and did all they could to make his time here pleasant. So also, Gaius had received these men and cared for them well. They gave to Johtn a report about their time with Gaius. What were the conversations like? What kind of impression did they get from Gaius? These things were shared with John, and John’s heart was greatly encouraged by what he heard.

John says in verse 4, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” This was a big deal to John! This feeble old man was made happy by this news!

What was it in particular that John found to be so encouraging? It was the fact that Gaius was supporting men like these missionaries. In verses 5-8, which are our focus, John commends Gaius for what he has done and exhorts him to continue doing so. Here was an evidence that Gaius was walking in the truth! He was a true sender.

Let’s take the rest of our time and unpack this passage using three questions. These questions are the shovels that help us dig out the treasure of the text. Question 1: Who is it that we should be supporting? Question 2: How should we support them? Question 3: Why should we support them?

Let’s dig in:

Question 1: Who is it that we should be supporting?

Focus with me on verse 7. Here John describes the kind of men that these missionaries were. These are the kind of men that he commends Gaius for supporting.

Notice first that they are those who “have gone out”. They are true goers. They have left behind their homes and the lives that they once knew. They have given themselves, at least for an extended amount of time, to being in a new place, a different place. Consider what this means. For so many missionaries, the cost of going is the cost of leaving behind dad and mom. It is the cost of separating grandchildren from their grandparents. At least today we have Skype – they didn’t have such things back then. What’s more, going out into the world like this had great risks. Travelling was dangerous business in the ancient world. Holiday Inns were not exactly abundant. Many towns had an inn, but they were more like brothels than hotels – not the place for a Christian to be. These men were having to depend on the hospitality of strangers, often not knowing until they arrived in town whether they would truly have a roof over their head that night or not. There were the dangers of sickness and disease – think of how many missionaries in history died young because of a disease they contracted from the very people they were trying to win. You see, those who have gone out know better than most of us what it is to “live by faith”. What a wonderful thing to be an instrument in God’s hand that He uses to care for them, to support them, to be a help to them.

Second, notice that they are those who “have gone out for the sake of the name.” The passion that is burning in their hearts which has led them to go out is a passion for Jesus. They long to see His name exalted. They long to see Jesus receive worship from all over the planet. This very day there are people worshipping Allah, worshipping their ancestors, worshipping idols and objects. Jesus deserves that praise. Jesus is worthy of that worship. Huge masses of humanity are living their lives for gods of money and physical pleasure and sports when they were created to live for Jesus. These missionaries care about that! They are like Paul: “I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation, but as it is written, “Those who have never been told him will see, and those who have never heard will understand”” (Romans 15:20-21). Where is Jesus not known? Where is Jesus not being preached? That’s where we need to go. Where is the darkest darkness on this planet? That’s where we need to be taking the light. It’s all about having the name of Jesus exalted in every tongue, tribe, and nation.

Nate Saint said, “People who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives…and when the bubble has burst they will nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted.” What kind of missionaries are we to support? It is those who love Jesus and are giving their lives for the glory of His name among the nations.

Notice also in verse 7 that these missionaries are giving their lives to see the gospel get to people it has not yet reached, and they do it free of charge. They accept nothing from the Gentiles. This is not the way other teachers did things in the first century. Ancient teachers would travel from city to city and charge people to hear their teaching. It was a common custom. It would be much like today in which people pay money to go to conferences and hear people teach. Yet these missionaries did not charge those who heard them. They were bringing the greatest news in the whole world to people who desperately needed to hear it, and they did so for free.

Why? Charging people would place an unnecessary stumbling block between them and the gospel. The gospel is about the free grace of God. The gospel is the great news of what God has done for us when we could do nothing for ourselves. What is the gospel message but the very words of Isaiah in 55:1: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat!” Missionaries charging people to hear the gospel would draw distinctions between those who can afford the gospel and those who cannot afford the gospel. Yet Jesus did not come just for the wealthy. Jesus came for sinners of the lower classes, the middle classes, and the upper classes. Jesus came for all who will have Him.

Imagine Mike Edwards going to Mozambique in a couple of months to have Bible studies with a group of students and charging them to attend. Think of the students who need to hear the gospel but wouldn’t because they wouldn’t want to pay the price. If unbelievers knew how great the gospel is, how important it is, how precious it is, they would sell their homes, their vehicles, the very clothes off their backs in order to hear it. There is no amount of money in this world we should not be willing to pay to hear this message which is better than gold. But unbelievers don’t know that the gospel is worth this much. And if we charged them to hear it, most would not pay and they would not come and they would not hear and they would not believe. Besides, the heart of missionary must not be monetary gain – it must be passion for the name of Jesus Christ!

But if that’s true, then how are missionaries supposed to live? How are they to take care of their families and have what they need to be productive in their callings? Missionaries need to eat. They need to have clothes. They need to be provided for. Missionaries are able to preach the gospel freely because Jesus raises up His people to support them. Dear Christian, this is walking in the truth. This is evidence that Jesus really has your heart and that you are a true Christian. Are you actively involved in supporting those who have gone out for the sake of the name?

If not, why not? What do you intend to do about it?

Question 2: How Should We Support Missionaries?

Question #2 is this one: How should we support missionaries? I’m not talking about the particulars, because that will vary with every missionary and every different situation. But there are some truths taught here in these verses about the manner in which we should support missionaries. Let’s observe three aspects of the manner in which we should support missionaries:

First, notice in verse 5 that we should support missionaries as family. Verse 5 says, “Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are.” Here is one part of what made the hospitality of Gaius for these missionaries such a wonderful thing: they were strangers to him. Gaius was not previously acquainted with these men. Yet they came in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, they were doing His work, and so Gaius received them not as strangers, but as brothers.

Mount Hermon, when you think of those men and women serving the Lord Jesus in various parts of the world, do you think of them as strangers, or as brothers and sisters? This should color the way we think of them; this should color the way we support them. If it is a stranger who is dependent upon our help, surely we should want to do what we can. But if it is a brother who is dependent upon our help, then we will go the extra mile. We will take a greater interest in his needs. We will want to make sure that he has everything necessary for his work.

Friends, we have family members out doing the Lord’s work in hard places. They are more our brothers and sisters than those who are our physical kin but don’t share our faith. These missionaries are our eternal brothers and sisters, bound to us by a common Savior, a common Spirit, a common faith. We will spend eternity with them, and the passion that is in our hearts for Jesus is in their hearts. Will we leave them out in the field helpless? Will we make them have to come home and give up on their mission because they do not have what they need?

As American citizens, we think of our troops who defend us in other nations. We get upset when we think of men and women who have left their homes in order to defend our country not being cared for by us. We want to make sure that our troops have the best possible equipment for protection and victory. We want to make sure that our troops are well compensated so that their families do not suffer while they are gone. We want to make sure that our troops have the medical attention they need when they need it. When the troops return home, we want to make sure we’ve done all we can to give them every opportunity to succeed in this nation. It’s the least we can do for these who are giving so much. We say “Shame on us!” when we fail to care for them.

But should it be any different for those who are laying down their lives in the battle for the nations? We are citizens of heaven, too, and missionaries are the troops that are sent out to fight the darkness of our world with the light of the gospel. They need equipment. They need Bibles translated into the language of the people they are witnessing to. They need food and clothes and shelter. They need the assurance of medical attention if they need it. They need their families cared for. We should be doing all we can for their protection and to help them succeed in planting churches in the hardest regions of the world. Remember, the spoils of these victories last into eternity. These men and women are sacrificing not for the sake of the name of America, but for the sake of the name of Jesus. They are our fellow citizens, our brothers and sisters: will we not do all we can for them?

Second, notice that we should support them with love. Look again at verses 5-6: “Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are, who testified to your love before the church.” In other words, the material and financial support that we give to missionaries should be preceded first by the support of our hearts. We are to love those whom Christ has sent out. We are to treasure them. They are to be precious in our sight. When we pray, we remember them. In our spare time, we think of them and their efforts. We take their concerns as our concerns.

When we have opportunity to be around them, we lavish them with love. We take a genuine interest in their work, and make it our business to ensure that they know how much we care for them and appreciate what God is doing in them. We care about the mission, we care about Jesus being glorified in the nations, we care about the hastening of the day that Jesus will return, and so we should care for these missionaries with an extraordinary love.

Again, drawing form the American troops analogy, just as we care especially for our veterans, and honor them, so we should care especially for our missionaries, and honor them. Let us love them.

Third, notice in verse 6 that we should support missionaries in a manner worthy of God. Verse 6 says, “You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God.” How do we understand these words? What does it mean to send them out in a manner worthy of God? I think what John is saying is that as we bless missionaries, we are blessing the Master who sent them. In other words, we are not to care for missionaries in a half-hearted, inconsistent, shoddy manner. We are to care for missionaries in a way that reflects the worth of the One whose name they proclaim. We are to go over and beyond in supporting them, going the extra mile, because God is worthy of such love. Notice that our hospitality and service towards missionaries is to be of the highest quality. He doesn’t say that our care should be in a manner worthy of the Governor, or the President, or some great Christian hero. He says our care should be in a manner worthy of God Himself. We are to reflect God in the way we care for missionaries, and we are to reflect the worthiness of God.

Mount Hermon, how are we doing on this? Think of the Mausts finishing up their training to be sent out by Wycliffe translators. Think of the Edwards’ soon to go to Mozambique. Think of the churches in Romania and the work of men like Cristi Chivu there. Think of the numerous missionaries being supported through the International Mission Board. What is your relationship with them? Do you write letters or emails of encouragement? Do you remember them in your prayers? Are you acquainted with their needs and do you make it your personal mission to make sure that their needs are met?

Question 3: Why Should We Support Missionaries?

Our last question is this one: Why should we support missionaries? We’re already seen a number of reasons why we should. Let met draw our attention to three more motives for supporting missionaries in these verses.

First, notice in the opening word of verse 5 that we are loved. John calls Gaius Beloved. Gaius is one who is loved. This is true not only of Gaius, but of all who know the Lord Jesus Christ. We are the beloved. Ephesians 1 says, “In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.” Christ is the Beloved of His Father – He is greatly loved – and as His Bride, we have now also been accepted into that overwhelming, soul-shaking love. It is a mighty love. It is a love that surrounds us. It is a love that undergirds and overarches our entire lives, and guarantees that we will be blessed forever and ever and ever. All is working for our good, and we will be deeply happy, satisfied, and at peace forever. This is the great love we have received. If this is the great love we have received, should we not be eager to see that love spread to others? Jesus is the lover of our souls – do we not want to see our Bridegroom exalted in the eyes of the world?

Why is it that we can look above our own issues and our own problems and invest ourselves in the cause of missions? It is because we are loved by God Himself, and we can be sure that all of our issues and problems are a temporary thing which will soon pass away. We can turn away from stress and despair and anxiety. We are leaning on God’s everlasting arms, and therefore, we need not drown in worry about our own lives. Instead, freed by the love of Jesus, we can take the concerns of missionaries as our own. We are made able to better care for missionaries because we ourselves are being constantly refreshed by the living waters of Christ’s love.

Second, notice in verse 5 that we should support missionaries in an excellent way for faithfulness’ sake. As Christians, we like faithfulness. Faithfulness describes our God. Great is His faithfulness! Faithfulness means being true and trustworthy. If we can be like our God by being a trustworthy support for His missionaries, then that should be an attractive thing to us. Our hearts should leap at the opportunity to imitate our God. Just as God is a trustworthy help to us, so we can be instruments in His hands used as a trustworthy help to these out in the field.

What is your life as a Christian like? Is it like trying to stay on a surfboard? Are you constantly swaying back and forth, doing everything you can to balance yourself, afraid that any moment you may fall and be lost forever? No! As we look to Jesus, we know that He is a sure and steady Savior. We stand on a Rock. Christ will not fail us, and His grace will get us through any trial.

If that’s the kind of faithfulness God shows to us, then we ought to imitate that own faithfulness in all our relationships. Those missionaries whom we connect ourselves to should be able to count on us, to rely on us, to know that with God’s help we will be there for them. Their time overseas should not be an unsure time, like trying to stay on a surfboard. It should be like resting on a solid rock. They rest on Jesus, and Jesus, through His Word and Spirit, works through us to give them a sure foundation of support.

Let’s close with this last one: we should support missionaries because in this way we are fellow workers for the truth. Do you see that in verse 8? “Therefore, we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth.”

We ought. There is a moral imperative here. This is not an optional part of the Christian life. This is not just something that super-spiritual Christians do. If you love Jesus, then you will love seeing Him worshipped by the nations. You will delight in the work of missions and do all you can to see the truth of who Jesus is spread to the uttermost parts of the earth. Dear friends, even now, what is happening in your heart? Is your heart inclining towards being the kind of missionary-supporter I’m talking about, or is it coming up with every possible excuse not to be? Is your heart saying, “Yes, I will find a way to do more”, or is your heart looking for excuses for doing as little as possible? You see, how we respond to this kind of message says so much about our hearts.

But if you do long to be as useful to Jesus as possible, then hear what John is saying: by supporting missionaries, you get to be fellow workers with them in the truth. Yes, be a godly person where you are! Love your family well. Strive for excellence in the callings God has given you. Be a faithful churchman and an honest citizen of North Carolina. But in the midst of all these opportunities you have to glorify God, don’t miss this one: Be a fellow worker for the cause of the spread of God’s truth!

You see, we are the rope holders. The missionaries have gone down into the pits, doing the hardest work of all. We, with our prayers, and the money we make from our jobs, and the resources we have in this wealthy nation, are holding the rope. We must not let go. We must pray. We must give. We must listen to their needs and do all we can to meet them. And we should do all of this with happy hearts thankful to God that we get to have a part in seeing people won to the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.” John 4:35

Let’s pray.

This Sunday (11/20) at MHMBC

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Nale) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 13:37:00 +0000

This Sunday is our annual Harvest Sunday. We break from our normal verse by verse studies and emphasize world missions. There will be a fellowship meal after the service and no evening service. Also, don't forget to sign up if you would like to participate in the Live Nativity Outreach or go with us to the Andrew Peterson Christmas concert in Durham.

Prelude

Welcome

Opening Prayer

Responsive Call to Worship:

Psalm 95:1-6

Singing Together:

Psalm 95:1-6

Exhortation

Singing Together:

“All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name”

Scripture Reading:

Romans 15:17-21

Singing Together:

“Shout to the Lord”

Missions Moment:

International Mission Board

Offering

Sermon:

"A Sermon for Senders:

Supporting Those Who Have Gone Out For the Sake of the Name"

(3 John 1-8)

Responding in Prayer

Responding in Song

“Beneath the Cross of Jesus”

Benediction

This Sunday (11/13) at MHMBC

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Nale) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 16:48:00 +0000

This is a big weekend for us at MHMBC: pastor Mark Chanski of Harbor Church in Holland, Michigan will be serving us in our morning and evening services on Sunday. He will also be speaking to a gathering of pastors on Monday morning and then at our community Women's Banquet Monday night and our community Men's Banquet Tuesday night. Below is the order of worship for Sunday morning:

Prelude

Welcome

Opening Prayer

Responsive Call to Worship:

Psalm 63:1-8

Singing Together:

“Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing"

“Though Troubles Assail Us”

Reading through Mark’s Gospel:

Mark 15:42-16:8

Singing Together:

Psalm 23

Missions Moment:

Southeastern Seminary

Offering

Sermon:

Guest: Pastor Mark Chanski

Responding in Prayer

Responding in Song:

“In Christ Alone”

Benediction

Worship Exhortation 6

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Nale) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 14:40:00 +0000

Psalm 86:12 says, “I give thanks to you, O LORD, with my whole heart.” We are to put our heart into our worship. As we address on another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, we are to do so out of heart bursting with faith and love. Take your heart out of your worship, and your worship is a cold, empty thing that offends God rather than honors Him.

But here is where a lot of folks get mixed up. They assume that if their heart isn’t feeling particularly worshipful today, they had better stay quiet while the others sing. After all, isn’t it hypocritical for them to sing loudly the praises of God when their heart isn’t really in it?

Here’s the thing: singing from the heart doesn’t always means singing out of happiness and joy. On some Sundays you are going to come in here hurting, having had a difficult weak, finding it almost impossible to rejoice. Will you still sing boldly anyway?

You see worshipping from the heart means worshipping from a heart of faith. It means worshipping the way God tells you because you believe that He knows what is best for you. Hebrews 11:4: “By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain.”

In other words, singing from the heart doesn’t mean always have warm fuzzy feelings in your heart. It means trusting in your heart that God loves you and knows what is best for you, and therefore doing what He says.

So if you don’t feel very worshipful, and your heart is having a hard time rejoicing in the Lord, seek to worship as best you can with what you have! Sing loud, even when you don’t feel like it, because you know that God’s glory is worth it and because it is good for your brothers and sisters in Christ. Listen to the sermon as best you can. Try and be engaged in the prayers with whatever heartfelt strength you have. God will see this. He will see that you are striving to obey, striving to show reverence to Him even when the feelings are not there. He will honor that, and eventually He will pull you through the dry season into a season of lavish joy.

It may very well be that God is even more greatly honored when a saint who is struggling inwardly still seeks to persevere in worshipping well. That shows real love for God. Real love for God isn’t pure emotions. Real love strives to honor God even when the emotions have dwindled, and need to be re-kindled.

And you know what? Sometimes it is in the worship of God that He sends a little spark into our souls that causes our hearts to be enflamed with love and zeal for Him again.

Sometimes a light surprises the Christian while he sings;

It is the Lord who rises with healing in His wings

When comforts are declining, He grants the soul again

A season of clear shining to cheer it after the rain.

So let’s sing boldly together out of hearts of faith.