Category: Scripture

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Gospels and Acts Scripture

By Whose Authority (Luke 20:1-8)

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20 One day, as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders came up 2 and said to him, “Tell us by what authority you do these things, or who it is that gave you this authority.” 3 He answered them, “I also will ask you a question. Now tell me, 4 was the baptism of John from heaven or from man?” 5 And they discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why did you not believe him?’ 6 But if we say, ‘From man,’ all the people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet.” 7 So they answered that they did not know where it came from. 8 And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

The first thing we need to notice is that Christ was preaching the Gospel.

A delegation from the chief priests and scribes interrupted him and asked him by what authority he did “these things”.

These men represented the Sanhedrin, the head of the “Church” for all intents and purposes.

Christ was preaching the Gospel of salvation and the authorities were only interested in Christ’s credentials to do “these things”.

They could have cared less about the Gospel message.

What they really want to know about was how Jesus thought He had the authority to overturn money tables and tell them how Temple operations should be handled.

The way Temple sacrifices worked at the time of Christ…

This delegation weren’t interested in learning anything from Christ.

They were two-faced in their questioning because they already had their answer.

Think of the political dialogue we’re all familiar with on TV shows today.

Questions are not asked so much to receive answers so much as to trap opponents.

Let me explain a bit about “authority” at the time of Christ.

It was universally accepted among Rabbis at the time that authoritative teaching required previous authorization.

All teaching had to be authoritative because it was approved by authority and handed down from teacher (rabbi) to student (disciple).

The ultimate appeal in any discussion was to some great authority, either an individual Teacher or a Decree by the Sanhedrin.

To teach or to decide contrary to established authority was either a sign of gross ignorance or a sign of rebellion.

In either case, you were to be visited with ‘the ban’ for putting out a shingle and teaching contrary to authority.

This is at least one aspect of the controversy here.

Nobody would have thought of haggling with what they called a Haggadist – a popular expositor, preacher, or teller of legends

But authoritatively to teach, required some sort of warrant.

There was regular ordination, called Semikhah, to the office of Rabbi, Elder, and Judge.

In Christ’s time these were not three offices but were combined into one.

A Rabbi was an Elder was a Judge.

There was no ordination outside of what the Sanhedrin conferred.

The presence of at least three ordained persons from the Sanhedrin was required to ordain a man and then, and only then, could He teach.

The bottom line is this:  at the time of Christ, no one would have thought to teach authoritatively without proper Rabinnic authorization from the Sanhedrin.

Think about it then.

Did the Sanhedrin know whether or not they had conferred Rabinnical authority on Christ?

Of course they knew they had not.

In their mind, Christ was coloring way outside the lines.

It explains, in great part, why they would not listen to a word He said because He had never been granted the right to teach by them.

Everybody knew that Christ had no authority to knock over tables or to teach unless the Sanhedrin granted it.

The question, therefore, was deceptive.

They were merely trying to get Christ to admit that no Commission of the Sanhedrin ordained Him.

Everyone present would then conclude, with them, that Christ was not a Rabbi and had no authority and should be ignored.

Their question was intended to expose Christ as a poser.

But Christ was not just any man.

He knew exactly what they were up to.

How did Christ respond?

He responded with a pointed question back to the delegation.

By what authority did John baptize?

Remember that, during John’s ministry a delegation had been sent by the Sanhedrin asking him about the authority he had to baptize.

J.C. Ryle notes this:

It may reasonably be doubted whether the importance of John the Baptist’s ministry is generally understood by Christians. The brightness of our Lord’s history overshadows the history of His forerunner, and the result is that John’s baptism and preaching do not receive the attention which they deserve. Yet it should never be forgotten, that the ministry of the Baptist was the only New Testament ministry foretold in the Old Testament, excepting that of Christ. It was a ministry which produced an immense effect on the Jewish mind, and aroused the expectation of Israel from one end of Palestine to the other. Above all, it was a ministry which made the Jews without excuse in their rejection of Christ, when Christ appeared. They could not say that they were taken by surprise when our Lord began to preach. Their minds had been thoroughly prepared for His appearing. To see the full sinfulness of the Jews, and the entire justice of the judgments which came on them after crucifying our Lord, we must remember the ministry of John the Baptist.Christ spoke of John and testified of him that he was the greatest prophet that Israel had in its history.

 

The greatest prophet of the Old Covenant had been in their midst.

Instead of coming to John to be baptized and to repent they had haggled with him as to why he was baptizing.

The greatest prophet in the Old Covenant had been in their midst and so Christ asked them plainly:  By what authority did John baptize?

The question was meant to expose a flaw in their thinking about the reality of authority.

They clearly did not believe John had the authority to baptize.

Why?

Because John hadn’t received his authority from them.

Uneducated men might have flocked to John but they knew better.

John was not acting according to the way they perceived reality and so he was ignored by them as an imposter.

They could stop their ears to everything John said without ever hearing him.

They were convinced that John, too, was an imposter.

But they knew the people held John to be a prophet.

And so they chickened out and said they didn’t know by what authority he baptized.

The doctors of the Church didn’t know?

They were the ultimate authority and they were ignorant of authority?

Men like these did not, therefore, deserve an answer from the Incarnate Son of God.

These men had hardened their hearts to the baptism of John.

These men had continually hardened their hearts to the ministry of Christ.

The rays of the sun were in blazing glory all around them but they clamped their eyes shut.

They said:  “We see nothing except what we authorize.  We see nothing except that what has been passed to us by our standards.  We know best.”

They could hear no voice but their own and so Christ refused to give them an answer.

They had forfeited the right to an explanation from the Son of God because they did not desire to be taught.

Some of you know that I grew up Roman Catholic.

A number of years ago, after my conversion to Christ through the writings of R.C. Sproul, I was in a conversation with a man from my former Church.

He was extolling the traditions of the Roman Catholic Church to me.

He noted that the Roman Catholic Church’s view of tradition was much like the Jews.

He thought, therefore, that Rome was in the strand of a grand tradition of how authority operates.

I thought with amazement that he could not see that his was precisely the problem the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin had in Christ’s day.

The similarities between the way in which the Scriptures can become obscured behind men’s traditions are strikingly similar.

Truth began to drift as doctrine was built not on the foundation of God’s Word but upon centuries of commentary on the Word.

Eventually men stopped looking to the Scriptures and the entire structure was built upon commentary.

The Scriptures must then be interpreted according to tradition instead of tradition giving way to Scripture.

Eventually the magisterium convinced itself that people should stay away from the Scriptures because it led them to error where error is defined as a departure from Church law.

Eventually the Church began to believe that its own pronouncements stood on equal footing with God’s own Word.

Indeed, the Word really fell under Church authority because it could only be used in support of what Church law had concluded.

Such a Church can hear no voice but its own.

But let us not pretend that we are immune from such error.

An even cursory reading of the Scriptures teaches us how prone our hearts are to wandering.

Within the life of Paul, he was concerned that the Church at Galatia had left a foundation he had laid for them in the Gospel.

Men quickly become conceited in their pride when they forsake the living Word for idols of their imagination.

Idolatry is not merely things we make with our hands but the ideas about God that we conceive in our minds..

We are foolish if we think it cannot happen to us.

Men who are entrusted to teach others are doubly damned if they teach others this same idolatry.

They are doubly damned when they replace the authority of God’s Word with their own.

We think too highly of ourselves if we imagine that the Sanhedrin and the Pharisees are some other species.

Surely I could never do such a thing.

I’m not a bad guy, I’m a good guy.

I love God.

I seek to obey His commandments.

This could never happen to me or my Church.

*Whenever you read a story in the Bible don’t look to see how you’re like the good guy but search your heart as to how you are just like those who oppose Christ.

In our time, we pray much for provision, for our success, and for an overthrow of the wicked around us.

But hear the prophet Amos as he testified to a prosperous nation:

 

Amos 4:6-12 (ESV)

Israel Has Not Returned to the Lord

6           “I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities,

and lack of bread in all your places,

yet you did not return to me,”

declares the Lord.

7           “I also withheld the rain from you

when there were yet three months to the harvest;

I would send rain on one city,

and send no rain on another city;

one field would have rain,

and the field on which it did not rain would wither;

8           so two or three cities would wander to another city

to drink water, and would not be satisfied;

yet you did not return to me,”

declares the Lord.

9           “I struck you with blight and mildew;

your many gardens and your vineyards,

your fig trees and your olive trees the locust devoured;

yet you did not return to me,”

declares the Lord.

10         “I sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt;

I killed your young men with the sword,

and carried away your horses,

and I made the stench of your camp go up into your nostrils;

yet you did not return to me,”

declares the Lord.

11         “I overthrew some of you,

as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,

and you were as a brand plucked out of the burning;

yet you did not return to me,”

declares the Lord.

12         “Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel;

because I will do this to you,

prepare to meet your God, O Israel!”

 

We suppose that the worst thing that can happen to us is the loss of everything good around us.

Loss of home.

Loss of employment.

Loss of an economy.

Loss of a nation.

But God testifies in His Word that He often sends these things to turn us from our idolatry.

These are not even remotely close to the worst thing that can happen to us.

The worst that can happen is prophesied later in Amos.

Amos 8:11 (ESV)

11         “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God,

“when I will send a famine on the land—

not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,

but of hearing the words of the Lord.

 

Do you understand what Amos was prophesying?

The final judgment is not a loss of life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness.

The final judgment of God is an inability to hear the Lord when He speaks in His Word!

This is like a punch in the gut for me.

That God would speak to us and we would be unable to hear.

That the living Word would be read in our midst and we could not hear what they speak to us.

That light would shine around us and we would be unable to see.

That the aroma of the Gospel would be around us and we would only smell the stench of death.

What good is it, beloved, if we gain the whole world and lose the ability to hear the living God?

Christ, save us all!

I don’t want you to walk out of here thinking that it’s because the Sanhedrin were learned men.

We’re called to study the Scriptures diligently.

We’re called to become mature in these things.

I also don’t want you to be deceived into thinking that one escapes this by rejecting the Church.

Christ Himself calls us into His Church.

Ephesians 4 makes clear that He gives us pastors and teachers that we may attain to the unity of the faith.

But we can so easily start to assume that we see clearly in our own hearts.

Perhaps some of you are bored right now.

Perhaps some of you know exactly what you wanted to hear.

Enough about sin and repentance already.

I’ve heard that before.

I’ve already got that filed away and understand it.

Enough of this stuff about hearing the Word.

I hear it every Sunday.

I’ve got more important things on my mind.

Beloved, we need to shake off this kind of thinking.

The living Word is penetrating us to our core and we need to come to attention before it.

We must fall again at the Savior’s feet and pray that He opens our ears.

We must never, never, never forget that it is Christ Who keeps us.

We begin by faith.

We begin by laying hold of Christ because we see our sin.

We see the sin that we rightly understand leads to our condemnation.

And so we turn way from our sin and look up to Christ and put our sin to death on a Cross.

We cling to Christ and believe that He has been resurrected from the dead.

We worship Christ because He has been testified to as the Son of God.

But this is not a self-generated effort.

This is not a mental exercise where we simply file away facts about Christ.

We must lay hold of Christ daily.

We must turn in faith daily.

We must pursue Christ and pray that He opens the Word to us.

Trust not your heart in your own strength.

Do not assume that your heart cannot lead you astray.

Do not assume that because, yesterday, you were excited about Christ that today is not a day to hear him anew.

Do not be satisfied with your zeal for Church attendance.

Do not be satisfied that you have been brought to Church by your parents.

Christ is placarded before you in His Word.

Do not walk away from here confident in your own strength.

Look up afresh at the Cross because Christ has given us eyes to see.

We are not secure because we belong to the right Church.

We are not secure because we believed once upon a time.

We are secure because all those who turn in faith to Christ are held tightly in His grip.

He knows His sheep and not one of them will be lost by the Good shepherd.

Christ has prayed for you even as He prayed in thanksgiving to His Father for the disciples of His day:

Matthew 11:25-28 (ESV)

25  “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. 28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

 

Let us pray.

Categories
Gospels and Acts Scripture

Sin, Faith, and Service (Luke 17:1-10)

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Luke 17:1-10

1 And he said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! 2 It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.3 Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, 4 and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.” 5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. 7 “Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? 8 Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? 9 Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’ ”

1.  Grateful that this was assigned as a complete section due to connection between them.

2.  Sin, Faith, and Service are the interconnected themes of this passage.

3.  DISCLAIMER:  This passage is for disciples.

a.  Do not confuse the root with the fruit.

b.  If one is not already a disciple of Christ, one does not become a disciple by practicing these things.

c.  You may listen in but do not confuse that Christ has different commands for different people.

4.  Verses 1-2:  1 And he said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! 2 It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin

a.  There is a very specific focus here.

b.  The type of sin in question is the type where one puts a stumbling block in front of another.

c.  A little one is caused to stumble in that he is prevented from coming to Christ.

d.  It doesn’t matter if this is a child, a new disciple, or one who would be a disciple.

e.  Christ is deadly serious about this.

f.  Rom 1:32 testifies to the nature of man in the Fall.

(1)  Men want to rebel in company.

(2)  If others are sinning like me then I feel like its normal.

(3)  The more people that do it, the more likely it is that it is right.

(4)  Men and women celebrate wickedness.

g.  Christ states it is better that a millstone be hung around a man’s neck and he be drowned than that he cause a man to stumble on his way to Christ.

h.  This is not just for the non-religious but the religious.

i.  This warning is for all.

j.  Christ is dead earnest that men and women come to Him for salvation.

(1)  The person who trips another on the way or inhibits that person faces a judgment worse than drowning.

k.  What if a child asks his father:  “Who is Jesus?  Why must people believe in Jesus?  Why is Jesus the only way?”

(1)  If that father says that the child need not worry about such things, he is stumbling his child.

5.  Verses 3-4:  .3 Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, 4 and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”

6.  Paul turns His attention to life within the community of faith.

a.  Note He first states:  “If your brother sins”.

b.  Quiz:  What is your duty when your brother sins?

(1)  Ignore him.

(2)  Tell the Elders.

(3)  Gossip about him.

c.  Christ states that it is our duty to rebuke a brother who sins.

d.  You may say that this is more than I bargained for in the Christian life.

e.  I don’t like him.  He offended me.  This may cause me to have to repent of sins of my own.

f.  It’s easier if I just ignore him and focus on myself. He’s not worth my time.

g.  When we refuse to rebuke a brother, we are refusing to help him.

h.  When we refuse to rebuke a brother we are refusing to love him.

i.  This person names Christ and we say in our hearts:  “This person can go to hell as far as I’m concerned.  I have neither the energy or motivation to rebuke him.”

j.  How many times does Christ forgive you in a day?

(1) You who spat in unbelief in the face of God saw that same God hanging on a Cross for your sins.

(2)  You were an enemy of God.

(3)  By faith, Christ died from your sins and gave you life.

(4)  How can you fail to love who Christ loves?

(5)  How can you fail to rebuke another and display the riches of Christ’s mercy to them?

(6)  Imagine for yourself the joy of a brother who repents for your loving rebuke and is brought by your hand back to His savior’s arms.

6.  You may say:  This is hard.

a.  Simple answer:  Of course it’s hard!

b.  Where did you ever get the silly idea that being a Christian was easy?

c.  Nothing in the Christian life is accomplished according to our strength! Nothing!

7.  The apostles had the same response as evidenced by verses 5 and 6:  5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

a.  The Apostles do not say:  Give us faith.  They believe they possess faith.

b.  They ask for an increase in faith.

(1)  They believe there is something that they have to produce within themselves to have the power to do what Christ has commanded.

c.  There is no evidence from the Scipture or the historical record that mulberry trees around Jerusalem were being cast into the sea.

d.  The mulberry tree was a symbol for something immovable.  It had roots that could live for hundreds of years.

e.  In the Scriptures, the mustard seed is used in the parables as the smallest of seeds.

(1)  Christ is saying that the smallest of faiths can do this.

f.  We could talk for hours about how people misunderstand faith.

g.  The popular notion is that faith or sincerity is what empowers us for greatness.

h.  The apostles thought like many of us:  If I just had more power of faith then I could accomplish more.

i.  But faith is not a power.

j.  It is not the nature of our faith that is important.

k.  It is the Savior in Whom we have faith that makes all the difference in the world.

l.  People may say:  “I wish I had your faith” but the proper response is “Don’t desire my faith, desire my Savior!”

m.  Little faith gets the same Jesus that strong faith gets.

(1)  Christ is the powerful one.

(2)  Christ is our King Who subdues sin and temptation.

(3)  Christ is the fountainhead of all our blessings.

(4)  Faith is an act of trusting and clinging to the strong Savior.

n.  Christ is reminding His disciples that He has the power to grant what He commands.

o.  Looking within for power will always lead to failure but when we trust that Christ is powerful we can do all things through Him because He is powerful to do all things.

8.  Christ closes with this parable:   7 “Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? 8 Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? 9 Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’ ”

a.  Christ knows our hearts.

b.  We may find ourselves, in Christ, forgiving and being forgiven.

c.  We may find ourselves serving others.

d.  Our indwelling sin convinces us that our service merits a reward for our hard work.

(1)  Even in the military, there is an expectation that we’ll get a medal at the end of our service when pay is our due.

e.  In the parable

(1)  The man is not very rich, has one servant.

(2)  The servant works in the field all day and then must change his clothes to make dinner for his employer.

(3)  The employer does not thank the servant for working in the fields.

(4)  The master does not thank the servant for making him a meal.

(5)  That is what he hired the servant for.

f.  We’ve been bought with a price.  The blood of Christ.

g.  Christ stormed the dungeons of sin and death by defeating the enemy who had us in bondage to sin and death.

h.  He have us new clothes to wear, put a ring on our hand, and called us His brother.

i.  We, who were enemies of God, have been adopted as God’s children.  We are precious in God’s sight and Christ conquers every foe that comes our way to destroy us.

j.  We are held tight in the grip of the Savior and He powerfully showers us with gifts for service in His kingdom.

k.  How can we look within and say:  “Christ, look how wonderful I am, you really are lucky to have me as your brother.  I’ve earned more blessings from you hand.”

9.  The story doesn’t end here.

a.  Christ does say to His servants:  “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”

b.  Here, however, He is reminding us to not fix our eyes within ourselves but to fix our eyes outward to amazing grace.

c.  By grace you have been saved and are being transformed daily by the renewing of your mind.

d.  Be thankful and grateful always and realize that we are only doing that which God has gifted us with.

10.  Are you on the outside looking in?

a.  Perhaps you don’t know the reality I’ve been speaking about.

b.  If Christ is not your Savior and Lord then these are not the first verses you need to hear from Christ.

c.  Perhaps you feel the burden of your sin.  It oppresses you and you feel yourself alienated from God.

d.  Christ commands that you look up on the Cross.

e.  Christ did not come into the world to condemn for the world has already been judged for its cosmic rebellion against God.

f.  Christ calls you to look up on the cross and believe that He has put the power of sin to death on the Cross.  Believe upon Christ and all your many sins have been put to death with Him.

g.  Christ calls that you look at the empty tomb.

h.  Christ has conquered death by His indestructible life and proved Himself to be the Son of God.  All authority in heaven and earth is His.

i.  Look at Christ and believe that He has risen from the dead by His power.

j.  Cling to His feet.  He is your only hope in this life and the next.  You will be united to His indestructible life that gives you life and safeguards you as His own for eternity.

k.  Christ will conquer sin and temptation in your heart as He makes you into a new creation.

l.  Look up and believe that Christ has ascended on high and sit as the right hand of the Father.

m.  There He ever lives to pray for those who believe upon Him and conquers all His enemies.

11.  Believe upon Christ that you may be freed from sin!

12.  Believe upon Christ that He might free you to love your neighbor and to tell other hungry beggars where the bread of life is to be found!

13.  Believe upon Christ not because you have a mighty faith but because Christ is a mighty Savior!

Categories
Gospels and Acts Scripture

The Living Bread from Heaven (John 6)

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John 6:1-15

1After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. 2 And a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick.3 Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. 4 Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. 5 Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” 6 He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. 7 Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” 8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, 9 “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?” 10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number.11 Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. 12 And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.” 13 So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. 14 When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!”

15 Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

  • Where we pick up the story, Christ has already been rejected in Judea.
  • He is now in Galillee and will be rejected here.
  • He has already performed many signs and wonders. Belief is unacceptable.
  • A crowd gathers and Christ commands Philip to get them something to eat.
  • Philip performs a calculation that it will take about a year’s salary to feed them.
  • Christ provides not according to human calculation but by His own power. A lesson that His Apostles ought to know by now.
  • He feeds the multitude and they are excited.
  • The people correctly perceive that Christ is the Prophet that Moses foretold in Deut 18.
  • They incorrectly perceive the mission of that Prophet and Messiah.
  • They desire to make Him their King.
  • They expect, by their understanding, that the Messiah will kick out the Romans and usher in a golden age.
  • They are ready to make Christ their King by force according to their expectation that Christ will be a political conqueror and usher in goodness and plenty for their physical lives.
  • Christ withdraws, as He does so often, because He refuses to be the kind of Messiah that men expect and will only be the kind of Messiah that they need.

John 6:16-21

16 When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, 17 got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. 18 The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. 19 When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened.20 But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” 21 Then they were glad to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.

    • Much could be said here.
    • I want you to hear this portion so we don’t lose the flow of the account.
    • It’s enough to note that Christ and His disciples were now in Capernaum the next day.

John 6:22-27

22 On the next day the crowd that remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. 23 Other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. 24 So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus.

25 When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” 26 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27 Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.”

    • The people noticed Christ was no longer in the place where they had their bellies filled.
    • They went to Capernaum seeking Jesus.
    • Notice that Christ has thousands of followers Who are excited about them.
    • One might think He’s going to do everything in His power to keep them as followers.
    • Instead He rebukes them.
    • He identifies that their motivation for following Him is that He gave them bread to fill their stomachs.
    • He instructs them that they’re seeking the wrong thing from Him.
    • Christ is in their midst to give them eternal life and they only want enough food to make it through the day.
    • He’s calling them to faith and repentance.
    • Do they understand Him?
    • No.

 

John 6:28-34

28 Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” 30 So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? 31 Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ” 32 Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

    • There appears to be eagerness to follow Christ and “do the works of God.”
    • Christ answers them that it is not their works that is critical.
    • It is the work of God that they need.
    • The work of God is that they would believe in Christ Whom the Father sent.
    • Do they understand?
    • No. They challenge him for a sign. They challenge Him to show more works.
    • The heart of idolatry is always more interested in the effects of a living God.
    • What the heart of idolatry does not desire is to truly worship the living God.
    • They call Christ’s attention to the provision of Manna in the desert.
    • Interestingly, they are on to something here because Christ’s provision here is John 6 is much like the provision of manna in the desert.
    • But the thing they miss is that they’re always interested in stopping at the sign.
    • They cannot perceive what the manna pointed to.
    • They cannot perceive what Christ’s provision of bread pointed to.
    • Christ is the true bread of heaven.
    • Everything important is standing in front of them.
    • Everything that manna and bread signified is fulfilled in their midst.
    • Do they understand?
    • No. They want the sign. They want bread.

 

John 6:35-42

35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

41 So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”

    • Christ now tells them plainly what the bread has signified.
    • It has pointed to Him.
    • He has come in power and majesty.
    • He has plainly performed signs and wonders before their eyes to testify of His authority.
    • He has come down from heaven to give eternal life.
    • He has come to satisfy their hunger forever by His provision.
    • He has come to satisfy their thirst forever by His provision.
    • All who come to Him in faith will possess eternal life through His provision.
    • Yet it is not of man’s own doing that they will come to Him.
    • As we’ve already seen, the fleshly mind is in slavery to sin.
    • It can only perceive earthly things. It can only perceive concerns of itself and the world.
    • The Father must give people to Christ that they might come to Him.
    • Supernatural work is needed for the people to come to Christ.
    • And as surely as they come, the Son receives and holds on to all of them.
    • None shall be lost.
    • All who come to Him will be raised again with Him on the last day.
    • Do the Jews understand?
    • Do they perceive?
    • No.
    • Why?
    • Because the Father has not given them to the Son.
    • They are still stumbling in the blindness of sin in Adam.
    • So blind are they that they grumble before the living God as their forefathers grumbled in the desert.
    • They rebuke and ridicule Christ for saying that He is the bread come down from heaven.
    • Again, all their understanding is wrapped up in earthly things. This man is not bread.
    • This man is not from heaven.
    • We saw Him grow up in Nazareth.

 

John 6:43-52

43 Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me— 46 not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

  • Notice Christ’s response.
  • He is pointing out the blindness I just underlined.
  • He knows very well they cannot perceive spiritual things.
  • He rebukes them for grumbling and again points out that the reason they are unable to perceive is that Father draws them to Christ.
  • Christ did not come to be understood according to the world’s understanding.
  • The world is captive to sin and its thinking is hostile to the mind of God.
  • God, by the power that created the world, needs to drag men into the Kingdom for they will never do so in their sinful state.
  • God, in His power, needs to conquer the sin that reigns men’s thinking that they may perceive Christ as the One sent by the Father.
  • And all who come by the Father’s power will be saved by the Son.
  • Christ reminds the people that they are just like their forefathers who could only perceive physical food in the desert.
  • The food fed them for the day but they all perished outside of the Promised land.
  • They perished because they never combined the food they received with the eyes of faith to look upon the Provider of that food.
  • Here, again, the true spiritual food that will give them eternal life is in their midst and they refuse to believe upon Him.
  • Christ tells them that He’s given His Body up for spiritual life.
  • His flesh will be that which provides the power for salvation.
  • All who look to His flesh, His sacrifice, for provision, will possess eternal life.
  • Do the Jews understand?
  • Do they perceive?
  • No.
  • They accuse Christ of cannibalism.
  • All they can understand is flesh.
  • All they can understand is bread.
  • How can a man give his flesh to eat?
  • He cannot according to the thinking of the world.

 

John 6:53-59

53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59 Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.

    • Christ is not content to leave them unoffended.
    • He speaks again clearly of spiritual things they cannot perceive.
    • He does so in a way that confirms to the fleshly mind the worst possible thing.
    • All they can hear is flesh, blood, bread, drink.
    • Christ is offering Himself.
    • He is laying forth the mission of the Messiah to save by His body and blood.
    • All who look to Him will be saved.
    • The Passover is at hand and Christ is clearly alluding to the Passover flesh that signifies Him.
    • These same people will soon eat the flesh of a lamb that is a mere shadow of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
    • Yet, they will not perceive the sign as pointing to Him.
    • Every sign is a brute object to them and they cannot perceive when the glory which it signifies is standing in their very midst.
    • Very God of very God!
    • Veiled in human flesh.
    • Come down from heaven.
    • God in a Tabernacle among them.
    • The Bread of Life sent from heaven.
    • The true Manna.
    • The Serpent lifted on a pole.
    • The Lamb of God.
    • The True Prophet.
    • The True Priest.
    • The True King.
    • Completely lost on the mind of men in slavery to sin and death.
    • O, how much we need the Father to draw us!

John 6:60-71

60 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” 61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) 65 And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”

66 After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. 67 So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” 70 Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” 71 He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the Twelve, was going to betray him.

  • Imagine Christ giving a Church growth seminar.
  • 5000 eager disciples and that’s only counting the men.
  • Give a powerful sermon about the nature of the Gospel.
  • Offend everyone so much that only a dozen are left.
  • But Christ is well aware of what He’s doing.
  • He’s said it before and He says again that only those that the Father draws can come to Him.
  • He wants disciples Who seek Him for the provision He has come to give.
  • He’s not a coach.
  • He’s not here for your best life now.
  • His words are exclusive and ugly to the sight of men.
  • He turns now to His inner circle.
  • It’s like He’s saying: “How do you like them apples?”
  • Do you want to leave too?
  • Imagine the gall?
  • These men have left their professions for Him.
  • He had called them to be fishers of men and now most of the followers are gone.
  • “Do you want to leave as well?”
  • Take the moment in for a second. It had to give the Apostles pause.
  • This is not success as the world measures it.
  • Peter doesn’t really say: “Of course we don’t want to leave.”
  • In his reply is the hint that this didn’t sit well with anyone.
  • The Holy God makes men uncomfortable.
  • But, Beloved, Peter’s reply is exactly what Christ was after!
  • “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
  • This is hard Jesus!
  • I don’t think I understand all of this stuff.
  • You’re a hard man to follow sometimes.
  • But to Whom shall we go?!
  • We believe!
  • We believe you are the Holy One sent from God!
  • We believe that you have words of eternal life.
  • Where else is there to go?!
  • Sure, the world is more comfortable.
  • It doesn’t challenge us.
  • It doesn’t require that we give up our ambitions.
  • It doesn’t require that we depend on anyone but ourselves.
  • It doesn’t require that we be ridiculed and mocked for following some stupid Carpenter who is barely educated and talks about men eating His flesh.
  • But if we think like that then we’ll have bread for today and hunger again.
  • Lord, YOU ALONE HAVE WORDS OF ETERNAL LIFE!
  • I don’t understand you Lord but I KNOW YOU.
  • I’ll trust you in what I don’t understand and follow you to the bitter end.
  • I’ll believe the promise of eternal life because I’ve come to believe that Your Word can be trusted.

 

  • This, beloved, is what it looks like when the Father draws a man to the Son.
  • It’s not the quality of the man’s understanding.
  • It’s not the quality of the man’s works.
  • It is the power of the Father to draw men unto the Son by the power of His Word.
  • The man wakes up and is convinced he understands the world and reality.
  • Men are men.
  • Bread is bread.
  • Blood is blood.
  • Then, suddenly, out of the blue, the Word of God comes like a mighty conqueror.
  • It pierces the heart of men.
  • It wakes them up.
  • The world that seemed rightside up is now upside down.
  • The Savior who seems a rejected and despised failure is seen for what He truly is.
  • O, may you know the power of the saving hand of the Father to draw you to the Son.
  • May you fall down at His feet and cry: “I don’t understand it all but I’ve come to believe you are the Holy One sent from God. You alone have the words of eternal life. Save me! May I feed on your flesh. May I drink your blood. Give me the spiritual nourishment I have been lacking as I have been stumbling blindly through this world.”
  • Such a request, the Son is delighted to grant.
  • He will lay hold of you with such a strong Hand that none can pluck you out.
  • He will save you today and, on that glorious day of His return in Judgment, will raise you again on the last day!
  • Let us pray.
Categories
Gospels and Acts Scripture

Genesis 45

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Genesis 45

1 Then Joseph could not control himself before all those who stood by him. He cried, “Make everyone go out from me.” So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. 2 And he wept aloud, so that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. 3 And Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph! Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed at his presence.

4 So Joseph said to his brothers, “Come near to me, please.” And they came near. And he said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. 5 And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. 6 For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. 7 And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. 8 So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. 9 Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, ‘Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me; do not tarry. 10 You shall dwell in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, and your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. 11 There I will provide for you, for there are yet five years of famine to come, so that you and your household, and all that you have, do not come to poverty.’ 12 And now your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see, that it is my mouth that speaks to you. 13 You must tell my father of all my honor in Egypt, and of all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here.” 14 Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, and Benjamin wept upon his neck. 15 And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them. After that his brothers talked with him.

16 When the report was heard in Pharaoh’s house, “Joseph’s brothers have come,” it pleased Pharaoh and his servants. 17 And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Say to your brothers, ‘Do this: load your beasts and go back to the land of Canaan, 18 and take your father and your households, and come to me, and I will give you the best of the land of Egypt, and you shall eat the fat of the land.’ 19 And you, Joseph, are commanded to say, ‘Do this: take wagons from the land of Egypt for your little ones and for your wives, and bring your father, and come. 20 Have no concern for your goods, for the best of all the land of Egypt is yours.’ ”

21 The sons of Israel did so: and Joseph gave them wagons, according to the command of Pharaoh, and gave them provisions for the journey. 22 To each and all of them he gave a change of clothes, but to Benjamin he gave three hundred shekels of silver and five changes of clothes. 23 To his father he sent as follows: ten donkeys loaded with the good things of Egypt, and ten female donkeys loaded with grain, bread, and provision for his father on the journey. 24 Then he sent his brothers away, and as they departed, he said to them, “Do not quarrel on the way.”

25 So they went up out of Egypt and came to the land of Canaan to their father Jacob. 26 And they told him, “Joseph is still alive, and he is ruler over all the land of Egypt.” And his heart became numb, for he did not believe them. 27 But when they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said to them, and when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of their father Jacob revived. 28 And Israel said, “It is enough; Joseph my son is still alive. I will go and see him before I die.”

Some may be disappointed that we’re still in Genesis as we enter Advent.  What does this have to do with Christ and the nativity?  What can this Old Testament history minister to you?  By God’s grace, I pray that you won’t be asking that question at the end of our time together this morning.

Before we get into Genesis 45, we need to back up just a little bit and remember that the chapter markers weren’t inspired and a beautiful story is broken up here.  Genesis 45 opens with Joseph overwhelmed with tears at Judah’s offer to be a propitiation for Benjamin.  Judah, Leah’s son, has promised his life for Rachel’s son Benjamin.

Joseph tells his servants to leave him alone with his brothers.  Joseph, up to this point, had been speaking through an interpreter and he suddenly blurts out in the Hebrew language “I am Joseph!  Is my father still alive?”

This is not happy news for the brothers.  Whatever grief they had over their sins is magnified.  They’re stunned.  They’re terrified.  They are so overcome with grief and fear at this point that they cannot speak.

This is not an Andrew Lloyd Weber musical where a chorus of joy breaks out because brothers are reunited.  This is real life and the brothers are terrified that a man with the power of Pharaoh has just been revealed to be the brother they plotted to murder and then sold into slavery.

This is it.  This is the end.

Joseph has every right to exact vengeance and has the power to carry it out.

But Joseph has compassion upon them and draws them close.

“Come near to me.”

“I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt.”

Joseph does not excuse their sin.  He calls it for what it was.  They sold him into slavery in Egypt.

What next?  What do they deserve?  By strict justice do they deserve Joseph’s kindness?  Do they deserve his love for them?

But Joseph is kind to them.  He is kind in a way that is surprising and he comforts them with this truth:

“Do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.”

Joseph explains that the famine is going to last for five more years and then tells them again:  “…God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors.”

Clearly, his brothers sold him into slavery.  They were certainly in the chain of events that led to Joseph being in Egypt.  Yet, as much as they were responsible for their sin in selling Joseph into slavery, they were not the only actors on the scene of history.

God was at work.

In fact, Joseph makes it more emphatic as to how he got where he was when he continues to explain and says:  “So it was not you who sent me here, but God.”

What Joseph is reminding the brothers of is God’s control of all things.  They ought to have remembered it in the story of their great-grandfather Abraham.  They ought to have heard it from their grandfather Isaac.  Surely they witnessed God’s control of all things in their father’s life and in their own experience.

This is God’s providence.  Providence is a word rarely used today because most people act as if history moves along aimlessly.  Yet providence is the truth that God controls all history and has a purpose in it.

Some are afraid to think of God being in control of all things.  Some will say that this makes him the author of sin or that it relieves men of responsibility for their actions.  But Scripture will have the last word.

God is in control of all things.  The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord.  God knows the beginning from the end not because he looked down the corridors of time and saw how it would all turn out but because he ordained it all.

Men may try to twist this truth to escape the judgment of their wickedness and place the blame upon God for ordering history but God will have none of it.  Men are responsible for their actions and cannot shift blame upon God for sin and disobedience.

Whatever schemes men can think of, amidst all the tumult of an earth filled with sin and death, God overrules the counsels of men.  God does, by the hands of wicked men, what he has decided to do in history.  The sin belongs to Joseph’s brothers and so does the whole blame belong to them for their sin.  Yet God works wonderfully through their means and, from their impurity, brings forth his perfect righteous will and plan.  His method of acting here is secret, far above our understanding and Joseph does not give any more explanation as to the how of God’s overruling other than to state it.

Some have said that God’s Providence is like the language of Hebrew itself.  It can only be read backwards.

Joseph understands he is where he is, by God’s hand, to save the world and to preserve a remnant.  Looking back, he can see the sins of men clearly.  He can even recount his own sins.  But Joseph can also see how God interposed to prevent the evil of others who wanted to injure him.  Not only that, but Joseph can see how God turned every wicked design into good.

This is why Joseph uses this argument about God’s control as a source of comfort.  “God sent me here…” is Joseph’s argument.  He is able to reflect on the goodness of God and the undeserved favor he has been shown.  Even though Joseph himself is a sinner, God has overruled human history for his benefit and the benefit of his brothers.  Joseph is able to embrace the men whose dishonor God had covered with His grace.

This comfort reminds the brothers of God’s goodness.  All is not ruined.  All is not destroyed.  Whatever man has plotted to destroy, God has overruled to His righteous ends.  God’s goodness overwhelms all schemes and all hurts.  God’s goodness heals and they fall on each other’s necks and weep.  Not only has the plan of God saved a remnant from starvation, and the world along with it, but God has ordained the events so that the brothers would learn to love one another for the first time in their entire lives.

“Hurry!”  Joseph tells them.  He orders them to tell Jacob everything they have seen and heard.  There is no time to lose as the famine is severe and Pharaoh has given the fat of the land for Joseph’s family to live upon.

As you may recall, the whole story of Joseph began with fine clothes.  In verse 22, Joseph sends them back to their father with rich clothes.  The one despised for his rich garment blesses his brothers with rich garments and gifts to await them upon their return.  Their rich garments and the carts of Pharaoh are to serve as evidence to Jacob that Joseph is still alive.

Joseph warns them as they go not to quarrel along the way in verse 24.  They were still coming to grips with healing grace.  They were going to have to explain that their brother was still alive in Egypt.  Blame shifting might occur and then arguments over who was most guilty.  Instead of excusing their own sin in the matter, they needed to be reminded by their brother of God’s control.  This was a time for repentance and the remembrance of God’s goodness.

Years of mistrust are evident as Jacob refused to believe the news that Joseph was still alive but when he saw the gifts that Joseph sent with them, Jacob’s heart revived.

This story is so authentic.  Jacob doesn’t care how rich Joseph is.  Jacob doesn’t care about Joseph’s position in Egypt.  Jacob doesn’t even mention that he fears the famine.  His heart has been broken for years over a son he thought dead and all he wants is to see his son.

“It is enough:  Joseph my son is still alive.  I will go and see him before I die.”

Pastor Kittredge is fond of saying that, if you cannot see God in the everyday things of life that your faith is bound to be shaken when real suffering occurs.

We’re prone to think of the sun rising or a storm cloud passing or the seasons changing as the laws of nature.  Yet, they are God’s laws and the works of creation are seen throughout Scripture as a source of praise unto God.  Even in Revelation 14:7, we are going to “…worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.”

Do you thank God that the sun rose today?  Do you see God in the regularity of the created order?  Do you thank God for the rainbow in the sky as a token of His covenant with all flesh?

Yet, as we look around us, there are plenty of things that tell us that things are not as they should be.  Pain, suffering, death are all around us.

These are not present because God is powerless over them.

This series is called The Genesis of Grace and Grace in Genesis.  Why?  Because only two chapters of Genesis didn’t require grace but everything after Genesis 3 has been grace.  In Chapter 3, Adam sinned against God and plunged all of mankind into death and sin and misery.  History should have stopped that day as God’s holiness and justice demanded that he destroy the creatures that raised their hands against Him in cosmic treason.

But God promised a Seed that would crush the head of the serpent and Providence has been God’s stage for the history of redemption.  Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and now Joseph.  History unfolded as God ordained it.  Grace in the midst of the sin of His creatures.

The story will continue.  A remnant will be preserved.  Israel and his descendants survive starvation and history unfolds until a child is born in Bethlehem.

As we enter the season of Advent we need to be reminded that this is not a season where we celebrate Jesus’ birthday as if Jesus stands in need of us to wish him a happy birthday every year.

Rather, this is a season where we remember that all human flesh stood in utter need of a Savior.  We had been plunged into sin and misery by our first parents.

We were enemies of God and alienated from our purpose as creatures.

The history of the Bible recounts the deeds of men:  men and women used and being used, men and women suffering at the hands of the powerful, the weak are oppressed, and the wicked seem to flourish.

But God, all along, reminded His saints that He controls it all and is preparing a Seed that will deliver the captives.

And one quiet night, a poor man and his pregnant wife came to Bethlehem and very God of very Gods veiled himself in human flesh and was born in a feeding trough.  God became man that we might taste sin and death and misery no longer.  He came to die for His own.

He was to be the Seed that would crush the head of the Serpent.  He was to be the Seed promised Abraham as God walked between the two halves of the sacrifice alone.  He became the perfect lamb that God had promised Abraham when He held back Abraham’s arm from slaying His son.  He was to be Jacob’s ladder that connected heaven and earth.

All of history, all of God’s plan, had been a stage upon which to bring the Man forward and in to our view.  God had heard the cries of a Job, the cries of an Abraham, and the cries of a Joseph during the long, dark years.  He had heard the prayers of His Saints and their suffering and provided a final answer in the person and work of Christ.

Men had intended only to sin.  Men intended only to destroy but God had brought all of human history to His answer:  Christ would redeem men to Himself and provide the meaning and purpose of history.  Philosophy could not solve the mystery of God’s answer to the problem of evil and human misery.  Only God could provide the answer and His final Word was Immanuel:  God with us.  His final answer was Jesus:  God saves!

This is what Joseph saw dimly from afar.  This is what allowed him to forgive his brothers.  He understood that human sin was to be answered by the grace of God.  Whatever man had purposed to completely destroy in his folly and darkened thought, God would overrule and bless through.

And so, Beloved, as we just celebrated a national day of Thanksgiving and enter Advent, do you have joy in your heart for all the many ways God has blessed you this year?  You have life, prosperity, kids, job security, friends, and a Church family.  If this is a season of rejoicing for you then thank God for your rejoicing.

Yet this season is a time of suffering for many as well.

As you consider God’s control of all things, do you yet feel sadness and brokenness at the hard providences that have afflicted your life?  Have the sins of others left deep scars on your soul?  Does mental or physical anguish afflict you?

Do you cry out at night, in the dark, wondering “…when will suffering end?”

This is the Body of Christ.  This is an outpost of the Kingdom of God.  We do not ask you to be anything more than a needy sinner.  We don’t demand anything more of you than a willingness to be ministered to this season.  Don’t smile for our sakes.  Don’t tell yourself to be happy because the world expects it.

Christ’s call is not a call to look within for strength.  Christ’s call is not a call to pick yourself up by your boot straps.

Christ’s call is simply this:  Come to me all you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest.

Cast your cares upon Him.  Cast your grief upon Him.  Cry out earnestly and honestly to Him telling Him that this world is broken and the waves of its misery continue to crash against you.

God has provided the answer to the pits and white spaces of this life and that answer is Christ.

It is not purposeless.  It is not hopeless.

Don’t believe what your heart tells you.  Your life is not ruined.  You will not forever grieve.  You have not forever wrecked anything.  Christ has solved the biggest problem there is by granting peace with God for those that fall at His feet because they have come to the end of themselves.

Beloved, be thankful.  You heard me right.  Be thankful to God.

Be thankful even in your present grief.  Come to me after the Service and allow the elders and me to pray with you.  Allow the elders to comfort you.  Let us embrace you and weep with you over your sadness.  Let us be reminded together that God has promised an end to this present suffering as we groan in the time before Christ finally puts all under His feet.

One day, maybe not in this life, but one day all will become clear and you will see the tapestry that God has woven, for Christ’s sake, which will make all things clear.  For the time being, let’s walk together with God’s Word as a lamp unto our feet, and take each faltering step together.

You are not a stranger.  You are not defeated.  You are Christian!  You have been bought with a price.  You are God’s child.  Hear the Apostle Paul as He summarizes God’s glorious plan of history for His own:

Romans 8:18-25

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. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Romans 8:31-39

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;  we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Categories
Gospels and Acts Scripture

Luke 11:14-28

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Luke 11:14-28

14 Now he was casting out a demon that was mute. When the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke, and the people marveled. 15 But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of demons,” 16 while others, to test him, kept seeking from him a sign from heaven. 17 But he, knowing their thoughts, said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a divided household falls. 18 And if Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul. 19 And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. 20 But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. 21 When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are safe; 22 but when one stronger than he attacks him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his spoil. 23 Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

24 “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding none it says, “˜I will return to my house from which I came.’ 25 And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in order. 26 Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first.”

27 As he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!” 28 But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”

As we continue in our series through the Book of Luke, Jesus has been travelling throughout the region of Galilee teaching the people and performing signs and wonders that testify to Himself.  His followers asked how to pray and, in Luke’s Gospel, the prayer ends at “”¦lead us not into temptation”¦” but Matthew’s Gospel reads:  “”¦lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.  For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.”

On the heels of this teaching, Christ encounters a man who is under the power of the evil one.  Are we not commanded to confess Christ as Lord?  Yet this man is under the power of evil and cannot speak.  By Christ’s power, however, the man is freed and the people marvel.

But not all marvel.  There are those in the crowd who have continually hounded the Savior throughout His public ministry:  the religious leaders and skeptics.  Faced with the power of God in their midst, there were those whose religious understanding made it impossible for them to conceive that Christ was teaching the things of God because He taught contrary to the teaching of their Rabbis.  They reasoned that Christ truly had power but that power could not be from God because a man from God could not teach something contrary to their understanding of the Scriptures.  Instead of having their minds transformed by the power of God, their hearts were hardened and their foolish minds darkly reasoned that Jesus must be casting out demons by the power of the demonic realm.

The others who were blind to Christ’s power were the skeptics.  Notice, in verse 16, the text reads:  “others, to test him, kept seeking from him a sign from heaven.”

Do any of you find that just laughable?  Christ casts out a demon and the skeptics complain that they need a sign from heaven.  This is proof positive that no signs from Christ are sufficient to convince a foolish mind hostile to the things of God.

Christ rebukes their unbelief by pointing out something obvious:  a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand.  Why, Christ asks, would Satan fight against his own kingdom?  Why would a ruler dispatch forces to destroy or defeat his own army?  It makes no sense and exposes their folly.  Thus, if Christ is casting out the kingdom of demons by the power of God then this is a demonstration that the Kingdom of God is among them.

The problem with the religious leaders and skeptics is that their minds are in bondage.  They can think.  They can reason.  Yet that thinking about spiritual things is imprisoned.  They are slaves to the way they view the world and all the power of Christ is interpreted through a distorted lens.

Yet, in a profound sense, this passage of Scripture is all about the remedy to bondage.  The Kingdom of God is in the midst of the people but they are not aware of what that power has been intended, from the beginning, to accomplish.

Christ, knowing the thoughts of the crowd, tells two parables:  the first is the parable of the Stronger Man and the second is the parable of the clean house.

In verses 21-22, Christ tells a short parable about a stronger man.  Simply put, when a strong man guards a house, the goods inside that house are safe.  Until, that is, a stronger man is able to overcome that strong man and plunder the goods.

The fascinating thing about parables is how subversive they are.  They are understandable and agreeable to common men on a certain level while a deeper meaning eludes them.  We all understand the idea that it’s good to have a strong warrior defend your castle.  You hire the best.  Yet, if a stronger foe defeats that warrior then your castle is in trouble.  The power that defends that stronghold has been overcome.

Yet, the people of Christ’s day were like many of us who measure the strength of God according to the kinds of strength that we naturally relate to.  We only think of power in its raw form and often desire it.  In a sense, this story would leave many of us with a wrong understanding that the Kingdom of God is just like political or military strength.  We’d be just like the Jews of Christ’s day who were waiting for a conquering Messiah who would free the Jews from the unclean Romans.  He would rally the Jews or use raw power to overcome the Romans and then all the good Jews would once again be a pure people in a pure land undefiled by all the evil people who were interlopers in their land.

The spiritual reality, however, is that it is all of mankind who is under bondage.  It is all of the Jews of Christ’s day and all of us who were in bondage to a strong ruler.  Sin and death have literally enslaved men since the sin of our first parents.  We assume that our thinking is right.  We assume that we see things and have common sense.  We assume that we do well and even please God.  Yet Romans 3:9-18 testifies of our true condition:

9 What then? Are we Jews any better off?  No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, 10 as it is written:  “None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God.  12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”  13 “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.”  “The venom of asps is under their lips.”  14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”  15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 in their paths are ruin and misery, 17 and the way of peace they have not known.” 18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

The Scriptures must be talking about evil people but not me.  My feet aren’t swift to shed blood.  I’m not a gossip.  My mouth isn’t full of curses and bitterness.

I can’t see that in myself.  I know there are others that are sinful and evil but I thank God that I’m not like those sinners.  I thank God that I’m in the Church and have been taught self-government.  I thank God that I’m not a Muslim and worship a false god.  I thank God that I’m not a Democrat and support big government.

Nicodemus came to Christ in John 3 in the middle of the night and knew that Christ had power from God but he just couldn’t grasp the things that Christ was teaching.  Christ responded: “”¦truly, truly, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God”¦.”

Do you know how Nicodemus responded?

He responded, in so many words:  “I just can’t make any sense out of what you’re saying.”  In other words, Nicodemus couldn’t see.

Blindness.  Slavery.  Darkness.  Futility.

This is our condition apart from Christ.  The Kingdom of God exists all around men and they cannot perceive it.

Why?

Because men are slaves to sin.  Men are in darkness.  Their mouths cannot testify of God but are mute to the things of God.  The strong man has them locked up and guarded.  The kingdom of this world consists of those born in Adam who are hostile to the things of God.  They are under the dominion of sin and death.

In 1 Sam 17, Israel under King Saul had gathered for battle against the Philistines and the Philistines sent out their champion.  His name was Goliath.  He was a giant.  His height and the weight of his armor and weapons were terrible.  Measured by any standard, the man was born to be a warrior and he stood and challenged anyone to fight him.  He cursed God and defied any idea that there was anyone who could defeat him in battle.  The whole of Saul’s army, including the king himself, cowered in terror for days because they saw strength according to common sense.  You don’t challenge the heavyweight champion of the world to a fight to the death.

Then, one day, a young shepherd boy named David walked up to bring food from his home to his brothers.  He saw this giant come out that day and curse the living God and his response was not one of fear but of anger that any man, however big, could challenge those with the Lord on their side.  All thought him a fool.  All thought him naïve.  Yet that young boy left armor behind and walked out of the ranks armed only with a sling and some stones.

Goliath scoffed at the tiny foe before him and promised David that he would be food for the birds.  David did not walk.  David did not weave back and forth.  David ran straight ahead and would meet certain death if that stone from his sling missed its mark.  David defeated the strong man and the Philistines fled in terror.

And so, when David’s greater Son came to this earth, many probably thought it would be another tangible victory and his success would be measured in strength and power they could see.

Yet, Christ’s power was to be manifested where nobody would have expected.  Christ’s power, manifest during His public ministry, pointed to His power over the kingdom of this world.  Christ’s power testified of His humanity and that He was God come in flesh.  Yet nobody could see it.

Christ, seemingly powerless, submitted Himself to the power of death on a cross.  He died the life of a scoundrel.  He died the life of the accursed.  He died the life of a failure in the eyes of the world.

His disciples walked away disappointed because, no matter how many times He testified that the Messiah had come to die on a Cross, they could not understand.  The Romans were still in power.  The Man they thought would deliver them with power they could see lie dead and broken and in a tomb.  Jesus was not the Messiah.  So much for salvation from the Romans.

Oh, but Beloved, there was unimaginable power on display!

As Christ writhed in agony on the Cross, it was not the physical pain that was most intense but it was Christ bearing in His flesh the sins of all of His people.  Christ died and when He died, the sins of His people died with Him.  Not only so but in a way we could never expect, the power of sin was put to death on the Cross.  He did not merely pay for the sins of many but He defeated the power of sin on the Cross.

And then He was laid in a tomb.  And on the third day He rose from the dead.  Death tried to hold Him down.  Death held with all its might but behold the Man! Do you ever just think about Christ taking that first step out of the Tomb?  One small step for Man, one giant leap for all of mankind!  Death was defeated by an indestructible life.  Try as it may, Death fought with the Savior but the Stronger man overcame and plundered!

When you think of Christ’s work for you do you only reflect on his payment for your sins?  Do you struggle, thinking it’s all up to you, against the power of sin in your life?  Hear, Christian, reality as it truly is in Romans 6:  “3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

You were not looking for it because you could not see it.  You were not aware of your bondage because it was natural for you.  Yet Christ died and we who believe are baptized into that death and we who believe have risen again.  Believe upon Christ and see.  Believe, also, with your new eyes that Christ has put the power of sin to death and that your life is bound up in Him.  The mute man did not ask to speak for he could not speak.  Christ broke the power of Satan that muted his voice so that he could confess, believe, and obey.

Thus, it is that Christ says in verse  23:  “23 Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”

There is no neutral ground with Christ.  You are either in the kingdom of sin and death and cannot see the Kingdom of God or you have been set free from its power by the Stronger Man.

Some say this is a false dilemma:  only unimaginative minds set up either-or scenarios.  “I’m neither for Christ nor against Christ.”  Some believe they speak well of Christ, affirming Him a good man and moral teacher, but there are many paths to God.  Some say that it is closed-minded to claim truth for one way and completely reject another.  Beloved, this is the philosophy of those under sin’s dominion.  If we are not for Christ it is because we are still in the clutches of sin and very much against Him.  If you take offense and reply “I don’t see it that way”, my simple response is:  “I’m quite aware that you don’t see.”

Christ then followed with a parable about the clean house in verses 24-26.  The main point here is not the nature of demons.  Christ’s point is that a man can come to taste the things of God but distorts that knowledge and limits its purpose to house cleaning.

Some of us may be that man.  We hear about the things of God and the only thing that strikes us about the Scriptures is our need to live a pure life.  We hear the preaching week in and week out and see it primarily as a recipe for clean living and self-government.  We see the good in Scripture and imitate the externals and reckon we are good men.  We read of sin in the Scriptures and see wickedness in everyone except ourselves.  We want prayer in schools, we want moral government, we want lower taxes, we want good neighbors, we want obedient children, and we want God to bless us for all the ways we’ve demonstrated our commitment.  We want power to subdue all the evil people and throw the bums out!  We want everything except a Crucified Savior who can deliver us from our bondage to sin.

And the power of sin deceives and appears, on the outside, to have left us.  We are a swept house.  Yet, all the time, the truth of the Word about our sin and bondage is bouncing off of us like rain on packed earth.  Nothing sinks in.  Notice in verse 24 that the demon says:  “I will return to my house from which I came.”

“I will return to my house.”  And when the power of sin comes back to manifest itself in the life of the “swept house”, it comes back more terrible than before.  The Pharisees were good men on the outside but when they continually rejected Christ, their swept houses were filled with the demonic power of sin and they became wicked beyond measure.  They despised the Savior and the things of God and plotted to kill Him whenever they got the chance.  We who would justify ourselves with our lives will trample the Son of God underfoot with the same vengeance.

The passage closes with an expression of excitement from the crowd.  A woman is so overcome by the excitement of the moment and the teaching of Christ that she yells out of the crowd:  Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!”

I imagine Christ paused for a moment before He gently replied that those who are truly blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it.

It’s not as if He hadn’t said the same thing to His mother when she and the rest of the family summoned Him while He was teaching and He reminded the crowd that His mother and brothers are those who hear and obey.  He wasn’t denying the blessedness of His mother here but her blessedness, by her own confession, was that God looked upon her.  She heard the things of God and submitted.

Just like this woman who cried out, the things of God have a way of exciting us.  There are things that we see and experience that may cause us to yell “Praise God!”  All sorts of religious experience are sought to inflame our hearts with excitement.

Yet, notice that it is those who hear the Word of God, and because they can hear, obey.  Obedience and hearing go hand in hand.  If we cannot hear, we will not truly obey and will merely be swept houses.

I can leave worship this evening excited about the things of God and then, at the crack of dawn, rise to shave my face and go off to work.  The ecstasy of the moment of religious worship will fade as life has a way of bogging us down in its drudgery and day-to-day burdens.

Yet, we have to consider that, if we have truly heard the Word of God, it is because we have been given ears to hear.  If we have truly seen the Kingdom of God it is because we have been given eyes to see.  If that transformation has occurred it was not because of our obedience or enthusiasm for God but because there is a Stronger Man Who has overcome sin and death on the Cross.

Our excitement needs to be born out of a life that has been set free from the power of sin.  It is the recognition that God justifies sinners.  It is the realization that Christ came to plunder the House of the Strong Man and found us cowering under its dominion and dragged us out of its dungeon.  He washed us in our baptism and calls us His friends.  He clothed us in His righteousness and calls us His beloved bride.

Sinclair Ferguson tells of a physician who is a medical missionary in Thailand.  The physician sent him a picture of a man with a huge grin from ear to ear.  Both his arms were amputated by this physician due to complications from the leprosy that oppresses his body.  But do you know what this man said to the physician one day?  He said:  “I’m so thankful for my leprosy because I would have never met Jesus Christ without it.”

That’s true experience.

Are we thankful for the Christ who conquers sin and death or are we excited about the power that surrounds the Savior’s work?

Once, we could not see the horror of our sin and its bondage.  Once, we could not speak of the things of God but uttered only curses.  Unexpectedly, we saw our sin and, in our terror, wondered how we could escape the wrath it deserved.

But then we looked up and saw our Champion hanging on a Cross.  We saw Him die and lay in a Tomb.  We witnessed the Son of Man rise from the dead.  The Stronger Man emerged, wounded from the battle, but He was utterly victorious!

A muted mouth is unstopped.  We cry out with new voices:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory?  O death, where is your sting?”  The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. ““ 1 Cor 15:54-57

Categories
Scripture Wisdom and Psalms

Psalm 51

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Psalm 51

To the choirmaster.  A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment.
5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
6 Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
11 Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
build up the walls of Jerusalem;
19 then will you delight in right sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.

I have to admit to you that, as I prepared this exhortation, I became a bit fearful in how I would treat it.  On the one hand it is probably one of the most famous Psalms and we’ve all heard it so many times that we think we know how it applies to our lives.  The challenge I face is to get us to open our eyes to spiritual truths that may have been clouded by our familiarity with this Psalm.

Next, I think it is challenging for us to look beyond the fact that this is David’s sin being confessed before the world and to see ourselves and the nature of sin and sinfulness in this passage.

Lastly, the Truths in this Psalm are likely to be very offensive to our ears.  We don’t like to consider the nature of sin and what it deserves before a holy God.  We must confront this.  We must allow the Word to say things to us that we don’t want to hear.  It is in this Psalm that the stench of the Gospel becomes clear to people who don’t want to be confronted with the nature of their sin and their need for a righteousness that is not their own.

As we begin to unpack this Psalm, the subtitle of the Psalm notes the occasion that caused David to write it.  It is written because Nathan the Prophet came in to David and confronted David’s sin when he went in to Bathsheba.

David was on his roof in the cool of the evening and saw Bathsheba, another man’s wife, bathing.  He sent for her and sinned against Bathsheba and her husband.  She became pregnant and David sent for her husband, Uriah, to trick him into going to his wife so that Uriah might believe the child was really his.  When Uriah proved to be a more righteous man than David, David sent a letter, in the hands of Uriah, to have him conveniently killed in battle.  After this, David took Bathsheba to be his wife and nobody in Israel was aware of this great sin.

But God knew.

What kind of satanic influence could have overcome David to make him completely despise the light of divine judgment and think he could get away with this even if nobody else knew?

It was a tremendous mercy of God that He sent Nathan into David to confront him with this sin and wake him up to this horror.  In 2 Sam 12:13, after he’s been utterly exposed, David’s simple reply was:  “I have sinned against the Lord.”  His heart had been freed from a year-long captivity to his sin and clouded vision and he responded in brokenness to the inviting anger of the Lord.

In verses 1-2 of the Psalm, David does not open up with an appeal to God’s justice in his case.  He knows that justice would only leave him condemned.

He prays for mercy.  He prays earnestly not with one request but with several.  He prays for mercy.  He prays that God would provide mercy according to His steadfast love.  He prays for mercy in abundance.

David understands that his only chance is through the countless multitude of the compassions of God.  He understands that his sin is atrocious and that God, according to His holiness, should punish Him.  He understands that only God can blot out his sin as he can do nothing to take away the offenses he has committed.

He prays for washing.  He knows he is filthy.  He understands the stench of his sin and is not satisfied to ask to be washed once but pleads with God to wash him thoroughly, to cleanse him from his sin.

The stain of his sin is deep.  He can not flee from the terror of his own conscience and has nowhere to take his conscience and implores God to take away the filth that he bears.

There is no therapy here.  There is nothing of David trying to learn to integrate his mistakes and learn to love himself anyway.  He understands that soothing words of encouragement from his friends telling him that he’s OK will not do.  He needs a thorough cleansing from the very God who has every right to judge David for the filth of his sin.

Verse 3 is the refrain of a man who knows his sin:  For I know my transgressions.

David is not merely saying that he remembers everything he did.  What he’s wrestling with in Verses 3 through 6 is how horrible sin is and the gulf that exists between a sinner and a holy God.  I want you to remember one thing as we move along through this Psalm:  We will never seriously beg God for pardon until we have understood sin in such a way that it inspires fear in us.  If sin has never evoked terror to our souls then we cannot understand the sweetness of pardon that is in the Gospel.

Beloved, many of us don’t know what the true issue with sin is and so Verse 4 adds something that is foreign to us.  David says:  “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.”

Most of us want to stop David right here.  What are you talking about David?  It wasn’t God who you looked at while bathing.  It wasn’t God who you got pregnant.  You didn’t send God with a letter to be killed in battle.  You didn’t get God involved in any of these sins.  How can you claim that you only sinned against God?  Have you forgotten about Bathsheba, Uriah, Joab, and the entire nation that could have been brought down by your selfish sins?!

The issue here is that David understands something profound about sin.  He understands that the whole world could pardon him of any trouble for his sin but it will provide no relief before the bar of God’s justice.

In James 2:10-11, James notes something very important about sin that David underscores here.  First, James says something strange to our ears in verse 10:  10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.

Do you see what James is saying?  We could be so perfect as to keep every part of the Law of God and fail at one point and be guilty before the whole Law.  That doesn’t seem to make any sense until James explains what he means in verse 11:   11 For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.

I don’t know if you can see what has just been said but James testifies with the rest of the Word of God that the real issue with sinning against the Law is that, when we sin, we sin against a holy, eternal God.  If it’s even at the seemingly smallest point, our sin amounts to raising our hand in rebellion against the God of the universe.  We commit treason with every small sin and every sin is just cause for God to condemn us.

David understands the weight of this rebellion and so he reminds God in the second part of verse 4 that God is justified and blameless in His judgment against sin.  He’s not coming to God arrogantly and telling God that He must forgive him but He understands that God would be perfectly just to condemn sin for what it is.

Paul, in fact, quotes this in Romans 3:3-4 when he is building a case against sinful men before a holy God.  He builds an airtight case that all men are guilty before the bar of justice and that God can and should justly condemn all men.

David knows he would be toast if God judges according to what he deserves.

Verse 5 continues:  “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.”

David isn’t trying to make excuses here.  David isn’t saying that his conception was sinful.  He’s testifying that he was a sinner from the moment he was conceived.  He’s testifying that he has been a sinner all his life.  He’s testifying that this latest sin is just another aspect of his sinfulness that he has borne before a holy God all the days of his life.

In other words, David is building up the prosecutor’s case against his sin and sinfulness by admitting to God that he not only sinned in this case but has been a sinner since his conception.  David admits that his sole contribution to righteousness has been sin upon sin upon sin.

Have you ever stopped to consider that you’ve been a sinner from birth?  Have you ever repented simply for being a sinner before a holy God?  Have you ever thought about the gulf that exists between you and a holy God even before you do anything more that adds to your guilt?

I know these are hard words, Beloved.  It’s hard to hear as we’re accustomed to self-affirming words.  I’m not talking about you as if I don’t bear the same problem.  We have a problem of sin and sinfulness before a holy God and self-affirmation may help us feel better about ourselves but that only hides the real problem.  David is confronting sin and sinfulness and taking it to the Judge and pleading for the Judge to do something about it because he knows he doesn’t have the power to take away the mountain of guilt.

As verse 6 testifies, God has desired truth in the inward being, and we have even had wisdom taught to us by the Word, and yet we know we have not achieved the level of truth or love or obedience in our inward being that the Law demands.

It ought to overwhelm.  It ought to cause us to despair if we were left alone with this thought.

Are you beginning to feel the anguish of soul?

Are you beginning to feel the weight that this would bring if there was no remedy?

Where would we be if this was the end of the Psalm?  We would only have Paul’s tortured cry at the end of Romans 7:  Wretched man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?!

God Himself will deliver.

David calls upon the mercy of God.

Verse 7:  Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean!  Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Nothing in my hand I bring.  Judge of all the earth please be my Savior!

We tend to forget that God had made provisions in His Law that were pictures of Christ to come.  These outward signs were meant to cause the worshipper in the Old Testament to be reminded of the Seed of Abraham who would fulfill the demands of the Covenant for Covenant breakers.

Hyssop was a branch used to sprinkle water to cleanse the worshipper of God as he came to the Temple.  The outward cleansing act was to be joined with a heart clinging to the feet of God in repentance begging for mercy and trusting that God provides what He promises.

Hyssop had no magical qualities.  You couldn’t just get sprinkled and make a sign out of mere ceremony but it was to point to something outside of itself.

David wants his conscience washed whiter than snow.  He wants the reality that the sign points to.  He wants the Judge to be the Covenant keeper on His behalf and knows that, only by this grace, will his conscience be cleansed.

You may recall that David was told by Nathan in 2 Sam 12 that God had forgiven him of his many sins.  Why is David asking for more here?  Some might accuse David of adding to his sin by not trusting in the declaration of forgiveness that Nathan had already brought him on his first confession.

I think we can understand though.  Can’t we?  Have you ever asked God for forgiveness for sins so great that you wonder how He can ever forgive them?  Does the guilt of those sins that you brought before the throne of grace ever come back to your mind and assail you?

If you’re anything like me then this happens regularly.  I have many sins.  I have many heinous sins.  I stop to consider them at times and wonder how a filthy person like me can enter into the presence of a Holy God and I take great comfort that God is patient with me.  He understands my weakness.  He understands that I need to come to Him again in my weakness and say:  “Yes Lord, I know you have promised forgiveness and cleansing but right now I’m weak.  Right now I’m lacking trust that you could possibly have forgiven these things in Christ.  Lord I believe, help thou my unbelief!”

God condescends.  The Holy Spirit comes alongside me as my advocate and reminds me that I am His child.

And so the Psalm begins to move to deliverance from guilt.

Verse 8:  Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice.

Remind us of your mercy Lord.  These sins have caused our entire being to feel fractured.  The pain of our guilt is as if our bones are broken within us.  Straighten them.  Heal them.  Restore us from mourning to the joy of our cleansing.

Verse 9:  Hide your face from my sins, and blot out my iniquities.

Lord, even as you promised David through Old Covenant signs, you have promised to take away our sin by what these signs testify to.  You have blotted out iniquity by placing that sin and guilt away from us and onto another.  Remind us of this as we place our trust in you.

Verse 10:  Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Lord, this depends completely on you.  I cannot create.  I only have the heart that I was born with.  I need the power that spoke light out of nothing.  I need the creative power that only You have.  Give me a clean heart.  I rely completely upon you for a transformed spirit.

Verse 11:  Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

Father, you have every right to cut me off.  I plead your mercy that you would keep me in your presence and that your indwelling Spirit would testify peace and not wrath unto my weary soul.

Verses 13-15 testify to what our hope in deliverance from sin and the testimony of a cleansed spirit might provide.  David desires, as we all should desire, that we might teach others of God’s goodness to sinners who come broken unto Him.

When we’re in the mire of our sin, our mouths are closed and we don’t know how to open them up except to cry out and wonder how God can cleanse us but when He delivers us, when He frees us from the bondage of sin and guilt, our mouths are looses.  Our lips open up in praise to a merciful Savior!  We proclaim boldly and gladly to a lost and dying world because we are as needy as they.

Open my lips Lord.  Open my mouth to sing all of your praise!

Verses 16-19 close with the nature of sacrifice and God’s good intentions toward us.  David reminds us that we can never come to God and go through the motions.  We cannot come with hearts that are cold to the offense of our sin.  We cannot come to God expecting magic simply by going to Church or going through the externals of religion.  David knows that the sacrifices of God always pointed beyond themselves.  He knew that he couldn’t just bring a bull to the altar and walk away unchanged in heart and mind.

David saw something from afar that has been revealed up close to us.  These sacrifices merely caused God’s wrath for sin to pass over for a season until what they signified came in the fullness of time.

A people were called to be holy and they proved over and over to be unholy.  Weary from sin they came time after time, year after year, and brought sacrifices.  Blood flowed as a river and the stench of human sin filled the nostrils and the souls of men who looked forward to a sacrifice that would deal with this once for all.

And, in the fullness of time, it came.  We could not bridge the gulf and so God put a veil of flesh around Himself and came and dwelt among us.  He came near to us with our heavy burden of sins and invited us to trust in Christ and place the heavy yoke of sin and guilt on His strong shoulders.

Christ carried our heavy burden of sin to Calvary, was nailed on a cross and bore the full weight of wrath from a Holy God so that we, in Him, would die to sin.

Christ conquered death and sin.  Once for all!  He rose again, and we who cling to His feet in trust, rose with Him.

Death has been swallowed up in victory.  The judgment has occurred.  Our lips are opened to praise God.

I’ve been meditating on how profound Romans 1:16-17 is as it introduces the Gospel to be unpacked in the rest of the book:

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

Doesn’t it seem odd that God calls the Gospel:  “The righteousness of God revealed…”?

In other words, we wonder how that can be because we all understand that God’s righteousness only condemns if we’re trying to attain that righteousness ourselves.

Martin Luther struggled with this for years.  He admitted he often hated God thinking of this righteousness as he saw no way to achieve that righteousness no matter how much he devoted himself to the monastic life.

And then, one day, he happened upon a commentary by Augustine on Romans 1:17.  Augustine wrote:  “This is called the righteousness of God, not with which he is righteous, but because with it he makes us righteous.”

And at this glorious truth, Martin Luther said that it was as if his chains had fallen off and a doorway to heaven opened and he walked through.

Beloved, the power of the Gospel is that God provides the righteousness we lack.  He placed our unrighteousness upon the Son, punished the Son in our place, and granted us His righteousness freely.  We believe and receive with empty hand.  That’s the glory of the Good News.  That’s the confidence that David expressed from looking from afar.

Furthermore, when we fall into heinous sin, as David did, God does not abandon us but comes near us afresh to take away the pain of our guilt and remind us of His favor toward those who cling to Christ by His sustaining power.

I want to close with a story that is found in Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan.

Kids, please listen to this story as this is meant for you too.

Once upon a time, there was a man named Graceless who lived in the City of Destruction.  He felt himself to be carrying a heavy burden that nobody could see until one day a man named Evangelist told him where he could have his burden taken from him.

Graceless set out on a difficult journey until he came to the foot of the Cross.  There his heavy burden fell from him and he felt himself to be a new man.  He also had a new name:  he was no longer Graceless.  His name was Christian.

From that point, Christian went through many trials and came upon the House Beautiful where he was refreshed for many days and given armor:  a breastplate of righteousness, a helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit.

As he continued on his journey, he came into the Valley of Humiliation and this is where our story gets interesting:

Then I saw in my dream that Christian was entered into the Valley of Humiliation; and here he had no easy time of it.  For he had gone but a little way when he saw a dreadful fiend coming across the plain to meet him.  The name of this fiend was Apollyon, and he was too hideous to behold.

His body was covered with scales, like a fish; he had wings like a dragon, and feet like a bear; his mouth was like the mouth of a lion, and fire and smoke came out of his nostrils.

Christian was much afraid.  As the monster came flying toward him he knew not what to do.  He had half a mind to run back; but he knew that Apollyon would soon overtake him.

“I will stand my ground and do what I can,” he said to himself; and he went boldly forward to meet the dreadful fiend.

Apollyon came swiftly on, and gruffly saluted Christian:  ” Ho, there, you fellow! Who are you, and whence have you come?”

“I have come from the City of Destruction, and my name is Christian,” answered the pilgrim. ”  I am on my way to the Celestial Land.”

“Huh!” growled the fiend. “Don’t you know that I am the king of the City of Destruction?  You are my subject, and you are trying to run away from me.”

“True, I was born in your country,” said Christian, “but I am not your subject.  I have promised myself to the King of the Celestial Land.”

Then was Apollyon very angry, and he would have struck down the pilgrim at once, had he not hoped to gain him over.  He roared terribly, and cried, “You are a rebel and a traitor, and deserve nothing but death at my hands.  Yet I will forgive you if you will turn now and go back to my city and my service.”

But Christian stood his ground bravely and defied the fiend.

“Beware, Apollyon!” he cried.  “I am in the King’s highway. Therefore, take heed to thyself.”

“Ha!” answered Apollyon.  “What care I for the King’s highway?” And with one foot on one side of the road and one on the other, he stood directly in front of the pilgrim.

“Now I have you!” he said; and he drew flaming darts from his breast and threw them so that they fell like hail all around Christian’s head.

But Christian held up his shield to protect himself, and drawing his sword, rushed boldly upon his foe.

Then there was a fight such as neither you nor I have ever seen.  The giant fiend and the valiant man wrestled and strove, they struck and parried, they pressed this way and that; and neither seemed to get the better of the other.

Christian was wounded in two or three places; and yet for a whole hour he stood up against his foe.  At length, however, his foot slipped and he fell; and his sword flew out of his hand.

“Now I have thee!” shouted Apollyon.

But as the fiend raised his arm to fetch the last blow, Christian quickly stretched out his hand and recovered his sword.  He leaped to his feet, crying, “Rejoice not against me, mine enemy. When I fall, I shall arise!”

With that, he gave the fiend a deadly thrust which made him pause and start back.  Then Christian gave him another stroke and another.

Apollyon saw that he had met his match.  He spread his dragon wings and flew away, over the plain; and Christian saw him no more.

The pilgrim looked up and smiled.  “Thanks be to Him that delivered me out of the mouth of the lion, and to Him that did help me against Apollyon,” he said.

Then there came to him a hand with some of the leaves of the tree of life; and he took these and laid them upon his wounds, and he was healed immediately.

And he sat down to eat bread and to drink from the bottle that was given him by the maidens of the House Beautiful.

Categories
Epistles Scripture

Romans 6:1-11

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The following exhortation was given to the Korean Agape Church and translated into Korean.

Romans 6:1-11
1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

One of the struggles we all have is how to properly understand what it means to be holy in Christ and how we are made holy by Him. We understand that we are saved by putting our faith in Christ but we often begin to think that our holiness depends upon us. Romans 6 reminds us that those who trust Christ are also made holy by the power of Christ. It is Christ in them that saves them and makes them holy.

Chapter 6 follows a teaching by the Apostle that leads some to lie about the Gospel. He reminds us that it is wrong to think that God wants us to sin so He can show how much He forgives us.

Verse 2 emphasizes this: “How can we who died to sin still live in it?”

Before we were saved we lived in slavery to sin but we are no longer in Adam but in Christ. We have died to sin. We were in the house of Adam, we were in bondage to sin. We have now been set free by Christ and are no longer slaves to sin but have been set free.

Verse 3 then reminds us of the significance of our baptism. Our baptism reminds us that if we hav faith, we are baptized into Christ’s death. This connection we have with Christ does not stop with His death because He rose from the dead with an indestructible life. Again, because we are united with Him, we possess His indestructible life. We begin to see where the power over sin comes from.

Verse 5 confirms what Paul has just said: 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Paul doesn’t say this is a process where we prove to God that we’re worthy to be identified with Christ by our obedience. No. Our obedience is because we have life in Christ. We have been raised from the dead with Him when He rose. The apostle doesn’t write that a believer “might be” united with him but makes it most certain by saying “we shall certainly” be united with Christ. We must be made holy by Christ.

Verse 6 shows how wrong it is to think we can sin as we are still slaves. Christ’s death on a cross destroyed the power of sin. The old man was crucified with Christ on the Cross. Union with Christ in the crucifixion delivers us from the prison of Sin. This does not mean that we no longer sin but victory in the battle over sin is assured in the nailing of enslaving authority to the Cross. We are no longer controlled by a sin nature but by our slavery to Christ.

It is common for us to lose focus and to regard our sin as inevitable. Paul wants to lift us from looking inside of ourselves for power to battle sin and to look outward and up to the Cross where we see Sin nailed to the Cross of Christ. Our Savior has conquered that power on the Cross! The old man no longer has authority.

Earlier in Romans, Paul reminded us that we are declared righteous in Christ. We are not actually righteous, in ourselves, but counted righteous due to Christ’s payment on our behalf and the giving of Christ’s life to us. Verse 7 teaches that the power of sin has already been judged for us. By the act of the Judge, we are sure to be made holy because the power of sin was judged at the Cross for us.

Holiness is not achieved by a power we find within. No, the power comes because Christ has judged Sin itself. We know we can progress in holiness because Sin has been put to death and we know that no condemnation comes from the sin that continues in our members.

Verse 8 encourages us to think of ourselves as being an image of Christ ““ not only has the old self of sin been crucified but we now posses spiritual life in Christ. When we sin, we forget our union with Christ and deny what Christ has accomplished. When we remember who we are, we are empowered to give battle to sin and to live unto righteousness.

Verse 9 is our assurance of living with Christ. There can be nothing that can break or interrupt our participation in Christ’s life. There can be no reversal of his death to sin and falling back into complete slavery to its power. If this was possible then Christ’s very resurrection could be reversed or repeated over and over. Christ’s resurrection is final and it represents a complete break from the power of Sin. Christ submitted Himself to the power and judgment of sin. Death even ruled over Christ for a short time yet it was impossible that death could hold Him or swallow Him up. By rising from the dead, He defeated death forever.

Verse 10 is one of the most significant statements regarding the full meaning of Christ’s death ““ Christ died to sin. The Apostle has already noted that Christians are forever freed from the bondage of sin and death and again reminds us we are no longer subjects of its rule. He proves this by reminding why Christ died ““ He died that He would destroy sin. Christ not only dealt with the guilt of sinners on the cross but also with the power of sin. Death ruled but Christ broke its power.

Verse 11 concludes: “Because Christ triumphed over the power of death, those who are united to Him in death died to the power of sin and become dead to sin. Once again, the motivation and power of a Christian’s struggle with Sin is grounded in what Christ has accomplished.

We are to consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to Christ. We are not commanded to become dead to sin and alive to God. Christ has accomplished this already for us. And it is not by considering the facts carefully that they become true. The Apostle’s command is that we are to think upon our union with Christ and fully appreciate what Christ has obtained for us. This provides the motivation and strength for our battles.

Beloved, we are no longer our own and no longer under Sin’s power. Our Sin is on the Cross and we are now bondslaves to Christ and bondslaves to righteousness. Christ’s death is once-for-all and He ever lives and so must we. When we lift our heavy heads away from the filth of indwelling sin and its alluring, idolatrous power, we look up to Christ and in Him we find that our hearts deceived us to Sin’s remaining power. Instead of sorrow over our pitiful state we praise God with the Apostle:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons 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. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” (Ephesians 1:3-10)

Categories
Gospels and Acts Scripture

Luke 9:28-45

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Luke 9:28-45

28 Now about eight days after these sayings he took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray. 29 And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white. 30 And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, 31 who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. 32 Now Peter and those who were with him were heavy with sleep, but when they became fully awake they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. 33 And as the men were parting from him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah”””not knowing what he said. 34 As he was saying these things, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. 35 And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!” 36 And when the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and told no one in those days anything of what they had seen.

37 On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. 38 And behold, a man from the crowd cried out, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child. 39 And behold, a spirit seizes him, and he suddenly cries out. It convulses him so that he foams at the mouth, and shatters him, and will hardly leave him. 40 And I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.” 41 Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.” 42 While he was coming, the demon threw him to the ground and convulsed him. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. 43 And all were astonished at the majesty of God.

But while they were all marveling at everything he was doing, Jesus said to his disciples, 44 “Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men.” 45 But they did not understand this saying, and it was concealed from them, so that they might not perceive it. And they were afraid to ask him about this saying.

As we continue in the Gospel of Luke, might have noticed that the first thing that verse 28-45 occurs, as Luke notes: “”¦eight days after these sayings.”

Eight days after what sayings. Let’s recap what was said right before this passage. What did Christ say?

  1. Verse 22: The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected”¦and be killed, and on the third day be raised
  2. Verse 23: If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
  3. Verse 24: Whoever would save his live will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
  4. Verse 25: What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?
  5. Verse 26: Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory.

Now, if you were listening last week you should have remembered these sayings but I want to point this out because, in a moment, we’re going to be tempted to think of others as more hard-hearted than ourselves but do any of us have any reason to judge the forgetfulness of others this evening?

So, again, eight days after Christ had said these things, he took Peter and John and James up on the mountain to pray.

Verses 29-31 reads:

29 And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white. 30 And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory

First of all, we read that Christ’s appearance was changed and that His face and His clothing became dazzling white. He emanated dazzling glory. Furthermore, on the mountain with Him were Moses and Elijah.

Why Moses and Elijah? Again the text does not tell us but we can reasonably conclude that Moses represented the Law of God. He was a servant in God’s House and faithfully delivered the Law of God. The entire Old Covenant was under the precepts of the Law of God and Moses had acted faithfully to lead God’s people from bondage and bring them into the wilderness to serve Yahweh. He was God’s faithful Prophet to speak the Words that God commanded Him and to write them down for the people to obey as a Nation of God’s peculiar people.

In Deuteronomy 18, before the people entered the land that God had promised, he foretold of a Prophet, like Moses, who would speak the things that God told Him. He would remind them of God’s Word and of His holiness and His righteous requirements.

Elijah, then, represented the Prophetic Office of Israel and how they reminded people of the Law that God had Covenanted with them. He made the heavens stop raining according to the curse of the Law and He called the people back to their true God. Prophets would follow him to prosecute a rebellious nation for their disobedience but the Prophet was now here.

Pay attention now to what Christ was telling Moses and Elijah. Verse 31 records that Christ: “”¦spoke of his departure which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.”

I think it is easy to get distracted by the transfiguration of Christ and completely focus on that point and forget that Christ was speaking to Moses and Elijah about His impending death on a Cross. The word that is translated “departure” in in verse 31 is the same word that is translated “exodus”. Christ was telling of His own exodus that was about to occur.

The disciples awoke from a deep sleep and they saw Christ’s glory and the glory of the two men. As Moses and Elijah were departing, Peter said to Jesus in verse 33: “Master, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah”.

Now the telling part of that is what follows because the Scriptures say that Peter did not know what he said. In other words, it was a foolish thing to say.

Peter’s ignorance is somewhat excusable given the light of the Old Testament. We have more light and I wonder if any of us here know why this was such a bad idea.

Do you really think that three tents, made by sticks and leaves, can contain the glory that was revealed that night? Do you think Christ granted them this vision just so they could all hang out and have their own personal Hall of Fame of spiritual giants? Did Christ come in order to remain in His splendor and tabernacle on a mountain with the Law and the Prophets? Or did He come down from glory for a purpose?

As the story continues, a cloud came and overshadowed them and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. If you know your Scriptures you might hearken back to the book of Exodus where the glory of the Lord covered Mount Sinai and the people were terrified. They even thought that Moses had died because he didn’t return for forty days after entering that fearful cloud. Animals had to be put to death for even touching that fearful and holy mountain.

Beloved, the glory, the holiness, the majesty of God is awesome and terrifying. We’re so accustomed to entering His presence in worship that we forget, in our hard-heartedness, that our God is a holy and consuming fire. The creature, with the stain of sin, is right to be terrified in His presence.

Verse 35: “And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen One, listen to him!””

Listen to Him. Do you know what Christ said to the disciples later on or were you not listening?

The Father’s words served to gird up Christ up and encourage Him for the task ahead. Here, the Father, with tender love, testifies of His only begotten and beloved Son and strengthens Christ for His purpose.

Verse 36: “And when the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and told no one in those days anything of what they had seen.”

Now there’s a reason for this silence because Christ purposefully hid His glory. Indeed, it was glory that the people expected from the Messiah but it was not glory that the people needed from the Son of God. They needed a despised and rejected Lamb for their sins. They wanted a Savior that would be respectable in the eyes of men and inspire awe. Yet, glory unimaginable was in their midst, in human flesh, to suffer and to die.

Luke 9:37-41

37 On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. 38 And behold, a man from the crowd cried out, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child. 39 And behold, a spirit seizes him, and he suddenly cries out. It convulses him so that he foams at the mouth, and shatters him, and will hardly leave him. 40 And I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.” 41 Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.”

Coming down from the mountain they were met by a great crowd. Now, I don’t know about you, but I love these stories of men who were so bold and earnest to cry out to Christ.

Lepers cried out to Him.

Blind men groped for Him.

Paralyzed men were lowered into rooms by their friends.

Who cares about politeness or the approval of the crowd?! I need to get Jesus’ attention!

“Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child.”

Christ, please look at my child. Look at him please. Take notice of him. He’s my only child.

Do you hear the desperation borne out of love for his only son? He had every reason to be desperate for:

“Behold, a spirit seizes him, and he suddenly cries out. It convulses him so that he foams at the mouth, and shatters him, and will hardly leave him. And I begged your disciples to cast it out but they could not.”

How many years had this man prayed to God to deliver his son? Imagine the pain of a father’s love crying out to God as he helplessly watched his son in the clutches of demonic hands!

He was known in the town as the father of a demon-possessed boy. Only a parent’s love can sustain affection. These were not the hopes and dreams he had for an only son. This father loved his boy in spite of this and he would not abandon him even if it meant the reproach of a town.

But now the man heard that Christ and His disciples were near and that they could cast out demons. He had begged the disciples to help his beloved son but they could not.

Christ! Look on my son!

Now Christ’s response must seem harsh: “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you and bear with you? Bring your son to me.”

One night earlier Christ had been on a mountain emanating refulgent glory but, off in the distance, down in the valley, was the despair of a fallen humanity. Down in the valley was the father of a demoniac who wanted deliverance from the power of Satan.

Up on the mountain, Christ’s glory was fully manifest but He had to come down from that mountain, veil His glory, to be among a faithless and wicked generation.

Scribes and Pharisees interested to see how they could trip Him up.

People sneering at a man and his demoniac son.

Disciples who still didn’t understand why He had come.

But Christ didn’t remain in glory where His holiness could only condemn but came down into the valley. With compassion, Christ told the man to bring to Him his only son.

Luke 9:42 – While he was coming, the demon threw him to the ground and convulsed him. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and healed the boy, and gave him back to his father.

 

Before Christ had said a Word, the demon threw the boy to the ground. But at a simple rebuke, Christ cast out that unclean spirit and healed the boy.

And because Christ had come to restore fathers back to their children and children to their fathers, we read these beautiful words: “and He gave him back to his father.”

Christ fully understood the love that a Father has for His only Son. Christ had returned a son to his father. Christ had defeated the powers of darkness in the child’s life. The price that Christ would pay was that He would soon hang on a Cross. The price that Christ would pay is that the Son would offer Himself up to His heavenly Father to receive the wrath that a faithless people deserved and deliver the world from the power of darkness.

 

Luke 9:43″“45

43 And all were astonished at the majesty of God. But while they were all marveling at everything he was doing, Jesus said to his disciples, 44 “Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men.” 45 But they did not understand this saying, and it was concealed from them, so that they might not perceive it. And they were afraid to ask him about this saying.

Did the Word of God sink into your ears or were you too busy marveling at the work? The Father commanded you and me to listen to Christ on the mount of glory. Christ commanded His disciples to let these words sink into their ears: “The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men.”

The disciples didn’t understand this is because it was concealed from them.

Do you understand?

Is it concealed from you?

Do you even care whether you understand or are you too busy marveling with the crowd at a powerful sign but fail to follow Christ and listen to what He has to say?

Christ is the Son of God from all eternity. All life, all holiness, all majesty, all goodness, all justice, belong to Him and the Father and the Holy Spirit in one God forever.

In Isaiah 6, Isaiah was transported into the courts of God and saw a vision of the Son of God sitting, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the Temple. The Seraphim flew around Him covering their feet and their eyes to protect themselves from the awesome glory of God and cried out: “Holy! Holy! Holy! Is the Lord God almighty, the whole earth is full of His glory!”

And the vision of that holiness cut Isaiah to the heart. He fell to his face and heaped curses upon himself because he saw the sinfulness of his sin in the presence of a holy God.

Had Christ remained in glory, He would have simply been the judge of all mankind for their sin.

Condemnation. Hell. Everlasting judgment.

That is the only thing the enemies of God deserve and that is what you and I and everyone else in this world deserve.

But God. But God. But God is rich in mercy.

While we were still His enemies. While we were in the valley, a sinful and perverse generation, Christ came down from immeasurable glory and put on the veil of human flesh. He came near to a sinful people, cloaked in that flesh, because without the veiling of His glory we could not come near Him. We could not approach the holy mountain and so He tabernacle in flesh and came down.

Peter was like us. Peter wanted to make coverings of sticks and leaves and say: “God, come hang out with me just as I am. I like majesty. I like glory. Give me a celebrity so I can tell everyone that someone famous is my friend and lives in a tent that I made Him.”

But Christ didn’t need a Tabernacle made by feeble human hands. He was already in the Tabernacle of His flesh. He hadn’t come to simply manifest His glory so everyone could “High Five” and say “I want to be like that guy.”

No, beloved, He already possessed all glory and didn’t need the acclaim of men. And so, while men marveled at the works of God and worshipped God’s work but didn’t worship the God Who worked them, Christ set His face like flint to the Cross.

The Cross? The place of the Curse? The place of reproach?

Nobody but the worst criminals went to the Cross. But Christ had come to offer up His Person on the Cross and became a curse for us. We, in our seeking of glory for ourselves, would have gladly driven every nail and more into Christ’s flesh for disappointing us with the disdain of the Cross!

The Cross was not our idea. The Cross made no sense to us!

But as those nails pierced Him, the Sin of His people was nailed there.

As He hung between heaven and earth the perfect, majestic Son of God received the wrath that God’s enemies deserve.

As He cried out in agony, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me!”, He received the forsakenness and eternal wrath that a wicked and rebellious people deserve.

And by this sacrifice in our place, sin and death died with Him. Death could not hold Him and so He rose on the third day and all who believe upon Him rise with Him. As He ascended into glory, He made way for us to approach boldly into the throne of grace.

We enter by the veil of Christ’s perfect flesh.

Christ came down from that mountain for you and me, beloved. For you and me if you but believe upon Christ. Cast yourself at the Savior’s feet. Ignore the crowds looking for glory. Ignore the reproach of the people. Your sins are far worse than you ever imagined.

Cry out! Cry out!

“Master! Look on me!”

Only a man who knows he’s a wretch and knows the Savior can see the glory of a Cross that puts to death his sin. And because we know that Christ is the Son of God we have all the confidence in the world to exclaim:

1 Corinthians 15:54-57

54 “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

55 “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”

56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us pray.

Categories
Gospels and Acts Scripture

Luke 8:40-56

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Luke 8:40-56 (ESV) — 40 Now when Jesus returned, the crowd welcomed him, for they were all waiting for him. 41 And there came a man named Jairus, who was a ruler of the synagogue. And falling at Jesus’ feet, he implored him to come to his house, 42 for he had an only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she was dying. As Jesus went, the people pressed around him. 43 And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone. 44 She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, and immediately her discharge of blood ceased. 45 And Jesus said, “Who was it that touched me?” When all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the crowds surround you and are pressing in on you!” 46 But Jesus said, “Someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me.” 47 And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling, and falling down before him declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed. 48 And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.” 49 While he was still speaking, someone from the ruler’s house came and said, “Your daughter is dead; do not trouble the Teacher any more.” 50 But Jesus on hearing this answered him, “Do not fear; only believe, and she will be well.” 51 And when he came to the house, he allowed no one to enter with him, except Peter and John and James, and the father and mother of the child. 52 And all were weeping and mourning for her, but he said, “Do not weep, for she is not dead but sleeping.” 53 And they laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. 54 But taking her by the hand he called, saying, “Child, arise.” 55 And her spirit returned, and she got up at once. And he directed that something should be given her to eat. 56 And her parents were amazed, but he charged them to tell no one what had happened.

C.S. Lewis once wrote a letter to a budding author on the art of storytelling. He reminded the young writer that the author should not have to continually ask the reader: “Gentle reader, do you feel amazed? Gentle reader, do you feel astonished?” A story, if it is written well, will have that effect naturally if its news is astonishing.
I wonder if we have all heard the accounts from Luke’s Gospel so often that we fail to be amazed by what we encounter. Luke, you remember, is writing to Theophilus and he writes his Gospel accounts so compellingly that he doesn’t need to ask the reader to react in certain ways because the sheer wonder of Christ’s work in the lives of people speaks for itself.
Last week, Bob Rumbaugh taught on the healing of the Gerasene demoniac possessed by legions of demons. It is very telling that after the display of Christ’s authority and power, the entire city begged Christ to leave them.
As we pick up at verse 40, Christ just returned to Galilee and He was welcomed by a throng of people. Pressing through the crowd came a desperate man. His name was Jairus and he was a ruler of the Synagogue at Capernaum. Every synagogue was ruled by a board of elders and this was a man of high position. In Capernaum, Christ had healed a paralytic as recorded for us in Luke 5. Also in Capernaum, a Roman Centurion had sent request that Christ heal his servant and Christ had marveled at the faith of this God-fearing gentile who was a benefactor of the Capernaum synagogue. Surely, then, Jairus knew of Jesus’ power and authority and came to Christ and in an act of self-humiliation before Christ threw Himself at the Master’s feet.
Where the people of Gerasene had pleaded with Christ to leave them, Jairus pleaded with Christ to come to his home to heal his twelve year old daughter who was sick and near death. A father’s affection and desperation poured out of him. This was his only daughter. He called her “my little daughter” in Mark 5. She was his girlie and she was dying. He pleaded that Christ would come quickly.
Now we know that Luke wrote his Gospel not as one who had seen the events but as one who had carefully interviewed hundreds of eyewitnesses and put them into an orderly account. This account is written as if we’re reading the whole thing through the eyes of Jairus and I want you to put yourself in the shoes of a man who desperately loves his daughter and wants to get the Savior to her as quickly as possible.
As they went to the house, the going was slow. Crowds were pressing in on Jesus and suddenly Jesus stopped. I can only imagine that Jairus was several feet ahead of Christ and looked back and thought “…why is He stopping, doesn’t He realize my little girl is dying?”
But Christ was looking around and asking “Who touched me?”
Who touched you? Are you kidding me? There are people pressing in on you and you ask “Who touched me?”
Leave it to Peter. He’s like you and me. Peter tells Him what is obvious to the naked eye: “Master, the crowds surround you and are pressing in on you!”
It’s so easy for us to criticize Peter because we don’t realize that he was a better man than we are. If you’ve never been baffled by the way of the Lord then I would suggest you don’t know the Lord very well. We are so blind to spiritual things and assume all the time that what we see is how the Lord sees things.
But Christ knew better. As He was pressing through the crowd, a woman who had a discharge of blood for twelve years snuck through the crowd. She thought to herself that if she could just touch the tassels of his garment that she would be healed. The crowd was so large that she thought she could just brush him unnoticed.
You and I read this and we think to ourselves: “OK, a flow of blood for twelve years” but, beloved, those were twelve long years for this woman. She had exhausted every penny she had on physicians to heal this affliction. It’s not as if she simply had to deal with the physical discomfort of this sickness but this flow of blood made her ceremonially unclean according to Lev 15. This meant that not only was she not permitted to worship with the people of God but it also meant she couldn’t even come near them or they too would be ceremonially unclean. This meant that this woman had lived twelve long and painful years in the solitude of ceremonial uncleanness.
Bavinck writes a beautiful account of the creation of the first woman and how much the first man needed companionship. What is true of man is true also of woman and I want you to hear what he says about Adam after he named the animals and couldn’t find a helper suitable for him: “Though formed out of the dust of the earth, Adam was nevertheless a bearer of the image of God. He was placed in a garden which was a place of loveliness and was richly supplied with everything good to behold and to eat. He received the pleasant task of dressing the garden and subduing the earth, and in this he had to walk in accordance with the commandment of God….  But no matter how richly favored and how grateful, that first man was not satisfied, not fulfilled. The cause is indicated to him by God Himself. It lies in his solitude. It is not good for the man that he should be alone. He is not so constituted, he was not created that way. His nature inclines to the social — he wants company. He must be able to express himself, reveal himself, and give himself. He must be able to pour out his heart, to give form to his feelings. He must share his awarenesses with a being who can understand him and can feel and live along with him. Solitude is poverty, forsakenness, gradual pining and wasting away. How lonesome it is to be alone!
Twelve years this woman had wasted away in solitude. Perhaps she had gone to the Priest: “Is there any way for me to approach the people of God that I might worship and fellowship with them? Is there nothing you can do for me?”
But the Priest could only administer the Law. The Law had no remedy for her. The Law could only command that she stay away.
Numbers 15 commanded the men of Israel to wear tassels on their garments to remind them to keep the Law of God. Christ was the only man to ever remember to keep that Law perfectly and this poor woman reached out and touched that reminder.
And she was instantly healed!
Jairus was probably getting impatient at this point. Christ was standing there asking who had touched Him.
Finally, when she realized she could not conceal what she had done, she stepped forward. Women didn’t call attention to themselves in that culture and the tale of her sickness would have been embarrassing as she recounted it but, glory be to God, she had been healed!
Christ had outed her for two reasons. First, He is such a compassionate Savior that He wanted it to be a public testimony that this woman was now healed. She was now clean. She could be restored to full fellowship. Christ was not so busy or so important that He couldn’t stop and take the time to restore her to her people. It was the end of her physical affliction and also the end of an unbearable loneliness.
Secondly, Christ called her out so she would understand that it wasn’t the tassel of His garment that had healed her but it was His power and His authority that had healed her. Her faith had been somewhat superstitious. Her faith had been somewhat weak in looking to a physical object to heal her. But Christ rewarded even a feeble faith and reminded her that it was He who rewards. It was Christ she had received.
In verse 48 He said to her, Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace. Can you imagine receiving a benediction to “Go in peace” from the God-Man who grants peace with God?
Now we don’t know how long they had lingered, but, while Christ was still speaking, someone came from Jairus’ house saying: “Your daughter is dead; don’t bother the Teacher anymore.”
How many of you have seen your child close to death as I have? Can you imagine, even if only a little, how Jairus felt at that moment.
But Christ ignored the messenger. He turned straight to Jairus and told him: “Fear no longer; only believe, and she will be made well.”
Hold on to me Jairus. Do not fear.
How often do we need to hear that from God and how often does He tell us that in the Scriptures because we do fear.
 When they arrived at the house, Christ allowed no one to come in except Peter and John and James, and the child’s father and mother. It doesn’t say that there was no available space to fit more people but, rather, that Christ would not permit anyone else to come in.
Meanwhile, a crowd of mourners had already gathered and they were weeping and wailing over her. Christ commanded them to stop weeping for, He said, “she is not dead but asleep.”
But, the text says, that the crowd laughed in Jesus’ face because they knew she was dead.
But Jesus didn’t invite these scorners into the room to see what happened next. That’s not me.  I’d want others there. I’d want the world of mockers to see what Christ did. I’d want them to see for themselves how foolish they are.
But Christ kept the scorners outside the room.
And this is so beautiful in verses 54 and 55. Christ spoke to this girl in the way a Jewish mother might wake her child in the morning.
My child, get up!
This was not a request. This was not a suggestion.
The Son of God, by whom all things were created, speaks with power and authority. Death itself had no authority in the presence of such a command. The God who speaks things into existence commanded the child to get up.
And verse 55 states that her spirit returned and she got up at once.
Death surrendered its prey at the word of Jesus.
And, once again, we witness the compassion of the Savior as he directed them to give her something to eat. I know if my daughter had just been brought back to life that I would be so ecstatic that feeding her after a long illness might be forgotten.
Verse 56 records something remarkable. I think the common view of Christ is that, if He could, He would do anything to convince people to believe in Him. Instead of a Christ who is desperate to convince all scoffers, verse 56 gives us a frightening warning. Hear this again:
Her parents were astonished, but he instructed them to tell no one what had happened.
Of course they’re astonished. Their daughter was dead and is now alive and was made alive simply by the word of Christ.
But Christ forbade them from telling anyone what had happened.
Nobody who had laughed at Christ would receive testimony about this sign. Christ’s sign was not for scoffers to be amazed at power but to confirm the faith for those that desired to receive Him for Who He was.
The rest of the story of that town isn’t told but, knowing human nature as I do from the Word, I’m convinced that later on that day those very people that laughed at Christ to His face were telling one another: “Oh, she wasn’t really dead, she was just sleeping.”
This passage has been searching me out over the last couple of weeks as I’ve been meditating on it. I want to share a few observations.
First, it is plain to me that Christ doesn’t need our help with the skeptics. As the Apostle Peter commands, we ought to always be ready to give a defense for the hope that lies within us and that hope is the person and work of Christ. We ought to unashamedly present and testify to the work of that Savior. But there comes a point when people want to insist that God be their show pony and prove something to them that they can see with their eyes and touch with their hands.
God gave them life and breath and testifies to Himself all around them in the things created. Our testimony of Christ’s death and resurrection is further historically verifiable testimony of Christ’s authority. Beloved, those who hear that news and still use the gifts of their intellect, given them by God, to turn around and slap Him in the face do not deserve anything from God. We can be sorrowful for them. We can continue to pray for them. But, if you’re one of those who is blessed enough to hear God’s Son and His power confirmed to you every week and you still laugh at Christ, do not presume that He who sits on high owes you a single thing.
Secondly, I’m repeatedly amazed at how often Christ made Himself ceremonially unclean in order to get near people and heal them. Not only did He ceremonially defile Himself in touching an unclean woman to heal her but He touched the dead hand of a little girl that He might command her to come to life.
Sinclair Ferguson recounts a friend of his who was once addicted to drugs. He was a hard-corps addict whose life was on the brink of destruction.
But Christ found him and healed him and he is now a preacher of the Word.
He says this: “For something unclean to become clean, something clean has to become unclean.” Hear it again: “For something unclean to become clean, something clean has to become unclean.”
Christ was willing to become ceremonially unclean for these two sufferers because He came into the world out of sheer force of the Love of God to do something much harder. He became Sin, who knew no Sin, that we might become His righteousness.
While we were dead in our sins and trespasses, while our righteousness was like, as Isaiah put it, a used menstrual rag, Christ hung between heaven and earth and bore the wrath of His Father in our stead. He suffered the full weight of our uncleanness so that we might be clean and can stand boldly in the presence of our Father.
Finally, I have been meditating on the Lord’s timing in giving us exactly what we most need.
Did you feel the angst of Jairus as he waited on Christ to come and heal his little girlie? Yet, Christ made Jairus walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Christ made Jairus suffer the news of the death of His daughter so that He could allow Jairus to trust Him during the walk to his home and see that Christ answers those that plead with Him. It was not what Jairus wanted but what he needed. It was Christ’s timing and not Jairus’.
God allowed a woman to suffer twelve years in the agony of isolation and sickness that He might display His mercy for all to see and that she might have a personal assurance from Christ that she now had peace with God. How long do you suppose she had prayed for healing? Do you suppose, in glory, she regrets one day of her suffering on this earth as centuries later the story of her healing has converted countless souls to the Gospel? God didn’t give her what she wanted earlier because He had appointed a day when He would gloriously fulfill her need in a way she could never imagine.
Isaiah 40:31 (ESV) — 31 but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
Yesterday, I was privileged to listen to Ravi Zacharias talk about Christ and our culture. He concluded with a story that is fitting on the timing of the Lord.
Ravi was ministering in Vietnam in 1971, and one of his interpreters was Hien Pham, an energetic young Christian. He had worked as a translator with the American forces, and was of immense help both to them and to missionaries.
Shortly after Vietnam fell, Hien was imprisoned on accusations of helping the Americans. His jailers tried to indoctrinate him against democratic ideals and the Christian faith. He was forced to read only communist propaganda in French or Vietnamese, and the daily deluge of Marx and Engels began to take its toll. “Maybe,” he thought, “I have been lied to. Maybe God does not exist. Maybe the West has deceived me.” So Hien determined that when he awakened the next day, he would not pray anymore or think of his faith.
The next morning, he was assigned the dreaded chore of cleaning the prison latrines. As he cleaned out a tin can overflowing with toilet paper, his eye caught what seemed to be English printed on one piece of paper. He hurriedly grabbed it, washed it, and after his roommates had retired that night, he retrieved the paper and read the words, “Romans, Chapter 8.” Trembling, he began to read, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. … For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:28,38,39).
This was to have been the first day that he would not pray; evidently God had other plans.
Beloved, isn’t our Savior amazing!       
Let us pray.
Categories
Gospels and Acts Scripture

John 17

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John 17

Some of you might wonder why we’re jumping to one of the final episodes of Jesus’ walk on this Earth.  I hope, by the end, you’ll understand how this prayer of Christ’s fully captures why Christ came into the world, where He came from, and the hope that He left us.
I was talking to James the other night about the movie Talladega Nights:  The Legend of Ricky Bobby.  If you haven’t seen the movie, I don’t recommend seeing it.  It has little redeeming value.
In one of the scenes, Ricky is leading his family in grace and keeps addressing Christ as “Baby Jesus” during his prayer.  His good friend, Cal Naughton Jr., interrupts him and reminds him that Jesus was a grown man.  Ricky responds by stating that he likes the “Christmas Jesus” the best and likes to picture Jesus as a little baby.
Although the scene is blasphemous in many ways, it places a finger on how many people like to picture Jesus during the Christmas Season and why He is so popular this time of the year.  Baby Jesus, wrapped in swaddling clothes, is cute and cuddly.  He’s not the Savior, the King of Kings, the Lion of Judah.  He’s safe because He’s a small baby.
Although Presbyterians have not historically celebrated religious seasons, today would actually be the Feast of Epiphany.  It was, traditionally, the date that celebrates the Incarnation of Christ, which is another way of saying that the Son of God took on human flesh.  At one point in Church history, today would have been the day in the Church calendar that Christ’s birth was celebrated but Christmas was added as a distinct celebration.  I bring this up because I want to make sure we understand that what just passed was not a birthday celebration but a celebration of God becoming flesh for us.
I received an email from my brother on December 18th reminding us all that Jesus’ birthday was in one week.  I gently reminded him of a few things:
1.  It is very unlikely that Jesus was born in December.  Shepherds were not out on clear nights in December in Israel any more than you and I were outside under last night’s stars.
2.  Nobody knows the calendar day that Christ was born.  The date was chosen for celebration but not because it was Christ’s birthday.  There is a 1 in 365 chance that it is correct.
3.  Christmas is a historical celebration that Christ came into the world to save men who were dead in their sins and trespasses.  Jesus doesn’t need a birthday cake every year but we very much needed Him to come and save us.
I believe it is fitting, then, that we consider John 17 to hear Jesus’ prayer for His disciples on the night He was betrayed.  It reveals profound truths about the person and work of Christ as well as how much we need the Son of God.
1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.
I’m moved to worship at how caring a Shepherd Christ was for His disciples.  He had just finished the Lord’s Supper with them, had washed their feet, and told them He was going to depart from them.  Christ was going to the place of physical and spiritual torment and understood that His own could not follow Him where He must go alone for their sake.  He did not want them to be discouraged and so He not only promised that He would send the Spirit but here, in a most tender way, He prayed for them in their hearing.
We’re promised by God that, when we ask according to His will, our prayers will be answered.  Here, does anyone doubt that Jesus’ prayer was answered?  We need to treat each of these requests as truths that we can stand within.  They are not wishful thinking but requests to a Father by the Son of God.
Jesus begins by noting that the hour had come for the Son of God to be glorified and giving eternal life to all that the Father had given Him.  This is not a command to the disciples but a fact.  Christ gives eternal life because His obedient life and death on a Cross secured eternal life for His people.  Eternal life is knowing this Christ.  Eternal life is coming to a knowledge of the Son of God made flesh who died for sinners under the wrath and curse of God for their disobedience.  Eternal life is eternal because it is born from above and no one that the Father gives the Son is lost.  Christ had not left any work to be done for His own to be accomplished to secure this inheritance.  He states, clearly, that He accomplished all the work that He was given to do.
5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
We can spend years meditating on this verse.  We’ll be in glory ten thousand years contemplating the wonder of this Truth.  In the fullness of time, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  During our responsive reading this morning we read from Philippians 2 where the Apostle exhorts us:  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.
There is a heresy known as the kenosis theory that states that when the Son of God became flesh that He gave up some of His divine attributes.  That which is unchangeable changed.  We don’t have time to unpack all the theology around this and much is beyond human comprehension.  It is a wonderful Truth testified by the Scripture that the Person of Christ took on a human nature without ceasing to be God.  Christ is one Person with two natures.  He is fully God and fully Man without mixture or confusion.
But the Person of Christ did give something up.
The year 1991 seems like ancient history to the young people here but I remember, like it was yesterday, sitting in my Bachelor Officer Quarters watching the confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas.  During the first portion of the hearings, chaired by then Senator Joseph Biden, Justice Thomas was reserved and answered every question in a measured manner.
And then accusations by a subordinate, by the name of Anita Hill, surfaced.  Whether you believe her allegations were true or not, the hearings took on a tremendous intensity.  Justice Thomas, when he returned, was no longer measured and reserved.  His opening statement following these allegations was in part:
“I think that this today is a travesty. I think that it is disgusting. I think that this hearing should never occur in America. This is a case in which this sleaze, this dirt, was searched for by staffers of members of this committee, was then leaked to the media, and this committee and this body validated it and displayed it at prime time over our entire nation. How would any member on this committee, any person in this room, or any person in this country, would like sleaze said about him or her in this fashion? Or this dirt dredged up and this gossip and these lies displayed in this manner? How would any person like it?
The Supreme Court is not worth it. No job is worth it. I’m not here for that. I’m here for my name, my family, my life and my integrity. I think something is dreadfully wrong with this country when any person, any person in this free country would be subjected to this.”
Justice Thomas didn’t care about the appointment to the Supreme Court anymore.  Take away the job and he did not care but he did care about this:  They had taken his name.  They had stolen his integrity.
Men work their entire lives making a name for themselves.  They guard their reputation and their name to the point that some cultures used to permit gentlemen to duel to the death over an insult to one’s name.
But here’s the thing.
Nobody had to ask the Son of God to lay aside His Name when He came to this Earth.  He laid it aside willingly.
Do you realize how many times Christ’s name was sullied while He walked this Earth?  Do you realize how many times He could have called down the fire from Heaven that everyone deserved?
He gave up His name.  He was despised and rejected of men.  There was not even anything of His appearance that would commend Himself to men.  He was born in a poor household and a manger was His birthplace.
We’ve been studying the glory of God as a theme in the redemptive plan of God for His people and one of the things that strikes you is what that glory does to men throughout redemptive history.  Every time the glory of the Lord came near the Tabernacle or the Temple, everyone had to leave.  It was too much.  God reminds Moses that nobody can look upon the face of the Lord and live.
And yet, the most amazing thing we have in Christ.  We could not approach God’s holiness and so God placed a veil of human flesh around His glory and came very near to sinful men.  Such things are too wonderful for me.
When Christ walked into a room nobody could tell that God was right there.  An unclean woman with a discharge of blood for 15 years touches Christ and His power heals her.  Lepers cried out:  “Master, have mercy on us” and He would walk right up to them and make them clean.  A sinful woman crawled up to Christ’s feet and wept on them and the Son of God did not recoil but reached out and forgave sin.
You see, beloved, Christ had to give up His glory because we needed Him to.  We couldn’t approach God without Him making it safe to do so.  God forgive me that I sometimes come into the presence of God and do not realize what an amazing privilege it is that I can enter boldly into the presence of God because Christ came in flesh and through the veil of His flesh I have access into the courts of the most High.
6 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.
Do you understand what a privilege it is to belong to Christ?  Do not listen when the world tells you that there are many paths that lead to the top of the mountain.  Have some loyalty to your Savior.  Have some respect for what He had to go through to secure redemption for you.  The Cross makes no sense if men only needed to be reminded of timeless moral Truths.
Christ’s disciples needed Christ’s prayers.  Peter had promised Christ that, even if everyone else should forsake Him, that He would stand with Him to the bitter end.  Christ rebuked Peter and told Him that Satan had requested Peter and that, if permitted, could handle Peter as easily as throwing up dust in the wind.  Peter would betray but, Jesus reminded Him, that Peter would turn back again.  Why?  Because Christ had prayed for Him and Christ’s prayers are answered.  Christ’s intercession was the reason that His disciples had received the Word when so many others had left Christ.  Christ would hang alone between heaven and earth and none would be with Him but His prayers ensured that His disciples would cling to that work and, by believing His Word, have everlasting life.
10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.
There is a common misperception by the world about those who claim what Scriptures teach about the preservation of God’s people.  It is sometimes called the perseverance of the Saints and some have the wrong notion that believers can somehow be proud that they can never lose their salvation.
But, you need to understand, the reason why the disciples would persevere was not something within their character.  If left to themselves, they would have all scattered.  If left to themselves, they would have remained enemies of God.  They would have hated God just as the Pharisees did.
What made the disciples remarkable was their Savior.  He kept them for His sake.  He had called and not lost a single one because nobody is strong enough to take from His hand.  He had even chosen Judas with the knowledge that He was not His own so that Judas could betray, of his own hateful will, the Son of God.
I don’t know what it is within the sinful human heart that hates the idea that God would glorify Himself by saving His own to the uttermost.  Even some that name Christ bristle at the idea that they’re privileged to have Christ intercede for them powerfully.  Where they ought to read these Words of Christ with joy that He saves His own to the uttermost, they want Him to simply leave men with the power to come and go as they desire.  There is nothing of the sheep tending themselves here but only the Shepherd powerfully interceding to secure His sheep.
Understanding that Christ calls us and keeps us close to His bosom ought to be the source of the greatest humility and comfort.  It ought to humble us for we realize that we are no more worthy of redemption than another.  It ought to comfort us to know that the Son of God, through Whom the universe was created, keeps us and promises that nothing can separate us from His Love.
Christ, after all, came not to gather seekers around Him.  Christ came to pursue men.  Christ came to seek and save the lost who were wandering in darkness.  Christ is the Seeker, we were the lost.  Christ calls us into His Kingdom through the power of His Word and we are comforted by the Truth that we have been made alive to be kept by Him and to glorify Him as He redeems a people to Himself.
Nothing breaks my heart more than witnessing how impoverished many in the Evangelical tradition are today.  They do not hear the Truth of the Gospel that ought to minister to them and remind them not only that Christ begins their salvation but is their salvation.  Many preachers operate according to something that is illegal in business called the “Bait and Switch”.  The bait and switch is where a salesman will lure you into a transaction with the promise of one price only to find out that the terms are switched once you commit to the offer.
Many Christians today have been told that once they believe upon Christ that they will be saved.  They embrace that Truth with joy and unload the burden of their sin to come to the Savior.  But then they are told that holiness is up to them.  They are no longer fed the Gospel but are given Sermons were they are reminded that they need to be sold out for Jesus and that they need to reform their lives.  Obedience, they are told, is the mark of a true Christian.
Indeed, obedience follows faith in Christ but that obedience comes from Christ.  It’s right here in the passage where Christ asks that the Father would sanctify the disciples.  It is not only the one time act of belief that Christ ensures but Christ is the power for the believer’s daily belief  and walk.
I’ve known men who believed the Gospel and then thought sanctification was up to them.  They are weighed down by their battle with Sin and losing daily and, before long, they’re crying out:  “How can a sinner like me be loved by a Holy God?”  Ministers of moralism can only point to the Law.  Be more serious.  Be more sold out.  Tell others about Jesus so they can enter your struggle.
Beloved, Christ is the indestructible life.  Christ is holiness and the fountainhead of salvation.  Be reminded again, Christian, that God saved you when you were His enemy.  Christ came to seek you out when you were walking in sin and darkness.  He has you in the palm of His hand and reminds you that none can take you out.  You will battle sin but Christ does not leave you.  He doesn’t simply come around when you’ve run out of the resources to battle sin by yourself.  His Gospel is the power every day.  His Gospel reminds you that you are His and that Sin has no power over you.  You will be sanctified in the Truth because Christ is your Life and He does not cast out His own.  Cling to Him.
20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. 24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
Did you know that Christ prayed for you?  You are mentioned right here in the Scriptures.  Christ prayed not only for those present at the time of His prayer but prayed for those that would believe their report.  You are the object of Christ’s prayer.
Some of you might have noticed the vanity license plate on our Suburban.  It’s Hebrews 9.  I love that Chapter as it speaks so powerfully of the High Priesthood of Christ as He lives to make perfect intercession for His own.  It’s not as if Christ retreated to a faraway place to discover who might believe upon His name but He continually makes intercession for us.  He knows who believes upon Him because He prays for those that will believe.
Every event in your life has been the subject of His intercession.  That you heard the Gospel and responded to it:  thank Christ for His intercession.  That you are becoming sanctified:  thank Christ for His intercession.  That all things work together for your good:  thank Christ for His intercession.
One day, Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead.  You will walk up to the bar of His judgment and the Judge will ask by what right do you have to be acquitted of your sins, which are many.  But then, the Judge of all the Earth will come down from His seat and stand next to you as your Defense Attorney and say:  “This is one of my own.  I have paid the full penalty for His sin.  My righteousness is his possession.”
And as Leonard reminded us last week, a crown will be given to you and your Savior will say:  “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”
And what will be able to do except weep for joy and say:  “Lord Jesus, it was all you.  You prayed for me.  You held me in the palm of your hand.  What good did I ever do that was not by Your gracious Hand?”  And we will lay our crown at Jesus’ feet because He gets all the glory.
But you also see in this prayer that this is not only about the world to come but about the unity that Christ’s Church will have in history.  Christ prays that we would love one another.  Christ prays that we would be united in the Truth.
You see, our salvation is personal but it is not to be thought of as merely personal.  Christ is saving a people that we are privileged to be around.  We not only ought to love one another but we will love one another because Christ has secured it.  The Apostle John reminds us that nobody can even say that He loves Christ if He does not love His brother because love of the Brethren has been secured in Christ.
But this Love is not a Love that has no content.  It is grounded in the Truth that we have been sanctified unto.  God has revealed His Truth in His Word and, as Ephesians 4 testified to us today in our meditation, Christ gave us Pastors and Teachers that we might be united in Truth.
Leonard will be starting a series next week on the Officers of Christ’s Church.  We live such individual and compartmented lives in modernity that we tend to think of Church as a gathering of people who share notions of Truth that have been arrived at independently.  Each of us, we reason, studied the Scriptures and came to fairly common views, and so we worship at a Church with people who share our view of Truth.
But Truth is not an object that gets shaped by the organ of the human mind.  Truth is not something that we arrive at by our own power or by our own sentiment.  Truth is what corresponds to reality the way God sees it and it has been revealed by His Word.  The Gospel comes to us outside of ourselves and announces our salvation and sanctification and then challenges us that our minds need to be renewed by God’s Word.  Leonard and our Session are not merely independent travelers with us on a journey to apprehend that Truth but have been commissioned by God to lead us into the unity of Truth.
In the end, Christ’s prayer is a reminder of the amazing nature of Grace.  It’s the kind of Truth that the prophets of old longed to understand.  This great Truth that the Messiah would be a man but also God.
If left to ourselves we would have willingly remained enemies of God and justly perished for our Sins.  But the Son of God came down to Earth to come near to sinful men and lived a life of perfect righteousness.  When men could no longer stand the holiness of God in their midst, they hung the Son of God between heaven and earth and He took the full weight of the wrath of God for Sin for those who believe upon the Son and look up to the place of Curse.  Because death could not hold Him, He rose again on the third day and ever lives so that we might have eternal life.
Believe upon Christ Jesus.  Know the Son Who Knows you by name.  If you hear His voice it is because He has long sought you and loves you with an everlasting love.  Believe upon Christ because He knows you by name and your faith is a result of His loving intercession.  Live in Him, not because you have the power within you, but because His life secures power over sin.  Love the Brethren because they are united with you in mystic sweet communion in the Son of God.  We are His body.  Be united in the Truth because Christ is Truth.
And because Christ has prayed for His Church, may we all look forward to the day when we are presented spotless and blameless as His Bride and enter the wedding feast of the Lamb.