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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

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
Law Scripture

Genesis 21

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Genesis 21 (ESV)

 
1 The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. 2 And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him. 3 Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac. 4 And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. 5 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. 6 And Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me.” 7 And she said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.” 8 And the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. 9 But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing. 10 So she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.” 11 And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son. 12 But God said to Abraham, “Be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named. 13 And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring.” 14 So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba. 15 When the water in the skin was gone, she put the child under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot, for she said, “Let me not look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. 17 And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. 18 Up! Lift up the boy, and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation.” 19 Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. 20 And God was with the boy, and he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow. 21 He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt. 22 At that time Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army said to Abraham, “God is with you in all that you do. 23 Now therefore swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my descendants or with my posterity, but as I have dealt kindly with you, so you will deal with me and with the land where you have sojourned.” 24 And Abraham said, “I will swear.” 25 When Abraham reproved Abimelech about a well of water that Abimelech’s servants had seized, 26 Abimelech said, “I do not know who has done this thing; you did not tell me, and I have not heard of it until today.” 27 So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech, and the two men made a covenant. 28 Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock apart. 29 And Abimelech said to Abraham, “What is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs that you have set apart?” 30 He said, “These seven ewe lambs you will take from my hand, that this may be a witness for me that I dug this well.” 31 Therefore that place was called Beersheba, because there both of them swore an oath. 32 So they made a covenant at Beersheba. Then Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army rose up and returned to the land of the Philistines. 33 Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God. 34 And Abraham sojourned many days in the land of the Philistines.
Genesis 21:1-2 notes: 1 The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. 2 And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him.
Something that we need to do when we’re reading the Scriptures is remember that the text brings forward characters for the purpose of teaching us something. Sometimes we can get lost in the story itself and not keep track of what is said or done. Notice how the story emphasizes that the Lord visited Sarah “just as He said” and did to her “just as He promised”. One of the refrains of the Scriptures is how things come about just as God has promised or just as He said. In your reading of the Scriptures, start taking note how often it is recorded that things happen just as the Lord said or promised they would. I was struck, when we were studying Exodus together in Sunday School, how it seems that everybody had forgotten that God had promised that, after 400 years, He was going to lead the people out of Egypt.
But God didn’t forget. God never forgets. His Promise is going to come to pass. It doesn’t matter much whether His people want it to come to pass. It will happen.
Here, of course, it is a joyous occasion. Abraham, a 99 year old man, and Sarah, his 89 year old wife, were told by God that they would conceive and bear a child. One year later, as the Lord Promised, a child was born. This occurred, as verse 2 states, “…at the time which God had spoken to him.”
God said it.
Doesn’t matter much who believed it, because…
That settles it.
Now, you don’t have to have a medical degree to realize how remarkable that is. That’s why it’s so important to note that God “visited” Sarah. Everybody understood that this couldn’t have happened by just natural means. Of course every birth is by the sustaining power of God because He upholds the universe by His power. It’s only our lack of spiritual discernment and gratitude that we think of the sun rising or the birth of a child as some natural event according to some law outside of God.
But, if the fact that the sun came up this morning and even now utters forth speech about God or that every birth is an occasion to thank God, how much more so was everyone reminded that this birth was very clearly the power of God at work and could never be thought of as being under Abraham and Sarah’s power to bring about in the strength of their flesh? In fact, Romans 4 notes that the birth of Isaac is to be thought of as God bringing the dead to life. It’s a picture of faith and the fact that it is God who saves. It is God who brings life. The Promise was going to come about in such a way that only God could get the glory.
 
4 And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. 5 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
Isaac is the first infant to receive the sign of circumcision. This was not only a sign of God’s Covenant with Abraham but a seal that God would most certainly bring that Promise about. Even as his baby boy screamed in pain as Abraham performed a bloody act, Abraham understood that this member of Isaac’s flesh was going to bring forth the Promised Seed in the fullness of time. Abraham was Promised descendants as numerous as the stars in the heavens and here it was, in his hands. He only saw one of that great number promised but understood that this was a sign and a seal that, through him, all the nations of the Earth would be blessed.
In fact, the sign being applied to infants was a very visible signification that this Covenant was about grace. Isaac couldn’t promise on that day that he was going to believe. He couldn’t promise that he would bring this great promise about. Rather, a helpless 8-day old child received this Promise in his flesh and, throughout his life, he would have a very visible reminder that it was God that was strong to save and it did not depend upon, begin, or end with him.
Everything about this story just overflows with grace. It overflows with God’s Promise. It overflows with God’s goodness.   What other response could there be than joy? What other name is more appropriate for God to give Isaac than “laughter” as God’s grace causes an overflow of joy in His servant Abraham and his wife Sarah? Sarah says it all: “God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me.” 7 And she said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”
Nobody, except God, that’s who. Who would have thought to walk up to a 90 year old woman and ask her to be a wet nurse? 90 years old and she’s nursing Isaac! Can you imagine the joy  for a barren woman to receive a child at the age of 90?! Anyone that loves the things of God wants to walk up to this aged woman and simply laugh with her and share her joy over what a good God has done for her. Indeed, those who love God want to laugh with her over what God has done for them in confirming His promise in such a remarkable way to leave no doubts for our wavering hearts!
But not all the laughter at the downpayment of this Covenant Promise was the laughter of joy: 8 And the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. 9 But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing. 10 So she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.”
The weaning period of a child in the Ancient Near East was about 3-4 years and the culture normally celebrated this occasion. Why? Not because the mother was done nursing but because many children did not make it to the age of 3-4 during this period. So Abraham threw a party to celebrate that the boy was growing in stature and the text simply indicates that Ishmael was laughing at Isaac and, for some reason, Sarah flew off the handle. Even though previously we rejoiced over Isaac’s birth being a cause for laughter, we all know the difference between being laughed with and being laughed at.
Ishmael’s was the laughter of scorn.
But something in our minds wants to say: “Come on Sarah! Get some perspective. Ishmael is only 16 years old. You want to throw them out just for laughing at your son Isaac?”
It’s tempting to soften the blow on this point but I think we need to realize, first of all, that the Scriptures actually paint what Ishmael was doing as very serious. Perhaps we need to be challenged by the Scriptures at this point where we tend to view youthful sin as less serious than adult sin. The Apostle Paul brings this episode to the forefront as an example of unbelief in Galatians 4. He presents it as an allegory of the sons of the flesh – those that trust in the flesh – as persecuting those that are the children of the Promise. To put it bluntly, Ishmael’s sin was one of unbelief.
There’s a part of us, because we are so carnal, that can hardly blame him. Which of you, if you were the firstborn son of the father of a mighty promise, would rejoice at the idea that your kid brother, by another mother, is the heir to that mighty promise?
I’m the firstborn. I’m stronger. I’m smarter. This kid is barely out of diapers and I’m supposed to be excited that he’s God’s choice?!
I’ve witnessed many people mishandle the story of Ishmael as if God, in His choice of Isaac as the Promised line, seemed to almost force Ishmael to unbelief. But Abraham was never told to keep the things of God from Ishmael. Ishmael was circumcised with the rest of the family years earlier. Ishmael could have recognized the sign of circumcision in his own flesh and rejoiced even at the idea that it was his baby brother through which this promise of salvation would come to pass. He could have been willing, like King Saul’s son Jonathan, to give up everything knowing that blessing was to be found by clinging to God’s Promise and not to the claim of the flesh.
It’s never a minor thing when a child does not believe in the things of God. I fear we’re so accustomed to the way we view “religion” in our country that we confuse civil freedom concerning religion with the ultimate judgment of God. We need to remember that all unbelief is sin. Our children are sinners and under the wrath and curse of God unless they are in Christ. This should not evoke terror in believing parents but it should evoke seriousness about the things of God because it’s very clear in Scripture that God takes unbelief very seriously. All sin bears the penalty of the wrath and curse of God.
 
11 And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son. 12 But God said to Abraham, “Be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named. 13 And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring.” 14 So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away.
This broke Abraham’s heart. I think the distance in time removes the pain that is in this story but this is sad. God commanded Abraham to separate Ishmael from Isaac for Isaac’s good. It telescopes the separation that the people of Israel would have from the unbelieving people in the land. These kinds of separations are not meant to make us happy that we’re better than others but to remind us that we live in a fallen world and that the things of God often break up families because of the devastating effects of Sin that were introduced by the Fall. How many here, like me, can relate to the heartbreak that Mother, Father, Sister, and Brother do not share the love of Christ?
 
And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba. 15 When the water in the skin was gone, she put the child under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot, for she said, “Let me not look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. 17 And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. 18 Up! Lift up the boy, and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation.” 19 Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. 20 And God was with the boy, and he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow. 21 He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.
Don’t feel guilty about having compassion for Hagar and Ishmael here. I don’t want to minimize how sad this story is. Hagar and Ishmael wandered in circles in the desert and ran out of water. Can you imagine the pain in a mother’s heart as she had to put her son under a bush and walk off into the distance so she didn’t have to watch him die?
As she wept, however, God once again visited Hagar. Remember, God had promised Hagar, years before in the desert, that Ishmael would become a mighty nation. For the sake of Abraham, God would make this boy great. In one sense, how could Hagar have thought the boy was going to die because God had promised, years earlier, that he was going to become a mighty nation? Yet, it’s the pattern over and over, that God Promises something and we look to our circumstances, as painful as this was, and measure reality by them instead of what God has said. It was impossible that Ishmael was going to die and notice how the text says that God “opened her eyes” and she saw a well of water directly before her. Right at the very spot that she sunk into depression convinced she was going to perish is the very spot God planned to save them from death.
And the text relates that the boy flourished. Ishmael became an expert with a bow and his descendants long after were known for their ability with that weapon. As God had promised, for the sake of His love for Abraham, he did make Ishmael great as a nation.  But don’t make the mistake that this blessing was fundamentally one of salvation. He didn’t become great in terms of his faith, according to the text, but became mighty in strength and number. We need to remember that God gives every intellectual and spiritual gift that men enjoy but, sadly, Ishmael and his descendants didn’t see this as a matter of grace and seek to worship God for their blessing. Instead, his descendants measured their blessedness according to their own strength and, like so many of us, didn’t glorify God and worship Him for their many gifts.
The closing portion of Chapter 21 is another fitting contrast between grace and human strength. This great king Abimelech had been cursed for taking Sarah into his harem when he thought she was Abraham’s sister. He knew enough of the power of God not to mess with Abraham and returned Sarah to him. Now he appeared again to Abraham desiring to make a Covenant with him.
Abimelech sensed that Abraham was going to become a mighty nation and wanted to make a Covenant with him to ensure that, when he did become great, that his descendants wouldn’t be on the short end of the stick. In other words, he measured the worth of what Abraham had according to power. Abraham had been promised to become a mighty nation and a blessing to all nations through peace with God but all Abimelech could see is the “cash value” of making a treaty with a great nation. Beloved, while it is true that Christianity can improve the blessedness of life under the sun, we are not to proclaim the value of a good life now to a lost and dying world. It is peace with God that we proclaim.
Abraham had to add a special addendum to that Covenant by giving sheep so it would be clear to Abimelech that this well that he dug in Beersheba was his. Beersheba became the dwelling place of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when he returned before going into Egypt. You’ll even see, throughout the Old Testament, the phrase “from Dan to Beersheba” as shorthand for all of Israel as Beersheba marked the southern extent of the Promised Land.
We have in this Chapter the contrast of God’s Promise of grace compared to the Sons of Men who measure themselves by strength. We see Isaac, a son of such joy that we break into laughter that God’s Promises are so wonderful as to confirm them by bringing life out of death. We see God showing forth His grace in the circumcision of an infant. We see the surety of God’s Promises throughout to confirm, in real history, that He is Who He says He is and that, despite all the waiting, God is trustworthy.
We also see, however, a young man who can’t stomach the idea of his baby brother being the heir to that Promise. We see him becoming strong and skilled in his own strength. We see a local monarch who visits Abraham to make a treaty because all he cares about Abraham’s God is that it “works for Abraham” and makes him someone worth befriending.
A couple of weeks ago I saw one of the books entitle Do Hard Things laying on a chair. I joked to one of the teens: “Is there a shorter version of this book that I can read?  This one seems kind of long?”
The irony was lost on him because he helpfully explained there was a workbook that neatly summarized the contents.
Rebellion, sloth, and low expectations may be the cultural good of the teen years these days but the Bible still teaches otherwise. My wife and I enjoy watching American Idol and I’m always dumbfounded that young adults come forward to sing and are genuinely devastated when Simon tells them that they cannot sing. Mom always heaped false praise upon their accomplishments and this is the first time in their life that they haven’t been praised for failure. At least Paula leaves them with the thought that they still look beautiful.
Consider our movie heroes as well. Something I’ve never liked about the Harry Potter movies is that everybody thinks Harry is so cool because magic comes to him so naturally and easily. He’s good at it with virtually no effort compared to the hard work that his friends put in to their schoolwork: the first day at Hogwart’s and he’s on the broom flying polo team. Real life isn’t like that. Wasted genius is practically a proverb in real life.
But, with everything we just learned in this passage, I want to make sure each of you young people understands something that needs to drive you to your knees. I want to ensure all of us parents and older people understand the same thing that we might pray earnestly with concern for the children of our own Covenant community.
Kids listen to me.
Teenagers pay attention.
Adults, if you remember nothing else, remember this:
 
Ishmael did hard things.
Ishmael started with his Mom and a well in a desert and made a great name for himself as an archer and a warrior. He became a mighty nation. He became great by any human standard. He wasn’t a slacker. He applied himself to everything he did.
But did He know God? Did he ever know the surpassing riches of His grace? Did he ever look down at his own circumcision that was a daily reminder that God saves all those who put their trust in Him? Did he ever learn to laugh at the incredible Promise of God and the amazing birth of his baby brother and rejoice that God was doing something amazing that would bless the nations? Or did he simply think: “I don’t need that, look at what I’ve done by my own hands?”
Parents, do you pray for your kids? Do you ever talk to them and tell them: “Son, I want you to apply yourself because God wants us to glorify Him in our hard work but, more than anything, I want you to believe in Christ.”
Do you ever think to yourself: “More than anything else, I want to see my children’s children call upon the name of the Lord.”
Does the thought of your child forsaking the Covenant of Grace that he or she has been baptized into drive you to your knees?
“Oh heavenly Father, help me teach my children to call upon the name of the Lord. I have no strength within me to convert their heart. Please, Lord, call them to yourselves. Salvation is in Your mighty Hands. Cause them to cling to Christ all the days of their lives!”
You see, that boy Isaac grew and had two sons and one of them ended up just like Isaac’s big brother.
A hunter. A warrior. A mighty nation.
Oh, how Isaac loved his son Esau.
But then one day Esau sold his Promised birthright for a bowl of soup!
The Promise of God on the one hand. Soup on the other.
“What good is the Promise of God to me? I’m famished.  Give me the soup!”
But, in spite of all the sin of men, that everlasting Promise unfolded inexorably until 2000 years later, in the fullness of time, God’s grace burst forward in a dazzling array that took away the breath of the entire world.
God became flesh and dwelt among us.
And, oh, how He did hard things.
He did impossible things.
He came down from glory and took upon Himself the form of a servant. Despised and rejected of men who loved their sin, God veiled Himself in human flesh and came near to Sinful man to be obedient in their place. The Promised Seed walked right into the teeth of sin and misery and obeyed with a perfect righteousness that only He could accomplish. Nearly all of those who were heirs to that Promise rejected Him and many saw only in Him an ability to achieve political power.
But, in the end, Christ had come for a totally unexpected purpose. So unexpected was His mission that the entire Nation turned against Him, slapped the Son of God across the face, and yelled “Crucify Him!”
Embracing the place of Curse that His own deserved, He hung between heaven and earth and took upon Himself the sins of all who look to Him, away from themselves, and believe. With His death, He put to death Sin as power and on the third day, because death could not hold Him, He rose again so that all who trust in Him might have eternal life.
Paul reminds us in Romans 5: “6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
Beloved, THAT’S the Promise. In God’s perfect time, the Seed of Abraham did everything we could not do so that God could bring us to Himself and make us His children: children not of the flesh but of faith according to that glorious Promise.
Does that stun you?
What does this kind of grace evoke in you?
God has brought you from death to life.
You, who were once an enemy of God, God has died for to make you His friend.
Let us exult together with Sarah: “God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me!”
Categories
Gospels and Acts Scripture

Luke 15

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Luke 15

1 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” 3 So he told them this parable: 4 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ 7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. 8 “Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? 9 And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ 10 Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” 11 And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. 12 And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. 13 Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. 14 And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. 16 And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything. 17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.” ’ 20 And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. 21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’22 But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. 23 And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. 24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate. 25 “Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. 27 And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’ 28 But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, 29 but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ 31 And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’ ”

When Sean called me about a week and a half ago asking me if I was interested in teaching this evening I hesitated only for a moment. I’ve been very busy lately yet I love to be able to share the Word of God.   
When Sean told me I could teach on any topic I knew, almost immediately, what I desired to teach because this is one of my favorite parables in the Bible. The problem with teaching on this text is that it is so well known by many people who can probably recite the details by the mere mention of the title.
In a 1988 study, a sociologist named Marcia Whitten authored a work entitled All is Forgiven, wherein she analyzed hundreds of sermons on Luke 15 delivered by mainline Presbyterian and Southern Baptist Churches. The mainline Presbyterian Churches saw in the Parable a teaching about the need for social acceptance of the downcast. Southern Baptist preachers, however, emphasized the troubles that the Prodigal Son faced when he left the boundaries of a Godly home and got into “sex, drugs, and rock and roll.” Many of you probably have received typical treatments but I hope to demonstrate the power of the Gospel herein.
It is vitally important, in understanding the parables in this Chapter that we begin with verses 1 and 2. Once again we encounter the Pharisees’ criticism of Christ. They complain that Christ receives sinners and even eats with them. No righteous man, in their thinking, would sully himself by spending time around sinners much less sharing a meal with them.
Christ, as was His habit in many teaching situations, responded with three Parables. In the first parable He recounted the great lengths that a good Shepherd will go through to seek out one lost sheep and the rejoicing that ensues when that lost sheep is recovered. The second parable noted the great lengths a woman will go through to find a lost coin in her household. She will literally tear the house apart in search of this wayward coin and rejoices with the entire town upon its discovery. Both of the first two parables would easily resonate with the culture of Christ’s day but to understand the impact of the third parable you’re going to need to take off your 21st Century glasses and journey with me back to the Jewish culture of Christ’s day.
Once upon a time there was a man who had two sons. One day, his younger son came up to him demanding his share in his inheritance.
Right away, jaws should drop. Jewish sons do not demand their inheritance of their father. The inheritance is to be received upon the death of the father with the firstborn son receiving a double portion. The younger son was basically saying: “Father, I wish you were dead. I want my inheritance now and your life is in my way!” The son showed utter disdain for his father. The proper response for a father in this culture would have been to slap his son across the face for disrespect and he had every right to disinherit such a scoundrel. The Pharisees would have been pleased to hear that this was the father’s response.
Incredibly, however, the father granted the son’s request. The inheritance, after all, would have been in the land of the estate. It’s not as if the father had a bank account or stocks he could simply sign over. He would have had to sell a portion of his estate to a buyer at a reduced price with the guarantee that the buyer would receive this land at the father’s death. Do you realize that the penalty for moving a boundary marker in the Law was death? A capital crime. Land was the family’s inheritance and generations had labored to pass the estate from father to son and to build wealth that would bless future generations. This father had, inexplicably, cashed generations of labor in to give cash to this worthless boy.
The boy left home where he squandered this money in reckless living. What had taken centuries to accumulate was blown quickly. What a scum bag. What a wretch! The parables are full of scorn and curses for the foolish who waste their money. Utter ruin will be their end! The Pharisees would have lectured the father that such was to be expected. What was he thinking after all?
And then a famine hit.
And the boy was in a faraway land having squandered his money.
And he began to be in want. His friends left him for such are the friends of folly.
Ah what delight to the heart of a Pharisee. The boy was reaping his just reward. Surely he would die of starvation and the Pharisees would wring their hands with glee about the destruction of the unrighteous.
But the boy managed to find employment feeding pigs.
Excuse me, did you say he was feeding pigs?
By pigs, do you mean the unclean animals that Jews were forbidden to eat or touch?
A Jewish boy feeding pigs?!
But this employment was not feeding him well to the point that the boy envied the pigs for their meal of corn husks.
We don’t know how long this went on but, one day, it dawned upon him: “Even my father’s servants have plenty to eat. I know I can’t go back as a son. I’ve blown any opportunity for that. I understand that, in this culture, I am shamed beyond measure. Perhaps if I return home I can be hired on as a slave and at least I’ll be treated well.”
At this point the Pharisees would have been pleased with the boy. Now we’re talking! That’s right you sinner! That’s right you unrighteous wretch! Return to your home town in shame.
The tradition had a proper process for reconciliation. The boy would be expected to go into his home town and wait at the town center for a few days. During this time the town people would have come and heaped shame upon the boy.
Don’t you realize what a wretch you are?!
Don’t you realize what you have done to your father?!
For shame! For shame you unrighteous one!
Then, after a period, the father would come and the boy would express his utter shame to his father and promise to perform reconciliation by working off what had been squandered. Surely, for such an offense the boy would have had to work his entire life to earn back even a portion of what he had squandered. Only after restitution by work, however, would this boy have truly earned the right to reconciliation. Reconciliation through restitution. Forgiveness and acceptance by works!
But, beloved, this is where the rage in the Pharisees would have begun to boil over. This is where the Gospel is so offensive to so many who see religious duty as a way to buy God’s affection.
‘BUT’, the text reads, ‘while the boy was far off, the father was moved with compassion.’
I used to wonder how parents could single out their childen in a large crowd by the sound of their cry. They all sounded the same. But now that I have four kids, I’ve come to recognize the walk of my children, their smell, the way they walk, their laughs, their cries of pain and sadness and fear – many details a parent who loves his children knows well.
The father had long been looking for his son and he saw a figure in the distance. ‘Yes, that’s the boy! That’s the walk of my son.’ Shoulders hunched over in grief. Gaunt. Weary. Worn out.
The son was heading for the town.
And the father RAN to him.
He ran!
This is not the 21st century. Old men of Christ’s day did not run. It was undignified. It was shameful. In order to run in the long, flowing robes of that culture a man had to hike up his robe. The expression “gird up your loins” refers to the fact that men, in battle, had to hike up their robes and tuck them into their belt in order to run and move in battle. But, except in war, it was considered shameful to bear one’s legs so much so that Jewish tradition taught it was preferable for a priest to let his robe drag in the blood on the temple floor rather than lift the robe lest their legs be exposed.
But the father, in the most undignified manner, ran to his son.
Why the hurry? Was it simply a desire to hold him again.
He ran because the boy was approaching the town center. He was approaching the place of shame.
Oh yes, sin had occurred and shame was due but, beloved, the father ran to ensure that the shame would be his own. Shame would be borne by him and not the boy he loved with an everlasting love!
The father threw himself upon this boy that reeked of pig manure and kissed him.
Sinclair Ferguson once remarked about a longtime friend who had received great honor from the Crown of England for her ministries of mercy to the poor. She told everyone at this ceremony, however, that when it came to dealing with the poor, it was her husband who had the most amazing ability to deal with the incredible stench of feces and urine that the poor reek of. He could minister up close to such men without flinching. How, one wondered to him one day, was he able to do it? He answered: “It’s easy. I picture the filth of my own sin that Christ had to wade through to save me and all physical filth pales in comparison.”
The son found himself now in this loving embrace and the son spoke to his father what he had rehearsed: ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But his words stopped.
What else had he planned to say?
He planned to ask to be made a slave in the household.
But he stopped.
I believe he stopped because the embrace of the father squeezed the very breath out of him. The second part about being made a slave was unacceptable. You see, beloved,
in the Kingdom of God, there are no slaves. There are no servants that earn affection from their father.
There are only sons!
‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet!’
A robe?
A ring?
Shoes for his feet?
Only sons wear these. This boy had squandered his inheritance. He had sinned away every right to be called a son in this house. The father, however, was granting him EVERYTHING based on NOTHING THAT THE SON DESERVED! The boy received every good thing and every privilege of sonship based on NOTHING THAT HE HAD DONE!
 ‘And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate.  For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’
It’s not as if meat was easy to come by then and they didn’t have refrigerators to store leftovers. Killing a fatted calf was an extraordinary event, which meant a celebration for the entire community. It was a celebration not of the righteousness of a son earning a father’s love but the lavish love of a father who was granting sonship to a man saved alive!
And so the party ensued and the elder brother returned from the field, laboring into the evening. He wanted to know what was going on.
What?! That unrighteous scum bag has returned? My father is holding a party for him? He’s not only treating him like a son but he’s eating with him?
The elder son was so incensed that he refused to even go into his father.
A celebration was going on in the light while the “righteous” man, the elder brother, was standing outside gnashing his teeth at the redeemed son and the gracious father.
But the father came out to him pleading to come in to the light.
The son responded: ‘He might be your son but he’s not my brother. That scum is beneath me!  HOW DARE YOU! Do you realize how much I’ve SLAVED for you all these years. Not once, in all that time, have you given ME so much as a goat so I can have a party with MY friends.   Give me MY due for my labor. I’m not going in to celebrate with you and your house. I have MY friends and I want to earn the right for reward so I can celebrate with my own friends.’
And the story ended abruptly with a celebration going on in the light with the self-righteous elder brother in the darkness gnashing his teeth.
It’s been said that there are three kinds of people in this world:
The first kind are those that don’t care a thing about the things of God. The power of God is manifest all around them. Some even hear of the mighty works of God in Scripture to save me from their sin and they meet it with indifference. God is not magnificent. He is a bore.
The second variety are those who are religious slaves so they can put God in debt to them. I will perform acts of contrition. I will deny myself food and pleasure. I will strap a bomb onto my chest and yell “Allah Akbar!” to a glorious death. Quid pro quo. I do for God and He must do for me.
The grace of the father would be too much for the Pharisees and the story did have a conclusion. That elder brother, and all his Pharisee friends, took the Son of God, who is the father in this tale, and beat him and brought him to Pilate to have Him put to death. There is no room for the mercy of God among the elder brother’s friends. The offense of the Cross that all must bow before it to receive forgiveness and have their own shame placed upon the Son is too much to bear.
The third kind of person is he who recognizes he was once dead in sins and trespasses. But God found him and made him alive.
Beloved, open your eyes. Look around you. Do you see the filth of your sin?
God has appointed a day, calling it ‘Today’. Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.
The yoke of your sin is very great. Oh how you have sinned just this past week. Just today, in fact. How could anybody that belongs to the father sin like you have? Surely, you have told yourself, God could not accept this?!
Plod back to where you began and realize that you have no rights to enter the Father’s house.
But stop, for a moment, and look up.
Look up away from yourself. Look up!
What is that in the distance?
It’s the Son of God and He’s running. He’s flying to you.
Look to Him. See what He has done. He is taking your filthy clothes that reek of your sin and has worn them on the Cross. He died to take away your sins and satisfy the wrath of God that you deserve.
He embraces you and covers you with a clean robe. It is the robe of His perfect righteousness. He has risen from the dead with an indestructible life and lives that we live forever more in Him!
Full inheritance. Full sonship in Christ. God gives every blessing not for anything we have done and until you understand that amazing grace you have not rested in the arms of the Father’s embrace.
‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. 23 And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. 24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’
All heaven rejoices. Let those that love the Father because He has given them every inheritance crowd in. Today is the day of Salvation for all who hear the voice of the Father! Slay the fatted calf for tonight WE CELEBRATE!”
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Gospels and Acts Scripture

Jesus, Lord of the Sabbath (Luke 6:1-11)

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Luke 6:1-11

On a Sabbath, while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. 2 But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?” 3 And Jesus answered them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: 4 how he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?” 5 And he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”
6 On another Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was withered. 7 And the scribes and the Pharisees watched him, to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath, so that they might find a reason to accuse him. 8 But he knew their thoughts, and he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come and stand here.” And he rose and stood there. 9 And Jesus said to them, “I ask you, f is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?” 10 And after looking around at them all he said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” And he did so, and his hand was restored. 11 But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.
As we continue our study through the Gospel of Luke, we come to two stories that center around a conflict with the Pharisees over the observance of the Sabbath.  It is tempting, perhaps, to simply see the Pharisees being concerned with the Law while Christ is concerned with helping people but that would be to misunderstand the nature of this conflict.
The problem today, by and large, is not that most take a strict view of the Law but that they don’t even stop to consider the Law at all. The Sabbath, especially, has fallen into disfavor and there is collective amnesia that, somehow, God included the observance of the Sabbath in the Ten Words that He delivered upon Mount Sinai. What was God thinking, after all, that He would care that we would set one day out of seven for Him? What about my “Me Time”? I understand I shouldn’t kill a man but observe the Sabbath? Why are they even on the same list?
It is actually quite natural that the Pharisees would be concerned about the Sabbath. The fraternity of the Pharisees was originally founded for the purpose of seeking to take seriously the Law of God after the Babylonian captivity. In the Law of God, God had commanded that the Nation of Israel celebrate a Sabbath Year once every 7 years. Israel was in captivity for 70 years because the Nation had disregarded the command of God to give the land a rest one year in every seven for 490 years. And so God judged the Nation by taking them out of the land and giving the land rest for the 70 years they had neglected to celebrate.
Thus the Pharisees, after the captivity were like a child who had burned his hand on a hot stove. A hot stove is very useful but if you touch the burner it is quite painful. A child, properly disciplined, will return to the stove someday and use it properly. But one way around never getting burned is to never go near the stove again.
That’s the nature of the fleshly approach to Law keeping: set up an entire set of man-made rules that put a fence around the Law. One way to keep away from violating the Sabbath was to put a big fence around it and tell everybody to never go near the Law by keeping all the regulations. Keeping the regulations, then, replaces actually keeping the Law because, if the Law is all about not crossing a certain line, then drawing closer lines is even better. Eventually, the fences erected were the only things the Rabbis meditated upon. Pharisees became experts in the regulations.   The rabbis drew up a catalogue of thirty-nine principal works, subsequently subdivided into six minor categories under each of these thirty-nine, all of which were forbidden on the Sabbath.  On this list of regulations was a prohibition against picking heads of grain. That was considered to be “reaping”.
Christ was walking through the fields with His disciples on the Sabbath and the disciples were hungy. The Law permitted a hungry man to glean the edges of crops for food. It’s not as if they were eating a gourmet meal but they were famished and were rubbing the heads of the grain and eating raw grain.
Suddenly the Pharisees appeared. It’s almost like Swiper the Fox in Dora the Explorer at the ready to steal. Were they following Christ around simply so they could spy out liberty and judge that a line had been crossed?
They accused Jesus and His disciples of desecrating the Sabbath not because the Law had actually been broken but because their regulations had been broken. The disciples had ignored the fence the Rabbis had put around the Law. They were observing the Law but the Pharisees could only see their fence.
Christ first rebuked them with a question that would cut to the heart of any Pharisee: “Haven’t you read the Word of God?” You sage keepers of the Word, don’t you remember David, when he was fleeing from Saul for his life came to the Tabernacle with famished troops and received the showbread from the altar? The Law very strictly required that this bread was for the Levites alone and neither David nor his men were Levites.
According to the letter of the ceremonial Law, the High Priest had, in fact, violated the Law but Christ commended this decision. Why? Because a more important principle, a weightier matter, was at hand, and that was the sustaining of human life.
The Pharisees, in fact, were so focused upon the ceremonial precision of the Law that they missed the purpose of the Law altogether. We’ve already seen a remarkable episode earlier in the Gospel of Luke where Christ reached out and touched a leper. Every time I read that I shudder with amazement at what that signified under the Law. Lepers were unclean. Touching them made a person unclean. But Christ, the Clean One, touched a leper and made him clean. How long had it been since that leper felt a human touch because, ceremonially, the Law could do nothing but keep men away. It was the same thing for the paralytic healed by Christ – the paralytic was excluded from the Assembly for his plight but Christ restored him.
We all know the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Do you know why the two men passed by on the other side of the road when they saw a man that appeared to be dead? Because they were priests and they would have been defiled had they touched a dead body. The irony of that parable is that the Samaritan, scum of the Earth to a Jew, was the neighbor. He’s the only one who fulfilled the Law to love neighbor.
You see, Galatians 3 reveals an important truth about the Law of God as the Apostle Paul was railing against Judaizers who were corrupting the Gospel just as the Pharisees did here. The Covenant of God begins with God redeeming a People to Himself by the work of Christ. Blessing comes by faith in what God Promises to do. It was that way with Abraham and the Promise has always been God saying: “The Seed of Abraham will be your Righteousness. Believe!” Righteousness comes by faith. It always has because our own righteousness comes up short every time.
Why then the Law? Why create rules for the Sabbath? Can it be so that we prove to God we’re serious about His commands and then find acceptance? No, you are already accepted in Christ but now see the Law of God with new eyes. See in it the nature of the God you love and use it as a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your path that you might learn about God and yourself and train yourselves in righteousness. He’s not your Judge, if you’re in Christ, but your Father.
We all understand rules for our children, do we not? We forbid certain things because they harm. We command certain things because they are good. The end of these things is that they grow to see the wisdom behind the rules and the letter of the rule is replaced by a walking in wisdom. Eventually, we don’t have to hold a hand as we cross the street because an adult is wise enough to enjoy the paved road without our help.
But the Pharisees are like adults who never learned the wisdom and all they know is the rules and don’t understand the blessing that the rules were designed to direct to.
The Sabbath was not created so that man would be a slave under its crushing requirements but was intended to bless man. Those of us redeemed by Christ get the tremendous privilege of an entire day devoted to the worship of God. We get to cast off the cares of the world and meditate upon the Word of God all the day and enjoy the fellowship of God and His people.
I understand that, to the flesh, the Sabbath seems like the most boring thing in the world when you have Costco and sleep and NFL football to replace it but are these things really the pinnacle of the enjoyment of a redeemed conscience? I realize that our flesh does not love to enjoy the Sabbath. It doesn’t love the things of God but the Law is intended to serve as a trainer of the conscience to direct us to the things of above and to cast aside the things that serve our flesh. We are foolish if we neglect the Law as a lamp unto our feet to guide us into how we might taste and see that the Lord is good.
Recently, I’ve been convicted of my own sinful sloth. I often don’t prepare myself to enjoy the Sabbath. I treasure my leisure and so I sometimes come to worship sleepy from staying up too late on Saturday night. I forget to buy milk the day before and so I’m tempted to deprive another man of the rest that God has given all men one day in seven. I don’t pray that I might come to the Word hungry and expectant, eager to be filled by the Words of Life.
I’m convicted because I am Christian. I have been created anew by the Gospel to delight in the things of the Lord. The Lord’s Day is my delight. What a privilege it is to be in His presence all the day long: a son in my Father’s house in communion with my fellow heirs.
As Christ continued with the reminder to the Pharisees, He told them something that should have stopped them dead in their tracks: “The Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath.” Who can be the Lord of the Sabbath but God alone for He, alone, hallowed it by resting from His creation on it. God did not need rest but invited man, on Adam’s first full day on the Earth, to rest with Him. Even as the Pharisees wondered that Christ forgave sins, we have another plain example to these hard-hearted men that the God of the Universe was the subject of their rebuke. The Sabbath is Christ’s and it is in Him that we have any rest, for we would only be in toil and bondage under sin. The Pharisees stole His Law, intended to bless men to enter into God’s rest, and they had twisted a blessing into a yoke of bondage.
As the Gospel continues, on another Sabbath, Christ was teaching in the Synagogue – worshipping with the people of God. The Holiness of God, clothed in human flesh was very near and blessing people with words of life and all the Pharisees had a front row seat. They were not there to be taught but only so they could catch Him violating their petty rules about healing on the Sabbath.
Christ knew their hearts and so He called out a poor man with a withered hand. The Pharisees looked right past a man in need. They could care less about his need. All they could think about is the regulation and that the Son of Man had the gall to violate their rules! Christ asked a simple question: Is is lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do harm?
Do you see the hypocrisy of the Pharisees? On the day of rest, on the day that God had invited His people to find rest in Christ, these men wanted to destroy the Son of God! Unfortunately, their regulations did nothing for their conscience. Where’s the rule that you can’t plot to kill the Son of God on the Sabbath? They were bent out of shape that Christ is going to do good on the Sabbath but their sin blinded them to the fact they were murdering Christ in their heart.
But Christ’s work would not be stopped by Sin. He looked directly into the face of Sin. He looked directly into the eyes of the hateful Pharisees, agents of the Devil who had twisted His Law to destroy and commanded to the man: Stretch out your hand! Where Pharisaical rules could only enslave, He freed! Where their rules could only leave a hand useless and dead, He brought forth life!
Beloved, God created the world in 6 days and all very good. On the 6th day, He stooped down and, with special care, created man out of the dust of the Earth. With a tender love, He put His mouth up to the first man and breathed life into Him and, with that breath, His very image. As the man opened his eyes, the first thing He saw was the face of God. Oh, the vision that Adam saw! What a loving Father!
When God rested the next day, the first Sabbath, and invited Adam to rest with Him, do you suppose Adam complained that he got to spend the whole day in communion with His Father?
When Adam fell, and we with him, mankind ran away from God and tried covering himself with leaves to protect himself from the Holiness of God. Gone was face to face communion with the God of the Universe. But God, even then, was gracious to His foolish children and, in their presence, slayed an animal and covered them.
Man fell from communion with God and the enjoyment of rest. All was toil. Pagan societies like France after the Revolution tried to go to 10 week days and it crushed men under the weight of toil because we’ve been designed by our Creator to rest one day in seven. We foolishly think we know better and, in our folly, would work ourselves to the bone headlong into the hell, There, we would deservedly face the wrath of God for our disobedience.
No Sabbath.
No communion with God.
For eternity.
But God is rich in mercy. While we were still His enemies, while our flesh hated the sight of Him, while we groped in the darkness in the futility of our self-worship, God the Son took on our weak flesh. He was hated and despised. He walked alone in obedience that was foreign to us. He preached to men and served the Law of God with a holiness and compassion that our flesh hated and so, in men’s hatred, they put Him to death for it.
But, to our amazement, Christ was there willingly. He was our High Priest offering His sinless flesh as a propitiation for our filthy Sin. Dying on the eve of the Sabbath, our Lord remained in the grave throughout the Jewish Sabbath, working for our benefit and putting to death Sin and death.  On the third day, the Lord’s Day, death could not hold Him! He rose from the grave in victory over death and we were raised in newness of life with Him!
Oh, how I love you Son of Man, Savior. You invite me into Your holy presence in sweet communion with the Body You have redeemed to Yourself. I cry out with the Psalmist:
1 How lovely is your dwelling place,
O Lord of hosts!
2 My soul longs, yes, faints
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and flesh sing for joy
to the living God.
3 Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O Lord of hosts,
my King and my God.
4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house,
ever singing your praise!
5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
in whose heart are the highways to Zion.
8 O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer;
give ear, O God of Jacob!
9 Behold our shield, O God;
look on the face of your anointed!
10 For a day in your courts is better
than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
11 For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
the Lord bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does he withhold
from those who walk uprightly.
12 O Lord of hosts,
blessed is the one who trusts in you!
I am your son, in Christ, and thank you that I once again have communion with you. I come boldly, expectantly, into Your very presence through the veil of Christ’s flesh and delight in the rest I had today. Better still, I know that I shall, one day, see You face to face, and rest forever!
Categories
Gospels and Acts Scripture

The Temptation of Christ (Luke 4:1-13)

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Luke 4:1-13

It’s been some time since Pastor Whitenack covered the baptism of Jesus and, before him, Sam taught on John’s baptism.  I might normally try to bring you up to date right away but I’ll be getting back to both later on this evening in order to place Christ’s temptation into a proper context for us to understand it.

This passage is pretty well known by many Christians.  I suppose it sticks in most minds the same way the Prodigal Son passage does as it is regularly read and taught in Christian pulpits.  Yet, I believe, that today, most people don’t really appreciate what it is that is significant about Christ’s temptation.  There are many details in Christ’s life, including miracles, that are not recorded.  There are even some details only recorded in a single Gospel.  Why is the temptation of Christ recorded in three Gospels?  What is it that the reader is supposed to take away that makes him wise toward salvation?  How you answer that question, I believe, will reveal whether or not you understand the Gospels.

In Luke 3:22, after Christ is baptized, He is filled with the Holy Spirit and the Father announces:  “You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.”

Here in Chapter 4, we see the Devil is now going to tempt Jesus with this very declaration.  Not only once but twice Satan introduces his temptations by saying:  “If you are the Son of God.”   All Satan knows how to do is ape Truth and mock it in the process.

Man fell into sin and death when the first Adam, as mankind’s representative, yielded to the temptation of the devil.  Even so, as Jesus was about to begin His public ministry it is fitting that the last Adam, the representative of all who trust in Him, should resist the devil’s temptation and render perfect obedience to God.

I think it’s really important to point out that, though Christ was without sin, He was truly tempted.  One of the earliest heresies of the Church that has plagued her history throughout is the error that Christ is either not human at all and just appears to be or that His divinity mixes with His humanity to make Him sort of a hybrid.  I think some of us might not be so sophisticated to be rank heretics but we’re prone to thinking of Jesus as perhaps floating through life as if nothing could really hurt Him or tempt Him.  We confess with the Scriptures, though, that Christ is fully human even as He is fully divine.  He was tempted in every way but did not sin.

Now Paul, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, promises us that we are not tempted beyond what we can bear under.  That is to say, that God in His rich mercy is able to restrain the Evil One in how we are tempted in this life so that we are able to escape temptation.  Even with the Lord’s restraint, because we are so weak, our temptation often seems unbearable, don’t they?  The training wheels are on but we still fall.

If temptation is according to the strength of the person being tempted then who could possibly be tempted any more powerfully than Christ Himself?  Do you doubt that Christ understood temptation?  Beloved, it’s you that doesn’t know what the full weight of temptation is!  It is we who have never felt the weight of temptation without restraint.  We have a strong Savior who was able to bear under this temptation in a way that you and I will never appreciate.  Indeed, we do have a merciful High Priest who is able to patiently bear with us weak sinners because He knows what it is to be tempted and He knows our frame!

Now, as we continue, it is the height of understatement that Christ was hungry at the end of 40 days of fasting and prayer in the wilderness.  This is when the temptation begins.

The Devil approached Him with utter derision as he challenged Christ, if He’s the Son of God, to turn stones into bread.

You’re hungry, Jesus!  Why not use some of that majestic power of yours?  Dazzle me!  You’ve got Holy Spirit power!  God wants us to have our best life now!  Turn stones into bread and amaze us all with your authority over the created order.  After all, you were there at the beginning, were you not, and all things are created through you?  Prove it!

Compare this temptation to the temptation of Adam.  Adam had not gone without food for any length of time.  Even if Adam had been hungry at the time of temptation he could simply walk to any other tree and eat as much as he needed.  Finally, Adam was living in paradise when he was tempted while Christ was in the middle of a desert.

Jesus responds by quoting Deuteronomy 8:3.  Moses told this to the Israelites who, for forty years, had seen the power of God in the wilderness.  Even when no bread was to be found, God had provided manna from heaven to care for His saints.  Yet, with all that, the Israelites had complained and rebelled against God any time they were deprived of food and water for a short time.  They lived by their bellies and distrusted God at the drop of a hat.

Christ responds to Satan by stating, in effect, “Tempter, you are wrong about man.  In order to satisfy hunger and stay alive you think that bread is absolutely necessary.  You are wrong you liar!  I declare to you that it isn’t bread but the creative, lifegiving, and sustaining power of God that is the indispensable source of life and well-being!”

Failing in this temptation, Satan tempts Christ with the dominion of the world and its governments if He will do but one small thing:  bow before him.  Christ must worship the devil and he will give Him all that he has been given.  Now, was Satan really the possessor of all of these?  I don’t believe he was.  Satan is the father of lies and it’s clear he’s either lying to Christ here or is lying to himself about his own dominion.  After all, even during Christ’s humiliation on this earth, Satan was able to do nothing more than Christ allowed him to do.  Demon expulsions and other events of the NT see Christ’s power breaks through and He is, indeed, able to overcome the strong man when and where He pleases.

How is this a temptation to Christ then?  It is a temptation to obtain the crown without enduring the cross!  This was able to form a great struggle within Him for we know that the Cross was the path for Christ to redeem His people.  It would be the path of shame that would lead to glory for Christ and His own.  It would be His obedience to death and then His raising from the dead that would perfect His work.  He knew the agony He would have to suffer when the wrath of God would be poured out on Him and this is a foretaste of the struggle in Gethsemane.

Satan offered Christ the default religion of man:  the way of glory.  We would build ourselves up, convincing ourselves that our righteousness would please the Father apart from the Cross; for, to admit that Christ had to die on a Cross, is to admit our utter shame and disgusting sin that we bear.  We are repulsed by the Cross because we are repulsed by the idea that our sin is so graphic, so hideous, so monstrous, that the Son of God would have to be smitten for us.  But Christ endured the shame so that He might redeem those who look to the Cross as their only hope and He overcame this temptation for our sake.

Finally, Satan took Jesus to the pinnacle of the Temple and, again mocking His status as the Son of God, challenged Jesus to throw Himself down to the ground.  After all, Satan noted that the Scriptures promise in Psalm 91 that God will protect the righteous man in all his righteous ways.

“See what the Scriptures say,”  reasoned Satan, “God promises that His angels will not only break your fall, they will do more.  Very tenderly they will bear you up lest you, wearing only sandals, should hurt yourself by striking your foot against one of the sharp stones.”

Have you noticed Satan is actually providing a bit of truth here.  He’s correctly quoted the Scriptures and is “proof-texting” the Scriptures.

But Satan can only ape Truth.  He has no wisdom.  He’s a fool.  He has no spiritual discernment and so he mishandles Scripture like a clumsy, foolish teenager who just read some Richard Dawkins book.  How often, beloved, have you seen Atheists collect verses in a haphazard manner in a facile attempt to demonstrate that God contradicts Himself?  I believe this is a grave sin of infantile exegesis.  It is not the path of wisdom.  It is the way of heretics and unstable men.  Every heretic in Church history has claimed that they’re simply teaching what the Scriptures teach and I would caution you to closely examine a man and not simply follow him because he can vainly quote a few Scriptures.

If you look at this temptation, basically what Satan is telling Christ to do is to experiment with God’s promises.  He had to distrust God in order to do an experiment and, then, if it works out, God’s promise is true.

Christ responds by quoting Deuteronomy 6:16, which calls to mind the rebellion of the Israelites in Exodus 17:1-7 at a place called Massah and Meribah where they put God on trial and rebelled against Moses because they were thirsty.  They accused God before Moses of cruelly bringing out their families and livestock only to die in the desert and provocatively challenged God by saying:  “Is Jehovah among us or not?!”  The Israelites in the desert are pictured as unbelieving and rebellious throughout the Old Testament and, especially in Book of Hebrews, we are warned not to be distrustful and faithless as they.

Christ knows that Satan’s proposal has nothing to do with humbly trusting in the protecting care promised in Psalm 91 and so He answers that God is not to be tempted.

Life gives us plenty of examples of the kind of false confidence that is similar to what Satan urged on Jesus.  People will pray to God for the blessings of health and then be gluttons with food or drink.  A man will pray to God to save his soul but will neglect the very means of grace that God has given him:  study of the Scripture, church attendance, the Sacraments, and living to the glory of God.  Someone will plead with the Lord for the spiritual well-being of his children but will never take the time to pray with them, to catechize them, to discipline them, or to display a repentant spirit before them.  A man was once admonished for going into a peep show and defended himself by saying:  “I do not deny that I went in there but, all the while, I was constantly praying:  “Turn away my eyes from beholding vanity!”

You shall not put the Lord thy God to the test!

And so, having passed these tests, Satan left Christ.  Christ resisted the devil.  Christ overcame the Strong man and the Strong man was overcome.  Jesus used the Word as His weapon in all cases for in the Word is the truth.  The Word is truth and the Word became flesh to overcome the darkness that hated the light.

Now, the thing that really concerns me about such a passage is what I said before:  how you view this passage determines whether you understand the Gospel.  Is Christ merely the ultimate example for Godly living for you?  Did you strap on your What Would Jesus Do? bracelet as you were listening to this and vow that you would be “on fire” for God and overcome evil by trusting in God’s Word?

I remember listening to a Sermon on the Gospel once in horror as the Preacher proclaimed that he was going to get back to the basics of the Gospel and this was the Gospel he proclaimed:  Jesus came to be an example to us about how to live for God.

Beloved, if you believe that Christ is merely your example for holiness, then I fear you do not know the Gospel at all.  If Christ is just someone you aspire to be like then I fear you may be dead in your sins and trespasses.  The real question for you in this passage is not “What would Jesus do?” but “What has Jesus done?!”

We need to back up for a moment into Luke Chapter 3 and hear the Prophet John, a prophet of the Old Covenant, as he sees the people coming out to the banks of the Jordan to be baptized.

Listen to him as he prophecies about you:  “You brood of vipers!  Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  Bear fruits in keeping with repentance!”

Oh how the righteous man will simply turn away and say:  “I’m not a viper!  I’m a good person.  I devote myself to God!  I’m sold out for God!”

But the man who knows the Law and its perfect demand hears these words and they lay bear his sin.  The Law of God reveals God’s perfect requirements and awakens to sin and the curse of the Law for it.  Such a man heard these words  of John and beat his chest and said:  “You’re right!  I am a viper!  I have no right to come to these waters on my own merit.  I have no right to ask God yet again to forgive my sins.  I am hopeless and I don’t know what else to do so I repent of my sin and plead the mercy of God.  Cleanse my conscience from sin!”

I imagine the people were so overcome with grief that they didn’t even notice a man from Nazareth walk up.  There was nothing in His appearance that would cause them to turn their heads.  He was from a poor family in a despised region of Galilee.  Pay attention to what this Man is doing because none of the others noticed that their salvation was coming in a Man of no reputation.

He walked up to John and John knew better.  Jesus didn’t need to repent but He had to be baptized.  Beloved, in His baptism, Christ identified Himself with all those men and women desperate for the burden of their sin to be taken away.  He was of them in His baptism.  He came to represent all those who came with nothing in their hands as they cried out to the Lord for salvation from their sin.

Water can represent cleansing but it also represents judgement.  The New Testament says that Noah’s family was baptized in the ark and that Moses and the Israelites were baptized as they passed through the Red Sea on dry ground.  The wrath of God poured out in a flood on God’s enemies but the baptized received a sprinkling and were cleansed.

These people didn’t realize it at the time but they were getting a little wet while the Savior was baptized to identify with them and take on their judgment.   Even as God’s wrath was piled up in a heap as the sins of the people collected and offended a Holy God, Christ was baptized to say:  “I will take this wrath!  I will be the satisfaction.  I will be the sacrifice.”  Christ began His ministry with a baptism because He would be baptized with the full wrath of God on the Cross for His people.  He was clean while His own wer sinful.  His people became clean while He received the wrath for Sin that they deserved.

But, beloved, it doesn’t stop with His baptism.  You should have been leaning forward in anticipation as you read of His lonely walk into the desert.  We are at the waters edge.  Are they waters of judgment or of cleansing?  We look knowingly as Jesus walks alone into the desert and know we cannot follow Him into that temptation.  Will my Savior withstand temptation for me?  Will my Savior succeed?!   O God He must, I have no other hope for righteousness!

He did obey!  He is the righteous one!

Luke tells Theophilus that the purpose of this story was to provide certainty concerning the truths of the Gospel.  Do you desire the certainty that God intends good for you in the Gospel?  Are you weary and heavy laden by your sin?   How can God love someone who has sinned like me?!  You have no idea how wicked I am!  Nobody can sin like me and be a Christian!  Though I desire the good, I sin.  Though I tell myself “That’s the last time I sin like that!”, I fail yet again.  Who will deliver me from this body of death?!

A Savior, strong to save, walked alone into the desert because He knew we couldn’t follow.  He walked into that desert alone and bore the weight of temptation because of a consuming love for His own.   Beloved, believe the Gospel not because you have enough love for God to save yourself but because the Son of God had enough love for you to save you to the uttermost!