Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. (1 John 2:15 , ESV)
If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. (John 15:19, ESV)
It hurts when friends who are not believers turn against you. That’s just plain truth. I’ll never forget what happened to a lovely lady who turned to the Lord while she was living in Japan. She was the wife of a military man, stationed in the north of Honshu. She and her husband were headed for divorce and the family was being hurt. Young Christians visited her family to talk to her husband and her children about God. When this happened, she would be conveniently out of the room, but not out of earshot. A few months later, while I was preaching, her husband decided to be born again into Christ. A few minutes later, this lady came forward and asked to be baptized, too. She had found what she was looking for - the peace, the love and the joy that comes from knowing Jesus Christ. What happened later was striking, but all too familiar. This lady belonged to a bowling league and every week she went bowling with her friends. The next time she went, her friends asked her what she wanted to drink, beer or soda. She said no more beer, her life had changed and she had what she wanted now. (She was close to becoming an alcoholic before she turned to the Lord.) Her friends all teased her at the time, but that night, her very best friend called her on the phone. The friend asked, “What’s all this about you being baptized? Until you get over this, I’m not your friend anymore.”
That hurts. And when it happens, we are tempted to give up our faith. This Christian lady hadn’t been a Christian for more than a few days and Wham! Her best friend dumped her. I didn’t see her for a few months, but the next time I visited that military congregation, I saw amazing things. I saw this couple, once considering divorce, ministering to young military families, many who were reservists who had been called up near the end of the Viet Nam War, suddenly living in a strange land, far away from home. Many were from the deep South. And that was the greatest thrill of all. For you see, this wonderful lady was African American. She was spiritually serving the needs of these young couples who were struggling so hard. What a beautiful picture that has always been for me.
The world doesn’t know us; the world hates us. Why? Because the world doesn’t know the Messiah, the Annointed One. Those of us who know Him love Him. And because we love Him, the world hates us. He was hated without cause and this was the fulfillment of scripture. We are often hated without cause because we love the One Who was hated. Guilt by association. But that’s the kind of guilt we can deal with.
This world is temporary. Things are passing away. If you don’t believe it, just check some statistics on the fate of the globe. Despite all of the hype about global warming and our endangered environment, the truth is that our world is winding down. That’s exactly according to God’s own plan. Christians should understand this better than anyone else. Once sin came into the world, death came to everything, not just the humans. Death came to the world. When Jesus came, He died to redeem those who would turn to God and believe on the One and Only Son of God. Once He was resurrected, death for the earth was inevitable.
With that in mind, Christians are called to die to this world and the things of this world and live to Jesus Christ. We are not to be taken out of the world, except when it is our time to die, but we are to live in the world as light, as salt and as yeast. We are to spread the good news of Jesus to a dying world. We are to be the smell of life to dying humanity. But we are not to get caught up and love a world that is at most temporary. It’s passing away.
So when we are shunned, mistreated, or worse, let us remember that we live to serve the Master who died for the fallen human race. Only in dying can there be life. We must die to our selfish desires, our love of things, so that others might live. That’s what living life incarnadine is all about. It’s living our lives so that others can see the very marks of the nails of the Risen Jesus.
.jpg)
The Nagasaki Martyrs, 17th Century Japan
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Salvation and Obedience
And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation." (Acts 2:40, ESV)
Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages
but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith--
to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen. ( Romans 16:25-27, ESV)
There seems to be a lot of confusion in the Christian world about the relationship of faith to obedience to salvation. Much of this stems from an erroneous idea about whether or not men and women have free wills, the freedom to choose. You would think that from day one, that is, from the very beginning in the Garden of Eden, it would be self-evident that humans can choose good or evil. We can choose God or Satan. We can choose the spiritual or the material. And on and on it goes. Is there anything a person can do on his own to obtain salvation? If there is nothing for a person to do since God has already chosen those who are going to be saved and those who are going to be damned, then most of my Bible is superfluous.
How is it that so many good men and women became confused about faith and salvation and the role of obedience in all of this? Rather than point fingers, let’s look at the heart of the matter. If a person says that everything bringing about salvation was accomplished by the mission of Jesus to the earth, His living, His miracles and healings, His suffering and dying on the Cross and His wonderful resurrection, I would whole-heartedly agree. He did it all. What the Law of Moses could not achieve, He did. Ah, but there’s the problem. So many have totally confused works of the Law of Moses with the question of faith and salvation that they have completely missed the point. When Paul is contrasting the faith and works in Romans, he is talking about the Law of Moses. That’s why James is quick to point out that he would show his faith through his works and that faith without works was dead, being alone. That flies in the face of tons of Bible notes and commentaries written over the ages. Even Luther, though not daring to take James out of the Bible, relegated James to the very end of his.
Am I daring to say that humans can do something to accomplish their own salvation? In terms of what Jesus did, that is incongruous. But there is something that humans must do or else we cannot understand the Bible at all. What is the obedience of faith? Let’s take a good example from everyday life. If I need to lose weight and I hear of a terrific program for losing weight, that’s wonderful. But if I do nothing at all, I guarantee my weight will not change. I did not create the program. Someone did it all for me. But faith is action on my part to apply that to my life so that I can in fact lose some weight. Jesus did it all. Faith, obedient faith, is believing that Jesus has done it all and acting accordingly to bring that salvation to apply to my soul. He is the object of my faith. No object, no faith. No object, no love. I love Him because of what He did for me. I want to obey Him because I now love Him.
One of the most abused scriptures in the New Testament is Acts 2:38. Responding to the question of the Jews, "Brothers, what shall we do?", Peter replies "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself." (Acts 2:38-39,ESV) Peter has just finished delivering one of the most powerful sermons in history. He has convicted the Jews of killing the Christ, the Promised One. The people listening to the sermon are cut deeply by his words and believe they are totally lost, ready to be sent to the fires of hell. Without hesitation they respond, “What shall we do?” They might as well say, “What can we do?” They believe their situation is hopeless. Peter tells them that there are two things they must do. (For those Bible scholars who want to start quoting Greek to me, please cool your jets. The translation into English is correct and we will look at it from an English standpoint.) When you have the word “and” in English, usually you need to give equal weight to the two things that are mentioned. They asked, “what shall we do?” Do. Not believe. They already believe. They are convicted. Do, do, do. Action. Peter says there are two actions: repent (active on the part of the person) and be baptized (passive; the person is baptized by someone else.) Those two actions will result in two things, the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Peter then goes on to say that this double action, or these two actions will bring about the giving of these two gifts for everyone in the audience, for all of their children and for those who are far off (Gentiles), everyone whom the Lord God calls to Himself generation after generation, throughout the world.
Ah, you say, but there is the catch. Only those God calls are going to be saved. Oh, you missed a point somewhere along the way. Excuse me, I probably left out a very important part of the message. Jesus Himself tells us in John 6:44, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, 'And they will all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. . .” A good reading of the sixth chapter of John will clear up a lot of confusion about how one comes to God. Paul continues in Romans 10:13-15, For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!" Calling on the name of the Lord is another way of saying to respond in faith to the message of the gospel. Pure and simple.
Can a person be obedient to faith and thus be saved? I truly believe that is what the scriptures teach. Anything less is a very dangerous twisting of God’s word. Faith in Jesus demands my total obedience. If He is the great example of obedience, even to death on a cross, than who am I that I don’t need to be obedient? Dying to self is not passive, it’s active. When Christians learn to die to their worldly nature, they begin to understand the obedience that led Jesus to Calvary.
Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages
but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith--
to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen. ( Romans 16:25-27, ESV)
There seems to be a lot of confusion in the Christian world about the relationship of faith to obedience to salvation. Much of this stems from an erroneous idea about whether or not men and women have free wills, the freedom to choose. You would think that from day one, that is, from the very beginning in the Garden of Eden, it would be self-evident that humans can choose good or evil. We can choose God or Satan. We can choose the spiritual or the material. And on and on it goes. Is there anything a person can do on his own to obtain salvation? If there is nothing for a person to do since God has already chosen those who are going to be saved and those who are going to be damned, then most of my Bible is superfluous.
How is it that so many good men and women became confused about faith and salvation and the role of obedience in all of this? Rather than point fingers, let’s look at the heart of the matter. If a person says that everything bringing about salvation was accomplished by the mission of Jesus to the earth, His living, His miracles and healings, His suffering and dying on the Cross and His wonderful resurrection, I would whole-heartedly agree. He did it all. What the Law of Moses could not achieve, He did. Ah, but there’s the problem. So many have totally confused works of the Law of Moses with the question of faith and salvation that they have completely missed the point. When Paul is contrasting the faith and works in Romans, he is talking about the Law of Moses. That’s why James is quick to point out that he would show his faith through his works and that faith without works was dead, being alone. That flies in the face of tons of Bible notes and commentaries written over the ages. Even Luther, though not daring to take James out of the Bible, relegated James to the very end of his.
Am I daring to say that humans can do something to accomplish their own salvation? In terms of what Jesus did, that is incongruous. But there is something that humans must do or else we cannot understand the Bible at all. What is the obedience of faith? Let’s take a good example from everyday life. If I need to lose weight and I hear of a terrific program for losing weight, that’s wonderful. But if I do nothing at all, I guarantee my weight will not change. I did not create the program. Someone did it all for me. But faith is action on my part to apply that to my life so that I can in fact lose some weight. Jesus did it all. Faith, obedient faith, is believing that Jesus has done it all and acting accordingly to bring that salvation to apply to my soul. He is the object of my faith. No object, no faith. No object, no love. I love Him because of what He did for me. I want to obey Him because I now love Him.
One of the most abused scriptures in the New Testament is Acts 2:38. Responding to the question of the Jews, "Brothers, what shall we do?", Peter replies "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself." (Acts 2:38-39,ESV) Peter has just finished delivering one of the most powerful sermons in history. He has convicted the Jews of killing the Christ, the Promised One. The people listening to the sermon are cut deeply by his words and believe they are totally lost, ready to be sent to the fires of hell. Without hesitation they respond, “What shall we do?” They might as well say, “What can we do?” They believe their situation is hopeless. Peter tells them that there are two things they must do. (For those Bible scholars who want to start quoting Greek to me, please cool your jets. The translation into English is correct and we will look at it from an English standpoint.) When you have the word “and” in English, usually you need to give equal weight to the two things that are mentioned. They asked, “what shall we do?” Do. Not believe. They already believe. They are convicted. Do, do, do. Action. Peter says there are two actions: repent (active on the part of the person) and be baptized (passive; the person is baptized by someone else.) Those two actions will result in two things, the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Peter then goes on to say that this double action, or these two actions will bring about the giving of these two gifts for everyone in the audience, for all of their children and for those who are far off (Gentiles), everyone whom the Lord God calls to Himself generation after generation, throughout the world.
Ah, you say, but there is the catch. Only those God calls are going to be saved. Oh, you missed a point somewhere along the way. Excuse me, I probably left out a very important part of the message. Jesus Himself tells us in John 6:44, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, 'And they will all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. . .” A good reading of the sixth chapter of John will clear up a lot of confusion about how one comes to God. Paul continues in Romans 10:13-15, For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!" Calling on the name of the Lord is another way of saying to respond in faith to the message of the gospel. Pure and simple.
Can a person be obedient to faith and thus be saved? I truly believe that is what the scriptures teach. Anything less is a very dangerous twisting of God’s word. Faith in Jesus demands my total obedience. If He is the great example of obedience, even to death on a cross, than who am I that I don’t need to be obedient? Dying to self is not passive, it’s active. When Christians learn to die to their worldly nature, they begin to understand the obedience that led Jesus to Calvary.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Joy
Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. (Habakkuk 3:17-18, ESV)
. . . looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2, ESV)
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. (Romans 15:13)
If there is any one thing that should mark the Christian in such a way that the world is amazed by it, it should be a sense of joy. Joy is not the same thing as happiness. The world seeks for happiness. Every commercial on TV is aimed at bringing the consumer happiness if he or she will simply buy the latest product, follow the latest fad or indulge in the latest craze. Happiness is a word that is connected to “happenstance.” If something happens and I feel that I like it, I am happy. If something happens and I feel that I don’t like it, I feel bad. That’s happiness. Joy, on the other hand, has a far deeper meaning. If you are filled with joy, you can be compared to a tea kettle: you can still whistle, even when you are up to your neck in hot water. (That is not original with me; I heard it first when I was twelve years old, when I was attending a gospel meeting.) The prophet Habakkuk states it very clearly; joy does not depend on everything going my way. He paints a very dismal outlook, a landscape that smacks of famine. Even so, he says, he will still rejoice in the Lord. “I will take joy in the God of my salvation.” That doesn’t sound like happiness.
The Christian is a person who is filled with joy just knowing the Lord. Do you ever tell God that you love Him? We have a hard enough time telling our family members that we love them, let alone telling our Father in Heaven that we do. Can you just say, “Father, I love you. Jesus, I love you.” Did I forget to mention the Holy Spirit? Well, He’s busy interpreting everything we say to God into words that God can completely understand. He even does that with groaning, according to the writer of Romans. I have heard Christians groan and I have done a bit of that myself, to be honest. But my groans don’t begin to compare with the groans that the Holy Spirit utters on my behalf before the Father. Do you love God?
Can you love God when the world around you seems to be falling apart? Do you love Him when you lose your job or your house (more and more a reality these days)? Do you love Him when a loved one falls ill and life suddenly changes? Do you love Him when He takes a loved one from this earth? Those events don’t sound like the harbingers of happiness, do they? But we should be filled with joy. Why? Because Habakkuk says He is the God of our salvation. Habakkuk even says he will rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice means to have joy again. In Matthew, chapter 5, Jesus said this to His disciples: "Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5:11-12, ESV) I don’t know about you, but I find it very difficult to rejoice, to be filled with joy again, when people say terrible things about me. I have had people say nasty things about me because I am a Christian. I have mostly lived in areas of the world where being a Christian is not culturally acceptable. And this is increasingly the situation in North America. Even governments get in on the action. There are those in power who would like to strip preachers of the right to perform marriages or penalize them monetarily should the preachers refuse to perform weddings for same-sex couples. Cities pass by-laws prohibiting the building of new church buildings. We do not live in the blissful era of days gone by when Christianity was considered the major moral force for society.
Christians must learn to be filled with joy in every event, in every situation. It is when we learn, as Jesus did, to be obedient, even unto death, that we will begin to understand the cross. It is when we are willing to live our lives incarnadine, as though we were on our way to execution, that the message of the cross and our Savior Jesus Christ will shine so brightly that the world will be utterly amazed. If first century Christians were accused of “turning the world upside down,” it is because they were willing to die for what they believed. And they counted it all joy to do so. Are we up to the test? Where will we stand? A dying world needs to hear a living message, the sweet news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the One who died for everyone in the world.
yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. (Habakkuk 3:17-18, ESV)
. . . looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2, ESV)
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. (Romans 15:13)
If there is any one thing that should mark the Christian in such a way that the world is amazed by it, it should be a sense of joy. Joy is not the same thing as happiness. The world seeks for happiness. Every commercial on TV is aimed at bringing the consumer happiness if he or she will simply buy the latest product, follow the latest fad or indulge in the latest craze. Happiness is a word that is connected to “happenstance.” If something happens and I feel that I like it, I am happy. If something happens and I feel that I don’t like it, I feel bad. That’s happiness. Joy, on the other hand, has a far deeper meaning. If you are filled with joy, you can be compared to a tea kettle: you can still whistle, even when you are up to your neck in hot water. (That is not original with me; I heard it first when I was twelve years old, when I was attending a gospel meeting.) The prophet Habakkuk states it very clearly; joy does not depend on everything going my way. He paints a very dismal outlook, a landscape that smacks of famine. Even so, he says, he will still rejoice in the Lord. “I will take joy in the God of my salvation.” That doesn’t sound like happiness.
The Christian is a person who is filled with joy just knowing the Lord. Do you ever tell God that you love Him? We have a hard enough time telling our family members that we love them, let alone telling our Father in Heaven that we do. Can you just say, “Father, I love you. Jesus, I love you.” Did I forget to mention the Holy Spirit? Well, He’s busy interpreting everything we say to God into words that God can completely understand. He even does that with groaning, according to the writer of Romans. I have heard Christians groan and I have done a bit of that myself, to be honest. But my groans don’t begin to compare with the groans that the Holy Spirit utters on my behalf before the Father. Do you love God?
Can you love God when the world around you seems to be falling apart? Do you love Him when you lose your job or your house (more and more a reality these days)? Do you love Him when a loved one falls ill and life suddenly changes? Do you love Him when He takes a loved one from this earth? Those events don’t sound like the harbingers of happiness, do they? But we should be filled with joy. Why? Because Habakkuk says He is the God of our salvation. Habakkuk even says he will rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice means to have joy again. In Matthew, chapter 5, Jesus said this to His disciples: "Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5:11-12, ESV) I don’t know about you, but I find it very difficult to rejoice, to be filled with joy again, when people say terrible things about me. I have had people say nasty things about me because I am a Christian. I have mostly lived in areas of the world where being a Christian is not culturally acceptable. And this is increasingly the situation in North America. Even governments get in on the action. There are those in power who would like to strip preachers of the right to perform marriages or penalize them monetarily should the preachers refuse to perform weddings for same-sex couples. Cities pass by-laws prohibiting the building of new church buildings. We do not live in the blissful era of days gone by when Christianity was considered the major moral force for society.
Christians must learn to be filled with joy in every event, in every situation. It is when we learn, as Jesus did, to be obedient, even unto death, that we will begin to understand the cross. It is when we are willing to live our lives incarnadine, as though we were on our way to execution, that the message of the cross and our Savior Jesus Christ will shine so brightly that the world will be utterly amazed. If first century Christians were accused of “turning the world upside down,” it is because they were willing to die for what they believed. And they counted it all joy to do so. Are we up to the test? Where will we stand? A dying world needs to hear a living message, the sweet news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the One who died for everyone in the world.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)