Scripture: John 9:13-34
This past week, I had a conversation with several folks that seemed to indicate that there may be some misunderstanding regarding what Salvation is, and what it isn’t. As we talked further, I was lead to consider a different approach for my sermons in these final few weeks of Lent. For the next 4 weeks, we will be considering the question – “How do I know if I’m truly saved?”
We know that salvation comes by faith in Jesus Christ, and not by the many good things that we do. And yet, how many see their attendance at worship on Sunday, and their involvement in the things of church, as their pathway to heaven? The truth is that these things are works, too, and must be seen as our response to salvation, and not a means to it. We need to have our spiritual vision renewed.
Read John 9:13-16
The man had been blind from birth and Jesus had given him sight. But the only thing that the Pharisees could see was that their interpretation of what it meant to keep the Sabbath had been violated. Who was the one that was really blind – the man who had been healed, or the ones who considered themselves righteous?
Spiritual sight is in a class that is totally different from human sight.
Remember the story about Peter and the others who were out on the lake in the middle of a storm? Jesus wasn’t with them, but shortly, He came to them, walking on the water. At first, no one recognized Him, but when He announced that it really was Him, Peter calls out “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water.” An interesting response, as Peter had absolutely no idea how this was going to happen. And Jesus calls back to him - “Come!”
In faith, Peter steps out of the boat and begins to walk toward Jesus - on the water! And as long as he stays focused on the Lord, he does incredibly well. But it doesn’t take very many steps before his gaze is no longer on Christ, and it shifts to the storm and the wind and the towering waves. For a few exciting moments, his eyes are totally on Jesus and he is safe, but as soon as the storms of earth catch his attention, as soon as he no longer puts his whole life and hope in Christ, he reverts to the power of earth, and he begins to sink. And Jesus’ response? “Oh you of little faith!” (Matthew 14:22-33) Peter lost his “Jesus eyes”, if only for a second, but that was long enough and he was lost.
The Pharisees had worldly eyes, and because of that, they had put their entire lives into the law, and the vast majority of them steadfastly refused to surrender that view.
Read John 9:17-24
They wouldn’t believe the man, so they called for his parents. And his mother and father would only testify to the fact that yes, this was their son, and he had, indeed, been born blind. But they didn’t have “Jesus Eyes”, either – they didn’t know the Lord. It is true that our only witness is that which we have experienced, and the parents hadn’t come to know Christ yet. But the Pharisees had been following Jesus around for quite some time, and they had seen the things that Jesus had done, and had heard the things that Jesus proclaimed, and even then, in their blindness, they couldn’t see to believe.
But the man who had been blind could see, and he had experienced, and he did believe.
Read John 9:24-27
And out of the mouth of babes! The Pharisees readily admit that they follow the memory of a mere man, a man who had been as fallible as they were, a man who was even more sinful than they were. They knew that God spoke to Moses, but when it came to Jesus, they simply couldn’t believe that He was the Word of God.
But the man who had received his sight could see with incredible clarity. And he knows for certain that Christ is of God Himself, and chastises the learned for not believing. Now those are “Jesus Eyes”! No doubt, no hesitation, no waffling whatsoever!
Back to Peter. Some days, Peter’s sight was wonderful, like the day he readily proclaimed that Jesus was the Christ, the Anointed One of God. (Matthew 16:13-20) But other days, the man really struggled. Like the night when Jesus was arrested and Peter, the “rock”, not only fell asleep while he was praying in the garden (Matthew 26:36-46), but he also publicly denied even knowing Jesus 3 times. (John 18:13-18; 25-27) One day he had the Eyes, the next they were closed tightly.
Read John 9:28-34
The man had received, not only physical sight, but spiritual sight. And he knew for certain who this miracle worker was. One minute he was just another blind beggar, and the next, he was publicly proclaiming that Jesus was the Man of God. Regardless of the attitudes of the others, even though his parents couldn’t back him up, he knew that Jesus had done something wonderful in his life, and that his life had completely changed, and he would never turn his back on this Savior.
Zan W. Holmes, Jr., tells the story of a college professor who met a South Korean tailor in Seoul. The tailor’s name was Smitty Lee. When Dr. McClain asked whether the name 'Smitty' was Korean, the tailor told the story of his life being saved during the Korean War by an American soldier from Virginia who was called Smitty Ransom.
The tailor further explained a rather familiar custom in that Asian culture, and summed it up in two simple sentences: 'He saved my life. I took his name.' That is indeed what happens when we encounter Jesus; he saves our lives, and we take his name.
--Holmes, Encountering Jesus (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992), 18-19.
The man who had been blind had, in essence, taken the name of the One who had not only restored his vision of earth, but who had also placed in him a vision of glory.
And what about Peter? Even though he had taken his eyes off Jesus time and time again, Jesus never took His eyes off Peter. And on that night, when the Risen Lord called out to the fishermen to join Him for breakfast on the beach, Peter regained his Eyes. 3 times, Jesus asked the disciple if he truly loved his Lord, and each time Peter replied that he did with his whole heart. And later, on that Pentecostal morning, when Peter began to preach like he had never preached before, those new “eyes”, and new “heart”, and new “life” never failed him. He reminded the people of the words of Joel – “That whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” And that day, 3,000 people did call on the name of the Lord, and every one of them was saved. (Acts 2:14-41) New “Eyes”!
Two fellows opened a butcher shop and they did very well. Then an evangelist came to town, and one of the butchers went to the revival and was saved. He tried to persuade his partner to accept salvation also, but to no avail. “Why won’t you, Charlie?” asked the born-again fellow.
“Listen, Lester,” the other butcher said. “If I get religion, too, who’s going to weigh the meat?”
- Homiletics On Line.
The blind man had to put all that he knew about life and his lack of sight behind him, and came to trust completely in the new sight, the new vision that Jesus had given him. Peter had to surrender his doubts and arrogance and crudeness and worldly life, and to pick up the glorious life that allowed him to love the Lord with his entire being.
And we, too, must open up our “Jesus Eyes”, and give him our trust and faith and life. That butcher had it right – if he had accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior, he would never have been able to cheat his customers again. That’s what surrendering to Jesus is all about – it requires a complete change in the things we do, and the things we say, and the things we think about, and the things we focus on, and the things we stand for. It means that we have to surrender our earthly vision, and begin to see everything in a new way – through eyes that can only come from Jesus.
“Jesus Eyes” – are you able to keep yours wide open, or do you find that you are closing them more times than not? We can only serve our Lord Jesus when they are open. Open them today, and see your Lord in a new and powerful way.
This must be the first step in our journey toward Salvation. "Prepare the way for the Lord"! (Isaiah 40)
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
“Righteousness In Faith, Not Works”
Scripture: Romans 4:1-8
One of the major stumbling blocks of the 1st century church was the issue of circumcision. For Israel, it was an absolute. If you were a Jewish male, on the 8th day after you were birth, you were “under the knife”. If you weren’t Jewish but desired to become one, you too had to be circumcised, regardless of your age! We have to remember that initially, until about 70 AD or so, Christianity was still a part of Judaism and this teaching on circumcision, so deeply rooted in the Jewish faith, seemed to be working its way into Christian teachings. And the Gentiles, at least the men, weren’t all that happy about it, but they were doing it just the same, and they saw it as an expression of faith.
But Paul, who would describe himself as a Hebrew of Hebrews, of the Tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee in the law, and filled with zeal and legal righteousness (Philippians 3:4-6),
was now seeing this issue in a different light. In Romans 2:28-29, he writes that circumcision can no more make a man Jewish than the lack thereof can make you an unbeliever. He tells the church that it is our inward cleansing, our “circumcision of the heart”, that pleases God, and not our outward appearance.
And he prefaces our passage for today by telling the church that it is our faith that justifies us before the Lord, not the law, but that faith does not free us from law, it fulfills it.
Read Romans 4:1-3
“If Abraham had been justified by works, he had something to boast about, but not before God.” And this doesn’t only apply to circumcision – it applies to all good works. If the things that we do could be our justification before God, then we would be able to boast about them, and compare our lives to those of others, and we could be ranked as insufficient, marginal, fair, good, or maybe even blessed.
But justification by faith eliminates any possibility of our being better, or worse for that matter, than any brother or sister, and gives us absolutely nothing that we can point to in pride.
The reference to Abraham’s righteousness is found in Genesis 15:5-8. God then directs Abram to set up a sacrificial path, and God passes through it. The significance is this – when a covenant was established between a conqueror and a conquered people, animals were sacrificed, laid down in parallel rows, and both the new ruler and the people would pass between the sacrifices. This signified that if the covenant was broken, the offending party would suffer the same fate as the animals. But in the instance involving Abram, only God passed through, so if the covenant was broken, only God would be required to pay the penalty. Think about that for a moment – God would pay the penalty, even if we - even when we - break the covenant.
And Abram could never point to himself as either the faithful one, or the one who dutifully paid the penalty for failure. Not a single opportunity, not even one, to claim his own goodness or to prove his own righteousness.
Read Romans 4:4-5
We can’t compare our secular life with our spiritual life. Each has a totally different focus and a totally different impact. Our secular efforts create a debt that our employer then owes to us, and we are compensated through our wages. But a spiritual life in faith creates no debt, no obligation, but rather is simply recognized through God’s granting of His righteousness to us. Our work must justify our pay, and in this, we are seen as a good employee. But by faith, there is no reference to ourselves – only to God, and He will justify regardless of whether we are good or not – he only looks for faith. “God who justifies the wicked” is how Paul puts it – faith does not make us good in the eyes of God, because we can never be that good. Romans 5:8 – “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Justification, our validation as Christ’s own, doesn’t make us perfect – in faith, we are justified in Christ right where we are.
But this is not to be construed as meaning that works have no purpose and that we don’t need to work in faith.
Andrew Lincoln, in his commentary on Ephesians, writes “So good works are not the source but the goal of the new relationship between humanity and God. Salvation is not by works but for works. “
--Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians: Volume 42, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word Books, 1990), 114.
Paul is simply saying that works, of and by itself, are of worth only to the worker and never to God. But faith is of great value to both the individual and God!
Read Romans 4:6-8
Justification by faith is not the process that corrects our sinful ways – we are still sinful beings even in faith. Faith actually eliminates the debt that sin creates in us completely – it is gone from our lives. Faith does not make us perfect, but it allows us to stand before the throne of God just as if we were perfect – just as if we had never, ever, no way, no how, not once, committed a single, miniscule sinful act!
How could our human efforts, no matter how good and thorough they might be, ever accomplish that? Our abilities are feeble, our efforts are inadequate, our vision is clouded, and left to our own devices, we could never stand before God with confidence in our salvation.
And God has always known that. And so, God Incarnate, Christ in the flesh, came to earth and paid the penalty for our sinfulness, and now the only thing we can possibly do is to accept Him as our substitute – as the only one who could successfully bring about our salvation.
And so, where does that leave us? If we stand on our own works, it leaves us out in the cold, in the dark, all alone, wondering why we are unable to pick our foot up to take that walk that leads us inside. But if we stand with Christ, if we let go of our own accomplishments, if we take just one step in faith, we’ll find ourselves, not only on the inside, but as a beloved guest at the most glorious happening of all time and beyond all time.
Have you taken that step of faith?
Have you surrendered yourself to Almighty God?
Have you come to Him for forgiveness for your wholly inadequate life?
Have you admitted that your efforts can’t even come close to repairing the damage in your relationship?
Have you looked to the only one who can?
If you have never claimed Christ as your Lord and Savior, as the one who has redeemed you from your sin, as the one who has already paid the penalty for your failures, if you have never confessed Jesus as the only one who can bring righteousness into your life, or even if you have forgotten the time when you did, then today is the day when you can. During our last hymn today, as our brothers and sisters sing “I Know Whom I Have Believed”, and if you believe that this is the day when you are to take that one great step of faith, I want you to come forward and together, you and I, will join together in claiming before God, that you give your hope, your dreams, your sins, your life to Christ.
Come, not because you are worthy, not because you are able, but because you believe.
One of the major stumbling blocks of the 1st century church was the issue of circumcision. For Israel, it was an absolute. If you were a Jewish male, on the 8th day after you were birth, you were “under the knife”. If you weren’t Jewish but desired to become one, you too had to be circumcised, regardless of your age! We have to remember that initially, until about 70 AD or so, Christianity was still a part of Judaism and this teaching on circumcision, so deeply rooted in the Jewish faith, seemed to be working its way into Christian teachings. And the Gentiles, at least the men, weren’t all that happy about it, but they were doing it just the same, and they saw it as an expression of faith.
But Paul, who would describe himself as a Hebrew of Hebrews, of the Tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee in the law, and filled with zeal and legal righteousness (Philippians 3:4-6),
was now seeing this issue in a different light. In Romans 2:28-29, he writes that circumcision can no more make a man Jewish than the lack thereof can make you an unbeliever. He tells the church that it is our inward cleansing, our “circumcision of the heart”, that pleases God, and not our outward appearance.
And he prefaces our passage for today by telling the church that it is our faith that justifies us before the Lord, not the law, but that faith does not free us from law, it fulfills it.
Read Romans 4:1-3
“If Abraham had been justified by works, he had something to boast about, but not before God.” And this doesn’t only apply to circumcision – it applies to all good works. If the things that we do could be our justification before God, then we would be able to boast about them, and compare our lives to those of others, and we could be ranked as insufficient, marginal, fair, good, or maybe even blessed.
But justification by faith eliminates any possibility of our being better, or worse for that matter, than any brother or sister, and gives us absolutely nothing that we can point to in pride.
The reference to Abraham’s righteousness is found in Genesis 15:5-8. God then directs Abram to set up a sacrificial path, and God passes through it. The significance is this – when a covenant was established between a conqueror and a conquered people, animals were sacrificed, laid down in parallel rows, and both the new ruler and the people would pass between the sacrifices. This signified that if the covenant was broken, the offending party would suffer the same fate as the animals. But in the instance involving Abram, only God passed through, so if the covenant was broken, only God would be required to pay the penalty. Think about that for a moment – God would pay the penalty, even if we - even when we - break the covenant.
And Abram could never point to himself as either the faithful one, or the one who dutifully paid the penalty for failure. Not a single opportunity, not even one, to claim his own goodness or to prove his own righteousness.
Read Romans 4:4-5
We can’t compare our secular life with our spiritual life. Each has a totally different focus and a totally different impact. Our secular efforts create a debt that our employer then owes to us, and we are compensated through our wages. But a spiritual life in faith creates no debt, no obligation, but rather is simply recognized through God’s granting of His righteousness to us. Our work must justify our pay, and in this, we are seen as a good employee. But by faith, there is no reference to ourselves – only to God, and He will justify regardless of whether we are good or not – he only looks for faith. “God who justifies the wicked” is how Paul puts it – faith does not make us good in the eyes of God, because we can never be that good. Romans 5:8 – “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Justification, our validation as Christ’s own, doesn’t make us perfect – in faith, we are justified in Christ right where we are.
But this is not to be construed as meaning that works have no purpose and that we don’t need to work in faith.
Andrew Lincoln, in his commentary on Ephesians, writes “So good works are not the source but the goal of the new relationship between humanity and God. Salvation is not by works but for works. “
--Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians: Volume 42, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word Books, 1990), 114.
Paul is simply saying that works, of and by itself, are of worth only to the worker and never to God. But faith is of great value to both the individual and God!
Read Romans 4:6-8
Justification by faith is not the process that corrects our sinful ways – we are still sinful beings even in faith. Faith actually eliminates the debt that sin creates in us completely – it is gone from our lives. Faith does not make us perfect, but it allows us to stand before the throne of God just as if we were perfect – just as if we had never, ever, no way, no how, not once, committed a single, miniscule sinful act!
How could our human efforts, no matter how good and thorough they might be, ever accomplish that? Our abilities are feeble, our efforts are inadequate, our vision is clouded, and left to our own devices, we could never stand before God with confidence in our salvation.
And God has always known that. And so, God Incarnate, Christ in the flesh, came to earth and paid the penalty for our sinfulness, and now the only thing we can possibly do is to accept Him as our substitute – as the only one who could successfully bring about our salvation.
And so, where does that leave us? If we stand on our own works, it leaves us out in the cold, in the dark, all alone, wondering why we are unable to pick our foot up to take that walk that leads us inside. But if we stand with Christ, if we let go of our own accomplishments, if we take just one step in faith, we’ll find ourselves, not only on the inside, but as a beloved guest at the most glorious happening of all time and beyond all time.
Have you taken that step of faith?
Have you surrendered yourself to Almighty God?
Have you come to Him for forgiveness for your wholly inadequate life?
Have you admitted that your efforts can’t even come close to repairing the damage in your relationship?
Have you looked to the only one who can?
If you have never claimed Christ as your Lord and Savior, as the one who has redeemed you from your sin, as the one who has already paid the penalty for your failures, if you have never confessed Jesus as the only one who can bring righteousness into your life, or even if you have forgotten the time when you did, then today is the day when you can. During our last hymn today, as our brothers and sisters sing “I Know Whom I Have Believed”, and if you believe that this is the day when you are to take that one great step of faith, I want you to come forward and together, you and I, will join together in claiming before God, that you give your hope, your dreams, your sins, your life to Christ.
Come, not because you are worthy, not because you are able, but because you believe.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
“Birth and Life Forever!”
Scripture: 1 Peter 1:22 - 2:3
Lent is the time of year when we reflect on our lives – we consider the things we have done and the things we have not done, the decisions that have glorified God and those that have not. If we are completely honest with ourselves, the “nots” will far outweigh the “haves”, and that is what we must confront in this time of preparation before Easter.
But before we try to make any commitment to bring about a significant change in our lives, we must first consider the “why’s” of our condition. Why are we leaving things undone? Why are we not glorifying God in all that our life stands for? Why are we falling short in our faith walk?
And if we continue to be honest in our self examination, we will quickly discover that our “faith walk” is falling short because our faith has fallen short!
Buell Kazee wrote:
God is not trying so much to produce works in us as He is to produce faith in us. The Lord does not want to show the world so much how we can work; He wants to show how we can believe ... it is a glorifying faith that God wants in us. Certainly glorifying works will be the fruit of the glorifying faith, but the tree must come first ...
--Balladeer and storyteller Buell Kazee, Faith Is the Victory, (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, 1983).
“.. glorifying works will be the fruit of the glorifying faith, but the “tree” must come first..”. Think about that image for just a minute - faith as a tree – solid and strong at its root, tall and majestic in its trunk, and spreading its limbs wide to encompass and shelter all who seek refuge within it. That is the kind of faith that we all need to have – strong, tall, and sheltering!
Read 1 Peter 1:22-25
And if we are to get to that strong, majestic, sheltering kind of faith, we need to be nourished in the truth of Christ. Have you even seen a tree that was growing on the top of a mountain, or even in a split in a rock shelf? They are stunted, no strength, no spreading limbs, very little root. Every time the wind attacks, the tree is on the verge of being torn away. Yes, it’s true that the tree will adapt to its environment and it just may survive for many years, but it will never provide much lumber, or shade, or protection, and it will never grow to be as purposeful as the one that is firmly planted in good soil.
The tree that has good roots will produce countless seeds every year, and will bring about new growth, and in time, will grow to become an entire forest. The fruit of “glorifying faith” grows and spreads just like that.
Paul also talks about the seed of faith being imperishable. Those new sprouts can never grow if the seed dies before it can take root. They can’t be diseased, they can’t be damaged, they can’t be sown on a stone. New trees, new babies, and new faith must be nourished until it becomes strong for itself.
A woman at our other church is going to give birth to a baby this week. She can’t wait, for a number of reasons (!), to meet that new life. He has been growing and maturing inside of her for many months now, in safety, receiving nutrients and other life sustaining help from his Mom, and the time is nearly here for him to immerge into the world. But this isn’t the end of Mom’s job! It will continue, in various forms, for many years to come.
As you know, our youngest son lives in the Seattle area. This week, with the news of the tsunami that had raced across the Pacific to strike the west coast, my wife called our son on Friday morning to see how they were doing. His comment to her was “You’re doing your motherly thing, aren’t you!” Nate’s 31 years old, and Mom is still nurturing him. And that is good.
Throughout scripture, we are given this image of being born anew – of allowing the old self to die so that the “new” can come into being – but the emphasis is almost always on “birth” and seldom on the “nurturing”. But in this regard, spiritual rebirth is no different than human birth. We look for the birth, but the nurturing must be a slow, continuous, intention, and not always glamorous, effort. But I want to tell you that when we encourage a person to come to Christ, to allow the Lord to create a new being in them, that we also have the obligation to continue to encourage them, to help them to grow stronger in the faith, to come to know the fullness of the truth of the gospel message, to walk with them until they become strong enough to live in faith for themselves.
“..the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.” Wonderful words, but they will remain just words if we ignore our obligation. If we aren’t intentional in our efforts to see that others become planted firmly in the word of the Lord, they, too, just may wither and fall away.
Read 1 Peter 2:1-3
And these are the things that will cause us to wither and fall in our walk – malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, slander. No one would ever lean toward these things intentionally, or almost no one, but it still happens. We are studying, and learning, and growing, but one day, we suddenly discover that the things that we thought we wanted in life were no longer important, and without even realizing it, faith has been transplanted by something of the world. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote “If you could prove God to me, I would believe in him all the less.” – All The Less! That’s what comes from impure seed and distorted growth.
From an anonymous writer:
There are some churches that attempt to shine a faint and fractured penlight of brightness out into the darkness by proclaiming “We Want to Be Your Friend” or “We Make Friends” or “This Is a Warm, Friendly Fellowship”. These congregations are often surprised when this faded message fails to draw others in out of the dark.
But it's that very message that is the problem! Friendship is not what people are looking for in a church; they're not looking for friendliness; they're not looking for friends. This culture would have the church adopt as its mission “We Make You Happy”. But the mission of the church is not to make people happy, or even to help people feel good about themselves. It is to glorify God and to be an earnest of eternity.
-- Unknown Author --
Paul talks about the new born craving spiritual milk – the teaching that advocates the “feel good gospel” is comparable to feeding the “newly born” polluted water! No nourishment, no sustenance, no real hope.
So who is responsible to see to it that the church is being fed good, spiritual milk, and not polluted water? My friends, you and I are the only ones who can do that! If the church is to move forward in faith, if new Christians are to be brought to Christ, if the teaching is to be true, if the nourishment is to be good, we cannot sit back and proclaim “Oh well, God will take care of it, He’ll sort it all out in the end.” It’s true that He will, but we can’t be complacent in our approach to the Judgment Day – not if we want to hear the words “good and faithful servant”.
Our new birth, the promise that we have received for eternal life, is not for us alone! It has been given to us so that we can carry that message of great hope to others who have yet to claim the promise for themselves. Nietzsche may have drank deeply from the world’s tainted water supply, and as a result, came to proclaim the fallacy of God, but there are others out there who are still craving good spiritual milk. And without it, they, too, will wither on the vine.
That baby is going to immerge hungry, and his loving Mom will want to give him the very best that she can. When we experience the spiritual rebirth of a friend, can we want any less for them?
As with any new birth, it is never without struggle to some degree. But when the process is complete, the joy will overwhelm the soul. The new being is incredibly beautiful, the future is full of promise, the fruit of new birth is rich and plentiful, and the message continues to spread.
“Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.”
New birth is a change for the better, new life in Christ is a change forever. Praise the Lord!
Lent is the time of year when we reflect on our lives – we consider the things we have done and the things we have not done, the decisions that have glorified God and those that have not. If we are completely honest with ourselves, the “nots” will far outweigh the “haves”, and that is what we must confront in this time of preparation before Easter.
But before we try to make any commitment to bring about a significant change in our lives, we must first consider the “why’s” of our condition. Why are we leaving things undone? Why are we not glorifying God in all that our life stands for? Why are we falling short in our faith walk?
And if we continue to be honest in our self examination, we will quickly discover that our “faith walk” is falling short because our faith has fallen short!
Buell Kazee wrote:
God is not trying so much to produce works in us as He is to produce faith in us. The Lord does not want to show the world so much how we can work; He wants to show how we can believe ... it is a glorifying faith that God wants in us. Certainly glorifying works will be the fruit of the glorifying faith, but the tree must come first ...
--Balladeer and storyteller Buell Kazee, Faith Is the Victory, (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, 1983).
“.. glorifying works will be the fruit of the glorifying faith, but the “tree” must come first..”. Think about that image for just a minute - faith as a tree – solid and strong at its root, tall and majestic in its trunk, and spreading its limbs wide to encompass and shelter all who seek refuge within it. That is the kind of faith that we all need to have – strong, tall, and sheltering!
Read 1 Peter 1:22-25
And if we are to get to that strong, majestic, sheltering kind of faith, we need to be nourished in the truth of Christ. Have you even seen a tree that was growing on the top of a mountain, or even in a split in a rock shelf? They are stunted, no strength, no spreading limbs, very little root. Every time the wind attacks, the tree is on the verge of being torn away. Yes, it’s true that the tree will adapt to its environment and it just may survive for many years, but it will never provide much lumber, or shade, or protection, and it will never grow to be as purposeful as the one that is firmly planted in good soil.
The tree that has good roots will produce countless seeds every year, and will bring about new growth, and in time, will grow to become an entire forest. The fruit of “glorifying faith” grows and spreads just like that.
Paul also talks about the seed of faith being imperishable. Those new sprouts can never grow if the seed dies before it can take root. They can’t be diseased, they can’t be damaged, they can’t be sown on a stone. New trees, new babies, and new faith must be nourished until it becomes strong for itself.
A woman at our other church is going to give birth to a baby this week. She can’t wait, for a number of reasons (!), to meet that new life. He has been growing and maturing inside of her for many months now, in safety, receiving nutrients and other life sustaining help from his Mom, and the time is nearly here for him to immerge into the world. But this isn’t the end of Mom’s job! It will continue, in various forms, for many years to come.
As you know, our youngest son lives in the Seattle area. This week, with the news of the tsunami that had raced across the Pacific to strike the west coast, my wife called our son on Friday morning to see how they were doing. His comment to her was “You’re doing your motherly thing, aren’t you!” Nate’s 31 years old, and Mom is still nurturing him. And that is good.
Throughout scripture, we are given this image of being born anew – of allowing the old self to die so that the “new” can come into being – but the emphasis is almost always on “birth” and seldom on the “nurturing”. But in this regard, spiritual rebirth is no different than human birth. We look for the birth, but the nurturing must be a slow, continuous, intention, and not always glamorous, effort. But I want to tell you that when we encourage a person to come to Christ, to allow the Lord to create a new being in them, that we also have the obligation to continue to encourage them, to help them to grow stronger in the faith, to come to know the fullness of the truth of the gospel message, to walk with them until they become strong enough to live in faith for themselves.
“..the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.” Wonderful words, but they will remain just words if we ignore our obligation. If we aren’t intentional in our efforts to see that others become planted firmly in the word of the Lord, they, too, just may wither and fall away.
Read 1 Peter 2:1-3
And these are the things that will cause us to wither and fall in our walk – malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, slander. No one would ever lean toward these things intentionally, or almost no one, but it still happens. We are studying, and learning, and growing, but one day, we suddenly discover that the things that we thought we wanted in life were no longer important, and without even realizing it, faith has been transplanted by something of the world. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote “If you could prove God to me, I would believe in him all the less.” – All The Less! That’s what comes from impure seed and distorted growth.
From an anonymous writer:
There are some churches that attempt to shine a faint and fractured penlight of brightness out into the darkness by proclaiming “We Want to Be Your Friend” or “We Make Friends” or “This Is a Warm, Friendly Fellowship”. These congregations are often surprised when this faded message fails to draw others in out of the dark.
But it's that very message that is the problem! Friendship is not what people are looking for in a church; they're not looking for friendliness; they're not looking for friends. This culture would have the church adopt as its mission “We Make You Happy”. But the mission of the church is not to make people happy, or even to help people feel good about themselves. It is to glorify God and to be an earnest of eternity.
-- Unknown Author --
Paul talks about the new born craving spiritual milk – the teaching that advocates the “feel good gospel” is comparable to feeding the “newly born” polluted water! No nourishment, no sustenance, no real hope.
So who is responsible to see to it that the church is being fed good, spiritual milk, and not polluted water? My friends, you and I are the only ones who can do that! If the church is to move forward in faith, if new Christians are to be brought to Christ, if the teaching is to be true, if the nourishment is to be good, we cannot sit back and proclaim “Oh well, God will take care of it, He’ll sort it all out in the end.” It’s true that He will, but we can’t be complacent in our approach to the Judgment Day – not if we want to hear the words “good and faithful servant”.
Our new birth, the promise that we have received for eternal life, is not for us alone! It has been given to us so that we can carry that message of great hope to others who have yet to claim the promise for themselves. Nietzsche may have drank deeply from the world’s tainted water supply, and as a result, came to proclaim the fallacy of God, but there are others out there who are still craving good spiritual milk. And without it, they, too, will wither on the vine.
That baby is going to immerge hungry, and his loving Mom will want to give him the very best that she can. When we experience the spiritual rebirth of a friend, can we want any less for them?
As with any new birth, it is never without struggle to some degree. But when the process is complete, the joy will overwhelm the soul. The new being is incredibly beautiful, the future is full of promise, the fruit of new birth is rich and plentiful, and the message continues to spread.
“Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.”
New birth is a change for the better, new life in Christ is a change forever. Praise the Lord!
Sunday, March 6, 2011
“The Power of the Gospel”
Scripture: 2 Peter 1:12-21
The human mind is a truly marvelous thing. Even though it doesn’t work as fast as a super computer, it can still process information at an incredible speed – approximately 100 trillion instructions per second! And, according to the internet, while the human brain is calculating a math problem, it is also working, subconsciously, to process data from millions of nerve cells that handle the visual input of the paper and surrounding area, receive the audio input from both ears, and analyze the sensory input of millions of cells throughout the body. The brain is also regulating the heartbeat, monitoring oxygen levels, considering hunger and thirst requirements and deciding wheither you want to keep working or take a "snack break", breathing patterns and hundreds of other essential factors throughout the body, and simultaneously comparing data from the eyes and the sensory cells in the arms and hands to keep track of the position of the pen and paper as the calculation is being performed.
http://www.disabled-world.com/artman/publish/brain-facts.shtml
The human mind may be a bit slower than a super computer in actually making calculations, but it also has to monitor and regulate the rest of our body at the same time. However, the greatest differences in the 2 systems is this – the human mind provides us with the ability to reason, to consider abstract concepts, and to act on the information that we are constantly accumulating. Computers can’t even come close to doing all of this. At least, not yet!
We need to understand the information that we have, and not just accumulate more of it.
Read 2 Peter 1:12-15
One problem that we do have is the retention of information - our memory - and our reasoning can also become tainted by all of the information that we have collected and have processed incorrectly! But all in all, if we can just remember the important things, we can do wonderful things.
That is why Peter is so intentional in repeating those important things over and over.
Constance Vanides wrties:
“I have a friend who lived in Oklahoma as a child. She remembers getting the family’s water supply from rain which poured down from rooftop to rain barrel. The water was fresh and soft so long as rain continued to replenish what was in the barrel. As days became dryer, followed by drought with no fresh inflow, the water remaining in the barrel became stagnant. Children discovered “wiggly tails” swimming about! Although they were fun to watch, it meant the water was not fit to drink. No life can come to us from stagnant waters!”
So it is with our spirits.
—Constance Vanides, “Add water and stir,” Christian Inspirations Web Site, May 2000.
Reprinted with permission of Constance Vanides, “Christian Inspiration of Comfort, Edification and Exhortation,” GodCares.org.
We need to constantly be refreshed in the Word, just as Peter rightly knew and told his Christian friends. There is no life in stagnant souls! I struggle with those who claim that they can be with God when they are out hunting, or on the golf course, or relaxing at home on Sunday morning, and don’t see any need to be in some “stuffy, ego-centric” church.
The problem, as both Peter and Constance Vanides know, is that we are seldom refreshed when we are by ourselves engaged in some human activity! We almost never grow in faith when we are by ourselves! It is extremely difficult to discover some new aspect of God’s grace and presence, if we aren’t immersed in faith development that only the collective body of the church can provide.
We need others to help us remember, we need others to help us put all the pieces together in the right order.
Read 2 Peter 1:16-18
Part of this “reminding” is our personal witness of how the Lord is working in our lives. We sometimes envy the disciples who had a first-hand experience with Jesus. But don’t we have those personal experiences, too? Those times when the Lord leads us to just the right place, in just the right time, to make just the right decision, and only later do we understand just how right it was?
We don’t repeat “cleverly invented stories” – we share our personal stories, our personal witness, our personal walk! That is how we remember what God has done for us, and how we help others to remember what God is poised to do for them.
I would have loved to be on that mountain to see the glory come down and settle on Jesus. But that wasn’t to be my witness! Christ has given me other times and places when I have come to know His presence with me, and He expects me to share them with those who are struggling to come to grips with His presence in their own lives, or seemingly, the lack thereof. Peter, James and John weren’t invited to that revealing simply for their own benefit (Matthew 17:1-9) – they went so that they could share that story with others. Peter wanted to stay on the mountain to reflect on what he had seen, but Jesus took them all back down to the valley. The valley is where we share our memories and experiences of glory.
Read 2 Peter 1:19-21
On Wednesday mornings at Gibson Corners, we are currently studying the gospel of Luke, and on Wednesday evenings at Campville we are studying Isaiah. Both of these teachings are equally important to us. We read the Old Testament to hear the word that was given to Israel, and we read the New Testament to discover the word that is being given to the followers of Christ. Without the Hebrew text, the gospels begin to look pretty strange and have no basis for us in truth, and without the gospels, the word that was given through the prophets falls flat. And it all comes together for humanity in one package that we call The Word.
When we read of the trials of Job, we also have to remember Romans 5:3-5 – “we also rejoice in our suffering, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who he has give us.” We need both Job and Romans!
When we read of Christ’s crucifixion, we also must remember the story in Numbers 21:4-8, regarding the poisonous vipers that came among the people and many were bitten. All who were bitten died, until Moses was told to make a bronze serpent, place it high on a pole, and whoever would look upon it would not die. We need Numbers and the gospels!
And we could come up with many more examples of how all scripture works together, but only when we remember the passages and the stories of faith. It is the power of remembering that the glory of God has been coming down to us for millennia, and will continue to do so until Christ Himself comes to bring the glory to us in person. The power of faith, the power of the Word, the power of the prophets, the power of the gospels is all there for us. These gifts haven’t been offered to benefit God – they are given to benefit us, and if we forget these marvelous events of faith, we will be lost.
Elisabeth Elliot writes:
We cannot always, or even often, control events, but we can control how we respond to them. When things happen which dismay or appall, we ought to look to God for his meaning, remembering that he is not taken by surprise nor can his purposes be thwarted in the end. What God looks for is those who will worship him. Our look of inquiring trust glorifies him.
This is our first responsibility: to glorify God. In the face of life's worst reversals and tragedies, the response of a faithful Christian is praise--not for the wrong itself certainly, but for who God is and for the ultimate assurance that there is a pattern being worked out for those who love Him.
--Elisabeth Elliot, A Lamp for My Feet (Mich: Vine Books, 1985), 96.
The gospels, the Hebrew writings, the epistles – all are there to show us that a silent faith is no faith at all. We must hear them, repeat them, share them, remember them, for without their power in our lives, there is no perseverance, there is no character, and there is no hope.
Our first responsibility as the people of God is to bring glory to Him. But first we have to understand why he deserves that glory! Remember the Power of the Word, and rejoice!
The human mind is a truly marvelous thing. Even though it doesn’t work as fast as a super computer, it can still process information at an incredible speed – approximately 100 trillion instructions per second! And, according to the internet, while the human brain is calculating a math problem, it is also working, subconsciously, to process data from millions of nerve cells that handle the visual input of the paper and surrounding area, receive the audio input from both ears, and analyze the sensory input of millions of cells throughout the body. The brain is also regulating the heartbeat, monitoring oxygen levels, considering hunger and thirst requirements and deciding wheither you want to keep working or take a "snack break", breathing patterns and hundreds of other essential factors throughout the body, and simultaneously comparing data from the eyes and the sensory cells in the arms and hands to keep track of the position of the pen and paper as the calculation is being performed.
http://www.disabled-world.com/artman/publish/brain-facts.shtml
The human mind may be a bit slower than a super computer in actually making calculations, but it also has to monitor and regulate the rest of our body at the same time. However, the greatest differences in the 2 systems is this – the human mind provides us with the ability to reason, to consider abstract concepts, and to act on the information that we are constantly accumulating. Computers can’t even come close to doing all of this. At least, not yet!
We need to understand the information that we have, and not just accumulate more of it.
Read 2 Peter 1:12-15
One problem that we do have is the retention of information - our memory - and our reasoning can also become tainted by all of the information that we have collected and have processed incorrectly! But all in all, if we can just remember the important things, we can do wonderful things.
That is why Peter is so intentional in repeating those important things over and over.
Constance Vanides wrties:
“I have a friend who lived in Oklahoma as a child. She remembers getting the family’s water supply from rain which poured down from rooftop to rain barrel. The water was fresh and soft so long as rain continued to replenish what was in the barrel. As days became dryer, followed by drought with no fresh inflow, the water remaining in the barrel became stagnant. Children discovered “wiggly tails” swimming about! Although they were fun to watch, it meant the water was not fit to drink. No life can come to us from stagnant waters!”
So it is with our spirits.
—Constance Vanides, “Add water and stir,” Christian Inspirations Web Site, May 2000.
Reprinted with permission of Constance Vanides, “Christian Inspiration of Comfort, Edification and Exhortation,” GodCares.org.
We need to constantly be refreshed in the Word, just as Peter rightly knew and told his Christian friends. There is no life in stagnant souls! I struggle with those who claim that they can be with God when they are out hunting, or on the golf course, or relaxing at home on Sunday morning, and don’t see any need to be in some “stuffy, ego-centric” church.
The problem, as both Peter and Constance Vanides know, is that we are seldom refreshed when we are by ourselves engaged in some human activity! We almost never grow in faith when we are by ourselves! It is extremely difficult to discover some new aspect of God’s grace and presence, if we aren’t immersed in faith development that only the collective body of the church can provide.
We need others to help us remember, we need others to help us put all the pieces together in the right order.
Read 2 Peter 1:16-18
Part of this “reminding” is our personal witness of how the Lord is working in our lives. We sometimes envy the disciples who had a first-hand experience with Jesus. But don’t we have those personal experiences, too? Those times when the Lord leads us to just the right place, in just the right time, to make just the right decision, and only later do we understand just how right it was?
We don’t repeat “cleverly invented stories” – we share our personal stories, our personal witness, our personal walk! That is how we remember what God has done for us, and how we help others to remember what God is poised to do for them.
I would have loved to be on that mountain to see the glory come down and settle on Jesus. But that wasn’t to be my witness! Christ has given me other times and places when I have come to know His presence with me, and He expects me to share them with those who are struggling to come to grips with His presence in their own lives, or seemingly, the lack thereof. Peter, James and John weren’t invited to that revealing simply for their own benefit (Matthew 17:1-9) – they went so that they could share that story with others. Peter wanted to stay on the mountain to reflect on what he had seen, but Jesus took them all back down to the valley. The valley is where we share our memories and experiences of glory.
Read 2 Peter 1:19-21
On Wednesday mornings at Gibson Corners, we are currently studying the gospel of Luke, and on Wednesday evenings at Campville we are studying Isaiah. Both of these teachings are equally important to us. We read the Old Testament to hear the word that was given to Israel, and we read the New Testament to discover the word that is being given to the followers of Christ. Without the Hebrew text, the gospels begin to look pretty strange and have no basis for us in truth, and without the gospels, the word that was given through the prophets falls flat. And it all comes together for humanity in one package that we call The Word.
When we read of the trials of Job, we also have to remember Romans 5:3-5 – “we also rejoice in our suffering, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who he has give us.” We need both Job and Romans!
When we read of Christ’s crucifixion, we also must remember the story in Numbers 21:4-8, regarding the poisonous vipers that came among the people and many were bitten. All who were bitten died, until Moses was told to make a bronze serpent, place it high on a pole, and whoever would look upon it would not die. We need Numbers and the gospels!
And we could come up with many more examples of how all scripture works together, but only when we remember the passages and the stories of faith. It is the power of remembering that the glory of God has been coming down to us for millennia, and will continue to do so until Christ Himself comes to bring the glory to us in person. The power of faith, the power of the Word, the power of the prophets, the power of the gospels is all there for us. These gifts haven’t been offered to benefit God – they are given to benefit us, and if we forget these marvelous events of faith, we will be lost.
Elisabeth Elliot writes:
We cannot always, or even often, control events, but we can control how we respond to them. When things happen which dismay or appall, we ought to look to God for his meaning, remembering that he is not taken by surprise nor can his purposes be thwarted in the end. What God looks for is those who will worship him. Our look of inquiring trust glorifies him.
This is our first responsibility: to glorify God. In the face of life's worst reversals and tragedies, the response of a faithful Christian is praise--not for the wrong itself certainly, but for who God is and for the ultimate assurance that there is a pattern being worked out for those who love Him.
--Elisabeth Elliot, A Lamp for My Feet (Mich: Vine Books, 1985), 96.
The gospels, the Hebrew writings, the epistles – all are there to show us that a silent faith is no faith at all. We must hear them, repeat them, share them, remember them, for without their power in our lives, there is no perseverance, there is no character, and there is no hope.
Our first responsibility as the people of God is to bring glory to Him. But first we have to understand why he deserves that glory! Remember the Power of the Word, and rejoice!
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