“Incarnation”

Scripture:   John1:1-5, 14; 1 John 4:1-3; Isaiah 9:5-7; Isaiah 11:1-5; Hebrews 2:14-17

 Today begins our season of Advent – the 4 weeks in which we begin preparations to celebrate the birth of our Savior.  However, the preparations that we will be focusing on are not like the glitter and decorations for the secular version of Christmas, but rather on the spiritual significance and heavenly focus within our hearts and minds – those attitudes and beliefs that bring glory to the Father. 

 And while we always do have some decorations in the church for this time of year, they should always be seen as a reflection of the light and glory of Jesus Christ.  And in that regard, our messages during these weeks will also be considering a few of the aspects of God that will be shown to the world through the coming of the Babe of Bethlehem.

 Today, we consider what the human side of our LORD Jesus should mean in our celebration.  After all, He is God, who, as the Nicene Creed reminds us, is the “maker … of all that is, seen and unseen.”  So why would He ever desire to leave His glory to become part of the created order that He set in place?  He didn’t just come to visit us – He came to be one with us!

 Our story of Jesus today begins in John’s gospel, with a proclamation of both His Godliness and His humanity.

 Read John 1:1-5, 14

 The opening to John’s gospel is unique in that it begins with Jesus’ divinity that has been since the beginning.  The other three gospels all begin with humanity – Matthew begins with Jesus’ human genealogy (Matthew 1), and only briefly mentions the birth; Mark and Luke begin with events surrounding John the Baptist’s birth and ministry, and Luke doesn’t get to the birthnarrative until his second chapter!

 Of course, even John gives the Baptist a brief mention, but he quickly gets back to Jesus, where beginning in verse 9, he describes the overall reason for Jesus’s coming –which is to bring the “light” of God into the world, and to enable all who believe in Him the privilege of being a child of God.

 Light, or Godly Truth, and salvation – the coming of Jesus, divine and human, was all about you and me.  No longer would we have any reason to feel that God had abandoned us, or that God didn’t care about our lives, or that He was a God of vengeance.  In Christ Jesus, God becomes life, love, hope, and presence once again.

 Read 1 John 4:1-3

 Just as the gospel implies, not everyone would come to believe and trust in Jesus – not in His divinity, and certainly not in His humanity.  John writes that this world, while it is the LORD’s creation and His to do with as He pleases, there are other powers at work throughout the created order.  False prophets are being guided by other spirits, and while they both may be proclaiming that they have the new truth, their words and ways have nothing to do with God’s light and truth that is given for us.

 And in this, the concept of the antichrist is introduced.  Satan has always wanted to be seen as the equivalent of God, and now we see that he is a copycat!  God has a Son at work in the world, so Satan wants to have the same.  The difference is that the Son of God is at work on our behalf, and for our benefit, while antichrist is at work for his father, as well as himself, and for the benefit of no one else!

 Even though Satan, his son antichrist, their demons, and all of their false prophets know who Jesus is, they can never acknowledge that the One and True God has come to earth, in human form, to be the Savior of all who will acknowledge Him!

 Read Isaiah 9:5-7

 And just in case someone thinks that Christ Jesus, the Incarnate God, was an afterthought in the LORD’s plans, the prophet Isaiah proclaimed His coming some 7 centuries before the LORD’s birth.  This passage (9:1-7) is a hymn of thanksgiving, and is proclaiming the hope and promise of Jesus.  The chapter begins by saying that the darkness of the world will be destroyed by “a great light” that will flood the earth, that believers will greatly increase in number, and joy will abound in all. 

 The passage then picks up in the reading that we just shared, with the source of that light, the growth in faith, and the flood of joy – that it all will be through the birth of a child.  And this child will have the wisdom, the insight, and the compassion to explain all that the promised light will reveal.  And the best of all, there will be no limit, there will be no end to all that He will bring to our lives, and His presence and leadership will be for us, for all time.

 And it will be the passion and the love of the LORD God Almighty Himself that will accomplish it.

 Read Isaiah 11:1-5

 This is a proclamation of the ascendency of a new king, one who will be in the line of King David, the son of Jesse.  Israel saw this prophecy as one regarding the coming of Messiah.  He would be anointed by the Spirit of God, and would be filled with wisdom, and understanding, and love of the LORD.  He will have the authority to judge, but it won’t be in the standard, human way – it will be perfect and right in all matters.  The poor will be vindicated, and the wicked will be held accountable for all they do in opposition to the Truth.

 This ruler will not govern in the normal way – as a descendent of David, He will be human, but He will not use His human senses to know what is right and what is evil.  His divine Person will guide Him, and will never make a mistake.

 Israel may have thought that this proclaimed Messiah, the Anointed One of God, was coming as a great and powerful warrior, but we know that it was to be a far greater Person, not only as an anointed one of God, not as a warrior king, but as God Himself – born as a human, and divine in nature.

 Read Hebrews 2:14-17

 This second chapter of Hebrews (Hebrews 2) is, essentially, about the salvation that Jesus brings, and how many have come to know His salvation by faith in both His life, as well as the death He suffered for all.  And in our reading, we discover that the humanity of Jesus was necessary for one reason – that we sin in our flesh and blood, so the LORD also had to be of perfect flesh and blood so that He could experience death – a human death, a penalty and sacrifice acceptable to God, that we might be freed from our sin and forgiven from the penalty of death that the judgment over our sin requires.

 This is what atonement is all about, but more on that next week.  But suffice it to say that everything that Jesus was willing to give up for us comes because of His choice to live a flesh and blood existence, that we might come to  know God in a truthful and loving way.  He surrendered honor and glory to receive the world’s hatred and condemnation.  He surrendered majesty to become humble and lowly.  He surrendered Godly power and authority to become subject to human power and ways.  He temporarily surrendered eternal life to allow human death to hold Him in its grasp for 3 days.

 But the life of flesh and blood in Christ proves the love of God for all who will trust and follow in the life and way that the Babe of Bethlehem offers to all who will believe.  Do you believe?  If not, will you today?

"The Lack of Godly Leaders"

 Scripture:   Selected

During our journey through the lives and service of Israel’s Judges, we’ve learned that there may have been little difference between them and us – some were faithful, some made tragic mistakes, some had trouble understanding the difference between their own desires and God’s, they all served in leadership for varying lengths of time – some for decades, while some only a few short years, and at least one ignored Godly ways until the very end.

 But what did we actually learn from their stories?  I think that the primary lesson is that the LORD can work through any kind of person, but that life for the individual always comes out better if they are obedient to God’s call and His way.

 A secondary lesson might have to do with God’s desire that we might be part of His work in this world, but that He expects nothing more from us than to do what He calls us to do, and to let Him do everything else!  And sometimes the LORD intentionally reduces our strengths and abilities to reveal even greater truths to us (remember the story of Gideon? – Judges 6-8).

 But the third lesson for us is the one that came during those times when Israel didn’t have a judge to lead them.  Every time that a judge passed from the scene, we read that the people reverted to their old, sinful ways, instead of living in a way that they had witnessed in the faithfulness of the judge!  Admittedly, there were times that it would have been difficult to separate the faithful times from the rest, but the truth was there, if the people had only sought it!

 Today’s final lesson comes from several passages, and shows us the overall problem that arises when our leadership lacks the desire and initiative to follow Godly ways.

 Read Judges 2:12-17

 In Deuteronomy 6:3-9, Israel is given instructions regarding their relationship with Jehovah God, one that they must constantly and consistently keep fresh.  This passage is so important that it is known as the Shema, and it tells the people that they must share the truth of God with their family, with their neighbors, and even with strangers that they meet on the highways and byways.  But it is one thing to say the words, and a totally different thing to live the words.  And Israel, especially their leaders, felt that that they understood the correct way of living better than some invisible God, even though their entire history was filled with God, His gifts, and His perfect way. 

 Israel chose to follow the ways of Baal instead of the words of Almighty God.  But over and over, through the words of God and by the lack of physical evidence, Baal and all of the other worldly gods were shown to be impotent and totally incapable of any degree of power and authority (1 Kings18:16-40). Why would anyone choose to worship that kind of deity, instead of one who is power, and who is authority, and who is infinite love and compassion?

 Periodically, Jehovah God even sent Judges, and later prophets, to remind them of the covenant and desires that had been set in place for them.  The New Interpreters’ Bible offers this thought – “What seemed to be a screaming locomotive heading for Israel’s destruction is suddenly derailed.  God raised up ‘judges, who delivered them out of the power of those who plundered them’”  The presence of faithful judges would lead the people, or at least many of them, away from false worship and into faithful lives.  Until, that is, the judge was no longer with them, and then the destructive locomotive was put back on the track and fired up for the next journey of false worship.

 Read Isaiah 3:12-15

 After the period of the Judges ended, several hundred years of evil would envelop the nation, including the ineffectual leadership of many kings.  And in spite of all the dire warnings that payment for following the false ways of earth was upon the nation, they never seemed to be deterred from their worldly ways.  But now the LORD turns to the failure of Israel’s leadership to not only live Godly lives, but to their lack of faithful leadership for the people.

 The condemnations include many issues such as the failure of experienced leadership to step up to correct all of the wrongs that have become so prevalent; Isaiah describes the LORD as a Judge in court (if they wouldn’t learn from the human ones, made they will listen to the divine One!)  And before any legal actions can be taken by defense or prosecution attorneys, the Almighty presents the charges Himself.

The vineyard represents Israel, filled with the bounty that God had prepared for them.

The plundering of the poor represents the poor of Israel and the leaders who have robbed them of their faithfulness and subsequently, their salvation.

The people have been robbed and devastated by the elders and the elite of Israel, they have been led astray from the goodness and glory of Almighty God.

 The charges have been leveled against Israel’s leaders and all who have proclaimed worship of anything other than Jehovah God, and there is nothing that anyone can do to defend themselves against the charges that the LORD brings against Israel’s hierarchy.  They are guilty.  And they will pay for their sin.

 Read Jeremiah 2:7-9

 And God reemphasizes the charges of unfaithful leadership through His prophet Jeremiah.  And He begins by reminding them that He gave them everything they could possibly need, but that they had polluted His goodness, and they had spread lies about all that He had given to them, and all that He had done for them, and they never even cried out to the LORD for His help in their destress.

 And now the charges are so serious that the judgment will not be limited to those who have broken the Law of God, but it will also settle on the families of those who have broken God’s commands.  The leaders of the families, the leaders of the tribes, and especially the leaders of the nation have failed so miserably in their assigned task to proclaim God to all, that there will be no hope for them nor their subsequent generations (Exodus 20:4-6)  In the second Commandment, God told them “⁵ You shall not bow down to them [false idols] or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, ⁶ but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.”

 Not only is the judgment proclaimed and dispensed appropriately, but so are the blessings!

 Galatians 1:6-10

 The church in Galatia was being led astray by those who believed that Gentile converts to faith in Jesus must first become converts to Judaism, including obedience to all of the laws and traditions that Israel had followed.  Of course we know that the only requirements that the faithful of Jesus have are generally based on Matthew 28:16-20 (the Great Commission)– make disciples of all nations, baptize them in the name of the Triune God, and teach them to obey all that Jesus has taught.

 But Paul wants the church to understand that a false gospel is, in fact, no gospel whatsoever – there is no “good news” in it.  And it doesn’t matter who is proclaiming it – it is just as vile, just as misleading, just as deceptive and destructive as any lie could be, and it is just as condemning as any lie could be. And the last verse of today’s lesson is actually the point of our series from Judges – who is our worship being directed toward?

 Paul says that it all depends on who the one is that we worship – a god of earth, or the God of Eternity.  The god’s of earth will one day pass away when the end of the earth occurs, but that if we celebrate and follow the God of Eternity, He will never end, He will never fail, He will never leave us alone.

 And if our focus is upon worshiping the god’s of earth, and upon pleasing the people who proclaim those false gods, we can never have a relationship with the Eternal God.  No playing it safe, no halfway semblance of faith, no fence straddling, no playing off one against the other!  As Joshua told the people in Joshua 24:14-15 –

¹⁴ “Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.  ¹⁵ But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the goods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living.  But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord."

 Have you chosen to serve the LORD, considering all that we have learned?  If not, perhaps you should rethink the lesson!

 

 

"The Last - For Now - Samson"

 Scripture:   Judges 13-16 (selected verses)

Today is our 8^th Lesson from the Book of Judges, and it features one of the most well-known of the judges, although he isn’t always recognized as one of Israel’s leaders.  As we have considered some of the many judges who the LORD God Jehovah brought to the people, we have discovered that some of the earlier leaders were very faithful, while some of the latter ones experienced individual issues that hurt them personally, but that God still used them in powerful ways.  And Samson would be no different.

 But isn’t this the lesson that all of scripture teaches us - that the LORD can, and does, use all kinds of people to accomplish His will? 

Remember Jonah, who disagreed with God’s desire for the people of Nineveh, and decided to head out in the opposite direction?  Through a series of God guided instances, the man wound up following God’s will just the same, and 120,000 people would be saved by his testimony.  (Jonah 1-4)

There was also Elijah, the greatest of the prophets, who knew, and had seen the power of God at work.  However he still tried to run away from the world’s terror, but would soon discover that God could follow him wherever he went! (1 Kings 18:16-19:18)

How about Cyrus, king of Persia? (Ezra 1) He was a pagan, and yet, the Great I AM softened his heart, and the king allowed the people of Israel, who had been captives in Babylon for 70 years, to return to Jerusalem, to rebuild the temple as well as the city, and to top it off, were given all of the looted treasures that had been taken from the temple before it was destroyed.

And of course, there was Saul the Pharisee who believed that the followers of Jesus deserved nothing more than punishment, until the Living Christ met him on the Road to Damascus, and changed his hardened heart into one for Godly evangelism. (Acts 9:1-31)

 And I would be surprised if this lesson didn’t extend throughout the many years since those days, even to include our day and many of our lives, too.  And so, we go to the lesson that we can learn from Samson’s life.

 Read Judges 13:1-5, 24-25

 Samson was to be dedicated from birth to be a Nazirite in the way of the LORD.  Numbers 6 gives us some insight into what the life of a Nazirite, either a man or a woman, should be about.  One of the interesting aspects of this life was that the dedication required, among many other things, abstinence from all fermented drinks and even raisins and grapes and their juice, that the person’s hair should never be shaved, or even trimmed, until their vow of dedication ended, and then the hair was to be shaved off and offered as a burnt offering in the Tent of Meeting (the predecessor of the temple), and, of course, a strict adherence to the Law of Moses.  Now it is true that Samson himself never made that vow, but his parents made the vow for him which bound them all.  This might be similar to our baptism of infants – both the parents and the child are under the vows that are taken.

 God even gives Samson’s mother a hint of the service that awaits him. – that he will be the one who will initiate the defeat of the Philistines.  It had been a long time since Israel had known peace, but Samson had been chosen to faithfully begin their journey to freedom once again.

 Read Judges 14:1-6

 A Nazirite was dedicated as a person of Jehovah God, which included obedience to the vows that were accepted.  One of the laws was that an Israelite, either man or woman, was never to marry into a family from a pagan nation.   And even though neither Sampson nor his parents knew that the man’s attraction to a foreign woman was God’s will, they still knew that it was a violation of the law!  The LORD works in ways that we might never understand, but while He has no obligation to the laws of humanity, it should only be through His will that we separate ourselves from it.

 The second issue that Samson goes against is that of killing the lion.  The law demands that the lion be considered as an unclean animal (Leviticus 11:24-28), and demanded that you never go near a person or animal that is either dead or dying – remember Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, and the reluctance of both the priest and the Levite to help the injured man?  Of course in the instance of Samson and the lion, again, it is only through the power of God that he is able to succeed. 

 And third, on his way home, he stops beside the lion’s carcass, and scoops honey out of the body – again breaking the vow that his parents took on his behalf.  But this is only the beginning of the preparation that God is making for his servant Samson.  The forbidden marriage goes forward, the Philistine wife betrays him to other Philistines, her father even gets involved with his own betrayal, Samson retaliates against the Philistines, and they kill the woman and her father.  The plot thickens, and while we might wonder just how God is going to use the details of this story to defeat the oppressors, the plan is actually proceeding according to divine will, and obviously not in an understandable human way!

 Read Judges 15:11-15, 20

  As the conflict continues to escalate, the Philistines turn their rath upon the nation of Israel.  The oppressors begin to show Israel just how great their power really is, and Israel, for their own protection, decides to take matters into their own hands.  It doesn’t matter to them that God may be using the situation to gain them their freedom; it doesn’t matter that God’s plan will never be denied, regardless of what it takes; it doesn’t matter that the power and purpose of God goes far beyond anything that either Israel or the Philistines could imagine or conjure up.  But they move ahead with taking the initiative against Samson, and plan to capture him and turn him over to the enemy.

 Samson has disavowed nearly all that defines him as a Nazirite, except for never cutting his hair, and that one faithful act preserves his strength to use against all who oppose him.  Israel knows of his strength, but they have never understood what the source of that power is.  And Samson isn’t about to let them know, so that they won’t be able to reveal the truth to the Philistines.  The Spirit of God comes upon him, the ropes fall away, and the story of his slaying a thousand men with the jawbone of a donkey unfolds.  But the interesting thing is that in taking up the jawbone he again violates the law’s admonition against touching anything associated with a dead animal.

 He has broken the Nazirite vows that define him as God’s man and he has broken the laws that define him as a man of Israel – how long will the LORD let his sins continue to pile up?  Isn’t it about time to rein him in?

 Apparently not – Samson still has the promise upon him that he will be the beginning of the end of Philistine oppression against Israel.  God’s plan will not be denied!  And for 20 years, the LORD continues to use Samson to lead Israel toward the end of Philistia’s reign of terror.

 Read Judges 16:4-7

 Sampson continues to sin with the Philistine women, and eventually meets Delilah.  The Philistines also continue in their vendetta against Sampson, and approach his new love with a bribe to discover the source of the man’s strength.  That is the only thing that is still frustrating their plans.  This begins Sampson’s lies to Delilah, but eventually she wears him down, and he lets the secret out, that it is his hair.  She secretly and quietly arranges to have his head shaved, and the soldiers are able to quickly overpower him and blind him.

 Unfortunately, they fail to ensure that his head continues to be shaved, and his hair slowly grows back, until, as we know, Samson’s strength returns.  He is imprisoned, and humbled, and ridiculed by his captors, until the day that the rulers of Philistia order that he be brought into their temple.  All of the hierarchy, the elite, the influential of that nation were present, and he is chained between two of the pillars that support the roof, and he begins to pray.  He asks his Jehovah God to fill him with the strength he needs, and asks that he might be allowed to die at the same moment that his enemy perishes. 

 In one last gasp, Samson accepts his final Nazirite vow, regains his strength, and pleads for death to pay for the life he has led.  Did he know that he had been, and still was, the instrument of God, even in this last act of retribution against the Philistine leadership, which also leads to his own demise?  We aren’t told.  But in this last heroic act, he fulfills the reason for his Nazarite vow – that he would be the one who initiated the downfall of Philistia.

 We know that all of the judges, each in their own time, obviously died at the end of their service to Jehovah God, but it was only Samson who would die through his final, and greatest act of faithfulness.  God had used Samson’s unfaithful life to accomplish His divine promise to Israel, just as He did so many other times throughout scripture.  And Samson, as he prepared for his own death, may have finally grasped a sense of what his LORD was accomplishing through his response to the call to Godly service.

 But this lesson should never be construed as permission for each of us to be unfaithful to Godly ways, so that we, too, could be a Samson for God.  Our LORD would much prefer that we are faithful servants, and that we follow in Godly ways, and that we love those special ways, and commit fully to all that God has laid out for us.

 May each of us surrender our ways, in exchange for the glory of HIS!

"Be Careful What You Tell God - Jephthah #2"

 Scripture:   Judges11:29-39a

If you remember our passage from 3 weeks ago, you’ll remember that the half-brothers of Jephthah ejected him from the family because of his parentage, but when they finally realized that they needed his help, they invited him to rejoin the family, and to lead the army into battle. 

 We had no direct indication that Jephthah had been chosen by the LORD to be a judge of Israel, but the process of restoration began with the family, and that will always be a first step in forgiveness – the forgiveness that we must offer to each other.  In Matthew 5:23-24, Jesus told the crowd that before you present a gift to God at His altar, go and forgive your brother for the wrong that you remember he has done against you. 

 When Jephthah accepted his brother’s invitation to return to relationship with them, he was forgiving his brothers for their sin against him.  And this sets the stage for God’s work through this new judge.  But as we will discover today, even the servant that the LORD God Almighty chooses, isn’t always in tune with his Jehovah God.

 Read Judges 11:29-31

 “the Spirit of the LORD came on Jephthah”.  The power of God’s Spirit is the source of all wisdom, the basis for all strength, and the truth that we receive that sets us upon the way of God’s plan.  But we also have to understand that when our heart isn’t yet in tune with God’s way, the Spirit that God sends our way is not necessarily one of power, but rather one of brokenness, divisiveness, and limited ability.

 What is the evidence that this is the Spirit that has come on Jephthah?  First, he is only allowed to gather warriors from two small family tribes, and the majority of the military might of Israel goes wanting.  Second, the trust that he offers to Jehovah is more of a deal than a gift – “if you do this”, “then I will do that”.  He sets a condition on God, which is never a good idea, I might add!

 This is similar to those soldiers who find themselves in a real sticky situation in combat, and tell the LORD that if He will get them out of this mess, that they will do something for Him, like attending worship every week for the rest of their life, or promise to tithe on all that they earn when they get home, or some other arrangement that they would never have agreed to otherwise.  This isn’t the kind of gift that God will ever honor.  And what does Jephthah offer?  If you give me victory in battle, I’ll gladly give you a burnt offering of the first thing I see when I return to my home.  Again, it’s ambiguous, and not quite honest!  After all, what if an unclean animal, such as a rat, or an injured sheep, was the first thing he saw – would that be an acceptable sacrifice?  Hardly!

 Read Judges 11:32-35

 The battle rages, and the LORD gives the enemy over to the army of Israel under the command of Jephthah.  Have you heard that God is faithful?  Even when we don’t fully know what we are asking for?  Absolutely!  Because sometimes He uses the situation to teach us a new lesson about His grace and authority!  And this is going to be a hard lesson for our judge to learn.

 And what is this lesson all about?  Its about trust.  When we ask another person to do something for us, it nearly always involves a “tit-for-tat” – an arrangement in which if you do one thing for me, then I’ll do something for you.  That’s a contract arrangement.  But this isn’t God’s way!  The only thing the LORD desires from us is faithfulness in our relationship with Him, and obedience when His word calls us to a task in His name.  This is known as a covenant.  We give each other gifts without any quid pro quo, without any reciprocal requirement.

 Jephthah’s offer is a contract of sorts, one in which he would never have intentionally made, while all that God desires from us is honor and thanksgiving for all that He has already done for us – “while we were still sinners”, so to speak (Romans 5:8-9).  This is an important lesson for each of us on this Communion Sunday.

 Perhaps the lesson for us today is that God gave His One and Only Son so that we would no longer have to make deals with Him – that we could just give Him our trust and love and obedience, and know that that is enough!

 Read Judges 11:36-39a

 The daughter seems to have more trust in Jehovah God than her father does!  Jephthah claims that the girl has made him the victim, and he blames her for causing his downfall!  But how does the girl take the news?  She accepts the vow that has been made, and only asks to spend some time with her friends before the vow must be fulfilled.

 Interestingly, this story stands in sharp contrast to the one of Abraham and his son Isaac, where it was God who asked for the sacrifice, and not Abraham.  Both Abraham and Isaac would be the faithful ones, and it would be the LORD who would change the sacrifice, and not Abraham who, unlike Jephthah, wouldn’t put the blame on everyone else for the calamity that was apparently about to fall on his family.

 Abraham and Jephthah each had their own lessons to learn, just as each of us have our own God given lessons.  Both of those men learned well – Abraham with a huge Godly blessing, and Jephthah with a great personal loss.  But the question for each of us is what does it take for us to learn Godly ways, and what will our response be? 

 May each of us gain a greater trust and acceptance of Godly ways, and may each receive the gift of deep and faithful obedience in reply to God’s justification and forgiveness through the giving of His One and Only Son.