Reflecting The Glory Of The Lord

“A glass can only spill what it contains.” - mewithoutyou

That’s not bad insight into life. We often hear the phrase, “garbage in, garbage out,” but that’s true of good things as well. Jesus taught this clearly:

"The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.” (Luke 6:45)

You don’t have to be a Christian to recognize this. What we pour into our lives is what will eventually pour out of it in some way. It’s one reason people are increasingly talking about the power of entertainment.  There are ways to filter it – there’s a lot to be said about learning how to read, listen and watch as a Christian who listens and sees through the eyes and ears of Jesus – but in some fashion, what comes in will come out.

• CNN’s Health section online featured an article entitled “Should Smoking Trigger an R rating?”  The author noted, “For every 500 smoking scenes a child saw in PG-13 movies, his or her likelihood of trying cigarettes increased by 49%.” [1]

• The Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics reported: “Youths [12-17 years old who viewed sexual content on TV] in the 90th percentile of TV sex viewing had a predicted probability of intercourse initiation that was approximately double that of youths in the 10th percentile... Exposure to TV that included only talk about sex was associated with the same risks...”[2]

What we dwell on matters. There is a reason Paul wrote to the Philippian church to focus on things that were good, true, and lovely (Philippians 4:8).  The idea of this verse is not that we retreat from anything bad – we would have to live in a bubble – but that we actively pursue a mental and emotional diet made up of predominantly wholesome things.

We all fill our glass with something. The words and actions and attitudes that overflow will reflect the abundance of images and ideas with which we have filled ourselves.

In 2 Corinthians, Paul makes a similar claim:  We will become what we see. He uses the analogy of a mirror reflecting, but the idea is the same.  

“As we see and reflect the glory of the Lord, we are transfigured by the Spirit of the Lord in ever-increasing splendor into his own image.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)

In essence, we are mirrors that reflect the things at which we look. It’s another way of saying that what flows out of us will be an indicator of what’s been filling us. Before we talk about that more, I need to give a context to this sentence. Paul was talking to the early Christians about the Old Testament Law. 

2 Corinthians 3:7-18

7-11 The administration of the Law which was engraved in stone (and which led in fact to spiritual death) was so magnificent that the Israelites were unable to look unflinchingly at Moses’ face, for it was alight with heavenly splendor. Now if the old administration held such heavenly, even though transitory, splendor, can we not see what a much more glorious thing is the new administration of the Spirit of life? If administering a system which ends in condemning men was a splendid task, how infinitely more splendid is administering a system which ends in making men good! And while it is true that the former temporary glory has been completely eclipsed now, we do well to remember that is eclipsed simply because the present permanent plan is such a very much more glorious thing than the old.

12-17 With this hope in our hearts we are quite frank and open in our ministry. We are not like Moses, who veiled his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing its fading glory. But it was their minds really which were blinded, for even today when the old agreement is read to them there is still a veil over their minds—though the veil has actually been lifted by Christ. Yes, alas, even to this day there is still a veil over their hearts when the writings of Moses are read. Yet if they turned to the Lord the veil would disappear, and they would understand how their Scriptures point to Christ. For the Lord to whom they could turn is the spirit of the new agreement, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom and boldness to proclaim His message.

18 But all of us who are followers of Christ do not have veils on our faces as we see and reflect the glory of the Lord. We are transfigured by the Spirit of the Lord in ever-increasing splendor into his own image.

This passage raises some questions for me: Why is the Law glorious even as it brings death? Why didn’t Moses want them to see his fading glory? How does our being unveiled reflect the glory of the Lord? Since all of this sets the table for verse 18, let’s try to work our way through these questions.

Question #1: How is the Law glorious even though it brings death? Because it was a teacher, a guide to show us how God wants us to live (Romans 15; 1 Corinthians 10). In Galatians 3, Paul wrote,

“Until the time when we were mature enough to respond freely in faith to the living God, we were carefully surrounded and protected by the Mosaic law. The law was like those Greek tutors, with which you are familiar, who escort children to school and protect them from danger or distraction, making sure the children will really get to the place they set out for.” (from The Message’s commentary)

If someone asked, “What does God want me to do?” the Israelites had an answer – 613 answers, in fact. If you had asked a follower of Baal or Molech what their God wanted them to do, they would not have known.  They just hoped they were doing the right thing, and if something went wrong, they offered increasingly gruesome sacrifices to appease a mysterious, unknowable, and petty god.

When God gave His Law, He gave something of Himself to His people.  Now the will of God could be known. Do this, not that.  And if you keep God’s laws, all will be well. We tend to think of the Law as oppressive; the Israelites were grateful that God made himself known. [3]

You can fill up with God’s law, and if you do that well, good things will overflow….

God’s covenant with His people through the Law of Moses was a conditional covenant; that is, if they kept it, good things would follow. If they didn’t bad things would follow. In some ways obedience to the law was a case study in spiritual cause and effect. That’s an idea we can wrap our minds around because we see it all the time. If we practice, work, use self-discipline – good things happen. We can lose weight or build muscle or make money or hit a softball or graduate or expand our vocabulary or play an instrument or get really good at Wii bowling if we know the rules and try hard enough….

But through his prophets, God warned over and over again: “This is not going to go well.” And it didn’t. The Law made it official that we the people (as seen in the Israelites) are never good enough.  God can tell us exactly what He wants us to do, and on our own we will just not do it. On our own, we will inevitably fill ourselves with sin even though we know it will eventually spill out of us and onto others. This is in line with how Paul describes the Law:

“The Law’s purpose was to make obvious to everyone that we are, in ourselves, out of right relationship with God, and therefore to show us the futility of devising some religious system for getting by our own efforts what we can only get by waiting in faith for God to complete his promise. For if any kind of rule-keeping had power to create life in us, we would certainly have gotten it by this time.”  (Galatians 3 as written in commentary by The Message)

The law unfortunately answers one of life’s most important questions: Can I be good if I try hard enough?  No.  It shows you the path of life,  and if you stay on that path it will give you life, but… you will wander off of it. [4]

Question #2: Why didn't Moses want them to see his fading glory?

A glory that is so obvious to everybody – and then fades -  is a problem. To all the people watching, apparently Moses was tight with God – and then he wasn’t.  I suspect Moses was ashamed of this. Pride makes us hide the parts of our life that shame us.  Ron Ritchie writes (I think correctly):

“He realized that as long as he wore the veil, the people showed him respect because they believed that he was still visiting God; otherwise, why would he keep the veil on? But when Moses had not been in the presence of God, the glory of God began to fade underneath the veil…. For Moses the veil represented a false sense of competence, power, authority, glory, and pride. He used it to cover his fear and inadequacy… he sought in his own strength to compensate for the glory that had faded from his face.”[5]

That veil couldn't hide the fact that God’s glory was leaking out through the cracks made by sin. If I understand this passage correctly, Moses couldn’t keep God’s glory, and he was ashamed.

Question #3: Why are we unveiled now?

Because a) we do reflect an ever increasing splendor as we are transformed into the image of Christ,  and b) we don’t need to be ashamed when we fail.  And perhaps – much to our surprise – even in our failure the glory of God does not fade.

Let’s look more closely at Paul’s claim.  He expands the symbolism of hiding behind the veil and writes that followers of Jesus are not meant to hide.  They are meant to be on display; in his image with a mirror, they look at the glory of God without shame, and they fully reflect the permanent, ongoing transformative presence of the glory of God in their life.

Our life with Christ is meant to be an ongoing transformation in which we increasingly behold the person and work of Christ, increasingly become changed deep in the core of who we are, and increasingly become filled in such a way that we display the glory of God by His presence and work in our lives.

We remove the veil because it’s not about us. When we have the glory of Christ in our lives, it won’t be because we were awesome. It will be because “we are transfigured by the Spirit of the Lord in ever-increasing splendor into his own image.”

It’s an ongoing process. There’s no way we can escape being sinful and flawed – and that’s okay. After all, who can deny that we still have our ups and downs? We all have times when our reflection wavers, when what spills out of us when we go over the rough roads in life is just not anything we are proud of.

So what is the glory of Christ in our lives that does not fade and should never be hidden? I believe it is the grace and forgiveness that accompanies Christ’s salvation.

The way in which Jesus intends for the world to see his glory is not through our ability to live perfectly. We don’t need to be a crystal clear glass filled with AquaFina.  We can be a bottle from the trash filled with muddy rain water and still show God’s glory, because it is through God’s strength in our weakness that His glory is seen.

Let’s revisit last week. I made the point that people will reach conclusions about Jesus by looking at the people of Jesus.  That’s daunting. Here’s where we are relieved of the pressure to be perfect.

When we offer Christ to others, we don’t need to wait until we are perfectly clear of mud and junk, and we don’t need to wait to “unveil” who we are until we can present ourselves just right. We aren’t offering us to other people. We are offering a Savior who takes us with all our impurities and makes us new.

We are meant to, with uncovered lives, without shame over the visible gauge of our ability to be good or bad on full display, let God display what real glory is like in the person and work of Jesus.

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[1] http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/10/health/smoking-trigger-rating-movie/

[2] For more info on this issue, go here: https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/7022283827.pdf

[3] For a longer look at the content, context and purpose of the Old Testament law, check out the series at TC Apologetics. Here is a link to the first post in the series: http://tcapologetics.org/old-testament-law-an-introduction/

[4] “If people in our Christian fellowships today were to announce that they had decided to keep God’s law, we would probably be skeptical and alarmed. We probably would take them aside for counseling and possibly alert other responsible people in the group to keep an eye on them. We would be sure nothing good would come of it. We know that one is not saved by keeping the law and can think of no other reason why one should try to do it. This leaves us caught in a strange inversion of the work of the Judaizing teachers who dogged the footsteps of Paul in New Testament days. As they wanted to add obedience to ritual law to faith in Christ, we want to subtract moral law from faith in Christ. How to combine faith with obedience is surely the essential task of the church as it enters the twenty-first century.” ― Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God

[5] https://www.pbc.org/system/message_files/8276/4337.html

Aliens and Strangers

John 15:18-19 "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.”

John 17:16 "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.”

Philippians 3:20 “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Hebrews 11:13-16 “All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.”

1 Peter 2:12 “Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”

Ephesians 2:19 “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.”

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhPVOyzZBqk[/embed]

There is no escaping the idea that followers of God should not feel at home in this world. That doesn’t mean the world is not meaningful, beautiful or enjoyable. It just means that there must always be a godly discontent with the cultural status quo; a holy conviction that this world is broken and in desperate need of redemption; an abiding sense that we are what Moses referred to himself as: ‘a stranger in a strange land’ (Exodus 2:22).

When I was raised Mennonite, this tension was obvious all the time.

• We dressed differently.

• We didn’t have TVs or go to movies.

• We didn’t listen to secular music.

• We didn’t celebrate Halloween, and the cultural trappings of Christmas and Easter were very carefully monitored.

• We were pacifists, and every President is the Commander-in-Chief. All who pay taxes give money to the military. There is simply no way a historically grounded Mennonite can participate in the political process without a deep awareness of being a stranger in a strange land.

I’m not saying this made us holy or better. There are reasons you don’t see this list replicated in my home. My point is that we were different, and we felt it all the time. There was a constant reminder that our ultimate loyalty was elsewhere, and that awareness fundamentally shaped our lives. It might have been poorly expressed, and it had a lot more to do with tradition than the Bible, but the message was clear.

I was recently talking with a Mennonite friend who said that this election causes him no more angst than he normally feels when an election nears. He’s well aware that this world is not his home, and that the candidates are not the answer the world needs. From his perspective, this election quandary is in some ways a blessing. Now the whole church has to face this reality, because the United States feels less and less like home for Christians. And the more we are reminded that our citizenship is in Heaven, that’s not a bad thing.

I have another Mennonite friend who teaches at a Christian college in the Bible Belt. He recently spoke sadly of the lack of students really passionate about their faith. There could be lots of reasons, but the bottom line is that he thinks his students are too comfortable. They've never felt different enough. They are too comfortable in an American Kingdom that is often very much at odds with the Kingdom of God. At best they lack passion; at worst they are leaving their faith.

But it’s not just college students who are losing their sense of alienation and exile. The church in general is struggling with this.[1]

"Gallup and Barna," laments evangelical theologian Michael Horton, "hand us survey after survey demonstrating that evangelical Christians are as likely to embrace lifestyles every bit as hedonistic, materialistic, self-centered, and sexually immoral as the world in general." George Barna concludes, "Every day, the church is becoming more like the world it allegedly seeks to change." We have very little time, he believes, to reverse these trends... African Christian and famous missions scholar Professor Lamin Sanneh told Christianity Today recently that "the cultural captivity of Christianity in the West is nearly complete.”[2]

While I was reading the news last week an example caught my eye.

“Overall, the economy is the top concern for Americans regardless of religious affiliation (30%). National security (17%) and personal character (17%) also are significant issues. Supreme Court nominees (10%), immigration (5%), religious freedom (2%), and abortion (1%) are less important. ‘For churchgoers and those with evangelical beliefs, their pocketbook and personal safety are paramount,’ said McConnell. ‘Moral issues aren’t a priority for many of them.’”

http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2016/october/most-evangelicals-not-voting-trump-beliefs-identity-lifeway.html

It’s not that Christians desiring economic health or safety is a problem. It’s just hard to see how to make an argument that the Bible tells us to prioritize money and safety over the protection of human life, just immigration policies or religious freedom. I’m trying to envision Paul being handed this list and asked with what things the church should be most concerned

I want us to wrestle with the idea that there is something about being a committed follower of Christ that will inevitably and inescapably reveal the chasm between our earthly and heavenly kingdom. It should be clear to us.

• Every time we go through the checkout line at Meijers and see the magazines that objectify women and thrive on vicious gossip, that should feel strange to us.

• When we drive past billboards that use sex to sell products, that should feel strange, not normal.

• When we turn on the radio or TV and listen to or watch the celebration of sin, that should feel strange.

• When we hear language that is casually vulgar and demeaning, that kind of conversation should feel strange.

• When we see commercials that insist things will bring us happiness

• When see the racism that still exists

• When we vote this year, we should feel like strangers who inhabit a strange land, exiles not at home in this foreign land.

But we have to be careful. If this lingering feeling of alienation drives us inward or makes us retreat or causes us to lash out in anger, we are missing the purpose of this holy dissatisfaction. I believe God puts this reminder in us to motivate us to engage and redeem our culture for our good and His glory.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc9gfNW5otE[/embed]

First, our hearts are meant to be broken by the fallen state of the world.

David wrote: “By the waters of Babylon, we sat and wept as we remembered Zion.” (Psalm 137:1) That was a proper response for living in Babylon. It’s not that Babylon wasn’t beautiful. It had the Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders Of The World. It was a cultural marvel. It’s just that the worldview, the vibe, the moral climate was terrible. It broke their heart to see Babylon in contrast with a land characterized by the things of God.

How often do we weep for our American Babylon as we think about how far we have wandered from the goodness of the Kingdom of God? It’s easy to see the latest celebrity who makes terrible life choices and jeer. It’s easy to see political candidates and just get mad. It’s easy to read articles about how the world is descending into madness and get hardened and cynical. It’s easy to muster arguments for why the last natural disaster was clearly a judgment by God against some group of exceptionally bad sinners.

But that’s not the biblical call (and the last one’s just not biblical)[3]. We should be broken. We should be praying; we should be weeping for the cycle of sin that unfolds in so many lives including our own; we should be begging God for the salvation, healing and restoration of everyone.

Our hearts are meant to be broken by the fallen state of the world.

Second, our broken hearts should motivate us to engage.

When the Jews were in exile, the prophet Jeremiah wrote:

“This is what the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies and God of Israel, says to those He exiled from Jerusalem to Babylon:  “Build houses—make homes for your families because you are not coming back to Judah anytime soon. Plant gardens, and eat the food you grow there. Marry and have children; find wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, so that they can have children. During these years of captivity, let your families grow and not die out. Pursue the peace and welfare of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to Me, the Eternal, for Babylon because if it has peace, you will live in peace.” (Jeremiah 29: 4-11)

That’s a very specific order for the Israelites, so let’s consider how this command has played out over church history in other situation. In the early church, Christians were very good at redeeming things within their cultures, moving in and bringing with them the peace of God.[4]

• The New Testament Christians sang; they tithed; they ate ‘love feasts’ together; they listened to speakers. This wasn’t a new idea; every other follower of a religion did this at that time.

• The church took the iconic kriophoros, or lamb bearer, and used it to portray Christ as the Good Shepherd.

• The church used the praying figure of the pagan orant to symbolize Christian piety.

• The classic image of Jonah under the withered vine was based on the story and popular pictures of Endymion, a young man who fell in love with a goddess.

• A fresco of Christ as Orpheus in the Catacombs of Peter and Marcellus in Rome dates from the 4th century. Clement wrote, “Orpheus pacified wild beasts by the power of his song…Jesus’ new song tames ‘the most intractable of all animals – man.’”

Modern Christianity has done this as well.

• Christmas, Easter and Halloween have a mixed history, but the church has always found ways to take cultural celebrations and direct them toward God.

• We move into entertainment, entering into popular music and popular forms of storytelling and using that vehicle for the glory of God. How many times has the Matrix been mentioned from this pulpit?

• We enter into the flow of art and fashion and make things that reflect biblical values.

• We are politicians, businessmen, students, teachers, lawyers, laborers…

We don’t retreat from our culture. We embed ourselves in it. The first Christians didn’t move out of the neighborhood once they became disciples of Christ. They were just aware in ways they weren’t before that all around them was a broken and dying world that in some ways was terribly at odds with their new citizenship – and it broke their hearts, and they stayed there and sought to bring the reality of new life in the Kingdom of Heaven to earth. They prayed, “Thy Kingdom come, they will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” - and then they did His will.

So our heart should be broken, and that should motivate us to engage.  

Third, we must remember the power of public witness.

Here’s the big question: what do people learn about Jesus from Christians? They can’t see him, obviously, but they can see us. And when they see people who claim they are being transformed so that they increasingly reflect Jesus, they reach conclusions about what Jesus must be like.

• People will assume that what we celebrate, Jesus would celebrate.

• People will assume that what we mourn, Jesus would mourn.

• People will assume that the stands we take are the stands Jesus would take; that the things we call virtues or vices are the things Jesus would call virtues or vices.

• They assume that the language we use online is Jesus approved.

• They assume the signs we carry and the things we shout are a reflection of the gospel message.

• They assume our attitude, our actions, and our speech reflect our Savior.

So how has the past month been going? If one of your friends was asked right now, “What did you learn about Jesus last month from ___”, what would they say?

Has our public witness strengthened or weakened the reputation of Christ and His Kingdom? We may be strangers, but we are called to be loving, truthful, and gracious strangers. Do we bring peace to the city? I don’t mean through compromise, but through our presence: our integrity, our words, our actions, our attitudes, the proper ordering of our loves as we model what ought to matter most. Has God been glorified in Traverse City because our lives can’t help but point others toward our glorious Savior?

Here’s my challenge to you this week.

• Develop and awareness of being a spiritual exile, a foreigner, a stranger.

• When this becomes clear, let your heart be broken for this strange land.

• When your heart is broken, let that engage you; become even more involved in our community as you work and pray for peace to come to our land as we bring the presence of Jesus to all those around us.

• Let your witness point toward the fullness and the hope of life in the Kingdom of God.

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[1]http://www.christiantoday.com/article/american.study.reveals.indulgent.lifestyle.christians.no.different/9439.htm

[2] http://www3.dbu.edu/jeanhumphreys/SocialPsych/evangelicalmind.htm

[3] http://empiresandmangers.blogspot.com/2012/11/is-frankenstorm-judgment-from-god.html

[4] “Borrowing From The Neighbors.” http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/ancient-near-eastern-world/borrowing-from-the-neighbors/

Christian Character In Three Easy Steps! (You Won’t Believe #2!!!)

There is a tension in the Christians life between what God does for us and what God expects us to do. God is always at work doing something in us and for us that we can’t accomplish on our own power, but the Bible is also clear that God expects us to participate in the building of our lives. 

“Whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock, and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of mine and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand; and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on the house; and it fell.  And great was its fall.”(Jesus, in Matthew 7:24-27) 

Jesus is the rock on which we build a foundation of life that will stand in the midst of storms. But we build. Whether on sand or stone, we will build something. After talking about people who were commended for their faith, Paul wrote,

“Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith...” (Paul, in Hebrews 12)

Jesus is the author of our faith and the finisher of our faith. There is no righteousness we can earn or attain on our own merit. God does all the heavy lifting when it comes to salvation. However, we were not saved for complacency. We throw off everything that hinders. We lay aside every weight. God may have built the stadium, equipped it with every good and perfect gift, and put us on His own team, but we've still got to put our phone to the side, strap on the shoes and run. 

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I was recently watching a documentary on Rich Froning, multiple winner of the Crossfit Games, aka “the fittest man on earth.” Most people see him for three days on ESPN once a year when he obliterates the competition. But it’s what he has done relentlessly for years that got him to the top of the podium. He didn’t build muscle and stamina a couple weeks before the games.

There are other areas of life where we can observe commitment and then see output. Certainly natural strengths or weaknesses, past experiences and opportunities (or the lack of them) have an impact on what we accomplish, but generally speaking, we get what we give. No matter who you are and whether or not life has been good to you or hard for you, there is no substitute for faithful, committed hard work to take you to a better place than you are now.

From what I can see in the Bible, it is no different with character building. God has given us the privilege and responsibility of being what theologians call “significant moral agents.” In other words, what we do matters. Reaping and sowing is a principle God himself embedded in the world.

“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap corruption;  whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” (Galatians 6:7-10)

 Jesus offers to take upon himself the eternal punishment for all the corruption we have sown into our lives. But whenever we plant something of spiritual or moral significance in our life, an appropriate crop begins to grow. This is the building or undermining of our character. Our training matters. Our sowing matters.

Here is a biblical truth that can be hard to accept: God does not gift character. God saves us from the eternal consequences of our sinful failure through his justification; God radically changes our identity through salvation (we are now children of God – Galatians 3:26); and through sanctification he continually transforms us into a Christ-likeness (think of the imagery of the vine and the branches in John 15)  But we still have the freedom to build or undermine our character in the ordinary moments of days, months, and years.

Now, God does not wait until we are perfect until He can accomplish something good with us. The Bible is loaded with stories of deeply flawed people that God uses for the good of the world and for His glory.  This is not about becoming good enough so God will choose you or use you. If that were the standard, none of us would ever be chosen or rise to the occasion. This is not about God noticing us because of how awesome we are. This is, however, about how the Bible shows discipline and character developing by God's grace in the slow, ordinary, plodding times of life.

 It’s not a popular thought. We live in a society that encourages us to see life not as a walk of baby steps, but of huge leaps and bounds 

• If I am going to lose weight, I want to be the biggest loser.  20 pounds over a year is hardly worth my time.  I want to win the show on TV by dropping 100 in a week.

• If I want a makeover, I don’t have time for small improvements over time.  I want an extreme makeover now while I am on vacation.

• I shouldn’t have to be a singer who works my way to the top through hard work and fortitude.  I want to be an idol with a big contract.

• If I want to learn to use the Force, now I can just close my eyes and really want to use the Force instead of train in the middle of nowhere with a little cryptic green guy (apologies, Star Wars fans).

• And dare I say, I want God to finish working in my life now, and be done teaching me now, to get me past my struggles with sin now, to fix my marriage now, and to answer my prayers now. I don’t have time to just do the next thing.  I want the next big thing !!!!  

This past week I was reading some prophecies or predictions for 2016. Most of them were full of exciting, grand, sweeping visions of how God is going to mightily move in nations, kingdoms, and the church. That may be true - God can do that kind of work in the world, of course.  But you know what I didn’t see?

 “God has revealed to me that this next year will be full of countless times when ordinary moments of faithfulness will build His people and His Kingdom. The Holy Spirit will move powerfully and help you not snap at your kids so that overtime what you plant as a parent will lead to a good relational harvest. You will face temptation, and you will need to train: humble yourself, seek accountability, and do the hard work of resisting temptation. You will be overlooked, under-appreciated, ignored and demeaned, but God’s faithful presence will be active in the midst of this to build your character for the good of the Kingdom and for His glory.”

I haven’t seen that yet. 

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Eugene Peterson once said:

“There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness.”

There are no three easy steps – which is why you won’t believe #2. Anyone who tells you there are shortcuts to character are lying to you. There is no escaping this Godly practice of doing the next thing: Being faithful in the walk of life, in little things when there is no apparent inspiration, no applause, no crowd, no obvious, immediate payoff to myself.  This is the means through which God so often does His restorative work of grace in us and around us.

As I look back, as meaningful as our marriage ceremony was, the vows my wife and I gave each other offered an inaccurate view of what we would face. There is poverty and wealth, there is sickness and health, there is joy and there is pain, there is passion and there is coldness, and there is arguing and there is making up, but more often than not the majority of our lives are lived somewhere in between, not leaping from momentous event to momentous event, but taking a Tylenol and doing the next thing. And the ‘next things’ become momentous. I like how Alexander Maclaren put it:

“If our likeness to God does not show itself in trifles, what is there left for it to show itself in?  For our lives are all made up of trifles.  The great things come three or four of them in the seventy years; the little ones every time the clock ticks.”

I’m sure God can make us mature in a moment if He wants to, but if the Biblical record (and all of church history and the lives of everyone I know) is any indication, He apparently does not.. He wants us to grow up moment by moment, relying on His Spirit, reading and obeying His Word, and living in a community of His people.

Let’s go back to Jesus’ parable in Matthew 7. When the storms of life arrive, we as follower of Christ will stand not because we were strong suddenly, by surprise, contrary to all expectations. We will stand because 1) God provided a foundation for our lives, and 2) we have built our character by hearing what Jesus has to say about holiness - and doing it. 

This is how discipleship works. After God saves us from ourselves and fills us with His spirit, we commit to being disciples: following Christ, learning what it means to walk in holiness and integrity, putting one foot in front of the other day after day after day, for the good of His Kingdom and the glory of God. 

The Importance of Remembering

The past can be a tricky thing: it clearly forms us, but how much? Do we need to remember in order to move forward? Do we need to forget?  Is our history control our destiny or does it merely influence it? And most importantly, whatever has happened in our lives up to this point, is there hope?

Bob Kelleman, a Christian counselor, author, and speaker (http://www.rpmministries.org/blog/), has a great perspective on this. His claim is that the Bible reveals to us not only the importance of remembering our past, but making sure we grow in Christian maturity as we do so.

Remember (humbly)

“Remember” is used 167 times in the Bible (at least in the NIV), reminding us of the importance of remembering. We see it both in the Old Testament and the New. Usually, it has to do with remembering events in order to remember that God was at work in the midst of those events 

• “Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day.  Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.  He led you through the vast and dreadful desert, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock.  He gave you manna to eat in the desert, something your fathers had never known, to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you. You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.”  But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.”  Deuteronomy 8:11-18

• In Deuteronomy 32, God warns Moses that the Israelites will break their covenant with him. He tells Moses to write down a song of God’s presence (with all the interaction, faithfulness, and blessings and cursing of the covenant) and teach it to all the people so it will be a witness. One portion of the song says, “Remember the days of long ago; think about the generations past. Ask your father, and he will inform you. Inquire of your elders, and they will tell you.” Deuteronomy 32:7

• When Jesus and disciples participated in what we call the Last Supper, Jesus said, “Keep doing this to remember me” (Luke 22:19).

 There are times we read about forgetting the former things, but this idea is often misunderstood. Here are the two verses I hear quoted the most:

•  After citing all the ways He has redeemed or saved the Israelites, God says through Isaiah, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.” (NIV) Isaiah 43:18-19

• Paul writes in Philippians that “…forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (NKJV) Philippians 3:13-14

The writers were not urging people to develop amnesia. In both cases, it means not being distracted by success and blessing. Isaiah was referring to good things, not bad ones (and actually tells them several verses later to “review the past for me”). Philippians is referring to good things in Paul’s life that could lead to self-righteousness, pride in personal accomplishments, and complacency. Bruce Springsteen was right: Glory days really will pass you by. Remembering the past is important for at least two reasons: our past clearly forms or informs who we are today, and God was present (and He is worth remembering).

Reflect (honestly)

Trying to suppress bad memories can become a refusal to face and deal with life. We talk a lot about “coping mechanisms” such as drinking and drugs and food, at least when they are used to numb our pain, emptiness, or guilt. But what about when we simply refuse to be honest about the things that have formed who we are?  Is that not an unhealthy coping mechanism too? Here’s a daunting verse: “Remember and never forget how angry you made the LORD your God out in the wilderness.” Deuteronomy 9:7 

Never forget how angry they made God!?  This is not a verse we see on coffee mugs or taped on bathroom mirrors. That’s a reference to the whole Golden Calf Episode, though Moses promptly lists four more places where they really made God angry because of their disobedience ( “You also made the Lord angry at Taberah, at Massah and at Kibroth Hattaavah…Kadesh Barnea.” 22-23). This was hardly a shining moment in Israelite history, but there it was. Nobody was allowed to dodge it.

We should be honest with ourselves, God and others regarding our past.  Can you remember times when you angered God – or your spouse, kids, parent, boss, friends – because of your sin? If this principle holds true, don’t forget how it impacted those around you. It can be a great incentive to stop your drifting back into that part of your life, and it can give clarity about what kind of person you are striving to be. Reflecting on the devastation of sin also reminds us of the grace of a God who forgives us even after the worst of our sins, as well as the forgiveness people around us have offered to us.

Repent (sincerely)  

In Revelation, after John gives props to the church in Ephesus for their perseverance and godly deeds, we read an admonition as well: “You have forsaken the love you had at first. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first” (Revelations 2:5). 

I am more and more convinced that true, life-changing repentance can only happen after honest acknowledgment of who we are and what we have done. The goal – at least when it comes to memories of things we have done wrong – is not shame but repentance and then renewal and restoration. In Psalms 51, written after his disastrous affair with Bathsheba, David modeled what to do after falling from the heights: remembering and repenting of his heart and his actions – and then receiving God’s renewal:

“Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight… Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” (Psalm 51:1-4; 10-12)

Notice how David adds repentance to his recollection of events, then anticipates the forgiveness and mercy of God on the other side of the chaos that resulted from his sin. Remember….reflect, repent….God will be faithful.

Reinterpret (carefully)

Reflecting and repenting have a lot to do with looking at our choices and our lives. There are also plenty of times when things are done to us that greatly impact our lives as well. Joseph makes this comment to his brothers, who sold him into slavery: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Genesis 50:20)

The language in Hebrew captures both a physical or symbolic weaving together, like a tapestry with a good or evil plan. Joseph looked back at his life and found where and how God intervened in his story to create some type of beauty and life where there would have been none. In this situation, Joseph was able to see in a very practical way that God had brought a good result (“the saving of many lives”) from a bad situation.

I preached on this a number of years ago, and in looking back at my notes I think I got something wrong. I said this was about Joseph. It’s not. It involves Joseph, but it’s about “the saving of many lives.” Joseph wasn’t saying, “They intended harm for me and now God has intervened by my good.” He’s saying, “They intended harm for me and now God has intervened for the sake of the world.” The story of Joseph is rightly highlighted as pointing toward the arrival of Jesus, [1] so I am not going to tell you that you are Joseph. Joseph was Joseph, and God used his life uniquely. 

However, his story highlights an important point: God can take a life that has absorbed a lot of harm and bring about good - for the sake of the world. Many times we look at our lives and assume we are worthless in the overall scheme of things. (“Do you know what has been done to me? Do you know how I have been betrayed and used?”) But God is not stumped by sin and chaos. Just read the Bible – God is very, very good at taking broken, sinful, messed up lives and redeeming them for His glory and for the good of the world.

Reinterpret does not mean lie, ignore or make up stuff to make the story better. It just means that we should not give up on a God who is very, very good at taking situations or people that have been harmed and using them in the healing of the world (think of all the people whose past makes them such good ministers of the hope of the gospel now).

Reinterpret is a challenge to see how your past experiences allow you to minister to others for their good and God’s glory.  

Retell (boldly)

We engage in an act of worship by retelling our stories in a way that shows how God weaves goodness into the world. Our testimony of God’s involvement in our life is never meant to be just about us – it must honor and glorify God and His role in redeeming our past, and it is meant to give hope to the world. Look at how David wraps up Psalm 51 (the one about Bathsheba): “Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
so that sinners will turn back to you... Open my lips, Lord,
and my mouth will declare your praise.”  (Psalm 51:13)

 Really? How will David teach this?  Well if the previous verses in chapter 51 are any indication, he will tell his story. He speaks as a transgressor and sinner in whom God was at work even in the midst of his sin. It is often in the retelling where we see that even the worst parts of our past can be reclaimed and retold for the glory of God. We don’t remember to wallow in our past sin and shame, but to remind ourselves and others of a God who present, faithful, and redemptive. 

[1] http://jewsforjesus.org/publications/newsletter/july-1985/08_joseph_jesus

Jesus: Redeemer and Savior

 "O Come, O Come Immanuel" is a classic Christmas carol about ransom, or redemption. While there is a lot of biblical language (Dayspring and Rod of Jesse), the dilemma is timeless: Without Christ, we are captives to sin, we live under the shadow of death and the grave, we are the lonely exiles. We are in need of someone who will save us.

In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word for redemption is gaal. It can mean a number of things: 

• being freed from a bond

• buying back something that was lost or sold. (Think today of extreme debt – college loans, money owed to a hospital or to the IRS).

• the paying of a ransom to save someone from slavery or captivity.  We hear a lot today about the international slave trade – Christian Solidarity International is redeeming slaves for $50 to $100 in the Sudan right now. [1]

In the Old Testament, Goel is the term for the person who was the "redeemer." God is called Israel's goel numerous times (Deuteronomy 9:26 2 Samuel 7:23 1 Chronicles 17:21 Isaiah 52:3). He redeemed them from national misfortune (Isaiah 52:9; Isaiah 63:9) plague (Psalm 78:35, 52) disaster, (Genesis 48:16 Numbers 25:4, 9), and captivity (Egypt and Babylon). Isaiah wrote how those mourning in exile and darkness would one day see the arrival of redeemer to save them from all these things:

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined. You have multiplied the nation,
you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
as with joy at the harvest,
as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. For the yoke of his burden,
and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian. For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire.

 For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government will be upon his shoulder,
and his name will be called
“Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end,
upon the throne of David, and over his kingdom to establish it, and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and for evermore.” (Isaiah 9:2-8)

 Isaiah adds later, 

“ I am the Lord. Beside Me, there is no savior. There is no other redeemer. Thus says the Lord, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. I am He.” (Isaiah 43:11)

 All the practical, physical ways that Israel’s God redeemed them was simply a foreshadowing or representation of the ultimate salvation that God was promising: redemption from sin or the results of sin (Psalm 130:8). The penalty of sin was death (as we see in the sacrificial system in the Old Testament). Yet God steps in as a Redeemer here as well.  Isaiah (once again) wrote:

 “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions (rebellion), he was bruised for our iniquities (sin); upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity (guilt) of us all.” (Isaiah 53:4–6)

In Jesus, the long-awaited redemption from sin arrived. We see this referenced again and again in the New Testament: 

• Matthew 1:21
 "And [Mary] will bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus: for he will save his people from their sins."

• Acts 10:43
 "To him [Jesus] all the prophets witness that, through his name, whoever believes in him will receive remission of sins."

• Hebrews 9:11-12
 "…not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us."

• Ephesians 1:7 
"In him [Jesus] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his [God's] grace…"

• Colossians 1:14
 "In whom [Jesus] We have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins…"

• Titus 2:14 “He gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for Himself a people for His own possession, eager to do good works.”

• Romans 3:24: “For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God sent to be an atoning sacrifice, through faith in His blood…”

Jesus arrived to redeem people from the alienation brought about by sin, and he did so through his death and resurrection (Romans 4:25 ; 2 Corinthians 5:18-19 ). The darkness and gloom over the land we sang about in “O Come Immanuel” was not primarily because life was hard. It was primarily because sin was wreaking havoc in the souls of those in the land. So God – through Christ – brought a great light. The joy and rejoicing and healing and life happen because Christ took the initiative to offer himself as a ransom on behalf of those enslaved to sin and death.[2]  So what does this redemption look like? How are our lives made beautiful? 

We are redeemed from sin, into life in Christ, with God’s people, for the glory of God.

Redeemed from sin. Once we have given ourselves to sin, we immediately incur a debt we cannot satisfy.  There are small ways in life where we can “save ourselves” – I paid off my college debt, for example. If I fail to do what I told my wife I would do to help clean up on Saturday morning, there’s always Saturday afternoon J  But the daunting nature of SIN is that we incur a debt that we cannot pay – “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23)  In order to pay our own ransom, we would have to die. We need a redeemer, someone who will pay the price and ransom us, and that someone is Jesus Christ. We are delivered from ‘the law of sin and death’ by his life, death and resurrection. “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ.” (Romans 6:23)

Redeemed from sin, into life with Christ. This is the positive movement of a soul away from sin and toward peace and reconciliation with God. Christ didn’t just cancel our debt; He brought us into new life.

“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit." (I Peter 3:18) 

" God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." (Romans 5:6-10)

When we talk about the hope and peace of advent, this is what we are talking about. Peace on earth – goodwill toward those on whom His favor rests.” (Luke 2:14) “He is our peace.” Why? “You who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” (Ephesians 2:13)

Redeemed from sin, into life with Christ, with God’s people. God does not redeem us into isolation. He intended to create a community of people would live in covenant community of commitment, obligation, and responsibilities with God and each other. When that happens, Christians increasingly demonstrate what it genuinely means to be God’s people. This is what Jesus meant when he said he would build his “church” not as a building, but as a community of people from all nations (Matthew 16:18; 28:19). This involves truth, repentance, forgiveness, grace, love, justice, mercy and holiness.

Christopher Wright has noted, “The people of God in both testaments are called to be a light to the nations. But there can be no light to the nations that is not shining already in transformed lives of a holy people.” It’s not just about you, or just about me, or just about any one individual. We are redeemed – and now I am talking about every way – to become ambassadors of Christ’s redemption. (Maybe “pay it forward” is the phrase is the phrase I am looking for?)

Redeemed from sin, into life with Christ, with God’s people, for the glory of God.

“My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit.” (John 15:8) 

“For all things are for your sakes, so that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:15)

“What if God, willing to show His wrath, and to make His power known, endured with much patience those who are destined for destruction: and that He might make known the riches of His glory on those to whom he shows mercy, who were prepared in advance for glory.” (Romans 9:22-23)

Ultimately, we aren’t redeemed for our glory (though we have been prepared for it). We aren’t redeemed to build the church (though that’s part of it).  We are redeemed so that the Redeemer is glorified. I like how David Vandrunen summarized this idea:

“Despair would seem to be the only logical response if all we knew about ourselves was our sinfulness and consequent condemnation before God’s judgment. But humility grounded in the gospel enables us to understand that we do have true worth and that we are, in fact, called to glory. It is not a worth that derives from our own efforts and not a glory we can achieve by our own strength. Rather, the gospel reveals our worth as those renewed in the image of God through Christ, empowers us to do works that are truly good and honorable, and gives us hope of a coming glory bestowed by Christ at his second coming…. 

God glorified himself in all his works, but is especially pleased to glorify himself through the glorification of his saints in Christ – whose glorification thus redounds back to the glory of God… May we fear and glorify him especially for doing precisely what it took, at such great cost to himself, to redeem lowly sinners and make us glorified citizens of a kingdom that can never be shaken.”   (God’s Glory Alone: The Majestic Heart of Christian Faith And Life)

God is not glorified in my life because I’m awesome. Those of you who know me well can vouch for this. God’s not glorified in any of our lives because we are awesome. God’s glorified in our lives because of His desire and ability to redeem even me – even you -  in spite of the cost, and because He has taken our broken lives and patiently been patching them back together.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUP3iNSw1kU

[1] “Redeeming Sudan’s Slaves,” http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/1999/august9/9t9029.html?start=2

[2] http://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionaries/bakers-evangelical-dictionary/redeem-redemption.html

The Reality of The Kingdom of God

If you have ever traveled, you know that cultures are different. The deep south is not the same as the far north in the United States (everything is fried in butter; if they don’t know you, they might not be open). When we go to very different cultures we can experience “culture shock” because things are SO different: gestures, food, social expectations (being on time; making eye contact; physical greetings), driving habits, etc. In culture shock, we experience “a condition of disorientation affecting someone who is suddenly exposed to an unfamiliar culture or way of life or set of attitudes.”

When we commit our lives to Christ, there should be culture shock. We have moved spiritually. We are now citizens in a new country, with a  new leader (Christ), new customs, new language, new priorities. And then we balance this with remaining in our national country and being a citizen there. As Christians, we are all dual citizens, balancing what are at times two very different cultures.

So let’s talk about the culture of the Kingdom of God, and in the process address some things in our culture as well. I am going to present this as 4 questions and answers: How do we get into the Kingdom? What characterizes the Kingdom? When Will I experience the Kingdom? How will I experience the Kingdom?

 Q. How do you get in to the Kingdom of God?

A. Through a commitment to dedicate my life to the risen Jesus.

 When Jesus was talking with Nicodemus the following conversation took place:

  “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” “How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!”

Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’” (John 3:3-7 )

 Jesus was basically saying, “Nicodemus, you know that you need a physical birth to experience the physical world; human parent make human babies.  You need a spiritual birth to experience spiritual life. You need to a heavenly parent to make you a child of Heaven.” Later, Paul will compare this to adoption. When we commit our lives to worshipping and following Christ, we are brought into a new family, with a new Father in Heaven. We continue to honor our earthly mom and dad – it’s a commandment after all - but our ultimate allegiance is now to our Father in Heaven.  And receiving this adoption is as simple - and profound – as John 3:16, which is just 9 verses later (still part of the same conversation):

  “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”

Believe (pistis in Greek) carries the idea of  “being persuaded to confidently, trustingly commit yourself.” We acknowledge that Jesus is God, that through his life, death and resurrection, our sins are forgiven, that Jesus alone has the power to save us, and that we respond to His loving sacrifice by offering our love and worship as well as the service of our lives in return.

We commit with heart, soul, mind and strength , and we enter the Kingdom of God as we accept Christ as King – the ultimate authority for life and godliness.  In new birth, we see that God brings life. In adoption, we see that God offers to make us one of His own. In kingship, we are reminded that the rule and reign of Christ has been set up in our life.

Q. What characterizes the Kingdom?

A. God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10)

“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest (honorable), whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely (acceptable and prized), whatsoever things are of good report (repute); if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” (Philippians 4:8)

 “The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23)

 “Make every effort to respond to God's promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.” (2 Peter 1:5-7)

 There’s just a partial list: Truth, honesty, honorable, justice, purity, loveliness, praise-worthiness, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, faithful, morally excellent, knowledgeable, self-controlled, enduring, godliness, mutual affection. That’s what characterizes the Kingdom.  That’s a compelling list. These things are available to us when we accept Christ as King thanks to the Spirit and the Word of God.

It doesn't’ mean that life will be easy or perfect. It’s just that the more we experience the work and presence of Christ in our life, the more these things will begin to characterize our life in Christ.

It also doesn’t mean we will do them perfectly, but we will pursue them, applaud them, and do our best with God’s grace to live them out, not for recognition, or for power, or to earn God’s love, but as a trusting, committed response to the covenant we as Christians make with Jesus. “I commit my life to you;  I trust that you can save me spiritually and that your path of spiritual transformation of my life is trustworthy. I will follow you. I want my character, my thoughts, my actions to be like yours.”

We pray for God to do something miraculous in us through His Spirit, we “study to show ourselves approved unto God” by rightly understanding and applying His Word to our lives (2 Timothy 2:15), and we surround ourselves with followers of Christ (Colossians 3:16)

Q. When will I experience the Kingdom of God?

A. If you are a follower of Christ, you are and you will.

“The kingdom of God comes—but not with signs that you can observe. People are not going to say, “Look! Here it is!” They’re not going to say, “Look! It’s over there!” You want to see the kingdom of God? The kingdom of God is already here among you (within your midst).” Luke 17:20-21)

The first-century Jews wanted a leader to throw off Roman rule and make Judea a nation. There was a cultural longing for national restoration, a nation in which everything centered around God. There would be safety within the borders; everyone would live within God’s law; God’s people would be powerful, and the long-awaited Kingdom would finally arrive.  I’ll be honest – that resonates with me. There’s something compelling about a safe, comfortable life. Wouldn’t it be nice if those outside the Kingdom loved and supported what was happening in the Kingdom?

But Jesus talked about the arrival of the Kingdom even as he spoke in a land of occupation and oppression. It was not a Kingdom of physical dominance – he specifically tells his servants not to fight (John 18:36). It’s not a Kingdom of cultural comfort. It’s a spiritual Kingdom that exists no matter what our surrounding circumstances look like.

But that’s just part one. There’s more.

"But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. And all the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’” (Matt. 25:31-34)

The Kingdom is fulfilled within history [already], and will reach its fullness at the end of history [not yet].  For Christians, the Kingdom begins in this life and finds its fulfillment in the next.

Q. How will I experience it?

A. In a broken, longing, hopeful world.

On this side of heaven, we will always experience the spiritual kingdom of God in the midst of the physical kingdoms of the world. In the last two weeks, I saw the following:

• a video of four men being slowly burned alive by ISIS

• more Planned Parenthood videos that show the callous and calculating taking of human life

• the increasing move in culture to marginalize and even vilify those who hold to Christian beliefs

• the expose of Ashely Madison clients that included Christians in leadership

• MTV’s video music awards last week that just showed the stark contrast between the values of the world vs. the Bible

 The beauty and hope of God’s Kingdom can be experienced in the midst of a very broken and lost world.

We lie, and gossip, and betray, and break hearts, and love poorly, and are not fair, and we are shallow and petty and desperately chasing after things that will never bring us hope or meaning or true joy and peace…. And yet the beauty and hope of God’s Kingdom can be experienced in the midst of a very broken and lost world.

• When truth triumphs over lies

• When purity is honored instead of demeaned

• When repentance and forgiveness highlight grace

• When joy emerges from despair

• When an unexpected peace occurs in or around us

• When we experience the beauty of patience and kindness

• When those around us are faithful and enduring

• When Christ reaches out to us sinners and draws us into His Kingdom

In Luke 14, when one of the disciples comments on how great it will be to feast in heaven, Jesus immediately tells a parable about a feast here on earth in which the poor and maimed and lame and blind are invited – in fact, compelled to come in. 

 “He [God, the Father] has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love” (Colossians 1:13)

 The Kingdom is a feast, a celebration of the love and mercy of Christ to which the poor, the rich, the dirty, the clean, the smart and dumb, the blatant sinners and the careful sinners – in other words, all of us - are invited in to experience the goodness of life in the Kingdom in the presence of the King.   

The Value of the Kingdom (Matthew 13:44-45)


”The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.” (Matthew 13:44-45)

Not, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who found a treasure, so he sold most of what he had in case it didn’t work out.” The man sells all he has with joy! In Philippians, Paul talks about all the ways in which he was an amazingly religious person – his pedigree was pure, and he was blameless in obeying the law. He had power and reputation. But after became a follower of Christ, he wrote:

“I regard everything as loss for the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish in order that I might gain Christ and be found in Him.” (Philippians 3:8)

The first point is that the Kingdom of Heaven demands all of us. Everything on earth is worth the trade-off. There is no giving up all we have -  except for our money, our job, our friends, our sex life, our vacations, our retirement plans, our temperament, our appearance, or our dreams. If there is an area that we won’t gladly give up for the sake of knowing Christ and living in the life He has called us to, we are clinging to idols, and we will never understand what it means to live in the Kingdom of God.

 “There is a condition for having the kingdom… the condition is not wealth or power or intelligence or eminence. The condition is that you prize the kingdom more than you prize anything else.” (John Piper)

 The second point has to do with how the treasure is found.

In the first parable, the treasure is found unexpectedly in a field. Not in a bank, not in a lawn, not underneath the floorboards of a house.  It was found unexpectedly in a common field in the midst of labor. We rarely stumble upon the Kingdom in the midst of luxury, ease and distraction. It often happens when we are in a field, in the midst of the ordinary toil of life, faithfully putting one foot in front of the other. This treasure was not found during a spiritual retreat or at a conference or even a Sunday morning service. The Kingdom of Heaven – the beauty of Christ and the richness of the life he offers – is often stumbled upon while you are doing life:

• pulling out your hair dealing with your kids

• doing the hard work of marriage

• punching the clock at your job

• talking with your doctor

• grinding away at homework

• navigating loneliness or depression or grief.

 The field is hard. Going back to an earlier parable - there are thorny people who leave marks. There are things that sting us and bite us (words, glances, snubs, misunderstandings). There is sweat, pain, loneliness, loss, grief, depression, frustration. There is stony ground and hardened people. But the Kingdom of Heaven is there because God is present and Christ is available, and the treasure – salvation, forgiveness, and restoration - will be revealed if we faithfully work the land.

 The man in the field stumbles upon the Kingdom; in contrast, the merchant has already been searching diligently for it among the beautiful, costly things.

 This merchant knew what beautiful things looked like, but he was not content with ordinary. He didn’t want to just get by. He wanted the only one that really matters. The beautiful pearls around us might be our toys, reputation, beauty, sex, family, entertainment, America!  Other religions can offer what seems to be a very compelling path to peace or hope. A distracting a beautiful pearl in our current climate is our reputation among our friends – we are reluctant to talk about Jesus, or about sin and the need for salvation, or even share the story of our life with others because we don’t know what will happen.  But those are small pearls indeed compared with Christ, in whom all the true treasures of life are found.

In conclusion,

• The Kingdom of Heaven is valuable and costly.

• Whether stumbled upon or searched for diligently, Jesus Christ and the salvation and hope He offers are worth the cost.

• Nothing matters more than the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus as Lord. (Philippians 3:8)

The Soil of The Kingdom (Matthew 13:3-9; 18-23)

Jesus talked a lot about the Kingdom of Heaven – a life where the rule and reign of God is both seen and experienced, a Kingdom that we become a part of when we commit ourselves to Jesus Christ. We become citizens of heaven, and this world is not supposed to be ‘home’ any more. When Jesus said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is IN YOU!” (Luke 17:21), it’s not some New Age proclamation that we are all gods. He simply meant it’s not “there” or “there” where an earthly kingdom can be seen. It’s not kicking out the Romans and establishing a Jewish nation. That's not the Kingdom of Heaven. The rule and reign of Christ is now in our hearts.

 Jesus told a number of parables about the Kingdom of Heaven explaining to his followers what characterizes the kingdom of Heaven, and, by implication, how they ought to seek to live as citizens of that kingdom. We are going to take five weeks to go through the parables in Matthew 13. Today we are looking at the Parable of the Sower.

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A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. (Matthew 13:3-9)

This is what the parable of the sower means. It is about the kingdom of heaven. When someone hears the story of the Kingdom and cannot understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away whatever goodness and holiness had been sown in the heart. This is like the seeds sown beside the road. You know people who hear the word of God and receive it joyfully—but then, somehow, the word fails to take root in their hearts. It is temporary. As soon as there is trouble for those people, they trip: those people are the seeds strewn on the rocky soil. And you know people who hear the word, but it is choked inside them because they constantly worry and prefer the wealth and pleasures of the world: they prefer drunken dinner parties to prayer, power to piety, and riches to righteousness. Those people are like the seeds sown among thorns. The people who hear the word and receive it and grow in it—those are like the seeds sown on good soil. They produce a bumper crop, 30 or 60 or 100 times what was sown. (Matthew 13:18-23)

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 It was likely the audience could look out on the hillside and see a sower going forth to sow. They could see a path which had been beaten across the field and the birds picking up the seeds right behind the sower. They could see the rocky ground,  the thorns and thistles, the good soil. While there is a lot to unpack here, I want to make only two points from this parable.

1. The Gospel is for everyone.

Considering the fields in Palestine, there was really no way to avoid ‘wasting’ seed. Jesus didn’t tell them to be more conservative with their planting. He just acknowledged not all the seeds are going to make it. But… sow. By all means. Paul wrote:

 And, even though no one (except Jesus) owns me, I have become a slave by my own free will to everyone in hopes that I would gather more believers. When around Jews, I emphasize my Jewishness in order to win them over. When around those who live strictly under the law, I live by its regulations—even though I have a different perspective on the law now—in order to win them over.  In the same way, I’ve made a life outside the law to gather those who live outside the law (although I personally abide by and live under the Anointed One’s law).  I’ve been broken, lost, depressed, oppressed, and weak that I might find favor and gain the weak. I’m flexible, adaptable, and able to do and be whatever is needed for all kinds of people so that in the end I can use every means at my disposal to offer them salvation.  I do it all for the gospel and for the hope that I may participate with everyone who is blessed by the proclamation of the good news. (1 Corinthians 9:19-23)

It’s not our job to decide who deserves the good news of the Gospel and who doesn’t. We are always evangelizing; we are always ambassadors for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

2. The Gospel takes root when it is planted deep in good soil.

 This is a summary statement of all the soils, so let’s work our way through them.

 Hardness of heart: when truth has no impact on us. There is no sense of the terrible nature of sin, particularly our own.  There are at least three ways in which our responses can reflect a hardness of heart.

• First, the hard-hearted don’t believe in sin. Good and evil are what we want them to be, and I am good. I don’t need a gospel of salvation. 

• Second, the hard-hearted can hear the Gospel, believe that  sin offends a holy God, harms us, devastates the world around us  - and just not care because they want to live life by their own rules.   

• Third, the hard-hearted hear and believe it’s true, but they only see the sinners all around them and fail to see the sinner within.

Brennan Manning wrote, “The kingdom is not an exclusive, well-trimmed suburb with snobbish rules about who can live there. No, it is for a larger, homelier, less self-conscious caste of people who understand they are sinners because they have experienced the yaw and pitch of moral struggle.” The gospel takes root in broken, humble people.

The Rocky Soil of Hardship and Trials: tough times uproot our faith. 

1. Hardships – Life is Hard: sickness, poverty, ongoing sin, broken relationships, death of a loved one… When we face these times, we assume God doesn’t care, isn’t strong or isn’t real, and whatever we once believe uproots and dies. There is no depth to faith. There was not a true understanding of what Jesus saved us from – that is, the penalty of our sin, not the hardship of life. Disillusionment wins because truth did not put down roots. 

1. Trials – Being A Christian Is Hard: Specific challenges to our faith.

• Some of them are literal, physical persecution. (http://www.opendoorsusa.org; persecution.com). This happens around the world constantly.

• Some of them are challenges to orthodoxy (what we believe as Christians): Does God exist? Is Jesus really God? Why would you trust the Bible? Do you really believe in Heaven and Hell? (See our church’s statement of faith at https://clgonline.org/statement-of-faith/). I have had people tell me they just think I am out of my mind to believe the Bible.

• Some of them are challenges to orthopraxy (how we live as Christians): In our culture, the issues primarily involve sex, marriage and human life (they were different 30 years ago; they will be different 30 years from now. Don't focus on the issues as much as the principle). We can be attacked as hateful or bigoted because we believe that God designed all sex for marriage, that God’s design for marriage is between a man and a woman, and that when sex results in babies they are human beings with a right to life.  When we don’t agree, we can be villified very quickly. If you don’t know how to answer questions about Christian beliefs and practices with truth and compassion, we will do our best to help you here at church, but you need to invest in understanding life in the Kingdom. Buy books. Watch videos. Listen to podcasts. Find good websites. Come to the 11:15 classes. Know what the Bible says, why God thought it was important to say it, and why it’s true.  

The Thorns: Distractions and Temptations

• Distractions: the glittery, shiny and beautiful things: friends, health, food, jobs, money, relationships, anything with a screen… Distractions are not things that are bad in and of themselves. They just begin to dominate our vision and take our eyes off of Christ.

• Temptations: the desire to sin – to live outside of God’s design for our lives. It’s often very subtle – usually, we are tempted to take something good (see the list above) and make it an idol. We begin to serve them because of the comfort, pleasure or power they bring.  (Note: In Christianity, we sacrifice ourselves so that others can live. In idolatry, we sacrifice others so we can live).  

The Good Soil 

"But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, in AN HONEST AND GOOD HEART, having heard the word, KEEP it, and bring forth fruit WITH PATIENCE." (Luke 8:15, a parallel parable)

This is where the Kingdom flourishes. This is what characterizes citizens in the Kingdom of Heaven.

• Honest and good-hearted people  are empowered by God with a goodness only God can bring, and as a result of their salvation live in a way that is inspirational and appealing. I don't mean Oprah Winfrey of Lifetime Network inspirational. I don’t mean you become one of the shiny happy people. The idea with this phrase is that God has made something good in you, and your life shows this. This isn’t a call to perfection. It’s a call to live genuinely in Christ and with others, letting others see what is happening in you. When Jesus brings beauty from the ashes of your life, that’s compelling.

• Hear the Word (literally). Don’t overcomplicate this. It just means know the Word of God. Read it. Read about it. Pray about it. Study it, listen to teaching about it, discuss it with your friends… Hear it over and over again. I was reading about the Rule of 151 on a blog called A Purposeful Business: It takes 151 times for a message to be heard through conversation: "The first 50 times people don’t hear you; the second 50 times they don’t understand you; the third 50 times they don’t believe you; the 151st time that they finally hear, understand, and think, 'Well, there must be something to this.'”

          The Holy Spirit opens our eyes, but we have to keep looking. 

• Understand it (synthesize it; find the preferred will of God. This is soaking it up, letting it rest in you, and nourishing it. This is being vulnerable, being honest with yourself, looking for the ways God’s truth needs to grow in you.

• Keep It (Hold fast; take possession). This is putting down roots and saying, “I will not be moved.” This is where, in the midst of hardship, we say like David, “Yet will I praise Him.” This is clinging to the truth of God in a culture that offers a lot of loud and glittering half-truths: “Live for yourself; do what feels right; you’re perfect just the way you are; love is all you need; the most important things is that you are happy.”

• Bring Forth Fruit patiently (literally, be “unswerved from deliberate purpose and loyalty to faith by even the greatest trials and sufferings” - biblehub.com). Paul said he ran the race with patience.  This is about decision, focus, and commitment.

This is what life in the Kingdom of Heaven look like when the rule and reign of God is both seen and experienced. This is what we are called to when we commit ourselves to Jesus Christ. I want to offer an encouragement and a challenge in closing.

The challenge is to ask yourself what kind of soil you are. Is your heart hardened or broken? Are you driven to your knees in humility and repentance on an ongoing basis? If not, you’ve got to surrender your blindness and pride to Christ not just for your sake, but for the sake of those around you. Are the hardships of life uprooting you? Are the distractions and temptations of the world choking out the beauty of the gospel? If so, pray that God makes in you a soil that loves and nourishes truth, that let’s the hope of the gospel sink in deep, so that it bears the fruit of the gospel within you and around you.

 The encouragement is that you don’t have to feel like a superstar in the Kingdom of Heaven to honor God. There’s nothing flashy about the good soil. It’s a deliberate commitment to respond to God’s work in you by dedicating yourself to understanding and living out His design for you – with great patience.  That’s good soil that brings good fruit.

Walking In War (Ephesians 6:10-20)

"Finally, brothers and sisters, draw your strength and might from God. Put on the full armor of God to protect yourselves from the devil and his evil schemes. We’re not waging war against enemies of flesh and blood. No, this fight is against tyrants, against authorities, against supernatural powers and demon princes that slither in the darkness of this world, and against wicked spiritual armies that lurk about in heavenly places. And this is why you need to be head-to-toe in the full armor of God: so you can resist during these evil days and be fully prepared to hold your ground."

Here we see individual responsibility in the midst of corporate unity. This is not like spiritual gifts or the “Five Fold Office” mentioned earlier in Ephesians where God gave “some” to be apostles, evangelists, etc. This is a clear call to all of us.

"Yes, stand—truth banded around your waist, righteousness as your chest plate, and feet protected so you are steadied by and ready to proclaim the good news of peace with God. Don’t forget to raise the shield of faith above all else, so you will be able to extinguish flaming spears hurled at you from the wicked one. Take also the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Pray always. Pray in the Spirit. Pray about everything in every way you know how! And keeping all this in mind, pray on behalf of God’s people. Keep on praying feverishly, and be on the lookout until evil has been stayed. And please pray for me. Pray that truth will be with me before I even open my mouth. Ask the Spirit to guide me while I boldly defend the mystery that is the good news— for which I am an ambassador in chains—so pray that I can bravely pronounce the truth, as I should do."

 In Romans 13: 12-14, Paul writes, "Put on the armor of light… clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ." He was expanding on the words of Isaiah:

• “Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash round his waist.” Isaiah 11:5

• “For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head” (Isaiah 59:17).

Paul talked other places about the nature of our fight. “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds. We destroy arguments…and take every thought captive.” (2 Corinthians 10:3- 5).

 Let’s be clear: God makes the armor. We ask for it, and He gives it, not because we are awesome, but because He is. Then we have to put it on.  Paul says, “It’s time to move. Put on that which God offers you for your good and His glory.”

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• Put on: The Belt of Truth (aletheia, reality as opposed to illusion).

• Stand For: The truth that God is real; Jesus was God in the Flesh; his life, death and resurrection bring us salvation, forgiveness and hope. If this is not true, “we are of all people most miserable.” (1 Corinthians 15:19)

• Stand Against: The error that Christianity is wishful thinking (“I want it to be true!”), merely human thoughts (“The Bible just shows us how people thought about God”), or only one way of many equally effective ways.

• Put on: The Breastplate of Righteousness    (dikaiosune, right standing with God)

• Stand For: The truth that it is only through Jesus Christ that we are absolved from the penalty of sin, freed from the power of sin, and guarded while in the presence of sin.

• Stand Against: The error that we are born good (“I’m on the right track, baby, I was born this way”), or that we can become righteous through our works .

• Put on: The Shoes of Peace (eirene, peace with God; tranquility in salvation)

• Stand For: The truth there is spiritual peace with God through our commitment to and ongoing life with Jesus Christ. This is not the same as saying that if you are a Christian, there will be peaceful coexistence of others on earth, or that you will always feel interior peace. This is a claim about a truth that is greater than our circumstances or our feelings. Romans 5:1-2: “Therefore, since we have been made right in God's sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God's glory.”

• Stand Against: The error of false saviors (spiritual or material) and fleeting peace, which is usually some form of indulgence or avoidance. If something calms the chaos in our life no matter how little and how temporary, we tend to overindulge. Money? Sex? Being noticed and admired? Food? Vacations? Or if something brings anything unsettling, we avoid. People who annoy us…situations that aren’t just to our liking…a controlled environment (diet, exercise, social groups)

• Put on: The Shield of Faith (pistis; “Trusting, holding to, and acting on what one has good reason to believe is true in the face of difficulties.” – Tim McGrew)

• Stand For: The truth that there is wisdom in an ongoing trust in and response to God. A belief that the Bible matches the world.  We often think of faith as just trust in God. I think we have to include trust in God’s revelation. The Bible tells us that we are to be faithful in little things if we expect to be trusted in big things (Luke 16:10). But if the Bible is wrong, then God has not been faithful in little things. If you don’t understand the little things in the Bible, press in to them. Read. Study. Pray. Ask qualified, godly people for advice. Trusting that the biggest things are true in Christianity will trickle down; trusting that the smallest things in Christianity are true will build up.

• Stand Against: The error that we should trust in Idols (self, hidden knowledge, politicians, the economy, health, pop psychology, etc).

• Put on: The Helmet of salvation (soterios; saving)

• Stand For: The truth of God's promises of eternal salvation and ongoing sanctification in Jesus Christ. “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind… “ (Romans 12:2)   “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus…” (Philippians 2:5) “…be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:22-24)

• Stand Against: The error of gaining salvation from anything other than Christ, or evolving spiritually by thinking positively

• Put on: The Sword of the Spirit (The Bible) 

• Stand for: The truth of the power, trustworthiness and sufficiency of God's Word to tell us what we need to know about Christ and His plan for the world.     

• Stand Against: The error of giving anything else equal weight in your spiritual formation; trusting outside sources or inner revelation over clear Biblical truth.

Note: In Bible times, there was no stainless steel. A sword unused became rusty, dull, and pitted. Swords were kept clean by frequent use or by honing them against a stone (the Rock of Ages) or another soldier’s sword. “Iron sharpeneth iron” (Proverbs 27:17)

• Put on: Prayer (proseuchomai; literally, to interact with the Lord by switching human wishes (ideas) for His wishes. “They Kingdom come, they will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10)  “Whatsoever you ask in my name…” (John 14:13) Accordingly, praying is closely inter-connected with pístis ("faith") in the NT. – (biblehub.com). In fact ,James 5 talks about the prayer of faith (“

• Stand For: The truth that prayer is powerful and necessary. We are told to constantly pray (1 Thessalonians 5:16) “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” (Romans 12:12) “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” (James 5:16)

• Stand Against: the error that prayer manipulates God or that prayer is unnecessary. God is not a machine. He’s not programmed in such a way that we can manipulate Him. God will answer prayer how he chooses to answer prayer. The prayers of the righteous are powerful, but not coercive. On the other hand, prayer is clearly not irrelevant. Part of being faithful is praying faithfully, and in the end praying what Jesus prayed: “Not my will, but yours be done.”

A final thought involving shields: We often read this individually: “You, Anthony! Stand!” But this letter was written to the churches in Ephesus. It’s a group command. Everyone then who saw the Roman army knew how this principle worked (see the cover of your bulletin). Now, in order for the group to stand, individuals need to stand to. It doesn’t absolve us. But it reminds us again of the importance of unifying around Christ, then standing against everything that comes against us – together.

Walking in Light (Ephesians 5:1-19)

1 So imitate God. Follow Him like adored children, 2 and live in love as Christ loved you—so much that He gave Himself as a fragrant sacrifice, pleasing God. 3 Listen, don’t let there be a hint of sexual immorality among you. Any demoralizing behaviors (such as impurity and greed) are inappropriate topics of conversation for those set apart as God’s people. 4 Don’t use abusive language (swearing, obscenity) or spurt nonsense. Don’t make harsh jokes or talk foolishly. Make proper use of your words, and offer them thankfully in praise. 5 This is what we know for certain: no one who engages in loose sex, impure actions, and greed—which is just a form of idolatry—has any inheritance in the kingdom of God and His Anointed.

6 Don’t be fooled by people who try to excuse these things—they just use meaningless words to show empty souls. For, in His wrath, God will judge all the children of disobedience for these kinds of sins. 7 So don’t be persuaded into their ignorance; and don’t cast your lot with them 8 because, although you were once the personification of darkness, you are now light in the Lord. So act like children of the light. 9 For the fruit of the light is all that is good, right, and true. 10 Make it your aim to learn what pleases our Lord. 11 Don’t get involved with the fruitless works of darkness; instead, expose them to the light of God. 12 You see, it’s a disgrace to speak of their secrets (so don’t even talk about what they do when no one is looking). 13-14 When the light shines, it exposes even the dark and shadowy things and turns them into pure reflections of light. This is why they sing, ‘Awake, you sleeper!
 Rise from your grave,
 And Christ will shine on you.’ (Some scholars think this verse may have been an early “baptismal hymn.)

15 So be careful how you live; be mindful of your steps. Don’t run around aimlessly as the rest of the world does. Instead, walk as the wise! 16 Make the most of every living and breathing moment because these are evil times. 17 So understand and be confident in God’s will, and don’t live thoughtlessly. 18 Don’t drink wine excessively. The drunken path is a reckless path. It leads nowhere. Instead, let God fill you with the Holy Spirit. 19 When you are filled with the Spirit, you are empowered to speak to each other in the soulful words of pious songs, hymns, and spiritual songs; to sing and make music with your hearts attuned to God; 20 and to give thanks to God the Father every day through the name of our Lord Jesus the Anointed for all He has done.”

 What do we need to bring into the light so that we can walk in the light and live in unity with others? (Note: Paul is not pointing out how they are to earn their salvation. He is showing them how to live out their salvation as they seek to conform to the image of Christ. So don’t see this as “This is how I get saved.” It’s, “This is what life in Christ is meant to look like. I honor the sacrifice of Jesus and I love my neighbor as I walk in the light of Christ.”)

1. Our sexuality. We are called to self-sacrificial, boundaried love, not selfish, unboundaried lust – specifically, God designed sex to be experienced by a man and a woman in marriage. The intimacy Christ shares with His Bride, the church, is shared with no other. It’s an analogy. There is a reason God puts borders around our sexuality. Chaos in some form comes when properly placed fences go down; life flourishes when they stay up. This is not to say that sexual sin is unforgivable – which is good news for all of us, I suspect. It is forgivable. It’s noting that sexual sin is outside of God’s design, and a life lived in the light of Christ does not embrace it or applaud it, but seeks to live out sexuality in a way that honors God, protects others, and allows us to live in purity.

2. Our words must be true and helpful vs. false and destructive. This is speaking truth in love. If we just speak truth without showing love, we are destructive. If we show love without speaking truth, then we are false, and we just enable. Our speech should be full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that we can provide answers to everyone. (Colossians 4:6)

3. Our circumstances. We are called to contentment and generosity, not greed.. Philippians 4:11-13: “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Contentment is such a gift. Do we have to have physical comfort and material things to be happy, or do we look to Christ to strengthen us in our times of need? And those who have plenty – do you look around to identify those in need? A greedy community will never last, because it is full of resentment, competitiveness, and selfishness. A generous community is full of applause, kindness, and self-sacrifice, and it will flourish as everyone looks out for the needs of others, and commits to contentment no matter what the circumstance.

 4. Our time (mindful and purposeful vs. lazy and unfocused). Mindful is not the same as obsessing, and purposeful is not the same as driven! It simply means be alert, aware, prepared, and engaged as you are able. Remember, David had men in his army who ‘understood the times, and knew what to do.’ (1 Chronicle 12:32).  There was a time in American history when Christians could coast (in the sense that culture largely agreed with them. Not anymore. We have our work cut out for us. We are now in a place where we need to be “ready to give an answer for the hope that lies within us” more than ever. This might not be a bad wake-up call. We have to revisit our Bibles, engage in conversation with other Christians, study, read, listen not only to the church conversation but to the cultural one.

5. Our attitude. We are to be helpful and thankful vs. leeching and grumbling. Ever had a friend who always complained, always borrowed and never lent, and always wanted their life to be better but never helped anyone else’s life to be better? What about the friend who looked for the good, lived generously, and looked to improve the lives of those around them? One drains, the other fills. One divides, one unifies. 

• Philippians 2:3-4: “Don't be selfish; don't try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don't look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.” 

• Matthew 20:25-28: “Do you want the Kingdom run like the Romans run their kingdom? Their rulers have great power over the people, but God the Father doesn’t play by the Romans’ rules. This is the Kingdom’s logic: whoever wants to become great must first make himself a servant; whoever wants to be first must bind himself as a slave — just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life as the ransom for many.”

6. Our focus. We need to stay focused on God and the person of Christ vs. idols  “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:21, 25). Idolatry happens in any circumstance where there is something you feel you must have to be happy, that is more important to your heart than God himself. We would not lie, cheat, steal, gossip, lust, or abuse others unless first we had made something—human approval, reputation, power over others, financial advantage, sexual desire, fame, comfort—more important and valuable to our hearts than the grace and favor of God as experienced through the person and work of Jesus. (HT Tim Keller, “How To Find Your Rival Gods,” christianitytoday.com) We need to stay focused on God and the person of Christ

• Psalm 34:5 “Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy; no shadow of shame will darken their faces.”

• Colossians 3:1-3  “Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God's right hand. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.”

• Hebrews 3:1 “Dear brothers and sisters who belong to God and are partners with those called to heaven, think carefully about this Jesus whom we declare to be God's messenger and High Priest.”

• Hebrews 12:2: “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.