Look at Luke 22:15 and 16. I want to focus on what Jesus says here: "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I say to you, I shall never again eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God." Here is something that we usually overlook: we see the word Passover and we think of a big feast that Jesus preparing for us, as if we were the center of everything. We remember his words, "I have a mansion with many rooms, and I am preparing rooms for you." And we also hear him say, "I will eat with you at the Passover feast." We think of a celebration. We think, "oh Jesus is making a lot of food for us. Preparing a feast takes a lot of work! What with all those people who were going to eat at the feast!" But Jesus says here that he is not going to partake in the Passover until it has been FULFILLED in the kingdom of heaven--in the kingdom of God.
We partake in communion every Sunday and extra days like today (Maundy Thursday). We are feasting. Jesus isn't participating in this feast. He is involved, yes, in that we are eating his body and blood, but he is not communing with us. He is the sacrificial lamb. This is the communion of the Saints. Jesus is telling us that he is holding off participating in this feast until it has been fulfilled in the kingdom of God. Think of this. The Passover. There is to be ANOTHER Passover.
First let's look at a common minor heresy. It's not a huge heresy. There are heresies that are so massive that all the other doctrines collapse like a heap of dominoes when you follow this heresy, but there are small heresies that don't seem interfere with the main doctrines (even though even small heresies do creep in and erode the main things eventually). One of these is that of an early rapture. Do you believe in the rapture? Well, yes, it's called the judgment--it's called Judgment Day, and if you look at what Jesus says in Scripture, you WANT to be left behind. You see all of these books about being left behind--the left behind series of books--but when you read scripture, Jesus says, the final days will be like the days of NOAH. What happened in the days of Noah? The wicked were swept away with the floodwaters. Noah and his family remained: THEY were left behind.
Now, here is Jesus setting up the same thing, saying, "I will not feast until the Passover has come to fruition in the kingdom of God." There is to be another Passover and it's the same thing as the flood in Genesis and the Passover in Exodus. It's the same thing: the wicked are to be destroyed. They are to be ripped out, like the tares from among the wheat. Remember that parable? The field tender comes to the owner and says, "the enemy has sown tares among the wheat! What should I do?" The owner says, "wait for all the crop to grow to maturity, then you will be able to tell the wheat from the tares, and then you can pull the tares out first." This is what is happening at Passover. We put blood around our doorways and the angel of death passes us over. Everyone else is destroyed.
In Exodus 12 we get instructions on how to kill the lamb, how to prepare the lamb, how to eat the lamb: there's a sense of urgency. You were to eat the lamb dressed, with your staff in hand, ready to take off. There is this sense of urgency, but here is the crucial part. Verse 12: "for I will go through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments--I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live; and when I see the blood I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt." This is not just an interesting story from the Old Testament. This is prophecy. Egypt is a microcosm of a worldwide Passover. This is what Jesus is saying when he says, "I will not enjoy this Passover feast until it has been fulfilled in the kingdom of heaven." What needs to be fulfilled is the Passover--the worldwide Passover--in which the angel of death comes and kills all of the people who are dead in their sins, who are lost to God forever, people who do not have faith in Christ.
Essentially, what we do instead of putting blood around doorways, to keep the angel of death from coming in and destroying us, what we do is we have faith in Christ, faith in the blood of the Christ, the one whose meal here we partake in every Sunday. We are expressing our faith physically here in the body and blood of Christ. We devote ourselves to Jesus. We put him first in all that we do. We always include thoughts about God.
WWJD, What Would Jesus Do? is an example. How do we live our lives? We don't just ask what would Jesus do, because then we're assuming that Jesus would ever do anything related to the sort of lives we live now in this modern era, but what we are saying is not "What Would Jesus Do?" but "do I put Jesus first?" What do I do as a future resident of the kingdom of heaven? How should I act? How should I behave? I look to the scriptures, the word of God. The Scriptures are all testimony about Jesus Christ. I learn there everything that there is to know about Jesus Christ and therefore about God himself. THAT is putting my faith in Jesus: believing God, believing in God, and believing what God says, believing his testimony about his son, Jesus.
I put my faith in all of that. It's difficult to do, but God draws his chosen people into it. That is the new way of putting blood around our doorways. This isn't the temporary blood of a lamb on that night in Exodus. This is an everlasting, REAL blood that saves us from eternal destruction. On Good Friday I'm going to talk about the shadow versus the reality. The Passover that happened in Egypt in Moses' time was a shadow of the real Passover--the true Passover--which is to come: the Judgment Day, the end of everything. And at that time we will be passed over by the angel of death. We will survive to the other side, because of the blood of the lamb around our doorways.
The lamb is Jesus Christ the righteous, who did not sin but became sin for us. We impute our sins to the lamb. He imputes his righteousness to us. We have faith in his blood. The angel of death passes over us. The world will pass away, but Jesus's words will never pass away. We will survive the Passover because of Christ, and though many will be lost, because they do not believe and do not have faith--the firstborn of the world, the first born children of all the world--essentially the leaders, principalities, powers, the wicked--all gone, yet we will remain. We will be passed over. We will survive, thanks to Jesus. And after these things he will join us in the Passover feast.
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Temptation and Accusation
Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. The Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! Indeed, the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?” Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and standing before the angel. He spoke and said to those who were standing before him, saying, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” Again he said to him, “See, I have taken your iniquity away from you and will clothe you with festal robes.” Then I said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments, while the angel of the Lord was standing by.(Zechariah 3:1-5)
The devil has two roles: to tempt us and to accuse us. Usually, it's a one-two punch. He first tempts us, and then when we have given into the temptation, he then accuses us, something along the lines of saying, "God would never love you now, after what you've done."
We tend to think of these temptations as being for heinous sins, but sometimes it is something as simple as engaging someone in conversation. Face to face conversation is usually very good, but sometimes anonymous social-media conversation is an example of Satan tempting us into sin. We see someone who seems to be struggling with Biblical truths, seems to be honestly seeking God, but we have to remember that anonymous (and even non-anonymous), social-media is not the place to engage in these type of discussions. We are to engage each other to help each other with our walks with Christ, but face-to-face engagements are part of the ministries God puts us in where we are geographically. Missionaries don't "phone it in" over the Web from their homes. They travel great distances for the face-to-face engagement. Chances are, these Internet "seekers" are merely tools of the tempter, to a trap us in a discussion that will go nowhere. After we have engaged and have tried to be faithful to the scriptures and our Lord, the accusations then come flying. You're not a REAL Christian! You're not faithful to God! You are just like the Pharisees! Why would God ever love YOU?
We have to remember the lessons from the Zechariah passage above:
1. The devil is the one tempting us, not other people. The other person in the conversation was tempted by the devil to engage us in the first place. Forgive and bless them.
2. We can't listen to the accusations. Of course, we are not worthy of God's love. None of us is worthy of God's love, but God has taken our filthy rags away. He has dressed us in clean clothes. We don't deserve any of his love, neither person in the conversation, but God has done this for us anyway.
3. Remember that God's elect have been snatched from the fire. We have been saved, not by anything we have done to deserve it, but because God has chosen it. God has done the work of salvation, not us. We will backslide and give into even small temptations like engaging in social-media arguments, but when the accusations inevitably come out, remember that we are brands plucked from the fire. Focus on Jesus by studying scripture and receiving encouragement from other Christians, and the temptations will lessen and finally cease. Remember, we are children of the Lord, and the tares will eventually be ripped up from among the wheat and thrown into the fire.
Stand strong, residents of Jerusalem.
The devil has two roles: to tempt us and to accuse us. Usually, it's a one-two punch. He first tempts us, and then when we have given into the temptation, he then accuses us, something along the lines of saying, "God would never love you now, after what you've done."
We tend to think of these temptations as being for heinous sins, but sometimes it is something as simple as engaging someone in conversation. Face to face conversation is usually very good, but sometimes anonymous social-media conversation is an example of Satan tempting us into sin. We see someone who seems to be struggling with Biblical truths, seems to be honestly seeking God, but we have to remember that anonymous (and even non-anonymous), social-media is not the place to engage in these type of discussions. We are to engage each other to help each other with our walks with Christ, but face-to-face engagements are part of the ministries God puts us in where we are geographically. Missionaries don't "phone it in" over the Web from their homes. They travel great distances for the face-to-face engagement. Chances are, these Internet "seekers" are merely tools of the tempter, to a trap us in a discussion that will go nowhere. After we have engaged and have tried to be faithful to the scriptures and our Lord, the accusations then come flying. You're not a REAL Christian! You're not faithful to God! You are just like the Pharisees! Why would God ever love YOU?
We have to remember the lessons from the Zechariah passage above:
1. The devil is the one tempting us, not other people. The other person in the conversation was tempted by the devil to engage us in the first place. Forgive and bless them.
2. We can't listen to the accusations. Of course, we are not worthy of God's love. None of us is worthy of God's love, but God has taken our filthy rags away. He has dressed us in clean clothes. We don't deserve any of his love, neither person in the conversation, but God has done this for us anyway.
3. Remember that God's elect have been snatched from the fire. We have been saved, not by anything we have done to deserve it, but because God has chosen it. God has done the work of salvation, not us. We will backslide and give into even small temptations like engaging in social-media arguments, but when the accusations inevitably come out, remember that we are brands plucked from the fire. Focus on Jesus by studying scripture and receiving encouragement from other Christians, and the temptations will lessen and finally cease. Remember, we are children of the Lord, and the tares will eventually be ripped up from among the wheat and thrown into the fire.
Stand strong, residents of Jerusalem.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Quote of the day
Those who would know God go through both darkness and light, down into valleys as well as up over hills. Sinclair Ferguson
The Evangelism of Pilate
I want to talk about Jesus' evangelism of...Pilate! We don't really think of Jesus as evangelizing Pilate during his interview with the Roman leader, but if we turn to 1 Timothy 6:13, we see in the letter of Paul to Timothy:
I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate...
So Jesus testified a good confession to Pilate? Now, let's go back to our Luke passage (Luke 23) and see what Jesus does. I know other gospels have more that Jesus says to Pilate, but here we have Jesus saying one single thing to Pilate, and the rest of what he says is nothing at all. Jesus is silent in the face of his accusers and people deciding whether he lives or dies. Now, what we see is Jesus saying one thing to Pilate in response to a question. Pilate asks Jesus, "are you the king of the Jews?" Jesus responds with something that when I was a child was perhaps confusing to me, because it wasn't something that I expected Jesus to say.
In the dramatizations that they showed on TV and in movies, Jesus always seems to respond with this statement: "you say so," or, "you say that I am." What does this sound like to our modern sensibilities? Our modern sensibilities, especially in this country, revolve around personal defense. We do not like to be caught or to be trapped by our own words. We do not like to be put into a corner. We defend ourselves. We distance ourselves from what we say. We care so much about what other people, even strangers, think about us! We care so much! We don't want to make waves. We do not want to stir up the pot, so from my modern childlike sensibilities, being immersed in the public school system, being taught to always be paranoid about what people are thinking about me, I saw Jesus as responding to Pilate with words that amounted to, "I never said that! YOU are the ones who said that, not me! Those are YOUR words, not mine! You are the ones who are saying that I am a king; I never said that I was a king." But that's not what Jesus actually said.
He does say, "you say so," in our modern, politically correct, NRSV translation, but in the NASB, which is the preferred translation, Jesus says, "It is as you say." This is a self-affirming statement. Jesus is saying, "you say SO! You speak the truth." He is essentially saying, "yes!" Yes! Emphatically YES! Is this really evangelism? What is the result of this word of Jesus to Pilate? Well, we see several things. We see, firstly, that Pilate does not want to kill Jesus. He may be acting legally. He may officially see nothing wrong with him, but we do have scenes of Pilate being very anxious. We see Pilate's wife being anxious about this. We see Pilate greatly disturbed by what is going on. Jesus has affirmed what the Jews had said about him. He has not backed away. He has not tried to defend himself by lying his way out. He has not stood up and said, "you know what? I will just go back to my little quiet life teaching my disciples, and I won't do anything that will upset anybody ever again. I promise, if you let me go, that I will be docile. I will be just sitting around, minding my own business, okay? I'll go back to carpentry!" None of this happens. Jesus says, "yes," and in other places he says nothing at all, and Pilate is greatly disturbed. It's as if Jesus WANTS to be killed. Pilate continues to try to save him from death and fails.
We also see that Pilate does not become a Christian convert. He does not suddenly take up his cross and change his ways. In fact, it says in this very gospel, that he and Herod become friends. He does not exhibit an alteration of life, a willful amendment of his evil ways. So, in that way, Jesus' evangelism doesn't really work. It is what we moderns would call "unsuccessful" evangelism, because to modern Christians, every act of evangelism needs to result in a convert. Why is God himself unable to convert Pilate? Now, God is not unable. God's will is such that he does not want Pilate to be converted, but that doesn't stop Jesus' words from having a strong impact on Pilate. We wonder what would have happened if other Christian seeds had been planted in Pilate's life along the way. Do you see that we're getting into this kind of hybrid "everything is God's will," but he also wills us to be the means of grace in each others lives. He uses our wills to bring about his kingdom.
Let's get back to this kind of evangelism that Jesus is practicing. There seem to be three responses to preaching, to relating the gospel to someone. We can see this come to life in Acts 17. Paul preaches to the Athenians. He stands there and preaches about Jesus and the resurrection. The Athenians have three responses. The first is, "what is this babbler saying? This is ridiculous! I am leaving! I am not even going to respond to this nonsense." The other extreme is conversion. "I believe in what you just said, Paul. I want to become a Christian, thank you!"
The middle way is, "this was very interesting; can you come back tomorrow? I want to hear more." A seed has been planted, but conversion has not taken place. This is what Jesus does with Pilate. A seed has been planted, but conversion has not taken place. Sometimes it takes 5, 10, 20 times of planting seeds before anything has taken root. We see this middle-way in the New Testament. John the Baptist is brought before Herod every day, because Herod likes to hear John preach, and John is preaching AGAINST Herod. John is tearing into Herod because of his marriage to his brother's wife, but the scriptures say that Herod ENJOYED listening to him. The same with Felix and Drusilla in Acts. Paul is preaching about self-control and yet Felix keeps bringing him back day after day for two years. He wants to hear more but there is no conversion. This kind of evangelism is important, because Jesus does it. Paul does it. John the Baptist does it. How can we do it?
We are under the mistaken impression that our evangelism has to result in someone coming to Christ right there on the spot. This is wrong. Most evangelism is this planting of seeds, but it is HOW we evangelize that is important. A seed is planted when we say, like Jesus said to Pilate, "yes it is as you say." Yes. Affirm what you believe. We hear people say to us, "you don't believe that nonsense do you?" and we respond, "well it's good for me, but it may not be good for you. I mean, I have my own truth, and you have your own truth, so don't worry about it. I, of course, do believe this, but you don't have to believe it if you don't want to." Jesus corrects us. Say "yes!" Let your yes be yes. Yes, I believe this. Everything that I say is true is true. None of this wishy-washy garbage. We have to stand firm in faith. And now we get to our Old Testament passage:
The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens-- wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward. I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting. The Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me. It is the Lord GOD who helps me; who will declare me guilty? (Isaiah 50:4-9a)
The Lord God has given me the tongue of disciples (NASB). The tongue of disciples: we are to be disciples. Knowing God is not just everlasting life; it is life in also the present. God is sovereign. He ordains all things. He is in all things. To not know God and to be in this world is a hazard. As Peter says, we should be ready to give a reasoned defense for everything we believe. If we are not immersing ourselves in the word of God every day--and when not reading this Bible, listening to sermons and other people talk about God's word--we become unable to give ourselves or others the proper assistance in dealing with life.
If I were to grab you right now, put you in a cage, drag you down to the Amazon jungle, release you into the wild there without any supplies, without any mention of what I'm doing--I'm mute about it--would you consider what I did cruel? If I drag someone from the Amazon jungle and stick them in Times Square without any discussion of what I was doing, without any tools for survival, would you think I was being cruel? Of course I'd be cruel! But here we all are, born into this world and we either ignore, or we deliberately withhold, information, tools necessary for survival. We deliberately withhold the knowledge of God from each other. That is just as bad as if I dragged you down to the jungle and left you for dead. You would not last 24 hours in the Amazon jungle without any supplies, without any way to get out, and yet we do it every day to each other by withholding knowledge of God from each other is this world. God, Chesterton said, is like the sun: you can't look directly at Him, but without Him you cannot look at anything else. We need God to understand the world we live in. We need God to survive. We cannot withhold God from each other.
So the Lord has given us the tongue of disciples that we may know how to sustain the weary one with the word. Look at Jesus. One word, yes, is what he responds. Yes is what he says. You are correct, sir, yes. Morning by morning he wakens-- wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. Do we listen as disciples? Do we immerse ourselves in the word? Do we listen as disciples? Do we listen to sermons? Christian audiobooks? Do we listen to our Christian friends? Are we in active discourse with other Christians about the gospel, or do we sit around talking about other things like what was on CSI last night? Did you see CSI? That was great! No, we shouldn't be talking about worldly things with other Christians. We should be talking about Christian things with other Christians. We should be enhancing other people's knowledge of God, to feed each other. Remember, Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. As Christians we should be helping each other out of the Amazon Forest.
I gave my back to those who struck me and my cheeks to those who yanked out my beard. I did not cover my face from humiliation and spitting. This is obviously prophecy about the suffering servant, Jesus, but it is also the reaction that we are going to get from people, when we stand firm in faith, and we have to be able to say, "yes." We cannot back away and say, "well it's true for me, and your truth is true for you. You don't have to believe what I believe; you can just believe your own thing. We'll just agree to disagree." But no: we are to allow people to strike us; we are to allow people to yank out or beards, so to speak; we are not to cover our faces from humiliation and spitting; we are not to shy away from this, because (verse seven) the Lord God helps me, therefore I am not disgraced; therefore, I have set my face like flint, and I know that I will not be ashamed. He who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up to each other; who has a case against me? Let him draw near to me. Behold the Lord God helps me. Who is he who condemns me? Behold they will wear out like a garment; the moths will eat them.
We are not to shy away. We are to say "yes" when someone asks us, "you don't believe that garbage, do you?" We answer, "yes, it is as you say, yes," and in the end, we may have only planted a seed. We may never see that seed come to fruition; we may never see that seed grow. Somebody else will plant another seed, and then another person, and perhaps God intends that person never to come to Christ, and to die in his sins and be lost like Pilate, like Herod, like Felix. Perhaps that is God's will. But we don't know. So let your yes be yes and your no be no. Make a firm stand; set your face like flint; do not shy away from the truth; always speak the truth in love; but speak the truth. Jesus did it. We do it.
I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate...
So Jesus testified a good confession to Pilate? Now, let's go back to our Luke passage (Luke 23) and see what Jesus does. I know other gospels have more that Jesus says to Pilate, but here we have Jesus saying one single thing to Pilate, and the rest of what he says is nothing at all. Jesus is silent in the face of his accusers and people deciding whether he lives or dies. Now, what we see is Jesus saying one thing to Pilate in response to a question. Pilate asks Jesus, "are you the king of the Jews?" Jesus responds with something that when I was a child was perhaps confusing to me, because it wasn't something that I expected Jesus to say.
In the dramatizations that they showed on TV and in movies, Jesus always seems to respond with this statement: "you say so," or, "you say that I am." What does this sound like to our modern sensibilities? Our modern sensibilities, especially in this country, revolve around personal defense. We do not like to be caught or to be trapped by our own words. We do not like to be put into a corner. We defend ourselves. We distance ourselves from what we say. We care so much about what other people, even strangers, think about us! We care so much! We don't want to make waves. We do not want to stir up the pot, so from my modern childlike sensibilities, being immersed in the public school system, being taught to always be paranoid about what people are thinking about me, I saw Jesus as responding to Pilate with words that amounted to, "I never said that! YOU are the ones who said that, not me! Those are YOUR words, not mine! You are the ones who are saying that I am a king; I never said that I was a king." But that's not what Jesus actually said.
He does say, "you say so," in our modern, politically correct, NRSV translation, but in the NASB, which is the preferred translation, Jesus says, "It is as you say." This is a self-affirming statement. Jesus is saying, "you say SO! You speak the truth." He is essentially saying, "yes!" Yes! Emphatically YES! Is this really evangelism? What is the result of this word of Jesus to Pilate? Well, we see several things. We see, firstly, that Pilate does not want to kill Jesus. He may be acting legally. He may officially see nothing wrong with him, but we do have scenes of Pilate being very anxious. We see Pilate's wife being anxious about this. We see Pilate greatly disturbed by what is going on. Jesus has affirmed what the Jews had said about him. He has not backed away. He has not tried to defend himself by lying his way out. He has not stood up and said, "you know what? I will just go back to my little quiet life teaching my disciples, and I won't do anything that will upset anybody ever again. I promise, if you let me go, that I will be docile. I will be just sitting around, minding my own business, okay? I'll go back to carpentry!" None of this happens. Jesus says, "yes," and in other places he says nothing at all, and Pilate is greatly disturbed. It's as if Jesus WANTS to be killed. Pilate continues to try to save him from death and fails.
We also see that Pilate does not become a Christian convert. He does not suddenly take up his cross and change his ways. In fact, it says in this very gospel, that he and Herod become friends. He does not exhibit an alteration of life, a willful amendment of his evil ways. So, in that way, Jesus' evangelism doesn't really work. It is what we moderns would call "unsuccessful" evangelism, because to modern Christians, every act of evangelism needs to result in a convert. Why is God himself unable to convert Pilate? Now, God is not unable. God's will is such that he does not want Pilate to be converted, but that doesn't stop Jesus' words from having a strong impact on Pilate. We wonder what would have happened if other Christian seeds had been planted in Pilate's life along the way. Do you see that we're getting into this kind of hybrid "everything is God's will," but he also wills us to be the means of grace in each others lives. He uses our wills to bring about his kingdom.
Let's get back to this kind of evangelism that Jesus is practicing. There seem to be three responses to preaching, to relating the gospel to someone. We can see this come to life in Acts 17. Paul preaches to the Athenians. He stands there and preaches about Jesus and the resurrection. The Athenians have three responses. The first is, "what is this babbler saying? This is ridiculous! I am leaving! I am not even going to respond to this nonsense." The other extreme is conversion. "I believe in what you just said, Paul. I want to become a Christian, thank you!"
The middle way is, "this was very interesting; can you come back tomorrow? I want to hear more." A seed has been planted, but conversion has not taken place. This is what Jesus does with Pilate. A seed has been planted, but conversion has not taken place. Sometimes it takes 5, 10, 20 times of planting seeds before anything has taken root. We see this middle-way in the New Testament. John the Baptist is brought before Herod every day, because Herod likes to hear John preach, and John is preaching AGAINST Herod. John is tearing into Herod because of his marriage to his brother's wife, but the scriptures say that Herod ENJOYED listening to him. The same with Felix and Drusilla in Acts. Paul is preaching about self-control and yet Felix keeps bringing him back day after day for two years. He wants to hear more but there is no conversion. This kind of evangelism is important, because Jesus does it. Paul does it. John the Baptist does it. How can we do it?
We are under the mistaken impression that our evangelism has to result in someone coming to Christ right there on the spot. This is wrong. Most evangelism is this planting of seeds, but it is HOW we evangelize that is important. A seed is planted when we say, like Jesus said to Pilate, "yes it is as you say." Yes. Affirm what you believe. We hear people say to us, "you don't believe that nonsense do you?" and we respond, "well it's good for me, but it may not be good for you. I mean, I have my own truth, and you have your own truth, so don't worry about it. I, of course, do believe this, but you don't have to believe it if you don't want to." Jesus corrects us. Say "yes!" Let your yes be yes. Yes, I believe this. Everything that I say is true is true. None of this wishy-washy garbage. We have to stand firm in faith. And now we get to our Old Testament passage:
The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens-- wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward. I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting. The Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me. It is the Lord GOD who helps me; who will declare me guilty? (Isaiah 50:4-9a)
The Lord God has given me the tongue of disciples (NASB). The tongue of disciples: we are to be disciples. Knowing God is not just everlasting life; it is life in also the present. God is sovereign. He ordains all things. He is in all things. To not know God and to be in this world is a hazard. As Peter says, we should be ready to give a reasoned defense for everything we believe. If we are not immersing ourselves in the word of God every day--and when not reading this Bible, listening to sermons and other people talk about God's word--we become unable to give ourselves or others the proper assistance in dealing with life.
If I were to grab you right now, put you in a cage, drag you down to the Amazon jungle, release you into the wild there without any supplies, without any mention of what I'm doing--I'm mute about it--would you consider what I did cruel? If I drag someone from the Amazon jungle and stick them in Times Square without any discussion of what I was doing, without any tools for survival, would you think I was being cruel? Of course I'd be cruel! But here we all are, born into this world and we either ignore, or we deliberately withhold, information, tools necessary for survival. We deliberately withhold the knowledge of God from each other. That is just as bad as if I dragged you down to the jungle and left you for dead. You would not last 24 hours in the Amazon jungle without any supplies, without any way to get out, and yet we do it every day to each other by withholding knowledge of God from each other is this world. God, Chesterton said, is like the sun: you can't look directly at Him, but without Him you cannot look at anything else. We need God to understand the world we live in. We need God to survive. We cannot withhold God from each other.
So the Lord has given us the tongue of disciples that we may know how to sustain the weary one with the word. Look at Jesus. One word, yes, is what he responds. Yes is what he says. You are correct, sir, yes. Morning by morning he wakens-- wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. Do we listen as disciples? Do we immerse ourselves in the word? Do we listen as disciples? Do we listen to sermons? Christian audiobooks? Do we listen to our Christian friends? Are we in active discourse with other Christians about the gospel, or do we sit around talking about other things like what was on CSI last night? Did you see CSI? That was great! No, we shouldn't be talking about worldly things with other Christians. We should be talking about Christian things with other Christians. We should be enhancing other people's knowledge of God, to feed each other. Remember, Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. As Christians we should be helping each other out of the Amazon Forest.
I gave my back to those who struck me and my cheeks to those who yanked out my beard. I did not cover my face from humiliation and spitting. This is obviously prophecy about the suffering servant, Jesus, but it is also the reaction that we are going to get from people, when we stand firm in faith, and we have to be able to say, "yes." We cannot back away and say, "well it's true for me, and your truth is true for you. You don't have to believe what I believe; you can just believe your own thing. We'll just agree to disagree." But no: we are to allow people to strike us; we are to allow people to yank out or beards, so to speak; we are not to cover our faces from humiliation and spitting; we are not to shy away from this, because (verse seven) the Lord God helps me, therefore I am not disgraced; therefore, I have set my face like flint, and I know that I will not be ashamed. He who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up to each other; who has a case against me? Let him draw near to me. Behold the Lord God helps me. Who is he who condemns me? Behold they will wear out like a garment; the moths will eat them.
We are not to shy away. We are to say "yes" when someone asks us, "you don't believe that garbage, do you?" We answer, "yes, it is as you say, yes," and in the end, we may have only planted a seed. We may never see that seed come to fruition; we may never see that seed grow. Somebody else will plant another seed, and then another person, and perhaps God intends that person never to come to Christ, and to die in his sins and be lost like Pilate, like Herod, like Felix. Perhaps that is God's will. But we don't know. So let your yes be yes and your no be no. Make a firm stand; set your face like flint; do not shy away from the truth; always speak the truth in love; but speak the truth. Jesus did it. We do it.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Holy Week at Good Shepherd
To utilize Good Shepherd's new space to the fullest, we are having a fuller Holy Week this year:
Thursday, March 28, 7:30pm: Maundy Thursday Service (Eucharist)
Friday, March 29, 10am & 7:30pm: Good Friday Service
Saturday, March 30, 10am: Holy Saturday Service
Sunday, March 31, 10am: Easter Sunday Service (Eucharist)
Invite friends and family to participate in this new life of our church this Holy Week.
Thursday, March 28, 7:30pm: Maundy Thursday Service (Eucharist)
Friday, March 29, 10am & 7:30pm: Good Friday Service
Saturday, March 30, 10am: Holy Saturday Service
Sunday, March 31, 10am: Easter Sunday Service (Eucharist)
Invite friends and family to participate in this new life of our church this Holy Week.
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