Grace For The Journey

  We are looking at Psalm 103 and learning the wonderful truths about what God really thinks about us.  Yesterday we looked at three principles that powerfully teach us about how wonderful God is. If you have ever wondered what God thinks about you, join us on our journey through Psalm 103 and discover the liberating truths about God’s heart.

In yesterday’s blog, we saw

1. God Loves to Help the Needy – Verses 6-7.
2. He Shows Mercy to Those Who Don’t Deserve It – Verse 8.
3. He Tempers His Wrath – Verses 9-10.

I want to use today’s blog to look at four more of the powerful principles that Psalm 103 teaches us about God.

4. He Forgives All Our Sins.

Verses 11-12 says, “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”

Consider the greatness of God’s love.  Astronomers tell us that the farthest known light source from the earth is ten billion light years away.  That means that light starting from that source (a quasar) would take ten billion years traveling at the speed to light to arrive at the earth.  By contrast the nearest star is “only” four light years away from us.  That’s four years traveling at the speed of light, which is 186,000 miles per second.  Light from the sun reaches the earth in a little over eight minutes. So even the nearest star is a vast distance from the earth.  And using ion drive propulsion, you could reach the nearest star in a modern spaceship in “only” 81,000 years.  You can turn it around any way you like and we are left with two inescapable realities.  First, we live in a tiny corner of the universe, and second, the universe is vast beyond our comprehension.  But God’s love is greater, vaster, larger, deeper, longer, broader, and bigger in all dimensions than the universe itself.  Get in a rocket equipped with any sort of sci-fi system you can imagine.  Fly at warp speed if you like.  Go as far as you can go, to the end of the known universe and beyond.  And when you have gone as far as you can go, look up and smile because God’s love is still going.  You will never reach the end of it.

Consider the magnitude of God’s love.  Let’s suppose you want to go east until you finally reach the west.  You take off from Baltimore in a hot air balloon.  When you land in Lisbon, you get in a Honda Civic and drive across Europe until you come to Varna, Bulgaria.  There you hop on a freighter that takes you through the Black Sea, the Aegean Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, and on to the Gulf of Aden, and on into the Indian Ocean where you finally put ashore in Colombo, Sri Lanka.  From there you catch a flight to Singapore and then down south to Perth, Australia.  There you hitchhike across the Outback, eventually arriving in Sydney where you join a passenger ship heading for Easter Island.  You then fly to Santiago, Chile where you rent a Jeep and start driving north.  It’s a long way but you eventually make it all the way to Nome, Alaska where you hire a dogsled team so that you can run the Iditarod Race in reverse, ending up in Anchorage where you hop on a cruise ship to Vancouver, BC, where you take the Trans-Canada Railway, ending up in Halifax, Nova Scotia. And there you buy a high-end road bike and ride through New Brunswick, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Delaware.  Finally, you make it back to Baltimore.  Besides having circumnavigated the globe, what have you proved? Among other things, you have proved that no matter how far east you go, you will never find the west.

If we have accepted God’s forgiveness through Jesus.

Our sins can never come back to haunt us again.

Never the twain shall meet.

The farther east you go,

The farther you are from the west.

That’s the magnitude of God’s love.

Here is great good news for all the sinners of the world.

 When God forgives, he removes our sins,

He lifts them up, He takes them away,

And He puts them so far away from us

That we could never find them

If we searched for them for a thousand years.

They are gone forever.

My sins can never come back to haunt me again.

Even Satan can’t bring them back.

In his sermon on these verses Jim Nicodem says that God has . . .

A long fuse – “slow to anger” (verse 8),
A short memory – “does not harbor His anger forever” (verse 9),
A thick skin – “does not treat us as our sins deserve” (verse 10), and
A great heart – “so great is His love, so far has He removed our sins” (verses 11-12).

I’m glad we have a God like that because that exactly the kind of God we need.

5. He Understands Our Weakness.

“As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him” (verse 13).

I never understood that verse until I had children.  When our girls were very young and sometimes they would have trouble going to sleep, and when Kay was tired and needed to sleep herself, I would carry the girls in my arms.  Sometimes I would sing to them, sometimes (often) I would make up a song.  I remember when Cathy was very young, I would sing Scripture verses to her such as “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised.  In the city of our God, in the mountain of His holiness; Beautiful situation, the joy of the whole earth; Is Mount Zion on the sides of the noth, the city of the great King.” (Psalm 48:1-2)

I would sing it over and over again until she finally fell asleep in my arms.

Earthly fathers – however imperfect – point us upward to our Heavenly Father.  Someone has said, “When an earthly father has done his job well, he makes it easy for his children to believe in their Heavenly Father.”  Our children learn that we do not worship a god of stone, or an empty idol, or a remote deity, or an impersonal machine in the sky.  We serve a Father God who knows our weakness and loves us anyway.

When I was a young child, I developed a persistent ear infection that would not go away. A fter trying antibiotics for a time, our family physician told us we needed to see a specialist so he referred us to one.  After examining me carefully, he announced that I needed to have tubes put in my ears to prevent further scarring from the infection.  Even though the operation is quick and fairly simple, the doctor could see that I was scared.  So he picked me up and carried me piggy-back to surgery.  That was the last image we saw – the great physician carrying our son on his back so he wouldn’t be afraid.  So, it is with our Heavenly Father.  The Great Physician knows our weakness and understands our fears.  And when we can’t go on, He carries us on His back.

6. He Remembers That We Are Dust.

“For He knows how we are formed, He remembers that we are dust.  As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more” (Verses 14-16).

Here is a truth we all understand . . .

Yesterday’s green leaves soon turn brown.

Why do the leaves lose their green?  There is a scientific explanation having to do with the loss of green chlorophyll, but that simply means the leaves are slowly dying.

Their beauty comes from their death.

Who remembers each leaf?  Not the tree.  One by one the leaves fall to the ground where they disintegrate and return to the soil from which they came.  No one names them or numbers them or even thinks about them.  It is the way God has arranged the changing of the seasons.

If that’s all there is, if we are here today and gone tomorrow, if that’s the end of the story, then there isn’t much hope.

But let me share something with you.

If you don’t have anything else

To be thankful for this year,

Here’s something you can hang your hat on.

Our hope is not in man or in anything man can do.

Our hope is in the everlasting God!

7. He Links Us With Eternity By Linking Us With Himself.

“But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear Him, and His righteousness  with their children’s children – with those who keep His covenant and remember to obey His precepts” (verses 17-18).

Our hope is in the everlasting God!

There is nothing we can do about our frailty.  We come from the hand of our Creator stamped, “Fragile: Handle with care.”  We are like the dust devils that blow across the desert.  We make a big scene and then suddenly we disappear.  Try as we might . . .

We can’t cancel our humanity.

Nothing can change what we are.

Vitamins and exercise and clean living may slow down the process.  Positive thinking may improve our mood.  But for all of us, the end is the same: Ashes to ashes, Dust to dust.

Psalm 103 offers us . . .

One strong ground of comfort

That lifts us up above

The transitory nature of this life.

It is the “but” of verse 17, the blessed “but” that changes everything.  That one word offers an eternal contrast between . . .

The fading flower and the everlasting God,

Our mortality and God’s eternity.

That one word -that little “but” – stands at the demarcation between this life and the next.

Here is our real hope of life

That never ends.

God’s tender mercy.

His unfailing love.

His abounding grace.

Someone has said that, “Life without Christ is a hopeless end, but life with Christ is an endless hope. And this endless hope is not only to us but to our children’s children.  What will we leave our children? A vast estate?  A large inheritance?  A huge life insurance policy?  Whatever we may say about earthly possessions, they pale next to the privilege of passing down a godly heritage, a tapestry of truth, and a pattern of believing that our children and grandchildren can claim as their own.

We are richer than we think,

We are more blessed than we know,

And

We have more than we realize.

In a transient and passing world where everything fades away, we have the promise that we are linked to the future even after we are gone by the faithfulness of God to our children to our children’s children.  This, too, is the mercy of God.

What is Psalm 103 telling us?

We frail, mortal sinners

Are rich in the mercy of God.

And we have found that mercy

– Or rather, that mercy has found us

– In the cross of Jesus Christ.

During one of his sermons Billy Graham told the story of a patrolman on night duty in a town in northern England.  As he walked the streets, he heard a quivering sob. Shining his flashlight into the darkness, he saw a little boy in the shadows sitting on a doorstep and tears were running down his cheek.  The child said, “I’m lost.  Please take me home.”  And the policeman began naming street after street, trying to help the boy remember where he lived.  He named the shops and the hotels in the area but the little boy could give him no clue.  Then he remembered that at the center of the town there was a church with a large white cross that towered above the rest of the city.  The policeman pointed to the cross and said, “Do you live anywhere near that place?”  The little boy’s face immediately brightened up.  He said, “Yes, sir. Take me to the cross and I can find my way home.”

Go to the cross

And

You will find

Your way home to God.

All that we believe, all that we have, all that we hope for is found in the cross of Christ.

Are you weak? So am I.
Are you needy? So am I.
Are you guilty? So am I.
Are you frail? So am I.
Are you like dust? So am I.

And God says to us, his weak, needy, guilty, frail, children of dust, “I know you through and through, and I love you anyway. Come to me. Rest in me. Make me your Rock.”  God’s mercy in Christ is more than enough for all of us!

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The Journey

Rest and Rejoice in this eternal truth!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

 

 

Grace For The Journey

  The Bible says this about God in Psalm 103:14, “He remembers that we are dust.”  Have you wondered what God really thinks about you?

Our greatest barrier to knowing God better

May be how much we know

About how much God knows about us.

We struggle with God because we feel so bad about ourselves, and if we know the truth about ourselves, think of how much more God knows us!

We can’t fool Him.  Sometimes we don’t want to pray, or read the Bible, or think about God because of our view of ourselves.  When we look in the mirror, a lot of times we feel like saying, “You’re a big disappointment” or “You ought to be a lot better by now.”

We’ve all felt that way from time to time, and I imagine that many people reading these words feel that way right now.  It’s been a hard week, or a bad month, and it seems like a time of waste or failure.  Someone has captured the truth in one simple sentence:

“I think we run from God

Rather than to Him

Because we know

Our own hearts

All too well

And His barely at all.”

I probably don’t need to spend any time convincing you that you are a sinner.  You probably know that truth about yourself all too well.  But . . .

It’s the other truth that we need to talk about.

We don’t know God’s heart very well.

That’s where Psalm 103 can help us tremendously.  We will take the next two blogs to discover the valuable truths in the wonderful passage from God’s Word.

Perhaps no other

Chapter in the Bible

So clearly reveals

God’s compassion

For His people.

If you’re wondering what God thinks about you, take a journey through Psalm 103 and discover the liberating truths about God’s heart.  I want to use today’s blog to focus briefly on these powerful principles.

1. God Loves to Help the Needy.

Verses 6-7 say, “The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.  He made known His ways to Moses, His deeds to the people of Israel.”

The “oppressed” are those who can’t help themselves.  In the Old Testament the word especially referred to widows, orphans, foreigners, and the poor.  When we are tempted to take advantage of others because we are strong and they are weak, God says, “Think about this first.”  He takes the side of the weak.  Our God keeps His eyes on the helpless, and when others hurt them, He moves to balance the scales of justice.  Someone has said, “The arm of the universe is long but it bends toward justice.”  There are days and times when this is hard to believe, but this truth stands like a solid rock for the believer.  We know this much . . .

Eventually God will bring everything to light,

And He will judge with impartiality.

In that day there will be no hiding,

No excuse-making, no bribes,

And no way of escape.

All those who labor for a better world and a more just society and those who stretch out a helping hand – you have to believe this or you can’t go on. The words of James Russell Lowell come to mind:

“Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne –

Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,

Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.”

Are you needy? The answer is yes whether you know it or not.  You are needy and God is on your side. That’s a great place to start.

2. He Shows Mercy to Those Who Don’t Deserve It.

Verse 8 declares, “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.”

Don’t miss the four great attributes of God that are declared in this verse:

1)      The Lord is compassionate – He pardons us.
2)      The Lord is gracious – He gives us what we don’t deserve.
3)      The Lord is slow to anger – He is patient with us when we fall.
4)      The Lord abounds in love – He loves us more than we can imagine.

• There’s no fishing like fishing in the sea.
• There’s no eating like eating at the king’s table.
• There’s no love like God’s love.

 

• When He saves, He saves completely.
• When He forgives, He forgives all my sins.
• When We sets free, We are free forever.

The King James Version translates the last phrase of verse 8 by saying that God is “plenteous in mercy.”  Charles Spurgeon (in The Treasury of David) takes that phrase and offers this application:

All the world tastes of His sparing mercy,

Those who hear the gospel partake of His inviting mercy,

The saints live by His saving mercy,

Are preserved by His upholding mercy,

Are cheered by His consoling mercy, and

Will enter heaven through His infinite and everlasting mercy.

I like that!  Six kinds of mercy in just one sentence!  That’s plenteous mercy for anyone who needs it.

3. He Tempers His Wrath.

Verses 9-10 say, “He will not always accuse, nor will He harbor His anger forever.  He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.”

Have you ever known anyone who loved to argue?  We all know people who love to keep a quarrel going because they are so angry.  God is not like that . . .

He is willing to end the quarrel

And welcome us back home.

Sometimes the real problem is

That we want to keep fighting him.

He’s more ready to forgive

Than we are to be forgiven!

• When we forget to pray, He remembers to feed us.
• When we forge to give thanks, He sends us restful sleep.
• When we idle in sin, he sends His Holy Spirit to convict us.
• When we refuse to give, He keeps on giving still.
• When we fall, He lifts us up.
• When we disappoint ourselves and others, He still calls us his children.

God even blesses those who don’t believe in Him.

An unbeliever like Christopher Hitchens writes a book called God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, and merrily debates every religious-type person he can find.  He is clever, witty, a gifted wordsmith, widely read, quick with a comeback, and completely committed to debunking religion of every type and even more committed to the concept that God is simply not necessary.  But, in spite of his attitude and actions, the mercy of God is very vividly seen in his life.  Instead of crushing him like an empty eggshell, the Lord feeds him and nourishes him and gives him health, life, and love.  It is the longsuffering of God that allows Christopher Hitchens to deny Him.  And why would God show such kindness to someone utterly dedicated to eradicating His influence in the world?  Because God is not in the least intimidated by Christopher Hitchens. or Richard Dawkins, or Sam Harris.  They are part of the atheist crowd . . . they shout their unbelief at God on ground He provides from them, with the breath the He provides for them, with words that He has enabled them to speak.

The fact that God withholds

Punishment to His enemies,

Is evidence of His mercy.

And why does God do this?

The Bible tells us in Romans 2:4, “Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?”

What are the verses we have looked at in Psalm 103 telling us?

We are richer than we think,

We are more blessed than we know,

And

We have more than we realize.

We frail, mortal sinners

Are rich

In the mercy of God.

And we have found that mercy – or rather, that mercy has found us, in the cross of Jesus Christ. During one of his sermons Billy Graham told the story of a patrolman on night duty in a town in northern England.  As he walked the streets, he heard a quivering sob.  Shining his flashlight into the darkness, he saw a little boy in the shadows sitting on a doorstep and tears were running down his cheek.  The child said, “I’m lost. Please take me home.”  The policeman began naming street after street, trying to help the boy remember where he lived.  He named the shops and the hotels in the area but the little boy could give him no clue.  Then he remembered that at the center of the town there was a church with a large white cross that towered above the rest of the city. The policeman pointed to the cross and said, “Do you live anywhere near that place?”  The little boy’s face immediately brightened up. He said, “Yes, sir. Take me to the cross and I can find my way home.”

Oh!  That is God’s Word for us today!

Go to the cross

And you will find

Your way home to God.

All that we believe, all that we have, all that we hope for is found in the cross of Christ.

• Are you weak? So am I.
• Are you needy? So am I.
• Are you guilty? So am I.
• Are you frail? So am I.
• Are you like dust? So am I.

And God says to us, his weak, needy, guilty, frail, children of dust, “I know you through and through, and I love you anyway.  Come to me.  Rest in me.  Make me your Rock.”  

God’s mercy in Christ

Is more than enough

For all of us!

We will finish looking at the truths in Psalm 103 in tomorrow’s blog.

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The Journey

Rest and Rejoice in this eternal truth!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Grace For The Journey

  The Bible says in Proverbs 11:25, “And he who waters will also be watered.”  God has given His people many guarantees in Scripture.  I pray that this one today will both bless and strengthen you for the journey ahead.

The principle is crystal clear:

In God’s economy,

You cannot give

Without getting.

The sense of the word suggests the thought of “refreshing” others.  The general principle is, that in living for the good of others, we shall be profited also ourselves.  This teaching is sustained by the analogy of nature, for in nature there is a law . . .

That no one thing

Can be independent of

The rest of creation,

But there is a mutual action

And reaction of all upon all.

God has so constituted this universe,

That selfishness is

The greatest possible offense

Against His law,

And living for others,

And ministering to others,

Is the strictest obedience to His will.

Our surest road to our own happiness is to seek the good of our fellows.  We store up in God’s own bank what we generously expend on the behalf of others.

• To get we must give.
• To accumulate we must scatter.
• To make ourselves happy and become spiritually vigorous, we must do good, and seek the spiritual good of others.

Now, let me apply this principle, in its narrow sense, as belonging to ourselves personally.  There are some tasks in which we cannot all engage.  Each person has their own special work that God has given; but refreshing is work that every persons can do regardless of position or power.  Consider the following:

1. All people need and want watering.
2. The Lord’s people are to do this watering through the provision God has given. The Holy Spirit waters by the admonitions of parents, by the kind suggestions of friends, by the teaching of His ministers, by the example of all His saints.
3. Some plants need special watering, and should be the objects of unusual care, partly because of temperament or of ignorance, and partly because of circumstances or difficult situations.
4. All believers have some power to water others. In so watering others we shall be watered ourselves. This is the main point.

I also need to apply this principle, in a wider sense, as it may refer to us as a Church. We, as a Church, have enjoyed great blessing and prosperity; but we must always be conscious of the fact that God has done this so that we may use our blessings and prosperity to water others.  The Church has undertaken many ministries for Christ, and the Lord will use us to undertake a great many more.  We must keep our watering work up.

The principle, in the widest sense, as it refers to the entire Body of Christ is best explained by C. H. Spurgeon: “Our missionary operations are an infinite blessing to the Churches at home. Relinquishing them or giving them up would bring such a curse that we had need to go down on our knees and pray, God send the missionary work back again.’”

There is another significant truth to note is verse – The great promise is that . . . If we refresh others, we will be refreshed by God Himself.

When we give,

God knows

How to give

To us.

We can’t water others without being watered ourselves.

We are never

The loser for our

God-guided generosity.

Jesus told us that it is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35). In other words . . .

The more we look after

And serve others,

The more God

Will look after

And serve us.

The key is to keep our focus on God and not ourselves.

• When we lift others, God will lift us.
• When we comfort others, God will comfort us.
• When we bless others, God will bless us.

This is what I call “divine recompense.”  But we must do our part!  We must fulfill the condition of proactively refreshing others, knowing that God will fulfill His guarantee to refresh us.

No one ever lived a more “other-oriented” life than our Lord Jesus Christ.  He continually put others first.  He said plainly in Mark 10:45, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”  It was Jesus who, on the night He was betrayed, took a towel and a basin and washed the feet of His disciples, setting the eternal example of how His followers are to live their lives all the way into glory.

By nature,

This is impossible

For you and me.

Sin has turned us inward.

Our first thought in the morning and our last thought at night is usually rooted in self.  Even as Christian believers, who have been saved by the Holy Spirit, given a new nature, and filled by the Holy Spirit, we must “surrender” (notice I did not say “fight with all our might” – they way to victory is surrender not self-determination) against sinful self-absorption and self-centeredness.  It’s not easy to put others first!  It isn’t easy to think of others more highly than we think of ourselves (Romans 12:3).

This is the call for every child of God,

And that call comes with

A wonderful guarantee from God Himself:

When we take time to water others,

our God will water the streams of our souls

To new levels of refreshment.

So . . . have you been refreshing others lately?  Remember . . .

The simple act of

refreshing (serving, blessing, etc.) others

is often the refreshment promised in and of itself.

Are you not blessed every time you bless someone else and see the light of joy and gratitude in their eyes?  You cannot give without getting; the more you give, the more you get.  Your supply of giving will never run out because God is filling it to overflowing (Psalm 23:5c). So, refresh others and prepare for refreshment from your Redeemer. God has guaranteed it!

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The Journey

Rest and Rejoice in this eternal truth!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Grace For The Journey

  The Bible says in John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the gory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”  and in Hebrews 1:1-3, “God who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last day spoken to us by His Son, who He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; Who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”  Nothing else can be added to this revelation.  Nothing more is needed.  Christ’s coming has fulfilled the prophetic word.  He has appeared one time at the end of the ages (Hebrews 9:26).  He has made one sacrifice for sin that needs not to be repeated.

Jesus is God’s full and final Word.

God has spoken in His Son.

What else is there to say?

The significance of what He has said and has accomplished

Means that we need no other word from God.

One of the greatest errors of the modern prophetic movement is the failure to believe that Jesus is God’s final Word.  Some in the Christian church are looking for further revelation.  They look beyond the Old and New Testament revelation to dreams, prophecies, and visions.  They believe God is still speaking outside the Scriptural revelation.  Clear biblical teaching is sometimes dismissed because of so-called “new revelations.”  But . . .

We should not be looking

For God to speak

In new and special ways.

He has spoken clearly and finally in His Son.

Someone has said, “Believers await the return of the Son (Hebrews 9:28), but they don’t expect a further word from God.”

God has spoken His last and best word.

No further word is to be expected,

For the last word focuses on

The life, death, and resurrection of the Son.”

Jesus is God’s final Word to man.  Let us therefore hear Him!  This is God’s desire for all mankind.  When Jesus was engulfed in radiant glory on the Mount of Transfiguration, God the Father said to the three disciples that were on the mount with Jesus, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him” (Matthew 17:5).  Like all of God’s commandments, this is exclusive – what He says is not only of utmost importance but nothing else matters if we miss hearing Him.  This phrase has the very words which Moses delivered, when he spoke of the Messiah, the great prophet like unto himself, that should be raised up among the Jews; saying, “unto Him ye shall hearken”, Deuteronomy 18:15.  So that these words, “hear Him” . . .

Most clearly point to Christ,

As being this prophet,

Who is to be heard,

And He only;

Not Moses, but He,

The prophet Moses prophesied of;

Nor Elijah, or any of the other prophets,

But one greater than them all:

Hear and believe His prophecies,

Concerning His sufferings, death, and resurrection,

Listen to, and embrace His doctrines,

As coming from God,

And being divine

And as having a divine authority upon them,

And being confirmed by miraculous works;

Submit to His ordinances,

And obey His commands,

Hear Him always,

And in all things.

God’s people are bidden to turn from every human teacher, even those as revered as Moses and Elias, to listen to our Lord.  To “hear Him” will lead from error and sin into truth, righteousness and fitness for heaven.

How we need to hear what Jesus has to say . . .

1. About the way to God – John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Me.”

 2. About the will of God – John 6:38-40, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He have given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who see the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

3. About the work of God – John 3:14-15, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so much the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”

4.About the worship of God – John 4:23-24, “But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

5. About waiting on God – John 14:1-3, “Let ot your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”

Christ has come.

The saving promises of God

Are fulfilled in Him.

He is coming again,

But all things have been accomplished

For the saving of His people.

He has won the battle and the victory cry has been sounded.  The revelation of God in the Son is full and definitive.

• This revelation is not fragmentary, but complete.
• It is not temporary, but permanent.
• It is not preparatory, but final …

God’s revelation in the Lord Jesus Christ is . . .

• Superior in character, because it is complete.
• It is superior in time, because no revelation will follow it.
• It is superior in destination, because it is to us.
• It is superior in agent because, unlike the Old Testament, which came through feeble human prophets, it has come through God’s Son.”

To whom are we going to listen?

That is the question!

Let us listen to the Son.

Revelation has its consummation in Him.  The progress of revelation has its ultimate peak in the person of Jesus Christ, the One who reveals God in both deeds and words.

Years ago, there was a commercial on television.  I still remember it well.  It involved a young professional telling someone at a social event that E. F. Hutton was his broker.  When he said this, all the background chatter ceased.  Everyone stopped their conversations to listen to him.  The narrator of the commercial then said, “When E. F. Hutton speaks, people listen.”

 Lewis Johnson, one-time professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, said, “We measure the worth of words by our opinion and regard for the speaker of them. I know this from my own experience in teaching and writing. When Calvin speaks, I listen. When Owen speaks, I listen.  When Hodge speaks, I listen.  When Warfield speaks, I carefully listen.”

If we listen to others

And value what they say,

How much more should we

Listen to God and Jesus

And value what He says?

God speaks.  He communicates.  He makes Himself known to us.  And when God speaks, every ear should be attentive to what He says.  When God talks, all the world should become silent.  Every ear should strain to hear all that God says.

For what God says

Is of more value and worth

Than all other communications combined.

The introduction to the book of Hebrews contrasts most eloquently the revelation of the past, in which God spoke to His old covenant people through the prophets, to the revelation of the last days (the Messianic age), in which He spoke to His new covenant people in His Son, “God spoke to our fathers by the prophets” and “has in these last day spoken to us by His Son” (1:1-2).

The contrast is one that shows how God spoke in times past with how He speaks in these last days.  There is an older communication which took place long ago, at many times and in many ways.  And there is a newer communication in these last days … by His Son.

The author of Hebrews doesn’t speak despairingly of the revelation of the old era, but he indicates that the greater revelation is in the Son of God.  We do not despise or devalue the Old Testament Scriptures, for they are God’s revelation, but they point to God’s greater revelation in His Son.

The apex of revelation is the Christ, the Son of God.  There is no greater revelation than Him.  He is God’s climatic revelation to man.  The Son of God is the Word of God (John 1:1); He is the Word of God incarnate (John 1:14).

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The Journey

Rest and Rejoice in this eternal truth!

 Pastor Terry

 Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

 

Grace For The Journey

 What legitimate authority does Satan have over this world?  It’s a very important question.  In Matthew 4:19 and in Luke 4:6 the Bible speaks about this, so that leads us to ask, “What authority is Satan talking about?  Is he lying that he has authority to give? Or does he truly have authority over the earth?  If so, what is it, and how does this relate to God’s complete sovereignty over all things?”

Who Really Owns the World?

Here’s what the Bible tells us that the devil actually said to Jesus at the temptation in the wilderness that creates the question we were just asked: “Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.  And he said to him, ‘All these I will give You, if You will fall down and worship me’” (Matthew 4:8-9).

And in Luke 4:5-7, the Bible says, “And the devil took Him up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to Him, ‘To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will.  If You, then, will worship me, it will all be Yours.’”

If Jesus had worshiped Satan, of course Jesus would have abdicated His divine authority.  He would have ceased to be God. If he were worshiping the devil, he wouldn’t be God. The devil would be God. Satan would then give Him the whole world and still control the world because Jesus would not be God. He’d be Satan’s lackey. All of this, of course, did not and could not happen.  Satan, as usual, was a fool to suggest it. He’s an idiot. He’s always saying stupid, half-true things.

All Power by Permission

But notice the words of Luke 4:6. Satan is not the ultimate authority in the world because, in this verse, he admits it: “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me.”  Who gave him this authority?  The Bible tells us it is God (Job 1:8-12).  In His sovereignty, God considered it wise, as part of His curse on the world after the fall of Adam and Eve, to give Satan a huge power in this world.

But he doesn’t have ultimate power.  We’re not dualists.  We don’t think there’s God and Satan duking it out for power in the universe.  God is God, not Satan.  Satan is not God. All Satan’s power is by permission.  He has no autonomy to do anything God does not permit for infinitely wise purposes.

We see Satan given permission to afflict Job, right?  This is the same kind of paradigm. The Lord said to Satan in Job 1:12, “The Lord said to Satan, ‘Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.’  So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.”  All his acts of opposition to God and God’s people are part of God’s plan as He gives Satan permission to exercise tremendous power in this world.

Real but Defeated

Nevertheless, Satan’s sway in this world is terrible and vast.  Look at what the Bible says . . . Here’s what we read.

“All Satan’s power is by permission. He has no autonomy to do anything God does not permit for infinitely wise purposes.”  The whole world lies in the power of the evil one. (1 John 5:19)

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. (Ephesians 2:1-2)

The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers. (2 Corinthians 4:4)

Jesus says in his last night, I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. (John 14:30)

The note that is struck in the New Testament is that in Christ’s death and resurrection, the decisive blow against Satan has been struck. As Satan comes against Jesus in his final hours, Jesus says, “Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out” (John 12:31). In John 1611, he says, “The ruler of this world is judged.”

In Luke 22:53 Jesus says — I love this phrase; He’s just so sovereign — “This is your hour, and the power of darkness.” Jesus basically says, “You know, you get an hour. You get one hour. I know when it starts. I know what it ends. That’s your hour. It’s all by sovereign permission that you can do your dastardly deed in Judas and in Me tomorrow morning.”

Power of the Cross

The most important passage on Satan’s defeat in the cross of Christ is Colossians 2:13-15, “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.”  That’s an awesome sentence.  The entire record of your life that you regret — canceled.  Here comes the decisive second verse: “This He set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.”

“Satan’s one damning weapon against God’s elect is taken out of his hand. There is no unforgiven sin anymore.”

So, in dying for your sins, in nailing your record of debt to the cross, Jesus disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in Him.  He disarmed them by nailing our record of debt to the cross, because Satan’s power is that he’s a great accuser.

If he has nothing in his court folder as he stands before the bar to accuse us, what’s he going to do?  He becomes powerless in this courtroom because our record of debts has been canceled.  His one damning weapon against God’s elect is taken out of his hand. There is no unforgiven sin anymore.  We’re forgiven. So what’s he going to condemn? Nothing.

God Is Greater

Now in every battle with the devil, we can have total confidence of final victory. This is why Romans 8:38-36 says what it says: “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers [satanic power included], nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Satan has been decisively defeated.

That makes all the difference in the world regarding how we are to live in this world – as believers who are certain and confident.  I one heard about a young man who was converted in college, along with several other athletes.  He was a big, hulking, football-player type.  He said he was brought to Christ by an old, elderly woman — a little petite woman.  She hosted discipleship groups at her house for these football players who were twice the size of her.  She insisted as her discipleship method that every one of them after their conversion say one hundred times a week, “Greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).  That is a wise and important way to start a Christian life . . . Because that is really true!

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The Journey

Rest and Rejoice in this eternal truth!

Pastor Terry 

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

 

Grace For The Journey

It seems in our post-Christian culture that the courage (or perhaps even willingness) to share our faith is becoming rare.  Why is that?  Why is sharing our faith so challenging for most people?  I suspect the answer is “sharing your faith” or “evangelizing people” are such nebulous phrases.  What does that mean?  When do you do it?  What do you say?  How do we teach people how to do it?  How do we normalize it?

A couple of weeks ago, I was headed home after some meeting and needed to stop at the grocery store to pick up some milk.  On my way to the dairy section (in the back of the store, of course) I briefly made eye contact with someone walking past but kept heading for the milk.  A few minutes later I was up at the checkout, and that person was in front of me.  The cashier started removing groceries from the bag and it was obvious he didn’t have enough money to pay for everything.  I had some cash on me so I pitched in $20 to help pay for the order.  The person looked at me and said: “Are you one of those Christians?” I said, “Well, yes I am” and he replied: “I could tell something was different about you when you walked past me.”  The whole situation caught me completely off guard and I didn’t have time to share the Roman’s Road of Salvation.  I did, however, mention how much God deeply loved Him, sent Jesus to pay for our sin debt which none of us could pay, and invited him to church.  I never saw him after that.

Evangelism that night was so incredibly simple.  I only had to walk through a store, pitch in $20 for some groceries, and share a short statement about the gospel.  Most of the time, it’s not quite that effortless.  It usually takes some action, intentionality, and a little courage to shift the conversation towards God.

There are numerous ways that have been developed to help you share your faith, and all of them are helpful and have a place.  Allow me to share a very simple way to engage in evangelism that is easy to teach and easy to execute.  Here it is:

Begin by praying for the people around you and ask God to open up opportunities to speak into their lives

Listen to your family members, neighbors, co-workers, and friends to discover what their needs are, or where God may be working in their lives.

Eat together with them.  More than enjoying a meal together, this allows you to slow down and spend time with the people in your life who need to hear what Jesus is doing in your life. (Food always makes everything better too!)

Serve those needs you hear about or recognize?  Do something about it.  Fix something, pay for something, or help with something.  Meet a need in a practical way.

Share your story.  Meeting those needs often earns you an opportunity to share what God is doing in your life.  You don’t have to tell them the story of Jesus from birth to resurrection, but telling them about your own life can open up conversations that lead back to Jesus.

The first letters of each of the above phrases spells the acrostic B.L.E.S.S.  What does that look like in real life?  I do not try to follow this exactly but let the Lord work out the process.  Here’s how this has looked for me in my daily contact with people.  One of my neighbors knows I am a pastor and asked me one day, “What is a Mega Church?”  I explained it to him and told him that any size church has one concern to preach and present Jesus Christ as God’s answer for life.  He didn’t respond very positively, and moved shortly after that, but I continue to pray that the little seed that I had opportunity to sow grows into an understanding faith.  Another person told me when his brother died, he wanted to talk to me about faith and eternity but never did and that he regretted it.  I briefly had opportunity to relate the truth that we all will die, that the most important thing is being ready for that time, and shared how Jesus’ death and resurrection helps us be ready.  Other people apologize when they cuss in front of me. I have never quoted Scripture to them, but have communicated to them that we all do things we are sorry for, that is just a part of our nature; but God can give us power to change those things through what Jesus did on the cross and through the empty tomb.  In every opportunity the people knew I had faith not just from the things I did but from the things I said.

B.L.E.S.S.ing those who come into my daily life takes time but allow people the freedom to come to me with faith questions energizes my own faith and encourages me to keep being a faithful disciple and servant of the Lord.  In God’s timing this yields fruit.  Let me encourage you to develop your own way share your faith so that you will B.L.E.S.S. those you come in contact with.  God will use it to strengthen your faith and it might even affect the overall spiritual temperature in your church?

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The Journey

Rest and Rejoice in this eternal truth!

 Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Grace For The Journey

Evangelicals sometimes have ways of speaking and communicating that actually leave out crucial aspects of the gospel. Perhaps the following scenario will be familiar to you.

A parent comes to me and says, “Pastor, my 8-year old child wants to meet with you about getting baptized.”  We agree to meet, I sit down with the parent and with the child, and I say, “Johnny, why do you want to get baptized?”  He replies, “Because I don’t want to go to hell.”  I clarify, “Yes, but Johnny, getting baptized doesn’t save you.  You have to accept Jesus into your heart in order to be saved.”  Johnny asks, “How do I do that?” I reply, “All you have to do is ask Him to forgive you of your sins, and then ask Him to come into your heart.”  And so we kneel and pray, and Johnny asks Jesus to forgive him of his sins and to come and live in his heart.  We make arrangements for his baptism on the very next Sunday, and all’s well that ends well, right?

Wrong.

What did I fail to mention

In my “gospel” presentation to Johnny?

I never mentioned anything

About the death and resurrection of Jesus,

And neither did Johnny.

Perhaps I was assuming that he already understood all that.  But that is precisely the problem.

We cannot make assumptions

That people know the gospel –

Especially the part about

The death and resurrection of Jesus for sinners.

If you leave that out,

You are leaving out the very thing

That Paul says is of “first importance”

In his gospel preaching.

You would be leaving out

The part of the message

That actually accomplishes our salvation.

Don’t assume the gospel.  Someone has said, “What is assumed in one generation will be forgotten in the next.”

If your gospel proclamation

Does not contain at its heart

The announcement of Jesus Christ

Crucified and raised for sinners,

Then it is not gospel proclamation.

And if it’s not gospel proclamation,

Then no one will be saved.

And there’s no consequence

More grave than that.

That is why it is so important for us to master what the Apostle Paul says is of “first importance” – the gospel.

There is perhaps no other place in scripture that offers a more succinct summary of the gospel than what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

This gospel has at least six characteristics. It is first of all…

1. Pre-eminent: “as of first importance.”

This means that . . .

Of everything that Paul taught the Corinthians,

There is nothing more important than the gospel.

It doesn’t matter what else you get right.  If you get this message wrong, then everything else is wrong too.  This is of “first importance” because to miss this is to miss salvation.

There is no authentic Christianity

Apart from the gospel

Rightly preached

And rightly believed.

2. Apostolic: “For I delivered to you… what I also received”

The language that Paul uses here (“delivering” … “receiving”) was basic terminology among the ancient rabbis for the giving and the receiving of God’s authoritative message.  In this case, Paul is not talking about what has been handed down from rabbis but a message that has come down to him from the apostles.  Paul received a direct revelation of the gospel on the Damascus road in his encounter with Jesus.  But in this text, he accesses traditional material that has been handed down from the apostles to express what the gospel is.

This shows that the message Paul preaches

Is in keeping with that of the other apostles.

That means that the message you and I preach

Had better be in keeping with the apostles as well.

Which means that it needs to be

In agreement with the Scriptures.

3. Event: “that Christ died… that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day… and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve”

Notice that . . .

The gospel we believe

Is the announcement of events

That are focused on

The life and ministry of Jesus.

There are four phrases introduced by the word “that,” and those phrases indicate the death, burial, resurrection, and appearances of Jesus.

The two core events of Paul’s gospel

Are the ones identified as

“In accordance with the Scriptures.”

In particular, the core consists in the death and resurrection of Jesus. The burial part confirms that he was dead. The appearances confirm that he was raised.

But the core of the message is

The death and resurrection of Jesus.

If your gospel presentation

Doesn’t include the death and resurrection of Jesus,

Then it is not the gospel.

4. Biblical: “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures… that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures”

The two chief parts of the gospel narrative – the death and resurrection of Jesus – are both in accordance with the Old Testament Scriptures.  The death and resurrection of Christ are prophesied in a number of Old Testament passages.

Perhaps the death of Jesus is most prominently set forth in Isaiah 53:5-10, where the prophet says, “But He was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stipes 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 of us all.  He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not his mouth.  By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for His generation, who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?  And they made His grave with the wicked and with the rich at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it was the will of the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief.  When You make His soul an offering for sin …”

Likewise, Jesus’ resurrection is anticipated in Isaiah 53: 10-12, “When You make His soul an offering for sin.  He shall see His offspring; He shall prolong His days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.  He shall see the labor of His soul , and be satisfied.  By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities.  Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great.  And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.”

These statements are premised on the idea that the servant will experience life after suffering.  They portend a resurrection from the death.

Jesus’ death and resurrection are not God’s Plan B. They are Plan A from before the foundation of the world (Acts 2:23), and that plan was prophetically disclosed centuries before the actual events took place.

5. Personal: “Christ died for our sins”

If this part weren’t true,

Then none of the rest of it would matter.

Christ’s work wasn’t simply a set of events.

His death and resurrection were fundamentally for us.

The text says that “Christ died for our sins.”

This means that Jesus’ death

Actually accomplished something.

This means that Christ died

In the place of sinners and

Took their sins upon Himself in His death.

Paul expresses this truth in different ways elsewhere:

Romans 5:6, “Christ died for the ungodly”

Romans 5:8, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

2 Corinthians 5:21, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Galatians 3:13, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us…”

Christ did what He did “for sinners,” that includes you and me.  It was personal – “for sinners.”  And it is only good news to us sinners because it was for us.

Jesus died in our place

And took the penalty

That we deserved.

Because of Christ’s substitutionary

Work on the cross,

God offers us

Forgiveness of our sins.

6. Historical: “He appeared to Cephas …”

The appearance to Peter may be the one reported in Luke 24:34, where the two disciples who had walked with Jesus on the road to Emmaus report, “The Lord has really risen, and has appeared to Simon.”  “The Twelve” is probably a reference to the apostles, which would then make sense of the appearance to “all the apostles” in verse 7.  This is probably including Jesus’ appearance to all the apostles including Thomas in John 20:26-29 and Luke 24:36-53.

What is remarkable

Is that Jesus appeared

To so many

After His resurrection.

The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:6, “Then He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

As someone has already pointed out, it is very unlikely that 500 people would have the exact same hallucination at the exact same time.  This is a lot of people, and Paul is saying that although some of them have died, many of them are still alive to check this by.  These are eyewitnesses, and they are still alive at the time Paul is writing this a couple decades after Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Paul also says in 1 Corinthians 15:7, “Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.”

This would be James, the half-brother of Jesus (Matthew 13:55; Galatians 1:19), the leader of the church in Jerusalem, who was not a believer apparently until after the resurrection (John 7:5).  He is mentioned in this list because he was “one of the most respected leaders in the early Christian church” (Schreiner).  So James’ testimony carries weight.

Then Paul concludes his historical account of the resurrection of Christ by saying in 1 Corinthians 15:8, “Then last of all, He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time.”.

Paul talks about his own encounter with Jesus on the Damascus road.  The Paul uses, “one born out of due time” speaks of a totally unexpected event.  It would have been totally unexpected for someone like Paul – a Pharisee and persecutor of the church – to come to faith in Christ.  And yet he did.  And he got to see Jesus with his own two eyes.

So . . .

The gospel is preeminent, apostolic, event, biblical, personal, and historical.

Is this the gospel that you know?

Is this this gospel that you believe?

Is this the gospel that you share with others?

I hope and pray that it is because this is the only gospel that there is and because this is the only that gospel that saves.

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The Journey

Rest and Rejoice in this eternal truth!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Grace For The Journey

  If God posted an ad on one of those career builder/jobs.com web sites, do you know what it would look like?   Do you know the kind of person He would be looking for to do the job He has for them to do?  Well . . .

God has already posted His want ad,

Long before these sites became popular,

And He posted it in His Word.

The Bible says in 2 Chronicles 16:9, “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, seeking to show Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him.”

In God’s want ad, we see that He identifies only one qualification for employment in His work:

A heart that is blameless.

In the Old Testament, the concept of blamelessness brought with it two different but not dissimilar ideas:

FIRST – Sacrificial animals without defect.  God says in Leviticus 1:3, “If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish.”  Only unblemished animals were worthy of being sacrificed to the Lord.

SECOND – Blameless people who cannot be accused of wrongdoing.  The Bible says in Psalm 15:1-2, “LORD, who shall abide in Your tabernacle?  Who shall dwell in Your holy hill?  He who walks uprightly and speaks the truth in his heart.”

In the New Testament, the concept of blamelessness is rooted in the character of Christ and His followers:

FIRST – Blamelessness is found in Christ Himself.  The Bible says in Hebrews 7:26, “It was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.”  And the Bible says in Hebrews 4:15, “For we have not an high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”

SECOND – Blamelessness should be found in the disciples of Christ.  The Bible says in Ephesians 1:4, “According as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.”

Those who are disciples of Christ

Are blameless in the sight of God

Because they are clothed in His righteousness.

The blamelessness of Christ has been imputed

To all who have trusted in

His atoning work on their behalf.

If you are a Christian, when God looks at you He sees Jesus, so He sees perfection!  Yet, in everyday experience, disciples of Christ do everything imperfectly, and we still do many things that are blameworthy.  However . . .

While we are already blameless in the sight of God

Because of what Jesus has done on our behalf,

We are being made blameless through

The transforming power of the Holy Spirit.

And, of course, that transformation will not be completed until we pass into glory.

So, for the purposes of today’s blog, a blameless heart is . . .

• A heart that has been washed and cleansed through the blood of Jesus;
• A heart that beats for the things that God’s heart beats for.
• A heart that is surrendered wholly to God.
• A heart that is broken by the things that break God’s heart.

Notice what God’s “classified ad” does not identify as qualifications for employment in His work in this world:

• No age limit.
• No experience necessary.
• No specific education required.
• Any tongue, tribe, or nation.
• Male or female.
• Those with physical limitations welcomed.
• No mandatory retirement age.

God simply wants those who

Have a heart that beats for Him.

In fact, the Scriptures make it clear

That God goes out of His way

To go after those the world would never

Think of hiring for any meaningful position.

The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 26-31, “Consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, and not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’”

Wow!  What we learn from this passage is immensely comforting.

When you are hired by God

To do His work in this world,

He gives you everything

You need to get the job done.

God equips those whom He calls;

No other employer in the world can say that.

The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, “[The Lord] said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.’  Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

The weaker we are,

The more God demonstrates

His strength through us;

So when we advance, accomplish, and achieve,

We boast only in the One

That brought us the victory – Jesus Christ.

Working for God expands the borders of your life beyond the borders of your life and connects you to the transcendent purpose for which you were created.

Because you were made by Him for Him,

The only place where you will find

Meaning, significance, and purpose

Is when your heart is wholly surrendered

And beating for the things of God.

So . . . what has your heart been beating for lately?  Do you believe you are qualified for the work God has for you to do in this world?  If you are reading this right now and you’re not sure, pray and ask God about it.  It shouldn’t take long for Him to convince you that He can use you right now – right where you are – to do some amazing things for His glory!  You really were created for greatness, and that greatness will only be realized when you are wholeheartedly serving our Great God.

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The Journey

Rest and Rejoice in this eternal truth!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Grace For The Journey

  I have two sentences that I want to commend to you as biblical, true, and loving.  My prayer is that if you embrace these two sentences – if you treasure them and are unashamed of them — they will have three long-term effects on your life.

1. They will help you be formed decisively by Scripture rather than by culture.
2. They will help you clarify how Christians are to be involved in the world while being radically different from the world.
3. And they will help you keep God supreme in the forefront of your life and hold fast to Christ as absolutely crucial.

Christians Care

Both of the sentences are designed to prick the conscience of one group of Christians and call out the unbelief of another group of Christians, and, I hope, bring clarity and conviction and courage and joy to you.  I’ll mention both sentences and then try to show how the Bible points to them.

1. Christians care about all suffering, especially eternal suffering.
2. Christians care about all injustice, especially injustice against God.

I use the phrase “care about” – care about suffering, care about injustice – because I am not saying that all Christians agree on the best strategies for how to address all suffering and all injustice.  We will debate those strategies until Jesus comes.

What I am saying is more basic: Christians care.  Suffering and injustice move us. Touch us.  Awaken some measure of compassion, or indignation, or both.  Let’s see what the Bible has to say about these issues

1. Christians care about all suffering, especially eternal suffering.

You can see this caring in John 10:13.  In this verse, Jesus tells us that the hired hand who is not a shepherd “cares nothing for the sheep.”  He just wants to get his pay and live his self-absorbed life.  He does not care.

The Bible refers to this concept again in John 12:6 where John talks about Judas when he complained about money spent on Jesus’s anointing: He complained about this “waste, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief” (John 12:6).

Christians are not like hired hands, and they are not like hypocritical, religious thieves. Christians care about all suffering, all injustice.   We are touched.   We are moved.    Our hearts lean in toward relief, protection, and justice.  If we don’t, we are not acting like Christians.

Suffering Stirs Us

Let’s consider these two sentences one at a time.

Christians care about all suffering, especially eternal suffering.

Christians care about all suffering.  All is intended to prick the conscience of Christians who believe that caring about the suffering of disease, malnutrition, disability, mental illness, injury, abuse, assault, loneliness, rejection, calamity – this caring has to be restricted, because caring about these kinds of suffering might distract from, and diminish, our commitment to the gospel of Christ crucified and risen, and from the greater need of rescuing people from eternal suffering through faith in Jesus.

And the first point of this sentence is to say, “No.”  Christians care about all suffering. Jesus is our model.  Over and over in the Gospels the Bible says, Jesus cared . . . He felt compassion . . .

• On the harassed crowds (Matthew 9:36),
• On the sick (Matthew 14:14),
• On the hungry (Matthew 15:32),
• On the blind (Matthew 20:34),
• On the leper (Mark 1:41),
• On the demon-possessed (Mark 9:22),
• On the bereaved (Luke 7:13).

And when he told a parable to teach us what he meant by “love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27) He said, “But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion” (Luke 10:33).  He cared.  This disposition of the soul to care is included in the command, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Eternal Suffering

So, Christians care about all suffering.  But the caring does not end there … Christians care especially for eternal suffering.  Let me break the last part of that sentence down so we can understand it better.

Especially — this is intended to call out the practical unbelief of those Christians who either don’t believe there is such a thing as eternal suffering, or who convince themselves that it is more loving to care for a person physical needs and not be too concerned about warning people about their eternal destiny and not to plead with them to escape it through the provision God Himself has made in the cross of Christ.

In either case, practically,

They don’t care about eternal suffering.

But Jesus did.

In Matthew 25 He warned us that it was coming: “Then the King will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’ . . . And these [on his left] will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:41,46).

Paul shared the same conviction and warned us in 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9, “Those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus . . . will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.”  And John – the apostle of love – warns with the strongest language of all in Revelation 14:11, “The smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever.”  Jesus, Paul, and John had a God-given compassion for people and this led them to really be concerned and cared about whether people suffer eternally or rejoice eternally.

Someone once asked, “How much do you have to hate somebody to believe everlasting life is possible and not tell them?”  Millions of Christians, including many missionaries, have convinced themselves that they are loving lost people by caring mostly about their suffering in this world, and little about how they will spend eternity.  May God help us all to care about all suffering, especially eternal suffering.

2. Christians care about all injustice, especially injustice against God.

I just read an article about reaching an unreached people group.  It began by mentioning the beneficial earthly effects of missionary work — education, medicine, prosperity, written language — and ended with a focus on earthly human flourishing, with one passing mention of Jesus in the middle.

No God.  No wrath.  No cross.  No salvation.  No forgiveness of sins.  No faith.  No hell. No heaven.  No eternal joy with God.  Whether the article was accurate or not, this is what was held up as a model of missionary success.

My prayer for you is that . . .

You will absolutely reject this either-or mentality:

Either relieve suffering now

Or plead with people to escape eternal suffering

Into eternal joy through the gospel of Christ.

I hope you will say No to that soul-destroying dichotomy – and even the prioritizing of temporal well-being over eternal well-being.  I hope you will say – and display – for the rest of your life:

Christians care about all injustice,

Especially injustice against God.

Christians care about all injustice.  All is intended to prick the conscience of Christians who, because of self-indulgence or fear, have dulled the capacities of their hearts to care about the injustices of the world — all the countless ways that people, all over the world, are treated by other people worse than they deserve.

I say this is from “self-indulgence” because I think most indifference to injustice among professing Christians is not owing to convictional partiality or opposition, but rather to the moral stupor that comes over us when we are satiated with the comforts of this world.

But the dulling of our care about injustice also comes from fear of man – fear that some group will put a theological or political label on us that would be misleading and offensive.  And so, we convince ourselves that indifference to injustice is a price worth paying to maintain a certain reputation.

But in fact . . .

Christians do care about all injustice.

Because all justice is rooted in God.

The Bible is clear about this truth.

• In Deuteronomy 32:4, the Bible says, “The Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are justice.”
• In Psalm 33:5 and 99:4, the Bible says, “The King in His might loves justice.”
• In Revelation 15:3, the Bible says, “Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations!”
• In Revelation 16:7, the Bible says “Yes, Lord God the Almighty, true and just are your judgments!”
• In Matthew 12:20, the Bible says, “A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not quench, until [Jesus] brings justice to victory.”

And from the justice of our God and Savior flow His commands to us:

• “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)
• “By the help of your God . . . hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God.” (Hosea 12:6)
• “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” (Amos 5:24)
• “Woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God.” (Luke 11:42)

If we neglect justice, if we do not care about all injustice, we are not acting like Christians.  Because Christians care about all injustice.

And we care about all injustice, especially injustice against God.  Let me also break down the last phrase of that sentence so that we can better understand it.

Especially – this half of the sentence is intended to call out the practical unbelief of Christians for whom injustices against humans ignite more passion in their hearts and in their mouths than the global tragedy of injustice against God.  And it also aims to call out the practical unbelief of Christians who are so anesthetized by the comforts and entertainments of this world that they don’t care about injustice against man or God.

God is infinitely deserving

Of complete worship

And trust and obedience.

Injustice is to treat someone worse than they deserve from other people.  And the more respect they deserve, and the less we render, the greater the injustice.

God alone deserves the highest respect

And honor and praise and love and fear

And devotion and allegiance and obedience.

Yet every single human being has fallen short of this worship, and exchanged the glory of God for the creation (Romans 1:23; 3:23).

Therefore . . .

Every human being is guilty of an injustice

That is infinitely worse than

All injustices against man put together.

God is infinitely deserving of complete worship and trust and obedience.  Therefore, in treating God as unworthy of our total allegiance, every human is guilty of an infinite injustice against God.

This injustice against God came to a climax in the very moment when God Himself, in great mercy, and without compromising His justice, came in human flesh to save us from the just penalty of our own injustice against Him.

The Bible tells us in Acts 8:32-33, “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter    and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so He opens not his mouth.  In His humiliation justice was denied Him.”

And as God embraced infinite injustice against Himself, He purchased a people who would prize above all things Christ crucified as the vindication of God’s justice, and the forgiveness of our injustice against Him.  He embraced injustice against himself to create a brokenhearted, bold people called Christians who would be marked by these two God-centered, Christ-exalting sentences:

Christians care about all suffering, especially eternal suffering.

Christians care about all injustice, especially injustice against God.

I pray that you will treasure them, be unashamed of them, and live by them for the rest of your life.

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The Journey

Rest and Rejoice in this eternal truth!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”