Church jottings 2022-10-02

 

 Today's sermon from WSFC: living in step with the Gospel

Galatians 2:11–16 

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”
We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. (ESV)

•  Cyndi opened service this morning, and I really appreciate how she spoken about the Lord's Table as the "best meal" in our lives. In other traditions it's called the Eucharist, which comes from the word "to celebrate", and that seems very fitting. Should there be some somber reflection on the death of our Lord? Yes, but moreover it is right that we rejoice in such love as we proclaim his sacrifice for us.
  

•  I'm thankful the heaven won't be overly repetitive, but that we have so many myriad ways now and forever to worship and enjoy our God. He created (and allows us to use as tools in worship) multi-part musical harmony, and physical symbols like the Lord's supper, and poetic use of words in lyrics and oratory to convey beauty and power, and bodily movement like dancing and upraised hands and weeping, and...
  

•  The sermon continues Galatians and the point that we are set free from the law to live in grace, yet that doesn't mean that our actions don't matter. We cannot be saved by our actions or morality (Trent did a great job of defining "works of the law"), but our lives should be in step with the Gospel. Not only should we not deny the Gospel in word or deed, but we should live in such a way that positively affirms it.
• As an aside, the division of the OT law into ceremonial/civil/moral is, in my opinion, forced onto the Bible from an outside thought and not something we see anywhere related in the Scriptures themselves. We don't have to obey any sort of law, even the "moral" ones, to be right with God. Rather, if God has made us new and given us hearts to love him, etc., we do these things because that's how we love our Father and walk with Him, not because of any legal obligation whatsoever. I think I have an older post about that, or I'll write one in the future; comment if interested.
  

• The opening of this text shows both the need for loving confrontation and the grounds for it. 
• We should work things out, even sometimes heatedly, with our brothers and sisters (cf. Matt 18), wherever possible. The prohibition on gossip is good, if sadly and infuriatingly abused by some who call gossip what is not. I have a whole essay on this I'll share another time; comment if interested.
  
• On the other side, Paul isn't eagerly seeking confrontation over trivialities. He addresses Peter's problem "because he stood condemned." And if I stand condemned, is it not loving (to me and to those affected by me) to point that out and call me back to the Way?
  
  
•   One of Trent's, and Paul's, main points is how ethnocentrism has no place in Gospel community. As I mentioned last week, this should really be gutted out of any American by the simple fact that as Paul is writing, we are the Gentiles, the outsiders, the ἔθνη (ethne), those far distant in culture and time and geography.
• I also appreciate how Trent mentioned the importance of sharing a meal. This wasn't some obscure or ancillary "who cares who you choose to eat with" thing. Think about it: what does it mean for you to take time to share a meal with someone? Who do you generally eat with? It's a source and sign of community, and fracturing the community by segregating our meal-mates is a huge problem if the Gospel bigger than these distinctions.
   
• The "road map" of tracing the Biblical themes of marriage and ethnicity and how they magnify the power and grace of God throughout redemptive history was glorious; go back to that part and listen to it, because a summary won't do it justice. A brief highlight or two:
• Marriage showing God's nature as unity in diversity is not something wholly new, but they way Trent articulated it hit me afresh.
• I wish time had permitted a bit more, especially because a (probably unintentional) gloss was made that seemed to imply that the "Christ as husband, Church as bride" was new to the NT. That imagery of marriage between God and His people (especially Israel as an unfaithful wife) is throughout the OT, too.
• The point about how at Pentecost, God didn't make everyone understand one language, but allowed everyone to hear in their own as an endorsement of diversity, was new to me and a point very well made.
  
  
• I mentioned last week about how "God shows no partiality" is both immensely important and really good news. Referencing 1 Tim. 5:21, Trent mentioned how prejudging and partiality are linked. The most clear-cut way of putting it for me is that partiality and prejudice have at their root a problem with assuming from a generality ("all X people are Y, and you're part of X, therefore you're Y") and of including irrelevancies (what difference does your nationality make about baking, or your gender about coding, or your ethnicity about the Gospel?).
• That last bit is I think where many of us can go astray. We make distinctions between people all the time, and their ought to be in many ways. I don't want a neurosurgeon who knows nothing of plumbing to install my sink, or a farmer to teach theoretical physics, or an atheist to help my marriage better reflect Christ and the church. But we should only include those things that are relevant, that directly impact the matter at hand, to be part of any decision-making and judgment.
  

• Trent mentioned the trap of "the fear of man" and well described it. 
• Because the Gospel is chiefly about the glory of God in the salvation of His people, we can't try to save people from sin by giving into ungodly opinions and beliefs.
• Trent's practical note seemed profound and wise: to get over people-pleasing, the best method may be disappointing someone for Jesus's sake (not for your own), surviving the damaged relationship, and realizing that you're still OK because Christ is with you.
  
• I prefer the old-school term vanity, and could (have?) written about the distinction between vanity and pride and true humility; comment if interested.
  
  
•  In dealing with hypocrisy (which iirc the Greek word is rooted/used for actors on a stage), the Gospel frees us from play-acting by separating our acceptance from our actions. If I don't have to act like I have it all together for God to accept me, then I can live in authenticity, neither hiding my struggles nor trapped by them.
•  God is glorified in our goodness and the transformation He brings in our lives toward righteous: this is absolutely true. But Christ is also glorified in our honest admission of our not-yet-fully-sanctified selves, our dependence on His grace for our remaining sins, and His abundant provision of mercy and help for us. We are out of step with the Gospel when we act like we have it all together, even if we attribute that to the Lord. We need not be afraid of showing our faults, because He is glorified in our weakness. We affirm the Gospel by living a life of constant returning to the cross and receiving the forgiveness and the new life that was bought costly and provided freely by our Savior, and doing so publicly.
  
  
•  During communion, I have a habit of taking the piece of bread I receive and breaking it, because its purpose is to remind me of the broken body of Christ. The bread breaks, never to be made whole, outside my power to fix, and only further to be broken as I eat of it. This is what Christ chose to do, to save even me. What struck me today was how, even though Jesus is fully capable of having a healed body, He chooses to maintain the ignoble scars of His crucifixion even unto eternity. When I consider the scars I have and those I've inflicted, I often shudder at the inescapable permanence of my sins, even beyond the power of forgiveness to completely wipe from the face of history and reality. But if the Son of God chooses to keep His scars for His greater glory and joy as my Savior, then perhaps He likewise plans the indelible mistakes of my story to bring a fuller weight of glory that surpasses the shame and reproach of them. Soli Deo gloria!
  

Beginning with the End in Mind

The following is the manuscript from my sermon this morning at Camp Hill Church of God.
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Good morning, family, and happy new year!  It is the beginning of a new day, the start of a new year.  Some of you will remember, the first time I was up here to read Scripture, and Pastor Shover had to get a stool so you could see me over the lectern.  Now I’m going through seminary, and I stand before you where he so often stood.  His recent passing, and of other loved ones this past year, make us gaze toward eternity and our reunion with the brothers and sisters who have gone before.  We can grieve, yet we do so with hope, as the Apostle Paul encourages.  We are pained by the loss we feel, and we miss them.  And yet in Christ, we rejoice not only in the gift that they have been to us, but that there is a sure and true hope of life everlasting beyond the grave.  They have gone before to be with Christ, and we long to follow after.

               So I think it appropriate this Sunday, this first day of a new year, to begin with the end in mind.  It’s a principle I learned in my engineering classes, and you see it in books on leadership and parenting and do-it-yourself projects, that it’s important to know where you’re going, so that you don’t just barge ahead aimlessly.  It’s good to begin with the end in mind.

               And so today we have read together just a few of the many passages that speak to us of the end of all things, which is really just the beginning of eternity.  As Craig read, God declares that He will make all things new, new heavens and a new earth.  No more of the evils with which we are beset in this life.  No more pain, no more sorrow, because God has made all things new.  And there’s something even better than that: God Himself will dwell among His people.  As Tim read, there won’t be any more temples or church buildings, because Christ Himself will be our meeting place with God.  The glory of the Lord will shine so brightly that it says we won’t need a sun or moon anymore!

               I love in chapter 22, verse 4, it says we will see God’s face.  You might remember, back in Exodus, chapter 33, where Moses begs to see God’s glory.  And God says that Moses can only see God’s back as He passes by, because no sinful man could see God’s face and live.  But we will get something more than Moses did; we, as those who have been redeemed by Christ’s blood and made holy by faith, will see the face of God forever.  That is a marvelous thing to think about.

               God will walk with us as He did with Adam and Eve in the garden, with an intimacy we can’t begin to comprehend.  The Bible calls us (as God’s people) the Bride of Christ, and just before our reading it speaks of the wedding supper of the Lamb of God, where we are joined with Christ.  Now is like being engaged, and I remember oh so well how I longed for that engagement to end and for marriage to begin.  We will be with God and know Him more deeply than ever, the very purpose for which we exist, and the highest joy we could ever experience.

               John’s Revelation, the last book in our Bible, is but one place that we can catch a glimpse of what God has in store for His people, those who trust in Him.  We read another together, from 1 Corinthians 15, about the hope of our resurrection.  Just a quick side note, but you know we won’t be on clouds with harps for all eternity?  God creates a new physical earth, and we get new physical bodies, to live in a new creation as it was before sin ever entered the world, and even better.  Adam started in a garden, but we will dwell in the city of God.  Adam started alone, but we will forever live and worship with all God’s people, from every ethnicity, every language, every area of this present earth, together and united by our Lord.  Adam could rejoice in his creation, but we get to praise God for not only creating us but also for redeeming us, re-creating us, through Christ’s work on the cross.

               So this is indeed something to look forward to.  But is that all that God intended when He wrote these passages?  Surely we are to be awed by the glory before us, and it is certainly right to long for that day.  Indeed, the book ends with cries of “come, Lord Jesus!”  But is there more for us in these passages?  How should our day-to-day be affected by what we learn of the destiny of all things?

               Part of this is laid out directly in these texts.  Rev. 21:6 says that Jesus is one to give life, “from the spring of the water of life without payment.”  He alone gives true life, so if you are thirsty for meaning, for significance, for something more than the trinkets the world has to offer, come to Him.  If you are after more than chasing the corporate ladder, keeping up with the Joneses, and a comfortable retirement, come to Christ.  If you are weary, beaten-down, feeling the weight of a broken world, come to Jesus.  He is worth living for, and He gives us true life.

               Verses 7 and 8 contrast the two groups of people that matter in the end.  The latter group are those who are faithless, who do evil unrepentantly and constantly reject God, and their end is rightful judgment, getting exactly what they have earned.  And don’t be fooled, that is everyone who does not put their full trust in Christ.  The Spirit includes liars and cowards with the sexual immoral and murderers.  There is no big and small distinction in sin there.  There is repentant and unrepentant; those who trust themselves and those who trust Christ. 

And on the other hand are those who conquer, who persevere through the trials of this world. I’ve heard that several members of the persecuted church, who had been ostracized and threatened and beaten and imprisoned for their faith – they were asked what their favorite books of the Bible were.  To a man they said Daniel and Revelation, the books that most deal with end times.  Their reason?  Because they call for and give hope for enduring hardship.  They show that in this world Christians will have trouble, but Jesus wins in the end.  I was in Ecuador teaching New Testament to several pastors down there who can’t get away for seminary, and my fellow teacher explained that if you really want to get the point of Revelation, it’s two words: Jesus wins.  That enables us to press on no matter what circumstances befall us now.  No matter what the world has to offer to entice us, no matter what it throws against us, Jesus wins, so we stay faithful.  That’s why Paul could say things like, “this light and momentary affliction is not worth comparing for the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

We see this same call to perseverance again in 22:7, “Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.”  Jesus wins, God will make all things new, so we obey now.  We see it in 1 John 3, where the Apostle says, “Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”  When we have the hope of eternity in Christ, we live differently in this present age.  We live with a citizenship in heaven, as what Peter calls “elect exiles.”  Hebrews chapter 11 says that all the people in the Old Testament who had faith in God turned to Him and away from worldly pursuits, away from building up their own little kingdoms. They “acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.” Why? Because “they desired a better country, that is a heavenly one.  Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.”  That city we just read about in Revelation 21-22, God prepared it for those who live as though earth is not our home.

Now I want you to notice a few things that are not in these passages about eternity.  There are lots of things that stop being terribly important when you have an eternal mindset.  A lot of our preferences fall by the wayside, because we realize that what we’ve valued so highly won’t last.  My wife and I just bought a new car, and we wanted to make sure we got one that would be reliable and safe to drive Abigail around in.  But our hearts aren’t set on that car, because sooner or later it’ll end up in a junkyard.  We spend our time and money and care on all sorts of things that will one day be in a yardsale or a garbage dump.  Now don’t get me wrong, we should see things as blessings for which we should be grateful and that God has given us to enjoy now.  But it is so easy to be like that third kind of ground in Jesus’s parable of the sower, where the cares of this world choke out the Word of God in our lives, so that we look just like the unbelievers around us and don’t live for Christ.

There are other things of the world that call out for our attention and divert us from Christ, things that you won’t see or care about on the other side of eternity.  There are no factions in these texts.  All rivalries, as big as they seem now, are petty in comparison to allegiance to our Lord and King. One day there won’t be denominational lines, because Jesus will rule over all His people.  We won’t be waving the banner of a particular church or nation or any such thing.  And in the end, so many things we fight about are more due to personal preferences than substantial difference, which end up hindering us from following our Lord Jesus and loving other people and telling them about Him.  Jesus called us to die to ourselves and our little causes and to live for Him and His Kingdom.

Another thing missing: there are no political parties.  There were those who delighted in the results of the election last year, who felt pride and vindication.  There were those who felt defeated and despaired at the prospect of years to come.  And there were, of course, many in between.  But we must let these truths put all of that in perspective: regardless of how you reacted to the news, we will not get truly good government until the day King Jesus comes back to take His throne.  Our hope will never be fulfilled or dashed with any earthly government.  And whomever we support now, let be careful that our hope is not too entangled with the things of this world.  In the end, there will be no Republicans or Democrats or anything else.  There will be those who pledge allegiance to the Lord, and those that don’t.  Let us take care that we walk now, in this time, in such a way as to beg the question, what is this other-worldly hope that you have?  Then we obey Peter’s command to be ready to answer for the hope that is within us.

Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase, that someone is so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good.  I’m here to tell you this morning that there is nothing further from the truth.  The one who is heavenly minded, who is focused on God’s kingdom and not their own, will not be an escapist. Instead, when we set our minds on things above, as the Scriptures call us to do, we will work harder than any here and now while the harvest may still be gathered.  Because that’s one thing you can’t do in heaven: evangelize.  We will care more about people, because as C.S. Lewis said “Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”  We will “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God” as the prophet Micah commends.

We saw these same things at the end of our responsive reading this morning, from 1 Corinthians.  Why is the hope of the resurrection so important?  What does it matter now that death shall one day lose its sting?  And just a side note, the sting of death is here now.  We’ve felt when we’ve lost someone close to us, because we are left behind and miss them dearly.  But one day that sting will be no more.  So as Billy Graham’s friend Francis Sheaffer used to ask, how then shall we live?  Paul answers in 1 Corinthians 15:58: “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”  In other words, be faithful to Christ and His Kingdom, working until the end, so when the Master returns or calls you home, He will find you working faithfully.

The first song we sang this morning, "Another year is dawning," I had never heard before.  It has some great lyrics, of both working for and resting in Christ.  Perhaps swap out "another year" for “another day” and sing a verse every morning as a reminder of our commitment to Christ and our hope in God.  Because they go together.  We are not just called to work and press on and obey without reason.  God Himself is our reason.  We press on to know Him more, to see more of His glory, to have more people with us to praise Him for eternity, to watch Him at work in and through and all around us.  Jesus is the true author of joy, and even as He went to the cross, Hebrews says He was motivated “by the joy set before Him.”

Let me summarize in closing.  Scripture's pictures show glorious final new day in paradise, a renewed creation where all is made right.  We long for this, and we should.  These passages also call us to persevere, to work, to keep in the faith, to "seek first the Kingdom", as we just sang.  That work is motivated by our hope, by the worthiness of our Lord and the joy that can only be found in Him.

So for anyone who does not know Christ, I urge you to come to Him today.  He has more for you than the world can possibly offer, and though the Christian life is not always easy, Jesus is worth it.  For those of us who feel our consciences pricked by this message, as mine has been in preparing it, let us seek Jesus for His mercy, repenting of our old ways and trusting in His grace, so that our priorities change, letting go of this world that is passing away and seeking after Christ and His Kingdom more and more.  For all of us, let us think on these wonderful truths of what is coming for all who trust in Christ and His Gospel, and may they move us to greater trust and greater desire for Him, and let us work that out in our lives this day, this year, and until He makes all things new.  Amen.

forgiveness

the following is the sermon i preached yesterday morning at first church of God harrisburg.

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good morning, first church. and welcome again to the visitors among us, we're glad to have you. as justin said a couple weeks ago, two of our focuses over the next year are Jesus and the gospel. In the coming weeks, we'll be looking at and digging into what this gospel really is. some of you may be wondering, why spend all this time on the gospel? and if you looked at the bulletin, you noticed that we're talking today about forgiveness. you might say, why talk about forgiveness? i know what that is; i've done that.

the reason we're talking about these things are twofold. first, because i think we throw around words a lot without really thinking about what they mean. how many of you, if i asked you to define what the forgiveness is, could tell me in a sentence or two? how many of you, if i asked you what the gospel is, could tell me in a minute or so what that means? how about glory? or righteousness? or love? or grace? or worship? i think a lot of us have an intuitive understanding of these things, but in my experience most of us haven't really thought about what these things actually mean. most of us use these words without thinking too much about what we're really saying. and while that's not awful, if we don't dig in to the truth of these things, we'll stay shallow, and, like Hebrews says, be grown men still drinking out of the bottle. we'll miss out on the fullness that God has for us in these things.

now follow me here, because i need to give you a little background. “gospel” is an old english word meaning “good news.” in greek, which the New Testament was orginally written in, the word is euangelion. this is where we get our word “evangelical” from, someone who is all about the gospel. and from its verb form we get our word “evangelism,” which is often translated as “preach the gospel.” now all of that is so you understand the second reason we need to talk about these things. if you have your Bibles with you, flip to Romans, chapter 1. if not, there are Bibles in the pews, so feel free to open it up and follow along. in the opening of the Letter to the Romans, the apostle paul is writing to the Christians in rome, and he talks about how he's been wanting to come to them for a long time. he says in verse 15, “i am eager to preach the good news to you also who are in rome.” he says he wants to evangelize them. paul wanted to evangelize the Christians. some of you may have heard or grown up with the idea that the gospel is kind of the front door of Christianity – Christianity 101, so to speak – and we eventually grow past it. you may have thought that evangelism is all about what Christians telling non-Christians about Jesus. but paul here is saying that he wants to talk to the romans, who have been Christians for years, about the gospel. and we are, like paul, eager to speak with you about the good news.

Now, when we think about the gospel, there are many parts to it. we can talk about God creating everything. we can talk about God becoming part of the creation in Jesus, as we just celebrated at Christmas. we can talk about repentance, a call to change the way we think and act, turning from sin to God. and the list goes on. for today, we're going to focus in on one of the major things that Christ accomplished for us: forgiveness.

so what is forgiveness? webster's dictionary says to forgive is “to give up resentment or claim to requital for an offense, to grant relief from a debt, and to cease to feel resentment.” now that sounds all nice and fancy, but in my mind it's just a bunch of words, mostly other big words we don't use a lot, so it's still detached from real life. instead, let's look at some things the Bible says about forgiveness.

let's look in 1 Corinthians 13. many of you know this as “the love chapter”, because paul here gives us a view of love from multiple angles. among them, in verse 5 he says love “does not keep a record of wrongs.” as true forgiveness is an act of love, i believe this is one way paul describes what forgiveness really means. think about it: if you keep track of all the ways someone has done you wrong, have you really forgiven them?

and since all true love flows from God, for He is true Love, we know that God does not do this. flip with me to psalm 25, picking it up in verse 4:

“make Your ways known to me, Lord; teach me Your paths. guide me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation; i wait for You all day long. remember, Lord, Your compassion and Your faithful love, for they have existed from antiquity. do not remember the sins of my youth or my acts of rebellion; in keeping with Your faithful love, remember me because of Your goodness, Lord. the Lord is good and upright; therefore He shows sinners the way. He leads the humble in what is right and teaches them His way. all the Lord’s ways show faithful love and truth to those who keep His covenant and decrees. because of Your name, Yahweh, forgive my sin, for it is great.”

as the writer of this song, king david, is crying out for forgiveness, did you see what he asks of God? he wants God to remember him, to think about him, in accordance with his love, and not remembering david's sins. how often have you heard the phrase “forgive and forget”? now that can't really work with God, because He can't really forget something. God knows everything. He knows our faults and failures. but He doesn't remember them. do you see the difference? it's not like God no longer knows about our sins. it's not like He doesn't know they happened, or can't remember them. but He won't remember them. He doesn't dig into his memory and actively remember them. He doesn't bring them up over and over again. He doesn't hold them against us. instead, He treats us with love, without regard to our transgressions.

now God is also a God of justice, and He can't just forgive. imagine if a judge let a murderer off the hook because he said he was sorry; would that be just? certainly not! and it's worse than that. flip forward to psalm 51. david writes this psalm right after he is confronted for his sins by the prophet nathan. at this point, david has sent men into battle while he slacks off in the palace, he sleeps with another man's wife, get her pregnant, tries to cover it up, ultimately orders one of his generals to abandon the man on the battlefield, essentially killing him, and then marries his widow and lies about the whole affair. he's sinned against urriah the soldier, bathsheba his wife, david's own wives, his commanders, his soldiers, and his whole nation as their king. it's hard to think of someone david hasn't wronged in this mess. but here, in psalm 51, he says “against You [God] and You alone have i sinned and done what is evil in your sight.” and in the grand scheme of things, david's right.

because, you see, God is ultimately the most offended party in any sin. He is most worthy of our obedience and honor, and yet we commit evil against an infinite and holy God. this is far worse than whatever anyone else can claim to hold against us. rebelling against the Lord is always the most heinous part of any sin. God is the most offended person when we sin. and so only God can ultimately forgive sin. that's why the religious teachers questioned Jesus when He said He could forgive sins, because, they rightly said, “who can forgive sins, but God alone?”

but 1 John 1 tells us that, not only does God forgive us when we confess our sins, but when we do, He is just to forgive us and to cleanse us. and Romans 3 tells us why. Jesus died in our place, so that the punishment we rightly deserved fell on Him instead. by His life and death, Jesus honored God as we should have, and by faith we now have that righteousness, we now have Jesus' spotless record counted as ours. as the great old hymn says, “Jesus paid it all, all to Him i owe. sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.” and so, through Jesus, we can be rightly forgiven, and God is both good and merciful, both just and the justifier of us sinners. therefore paul rightly states in Ephesians 1, “in Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our sins.” this is what God has done! this is what we have in Christ! this is good news.

up to this point, we've been talking all about what God has done for us. we've been talking about objectivity reality, that which we have no effect on. God did it, and we can't add or subtract anything from it; we can't change what He's done for better or for worse. however, this good news, this part of the gospel, calls for a response from us. and that response is twofold.

first, God calls us to repent of our sin. this is first and foremost a change of mind, in which we no longer view sin as good and God as an obstactle or tyrant. instead, we see rightly that sin is evil and that God is our wonderful and worthy Lord. we see that sin ultimately leads only to death, in relationship, in health, in spirit, in all things, most of all in separation from God, who is our truest Friend, our great Savior, our loving Father and glorious King. from this change of mind comes new affections and new actions. we stop wanting what sin is offering, and we fight against its temptation. instead, we seek after this God who would give to us so freely. we want to see more of Him, to experience Him more fully, and to follow Him, because His ways are perfect. that's the first part of our response.

secondly, we're called to forgive others. as Jesus teaches His disciples what we call “the Lord's prayer” in Matthew 6, He teaches them to pray “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. for if you forgive people their wrongdoing, your heavenly Father will forgive you, but if don't forgive people, neither shall your Father forgive you.” later on, Jesus tells a parable in Matthew 18 about two slaves. we'll pick it up in verse 21.

“then peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how many times could my brother sin against me and i forgive him? as many as seven times?” “I tell you, not as many as seven,” Jesus said to him, “but 70 times seven. for this reason, the kingdom of heaven can be compared to a king who wanted to settle accounts with his slaves. when he began to settle accounts, one who owed 10,000 talents was brought before him. since he had no way to pay it back, his master commanded that he, his wife, his children, and everything he had be sold to pay the debt. at this, the slave fell facedown before him and said, ‘be patient with me, and i will pay you everything!’ then the master of that slave had compassion, released him, and forgave him the loan. but that slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him 100 denarii. he grabbed him, started choking him, and said, ‘pay what you owe!’ at this, his fellow slave fell down and began begging him, ‘be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ but he wasn’t willing. on the contrary, he went and threw him into prison until he could pay what was owed. when the other slaves saw what had taken place, they were deeply distressed and went and reported to their master everything that had happened. then, after he had summoned him, his master said to him, ‘you wicked slave! i forgave you all that debt because you begged me. shouldn’t you also have had mercy on your fellow slave, as i had mercy on you?’ and his master got angry and handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he could pay everything that was owed. so My heavenly Father will also do to you if each of you does not forgive his brother from his heart.”

now, i hope you get the point, as i think Jesus is pretty clear. if you're not willing to forgive, you don't understand what it means to be forgiven, how valuable that is, and therefore you will not be forgiven. but since we don't use denarii and talents as money anymore, let me put this in perspective. the first slave owed what would be equivalent to a few billion dollars today, something he couldn't earn in a thousand lifetimes. to be forgiven that debt is huge. his fellow slave owed him roughly a few thousand dollars. i think sometimes when he here this parable, we think the second slave only owed the guy like $20, and we're stunned that he doesn't let it go. the debt he owed would take months of his full salary to be paid off. this was no small debt. it hurt. it would cost the first slave a lot to let that money go. but in comparison to what he'd been forgiven, it was a pitance, it was pocket-change.

all that to say, yes, it's going to hurt to forgive other people. it's not going to be pleasant in the moment. but God calls for us to follow Him, and not try to set a limit on how far this will go like peter did, but to forgive freely. to not walk in bitterness toward the person who has wronged us, but to love them as Christ loved us when we were still His enemies. we have to recognize what a huge debt we owed to God, and how great a punishment we deserved.

when we get that, the offenses against us pale in comparison. and not only that, but we understand that God is still a God of justice, and so we can forgive, knowing that God will rightly meet out justice; that either that person's sin against us has already been paid by Christ on the cross, or God will repay our offender in hell; either way, it's in God's hands, and so we walk with an attitude of forgiveness, not building up bitterness but seeking reconciliation, not vowing revenge but striving for restored relationship. this is first and foremost a choice we make, to not remember their sin, to not seek revenge or retribution or restitution, not to hold it against them. we offer that to any who will accept it, to any would will confess and repent. and if they sin against us again, the offer still stands, just like God does for us.

i hope this morning, you have a better grasp of what forgiveness is, not holding sin against the offender. i hope you understand with greater clarity and awe God has done for you in Jesus. and i hope you understand and will follow the call of the gospel to repent and forgive.

celebrating Jesus in Nehemiah 8

this is my sermon from 10/23/11 at harrisburg first church of God, from Nehemiah 8.

good morning. for those of you who don’t know me, my name is walt raudenbush, and i’m one of the teachers here at first church. today we’re continuing in our sermon series “for the city” from the book of Nehemiah. for those of you who like structure, i have four points today: the Word of God, our response, God in history, and Jesus. i’ll give a quick recap of the book, and then we’ll dive in to today’s text.
the book starts with nehemiah, a godly man living with his people who have been exiled from jerusalem for decades. God breaks nehemiah’s heart because the city of jerusalem was in ruins, and he tasks nehemiah to return there and rebuild the city with his fellow jews. nehemiah returns to the city, lays out a plan before the people there, and with God’s help the work goes forward. along the way, opposition arises form various corners, both inside and outside, but nehemiah and his people do not give in. instead, they trust in God and continue the work of rebuilding the city. nehemiah also had to correct some of his own people for their mistreatment of their brothers, who repented or turned from their oppressive ways and followed God’s ways, honoring their fellow men as image-bearers of God. despite these problems, the wall around the city was finished in the incredible time of 52 days. and that’s where we pick up the story in Nehemiah chapter 8.

the chapter starts with all the people of jerusalem gathered together to hear God’s Word. they had spent the better part of two months working ‘round the clock standing guard or working construction. they’re tired, they’re sore, and they’re glad to finally be safe in their city. so what do they do with their first day off? they call ezra the priest, for whom the previous book of the Bible is named, and they have him read God’s Law to them. they want to hear from the God for whom they’ve labored so hard, so in this pre-literate culture, they have the scholarly priest open God’s Word for them. we know from earlier in the Bible that ezra had spent a great deal of time seeking to understand the Scriptures.
so ezra, as he reads to them, he “gives the sense of it” to the people, helping to explain what exactly the text means. in essence, he preaches a sermon to them, taking the Word of God as his basis and working through It, helping people understand and unpacking the text for them. and since that was written into the Bible, i get to preach on preaching, because we follow the same pattern, as various teachers who are a part of the church help us to understand what the Bible means, not just the straight-forward meaning of the text, but its implications about who God is and its application to us in our thoughts and actions. this happens not only on sunday mornings, but in home groups and Bible studies, as well as the plethora of media available to us in our technological age. something to consider: if you have a long commute like i do, perhaps spending that time listening to an audio Bible or recordings of sermons, which are widely available online or on tape or cd.
now notice something here: the people were gathered together for worship, all 50,000 of them. everyone was there, both men and women, young and old, rich and poor, across every societal division, anyone who could listen and think was there. imagine if God moved here in such a way that the entire city of harrisburg was shut down on sunday to meet as His people and worship through the preaching of His Word and the singing of His praises. that would be something, and it could happen, so let’s keep praying for it and seeking the advance of the gospel in this city, to see such a day in our time.
one thing to note: theirs was an age where most people couldn’t read very well, and there were very few books available to read. nowadays, we have giant bookstores and public libraries, and most of us have multiple copies of the Good Book. consider the privilege that is, and do not take it for granted.
also, notice the time indicators here. it’s so easy to read right over the details, but it says ezra preached from early morning until midday, roughly 6 hours. i’m not going to go that long today, which most of you are probably thankful for, but i want to impress upon you their example of earnest desire to hear from God, and prod us awake, that if we truly believe that the Bible is God-breathed, then we ought not to take it lightly, but rather treasure it and take advantage of the availability of Scripture and solid Bible-teaching.
ezra preaches from a wooden platform, above the people. this is not because ezra was in some sense better or more holy than the rest of israel. he was, in himself, just a man. but on that day, for that purpose, he is raised above them. why? because he was the messenger of God preaching the Word of God, and the Word deserves that place. you see, we can hold the Bible in one of two places. we can have it under us, reading it as a nice book with some good things to say, pulling it out when it suits our fancy, following it when it confirms what we already want or believe. or we can hold it above us, letting it have its place of authority over us, so that we submit to it, whether it agrees with us or not, we change to it. in this, its rightful position as inspired of God, we cannot avoid the parts that make us uncomfortable or that challenge our ways of thinking or acting. while we can ask questions and seek to gain understanding, we cannot dismiss what we do not like or cut out what we do not agree with. the question is, do we read the Bible, or do we let the Bible read us?

now we see in this next section the people’s response. their response is fourfold. they start with awestruck worship. in the Law, they see not only a list of commands, but a picture of the character of God. they see that He is holy and awesome, righteous and perfect. they lift their hands and bow down, and they cry aloud the blessedness of God.
their response is also to weep. but why do they weep? what has caused this great sorrow? for what reason are their hearts broken and their souls troubled? you see, they’ve just read through the Law of the Lord, which most of them have not heard much if any of while in their exile in babylon, and they realize that they have not lived up to it. now in our day and age, no one is expected to be perfect. our culture is full of “do your best” and “nobody’s perfect”, and while our anti-perfectionist mottos can be helpful and encouraging, i fear that we often forget that we are called to be perfect, for we are told “be perfect, as I am perfect, I am the Lord.” in our accepting of our limitations, we lull ourselves into complacency and comfort ourselves with a false sense of security when we come across the absolute demands of God and His standard. it goes so far that we barely take the Scriptures seriously. but the people in the text, when they heard from God, took Him seriously, and in so doing they were compelled to respond. they see how far they have fallen short, and they are deeply grieved by it.
thankfully, the text does not stop there, or else they and we should be left helpless and hopeless. ezra and his fellow leaders command them not to weep but to celebrate, to share in feasting and rejoicing with good food and drink. but why, if they were guilty, would the Bible teachers tell them to react in the exact opposite way? what is their reasoning for such an emotional about-face? the joyful news is that not only is God a holy and just judge, but He is merciful and forgiving. over and over in the Scriptures God described Himself as “a God gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” nehemiah quotes a merciful promise of God from the Law in chapter one, that “if you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples, but if you return to Me and keep My commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make My name dwell there,” and in this returning to jerusalem God fulfills His promise. and so the people are made to understand that, though they are sinful, God is providing a way back into relationship with Him, that they need not live in fear but can rejoice at the closeness of their Creator and King. and so their sorrow and repentance brings forth joy and celebration at the Word of God.
the last part of their response is obedience. they celebrate the festival of booths, also called the feast of tabernacles. the purpose of this feast was to remember the ancient israelites deliverance from slavery in egypt, how they traveled for many years in tents and huts, without permanent dwellings. so the people made temporary huts and lived in them for the week, as a remembrance of that part of their history.
this brings me to my next point: their reason for celebrating this is that God not only reveals Himself in Word and meets with His people in covenantal relationship, but He acts in history. over and over the psalms tell us to declare His mighty acts, and the Law commands us to tell of His deeds from one generation to the next. these things remind us that our God is not passive; He does not sit back and merely watch as the history of our world unfolds. rather, He is active in it, and works to display His glory, the radiance of His perfections. God shows in His works that He is not good and faithful and gracious and just in word only but in deed and in truth, and remembering these proofs of His goodness remind us that He is so, even when we question and doubt and struggle to trust. He works not only on the grandiose scale of nations but also in personal history. let me encourage you in this: when you pray, write down what you ask of God, and keep track of how He answers. it can greatly increase your confidence in His faithfulness.

lastly, let us take a step back and look at the bigger picture, because this passage is not alone, nor is the book that contains it isolated. it is part of one big book about one thing, namely, the gospel of Jesus Christ. and as we take this bigger picture and look back at this morning’s text, we see that Jesus is all over this chapter. the chapter starts with the Word of God, and Jesus is ultimate revelation of God, the exact image of deity, the incarnate Word. and like the Law, the Gospel starts out with the fact that we are created by God and that we have fallen short. and like our text, the Gospel does not stop with sorrowful repentance, the turning from sin to God, but it continues with rejoicing in renewed relationship with God, which is ours because we were purchased by Him on the cross of Christ. therefore, instead of mourning over what we should have done or what we shouldn’t have said, we can rejoice in our God who is making us new. and lastly, we can look back at history, both on the grand scale of the progress of the gospel in the world at large, or the work of God in our own lives, and see how He is near and active in and around us, and that He’s not done with us yet. and that is very good news.
so now, we’ll sing a final song in response to God’s gracious love toward us, and then i’m off to celebrate His goodness with my family. how will you celebrate Jesus today?

"out of darkness, into His light"

my sermon from youth sunday (10/31):



good morning, family, and happy reformation day. in paul’s first letter to timothy, he commands the young pastor to “devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.” and that’s what we plan on doing today. in a few moments, a few of us will be reading through the first letter from john, because it’s a lot better than what you’d hear from me (though that may be an unfair comparison). but before we do, a little background.
when we were planning for this morning, the youth decided today’s theme should be light. now light is a prominent theme in the Scriptures. in the beginning, God said “let there be light,” and it was so. during the exodus, God led the israelites as a pillar of fire by night, giving them light. in the psalms, God’s Word is called “a lamp unto our feet, and a light unto our path.” in Isaiah and the Gospel according to john, Jesus is often called the Light. we see this theme all the way to the last chapter of Revelation, where we are told that in the new jerusalem the people of God will “need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light.” so from beginning to end, the Bible is filled with light, especially as a metaphor for God and His glory.
as we talked about this, my mind was immediately taken to 1 John. the apostle john, who wrote this letter toward the end of the first century, wrote it to various churches in the middle east, many of which had been long-established by this point. but as the case has been throughout every age, certain people were trying to lead the church astray through false teaching, and some of the followers of the Way (as Christians were called back then) had their faith shaken by these men. so john is writing for three main reasons. first, at the beginning of the letter, he says he is writing “so that our joy may be complete,” that is, so that he may rejoice in Christ in us. at the beginning of chapter 2, he states his purpose as “so that you may not sin.” then toward the end of the letter he says, “i write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.” the original recipients would have first heard these words, as most of them couldn’t read. so as this letter is read to you, as it was to them, keep the apostle’s purpose in mind.
there are a few ancient traditions in the church that i’d like us to follow today, done out of respect for the Scriptures. first, when the last reader is done, she will say “this is the Word of the Lord,” and we will respond, “thanks be to God,” because this is truly God-breathed, and because we are grateful for it. second, if you are able stand a while, please stand with us for the reading of God’s Word.


you may be seated. now if none of you had any plans for the next few weeks, then perhaps i could treat this letter as it deserves. unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of time, so i’ll summarize, and leave the rest to the Spirit and your own study. this letter constantly splits the world into two groups, and i think of all the ways that it describes these two, the best is in the middle of chapter 1, where they’re called darkness and light. john defines light for us: “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” Who God is, His nature and character, are the definition of spiritual light.
darkness is also pretty easy to point out: it’s where light isn’t. in this letter, john often describes it as the absence of something; that those in darkness do not have the truth, are not of God, do not know God, do not love Him or have His love, and have no life in them. these are not pleasant things. and yet this is the world around us, and indeed, it is even in parts of us, where the light of God has not yet shined. i don’t know how much you follow pop culture, but have you noticed that it’s become cool to be “dark” and “edgy”? have you seen how many movies come out that are praised for their dark tone and their themes of darkness and death? our world seems to love darkness, to promote it. and this is fitting, for it says in john’s Gospel, “the Light [that is, Jesus] has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the Light, because their works were evil.”
now if i took a poll, i imagine most of you would be with me in feeling some conviction as this letter was read. every time i’ve read through it, the Holy Spirit presses upon me how i’m not living up to the fullness of our calling. it makes statements like “if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him,” and, “whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.” now i must admit, i’ve failed at these things, regularly. i find myself at times looking like the rest of the world, loving the things of this world. i’ve done things, in secret and in public, that are neither righteous, nor loving to my brothers and sisters, and ultimately not honoring or loving to God. i’ve acted out of pride and lust and jealousy and greed. and now i’m reading this letter, which is supposed to assure me that i have been born of God and know Him, and i’m feeling ripped apart by it! and if we could be honest, i don’t think i’m alone here. i know there are those of you sitting out there who feel like i do in the reading of this letter. so has john failed? has the Spirit missed His mark in writing this?
the answer, brothers and sisters, is a resounding “no”. this book holds us to a high standard indeed. but don’t lose its main thrust. this letter, like the rest of the Bible is about one thing: the glory of the saving work of God in Christ on the cross, and all that that means for us. that’s why it says in chapter 1, “if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” and in chapter 2, “i am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” yes, he’s writing and instructing and exhorting so that we may not sin, for God will have no part with sinners. but that’s why Christ came! as john says in chapter 4, “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” that is, Jesus is the wrath-bearing, righteousness-providing, God-appeasing sacrifice for where we’ve fallen short.
again, i say to you, that john writes these things to give us assurance of salvation, and for our joy to be full, and so we may not sin. and these three ends are one for the Christian. if you continue in sin, if you walk in darkness, then you will not have fullness of joy, which can be found only in God, and you will not be saved from judgment but prove that you are not of God. you will fall away from God, for sin is powerful in darkness, and like mold or germs it kills and spreads. so too sin, when left unconfessed, unrepented, will slowly kill you from the inside out. and “little” sins, hidden sins, will lead to “bigger” and public ones, ‘til one day the person you see in the mirror will reflect the devil more than Jesus. c.s. lewis said it better than i could, that each of us “may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and corruption such as you now meet if at all only in a nightmare. All day long we are in some degree [moving to and] helping each other to one or the other of these destinations.” in every little act and thought, you are either growing in godliness, or feeding your sinful nature; becoming more like Jesus or like satan.
but Christ, the true light of the world, has come. in Him is the power to kill sin. so we are urged, and so i plead with you now, come into the light. walk with God. take the areas of your life that you’ve left in darkness, the ones that you’ve refused to let God in, and bring them into His wonderful light.
i’m not saying this is going to be easy. it’s going to hurt. there have been times, in confession to both God and man, where i have felt agony over the guilt and shame of what i’ve done. but Christ took away our guilt by nailing it to the cross. and we can’t let our shame win out over our pursuit of joy in God. we must imitate Jesus, “who…endured the cross, despising the shame,” as Hebrews tells us. why did He do it, and why should we? “for the joy set before Him.” Christ looked ahead to the new creation, with the throngs of the saved rejoicing around Him, and He said “that is worth this.” so we must say to shame, “i despise you. i will not obey you. i will confess and repent in spite of you, because my joy in God will be greater than anything you can do to me.”
i’m not expecting you to walk out of here perfect, never to sin again. God isn’t either. that’s why chapter three doesn’t say “no one born of God sins,” because even a good tree will bear a few bad apples. but what does it say? “no one born of God makes a practice of sinning.” it’s not talking about one time, even though that one instance would be enough to condemn us. it’s talking about those who sin over and over without remorse, without regret, without confession or apology. those who have not been born of God do not love Him, indeed they cannot, and so they make no effort to live for Him. but we who do love God seek to do as He commands, to trust Him and love our brothers. this is not only out of a sense of duty or obligation, but out of delighting in Him, wanting to know Him more. and when we fail, we feel awful, because we have offended Him about Whom we care most.
as i said earlier, today is reformation day. almost 500 years ago today, a young monk named martin luther nailed into a church door 95 statements about the Christian faith and our walk with Jesus. and the first of them is this: the whole of the Christian life is one of repentance. this means that until we see Jesus face to face, until He comes back or calls us home, we strive against sin. even the apostle paul confessed “not that i … am already perfect, but … one thing i do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, i press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” paul, and luther, and untold numbers of our brothers and sisters who have come before us got this: that in this life we fight, we make war on sin, that we may increase our joy in God and have closer fellowship with Him, now and into eternity.
so i invite you, come into the light. as james wrote, “confess your sins to one another and pray for one another.” if you want to talk to someone afterward, look around you: we are brothers and sisters in Christ, here to love and do life with one another. it may be difficult, but it’s worth it.
one last thought: most of you are familiar with Christ’s saying, “let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” i would argue that one of the clearest ways to reflect the light of Christ in your life is to be open and honest about your sins, your failures, your screw-ups. i encourage you to ask for forgiveness from those you’ve wronged, and give it to those who have wronged you, and to let people see your sorrow and witness your turning from your mistakes and to Jesus. that’s part of walking in the light, and reflecting it to the world. let us encourage each other in these things, that God may smile upon us, and work among us, and that the world may know we follow King Jesus.

of first importance

below is my first sermon, preached today at plainfield first church of God, plainfield, pa.

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“now i would remind you, brothers, of the gospel i preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word i preached to you – unless you believed in vain. 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. then He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. then He appeared to james, then to all the apostles. last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared also to me.” ~1Cor. 15:1-8

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today i want to speak to you about something hopefully most of you know. today’s sermon should have little new for you, though perhaps it might clarify some things in your mind. the purpose of today’s message is not so that you will come away with some new knowledge, or with a new way to apply what you know, but that your hearts would be filled anew with love for our Savior, and that your affections would be stirred once more by His gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ.

as this is my first time preaching to you, i figured i’d start with what’s most important. the text that is the “launch pad” for today’s sermon has in it an important phrase: “of first importance”. the apostle paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, calls what we’re going to be looking at this morning the matter of first importance. so i figure i’ll start at the top, so if, God forbid, i only get one chance, i’ve preached to you on the best thing i could.

now what is this gospel that God places such emphasis on? paul starts it off with a person: Christ. Jesus Christ, the Son of God who became a man, who lived like we do yet without sin. this is the Guy who the whole Bible is about. paul then states a historical fact: Christ died. while the Gospel narratives in our Bibles speak much about Jesus’ life and earthly public ministry, in the summary here paul skips straight to the point of the matter. many of you have heard this countless times in your life, but let me remind you that this is not some fairytale or bedtime story, not some parable or fable to be learned from. Christ’s crucifixion is a historical event, in a place and a time and with witnesses, as are all the other events that paul mentions here. and for sake of time, i won’t go into how absolutely brutal Jesus’ death was at the hands of the roman executioners, but think on this: our word “excruciating” was invented because they needed a new word to describe the agony of death on a cross. he says later in this chapter that if these things are not true, if they are only nice ideas and not historical, physical reality, then everything we believe is in vain.

paul goes on to give not only the historical event but its theological meaning. he says, “Christ died for our sins.” now sin is a word we use a lot in the church, but it’s rarely used outside spiritual or ‘God-talk’ conversations. we tend to think about sin as a list of things we’re not supposed to do. you might think of the ten commandments: don’t steal, don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, and so forth. or we might think of sin as the reverse: not doing things we’re supposed to do. so if we don’t pray or we don’t act nicely to other people, we’re sinning. and all of that is pretty much true. but that falls short of what the Bible means by sin, because it’s not just about what you do, it’s about who you are. it’s not just our actions that can be sinful; it’s also our thoughts, our motives, our emotions, down to the very core of us.

you see, sin is rooted in this simple idea: we want something other than God. we see this in the words of the prophet jeremiah: “be appalled, o heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” the people of israel, instead of enjoying God and drinking deeply from Him and His glory- they sought out other things to satisfy themselves. they went after other things, to honor them and praise them. we also see this in chapter 1 of the Letter to the Romans, where it is written that the people of the world, “although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but ...exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.” or as paul summarizes it a few chapters later, “all have sinned and fallen short (or ‘lack’) the glory of God.” the basis of sin is that we trade away God as the object of our worship, the thing that we treasure and praise and seek after, and take instead something else as our ‘god.’ this goes back to the first commandment, “you shall have no other gods besides Me.” the essence of sin is idolatry: that we take something other than God as our highest treasure, what we are devoted to, in which we most delight, what we honor and prize above all else. as luther says, you’ll never break any other commandment if you keep the first one, because in order to sin in any way you must put something before God in your life.

now think with me a moment. most of us aren’t bowing down before some carving of a bird or cow or something. we’re not slaughtering farm animals to statues of wood or metal. our idolatry tends to be more ‘sophisticated’ and ‘civilized’ than that, but we still sacrifice for things other than God, we give offerings to them and make them our source of meaning and satisfaction in life. and some of you, as i’m saying this, will think of what most church folk tend to think of as the “big sins”: sex, drugs, money, and things along those lines; and those are definitely idols for many. but as calvin says, “our hearts are idol factories”, they keep producing new ones. for some, our tv or computer is a big idol: it’s where we escape to, it’s what we long for after a hard day at work, and we’ll sit staring at the screen for hours on end, numbing our minds and our hearts. for others, we make sports our idol. i know some african Christians who view the stadiums we build to our sports teams as modern-day temples, with mascots as the symbolic idol, and the team as our object of devotion. some make popularity an idol, or academic achievement. and we mentioned last week in sunday school that for some of us, our families are our idols. and some even make an idol out of external goodness and religiosity. we do all the right things, and check off all the boxes, either out of pride or for the praise of men.

one last example: one of the things we want for our kids is sexual purity, and that’s not a bad desire. but the guy who never slept around, who never looked at porn, who was abstinent ‘til marriage and completely faithful to his wife until the day he died: if that guy did not do so for the glory of God, he sinned in keeping sexually pure. because if he didn’t do it out of a love for God and a desire to know and honor Him, then he’s acting either out of self-righteous pride, or worldly fear, or people-pleasing vanity. Scripture says that “everything that is not from faith is sin.” so even our good works that are not born out of faith in God are disgusting in God’s sight; He tells isaiah that they are to Him as “dirty menstrual rags.”

now hear me out: most of these are good things. it’s not bad to love your wife, or your kids. and it’s not wrong to enjoy a sports game, or a tv show. the problem is that we make these good things into ultimate things. instead of being a means to honor and enjoy God, we make these things an end in and of themselves. instead of seeing God through the gifts, instead of being in awe of the display of God’s character and nature in the gift, we stop at the thing itself, and make it the source of our meaning and purpose and satisfaction.

the reason i need you to get this, to get what sin really is, and how pervasive it is, is because if you don’t get this, you won’t love Jesus much. Christ said that “the one who has been forgiven much, loves much, but the one who has been forgiven little, loves little.” the reason i’m praying to God that you get this is that if you don’t understand how great a debt you owed God outside of Christ, you won’t be in awe of the gospel, and the heart that once sang out “amazing grace! how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!” will start to think of what we don’t have, and what we’re entitled to, and become puffed up like the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son.

but get this, please get this: Jesus died for your sins. and i know we say that all the time, and as the old saying goes, “familiarity breeds contempt.” that’s why if you look at church history, you’ll see that one generation believes and loves the gospel, the next generation assumes the gospel, and the third generation ends up denying the gospel.

so hear this and let it impact your hearts: Christ died for your sins. and if you don’t know what that means, let me walk you through how the Scriptures unpack that.

• in Isaiah 53, we’re told that Jesus “has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows...upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.”
• in Acts 10 we’re told “everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name.”
• in Romans 3 we’re told that we “are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, Whom God put forward as a propitiation [that is, a wrath-absorbing sacrifice] by His blood.”
• in Galatians 3 we read that “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us...so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.”
• in Hebrews 2 God says that “through death [Jesus] destroy[ed] the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.”
• in 2 Corinthians 5 we read, “God made Him Who knew no sin to become sin on our behalf so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”
• in Colossians 1 we read that “He has now reconciled [you] in His body of flesh by His death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before Him.”
• we read earlier that Revelation 5 declares of Jesus that “You were slaughtered, and by Your blood You ransomed a people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and You have made them a kingdom and priests to our God.”
• 1 John 4 declares that “in this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him.”
• 1 Peter 3 says that “Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God.”
• in Ephesians God tells us that “in love He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace.”

so because of the death of Christ, we get all this: our sins are forgiven, the wrath of God against us is removed, we are freed from the curse of the law, we are free from the power of death and the devil, we have the righteousness of Jesus counted as our own, we are considered holy and blameless before Him, we have been made a kingdom and priests of God, we have everlasting life, we know the love of God, we are brought back to God, we are adopted as sons, and we are free to praise His glorious grace forever.

think about this: how many of your sins were future sins when Christ died? all of them. Christ knows we’re unrighteous, we’re messed up, we’re broken, we’re evil. Romans says that before God got a hold of us, we were His enemies. but He loves us through all of that, not based on anything in us or anything we do, but because that’s the kind of God He is. we can’t earn it, and we can’t pay Him back. He doesn’t want us to! that’s the point of it being a gift! you don’t try to repay someone for a gift: it’s almost insulting, and it goes against the idea of giving.

so what do we do with a great gift? we enjoy it. we delight in it. we praise it to other people. i mean, if you get something really good for your birthday, within a few days all your friends know about it, right? we love the giver more because of the gift, because the gift reveals the character of the one who gives it. and we respond in thanksgiving.

and so, as Christ has saved us by His death, we receive all these wonderful blessings by grace, for free. we rejoice in this great gift of salvation, because now we have what we most need, and what is our highest joy, namely, we have God. through Christ, we get God, as our King, as our Father, as our Friend, and as our Treasure.

i wish i had time to really unpack the rest of this morning’s text for you. briefly, paul tells us that Christ’s death, burial and resurrection all happened, and they all happened according to the Scriptures. if you look through the Old Testament, the details of the gospel are laid out in dozens of prophecies, all from hundreds of years before Christ came. and because Jesus was resurrected, we know that God accepted His sacrifice on our behalf, and now He is interceding for us before the Father. and we know that we too will one day be raised, and live on the new earth with Him forever. and finally paul backs this all up by naming a bunch of witnesses to the whole thing, so if anyone had any doubts, they could go ask these guys.

so this is the gospel of our Savior, Jesus Christ. this is the good news “which [we] received, in which [we] stand, and by which [we] are being saved.” i hope your affections for God have been stirred, that your spirits have been re-awakened to these glorious truths, and that your passion for the gospel has been fanned into flame once more. this morning i’m not going to go through practical applications of this, because the entire Christian life is the application of this message, of the gospel, to our lives. but this morning, being reminded of the great gift we have received, i invite you to respond to God. in a moment, we’ll respond in song, praising our God together. we’ll respond in giving, because our God is a giver, and He declares that “it is more blessed to give than receive.” we’ll respond in praising God for all the things He’s been doing in our lives: blessings purchased for us by the blood of Christ. we’ll respond in pouring our hearts out to God, asking Him to make His grace more evident in our lives: as peter says, “casting our cares before Him, because He cares for us.” we’ll respond by recognizing God’s work in the lives of our children, and dedicate their teachers to His work. and then leaving this place, we’ll respond with the rest of our lives, loving and enjoying God, “to the praise of His glorious grace.” amen.

matt chandler's latest sermon is a solid message on the balance between the sovereignty of God and the love and grace He shows in responding to His people when we pray and call on His Name.

one thing that was especially meaningful and impactful to me about this message was chandler's frequent reference to the fact that nothing he's saying is new, that his theology has not changed. he constantly references old material that he's really just repackaging, showing that he's now just living out, with new appreciation, the words he's preached for years.

"it's also a great comfort to me that i don't have to reinvent anything that i've been saying to you, but i get to stand in now and 'i'm not a liar, guys.' i'm pleading with you, for you, for the glory of God."

i pray that God would help us all to speak well now, to speak truth about our great God and His love and His sovereignty now, and to live it out always, even in the most painful of sufferings, because He is truly good. may none of us be found liars.

thoughts between the cross and the empty tomb

"God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)

a few things that came to mind today, of how great the glory of our God in His gospel is.

it is true that Christ died the death we deserved, but it is not true that He died the death we now deserve, because we are counted righteous in Him, and we are new creatures, and that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. so we no longer deserve that death, because it was paid for at calvary.

i would highly recommend that anyone with a free hour over the next few days listen to session 11 of the resolved conference last summer, in which c.j. mahaney addresses Christ's cry, the scream of the damned, from the cross. it is powerful.

i think i've mentioned this before, but i love some of the paradoxes of the Christian faith. some frustrate me, most confuse me, but there are some that make my heart leap for joy. the fact that we celebrate the wondrous cross on which our Savior died on a day we call good friday is further proof of great our God is, to take the awful and make it wonderful.

all this has pointed me to the idea that, though we ought to take time to look at the seriousness of our sin and the depth of our depravity, especially on good friday, we ought to celebrate it all the more because of the love of God poured out in it. we ought not get so caught up in our sin that we miss the love and grace of God which is displayed in the cross. though it is dark and gory and awful, at the same time the cross is wonderful, joyful, and glorious. and so let us celebrate the cross, rejoicing in it, because it truly is good news.

"in this the love of God was made manifest among us, tha God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. in this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4:9-10)

if you want a message to rock your world for following Christ, not just knowing about Him, listen to this message

one thought that really stuck with me:
we too rarely think about the needs of the Church universal, and often we are encouraged by someone convicting us with a phrase like "if it was your brother" or "your mother" or "your sister, then..." but the truth is, it's not an if statement. you're in the Body, they're in the Body, God is our father, therefore we are brothers. and it's time i started acting like it.