Monthly Archives: March 2017

All’s Well That Ends Well

Posted on by
Reply

For all of us there are many circumstances that we worry about in this life … wondering how things are going to eventuate. We might worry about the future of our careers, our long-term health, retirement and financial security, personal relationships with those we love, to name a few.

In the things we worry about, wouldn’t it be great to know that they all work out well in the end?

One of the great loves of my life was coaching high school runners and teams. Starting a new season at the end of the summer was always a fun event, seeing what new talents were joining the program and beginning to whip a team into shape. Early-season races were fun events to get a picture of what might lie ahead. But as the year went along, the meets took on more seriousness. At the end of the season were the four biggies: conference, county, regional and state championship meets. I thought about them every day; they loomed large in the back of my mind. Coaching was still fun, but it would have been a lot more enjoyable if I knew in September that we were going to be standing on the state championship platform in November.

But that is the great truth of the Christian life. We know that it ultimately ends in the most fantastic way possible! Yes, we’ll have some struggles along the way … to press the running metaphor, we’ll have some injuries, illnesses, bad weather and even lose a few races. But we are champions in the end.

At the end of Romans chapter 8 it lists an entire dossier of things that can go wrong in life: persecution, famine, peril, hardship, etc.  But it concludes that none of this can prevent us from winning in the end, that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. In all these things, we are more than conquerors!

As we conclude this series on knowing God, that knowledge of Him informs us that there is a certainty that all things will be set right again. God will be glorified victoriously forever. Christ will return as the earthly ruler and the focus of worship around the throne. The Spirit will be active throughout to empower believers toward faith and worship of God for all eternity.

All of this is wonderful truth for us to ponder. The Apostle Paul prayed that the Ephesians would have this mindset (1:18-19) … I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.

And so the story of stories ends with the true and best “happily ever after.”  It is this goal and moment and reality toward which our hearts are bent; and when we understand that, we understand truly what life is all about, what knowing God is about …

–           We know the perfect way things were originally made and were meant to be …

–           We know the total mess-up that happened that put us all under a death sentence …

–           We see that God in grace had a plan he has worked out through time and history, making all of history make sense …

–           We now know the pinnacle moment of the fulfillment of God’s plan was the death of Christ …

–           We understand now that the resurrection gives us through faith a new relationship with God and empowerment in this life through the Spirit living within …

–           And the hope of all things being made right again supports us through this life and even through our death, as an eternal life is promised us in Christ.

Rev. 21:2-5 – I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.  And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”  He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”

Shadowing God

Posted on by
Reply

So you’ve got a new job and it involves some complexity and a learning curve. Your boss understands this and sets up an arrangement for you to “shadow” an experienced employee, to watch what they do and how they do it, toward the end that you will serve and function like them someday. How successful would you be if you only marginally paid attention to your mentor and spent most of your time doing what you thought should be correct, or simply doing what you wanted to do?

We are told in Scripture that we are to be like God … “But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy.’”  Yep, just do it! Just be like God! Don’t mess up!

That is the tallest of orders, to grow to be like God … like Christ. But here is where our series of studies on the Godhead becomes immensely practical. We call this process of becoming increasingly Godlike or Christlike “sanctification.”  Ultimate or final sanctification is the result of receiving our glorified bodies on the other side of this world. Progressive sanctification refers to the lifelong process of gradually and increasing growing in faith and character to become more like the model of such that we have in Jesus Christ.

And thank God for that model!  Jesus being God in the flesh gives us a visible, exemplary personification of the goal toward which we strive. Without this we would be much less informed as to what godliness would look like, the standard being much more ethereal.

I love these verses in John 1:14,18 – The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth … No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

That final verb for “making known” is interesting the Greek language. It describes what I’m doing with you right now – giving a detailed explanation about something. That is what the word means, to break something down into the details and unfold it in teaching. In Acts chapter 15, this word is used to tell how Paul and Barnabas at the Jerusalem Council went into great detail to rehearse for the hearers the details of God’s grace that was moving amongst the Gentiles.

So Jesus makes God known to us. He is the visible explanation of what God is like in character, thought and deed.

This again is why we need to know God and to know Jesus, for this is how we grow to be like them, like Him. Along with this, we have the work of the indwelling Spirit in our lives to empower us to be good shadows of the divine example.

But we need the desire and continually growing discipline to allow this process to happen in our lives. It is good for us to have a process where we regularly ask ourselves if we are indeed growing to be more like Christ.

God Dies

Posted on by
Reply

Biblical Christianity is totally different than all other religions. Every other religion teaches us to earn our way to God. Christianity is the only religion that teaches that God came to us. Other religions require man to die for God, Christianity has God dying for man.

We began this week of studies by talking about the reality of sin and its consequences that have extended to all mankind. There is no doubt that this is felt innately in the human soul. The natural sense is that there is a God … with a sense of resident guilt that this God has been offended by our sin, and thereby an additional sense that one has to do something to earn one’s way back into God’s graces.

And I began today by saying “Biblical Christianity,” because this feeling that one has to earn his way back to God has even corrupted various branches of the tree of those generally identifying as “Christian.”  A study of their doctrinal systems reveals that a person must do this and that to gain merit with God. But the Scriptures teach there is nothing we can do to gain merit. Our good works will always fall short of paying the bill; and teasing out that concept further we could say that our fleshly good works are a currency that is not accepted by God as payment for sin. Only the perfect sacrifice would do, and since no man is perfect, only a God-man would suffice.

Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

When we were at our worst, God gave his best for us.

1 John 3:1,16 – See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!  …  This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.

Yesterday we referenced the annual Day of Atonement in the Old Testament sacrificial system. On that day the high priest was to go into the most holy place, behind the curtain. Therein was the Ark of the Covenant with Law on the inside and a covering called the mercy seat. On this day only could he approach it and not fear death within what was seen as coming into the localized presence of God. He first went in and sprinkled blood as a covering (atonement) for his own sin. His second trip inside was with the blood of a goat that was sprinkled to make atonement for the sins of the people. A second goat – a scapegoat – had the sins likewise pronounced over it, but rather than be sacrificed was led away into the wilderness, never to be seen again. This symbolized the removal of sin.

Jesus, the true high priest, is spoken of in Hebrews as coming but once into heaven – the true tabernacle – not with the blood of bulls and goats, but with his own perfect blood, thus making atonement for all mankind.

At the moment of Christ’s death, a great earthquake shook the ground. And the curtain in the Temple that separated the most holy place was ripped into two pieces from top to bottom, exposing the interior. The final price had been paid, once and for all. God died that man might live.

Hebrews 9:11-14 – But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation. 12 He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. 13 The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. 14 How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!