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What The Bible Says About Reading The Bible
Various texts
Luke 24:13-49; 2 Tim. 2:15; 2 Tim. 3:14-17
AUDIO FOR THIS SERMON CAN BE FOUND HERE
Don’t pass up the “Special Music” link at the same page. I think you’ll really enjoy “Funky Hermeneutic”
Hermeneutics: is a big word for – interpretation.
When we talk about hermeneutics we are simply referring to the principles by which we read and rightly interpret what ANY text has to say – but especially the Bible.
As you might imagine, over the centuries, scholars have assembled a number of principles for good interpretation, and they are quite commonsensical and useful.
Do I know what the words themselves mean in their written languages?
So if I read the word “bonnet” it matters if I am reading an American author who might be speaking about a lady’s hat, versus a British author who is probably referring to the hood of his car.
Do I know what the words mean in relation to one another?
Do I know what the author was trying to convey to his or her audience in their context?
Do I have some sense of how the original reader would have understood it?
Are there figures of speech, puns, hyperbole, colloquialisms, metaphors etc.?
You and I employ these principles every day when we read everything we read. We do it automatically for the most part, without really thinking about it at all.
When I was writing and producing radio and television commercials, we had an announcer who would sometimes miss his cues. He would often say: “That copy runs like a striped ape!”
Now there are several problems with that statement, not the least of which there is – there’s no such thing as a striped ape. What he was saying, was that the script led him to speed up his speech to the point it became something else altogether – unrecognizable as normal speech and thus ran too fast.
Virtually no one outside of our professional circles would have any idea what he was saying had this been printed – and especially if it were read by someone who did not speak English well.
So one must bring those same basic skills to reading the Bible.
Not only were our Bibles originally written in 3 different languages, Hebrew, Chaldean and Greek, it bears all same forms of speech we’ve just mentioned. Thank goodness for a several millennia of scholars to compare and interpret and get to the bottom of most of these issue so as to give us reliable and readable translations.
My goal this morning, is simply to point out some of the ways the Bible itself demonstrates and counsels us to read it – so as to get the best benefit from it.
- Comprehensively: Colossians 4:16 “And when this letter has been read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and see that you also read the letter from Laodicea.”
Rev. 2:7; 2:11; 2:17; 2:29; 3:6; 3:13; 3:22
Even these readers were not to read only what seemed to immediately apply to themselves – but were to consider all God says to His people in all cases.
It is easy for us to pay attention only to those places that are familiar to us, or seem the clearest or easiest to access. But the WHOLE Bible is the Word of God and reading it as a whole vastly improves our understanding of each part individually.
This serves also as a caution against ABSOLUTIZING! How often, one verse on a topic is cited, as though that one verse says all there is to say on a topic, and then the Word of God is distorted and becomes harmful instead of a blessing.
Example: NASB – Malachi 2:16 “For I hate divorce,” says the LORD, the God of Israel, “and him who covers his garment with wrong,” says the LORD of hosts. “So take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously.”
Jeremiah 3:6–8 “The LORD said to me in the days of King Josiah: “Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore? 7 And I thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me,’ but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. 8 She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore.”
In Malachi God is addressing those who are unfaithful to their vows and getting out of a marriage to be with someone else.
In Jeremiah He is addressing the spiritual adultery of Israel and why divorcing her is the right form of punishment.
So that in Matthew 1:19 when Joseph finds out Mary is pregnant, the text says: “And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.”
How does the whole of Scripture deal with a topic? So we must read comprehensively if we are to form mature and fully orbed understandings.
- Intelligently: Nehemiah 8:5–8 “And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was above all the people, and as he opened it all the people stood. And Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground…the Levites, helped the people to understand the Law, while the people remained in their places. They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.”
Note the 2-fold action – It must be read CLEARLY, and, we must understand the SENSE of what is read.
The Bible is not to be approached mystically like it is a code book.
God is rational, and He communicates rationally and logically.
We must ask “WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?” before we ask, “what does this mean to me?” Without reading the Bible as though the author was intending to get ideas across to the original readers given their circumstances and situations, we cannot arrive at a legitimate application for ourselves.
2 Peter 3:15–16 “And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.”
Just because someone uses a Bible verse, it does not automatically mean they are using God’s Word correctly.
I have often said that the single must underutilized spiritual gift God has given us is grey matter!
One way we read intelligently, is not making the unique events in Scripture the normative.
Miracles are miracles for instance, precisely because they are not the norm.
Manna was but temporary – and never meant to be normative
The Pillar of cloud and fire – meant only for a time and in a unique place
Only ONE ax head was made to float – and that – only once
There was only one Samson
Not many were raised from the dead
Paul had a Macedonian vision – but not a vision to each and every place
Gideon’s “fleece” was not repeated by others
2 Timothy 2:15 “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”
It takes intelligent, thoughtful labor to study and understand God’s Word well.
- Christologically: John 5:39–40 “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.”
To look at the Bible as a book of good information, even moral or ethical information, apart from Christ, is to misuse and abuse the book.
This is why we must be careful not to proof-text, and use individual verses out of their context to prove a point or beat someone over the head with.
I must ask “what does this say about who Christ is and what He has done?” And this is especially true of the Old Testament which Jesus was speaking about here.
Remember the portion we had read for us from Luke at the beginning? It is describing Jesus meeting two travelers on the road to a city called Emmaus after His resurrection.
As their discussion continues, note the 3-fold reference to the Scriptures:
After questioning them about their mindset and experiences Jesus says: ” 25 And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”
His concern here is that they did not understand what had happened in the crucifixion, because they did not understand and BELIEVE their Bibles! In this case, the OT.
Then after He reveals Himself to them, we read: 31 And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. 32 They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?”
Later still, when these 2 return to the Apostles we read: 44 Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
Notice how Jesus did not give them some new revelation at this point, but opened their minds to understand their Bibles!
- Reverently: Daniel 10:10–11 “And behold, a hand touched me and set me trembling on my hands and knees. 11 And he said to me, “O Daniel, man greatly loved, understand the words that I speak to you, and stand upright, for now I have been sent to you.” And when he had spoken this word to me, I stood up trembling.”
Isaiah 66:1–2 “Thus says the LORD: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? 2 All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the LORD. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.”
This opens up the need for prayer in our study. Recognizing that this is God speaking regarding eternal realities that are contrary to the World and our fallen natures – and how prone we are to misread, misconstrue and misapply them if we are not careful.
God’s Word is never to be approached lightly and carelessly, as though it has been corrupted and is no longer reliable.
So Jesus can remind His listeners Matthew 5:18 “For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” Not the smallest particle will be lost.
And when debating with the Sadducees in Matt. 22, His entire point is built upon the present tense of a word being used in the Scripture versus the past tense. Matthew 22:31–32 “And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”
- Conclusively: Revelation 22:18–19 “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, 19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.”
With this – do not try to go beyond it. Deuteronomy 29:29 “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”
Deuteronomy 13:1- “If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, 2 and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ 3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him.”
Where the Bible speaks, it has the last word on that topic.
This was a key issue in the Reformation and why we hold to “sola Scriptura”. The Bible is the final authority on what it addresses, not synods, councils, Popes, and least of all – culture!
That doesn’t mean we’ve always interpreted it correctly, but it DOES mean that what it says, what it teaches, is binding truth on all people, everywhere and at all times.
- Obediently: Ezra 7:10 “For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the LORD, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.”
Psalm 119:9 “How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word.”
Deuteronomy 11:13–25 “And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, 14 he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil… Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them; 17 then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and you will perish quickly off the good land that the LORD is giving you. 18 “You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 19 You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 20 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, 21 that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth. 22 For if you will be careful to do all this commandment that I command you to do, loving the LORD your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him, 23 then the LORD will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you. 24 Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours. Your territory shall be from the wilderness to the Lebanon and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the western sea. 25 No one shall be able to stand against you. The LORD your God will lay the fear of you and the dread of you on all the land that you shall tread, as he promised you.”
The things God promises to bless us with, in this case the material blessings He promised Israel as foreshadows of the spiritual blessings we may enjoy in Christ – are tied proportionally to our obedience to His Word.
We cannot expect His blessings, when we ignore His will for us.
- Memorably: Psalm 119:11 “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.”
What is teaches must be really taken in and laid to heart if it is to have a transformative effect in the soul.
We have often talked about the “noetic” effects of sin. How that ever since the The Fall. Al Mohler lists them as:
Ignorance; Distractedness; Forgetfulness; Prejudice; Faulty; perspective; Intellectual fatigue; Inconsistencies; Failure to draw correct conclusions; Intellectual apathy; Dogmatism; Intellectual pride; Vain imagination – thinking about things we ought not; Miscommunication; Partial knowledge.
Now deliberate memorization is a great tool here, but in truth, simple repetition is truly effective. The more one reads it, reads in larger portions and takes time to actually think about what’s read, the more it is ingested.
And the more it is taken in, the more it shapes how we think and what occupies our chief thoughts.
- Comprehensively Not in isolated bits and pieces.
- Intelligently – Engaging our God given intellect in its highest faculties.
- Christologically – The person and work of Christ as the center-point of all of God’s plans and purposes with creation.
- Reverently – The Bible isn’t good advice or a collection of religious and moral myths, it is God speaking.
- Conclusively – Taking God’s Word as our final authority.
- Obediently – Not substituting mere knowledge for actual possession.
- Memorably – Enough so as to inform our opinions, and shape our thoughts and desires.
And why all of this? That we might know Christ, and the fullness of the salvation He has provided for us in His substitutionary death, burial and resurrection.
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Walking in the power of the Spirit
Luke 3:21-22; 4:1-15
Galatians 5:13-26
AUDIO FOR THIS SERMON CAN BE FOUND HERE
WikiPedia: “Popular psychology (sometimes shortened as pop psychology or pop psych) is the concepts and theories about human mental life and behavior that are purportedly based on psychology and that find credence among and pass muster with the populace.”
Psychology Today Magazine – Mar. 25, 2013: 4 Things Psychology gets wrong – Alice Boyes, Ph.D.
Four experts to point out psychology advice they’ve read or heard in the popular press that they disagree with (or where the research points to more nuanced recommendations).
Visualizing Having Achieved Your Goals. “Research has found that imagining you already have achieved a goal weakens your motivation to work towards it because when you feel like you already have something it’s natural to feel like nothing more needs to be done.
Personal Empowerment. “True personal empowerment is not about having a feeling, it’s about having a real impact on our environment and the people in it. Studies show that acquiring real personal empowerment involves a process of taking actions that demonstrate real world results.
Change Happens When You’re Ready?…In my more than 20 years of experience, I’ve come to understand that “ready”–or the tipping point of change–often means ‘when the consequences of our behavior outweigh the value of that behavior to us’. In other words, when the pay out (consequence) becomes greater than the pay back (value) we are prompted by circumstance to change what we are doing.
Positive Thinking “I’ve seen the harm it’s done to people who live with chronic pain or illness. When they’re repeatedly told that if they’d just think positively, they’d get better, they then blame themselves when that fails to happen.
I am sure Dr. Smith can tell us loads about Pop-Medicine. Like this poor guy who bought into the colloidal silver trend, and after 4 weeks developed irreversible argyria. No, he is not a Smurf – but I’ll bet he feels like one.
But Christianity and Biblical Theology suffers from the same ailment: Concepts and theories about the spiritual life, that gain widespread traction among Christians, which may be rooted in little or no true Biblical exegesis.
One of the places where this occurs is when we begin to talk about what it means to walk in the Spirit, or be led by the Spirit, etc.
Often, the teaching on that subject is drawn more from some people’s experiences and what may be their correct or incorrect analysis of those experiences, than what the Bible actually teaches on the subject.
It is into those troubled murky waters I want to wade – if only a bit today. And that, by drawing first from what Jesus modeled for us in the Gospel of Luke, and then comparing that with what Paul taught in Galatians chapter 5.
Let me be clear at the outset, this study today is not about the gifts of the Spirit. That will be the subject of another sermon or two down the road.
Today is about living a Spirit filled, or Spirit led life. And it may be far different than many of us have conceived.
We must see it NOT in terms of popular Christianity – what has passed into the zeitgeist of the Church but may not actually be Biblical – and instead see it as modeled in Jesus in Luke 3-4 and, explicated by Paul in Galatians 5.
Let’s look at the passage in Luke 1st.
4 things in a progression.
- The Holy Spirit descended on Jesus (Luke 3:22)
- Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan (Luke 4:1a)
- He was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for 40 days, being tempted by the devil. (Luke 4:1b-2a)
- It is after this – “Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee.”
Compare Galatians for a similar pattern –
- “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Gal. 4:6)
- Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. (Gal. 5:16)
- But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. (Gal. 5:18)
- And so Paul’s concluding statement on the topic: “If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. (Gal. 5:25)
There is an implication here which will become more clear as we go; that keeping in step with the Spirit implies the Spirit has an agenda and some place He is wanting us to go – and that walking in Him requires letting go of trying to get the Spirit to bless our agendas and activities, and living out His.
Which I would argue is the equivalent to Eph. 5:18 “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,
And this, is virtually parallel to the statement that after having been led by the Spirit into the wilderness, Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit.
Summary:
- We receive the Spirit at regeneration…
- But we need to be consciously growing in deliberate dependency upon the Spirit so that we are FILLED with Him (be being filled – Eph 5:18), so that He becomes the chief influence in our lives…
- So that we might walk in the Spirit
- In which power…we conquer.
Now it is reasonable to ask why it is Christ had to receive and be filled with the Spirit since He was God incarnate? This is a key factor in the incarnation: That in His incarnation, He lived setting aside His divine prerogatives – tho not His divinity – and living in dependence upon the Spirit the same way He expects us to.
As John Owen points out in his works: “The Holy Spirit, in a peculiar manner, anointed him [Jesus] with all those extraordinary powers and gifts which were necessary for the exercise and discharging of his office on the earth: Isa. 61:1, “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.” It is the prophetical office of Christ, and his discharge thereof in his ministry on the earth, which is intended. And he applies these words unto himself with respect unto his preaching of the gospel, Luke 4:18, 19; for this was that office which he principally attended unto here in the world, as that whereby he instructed men in the nature and use of his other offices.”
John Owen, The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold, vol. 3 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, n.d.), 171.
Or think of Jesus’ own words in 12:28 where He says that is it by the Spirit of God that He casts out demons. A denial of which is the unpardonable sin.
So it is WE are taught in the NT to seeking after a life lived in the same Spirit.
But here, we must take notice of the special or primary focus of being Spirit-filled and/or Spirit led: Jesus was LED by the Spirit into the wilderness, to do battle with temptation – and return in power of the Spirit.
Galatians calls us to walk in the Spirit, to be led by the Spirit and to LIVE in the Spirit – that we might not FULFILL THE LUSTS OF THE FLESH!
A Spirit led life is not one filled with mystical experiences, but first and foremost one that confronts the temptations of the Devil, in the environment of this hostile, fallen world, and, the desires of our sinful nature – and conquers all 3 in love.
This is why we seek to be always about the business of being filled with the Spirit – that we might walk with Him and be led into all holiness – JUST AS JESUS!
So Jesus in Luke:
- The Spirit poured out on Him
- The Spirit leading Him (full, under His influence supremely)
- Returning in the power of the Spirit
For us: The Spirit is constantly leading US back into these confrontations until we too learn to conquer in Him – as Jesus did.
So this leads us to look at 2 things principally:
I. What this Spirit-led life looks like out of Galatians
And
II. 3 keys central to acting it out in the power of the Spirit in Luke.
I. The Life Lived: Galatians 5
We have two contrary lists in the text, and need to see how they impact one another.
The principle we need to grasp is: Galatians 5:16 “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.”
The text DOES NOT say, walk in the Spirit and you’ll receive secret messages or impulses about all kinds of extraneous matters – but that when you do indeed walk in the Spirit, you’ll not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.
This is the emphasis – the primary point to grasped.
As a side note here, when people think about seeking the power of the Spirit – we do have to ask WHY? Why do we think we need the Spirit’s power? To preach the Gospel? NO. Romans tells us that the Gospel itself IS the power of God unto salvation.
Some think we mean by it that we ask for this power for success in our ministrations – but look at both Jesus and Paul, and the rest of the Apostles. Was Jesus NOT walking in the power of the Spirit when the crowds left Him? Was Paul not preaching in the power of the Spirit when he was persecuted and stoned? Or Stephen when he was martyred? These are not the success stories we think of when we seek to be filled with the Spirit.
Or, it is power to work wonders or miracles? That falls into the category of the gifts of the Spirit.
We DO need the Spirit to make our efforts on the Gospel’s behalf successful, but that’s not the same as walking in the power of the Spirit.
In the Gospel’s case, we most often need the power of the Spirit to overcome our own fleshly cowardice and reluctance in sharing the Gospel with others – but not to have more power in delivering it.
The power of the Spirit is not to be able to give witness per se, it is to BE witnesses, to be living examples of lives energized and influenced by the Spirit so as to live and walk as one renewed by the Spirit of God so as to resist the Devil, deny the flesh and love not the world!
Let’s map it out as practically as we can the way the Scripture does.
Galatians 5:19–21 “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
It is only the Spirit-filled life that can conquer the expressions of these things in us.
Galatians 5:22–24 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”
In simple terms, the first group, are crucified or put to death, by the second – which is the life of the Spirit lived out in the Believer.
How does one overcome sexual immorality, impurity and sensuality?
Through goodness, faithfulness and self-control.
Idolatry and sorcery are divested of their power by love toward God, joy in what He has provided, and faithfulness toward Him as Lord.
Enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions cannot rule in one who is filled with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness and self-control.
Just as joy, peace, goodness, kindness and self-control leave no room for envy, drunkenness, and, orgies.
The Spirit-filled life is not a life of personal direction and secret messages from God, it is a life that confronts and conquers sin! Which can ONLY be done in the power of the Spirit.
Yes, the Believer lives in a state of what John Newton so aptly calls “secret communion with God” – a life lived in the awareness of His presence and of interaction with Him all the time. But the purpose of this life is to live in holiness! Not to pursue urgings and promptings regarding things that have nothing to do with growing in grace and and being conformed to the image of Christ.
Newton counsels: I apprehend that we lose much of the comfort which might arise from a sense of our continual dependence upon him, and, of course, fall short of acknowledging as we ought what we receive from him, by mistaking the manner of his operation. Perhaps we take it too much for granted, that communications from himself must bear some kind of sensible impression that they are his…yet it is very possible that we may be under his influence when we are least aware: and though what we say, or write, or do, may seem no way extraordinary; yet that we should be led to such a particular turn of thought at one time rather than at another, has, in my own concerns, often appeared to me remarkable, from the circumstances which have attended, or the consequences which have followed…This gracious assistance is afforded in a way imperceptible to ourselves, to hide pride from us, and to prevent us from being indolent and careless with respect to the use of appointed means; and it would be likewise more abundantly, and perhaps more sensibly afforded, were our spirits more simple in waiting upon the Lord. But, alas! a divided heart, an undue attachment to some temporal object, sadly deadens our spirits (I speak for myself), and grieves the Lord’s Spirit; so that we walk in darkness and at a distance, and, though called to great privileges, live far below them. But methinks the thought of him who is always near, and upon whom we do and must incessantly depend, should suggest a powerful motive for the closest attention to his revealed will, and the most punctual compliance with it; for so far as the Lord withdraws, we become as blind men; and with the clearest light, and upon the plainest ground, we are liable, or rather sure, to stumble at every step.[1]
As it is not always easy to distinguish between the temptations of Satan and the workings of our own evil hearts; so it maybe equally or more difficult to distinguish these assistances from the effects of gracious principles abiding in us, or from the leadings and motions of the Holy Spirit. [2]
And I would add that to occupy ourselves with trying to do is to go on a fool’s errand.
Now let’s go back to Luke to see some absolutely critical keys in all of this.
II. The 3 Keys LUKE 4:1-14 – If we would walk in “the power” of the Spirit…
We look at Jesus’ 1st temptation and how he overcame.
And here is the lesson –
- (1-4) There is no discomfort or pain that excuses or justifies any sin:
Living in the power of the Spirit allows us to serve God, not our desires and needs.
Jesus could not let the temporary but present and urgent sense of desire and need, allow Him to act contrary to what He knew was the Father’s will.
The spirit of the age is to pursue our “passions”. How often we hear that even in the Church. How about pursuing Christ’s passions for us?
When we let the culture dictate what is right or wrong, political correctness, our feelings or anything else but the Word of God – we will be powerless to confront sin in ourselves or anywhere else.
- (5-8) We must abandon all attempts to arrive at God’s promises without pain and the cross:
Placing His will (His goal of conformity) above our own is how we die to self.
If we are married to an idea of Christianity that is rooted in our comfort and desires being rights which it is God’s responsibility to see to – we will look at all suffering and self-denial as wrong and aberrant and we will act to alleviate our discomforts at any cost.
Matthew 10:38 “And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”
Our cross quite simply is anywhere our will conflicts or “crosses” His. We cannot battle sin apart from embracing the pain of self-denial.
- (9-13) We must abandon all need for ANY perceived status in the eyes of any but God Himself:
God’s opinion of us is the only one that ultimately matters.
We see it in the fearlessness of Jesus in refusing to be influenced either by the smiles or frowns of any or all but His Father.
How we personally court the favor of some and fear the displeasure of others.
And when Christians court the favor of the world, or fear it when we appear politically incorrect, irrelevant, old fashioned or lacking in coolness or whatever – we can no longer battle sin, for we are seeking the Worlds’ blessing above the Father’s. We’ve become idolaters.
Jesus is going to face these same 3 again isn’t He?
On the cross, how He would be tempted to stop the pain of His crucifixion – if He were not resolved to do the will of the Father, regardless the discomfort and pain.
He will have to pray in the Garden – not my will, but yours be done.
And He will have to endure the temptation cast at Him by His mockers: If you are the Son of God – come down from there and save yourself. Prove who you really are!”
If Jesus were not walking in the Spirit, these contradictions would overcome Him – even as they often do us. But when we set this aside, we find ourselves living in a power far beyond our own.
Let me close with this one thought.
We have often used the phrase around here that the Christian life is meant to be lived, indeed only CAN be lived, in conscious, constant, deliberate dependence upon the Holy Spirit.
It is what Jesus purchased for us, and, what He afforded us in His resurrection and sending the Spirit for us.
But just as with anything else we are given, we must take advantage of it in order to have the benefit of it.
It does no good for a starving man to have a warehouse full of food, if he won’t enter it, unpack it, prepare it and eat it.
The Believer must be aware of his/her need, and consciously look to and call upon the Spirit to live in His power, in living out the love that is His fruit in order to crucify the lusts of the flesh.
There is no other way. He does not animate us like puppets. We lean upon Him in actuality – and find Him sufficient in looking to Him by faith.
This, is the heritage Christ has left us in His ascension.
[1] John Newton, Richard Cecil, The Works of the John Newton, vol. 1 (London: Hamilton, Adams & Co., 1824), 506–508.
[2] John Newton, Richard Cecil, The Works of the John Newton, vol. 1 (London: Hamilton, Adams & Co., 1824), 418–419.
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JONAH
Lessons from a Reluctant Prophet
AUDIO FOR THIS SERMON CAN BE FOUND HERE
As we take this rather brief, but I pray useful overview of this intriguing little book, I have a confession to make. I Never liked Jonah as a man.
I always saw him as a whiney, cowardly, self-centered, graceless, merciless jerk.
Now, he’s my hero.
Why?
Because when it is all said and done, this book is autobiographical.
So that by the time we reach the end – this man Jonah, doesn’t care what you think about him and his various and deep sins. Which are evident, severe and many…
He only cares that you know how good his God is.
He becomes absolutely thoughtless about trying to preserve a good opinion of himself.
He wants his readers – at the expense of any negative thoughts we might have about him – to see a God who is gracious, kind, merciful and who delights in showing mercy to the lost.
The 1st verse actually tells us quite a bit about Jonah.
Jonah 1:1 “Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai,”
2 Kings 14:23–27 gives us some needed background. “In the fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, began to reign in Samaria, and he reigned forty-one years. 24 And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin. 25 He restored the border of Israel from Lebo-hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the LORD, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath-hepher
As we see in 2 Kings – Jonah was an active and important prophet. And one of the key aspects of being a prophet of God was that whatever he prophesied, must come to pass. If it didn’t Israel was to disregard him as a prophet.
Deuteronomy 18:18–22 “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. 19 And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. 20 But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ 21 And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the LORD has not spoken?’— 22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.”
This is going to play a vital role in how we view Jonah’s dilemma.
Jonah 1:1–2 “Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.”
Of course here is the first problem.
Jonah is a Jewish prophet ministering in and around Samaria, the capital of Northern Israel.
Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria, who had swept in earlier and conquered Samaria, razing the city and deporting 27,000 Israelites to other areas, and repopulating the area with Gentile foreigners.
Assyria was the ISIS of its day – without exaggeration.
So rather than have anything to do with the barbarians that decimated his city and ruined his nation – he runs.
Jonah 1:3 “But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD.
And here is our first lesson in Jonah:
Lesson 1. (1-2) – Revelation and Responsibility: We are all responsible for the Word of God revealed to us.
Once we have heard and known God’s will expressed in His Word, we are now responsible for it in our lives.
We cannot remain indifferent to God’s Word. We cannot pick and choose what we want to believe and what we want to receive.
When God speaks, we are responsible for hearing.
And the question is how DO we respond to what we KNOW God has said?
In Jonah’s case, he responded by trying to ignore it. By running the other way. By refusing to pay any attention to it.
And we might ask ourselves today, how are we responding to the Word of God in our lives – and the demands knowing His will in His Word brings?
NOTE – we are not responsible for what God hasn’t revealed – but we are for what He HAS.
And this is why the Word of God is so important to the Believer.
It is not a document full of nice suggestions sage advice – it is God speaking to us as His people, and thus it demands a response from us – in everything it addresses.
Just as the distasteful nature of what God said to Jonah in this text – we might find something equally distasteful to our personal wants, preferences or desires. And we are faced with how we will respond.
Distastefulness not being an excuse for refusing.
Lesson 2. (1:3) – The Costliness of disobedience.
The Hebrew indicates that Jonah may have paid such a fare that no other passengers were needed and so they could go quickly. The JPS commentary notes this voyage would probably take a year – making the passage cost very high.
Sin is ALWAYS more costly than obedience – tho we seldom see that clearly because sin lies to us and tells us the cost of obedience is so much higher.
Disobedience always consists of a downward spiral.
We seldom get to the bottom all at once.
1:3 – Down to Joppa;
1:3 – Down into the ship;
1:5 – Down into the interior of the ship;
1:5 – Down into sleep;
1:15 – Down into the sea;
1:17 – Down into the belly of the fish;
2:6 – Down to the bottoms of the mountains.
Any movement away from God and His purposes is down. There are no lateral moves away from God.
Lesson 3. (1:3) – The Inescapability of God’s Presence.
God’s presence is neither situational nor geographical. He cannot be fled from.
Jonah knew enough that he could not actually run from God’s presence which is everywhere, but the expression is meant to describe running from “the face of God” – in other words – more simply, Jonah ran in his effort to refuse to submit to what he knew was God’s will. To flee from serving Him.
Jonah’s mistake was in thinking that he in fact had the option to refuse God’s Lordship, and that God would then just leave him alone.
It is not so. No one who is Christ’s can refuse to serve Him and just be left alone. They will be hunted and pursued until they are restored.
Lesson 4. (1:6) – The negative effect of disobedience on prayer:
Disobedience chills our interest in praying, and impedes God’s willingness to respond.
As God complained to Israel in Micah 3:4 “Then they will cry to the LORD, but he will not answer them; he will hide his face from them at that time, because they have made their deeds evil.”
Jonah cannot pray to God with any hope of being heard while he is in active rebellion against Him. And neither can we.
It is a mark of a peculiarly hard heart when we DO think to pray and be heard, even when we are living in such rebellion.
Even Jonah knew better.
Note that from the beginning, Jonah refuses to pray about his issues. He does not want to go to Nineveh, but he does not take his conflict to God.
Instead, he internalizes it and runs.
On the ship, when the wind is about to take them, he refuses still to pray.
Only after being in the fish for 3 days does he at last break down and speak to God.
God is turning up the pressure at each step, and Jonah is refusing at each step.
NOTE: When the child of God is disobedient to God, it always affects more than him or herself. And it often has deleterious effects on those lost whom we encounter in our rebellion. God save us from impacting others with our sin, who seem to us to be outside the circle of our interaction with God.
Lesson 5. 1:12 – How disobedience distorts reality: Jonah would rather die, than repent and fulfill his mission.
And we might well ask ourselves; what sin am I so tied to, that I would rather die, than let it go and grow further in the image of Christ?
In the belly of the fish, Jonah repented of his sinful ACTION, but not yet of his sinful heart and motivations.
Sin can never be dealt with merely on the basis of modified behavior.
Jonah has not been thoroughly dealt with until at the end of the book, he finally hears God’s heart, and not just His command.
It is the woeful reality that many serve God in action – while their hearts remain untouched and inwardly as contrary to God as ever.
They profess Christ.
They play the role of the Christian, but they inwardly bristle at God in His providences and in His dealings with others and themselves.
With others, they want justice carried out, and with themselves, they want their comforts attended to.
All the while they have never stopped to hear God’s heart.
All of this is a distorted way of looking at ourselves and God’s ways.
Jonah finally shifts, at the end. But oh what difficulty he endures until then.
Nothing can please him.
Nothing can make him happy.
Nothing can keep him from investing too much happiness in temporary comforts, or too much sorrow in their loss.
For his mind is on earthly things.
Mercy and grace do not fill his soul.
Lesson 6. (2:1-2) – Never underestimate God’s willingness to restore the disobedient.
Ch. 2 is remarkable as a prayer of thanksgiving.
How does a prayer of thanksgiving fit at this point?
He’s alive, but where? – in the belly of this fish.
So why thanksgiving? Because, he IS alive, when in fact he was deserving of, and, preserved form the Hell from which there is no return.
This is reason to be thankful.
Yes it is hot. Yes it is smelly. Yes it is dark and uncomfortable and the future is uncertain – but it is not eternal separation from God and under His undiluted wrath.
ANYTHING is better than that.
When one has been so close to utter destruction, being saved by only and inch, is cause for celebration.
Maybe this is you today. You are smarting, reeling from the aftereffects of sinful choices on your part.
If you are truly Christ’s – no matter hire dire it looks, your God is a loving and forgiving God and you have reason to turn to Him in thanksgiving even now for the fact you have been abandoned to Hell – and therefore there is great hope for the days ahead.
Days of usefulness in His kingdom, even though you’ve fallen very greatly.
2:9 “Salvation belongs to the Lord”.
At this point, Jonah is yielding to God’s will in confronting the Ninevites.
Jonah’s reticence to go to them in the first place is due to the fact that He does not want God to be merciful to them and save them (4:2).
And if he DOES go, there will be personal consequences.
Remember the portion we read in Deut. At the beginning, about a prophet is only to be listened to if his word comes to pass?
If Jonah preaches to the Ninevites, that God is going to destroy them in 40 days, but then God has mercy upon them – his word won’t come to pass and he is no longer a prophet with honor.
His entire life and self-image and purpose are gone.
He’ll lose all credibility.
Add to this that they are Israel’s enemy. They are pagan persecutors. And He REALLY does not want God to be good to them.
But the end of his prayer shows that he relents from trying to stop the Lord’s arm, and confesses that salvation is not Jonah’s either to bestow or to prevent, but rather that salvation belongs to the Lord to give as He sees fit.
Our desires for or against notwithstanding.
Salvation is God’s to bestow upon whom He pleases – period.
It belongs to Him alone and He is free to give it or withhold it according to His own wishes.
God is free to extend mercy to any and all as He sees fit. It is His divine prerogative. Yet how we rebel when He extends His mercy to those we have come to hate and/or fear.
Note the anti-typology with Jesus.
Jonah wants no part of rescuing his enemies, while Jesus willingly comes.
Jonah flees from what is uncomfortable and distasteful, while Jesus willingly drinks the Father’s cup.
Jonah has no compassion on 100,000 lost men, Jesus has compassion on unnumbered multitudes more.
Jonah faces rejection, but Jesus faces actual death.
Nineveh was hundreds of miles from the shore of the Mediterranean.
No one there would have witnessed this spectacle.
His preaching alone would have to suffice.
Lesson 7. (3:6-10) True repentance is more than saying I’m sorry.
Jonah 3:6–10 “The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, 8 but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. 9 Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.” 10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.
As is noted by others, God did not relent because of their fasting and basement alone – but because of “what they did” which included (v8) turning away from their wicked ways and violence. “Brethren, it is not written of the men of Nineveh that ‘God saw their sackcloth and fasting,’ but that ‘God saw what they did, how they had turned back from their evil ways’ ” (M. Taʿanit 2, 1)
Lesson 8. (4:9-11) – Never underestimate God’s willingness to forgive.
Jonah 4:9–11 “But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” 10 And the LORD said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11 And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”
We are far greater sinners than we are willing to believe, and God is a much more merciful God than we are willing to believe.
As I mentioned earlier, this entire book must be autobiographical, since so much is related which only Jonah, alone experienced.
From that frame, note how Jonah gives God the last word.
And how the book ends with God’s statement of the principle of His mercy and how it is only right that it extends to the fallen sons of Adam wherever they may be found.
Jonah wants us to learn what he learned.
Yes, the Assyrians were barbarians in every sense of the word.
Yes, they had committed unspeakable atrocities.
Yes, they had even ravaged Jonah’s own people.
But they were human beings – souls created in the image of God.
And they were not to be thrown away like last week’s newspaper.
And yes, Jonah was God’s man, but in a very rebellious state.
He had legitimate concerns, but was responding sinfully to the danger and detriment of others around him.
He showed almost nothing of God’s goodness.
And he needed the same grace and mercy he wanted to deny the Assyrians – in order to serve his God.
Oh, that we might begin where he ended – his sin exposed, but in the light of the blinding glory of God’s mercy and grace upon sinners – both those yet to hear the Gospel, and those who know it but yet allow sin to reign in them to a terrifying extent.
Restoration for fallen saints, and salvation for lost sinners.
This is the person and work of our God in Christ Jesus.
And it is astounding!
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Toward a Theology of Giving
Genesis 4:1-5
Exodus 23:14-17
John 3:16
AUDIO FOR THIS SERMON CAN BE FOUND HERE
Something very interesting happened to the Evangelical Church in the 20th century, that seems to have no parallel in previous generations: The Re-definition of worship.
It wasn’t until the 20th century that Christians started to refer to the music portion of a service as the “worship” – alone. The inference being that the other parts of the service were not worship – and that worship resided almost exclusively in music.
The earliest detailed look we have of what worship consisted of in the early Church comes down to us from the pen of Justin Martyr around 150 AD.
He wrote: “On the day called Sunday there is a gathering together in the same place of all who live in a given city or rural district. The memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits. Then when the reader ceases, the president in a discourse admonishes and urges the imitation of these good things. Next we all rise together and send up prayers. When we cease from our prayer, bread is presented and wine and water. The president in the same manner sends up prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people sing out their assent, saying the “Amen.” distribution and participation of the elements for which thanks have been given is made to each person, and to those who are not present they are sent by the deacons.
[“We praise the Maker of the universe as much as we are able by the word of prayer and thanksgiving for all the things with which we are supplied.… Being thankful in word, we send up to him honors and hymns for our coming into existence, for all the means of health, for the various qualities of the different classes of things, and for the changes of the seasons, while making petitions for our coming into existence again in incorruption by reason of faith in him.”]
Those who have means and are willing, each according to his own choice, gives what he wills, and what is collected is deposited with the president. He provides for the orphans and widows, those who are in need on account of sickness or some other cause, those who are in bonds, strangers who are sojourning, and in a word he becomes the protector of all who are in need.
We all make our assembly in common on Sunday, since it is the first day, on which God changed the darkness and matter and made the world, and Jesus Christ our Savior arose from the dead on the same day. For they crucified him on the day before Saturn’s day, and on the day after (which is the day of the Sun) he appeared to his apostles and disciples and taught these things, which we have offered for your consideration.”
Martyr, Justin. 1993. How We Christians Worship. (Trans.) Everett Ferguson. Christian History Magazine-Issue 37: Worship in the Early Church. Carol Stream, IL: Christianity Today.
Now certainly, this is indicative and not binding, but it is instructive. Hot on the heels of the ministry of the Apostles, this is how the Church most often conducted worship.
For them, it had 7 key elements that Justin noted:
- Gathering (public, not private)
- Reading of The Word
- Sermon – exposition and application of the Word read
- Common Prayers
- Communion
- Prayers, thanksgiving, hymns
- Offering
Music was one aspect of worship, but only one. And what I find interesting, and what is germane to our time together today, is that giving was considered a constituent part of that time of worship.
It is true that over time, some of these elements have taken more or less prominence in various times and places, but especially on the heels of the Reformation – this pattern was given great emphasis once again.
Even then, there were discussions about the details of each element.
For instance, in Calvin’s Geneva, they originally celebrated communion only once a year. Calvin argued for doing it every week. So after much debate, the compromise was struck to have it 4 times a year. Since the Bible does not require a specific number of times it MUST be done, this has been left to local discretion – but that it NEEDS to be done is without argument.
The thinking behind worship as they were seeking to recover it from Romanism in particular was: NOT, what makes worship enjoyable to me? But rather, what seems most pleasing to God? – especially given the way He structured worship in ancient Israel.
But for our consideration today, we want to ask why did giving take such a key role in the early Church so as to be considered an essential part of worship?
And the answer is really as old as Genesis 4.
For it is in Genesis 4 that we have our first recorded act of worship and the form it takes is most instructive.
Genesis 4:1–5 “Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.” 2 And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. 3 In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4 and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell.”
What is useful to note here is, that the bringing of “offerings” to God, is as old as humanity itself.
This is worship as recorded in its most primitive state. And from the very get go, the idea of bringing to God, and offering up to Him part of what He has provided for us in the fruit of our labors is not only central – it is almost the entire thing!
Frankly, I was shocked to go back and consider this this way. But there it is.
And it does not stop there. For as the Bible unfolds, this pattern is not only demonstrated in all of the Patriarchs, but is then commanded by God Himself in the instituting of Worship among His people Israel.
As an example among the patriarchs, we have Abraham’s “tithe” in Genesis 14:18–20 “And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) 19 And he blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; 20 and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!” And Abram gave him a tenth of everything.”
And then we have God’s specific instructions to Israel throughout the Pentateuch: Exodus 23:14–19a “Three times in the year you shall keep a feast to me. 15 You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. As I commanded you, you shall eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt. None shall appear before me empty-handed. 16 You shall keep the Feast of Harvest, of the firstfruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field. You shall keep the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor. 17 Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God. 18 “You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, or let the fat of my feast remain until the morning. 19 “The best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God. Also – Ex 34:20
In Exodus 25:1–2 When they were building the Tabernacle in the Wilderness, “The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Speak to the people of Israel, that they take for me a contribution. From every man whose heart moves him you shall receive the contribution for me.”
And then in Exodus 30:11–16 “The Lord said to Moses, 12 “When you take the census of the people of Israel, then each shall give a ransom for his life to the Lord when you number them, that there be no plague among them when you number them. 13 Each one who is numbered in the census shall give this: half a shekel…half a shekel as an offering to the Lord. 14 Everyone who is numbered in the census, from twenty years old and upward, shall give the Lord’s offering. 15 The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less, than the half shekel, when you give the Lord’s offering to make atonement for your lives. 16 You shall take the atonement money from the people of Israel and shall give it for the service of the tent of meeting, that it may bring the people of Israel to remembrance before the Lord, so as to make atonement for your lives.”
Now we could multiply examples like this easily into the dozens in the OT, all to show how it is that tithes, offerings and sacrifices were absolutely central to the life, and especially the Worship of God’s people.
Sadly – and in some ways justifiably, due to the wretched abuses of money-mongers and opportunists in our day, the topic of giving has become a sore spot with many in the Church. Understandably.
But just as with the abuse of any other legitimate thing, we do not abandon or deny the legitimate – BECAUSE there are abuses.
I’ve yet to see or hear it argued that because modern society abuses sex, therefore Christians ought to reject all marital obligations and privileges.
And because there are those who criminally extract money from people under the guise of religion, is no argument to ignore the God instituted aspect of the giving of our means in worship!
Indeed, as a central part of true and Biblical worship.
But almost as soon as any Church or Church leader addresses the issue of giving, you can almost be certain someone will raise an objection, based upon the abuses of others.
Having established that giving – offerings is a Biblically centralized part of worship – let’s think through why it is so and how that might look to us in our current setting – whether you are in this particular church, or any other.
Going back to our first example in Cain and Abel, we see that before anything else, giving as part of corporate worship was:
1 An act of Recognition. Because God is Lord, and gives all to us, and deserves all – we honor Him in our offerings.
It is the root of the word worship itself: WORSHIP. ‘Worship’ (Old English ‘weorthscipe’=‘worth-ship’) originally referred to the action of human beings in expressing homage to God because he is worthy of it.
- H. Marshall, “Worship,” ed. D. R. W. Wood et al., New Bible Dictionary (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 1250.
Note, God does not actually gain by anything we give.
We enter into something greater in our giving, He doesn’t.
But this is also why giving is never to be perfunctory or looked at like an ecclesiastical tax or a mere duty.
The giving of our offerings is meant to be a spiritual act of recognizing God AS God, and paying homage to Him as is due His name. And what is more fitting than, that by those things which we consider valuable? It demonstrates that count Him more valuable, than even our money.
2 An act of Thanksgiving. – Having reflected on God’s goodness and provision. Psalm 56:12–13 “I must perform my vows to you, O God; I will render thank offerings to you. 13 For you have delivered my soul from death, yes, my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of life.”
It appears that this is what was behind Abram’s tithe to Melchizedek in Gen. 14. After being given the ability to defeat the 5 kings and recover those who had been kidnapped – Abram wanted to make a gesture of his deep gratitude for the success of the mission.
Once again this is a pattern repeated throughout the Bible.
It is NOT repayment – any more than a thank you note is repayment for a gift. But it IS a fitting acknowledgement.
Have you thanked your God today for His gifts, provisions and blessings?
3 An act of Imitation. – God so loved He gave / Alms especially
We note how in John 3:16, the Holy Spirit marks out the chief means whereby God has demonstrated His love to us – it is in the giving of what is most precious to Him – on our behalf.
And as we are being conformed to the image of Christ, so we seek to have the same spirit of generosity.
When Paul was addressing the Ephesian leadership in Acts 20 he reminds them Acts 20:35 “In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
And this especially as we give to the local Church and put funds into the hands of the Deacons to minister to those who may be in need among us.
4 An act of Participation. – Providing for the declaration of His Word and the public worship of His name in the world / Local assembly, preaching and teaching, missions / How your giving impacts others both here and around the world.
Numbers 18:8–12 “Then the Lord spoke to Aaron, “Behold, I have given you charge of the contributions made to me, all the consecrated things of the people of Israel. I have given them to you as a portion and to your sons as a perpetual due. 9 This shall be yours of the most holy things, reserved from the fire: every offering of theirs, every grain offering of theirs and every sin offering of theirs and every guilt offering of theirs, which they render to me, shall be most holy to you and to your sons. 10 In a most holy place shall you eat it. Every male may eat it; it is holy to you. 11 This also is yours: the contribution of their gift, all the wave offerings of the people of Israel. I have given them to you, and to your sons and daughters with you, as a perpetual due. Everyone who is clean in your house may eat it. 12 All the best of the oil and all the best of the wine and of the grain, the firstfruits of what they give to the Lord, I give to you.”
5 An act of Sanctification. – In combating materialism and greed. How can we forget Paul’s words of carefulness to Timothy?: 1 Timothy 6:10 “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.”
And in our materialistic society of affluence, how the love of money wends its way into our hearts and minds without our even being aware of it often.
So one practical way we have of combatting this sinful tendency, is to be regular, generous and cheerful givers.
6 An act of Devotion. – Your heart and treasure. Matthew 6:19–21 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
What is true is this, if I will not give freely of my money to the Lord and His cause in the earth, neither have I given Him much of my heart.
These 2 correspond with frightening clarity.
7 An act of Faith. – Believing God will provide, when I willingly give of my own things. The Lukan version of what we just cited in Matthew teases that out just scooch more: Luke 12:32–34 “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
NOTE: NOT TO THE NEGLECT OF OBLIGATIONS. Our creditors are not called to walk by faith, WE are! When we have obliged ourselves to others in debt, it is most honoring to God to be sure they are paid in a timely fashion.
If we foolishly done so, so as to negatively impact our ability to worship God freely in our giving, then we are under an obligation to discharge that debt as quickly as possible so that we CAN get back to honoring God freely in our giving.
And I want to remind you all here that under the New Covenant, we are not bound to the tithe or 10% requirement of Jewish economy. That said, we are not bound either to come up to 10%, nor to drop down to 10%. We are to pray about this and think hard about how to best manage our money in ways that accomplish God’s will and purposes in it – thoughtfully making provision accordingly.
Before we close – let us very quickly address some FALSE REASONS for GIVING, or what I might call – “anti-giving”.
We do not give as unto the Lord when we give:
- To get more or other
- To get God to do what we want Him to
- To be seen by others as righteous or generous
- Out of pure obligation – as appears to be part of the issue with Cain & Abel
- Begrudgingly – under guilt or duress
- Stingily – Poor, defective or leftovers – merely out of our excess. Cain (the Hebrew implies) just brought “some” of the fruit of the field, where as Abel brought from the firstborn and the fat of his flock.
God complains to Israel in Malachi 1:6–8 “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says the LORD of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. But you say, ‘How have we despised your name?’ 7 By offering polluted food upon my altar. But you say, ‘How have we polluted you?’ By saying that the LORD’s table may be despised. 8 When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not evil? And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil? Present that to your governor; will he accept you or show you favor? says the LORD of hosts.”
In other words, giving God our leftovers.
7. Purely out of excess. Never costly. When David sought to buy the threshing floor of Araunah to offer a sacrifice to stop the pestilence God sent upon Israel for David’s numbering them contrary to God’s will – Araunah offered to give him the land free of charge.
The account reads: 2 Samuel 24:20–24 “And when Araunah looked down, he saw the king and his servants coming on toward him. And Araunah went out and paid homage to the king with his face to the ground. 21 And Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” David said, “To buy the threshing floor from you, in order to build an altar to the LORD, that the plague may be averted from the people.” 22 Then Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take and offer up what seems good to him. Here are the oxen for the burnt offering and the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for the wood. 23 All this, O king, Araunah gives to the king.” And Araunah said to the king, “May the LORD your God accept you.” 24 But the king said to Araunah, “No, but I will buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God that cost me nothing.”
I wonder how much if ever, our giving to the Lord crosses over into being something that actually “costs” us something?
Now 2 things seem evident here, and with these I’ll close.
- It is important for each of us as individual Christians to think and pray through how it is we will intentionally worship God in our giving.
- It will be important for the leadership here at ECF, to examine how we should, in practical ways make giving a true and integral part of our corporate worship, and not treat it like the ugly step-child it so often is.
May we worship Him rightly, with all that we have, and all that we are. He IS worthy!
The next time you think about you own habits of worship – and pass by the offering box, or someone passes the plate – or whatever form giving to the cause of Christ in this present world takes its shape – let the feeling in our hearts, and the words on our lips as we give be: 2 Corinthians 9:15 “Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!”
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SIN
The Problem with it
The Consequences of it
The Cure for it
AUDIO FOR THIS SERMON CAN BE FOUND HERE
Scripture Readings: 1 Timothy 1:12-17 / Romans 5:12-21
1 THE PROBLEM: In 1988 – Dr. Karl Menninger, a renowned secular Psychiatrist wrote a bestselling book” “Whatever Became of sin?”
In it, he argued that the scientific community, including Psychologists and Psychiatrists have been abandoning the idea of moral responsibility by trying to locate all sorts of aberrant behaviors in things like genetics and environment.
Following Freud’s lead that guilt is at the bottom of most mental and emotional distress – the scientific community sought to eliminate guilt altogether.
This has been approached 2 main ways.
Greatly simplifying, Freud’s main approach was to teach his patients that guilt is a purely social construct. Since guilt is man-made, we simply help people realize that everything they do is natural to them, or conditioned upon their upbringing, and so not to feel guilty about any of it.
Others have tried to eliminate guilt for moral responsibility by investing everything in our being nothing more than highly evolved animals, and so our “sinful” desires are simply part of our genetic make-up.
This is why there has been so much attention given to the supposed genetic factors for everything from drunkenness to homosexuality.
If it’s all in your genes, moral questions simply cease to exist.
Menninger was arguing – as a secular mental-health professional no less, that guilt is real, moral responsibility is real – and we feel guilty because we actually sin and need some means to be forgiven and cleansed from our guilt.
He wasn’t a Christian, but he understood this truth.
The sad reality today is that even in the Church, this medical model of dealing with guilt has crept in more and more. And so we hear precious little of “sin” as though it has something to do with our moral responsibility before God and man, and just talk about our errors, mistakes or brokenness, and not the need to confess our sin, repent of it and look to the forgiveness of real cosmic crimes against God in the cleansing blood of Jesus.
When we think of sin – IF we think of sin – in today’s world, the thought that comes most often to mind is merely imperfection or error.
What does not strike most of us is that sin is first and foremost a personal affront to God.
When we fail to acknowledge our sins before Him, we begin to follow a thought pattern that treats sin lightly, and fails to account for sin being a personal affront to our Lord and Savior.
We treat it like the World does – as some sort of mere “legal” matter.
But sin is not first and foremost a legal matter.
Sin, above all other things, is a personal offense to our God’s holy nature.
We offend Him when we sin – personally.
And that issue needs to be addressed.
It might be helpful here to give a definition of sin from the Biblical descriptions of it.
1 John 5:17a – “All wrongdoing is sin,”
Westminster Larger Cat. Question 24 – What is sin? Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, any law of God, given as a rule to the reasonable creature.
Martin Bucer: “Sin is the Scriptural name for our going astray by forsaking the only God, who is man’s highest good, in order to pursue unsubstantial and ruinous phantoms of the good.”
SIN IS: Any violation of God’s will, or of His created order, and the corruption that follows because of it.
To let sin go, is to ignore Him – to treat Him as though He does not matter.
As though our slaps to His holy face are inconsequential.
As though our denials of who and what He is by failing to display His glory – mean nothing.
As though the cross, means little.
That Jesus died for nothing, after all – sin is such a little deal, we don’t even need to make amends when we commit it against Him.
I heard it argued a while back that it seems odd that God would bring such judgment upon the human race simply for stealing an apple.
Of course that thought completely misses the picture.
The taking of the forbidden fruit in Eden was not in and of itself merely an act of disobedience – which is the 1st definition of sin – though it was – even if considered by some to be a minor one.
The real issue is that Adam was trying to dethrone God by eating the forbidden fruit. He was trying to be like God himself.
What made Adam’s sin, and consequently all of ours so heinous, is that in them, in each one of them, from the smallest to the greatest we are saying to God “you have no right to rule me, and I will make myself the rule of all right and wrong – I AM GOD for me. I displace your authority, with my own.
As Morgan Freeman put it when asked about playing God in the movie Bruce Almighty: “I am God. So it’s easy to play him. They say God is in all things. So if God is in me, then I am in God. Therefore, I am God. God does not exist without me.”
It is as R. C. Sproul is wont to say: “Cosmic Treason.” NOT, some mere infraction or error.
This is the 1st aspect of sin – in that it is located in our ACTS.
But the Bible paints sin as going deeper. As the older theologians used to say, “We aren’t sinners, because we sin, we sin, because we are sinners!”
In other words, we commit sinful acts in opposition to God’s laws and the nature with which we were created, but we are also constitutionally sinners as a result of being joined to Adam.
We have Sin as ACTS of disobedience or neglect, and
We have Sin as CONDTION – what the Bible terms “iniquity” – inner warpedness.
We are infected with this plague of self-government. And every place it shows itself, it is one more place we are attempting to remove God from His rightful throne, and install ourselves there.
Now the finer points of this reality get teased out throughout the Bible, but in no place better than in the healing miracles of Jesus.
We’ll explore those in a moment, but let me add the 3rd way the Bible speaks of sin and sinners to clarify a common misunderstanding.
- Ours sinful ACTS – Isaiah 53:5–6 “But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 6 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.”
- Our sinful CONDITION – inherited from Adam – Ephesians 2:3c “and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”
- Our sinful STATUS – Condemned as sinners – 1 Timothy 1:15 “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”
In salvation:
- Our sinful ACTS are forgiven: Colossians 1:13–14 “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
- Our sinful CONDITION is impacted (as we’ll see below) but not yet fully changed: 1 Timothy 1:15 “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” I AM, not I WAS!
- Our sinful STATUS is radically different: Galatians 3:26 “for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.”
Some have thought because our acts have been forgiven, and our status changed from enemies to sons, that we also no longer identify in any way as “sinners”.
What they forget is that our CONDITION, while greatly impacted, is not yet fully changed. This is why Paul writes as he does in 1 Timothy 1:15
What is still needed is the resurrection: 1 Corinthians 15:42–45 “So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.”
True, all believers are even NOW, “sons of God” – and yet we still possess a sinful nature which we must own, that causes us to be both saints and sinners at the same time. Denying our sinfulness and condition as still sinners, who still commit acts of sin, fails to account for our real situation and brings confusion.
This brings us back to our main consideration for this morning – what has sin done, and what has God done about it in Jesus Christ?
2 THE CONSEQUENCES: Why is sin so bad? A survey of Christ’s healing miracles helps us immensely here in grasping this.
Since all pain and suffering and disorder came into the world because of sin – we can use the healing miracles to give insight into the effects of sin in the soul as well as in the body.
When each is viewed as a type, as another way in which sin impacts us as God’s image-bearers, it really begins to open the fullness of our need of a Savior in graphic reality.
In each one, a display is made of how sin corrupts us in every way, and why we are then in such dire need of a true Savior, who can save us not only from the guilt of our sin, but from its effects and mastery in our lives, and one day, from its very presence.
FEVER: Sin is CONSTITUTIONAL: We have a good picture of this in Jesus twice healing someone of fever: Nobleman’s Son (John 4) – Peter’s Mother-in-Law (Mark 1)
What does sin in us do?
a – It affects all ages of men, and appears on the surface in greater and lesser degrees.
b – It impacts the whole being, and especially, how it brings on delirium and a loss of reality. Sin infects our thought process so as to no longer perceive reality from God’s perspective – it distorts all.
We cannot know God while under its unchallenged influence.
BLINDNESS: Jesus heals 2 men (Matt. 9 ) – 1 Man (Mark 8) – 1 Born Blind (John 9) – Bartimaeus (Mark 10)
Sin robs us the ability to see truth. Much like fever but even worse. So Jesus says in John 8 that those who follow Him are no longer in darkness. The implication being that those who do not follow Him are in darkness – are blind!
Paul notes in 2 Corinthians 4:3–4 “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
LEPROSY: 1 Man (Mark 1) – 10 at One Time (Luke 17)
Sin is both incurable, and fatal, it infects each man, and all men
And as everywhere in Scripture, Leprosy is represented as defiling the sufferer – making them unclean to God and man.
It separates in this way – from God, from Others, from Love, from Nature.
PARALYSIS: Withered Hand (Mark 3) – Centurion’s Servant (Matt. 8) – At Home (Mark 2)
Sin completely robs us capability to serve God Christ.
Isaiah 64:6a “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.”
IMPOTENCE: Weakness (38 yrs.) – At Bethesda (John 5) & Lameness
Sin does not always appear on the surface, Unapparent & Long Term
And because of it we cannot walk in holiness.
ISSUE OF BLOOD: Woman (12 yrs.) (Mark 5)
Sin is Internal & Chronic – again, uncleanness is emphasized.
Humanly incurable – she spent all her living on doctors.
DROPSY: – (Luke 14) Edema
Sin is Disfiguring. It distorts the image of God we were created in.
HEARING AND SPEECH: / 1 Man (Mark 7)
Our inability to hear God anymore, and a complete inability to worship Him in any capacity.
INJURY: / Malchus (Luke 22)
Man was made brutal in the fall and inflicts wounds on others, visible and invisible.
DEMON POSSESSION: Matt. 4, 7, 8, 9, 12, 15 17
Man left to himself is prey to the evil spirits, the fallen angels and the Devil himself. So Paul says Ephesians 2:1–3 “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 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— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”
DEATH: Jesus raised 3 from the dead in His earthly ministry – to show the truest and worst example of our condition in sin.
This is why cannot take sin lightly in any way.
Its treasonous rebellion against God and His right rule
Its manifest destruction of the bodies and souls of those made in His image
And its utter and just condemnation by our Holy God.
III. THE CURE: But then, as we have looked at all of these examples of what sin is and does – think then what a great Redeemer Christ is – and how great this salvation is that the Believer is a partaker of!
In Christ the delirium of our FEVER has been lifted that we might know God in Truth
BLINDNESS: Christ heals our blindness that we might behold the glory of God in His face
LEPROSY: The defiling and incurable leprosy of our souls is cleansed that we might have fellowship with God and His people once more.
PARALYSIS: We are set free to do the good works He prepared for us to walk in.
IMPOTENCE: He empowers us that we might walk before Him in holiness.
ISSUE OF BLOOD: He overcomes the internal raging infection which makes us unclean in all we do.
DROPSY: He removes the soul-dropsy and begins conforming us once more to the image of His own character that had been so distorted.
HEARING AND SPEECH: We can begin to hear His Word and praise His glory – bearing witness to His goodness and grace.
INJURY: He grants us a forgiving spirit to heal the wounds others have inflicted upon us.
DEMON POSSESSION: He frees us from the dreadful influence of the World and the Devil.
DEATH: And He raises us up from the dead! Ephesians 2:5 “even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—“
Oh what a redeemer Christ is!
What a wicked and destructive thing sin is – but what an amazing Savior we have who overcomes its every vestige.
LXII. The good Physician – John Newton
HOW lost was my condition, Till Jesus made me whole!
There is but one Physician Can cure a sin-sick soul!
Next door to death he found me, And snatch’d me from the grave,
To tell to all around me, His wond’rous pow’r to save.
The worst of all diseases Is light, compar’d with sin;
On ev’ry part it seizes, But rages most within:
’Tis palsy, plague, and fever, And madness, all combin’d;
And none but a believer The least relief can find.
From men great skill professing I thought a cure to gain;
But this prov’d more distressing, And added to my pain:
Some said that nothing ail’d me, Some gave me up for lost;
Thus ev’ry refuge fail’d me, And all my hopes were cross’d.
At length this great Physician, How matchless is his grace!
Accepted my petition, And undertook my case:
First gave me sight to view him, For sin my eyes had seal’d;
Then bid me look unto him; I look’d, and I was heal’d.
A dying, risen Jesus, Seen by the eye of faith,
At once from danger frees us, And saves the soul from death:
Come then to this Physician, His help he’ll freely give,
He makes no hard condition, ’Tis only—look and live.
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The second stanza of the poem below is one I’ve had inscribed on the flyleaf of my Bible for nearly 20 years. It wasn’t until today that I happened upon the entire text as recorded in Vol 3 of Newtons works containing the “Olney Hymns”. Newton prefaced this collection of his poems to be sung in worship with the following words: “If the Lord, whom I serve, has been pleased to favour me with that mediocrity of talent, which may qualify me for usefulness to the weak and the poor of his flock, without quite disgusting persons of superior discernment, I have reason to be satisfied.”
I will own being one of the weak and poor of Christ’s flock, who have found this useful. May you as well.
LXII. The good Physician
1 HOW lost was my condition,
Till Jesus made me whole!
There is but one Physician
Can cure a sin-sick soul!
Next door to death he found me,
And snatch’d me from the grave,
To tell to all around me,
His wond’rous pow’r to save.2 The worst of all diseases
Is light, compar’d with sin;
On ev’ry part it seizes,
But rages most within:
’Tis palsy, plague, and fever,
And madness, all combin’d;
And none but a believer
The least relief can find.3 From men great skill professing
I thought a cure to gain;
But this prov’d more distressing,
And added to my pain:
Some said that nothing ail’d me,
Some gave me up for lost;
Thus ev’ry refuge fail’d me,
And all my hopes were cross’d.4 At length this great Physician,
How matchless is his grace!
Accepted my petition,
And undertook my case:
First gave me sight to view him,
For sin my eyes had seal’d;
Then bid me look unto him;
I look’d, and I was heal’d.5 A dying, risen Jesus,
Seen by the eye of faith,
At once from danger frees us,
And saves the soul from death:
Come then to this Physician,
His help he’ll freely give,
He makes no hard condition,
’Tis only—look and live.
Newton, John & Richard Cecil. 1824. The Works of John Newton. . Vol. 3. London: Hamilton, Adams & Co. -
DIVINE PROVIDENCE
Psalm 138. Psalm 104. Daniel 4:33-37. Isa. 45:1-7. Romans 8:28.
THE AUDIO FOR THIS SERMON CAN BE FOUND HERE
One of the topics in this present request series I’ve been asked to address is the doctrine of Providence.
Since this is the theme for this year’s Sunday School, Ben thought it good, and so did I to give some foundation to what many of your children will be exploring this year.
This morning I want to look at 4 things:
The Doctrine of Providence Stated – 8:28
The Context in Which Providence Functions – 8:29
The Means by which it is Accomplished – 8:26-27
The Necessary Participation of the Believer – 8:12-18
- The Doctrine Stated – 8:28
The simplest and best statement of the Doctrine of Providence is in this text itself: Romans 8:28 “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
And how that is to be precisely understood has been noted by virtually every theologian throughout the centuries.
Charles Hodge: God’s works of providence are his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures and all their actions.
John Flavel: “The expression imports the universal interest and influence of providence in, and upon all the concerns and interests of the saints. It hath not only its hand in this or that, but in all that concerns them: it hath its eyes upon every tiling that relates to them throughout their lives, from first to last; not only great and more important, but the most minute and ordinary affairs of our lives are transacted and managed by it: it touches all things that touch us, whether more nearly or remotely.”
Wayne Grudem: We may define God’s providence as follows: God is continually involved with all created things in such a way that he (1) keeps them existing and maintaining the properties with which he created them; (2) cooperates with created things in every action, directing their distinctive properties to cause them to act as they do; and (3) directs them to fulfill his purposes.
Before we got too far – NOTE: The text does not say all things ARE good in and of themselves.
Positively: What is being said is that all things – BOTH good and bad, are so governed by God, as to be made to work for the good of those who are His own.
Negatively: There is no such thing as chance (accident), randomness or fate in a universe personally administrated by God.
So in this, we retain the reality that there really are both good AND bad things that happen to God’s people. God orchestrating them for our good does not negate the reality of truly bad and evil things.
Unfortunately, some have erred in this regard, and turn God’s providence into fatalism – since God is directing everything anyway, and since I have no say in it, therefore I am not responsible for my own actions.
Or, they lose the ability to call anything evil, since in their minds – God stands in exactly the same relationship to sinful actions by men and demons as He does to making the sun rise and the rain to fall.
So some get caught in a confusion that leaves them knowing some things are bad, but think they have to deny that in order to be theologically correct.
But the Bible NEVER excuses any person’s acts on the basis of God’s sovereign providence or control, nor does it deny the reality of evil.
The amazing wonder is, God rules in such a way that even the free actions of men are comprehended within His plan and ultimate purposes, but not so as to rob anyone of true moral responsibility.
To err here is to make a real hash of all sound theology and make God a puppet master or monster, or even the author of evil itself.
By the doctrine of God’s providence, what we are acknowledging is God’s actual and personal governance in everything which takes place within His universe. Nothing and no one, is exempt.
- The Context in Which Providence Functions – 8:29
Romans 8:29 “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
What we see here, is that there is orchestration in all events which impact Believers – a working together – not each individual part being the whole. One particular circumstance is not to be evaluated on its own, apart from other things.
This orchestration is aimed primarily at one thing: Conforming the Believer to the image of Christ!
So in this regard, we see Providence as multi-faceted, and we MUST NOT try attach a specific 1-to-1 reason for each and every circumstance.
This is essential in facing adverse circumstances of all kinds without getting driven crazy by: “If I only knew WHY this happened!”
Trying to do this has made many a soul almost mad in trying to figure it out.
We must go far beyond that in taking into account the myriad of reasons Scripture reveals for some things. For example:
Some events and circumstances can be seen to bless in immediately pleasing ways. The aesthetics of nature. Food tasting good. Beauty. Music. Wine and oil (Ps. 104) , crops that yield.
Some events and circumstances are used to challenge us in unpleasant ways – testing in temptation that we might grow in grace. To build faith – as trusting in God’s character and promises.
Some events and circumstance help wean us away from loving this present life too much, and living without regard for the future promised After the resurrection.
Some events and circumstances reveal the fallenness and brokenness of this present world and the horrid results of sin.
Some events and circumstances are meant to be precursors to final judgment.
Some events and circumstances are designed to reveal hitherto undiscovered sin in the soul so it may be dealt with.
Some events and circumstances serve to strip away all self-confidence that we might rely wholly upon Christ.
Some events and circumstances are meant to reveal God’s care and intervention in the miraculous.
Some events and circumstances are meant to disabuse us of mistaken notions of God and His Word.
Voddie Baucham: “God wants me happy, and I don’t believe God would want me to stay in a marriage and be unhappy. Are you serious? ” “Let me see if I understand this correctly: Jesus Christ, the spotless, sinless Lamb of God, was crushed and killed for the glory of the Father, but you, He wouldn’t want unhappy.
Some events and circumstances are meant to have impact beyond a single actor (like myself) but upon all those connected to it. God used Moses to mold the nation of Israel, and He used the people of Israel to mold Moses. Both are true. Assigning all of God’s work to just one or the other misses the point.
And many events may be a mixture of any combination of these, and/or other purposes in the mind of God – BUT ALL AIMED AT OUR CONFORMITY TO CHRIST.
Looking for a specific lesson beyond this central purpose from an individual experience – may be truly futile.
The more general realities must take precedence.
3.The Means by which it is accomplished – 8:26-27
Romans 8:26–27 “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”
How do all of these things work together for the Believer? They do so as the Holy Spirit, intercedes for us in always praying in accord with The Father’s will in our regard – even when we can only pray with the immediate facts at hand. When we do not know how to pray best in our circumstance.
What an amazing thing this is!
The Spirit’s prayers on our behalf is something mysterious to contemplate.
In reality, this is nothing other than a reference to the internal dialog of the Triune Godhead over the cares, concerns and needs of God’s people.
It is an amazing thing to imagine isn’t it? That the God who spoke the universe into existence gives so much attention to we lowly and often rebellious creatures – but it is true. And if the Bible didn’t affirm it, it would be almost unthinkable.
This is the extraordinary comfort and joy of the true Believer in Jesus Christ.
- The Necessary Participation of the Believer – 8:12-18
Romans 8:12–18 “So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. 18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”
The fact that God in His infinite and sovereign goodness, provides for us in all circumstances, does not mean we are somehow exempt from needing to enter into them purposefully in order to obtain their benefit.
There is something of the Believer’s responsibility in it, to take advantage of the circumstances in faith – with God’s purpose (conformity to Christ’s image and the display of His glory) as the background.
Look at the text.
- (12-13) We must be choosing to live for God’s spiritual ends in our circumstances, and not be bound to just the externals of the circumstances themselves.
To live as though things are just good or bad based upon how we feel about them is to live according to the flesh – and that is death!
It is NOT living the divine life He has given to us.
2. (13-14) We must not allow adverse or tempting circumstances to draw us back into sin – but use them as occasions to die to those sinful ways. The Spirit never leads anyone into sin. NEVER!
3. (15-17) We must look to the Father consciously in all of our various circumstances. Recognizing we are heirs with Christ and destined for glory.
4. (18) We must consciously compare our present distresses with the coming glory so that we are not mastered by them.
Yes, God makes the rain to fall and provides the sun to shine and thus grains and fruits and vegetables grow – but we must harvest them, prepare them and consume them to receive the benefit of the sovereign provision He makes.
And it is just so with His providence in our circumstances.
The question is – in the events of life, both good and bad –
Do I run to Christ?
Do I trust Christ?
Do I look to overcome sin?
Do I look to grow in grace and in the image of Christ’s character?
Am I considering the eternal state to come while wrestling with the present circumstances?
How can I use this to bless others?
A Warning: The problem of trying to “read” providence as omens and signs.
We can only really understand Providence AFTERWARDS, not before it unfolds.
PROVERB: Once there was a Chinese farmer who worked his poor farm together with his son and their horse.
When the horse ran off one day, neighbors came to say, “How unfortunate for you!”
The farmer replied, “Maybe yes, maybe no.”
When the horse returned, followed by a herd of wild horses, the neighbors gathered around and exclaimed, “What good luck for you!”
The farmer stayed calm and replied, “Maybe yes, maybe no.”
While trying to tame one of wild horses, the farmer’s son fell, and broke his leg. He had to rest up and couldn’t help with the farm chores. “How sad for you,” the neighbors cried.
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” said the farmer.
Shortly thereafter, a neighboring army threatened the farmer’s village. All the young men in the village were drafted to fight the invaders. Many died. But the farmer’s son had been left out of the fighting because of his broken leg. People said to the farmer, “What a good thing your son couldn’t fight!” “Maybe yes, maybe no,” was all the farmer said.
Just because you suddenly connected with an old flame on Facebook, is not God’s indication you should leave your spouse and go be with them.
We must go by Biblical principles, and not try to read providence like a crystal ball.
EXAMPLE: Luke 13:1–5 “There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? 3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. 4 Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
God in His glorious goodness, causes all things to work together for the good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
This is the wonder of the joy and security of the saints. It is part and parcel of His personal administration of everything within His creation.
But if you are not one of His today – this truth is not yours except in the sense that you experience what you do in order to drive you to Christ for salvation.
In contrast to the Believer’s assurance – the Apostle Paul outlines your condition in Ephesians 2:11–12 – the same condition we are ALL in until we come to Christ: “Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”
What a terrifying place to be. But let me add one word of providence on your behalf: Acts 17:24–27 “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us”
By His Providence, God has infused every moment and experience of your life, to bring you to the place where you will call upon Him to be saved from your sin – won’t you run to Him today?
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The subject of spiritual maturityought to beIS one in which every Christian has a vital interest. If God’s stated purpose for us in our redemption, is conformity to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29). And if Eph. 4:15 exhorts us to “grow up every way into Him who is the head, into Christ.” And if 1 Peter 2:2 reminds us “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation” – there is no question that attention must be paid to this crucial aspect of our salvation.But what does that look like?Once again, John Newton in his sweet and masterful way, notes 3 key concepts for leading the heart and mind of the Believer in a mature stability in the ways of Christ.Enjoy this short letter to his friend.“WEAK, unskilful, and unfaithful, as I am in practice, the Lord has been pleased to give me some idea of what a Christian ought to be, and of what is actually attainable in the present life, by those whom he enables earnestly to aspire towards the prize of their high calling. They who are versed in mechanics can, from a knowledge of the combined powers of a complicated machine, make an exact calculation of what it is able to perform, and what resistance it can counteract; but who can compute the possible effects of that combination of principles and motives revealed in the Gospel, upon a heart duly impressed with a sense of their importance and glory? When I was lately at Mr. Cox’s Museum, while I was fixing my attention upon some curious movements, imagining that I saw the whole of the artist’s design, the person who showed it touched a little spring, and suddenly a thousand new and unexpected motions took place, and the whole piece seemed animated from the top to the bottom. I should have formed but a very imperfect judgment of it, had I seen no more than what I saw at first. I thought it might in some measure illustrate the vast difference that is observable amongst professors, even amongst those who are, it is to be hoped, sincere. There are persons who appear to have a true knowledge (in part) of the nature of the Gospel religion, but seem not to be apprised of its properties in their comprehension and extent. If they have attained to some hope of their acceptance, if they find at seasons some communion with God in the means of grace, if they are in measure delivered from the prevailing and corrupt customs of the world, they seem to be satisfied, as if they were possessed of all. These are indeed great things; sed meliora latent. The profession of too many, whose sincerity charity would be unwilling to impeach, is greatly blemished, notwithstanding their hopes and their occasional comforts, by the breakings forth of unsanctified tempers, and the indulgence of vain hopes, anxious cares, and selfish pursuits. Far, very far, am I from that unscriptural sentiment of sinless perfection in fallen man. To those who have a due sense of the spirituality and ground of the Divine precepts, and of what passes in their own hearts, there will never be wanting causes of humiliation and self-abasement on the account of sin; yet still there is a liberty and privilege attainable by the Gospel, beyond what is ordinarily thought of. Permit me to mention two or three particulars, in which those who have a holy ambition of aspiring to them shall not be altogether disappointed.1. A delight in the Lord’s all-sufficiency, to be satisfied in him as our present and eternal portion. This, in the sense in which I understand it, is not the effect of a present warm frame, but of a deeply rooted and abiding principle; the habitual exercise of which is to be estimated by the comparative indifference with which other things are regarded. The soul thus principled is not at leisure to take or to seek satisfaction in anything but what has a known subserviency to this leading taste. Either the Lord is present, and then he is to be rejoiced in; or else he is absent, and then he is to be sought and waited for. They are to be pitied, who, if they are at sometimes happy in the Lord, can at other times be happy without him, and rejoice in broken cisterns, when their spirits are at a distance from the Fountain of living waters. I do not plead for an absolute indifference to temporal blessings: he gives us all things richly to enjoy; and a capacity of relishing them is his gift likewise; but then the consideration of his love in bestowing should exceedingly enhance the value, and a regard to his will should regulate their use. Nor can they all supply the want of that which we can only receive immediately from himself. This principle likewise moderates that inordinate fear and sorrow to which we are liable upon the prospect or the occurrence of great trials, for which there is a sure support and resource provided in the all-sufficiency of infinite goodness and grace. What a privilege is this, to possess God in all things while we have them, and all things in God when they are taken from us.2. An acquiescence in the Lord’s will, founded in a persuasion of his wisdom, holiness, sovereignty, and goodness.—This is one of the greatest privileges and brightest ornaments of our profession. So far as we attain to this, we are secure from disappointment. Our own limited views and short-sighted purposes and desires, may be, and will be, often over-ruled; but then our main and leading desire, that the will of the Lord may be done, must be accomplished. How highly does it become us, both as creatures and as sinners, to submit to the appointments of our Maker! and how necessary is it to our peace! This great attainment is too often unthought of, and overlooked: we are prone to fix our attention upon the second causes and immediate instruments of events; forgetting that whatever befalls us is according to his purpose, and therefore must be right and seasonable in itself, and shall in the issue be productive of good. From hence arise impatience, resentment, and secret repinings, which are not only sinful, but tormenting: whereas, if all things are in his hand; if the very hairs of our head are numbered; if every event, great and small, is under the direction of his providence and purpose; and if he has a wise, holy, and gracious end in view, to which everything that happens is subordinate and subservient; then we have nothing to do, but with patience and humility to follow as he leads, and cheerfully to expect a happy issue. The path of present duty is marked out; and the concerns of the next and every succeeding hour are in his hands. How happy are they who can resign all to him, see his hand in every dispensation, and believe that he chooses better for them than they possibly could for themselves.3. A single eye to his glory, as the ultimate scope of all our undertakings.—The Lord can design nothing short of his own glory, nor should we. The constraining love of Christ has a direct and marvellous tendency, in proportion to the measure of faith, to mortify the corrupt principle Self, which for a season is the grand spring of our conduct, and by which we are too much biased after we know the Lord. But as grace prevails, self is renounced. We feel that we are not our own, that we are bought with a price; and that it is our duty, our honour, and our happiness, to be the servants of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. To devote soul and body, every talent, power, and faculty, to the service of his cause and will; to let our light shine (in our several situations) to the praise of his grace; to place our highest joy in the contemplation of his adorable perfections; to rejoice even in tribulations and distresses, in reproaches and infirmities, if thereby the power of Christ may rest upon us, and be magnified in us; to be content, yea glad, to be nothing, that he may be all in all; to obey him, in opposition to the threats or solicitations of men; to trust him, though all outward appearances seem against us; to rejoice in him, though we should (as will sooner or later be the case) have nothing else to rejoice in; to live above the world, and to have our conversation in heaven; to be like the angels, finding our own pleasure in performing his:—This, my lord, is the prize, the mark of our high calling, to which we are encouraged with a holy ambition continually to aspire. It is true, we shall still fall short; we shall find that, when we would do good, evil will be present with us. But the attempt is glorious, and shall not be wholly in vain. He that gives us thus to will, will enable us to perform with growing success, and teach us to profit even by our mistakes and imperfections.O blessed man! that thus fears the Lord; that delights in his word, and derives his principles, motives, maxims, and consolations, from that unfailing source of light and strength. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, whose leaf is always green, and fruit abundant. The wisdom that is above shall direct his plans, inspire his counsels; and the power of God shall guard him on every side, and prepare his way through every difficulty: he shall see mountains sink into plains, and streams spring up in the dry wilderness. The Lord’s enemies will be his; and they may be permitted to fight against him, but they shall not prevail, for the Lord is with him to deliver him. The conduct of such a one, though in a narrow and retired sphere of life, is of more real excellence and importance, than the most splendid actions of kings and conquerors, which fill the annals of history, Prov. 16:32. And if the God whom he serves is pleased to place him in a more public light, his labours and cares will be amply compensated, by the superior opportunities afforded him of manifesting the power and reality of true religion, and promoting the good of mankind.I hope I may say, that I desire to be thus entirely given up to the Lord; I am sure I must say, that what I have written is far from being my actual experience. Alas! I might be condemned out of my own mouth, were the Lord strict to mark what is amiss. But, O the comfort! we are not under the law, but under grace. The Gospel is a dispensation for sinners, and we have an Advocate with the Father. There is the unshaken ground of hope. A reconciled Father, a prevailing Advocate, a powerful Shepherd, a compassionate Friend, a Saviour who is able and willing to save to the uttermost. He knows our frame; he remembers that we are but dust; and has opened for us a new and blood-besprinkled way of access to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in every time of need.Newton, John, Richard Cecil. 1824. The works of the John Newton. . Vol. 1. London: Hamilton, Adams & Co.
ResponsiveReiding 