ResponsiveReiding

Recently, I was privileged to the speak at the “Living in Hope, Preparing for Glory” Conference sponsored by the Evangelical Church of Fairport – and hosted by Webster Bible Church. The conference was the brain child of my friend and fellow elder of many years – Ken Beaton. And it was a conference dealing with end-of-life issues from various perspectives: Medical, Ethical, Personal, Spiritual, etc. The roster of speakers was terrific, including: Pastor Jim Luckey, Chaplain Bryan McMullen, Dr. Kate Butler, Dr. Brian Smith and Dr. John Dunlop.

It was a most informative and profitable time for myself, and I believe all who were there in person and watched online. Here is a link to the YouTube video of the entire conference.

My portion begins at about the 5 hour, 38 min. mark. But I thought I would give you the text of my portion below. May the Lord be pleased to bless you all with what each contributed to this solemn, necessary but often confusing subject.

We’ve heard so many useful things today about navigating the complex myriad of end of life issues. I am grateful for each one and all they’ve contributed.

And as we have heard, and know ourselves, there is much that is so uncertain in it all. 

So with a different emphasis, yet with absolute necessity, I want to close this section with the end of life issues which have direct, eternal implications. And to bring to bear some absolute certainties, in the light of what is so uncertain as we face these things with our loved ones – and ourselves.

I believe it is a necessary thing to take death out of the haze of the general way we tend to deal with it, look in the mirror and say to ourselves: “I am going to die.” “I, am going to die.” And so will you if Christ tarries. We need to say this to ourselves and live in the light of it. It is not morbid, it is reality.

That said, I’d like to look at just 2 verses in the NT – Hebrews 9:27–28 ESV

And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

The Writer here concerns himself with 4 certainties surrounding end of life issues.

And at the risk of sounding prosaic – note first:

1st. Certainty:  The Certainty of Death: “it is appointed for man to die once.”

J.I. Packer – God’s Plans for You Dying

“In today’s world death is the great unmentionable, just as physical sex was a hundred years ago. Apart from cynical paradings of a sense of life’s triviality (the Grateful Dead; “he who dies with the most toys wins”) and egoistic expressions of belief in reincarnation (the New Age; Shirley MacLaine), death is not ordinarily spoken of outside of medical circles. To invite discussion of it, even in the church, is felt to be bad form. It has become conventional to think as if we are all going to live in this world forever and to view every case of bereavement as a reason for doubting the goodness of God. We must all know deep down that this is ridiculous, but we do it all the same. And in doing it, we part company with the Bible, with historic Christianity, and with a basic principle of right living, namely, that only when you know how to die can you know how to live.

There is a great contrast here between past and present. In every century until our own, Christians saw this life as preparation for eternity. Medievals, Puritans, and later evangelicals thought and wrote much about the art of dying well, and they urged that all of life should be seen as preparation for leaving it behind. This was not otiose morbidity, but realistic wisdom, since death really is the one certain fact of life. Acting the ostrich with regard to it is folly to the highest degree.”

Should Christ tarry, not only WILL we all die – each of us here – but it is appointed so. Appointed by whom? By God.

Each of us here has an appointment with death, but at God’s direction.

Now there is nothing more common, than, when considering any appointment we may have in life – to prepare for it.

One of my most aggravating pet peeves, is one I regularly encounter at Wegman’s. You get into the checkout line, and the person in front of you finally has all of their items scanned and bagged: And then, as though it suddenly comes as a complete surprise, they must pay. And it isn’t until then that they finally rifle through their purse or reach for their wallet and fumble for payment and remember their stowed coupons. I don’t know what they imagined was going to happen at this moment – but for some odd reason they were entirely unprepared for it.

We seem to have an innate aversion to being prepared for the inevitable, even in the most mundane of circumstances. Let alone in this issue of the very highest importance.

But preparation ought to be a given for most things in life.

Anticipating an IRS audit, a school exam, a driver’s test – you name it. Basic common sense should have us preparing.

But how many of us are actually minded to prepare ourselves for the appointment in our text?

It is as though no such thing exists. As though death will simply take us by surprise, and maybe, if we don’t think about it at all – we can just avoid it all together.

But we must reckon with the fact that this is appointed for us by God.

It was appointed in judgment by reason of the Fall and our common sinfulness in Adam. So Rom. 5:12 “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—”

And, it was appointed in mercy, lest we live perpetually in these bodies  and in this world groaning from the effects of sin.

But the bottom line here at first is simply this: It is appointed for each one of us, and for all of those we know – to die. And that, just once.

Death comes many ways, old age, illness, accident, violence, etc.

The means may be uncertain – but the fact of it is absolutely so.

2nd Certainty:  The 2nd certainty in the text and what gives rise to the place where our preparation is most important: Is that while it is appointed for us all to die, so also it is appointed that immediately upon that death – “comes the judgment.”

Now by that I do not mean the final disposition of our souls. Jesus spoke to that in  John 5:24-29 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.”

What Jesus means here is connected to Jesus’ words in Luke 16 upon the account of the deaths of two men – one Lazarus and another unnamed. And in that portrayal, Jesus indicates each knew immediately upon death what their final disposition would be, and had begun to taste of it even then.

So the Apostle Paul can say that for the Christian, to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord, even though it is an incomplete thing as we await our resurrected bodies, never to die again. (2 Cor. 5; Philip 1)

Now here is where I need to ask you, are you prepared for this judgment?

If not, despite everything else, you are not prepared to die either.

Are you prepared to stand before the living God and give an account of every thought, every deed, every word spoken? Every motive.

Beloved, this is the most urgent thing of all. This is a certainty, as certain and as appointed by God as death itself – and it is of the highest importance that it be prepared for.

And let me state unequivocally that the Scripture knows of only 2 ways this can go.

Either you have put your trust in Jesus Christ as God incarnate – having died by God’s appointment on Calvary’s tree, as dying the death of God’s just wrath upon sin in your place – and receiving His righteousness by  faith, or you will stand nakedly by yourself, when Scripture declares that by the works of the Law – by doing good things – NO ONE IS JUSTIFIED or declared right with God.

So we read in Romans 3:23-26 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

Her name was Pat.

I was asked by a loving relative to visit her in hospice.

Just shy of 50, her time was short.

She was delightful. Smart. Attractive. And deeply religious. Moral. Upright. Just a lovely individual.

For nearly 30 years, she had gone to Mass every single day.

I asked how she felt about her impending death. And she told me she had fear. Especially about her acceptance with God.

I asked her if she knew the Gospel? She said no. She was just hoping she had been good enough.

So I asked if I might explain it to her, and she said yes.

As tears rolled down her cheeks, she found the Gospel almost too good to believe. That salvation didn’t depend upon her righteousness, but on the imputed righteousness of Christ who died as our substitute on the Cross. That sin was completely met in Him. 

Philippians 3:4–9 (ESV): If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.  Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ  and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith”

We prayed together, and I have true hope that I will get to see her again one day at the resurrection.

Understand, Pat knew that the time of her appointment with death was at hand. But she was not prepared for it. She was not “eagerly waiting for him.” She was filled with fear and trepidation.

She instinctively knew that 30 years of daily Mass-going and her very moral life was not sufficient to gain unworried acceptance with God.

She had reached the end of the checkout line, and was furiously ransacking her soul’s purse, only to find she had no cash, no check, no credit card – nothing. She hadn’t prepared.

Although in God’s providence, He had – in using a loved one to see that she at least heard the Gospel before her final hour. 

Just as your death and mine is a certainty, so is this judgment.

I plead with you today – prepare for it now. If you haven’t already, cry out to God for His mercy to redeem you today, and purge you from your guilt and sin by the blood of Jesus Christ.

3rd Certainty. But the passage is not done yet. There is a 3rd certainty mentioned here, and it is that “Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin.”

I need not linger long here, because of what I’ve already mentioned. But note that this return of Jesus is also appointed and certain.

And it is certain that His appearing the 2nd time will not be a second chance for any. He will not come to deal with sin like He did the first time.

He will come for the final reckoning I already cited in John 5:26–29 ESV

For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

It is necessary to be reminded of this because we are so prone to invent constructs that please us more than what the Scripture actually says. And so it is many imagine that there will be some chance after this present life – if they are not in right relationship with God now through Christ – that there is some sort or mythical second chance – or that when He comes again, they’ll have some opportunity to plead their case.

But as the context of this entire passage notes, Jesus died just once to deal with sin. He will not provide any other means of cleansing and forgiveness than what He has already done on the Cross. The sin issue is settled – and if we will not yield to His provision in it now by forsaking our sin, repenting now and turning to Him as savior and Lord – there will be no other opportunity at His return.

This, dear one is certain. It is appointed by God. We cannot change it. We cannot wish it to be different. As certain as it is that we are to die once and then comes the judgment, so certain it is that Christ WILL return to judge the whole world, and will not provide another opportunity to repent and believe the Gospel.

Oh, but there is such good news that is certain here too. And I would be most remiss if I neglected to point you to the 4th certainty in the passage.

4th Certainty:  Just as it is appointed for all to die once, and after that the judgment, so too is it appointed that the Christ having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear the second time, not to deal with sin.  But what is it certain He will appear for? “To save those who are eagerly waiting for Him.”

Christian – hear me! This is absolutely certain too. All those who have set their eternal, everlasting hope on Christ Jesus – eagerly waiting for Him – will suffer no disappointment. He will come! He will ultimately and fully redeem you and bring you to His own glory. Your faith is not in vain!

J.I. Packer – God’s Plans for You (Dying)

“For Christians, death’s sting is withdrawn. Grace has intervened, and now their death day becomes an appointment with their Savior, who will be there to take them to the rest prepared for them. Though they will be temporarily bodiless, which is not really good, they will be closer to Christ than ever before, “which is better by far” (Phil. 1:23).3. Since believers do not know when Christ will come for them, readiness to leave this world at any time is vital Christian wisdom. Each day should find us like children looking forward to their holidays, who get packed up and ready to go a long time in advance…Dying well is one of the good works to which Christians are called, and Christ will enable us who serve him to die well, however gruesome the physical process itself. And dying thus, in Christ, through Christ, and with Christ, will be a spiritual blossoming. As being born into this temporal world was our initial birthday, and as being born into God’s spiritual kingdom was our second birthday, being born through physical death into the eternal world will be our third birthday. Dag Hammarskjöld was thinking Christianly when he wrote that no philosophy that cannot make sense of death can make sense of life either. No one’s living will be right until these truths about death are anchored in his or her heart.”

As Jesus prayed to the Father in John 17 that all who were His would be kept by the Father. And to what end? John 17:24 ESV

“Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”

Believer, you will at last have the true hope of Heaven – Jesus Himself in all of His transcendent glory!

As John Flavel once wrote: “In giving [Christ] [God] gave the richest jewel in his cabinet; a mercy of the greatest worth, and most inestimable value, Heaven itself is not so valuable and precious as Christ is: He is the better half of heaven…Ten thousand thousand worlds…as many worlds as angels can number, and then as a new world of angels can multiply, would not all be the bulk of a balance, to weigh Christ’s excellency, love, and sweetness. O what a fair One! what an only One! what an excellent, lovely, ravishing One, is Christ! Put the beauty of ten thousand paradises, like the garden of Eden, into one; put all trees, all flowers, all smells, all colours, all tastes, all joys, all sweetness, all loveliness in one; O what a fair and excellent thing would that be? And yet it should be less to that fair and dearest well-beloved Christ, than one drop of rain to the whole seas, rivers, lakes, and fountains of ten thousand earths. Christ is heaven’s wonder, and earth’s wonder.”

This is the ultimate certainty we prepare for in trusting Jesus Christ as our sin-bearer.

The ultimate end-of-life issue, set in absolute certainty.

How I pray today, that everyone in the reach of my voice, will grapple with these certainties, and, with a fifth one not in this text, but no less certain because they are the words of Jesus: John 6:37-40 “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.””

“For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.” Hebrews 6:13-18

I am ever amazed at God’s willingness to accommodate our weaknesses in His condescension.

If we were to stand on an anthill, and try to communicate the intricacies of the electronics of a smart phone, we would not have to bridge a gap nearly as great as God needs to when dealing with us on His own glories. We simply lack the capacity to take them in, appreciate them and use them appropriately. This would be true even before The Fall. How much more now that we are so damaged by sin’s ravages in our souls, bodies and intellects.

And then we come to a passage like this in Hebrews. And while it should be an absolute no-brainer that if God has said something, it must be absolutely and incontrovertibly true, nevertheless, we are filled with suspicion in places. Even more, when God has promised something in His Word, and we can read it, meditate on it, examine His track record on bringing His promises to pass, and contemplate it in the light of His immutable holiness and incapacity to lie – it is only logical and right that we should believe it and bank on it. But again, we set His character aside and let doubt flood our souls.

So what does He do? Well, when God made His promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself that He do what He had promised. The same way people swear oaths to one another when confirming their promises. Now we do with that with each other, because we know people are both untrustworthy, and sometimes, because they promise things they simply can’t deliver, or are prevented by unforeseen circumstances from fulfilling. These are never the case with Him. And yet, here He is making an oath anyway.

So what does the text say about this? That God, wanting to demonstrate more clearly to us, that His promises and purpose is unchangeable – especially the promise of Salvation and the gift of the Spirit – confirmed it with an oath. He swore to it. So that we would find strong encouragement in the fact that a., It is impossible for Him to lie in the first place, and b., that He has gone ahead and sealed it with an oath. A public and binding promise.

And this then, is why we can have such absolute confidence in the person and work of Christ on our behalf.

God’s promissory covenants are for our sake, not His. It is to cement them in our minds. He does not “covenant” as a necessary part of His actions. His intention is sufficient. But because we are fallen, unbelieving and faithless, He confirms such promises with signs and seals, and makes covenants for us to bolster our faith. They are a concession, not a necessary mode of acting on His part.

Oh Christian, trust Him today to fulfill everything He has promised in His Word.

And unbeliever – you can come to Him for salvation and forgiveness no matter what your past holds. For He receives all who come to Him in faith, and turns away none who humble themselves before Him. Cleansing from all guilt and shame, through the blood of His cross.

“Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” Hebrews 3:12-13

It is the Author’s observation here, that sin is so deceitful, and hardens the heart against the sweet motions of the Spirit so quickly, that we need daily exhortations to guard against it.

One does not need to put butter in a blast chiller to get it to harden, they need only remove it from any heat source – just leave it alone.

This is how the souls of men are. There is an inertia to our remaining sinfulness. Even nature teaches us that a “body at rest tends to stay at rest”. If it is not moved – it will not move. Simply left to themselves, not brought near to the flame, our hearts congeal and harden without any additional influence. Time in the Word, time in prayer, exposing ourselves to spiritual matters from reliable sources which bring us before the throne of grace again to warm our hearts is a constant need, not some mere, perfunctory religious duty.

Beloved, find some time today, some place, to bring your heart near the flame of Christ’s loving grace and mercy so as to melt you afresh. It takes only the shortest amount of time for the hardness to begin settling in – for sin to deceive us that something else is more important, more necessary.

The text says to exhort one another every day while we are here in this regard. Consider this my attempt to exhort you. And if you can, encourage and challenge someone else to beware the deceitful and hardening tendency of indwelling sin. And if nothing else – exhort yourself. Don’t let the day go without some time spent drawing near to the throne of grace. Warm your own heart with a fresh visit to the Cross.

I am reminded of the strains of Fanny Crosby’s sweet hymn:

1 Jesus, keep me near the cross,

There a precious fountain;

Free to all, a healing stream,

Flows from Calv’ry’s mountain. 

Refrain:

In the cross, in the cross

Be my glory ever,

Till my ransomed soul shall find

Rest beyond the river.

2 Near the cross, a trembling soul,

Love and mercy found me;

There the Bright and Morning Star

Shed His beams around me. [Refrain]

3 Near the cross! O lamb of God,

Bring its scenes before me;

Help me walk from day to day

With its shadow o’er me. [Refrain]

4 Near the cross! I’ll watch and wait,

Hoping, trusting ever;

Till I reach the golden strand,

Just beyond the river. [Refrain]

Colossians 2:1-3 “For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

Did you get that? All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are not just IN Christ, but are “hidden” in Him. They must be searched out. Sought for. Dug out. Mined. And that must be done everywhere in God’s Word.

Proverbs for instance, is such a treasure in God’s Word, but it does not always yield up its riches easily. In fact, as Prov. 2:3-5 notes – the wisdom found in it must be sought out if we would have it: “if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.”

God delights to be sought out, pursued. For it is in the pursuit of Him that those who are genuinely His and those who merely make a profession of faith are weeded out. Those who won’t take the time or effort to know Him, will have the fruit of those non-labors. Nothing. And conversely, those who do expend the effort, as the text above says, WILL understand the fear of the Lord and find out the knowledge of God. The reward is infinitely valuable. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. God Himself in Christ.

So it is, when you get to a portion like Prov. 24, it is easy to just skim over the statements like a series of disconnected bits of advice, and fail to see that all the way through, things are being revealed to us about the blessed God we serve because of Christ. Let me tease some of those out below.

¹Be not envious of evil men, nor desire to be with them, ²for their hearts devise violence, and their lips talk of trouble.

As we are to be taking on the character, the image of Christ in our Christian walk, we are called to lose all envy of evil men – because God Himself is a SATISFIED God. He is never envious of any.

What else is He?  

³By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; ⁴by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.

            God is a WISE God. He never acts without a purpose and a plan, thoroughly thought through.

⁵A wise man is full of strength, and a man of knowledge enhances his might, ⁶for by wise guidance you can wage your war, and in abundance of counselors there is victory.

            God is an UNASSAILABLE God. His purposes and plans will all succeed.

⁷Wisdom is too high for a fool; in the gate he does not open his mouth.

            God is an UNKNOWN God by mere human wisdom. Perceptible, but unknown, except by the revelation        of the Spirit to the soul in Christ.

⁸Whoever plans to do evil will be called a schemer. ⁹The devising of folly is sin, and the scoffer is an abomination to mankind.

            God is a HOLY God, and never the AUTHOR of EVIL.

¹⁰If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.

            God is an OMNIPOTENT God. He never fails in any adversity. And He is OUR God.

¹¹Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.

¹²If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?

            God is a COMPASSIONATE God, calling to the lost through the proclamation of the Gospel, and             providentially withholding evil from having its full sway.

¹³My son, eat honey, for it is good, and the drippings of the honeycomb are sweet to your taste.

¹⁴Know that wisdom is such to your soul; if you find it, there will be a future, and your hope will not be cut off.

            God is a God of SWEETNESS to the soul. The more you come to taste Him in all of His goodness, the             more you crave Him.

¹⁵Lie not in wait as a wicked man against the dwelling of the righteous; do no violence to his home; ¹⁶for the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity.

            God is an UPHOLDING and PRESERVING God to all who are His.

¹⁷Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles, ¹⁸lest the Lord see it and be displeased, and turn away his anger from him.

            God is not a VINDICTIVE God. He takes no pleasure in the demise of His enemies.

¹⁹Fret not yourself because of evildoers, and be not envious of the wicked, ²⁰for the evil man has no future; the lamp of the wicked will be put out.

            God is JUST God, and a God of JUDGMENT. He will bring justice in due time.

²¹My son, fear the Lord and the king, and do not join with those who do otherwise, ²²for disaster will arise suddenly from them, and who knows the ruin that will come from them both?

            Contrary to the wicked, God is a BLESSING God. Warning and protecting from coming woe.

As you read your Bible, let the whole of Scripture constantly inform you of the goodness, greatness and wonder of our living, triune God.

If there is anything evident in our society right now, permeating every part of it, it is that so very many are suffering from a crisis of identity. With the result that even something as basic as human biology is no longer a guide to the most basic identity. So people are desperately trying to establish some sense of identity for themselves. This occurs from the mild to the extreme. From the socially acceptable like corporate dress, bumper stickers, displaying desired retail logos, hoodies, baggy pants/skinny jeans, to extreme body modification, tattooing, transvestism, androgyny, etc. Any symbol that marks one out as a part of any particular group, or allows them to communicate something about who they think themselves to be to others.

One of the things Scripture does from its very outset is give us data to help gain a sense of identity as human beings – and what it means to be a “person”, from the point of view of the One who created us. After all, who is better equipped to give us that identity than the one who designed us as we are according to His own will and purposes?

It is no surprise then that as a race in active rebellion against God over who has the right of supremacy over us, (to the point of many even denying that He even exists) that even Christians can (and do) suffer from this crisis of identity – IF – we do not take the Word of God seriously in this matter. Enter the little book of Colossians, and its emphasis upon clarifying this most important issue.

You see, it is one thing for each of us to have an identity – but quite another to know who we are in Christ Jesus. The phrase “in Him” pervades this letter. The Believer needs desperately to know the fullness of the person and work of Christ, and then to understand the nature of his or her identification in and with Christ. There is a cosmos and eternity of difference between being a sinner (which we all are) and a sinner saved by grace (which only believers are). The Christian is forbidden from ever thinking of him or herself solely in terms of him or herself – i.e. apart from Christ. Whoever and whatever we are – we are in Him, and not alone.

Now in his discussion, the Apostle Paul is going to argue that gaining a true, Biblical sense of our identity, is the best equipping for remaining stable, joyful and thankful in the storms, trials and complexities of life. And so he opens the letter by teasing out the key elements of the Christian’s identity. I’ll outline them briefly for you below to consider, marvel and rejoice in today.

When our endurance is the product of absolute trust in the loving goodness of our God toward in Jesus Christ, it produces an endurance in trials which is accompanied by joy and patience.

When trials have displaced our joy, or when patience has run out and we live in the frustration of those trials, the issue isn’t the trial itself, patience itself, nor joy itself – it is faith. Have I lost the confidence in the love of God I so desperately need? For the endurance we need is a supernatural one. We need to be “strengthened with all power, according to HIS glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy.”

Believing I have an inheritance which far outweighs my current distress, and living in the thankfulness of its reality. If these are eclipsed, endurance is gone.

What then is my real status – regardless of the trials I currently face?

1. Each Believer is qualified by the Father to share in the saints’ inheritance.

2. Believers are delivered from the domain of darkness. Living in the truth of reality as God knows it.

3. Believers have been transferred to Kingdom, to governorship and care of the Beloved Son of God. We are citizens of His Kingdom, and subjects of His Kingship.

And who IS this Beloved Son into whose Kingdom I’ve been transferred? (15-20)

• The image of the invisible God.

• The Firstborn of all creation.

• The Creator of all things in heaven and on earth.

• The Creator of all things visible and invisible.

• The Creator of all ranks of human and angelic life.

• The One who stands at the head of all things.

• The One who continues to sustain the existence of all things.

• The Head of His Church.

• The Head of all the Resurrected.

• The One whom God has set as preeminent over all.

• The One in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily.

• The Reconciler of all things to Himself as God, through the blood of His cross. 

4. The Believer is granted full and free pardon for all my sins – more – not just judicially, but personal forgiveness from the God I have sinned against.

5. (21-22) The Believer is reconciled to the Father through His own death, that He might present us (me) to Him holy, without blemish and blameless

And it is the work of the Spirit to bring these home to the heart and mind as realities – realities which fuel faith. Realities based upon believing God’s Word.

Cementing this identity in our minds, will keep us steadfast and sure in the hardest of times.

Christian – know who you really are in Christ.

“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but raise them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Eph. 6:4

The immediate implication of this passage is simply – God does not interact with us, so as to exasperate us. So we in suit should treat our sons and daughters in like fashion. And what a sweet and encouraging thing that is to consider well.

How does God parent us Dads?

He does not pick at us.

He does not denigrate us.

He does not ignore us.

He does not discourage us.

He does not discipline harshly, rashly or out of anger – but only when it can do us the most good. More like a coach wanting to give their charge the best advantage of their wisdom and skill for their mastery.

He encourages us.

He is patient with us.

He accepts us in our failing.

He makes it known He will never withdraw His love from us.

He is easy to please.

He delights in us.

He is approachable with the stain of sin fresh upon our hands.

He bids us come to Him even when we fear or are faithless.

It makes me weep to think of how He has dealt with me like this over the years. In times of great failure and rebellion. Oh what a Father He is. And how often I failed to be a father in like kind. May we repent, and look to His Spirit to be more and more like this each day – to the praise of His glory, and the eternal blessing of our children in Him.

“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.” (Eph. 5:22-28)

Passages like this one reveal a destructive tendency in all of us: We tend to read them in terms of how the other person is, or is not measuring up to their responsibilities, rather than focus on what addresses us.

He’s not doing X. She’s not doing Y. And I won’t do X or Y until he or she does.

All of which is wholly contrary to the nature of the love of Christ. For if He will not love us and act toward us in grace, forgiveness and sweetness until we rightly love Him – we are hopeless.

You and I, each of us are responsible for our part, irrespective of how any other parties do or do not take theirs up fully. My obedience can never be regulated and dependent upon whether or not someone else is obedient to Christ. Their failure never negates my responsibility. My privilege.

That said, here is a brief word to we husbands.

‎Husbands, how do you “present” your wife to yourself each day? Do you look on her with spots and wrinkles, or in purity and without either? The choice is up to you. You can choose to see her nakedness and behold blemishes, or you can choose to array her in finery and be ravished at the sight. See her cleansed from her sin in the blood of The Lamb. See her washed and clean and perfumed and dressed in the dazzling white of the righteousness of Christ. Keep her before you in that sweet aspect and you will not fail to find much to love and adore. Fail to do it, and you have but yourself to blame for a sight that repulses you – for you fail to see her in Christ. You will fail to deal with her, as Christ does with you.

So if on the other hand, you are preoccupied with blemishes, shortcomings, or simple dislikes and differences – do not be surprised if you lose attraction for her, and open yourself up to all manner of sins. You will be easily led to imagine other women as better. You will feed discontent in your own soul. And above all, you will not be able to love her as Christ loved the Church. You will grow cold, distant, demanding, frustrated and hard. Not because of who she is, but because of what you are. If she does not meet your standard, then think for a moment how much less you meet Christ’s. And move toward her as He does you. We are set here like our Savior, to bless, not to be blessed. And if we set about the business He has given us, if we transact in His name with the “talents” He has given us, in due time, we’ll hear His “well done.”

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. (2 Cor. 1:3-4)

First I note that God is a comforting God to His people. But I wonder if why we are often so poor at being able to minister to others, is that we have not consciously sought the comfort which comes from God alone in our own distresses. And so we fail to help them seek Him for comfort directly. In other words, because WE look to others, rather than to Him directly in our trials, we then cannot help others to look directly to Him for the comfort they need. For they probably do not need us as directly as we think. Yes indeed, God often uses us as the instruments whereby He administers His comfort, but not so as to make us into the “Comforter” – that is The Spirit’s title and domain. Others need us most to point them back to Jesus, to receive the comfort we did when He comforted us. To be examples of standing fast while looking to Him.

Secondly, let us look to Him not just FOR our comfort, but AS our comfort. We tend to think of Him as supplying comfort in some fashion, rather than His nearness and presence actually being the comfort we need. For the more we come to grasp His great love, His compassion, His sweetness, His willingness to be sought and found, His nearness, His tenderness, His infinite creativity in meeting our needs and all this culminating in the Cross – the more our hearts are comforted in ways those apart from Christ cannot even imagine. Spurgeon once wrote: “Depend upon it, there are countless holy influences which flow from the habitual maintenance of great thoughts of God, as there are incalculable mischiefs which flow from our small thoughts of Him. The root of false theology is belittling God; and the essence of true divinity is greatening God, magnifying Him, and enlarging our conceptions of His majesty and His glory to the utmost.”

Third I note that He is the God of ALL comfort. He is not limited to any one means. He knows what we need spirit, soul and body. Our physical needs, psychological needs, our spiritual needs, etc. There is no category of our lives where He is not willing and able to be our comfort in distress. There is no distress His children suffer which is outside His purview.

James’ admonition that we often “have not, because we ask not” is far truer than we are wont to imagine. We consciously or even sub-consciously put some things outside the circle of what we bring to Him. And we are the losers in that approach. He who numbers the very hairs of our heads, who hears our every sigh, personally administrates the next beat of our hearts, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Rom. 8:32) – not in terms of gross, fleshly consumption – but as the best and wisest of loving Fathers to His dear children.

Blessed indeed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the very Father of mercies. Oh how merciful to us He is – even in all the miseries we bring upon ourselves. And He is the God of all comfort. Pouring Himself into us, so that we may bring others to the mercy seat along with us when they experience trouble. That they may know Him that way too.

Run to Him Christian that you might know the comfort of Him in all things.

Run to Him sinner, that in fleeing to Christ, you may find the comfort of the forgiveness of sins, cleansing from guilt, deliverance from His just wrath, and entrance into His very family – because of Christ Jesus.

In J.I. Packer’s “God’s Plans for You” – he makes an impassioned plea for reformation in Evangelicalism. Reformation which must happen both on the personal level, as well as corporately. A reformation I might add – we are in true, desperate need of in our day. Given that this was written sometime between 1987 and a revision in 1999, we see the need all the more.

At one point Packer queries: What would a work of divine reformation in our churches today look like?” That is a vital question, and the 4 things he notes in response are truly a crying need. They are good not only for saying “we need this”, but especially – “is this me?”

May God be pleased to bless us accordingly in the days to come.

Here are the four things Packer lists:

• “First, there would be a sense of biblical authority—that is, an awareness that biblical teaching is divine truth and that the invitations and admonitions, threats and warnings, promises and assurances of Scripture still express the mind of God toward mankind. The Bible would be honored again as the Word of God, and the perverse pluralism of liberal theology, which still addles the brains and blinds the hearts of many, would wither and die.”

Let me ask you Beloved – does the Bible actually retain its divine authority for you? Or is it just good advice to help you achieve your goals? Does it call you to follow after Christ and to consider its teaching absolutely necessary truth in ordering your life? Is it God speaking?

• “Second, there would be a spirit of seriousness about eternal issues. Heaven and hell would be preached about, thought about, and talked about once again. Life in this world would once again be lived in the light of the world to come, and the Philippian jailer’s question, “What must I do to be saved?” would be seen as life’s basic question once more.”

Searching, isn’t it? How seriously do you take eternal issues? Does that actually inform your day to day thought process? Or are those things just part of your “religious” life?

• “Third, there would be a passion for God transcending any interest in religion or cultivation of religiosity. One’s relationship to God would be seen as the most important thing in the world, and a Bible-based awareness of the greatness and awesomeness of God the eternal Savior-Judge, in whose hands we ever are, would displace all cheap thoughts of God as just a useful pal.”

‘Nuff said.

• “Fourth, there would be a love of holiness, growing out of deep conviction of sin, deep repentance, deep gratitude for forgiveness and cleansing through the blood of Jesus Christ, and with that a deep desire to please God. Casualness about righteousness, cutting moral corners, areas of blatant self-indulgence, love of luxury, and broken commitments of all kinds have disfigured modern Christianity at all levels.”

Weighty and serious things to consider.

Oh how we need THIS kind of revival/reformation today.

Lord Jesus, be pleased to make it so in my own heart and mind and soul.

To many today in Evangelicalism, the name J.I. Packer is no longer a household word. Since his passing into glory in 2020 his star has sadly, quickly faded. But for countless numbers like myself, Packer’s writing was foundational and formative. His “Knowing God” was the “gateway drug” into Reformed Theology.

Growing up, my Dad’s library resided in my bedroom. As a result, the names that lined those shelves became my friends. Bunyan, Spurgeon, Clarke, Owen, Kuyper and others spoke of a Christianity that I did not encounter much in real life. And to be honest, I thought any who believed as they did – in a truly sovereign God – were all dead and gone by hundreds of years. That is, until I got my hands on a copy of Knowing God, which came out in 1973. And here, was a living, breathing, preacher and writer of that old Puritan (in the best sense of the word) ilk. I couldn’t believe it. And as that book laid out a solid theological base for me, I found the Word of God opened up in powerful new ways. But it was the sound Biblical framework Packer elucidated that was its most impactful feature. A theology with a true center of gravity: Christ Himself, in all of His sovereign glory. I will be forever grateful.

After reading Knowing God the 2^nd time through, I wrote to Dr. Packer, expressing my gratitude. Much to my surprise, I received a handwritten, wonderfully gracious reply. We corresponded a few more times and then finally met in 2002. This was Packer. Gentle, humble, a towering intellect, and not too busy to write a young yahoo from nowhere.

Now all of this is leading up to recommending another book of his to you: “God’s Plans for You.” While Packer was for many a promoter and crystallizer of Puritan and Reformed theology – he also fought fiercely against the notion that one could simply take this theological path, without it informing every part of how you lived your life. He had no truck with mere theologians. If their theology did not cross over into forming the character of Christ in them – they had missed the point of digesting those great, monumental truths. While he rescued Puritan theology from the lost archives, he was at the same time demonstrating that the caricature of Puritan and Reformed theologians, that all they cared about was doctrinal precision – was false. To be sure, there are always those in every group who think just “knowing” is the equivalent of actually growing spiritually. But that was not the norm among the Puritans and the Reformers. They were anxious to see Christ formed in their own lives and the lives of others. They knew full well such formation needed to be founded upon sound doctrinal truth, but they never dreamt of doctrinal truth alone being the end game. (Mere doctrinal precision a Pharisee doth make.) Christlikeness was the goal. It still is. And this is where Packer excelled, and what brings me to “God’s Plans for You.”

The book is not long – 218 pages. And it is not written full of theological jargon. It is an accessible handbook on living the Christian life in Biblical balance. Developing a true Biblical and Christian worldview. It is an understated masterpiece of PRACTICAL theology. How the great truths of Scripture inform, and are to be applied to every avenue of life. It is a discipleship classic. It brings symmetry to Christian living. Balance.

Where Packer interacts with differing theological views and their implications, he is always gentle and irenic in his correctives. He gives a wide berth for sincere Believers who may have missed the mark in some places. He never condemns, even while he confronts and corrects. He displays the very Christlikeness he is avering.   

I cannot recommend God’s Plans for You more heartily. It is a sweet and clear call to genuine Christian living in a wickedly complex world, and in many cases, a misdirected and confused Church. If you want some sense of what the Christian life is supposed to look like, well informed by The Word of God – couched in the most encouraging terms – this is it.

Buy it for yourself. Buy it for someone who wants to know what Biblical Christianity is all about. Buy it for a discipleship group with one or two others. You’ll find it refreshing, clarifying, edifying, and pointing you repeatedly back to the finished work of Christ and its implication in real life.

God’s Plans for You is not about self-centered mystical messaging. It is about living in truth and reality as God knows it. It is lifechanging.