MARRIAGE = GOD’S FOUNDATION FOR CIVILIZATION

On June 17, 2014June 14, 2014 By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Jesus, Matthew, Podcast, Religion, SermonLeave a comment

God offers grace to divorcees, like he does to each and every person. In the meantime, his plan is for those who are married to stay married.

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Matthew #17. Matthew 5:31-32

Let’s get some things out in the open right away: It’s an awkward thing to teach on the topic of divorce. To put it bluntly, the reason it is awkward is that the Bible quite clearly condemns it, and yet literally half the people who have been married in this country have also been divorced – Christians included. So I realize that what scripture teaches on this subject may offend some people, hurt others, and even tempt some people to feel condemned. I want to strongly encourage you to resist all those feelings (which are often understandable), and instead listen today to the voice of the Holy Spirit.

Frankly, however, the divorce rate is what it is, in part because churches stopped teaching what the Bible really says about divorce. James 3:1 says that those of us who teach the scriptures will be judged more strictly, and so I believe I have a responsibility to teach clearly on this subject, even if I risk offending some people.

If you have been divorced, I want to plead with you to seriously consider what God says about it. I also want to assure you, on the basis of the Bible, that God certainly offers forgiveness to divorcees, exactly the same way he offers forgiveness to those who gossip and slander, to those who steal, lie, cheat, envy, lust, are selfish, or commit any other sin. Divorce has huge consequences on individuals and societies, but it is neither less nor more of a sin than any other sin. We have all sinned in various ways – not one of us is perfect, and we all deserve eternal punishment as a consequence. But the good news is, Jesus died to take the punishment for what we have done wrong, divorce included.

So please understand, when I teach on divorce, I am not singling anyone out, and I do not somehow think it is the most terrible thing anyone can do. But I have a serious responsibility to clearly explain what scripture says about it, just as I had to do with anger, and lust, and will have to do with everything else that Jesus said in the book of Matthew.

Let’s start with Jesus’ own words:

“It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.” (Matthew 5:31-32).

This is not the only place where Jesus talks about divorce. In Matthew 19:4, the Pharisees asked him if divorce was “ok.” He replied:

“Haven’t you read…that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and said ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore, what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

In other words, he is saying that human beings ought not to tamper with marriage, which is a union God has created and blessed. When the Pharisees asked him specifically why Moses allowed divorce, Jesus had this shocking reply:

“Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.” (Matthew 19:8-9)

Just in case there was any question about how God feels about this topic, read Malachi 2:16

“I hate divorce, says the Lord God of Israel.”

Please be very clear on this – God does not hate divorced people – he hates the practice of divorce, the sin. If you are divorced and you have any doubt about whether God still loves you, please consider the cross that Jesus died on. Whipped raw with blows that had killed many lesser men, Jesus hung on the cross and drowned in his own body fluid in slow, barbaric, tortuous death. He did it for you. He had the power to avoid that terrible death – the thing that kept him there all the way to death was his love for you. When you consider that, there should be no doubt in your mind that he loves you.

Let’s think about this topic a little bit differently. Smoking cigarettes is bad for your health. There are many, wide-ranging and long-term health consequences to smoking. If you are presently a smoker, there’s no point beating yourself up because you got yourself hooked. Suppose you are suffering from the effects of smoking. The important thing is to figure out what to do now, and how to manage those health problems, now that you have them. Even if you recently got hooked, condemning yourself for the past won’t help you in the present.

On the other hand, it is vitally important to make sure that people who are not yet smokers understand that it is a really bad idea to start. Telling non-smokers to stay away from cigarettes is not the same thing as condemning those who smoke. And it is worthwhile to risk offending a few smokers in order to save others from the damage that smoking causes.

Teaching on divorce is kind of the same way. Divorce is a bad idea, most of the time. There are many, wide-ranging and long-term consequences to divorce. But if you’ve already done it, there’s no point in condemning yourself, or letting others condemn you. Acknowledge your mistake, receive the forgiveness of Jesus, and focus on what he wants to do in your life right now. And I think it is worthwhile to get the message out to others before they also experience some of the long-term problems caused by divorce.

Now that I have made people who both smoke and are divorced feel doubly bad, let’s move on. First, God views marriage as a permanent union. That’s why divorce is a sin. No matter what the laws of the government are, once two people are married, in God’s eyes they remain so until one of them dies. So if a couple divorces, and they remarry other people, in the eyes of God they are simply committing adultery. Now, I am aware that many of you reading this have already divorced and remarried. Please don’t compound the problem by divorcing again. That would only be to sin again. Do ask for forgiveness for your sinful action of divorce, and do thank the Lord for that forgiveness, and live in your new marriage as a forgiven person. The good news about Jesus is, he gives us a clean slate to work with. Jesus’ forgiveness is the answer; multiple divorces are not.

I think divorce breaks God’s heart. He created human beings to be in permanent community with each other. The means he gave to do this, is the family. And the foundation of family is marriage. When a marriage is torn apart, it destroys something God was creating. It does violence to our human need for permanent community based on love and relationship (in fact the Hebrew word for divorce is very closely related to the word for violence). It has now been proven that divorce usually has significant negative consequences on children of divorcees. In the early seventies, some ridiculous studies came out, claiming that divorce really doesn’t faze kids. Some kooky people claimed (and some still do) that divorce is actually better for the kids than a rocky marriage. But the longest most respectable study of the effect of divorce on children came out in the mid 1990s, and it showed that children of divorce struggle much more with long term depression, and they exhibit a whole host of emotional problems that stay with them well into adulthood. I think God weeps whenever divorce papers are signed. If you have had a part in putting your children in this situation, remember that God is available to them to bring them healing and wholeness. His grace and forgiveness covers this also. Commit your kids to him.

Now, many of you will have noticed that Jesus makes a sort of “exception.” He implies that when there has been “marital unfaithfulness,” it is not a sin for the partner who has not been unfaithful to divorce the other. Let’s make it clear that “marital unfaithfulness” in these passages, means simply and only, sexual activity outside the marriage. It doesn’t mean that Bob can divorce Sally because she hasn’t been “faithful” in meeting his needs for beer and backrubs. In fact the Greek word for “marital unfaithfulness” is porneia, and it means simply any sort of sexual activity with someone you are not married to. So when one partner commits adultery, the other is free to divorce. Even so, there is nothing in these passages to suggest that this person has to divorce his or her spouse, or even that he or she should – only that the spouse in this situation may do so without committing a sin. There are, of course many important factors in this sort of decision, and if there are children, they should be high on the list of considerations.

For those of you who are single, these teachings of Jesus ought to create very strong motivation for you to choose carefully when seeking a spouse. If God sees marriage as permanent, you had better start seeing it that way too. Divorce should never be “an option” for a Christian couple. This might also motivate you to do everything you can to help support the marriages of your married friends.

For those of you who are currently married, it is vital, if you haven’t already, to train yourself to see your marriage like God sees it – a permanent union until one of you passes away. When you have that viewpoint, it is possible to work through any difficulties, because you know that no one is going anywhere, that you have time a commitment on your side.

God doesn’t like divorce. It is a sin, and it breaks his heart. It violates the very way he created people to be. There is one instance where God allows it, though even then, reconciliation is God’s first choice. If you have committed the sin of divorce, be assured, it is not an unforgivable offense. But if you have never admitted to yourself and to God and to another person that it is a sin, I highly recommend that you do so right now, and ask God for forgiveness. And if you are married right now, please learn to view your marriage as absolutely permanent – the way God designed it to be.

Invite the Holy Spirit to speak to you right now, and lead you.

Thanks again for making use of Clear Bible.

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IS IT WRONG TO LOOK? THE ANSWER MAY SURPRISE YOU.

On June 10, 2014September 20, 2014 By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Jesus, Matthew, Podcast, Religion, SermonLeave a comment

IT JUST DOESN’T SEEM LIKE A PICTURE IS A GOOD IDEA FOR THIS ONE…

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Matthew Part 16

MATTHEW #16. Matthew 5:27-30

In college I had a friend who was a Muslim. During my Senior year the church I belonged to sponsored an evangelistic crusade in town. I took the training to be a prayer counselor. Afterwards I went to Anup (not his real name) and told him I wanted to ‘practice’ for the crusade. I asked him if he would pretend to be someone I was sharing the gospel with. The result was a number of extended conversations about God, Christianity and Islam that lasted until we graduated. In a weird sort of way, he began to see me as some sort of spiritual authority, and he would come to me for guidance in his practice of Islam. The strangest situation was when he came to me during Ramandan, a period of special holiness for Islam, lasting forty days. Anup had been fasting during this time (he didn’t eat while the sun was up). He pulled me aside at dinner (the sun had gone down) and told me he had recently gone to a strip-club. He asked me if I thought that was OK during Ramandan.

My friend’s question really helped open up the nature of Islam (and most other religions) to me. You see, he was fasting and keeping external regulations, staying outwardly faithful to his fiancée in Indonesia, but he genuinely didn’t know whether it was right or wrong to watch women strip in front of him. And frankly, he seemed mostly concerned that it might be wrong during Ramandan – he didn’t seem concerned about the rest of the year.

This, in some ways, was the attitude of Jews in Jesus’ day about sexual morality. Under the auspices of this law, people were walking around with their hearts consumed by lust, and yet they believed themselves righteous because they never actually committed the act. Jesus turns all this on its head when he says, “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart,” (Matt 5:28). What Jesus is saying is that God is concerned both with external actions, and with the state of our hearts. Avoiding adultery is a good thing – and committing adultery is a sin. But sin begins in the heart, and often we allow “heart-sin” to exist happily within us if it doesn’t lead to external sinful actions. Jesus affirms, however, that God sees what is in our hearts as well (see 1 Samuel 16:7).

Let’s consider an example. In our house, there are consequences when one of our children strikes another person. One day a number of years ago, I noticed my oldest child arguing with her younger sibling. The argument grew heated; reason failed to convince. Finally, in anger, she took a swing at her brother. My oldest daughter is many wonderful things, but at five years old, she wasn’t very coordinated. It was a clear miss – no part of her body even touched her brother. However, clearly she intended to strike him and hurt him. I gave her exactly the same discipline I would have given her if the blow had connected. The reason for this is that the real problem was in her heart – deep inside, she wanted to hurt her brother. Whether or not she actually did hit him, she certainly wanted to, and that constitutes a problem in her heart. Outwardly, she was righteous. She had not hit her brother. But inwardly she had given in (in that instance) to sin.

In the same way, that is the problem with lust in the heart. Outwardly, the lustful person may be righteous, but inwardly, he or she has given in to sin. Now obviously, the external consequences of inward lust are far less than actual adultery. Inward lust does not usually wreak such destruction on relationships as outward acts like adultery and fornication. However, spiritually speaking – that is, in the eyes of God, a sin is a sin, whether it is committed only in the mind, or committed outwardly as well.

And there are consequences even to inward lust that is not acted upon. It can corrupt us into accepting standards other than God’s. It can interfere in the physical relationship between spouses – both as a result of guilt, and as a result of desiring physical intimacy with people other than one’s spouse. And there is always the danger that it will lead to the outward actions of physical adultery.

One thing to consider about lust, is that not everything sexual is lustful or wrong. Certainly, God made sex, and called it good. He designed it to be something to strengthen the bonds between wives and husbands. That means that God also made our sexual desires. Just as it is isn’t wrong to be angry, and yet anger creates all sorts of temptations, so it isn’t wrong to feel physically attracted to someone – even if you aren’t married to them. But those attractions do create all sorts of temptations. Focusing on that attraction, thinking about it, nurturing it, imagining what it would be like to be with that person – that is where the problem comes in. That is lust. Following up on those temptations – either in reality, or even just in the mind, says Jesus, is a sin.

So, like with anger, we need to deal with it before it becomes sin.

So how do we avoid lust in the heart? I will confess that for many years, I believed this to be practically impossible. Lust was one of my biggest struggles. I am still not immune to it, however, God has changed both my mind and my heart concerning the possibility of conquering lust. He can keep us from giving in to the temptation to lust. We can help him to do so when we do the following things:

First, surrender your heart completely to Jesus. If there is any corner of your heart where you still “hold out” against God, then that corner can easily become a foothold for the devil. Ted Bundy, the famous serial killer who raped and killed at least 28 women and girls, granted an interview to psychologist James Dobson, just one day before Bundy’s execution. Bundy offered some chilling insights:

I wasn’t some guy hanging out in bars, or a bum. I wasn’t a pervert in the sense that people look at somebody and say, “I know there’s something wrong with him.” I was a normal person. I had good friends. I led a normal life, except for this one, small but very potent and destructive segment that I kept very secret and close to myself.

There was an area of his life that was out of God’s control, and ultimately it led to the destruction of dozens of lives, including his own. If we have some area of life that we withhold from God, it gives Satan a stronghold – that is, a limited area where he still has power to control. It is almost impossible to resist temptation when there is a stronghold related to that temptation. For instance, suppose I have made some sort of inner commitment that I will never allow my emotional or physical needs to go unmet. That means that if God desires to meet those needs in a way that I don’t understand, I will say no to God – and by doing so, I have given the devil an opportunity. It’s very hard to say “yes” to God, when deep down, you are still saying “no” to him. So we need to surrender everything to God. If the Holy Spirit brings to your attention something that you have not surrendered to God, then take a moment to confess it as a sin, and receive God’s forgiveness, and then surrender that area.

Second, control your eyes. Jesus said “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell,” (Matt 5:29). Lust is fueled by the imagination, and the imagination is fueled by what we see, hear and read. So if you want to conquer lust, you need to control what you look at, listen to and read. I recommend EXTREME caution in choosing which TV programs and movies you watch. Perhaps this sounds a bit overly cautious, but I would be in good company if I said “It is better for you to lose the choice to see an ‘R’ movie than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.” TV and movies will be a problem for some people and not for others. Please don’t try to deceive yourself if you suspect that what you are watching might contribute to your struggle with lust. Be careful of the magazines you read, and the web sites you visit. Certainly there is no other purpose for pornography than to feed lustful desires. Even publications which are not overtly pornographic often use sexually stimulating images and stories to sell the magazines. This is not something to “play around” with. Far better for you to go through life not seeing the movies and TV programs that others see, not reading what others read, not going to the places they go, than for you to end up trapped by lust, and going to hell.

It seems to me that when it comes to lust, men tend to be more susceptible to visual stimulus than women. Women are tempted to lust also, of course, but the visual part of it is more likely to be a problem for men. Part of that is simply biology. I think it is normal and natural for most men to notice attractive women. One look at an attractive woman is simply a biological reaction for men – not necessarily lust. The second look, and the other looks and imaginations that follow it, are what constitute lust.

With this in mind, I strongly encourage women to think carefully about how to dress. It is certainly OK to look nice. However, sometimes it is easy for women to cross the line between looking nice and becoming sexually provocative. I personally think many women don’t realize how much men are affected by what they see. If you aren’t sure if you are crossing the line with what you are wearing, ask your husband, or brother or father if he would be comfortable having other men see you in what you are wearing. Men, be honest in your answers to this, and women, please believe what your men tell you about it.

Third, become accountable to another person. Because it is a sin of the heart, lust is usually a “secret sin.” Of course, no sin is secret from God, but it is often secret from others. The problem is, secrecy gives sins power. The apostle John writes:

“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin,” (1 John 1:7).

“Walking in the light” includes confessing our sins to each other (see 1 John 1:8-10, James 5:16). When someone else really knows your sins (i.e., you have confessed them to someone) and has given you assurance of God’s forgiveness, those sins lose their power to hold you. You don’t need to be like a politician, afraid that some thing from your past might be dug up to ruin you. Instead, if you have a friend whom you regularly confess to, everything is already “dug up” and there’s no secret sin that no one knows about. You’re free! Not only that, but it is always helpful to have someone praying for you, and to know that he or she is going to ask you about your struggles. Please use common sense in finding someone to confess to, and to be accountable to. In this situation, men should be with men, and women with women. It is often good to confess things to your spouse, but it is almost always beneficial to have someone else, of your same gender, to talk to as well.

Fourth, limit where and when and how much you drink alcohol. Alcohol is not your friend when it comes to lust. Alcohol loosens inhibitions, and resistance to temptation. People do things under the influence of alcohol that they would never do sober, and many people regret it very much afterwards. Scripture is very clear that you should never drink enough to let alcohol affect your judgment. It is a really bad idea, and a sin, to get drunk at all (in case you didn’t know, you kill approximately 10,000 brain cells every time you get drunk). It is even worse if you are having a few drinks with friends of the opposite sex to whom you are not married. It’s true, perhaps nothing bad will happen, but certainly, nothing good comes from it. At best, you might manage to avoid a worse situation. But the “worse” possibilities are almost endless. A little booze with friends could end up with you contracting a disease, or destroying your marriage, or having a baby with someone you don’t even love.

No one ever looks back on their life and says, “Gee, I wish I had spent more time getting drunk with people – maybe I could have had more meaningless drunk-sex that I hardly even remember, with people I really don’t care about, and maybe even picked up a disease or two.”

Now, as with all sins, there is grace. Remember, Jesus said he came to fulfill the law. On the one hand, that means that the standard does not change. But it also means that he has fulfilled the law for us. In other words, through Jesus, we are forgiven for failing in this (or any) area. We are cleansed from our sins and made holy. Certainly, we should not take that as an excuse to just keep on sinning, but when we do sin, there is grace and forgiveness and healing. And through Jesus, if we allow him to work in our hearts and lives, we can learn to walk a different path, and let him work his holiness out in our lives and behaviors. That is his desire and his plan.

Let the Holy Spirit keep speaking to you through the scriptures today!

Thanks again for making use of Clear Bible.

I want to remind you again that we are a listener-supported ministry, and that means, first and foremost, that we are supported by your prayers. We need and value your prayers for us.

You could also send a check to:

New Joy Fellowship

625 Spring Creek Road

Lebanon, TN 37087

Thank for your prayers, and your support!

IS ANGER A SIN?

On May 27, 2014May 21, 2014 By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Matthew, Podcast, Religion, SermonLeave a comment

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Matthew Part 15

Matthew #15. Matthew 5:21-26

Let’s do a quick review to set the stage for this next section of the sermon on the mount. Jesus began the whole discourse by describing several character traits that are the manifestations of his own life, flowing through the lives of people who follow him. He promises that letting him live through us in that way brings blessing. Next, he points out that when we let him live through us in that way, it is salt and light to the world. Last time, we saw how he goes on to declare that he does not abolish the law, but rather, affirms it and complete us.

Now, Jesus explains what he has been saying through several examples. He starts with the issue of anger and hate. Jesus is fleshing out everything he has said so far. He is showing how it looks to be meek, to show mercy and to be a peace-maker. He is explaining how “salty” (think “counter-cultural”) it is to let him work through us, and he is affirming and further explaining the teaching of the Old Testament on this issue, and showing how the Jews in his days were actually straying from the law.

The rest of chapter five is divided into six segments, starting at verses 21, 27, 31, 33, 38, and 43. Each segment begins with the same phrases. Jesus starts each one by saying, “You have heard that it was said…” and then he mentions a common Jewish teaching; after this he completes the phrase with this: “…but I say to you…” This little structure is more important than we realize. By the time of Jesus, Jewish Rabbis had begun to the adopt the practice of quoting other Rabbis and commenting on what they had said. In other words, when a Rabbi taught about the Sabbath, he did not teach directly from the Old Testament scriptures that talk about the Sabbath. Instead, he might read a scripture about it, and then comment on the teachings of other Rabbis – not on the Old Testament text itself. He might say something like this: “Rabbi Hillel taught that to keep the Sabbath holy it was necessary to…” Or, “It has been said that these four things are essential to the proper observation of the Sabbath…”

Jesus was rejecting this kind of teaching. He says “You have heard it said…” but then, “I say to you..” In other words, he isn’t quoting someone else, or citing some other Old Testament authority. He is teaching on the basis of his own authority. He is clearly saying that it doesn’t matter to him what someone else might have said about it.

There is one more thing we should notice with each of these six segments. The Jewish teaching was focused on outward behavior. For this example (in verse 21), if you just didn’t murder someone, you were fine, according to the Rabbis. But Jesus was focusing on heart-attitudes. Good outward behavior is great. But Jesus is pointing out that sin begins in the heart. You might refrain from murder, and still have murder in your heart; according to Jesus, that is just as much a sin.

Let’s continue on by looking today at this first segment, where Jesus explains how a disciple relates to anger and hate.

The story goes that when Sinbad and his sailors landed on a tropical island, they saw high up in the trees coconuts which could quench their thirst and satisfy their hunger. These coconuts were far above the reach of Sinbad and the sailors, but in the branches of the trees were chattering apes. Sinbad and his men began to throw stones and sticks up at the apes. This enraged the monkeys and they began to seize the coconuts and hurl them down at the men on the ground. That was just what Sinbad and his men wanted. They got the apes angry so that the apes would gather their food for them.

In the same way, the devil can often use our anger to provoke us to harsh words, rash actions and sinful behaviors. When we give in to these impulses we are just like Sinbad’s monkeys – we are being used by the devil for his purposes. Scripture warns against this in numerous places, and Jesus reiterates the seriousness of anger here in Matthew 5:21-26.

The Pharisees and teachers of the Law were content to judge only external behaviors – in this case, murder (v. 21) and a particularly bad insult (“Raca”, v. 22). The Jewish leaders, in taking this approach were in accord with years of rabbinical commentary on the Old Testament. But Jesus insists that the root of the problem is anger, held in the heart. Murder and insults were only manifestations of sinful anger. Therefore Jesus announces that anger itself is a problem. In so doing, Jesus cuts through years of Jewish commentaries that led people away from the scripture, and reminded them of the many scriptural warnings about anger.

I personally was shocked when I began to research what the Bible has to say about anger. I think I had become a little like the Jews, and had, in my mind, softened what scripture really says. In Genesis 4:6 God speaks to Cain about his anger against Abel, and cautions him that unless he masters it, sin will master him. Job 19:29 explicitly states that a person’s wrath will bring him punishment. Psalms 37 warns against becoming angry. The book of Proverbs is also full of warnings against anger. Here are four of them that are representative of the rest:

“A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult.” (12:16)

“An angry man stirs up dissension, and a hot-tempered one commits many sins.” (29:22)

“For as churning the milk produces butter, and as twisting the nose produces blood, so stirring up anger produces strife.” (30:33)

“Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city.” (16:32)

The New Testament also warns against “fits of rage” (Galatians 5:20) and tells us to get rid of anger and rage (Colossians 3:8). James has a very strong statement about anger:

My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. (James 1:19-20)

So anger is indeed a serious business, and as James points out, it does not lead to righteousness. But some of the Biblical record about anger is confusing. After all, God gets angry, so how can anger be a sin? Not only that, but when someone does something particularly hurtful to us, can we really stop that first initial burst of anger?

I think that scripture is actually pretty clear about the answers to these questions. When we look at what the Bible as a whole says about anger, I think a good statement that summarizes it all goes something like this:

Anger, when it is not dealt with, leads to sin and strife.

The emotion of anger, because it is an emotion, is not in and of itself a sin. But anger tempts us to sin. Think of a time when you were so mad, you just wanted to haul off and hit someone. What you were experiencing was a temptation caused by anger.

Anger tempts us in many other ways – it tempts us to use hurtful words, or to take spiteful actions, to damage the property of others or to take revenge in some way. Anger also tempts us to hate, or to become bitter. It tempts us to not forgive others.

So even though the feeling of anger in and of itself is not sin, it can very quickly lead to sin, which is why the Bible warns so strongly against it. And there does come a point when we move from feeling angry to being angry. We can get to this point very quickly. Being angry happens when we choose at some level to hold on to anger. We choose (perhaps even unconsciously) to not resolve our anger as soon as possible. Being angry is a sin. If you are wondering how to tell if you simply feel angry (which is not a sin) or if you are being angry (which is a sin) you can ask yourself a few important questions:

What efforts have I made to resolve the feelings of anger? (i.e. have you expressed it to the person you’re angry with? Have you prayed about it? Have you, after venting your anger, forgiven the person? The more efforts you make to resolve it, and the sooner you make those efforts, the better off you are.)

How long have I felt this way? (the longer it is, the more likely you are being angry. In fact, the Apostle Paul suggests that being angry longer than one day gives a foothold to the devil [Ephesians 4:26]).

What is my underlying attitude toward the person I’m angry at? (If you wouldn’t cry to hear she lost all her fingernails in a freak bowling accident, your anger is probably sinful).

What have I done with my feelings of anger? (If you have expressed them clearly to the person without deliberately trying to hurt them, you probably just feel angry. But if you have bottled up your feelings and still think about them often, you are probably being angry).

It seems to me that Jesus was talking about being angry (rather than only feeling angry) when he said “anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.” He was also, of course, talking about the many sins that feelings of anger tempt us to commit. In any case, Jesus’ antidote to anger (which the rest of scripture also affirms) is to settle it quickly.

He gives the example in verse 23 of someone in an act of worship who remembers a dispute. Jesus actually recommends that such a person leave the middle of a worship service to go and resolve his anger and dispute with a brother (fellow Christian). Jesus knows that unresolved anger quickly leads to being angry, as well as a host of other sins. Therefore he emphasizes the importance of resolving differences as quickly as humanly possible, even if it means leaving in the middle of church! Anger is like fire, and if you try to hold on to it for even a little while it will burn you and destroy your surroundings.

Now it is important to learn to express anger. Holding it inside will not resolve it. Pretending we don’t feel angry will not solve anything. But we must learn to express anger in a way that does not try to hurt others, but only explains how we feel. And once we have expressed it in this way as fully as we can, we must learn to let go of it. Because simply expressing our anger won’t fix things either, if we don’t then release it. I know people who have been expressing anger for years, but never letting go of it. They are living in the sin of being angry.

One more brief observation. It seems to me that often we think we are angry when we are really just hurt. We express ourselves angrily, and we even embrace anger (sinfully) but the original problem was that we were hurt deeply. Once again, avoid being angry. Learn to express your hurt without trying to hurt the other person back. As Paul writes:

“In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. (Ephesians 4:26-27)

One thing that has helped me to let go of anger is the realization that God has been angry at all sin – including the sins perpetrated against me. God didn’t overlook what was done to me by others – he punished it, the same way he punished my sins – which is to say, the punishment fell upon Jesus.

If I believe that my sins were justly paid for and punished in Jesus’ death on the cross, I must also believe the same is true of the sins committed by others that directly hurt me. The sin that I want to be angry about has already been punished. God’s anger has already been unleashed on it. Now it is a matter between the person who did it, and Jesus. Knowing this helps me to let it go.

Thanks again for making use of Clear Bible.

I want to remind you again that we are a listener-supported ministry, and that means, first and foremost, that we are supported by your prayers. We need and value your prayers for us.

You could also send a check to:

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DOES THE OLD TESTAMENT REALLY STILL APPLY?

On May 20, 2014May 16, 2014 By Pastor TomIn Jesus, Matthew, Old Testament, Podcast, Religion, SermonLeave a comment

Jesus did not come to make it OK to sin. He came to make us holy from the inside out. He came to defeat sin. Jesus didn’t come to change the law. He came to change us.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Matthew Part 14

Matthew #14. Matthew 5:17-20

“Don’t assume that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For I assure you: Until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or one stroke of a letter will pass from the law until all things are accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches people to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matt 5:17-20, HCSB)

Christians commonly forget that Jesus said this. It is important for the rest of the sermon on the mount, so let’s unpack it a bit.

First, let us understand that Jesus talking about the Old Testament in its entirety, not just certain “laws” or “rules.” The New Testament is written in Greek, but it is safe to assume that Jesus spoke in Aramaic and Hebrew. The word “law” in Hebrew is “Torah” and it refers not just to specific commands, but to all of the first five books of the Bible, sometimes called “The book of Moses” (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy). “Prophets” is the way Jews referred to all the rest of the Old Testament. In other words, when a Jewish person said “The Law and the Prophets” he meant “the entire Old Testament.” In short, Jesus is affirming that the entire Old Testament remains valid, even for those who follow him.

Jesus got even more specific than that. He said not one “iota or least stroke of a letter” can be removed from the law (and by implication, the rest of the Old Testament. This is an extreme statement. Look at this word in Hebrewיֹּ֗יֹּ֗אמֶרַ This is the Hebrew word “said.” The smallest letter in Hebrew is “yodh” which is the first on the right on this word, the one that looks like a comma up in the air. The equivalent letter in Greek is “iota” which is like an i without the dot. The second letter in from the left is “Mem.” On the right hand side at the top of the Mem is a little stroke that looks a bit like a horn. The expression “least stroke of a letter” refers to little marks like this. Jesus said, not even an iota/yodh, not even the little horn on a Mem will be undone. In other words, Jesus is very serious about this. We can’t “fudge” on God’s word. Right here, Jesus says that it will remain until “heaven and earth pass away.” In addition, he says that he himself fulfills its purpose. Christians typically don’t think this way. How can this be?

First, and I’ve mentioned this in other sermons, yes, the whole law applies to Christians. For example, even the koshers laws still apply to Christian. Now, before you click away, read this paragraph. The New Testament clearly teaches that we don’t have to eat kosher any more. Have some pork chops, bacon or fried shrimp, and feel no guilt. But in the life of a Christian, there are still applications for the kosher laws of the Old Testament. The main reason for those laws was to keep God’s people from worshipping pagan deities (which were sometimes demonic powers – Paul associated idol worship with demons in 1 Corinthians 10:20). A second reason was to help God’s people trust him more: pigs were some of the easiest animals to raise for meat, and by forbidding pork, the people had to rely upon God that much more for their food. Finally, the kosher laws showed everyone that God’s people were different.

Now, should we still refrain from worshipping pagan deities and demons? Of course! Should we still trust God to provide for us? Absolutely! Should we still be noticeably different from those who don’t follow God? You betcha. So the kosher laws still apply. Not in an exact, literal sense, but we don’t eliminate them from God’s word to us. There is something about those laws which still brings benefit to Christians, and should still have force in our lives.

In terms of Jesus fulfilling the laws let us consider the following:

In the first place, the promises of the Old Testament are about Jesus Christ, and are fulfilled in him:

Then beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, [Jesus] interpreted for them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures. (Luke 24:27, HCSB)

Then [Jesus] told 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, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. (Luke 24:44-45, HCSB)

For [Paul] vigorously refuted the Jews in public, demonstrating through the Scriptures that Jesus is the Messiah. (Acts 18:28, HCSB)

To remove part of the law or prophets is to remove part of the revelation of Jesus Christ; to weaken the promises that are fulfilled in him.

Second, Jesus fulfilled the law by obeying it perfectly himself.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tested in every way as we are, yet without sin. (Heb 4:15, HCSB)

God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we would become the righteousness of God. (2Cor 5:21, NET)

Jesus not only affirmed the law and fulfilled its promises: he himself personally obeyed every part of it.

Third, Jesus reconciles us to the standards of the law.

There is no problem with the law. The problem is with us. Put simply, the Law is God’s holiness translated into human terms. It shows us what holiness looks like in a human being. The Law is not wrong. It is not evil. It accurately shows us the standard required for holiness.

The standard is what it is, because holiness is what it is. It is a law of God’s nature. And what the law shows us, is that we cannot reach the standard. It makes it clear that the standard is impossible for us. That is all that the law can accomplish. It shows us that we are not holy, that we are sinners. And every time you try and reach that standard, the law will show you the same thing again. Because of the sin of Adam and Eve, we were born without a chance. We were born with a congenital illness called sin, and the law shows us that we simply cannot overcome that. The law is not a means to get right with God. It is a measurement that shows that on our own, we can never get right with God.

Jesus did not come to get rid of the law. He did not come to change the standard. He says the law will remain. Instead, he came to fulfill the law Himself, to meet the standard on our behalf, to fill us up with His own holiness.

If we try to set aside the moral requirements of the law, we are saying “anything goes.” There is a tremendous difference between “anything goes” and “anything can be forgiven.” If we try to set aside the law, we are saying “anything goes.” That doesn’t mean sin is forgiven, it means there is no wrong – but it also means there is no right. That doesn’t mean God loves us, it means God doesn’t care. It means he doesn’t care if you lie to your boss or sleep with someone outside of marriage. But it also means he doesn’t care if someone rapes you or murders you, or steals your job or your spouse. If there is no sin, there can be no justice. If nothing is wrong, if there is no standard, then the powerful can do whatever they please, and it is just bad luck for everyone else. The concept of: “there is no sin” would be very bad news for the human race.

So, we cannot set aside God’s standard. It is absolutely wrong to say: “You don’t have to be holy anymore,” or “the law isn’t valid anymore.” Jesus repudiates that idea in the verses. Jesus did not come to make it OK to sin. He came to make us holy from the inside out. He came to defeat sin.

Jesus didn’t come to change the law. He came to change us. And that is terrific news! The standard remains. It is just that now, if we will trust him to do it, Jesus meets that standard on our behalf.

That is another way in Jesus came to fulfill the law. The law is good and right. But before Jesus, it was incomplete. It gave us the standard, but no way to meet the standard. Jesus completes it, because through him, the standards of law can be satisfied for us.

This is also the key to understanding what Jesus means when he says “unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” The scribes and Pharisees had turned God’s Holy standard into a set of rules. For instance, where the Old Testament said “remember the Sabbath and keep it Holy” they had created a set of rules to define what that meant. The defined righteousness as “following the external rules of our religion.” You could hate God, but if you followed the rules, the Jewish religion would still say you were right with him. But Jesus knew two things:

· The man-made rules defined by the Jewish religion were not the same thing as God’s holy standard, defined by the Old Testament.

· The focus of the scribes and Pharisees was all external. The evil and depravity of their hearts was left unaffected by the fact that they outwardly followed rules.

So when Jesus tells us his followers must be even more righteous, he is telling us that we need him to fulfill the law on our behalf, and to make us truly holy – especially within our hearts. The way to be even more righteous than the Pharisees and scribes is to trust Jesus to make us holy from the inside out, and keep saying “yes” to him as he works that holiness into our everyday lives.

There is no point in pretending that we are capable of doing what the law requires. But to set aside the law is to invite chaos, brutality and injustice. The answer, is to trust Jesus to fulfill the law. We still seek to apply in ways that are relevant to our daily lives. We still try to follow it, because Jesus, living inside us, wants to follow it. But, in Jesus, we are free from the condemnation that comes when we fail.

Thanks again for making use of Clear Bible.

I want to remind you again that we are a listener-supported ministry, and that means, first and foremost, that we are supported by your prayers. We need and value your prayers for us.

You could also send a check to:

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Thank for your prayers, and your support!

WHO IS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD? YOU, OR JESUS?

On May 13, 2014May 8, 2014 By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Christianity, Jesus, Matthew, Podcast, Religion, SermonLeave a comment

Picture by Bernie Rosage

Some Christians act as if Jesus said that we are the “honey-pot” of the world. We think we can just sweeten things up with love. But Jesus used a very different metaphor. Salt is essential to life, but it is also caustic. It has a bite to it sometimes.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Matthew Part 13

Matthew #13 . Matthew 5:13-16

We have come to what I believe is the “theme statement” of Jesus’ sermon on the mount. The character traits of Jesus-followers are listed in 5:1-12. After this, Jesus goes into some specific details about how those character traits play out in various situations. But in Matthew 5:13-16, Jesus explains the point of it all:

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt should lose its taste, how can it be made salty? It’s no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled on by men.

“You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light for all who are in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (Matt 5:13-16, HCSB)

We need to be very clear here. Jesus is not speaking to “the world” or “people in general.” He is speaking to his disciples: those who have put their trust in him, surrendered their lives to him.So what exactly does Jesus mean when he tells his disciples that they are salt and light?

Salt. Salt accomplishes essentially two things: it flavors, and it preserves. As Christians, we are to have a flavor that is distinct from the world around us. I remember in High School, most of my friends were not Christians. At the time I felt I had a mission to show them that Christians could be cool, and have a good time – basically I wanted to prove to them that being Christian wasn’t boring. So I went to the same parties as my friends. When they drank, I drank, although I never got drunk, even when they did. What I realize now is that I came very close to losing my saltiness in that period in my life. Certainly, no one became a Christian because of me. I see the church at large in America in the same sort of danger of ceasing to flavor society. Many church-goers have the same primary goals in life as anyone else. They and their children look like everyone else, dress like everyone else, talk like everyone else. What is the main difference between Christians and non-Christians in America? Unfortunately for vast numbers it is only the way they spend one particular hour each week.

The world around us cries “Fit in! Fit in! Fit in! Don’t be weird, conform!” But Jesus calls, “Don’t fit in! Don’t conform! Be different!” Frankly, it becomes very difficult for Him to influence the world through us if we are the same as the world. Flavorless salt is good for nothing. The truth is, there is, and there has to be, a fundamental difference between Christians and non-Christians, between the church and the world. If there isn’t, we are useless, good for nothing.

Salt is also a preservative. It was used in Jesus’ day to preserve meat which would otherwise decay. What this means is that Christians ought have influence in society in such a way that culture’s natural slide into degeneracy and decay is arrested. In plain language, we ought to be so different and flavorful that because of us, society stops becoming so immoral, indecent and wicked.

Helmut Thielicke wrote that some Christians appear to think Jesus said we ought to be the honey pot of the world – and sweeten things up with God’s love. But salt is a harsher agent than sweet. Salt is caustic – it bites, just as the true message of God’s judgment and grace has a bite to it that leaves us in despair of ourselves and hoping in Jesus only. We don’t influence society through sweetness, but through saltiness.

LIGHT. Now, when I first read the part about “light,” I am reminded of something Jesus said in the gospel of John:

Then Jesus spoke to them again: “I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows Me will never walk in the darkness but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12, HCSB)

So which is it? Is Jesus the light of the world, or are we?

Jesus is the light of the world. But now that he has ascended to heaven, and sent the Holy Spirit to live inside of us, Jesus is the Light of the world – through us. I don’t mean that we take the place of Jesus, or that we should consider ourselves divine or messianic. But Jesus now uses us to show the world His light. Since Jesus talks about lamps, let’s adapt this to modern times. The light from a lamp doesn’t come from the lampstand, or the lampshade, or even the bulb. The light comes from the electricity that runs through the lampstand, up into and through the bulb. We function as the lampstand, or the lampshade or maybe even the bulb. But the light doesn’t come from us – it originates from Jesus, and shines out through us.

This fits perfectly with the entire sermon on the mount. Jesus wants to show his character to the world through his followers. His character is humble, dependent upon God for everything; willing to honestly address grief, sin and brokenness; willing to wait on God to act. The character of Jesus manifested through us desires real righteousness, real right-relationship with God. It is merciful, and focuses on true purity of heart. It seeks to reconcile others to God, and to each other. It endures persecution and suffering with a clear vision of the eternal joy that is our future, if we remain in Jesus. This is what Jesus wants to shine through us.

If salt flavors and preserves, light dispels darkness. Throughout scripture, light is often used as a symbol of truth. So when Jesus calls us the light of the world, he is also telling us that we are the vehicle by which his truth is to spread. We are to share the truth of God’s Word with the world, to bring light into darkness. In other words, we are also to tell others about Jesus.

Tony Campolo once said, “Preach the gospel. If necessary, use words.” I don’t like that quote at all, because it implies that words are often not necessary – and that is false. Every Christian has a responsibility to not only live as salt (Christian actions and lifestyle) but also as light (speaking verbally about Jesus). I can show you Muslims and Hindus and Jews who live morally upright, kind and loving lives (at least on the outside). But they are not dispelling darkness. The apostle Paul writes:

“How then they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” (Romans 10:14, emphasis mine).

So we need to speak out the truth of Jesus in order to have influence in the world, in order to be light.

Now, all this is a very tall order. It sounds good in theory. But how can we really show the character of Jesus to the world through our messed-up lives?

Sometimes we feel that while salvation is God’s work for us, following God after we are saved is all our work for God. Actually, that is false. Andrew Murray writes:

“The idea they have of grace is this – that their conversion and pardon are God’s work, but that now, in gratitude to God , it is their work to live as Christians, and follow Jesus. There is always the thought of a work that has to be done and even though they pray for help, still the work is theirs.[1]”

Murray goes on to explain that as we surrender to Jesus (not as we work harder) His Holy Spirit has more control in our lives, and thus our lives are more and more conformed to God’s holiness. Elsewhere, Murray also writes:

“Oh that you would learn a lesson from the time of your first coming to the saviour! Remember dear soul, how you then were led, contrary to all that your experience, and your feelings, and even your sober judgment said, to take Jesus at his word, and how you were not disappointed. He did received and pardon you; He did love, and save you – you know it. And if he did this for you when you were an enemy and a stranger, what think you, now that you are His own, will He not much more fulfill his promise?[2]”

The apostle Paul writes, in Romans 8:31-32

What then shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”

The point is, if we can trust Jesus to accomplish our salvation, we can surely trust him to accomplish our on-going life of obedience to him as well. We need to realize this: through dying on the cross, rising again and sending the Holy Spirit, Jesus has made it possible for anyone to obey. Now I am not suggesting that anyone can attain perfection in this life. But the power of Jesus’ death on the cross is such that when we fail, forgiveness is available to us, and we can continue as if we never failed to obey Him. It does not matter how many times we fail, nor how often, or in what way. All that matters is that we receive the love and grace and forgiveness God has made available to us, and so continue on in obedience. And as we surrender ourselves more and more to him, obedience comes more easily and more naturally – not from working harder, but from surrendering more.

Having made that point, the only way we need to fear the high standards of the Sermon on the Mount, is if we attempt to attain them without Jesus and his Holy Spirit.

We might summarize all this with four main points:

1) We ought to live lives that are radically different from the society around us. It should be obvious that we are distinct from the worldly cultures we live in.

2) We ought to seek to influence culture so as to preserve the good in society. This means supporting families and good government, seeking to change laws and practices that are unjust and destructive, and speaking out about right and wrong.

3) We must speak out the good news –all people are sinners, who deserve God’s wrath and the very worst that life can dish out. But God so loved the world that he sent his only son to die for us, so that whoever puts their trust in Him can be saved to new life now, and to eternal life after death.

4) We do all this by relying on Jesus more, trusting him more and more to let His character shine through us.

<<< >>>

Thanks again for making use of Clear Bible.

I want to remind you again that we are a listener-supported ministry, and that means, first and foremost, that we are supported by your prayers. We need and value your prayers for us.

You could also send a check to:

New Joy Fellowship

625 Spring Creek Road

Lebanon, TN 37087

Thank for your prayers, and your support!

[1] Abide in Christ. Andrew Murray, Christian Literature Crusade, Fort Washington, PA, 1968.

[2] Same as above

DOES JESUS FORGIVE RACISTS?

On May 6, 2014May 1, 2014 By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Jesus, Matthew, Podcast, Religion, SermonLeave a comment

(picture from cnn.com)

By rushing to agree with everyone else and pile on with the condemnations, Christians often lose a chance to show the character of Jesus to the world.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Matthew Part 12

Matthew #12 . Chapter 5:1-12

It seems to me that we could spend one week on each beatitude, however that would probably mean we’d never get to the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, let alone the rest of Matthew. So we are going to try to briefly examine the last five Christian character traits today.

First, a quick review. Jesus-followers should be spiritually poor, acknowledging our true position before God and our need of Jesus. Next, we should mourn our spiritual poverty (among other things) and bewail the sin that brought us to this place. We should face loss and brokenness with courage and determination to walk through it as we look to Jesus as the source of all comfort. In addition, we should wait quietly and meekly for God’s deliverance, not trusting in our own strength or resources to save us.

I want to make sure we understand that most of these things are very counter-cultural. Our culture blesses people who have it together, not the spiritually destitute. Our culture teaches us to avoid almost all mourning, in any way possible. Certainly, we do not learn from society to mourn sin and brokenness. Our culture teaches assertiveness and “going for it;” not humbly waiting on God to give “it” to you.

With that we come to the fourth character trait and its accompanying blessing: “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (matt 5:6). This is the natural continuation of the spiritual condition that is poor, mourning and meek. Once more, let me remind you that this character trait is not natural to our culture. What does our culture teach us to hunger and thirst for? Pleasure, comfort, wealth and recognition. It has been a very long time indeed since society at large has held up moral righteousness as goal to strive for, something to hunger after.

What does this character trait really mean? What does it look like in a 21^st century disciple?

I see a several aspects of righteousness that seem to apply here. The first is that the true disciple does more than just acknowledge his position before God, mourn his sin, and wait quietly. The true disciple yearns to be truly right with God. The righteousness that is so eagerly desired here is the very thing that is given to us by Jesus because of his death on the cross and resurrection to eternal life. It is the righteousness that is ours by faith. As an old praise song says:

I am covered over with the robe of righteousness that Jesus gives to me.

I am covered over with the precious blood of Jesus and He lives in me.

Oh, what a joy it is to know my Heavenly Father loves me so, He gives to me my Jesus.

And when He looks at me, He sees not what I used to be, but He sees Jesus.

The person who is truly spiritually poor, who truly mourns for her sins, who meekly waits for God, also desperately wants her condition changed. Such a person wants his old deeds to be wiped away as if they had never happened. He wants to stand tall without shame. Such a person hungers for the righteousness of Christ.

A second aspect of righteousness is that of continuing to do right. The disciple of Jesus, the person who follows him, has already been given the righteousness of faith. But the disciple doesn’t only want past sins covered by Jesus’ righteousness – those who trust in Jesus have the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit creates a yearning within us to live uprightly. Thus, I believe the Good News Bible is right in translating this verse:

“Happy are those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires; God will satisfy them fully!”

God’s satisfaction of this desire to live righteously is vitally important. We can’t live in a righteous way apart from God any more than we can attain our salvation apart from him. But when we hunger and thirst for righteousness, he releases his power through the Holy Spirit to enable us live rightly. We shall be satisfied!

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy” (Matt 5:7).

At first glance, this one does not seem so counter-cultural. The truth is, however, our culture isn’t merciful – it just has different standards than the bible. For example, modern society is not merciful to people who commit sexual sin. It’s just that the dominant idea is that there are no real sexual sins anymore. In other words it isn’t mercy that causes our culture to refrain from condemning people for sexual sin. It is simply that they agree in with what people are doing. Read carefully here, and learn what this means: You can’t give mercy to someone unless you think they deserve condemnation in the first place. Mercy is forgiving people who have truly done wrong.

We can test this idea when see how society reacts to people who do something that is actually considered a sin by the culture. For example, just this week (as I write this) the owner of the LA Clippers (an NBA Basketball team) was caught on tape making racist comments. There has been no mercy for him from anybody. Sadly, even Christians have joined in with the condemnation.

Some of you may say, “But wait a minute. Christians don’t support racism.” Of course we don’t. But the whole point of mercy is that it is given to someone who doesn’t deserve it, someone who has done wrong. You can’t give mercy to a person unless you think they deserve condemnation in the first place. The truth is, if Christians were going to condemn this man, we should have been doing so long before his racism came to light. He openly sinned (according to the Bible’s definition of sin) in many other ways before his racism was publicly known. The fact that Christians are now joining in the universal condemnation is a sign that we have drifted far from Biblical faith, and we are more concerned about being called racists than we are about manifesting the love of Jesus to sinners.

I affirm that racism is sinful and evil. As a Jesus follower, I also affirm that I must be ready to show mercy to anyone who will receive it. It may be offensive to say this, but I truly believe that Jesus would be merciful to a racist, if the racist gave him a chance by repenting. Now, I don’t have any evidence that this man has repented of racism, or of any of his other sins, either. That’s a whole different story. But I bring this all up to point out that our culture is not merciful at all; and if we intend to be merciful to people who don’t deserve it, it will offend people.

Jesus makes forgiving others central to the gospel message:

“For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your father will not forgive your sins.” (Matthew 6:14-15)

Forgiving others is not an option for the Christian. If we refuse to forgive, than we cannot receive forgiveness ourselves. I will deal with this subject in detail when we reach Matthew 6.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matt 5:8). Jesus was speaking to a crowd of Jewish people who were very concerned with external purity. He announces his counter-cultural aims by speaking of a purity of the heart. Even though the Old Testament speaks quite a bit about purity of heart, the Jewish religion by the time of Jesus had already begun to move beyond the Old Testament alone, and had started to rely on non-scriptural rabbinical proclamations and commentary. In other words, though Jesus’ focus on internal purity was a not a new teaching, it was a teaching largely ignored by Jews in Jesus day, and to some extent, since that time as well. If a person washed according to the proper ceremony, and ate kosher food and avoided dead bodies and so on, then he was pure. But Jesus, throughout the gospels, contests this idea, insisting that God is a God of relationship, not just ceremony, and what matters is what is in the heart.

I believe that in context, this purity of heart also refers to how Christians should deal with each other, and other people. What this means is that a follower of Jesus should be completely honest, sincere and well-intentioned in all dealings with others. We should not be hypocritical, or pretend to be a sort of person we are not.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9). As always, there are two points to make. First, I believe that Jesus is talking here about evangelism. Peace with God was a promise foretold by the ancient prophets, (see Ezekiel 37:26 for example) and fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Romans 5:1 says,

“Therefore since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

A peacemaker is therefore one who helps to spread this peace-with-God – a person who assists in the reconciliation (peacemaking) between God and human beings. This is to be characteristic of all Christians. I can think of no other good reason why the peacemaker should be called a ‘son of God.’

Second, a peacemaker is someone who helps reconcile people to other people. Now, there are many caveats (“buts”) to this sort of peacemaking. It does not mean compromising the truth. It does not mean appeasing rage-filled unrepentant sinners. Peacemaking does not forbid us from ever taking a stand, or standing our ground. It is not “peace at all costs.” And many times, it involves a painful process. As John Stott says:

“When we are ourselves involved in a quarrel there will be either the pain of apologizing to the person we have injured or the pain of rebuking the person who has injured us.”

We are, however called to try to end discord, rather than to create and perpetuate it by gossip, slander or even silence.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 5:10). Jesus qualifies his statement here by saying “because of righteousness” because there is no special blessing in being persecuted when we deserve it – the blessing comes when we don’t. As Peter writes:

“For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God. But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps.” (1 Peter 2:19-21).

This is becoming more and more relevant to our times. Christians, even in the Western World, are increasingly insulted and falsely accused. More and more people are willing to say “every kind of evil” against us when we take a stand for what the Bible actually says. I want to say that this is unfortunate; however Jesus says there is actually blessing in it.

Although many of us have experienced the pain of having our beliefs publicly distorted and derided, none of us in the Western world (as far as I know) have yet suffered physical persecution for following Jesus. Other brothers and sisters elsewhere in the world have, however. Throughout both communist and Muslim countries, Christians are censured, deprived of rights, imprisoned and sometimes even killed for their faith. The testimony of Richard Wurmbrand, a Lutheran pastor who was tortured by the communists in Romania, is that the presence of Jesus came in an incredibly tangible, special way when he was being tormented. He did indeed, testify that this special sense of God’s presence was a blessing that accompanied his persecution. I can only believe him and trust Jesus’ words. In the book of Revelation we also see a special honor reserved for martyrs of the faith. Persecution is something I tend to fear, but Jesus actually wants his followers to look upon it in a positive light as condition that is marked by his special blessing.

Now, I think Jesus provides us with an excellent summary to all this in the next few verses: we’ll look at that next time. But for now I want to reiterate something else: We can’t do this. There is no way we can really hunger for the righteousness we need, show the mercy we should show, be pure in heart, be a true peacemaker, or endure persecution as blessing. There is no way that we can form that sort of character inside of us just by trying harder.

This is the character that Jesus wants to form inside of us through the power of the Holy Spirit. Trying won’t get us there. What will get us there is surrendering to Jesus, saying to him: “Yes, I agree that this is the sort of person you want me to be. I agree that I want to be this sort of person. I can’t do it, but I ask you to do it, and I say ‘yes’ to you when you want to change me.”

Why don’t you take a minute and ask him to do that right now?

COMFORT IN MOURNING

On April 29, 2014April 25, 2014 By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Jesus, Matthew, Podcast, Religion1 Comment

Therefore, as with all of these blessings, it is not so much the condition described which brings blessing, but rather, being in that condition at the same time as knowing and trusting Jesus

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Matthew Part 11

Matthew #11 . 5:4-5

As we return to Matthew this week, let me remind us where we are. Jesus has climbed a small mountain with his disciples, and he is teaching them what Jesus followers “look like” and how they are to live. He has begun with a list of character traits, which nowadays, for obscure reasons, we call “the beatitudes.” These character traits are key to understanding the entire sermon on the mount. In fact, one way to look at it is like this:

· Jesus first explains that these character traits (the beatitudes) should be part of the life of every disciple.

· Following that, in the rest of the sermon, he gives practical examples of these character traits in action.

For example, in chapter 6, he talks about depending upon the Father for everything we need in life – including finances and other material resources. We can’t totally rely on the Father like that unless we become “poor in spirit” – understanding our complete dependence upon the Lord, and his gracious desire to take care of us. “Blessed are the poor in spirit” is of course, the first character trait that Jesus spoke about, which we looked at last time. For now, we will move on to two more of these Jesus-follower character traits.

Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.

This statement of Jesus is full of meaning. I believe Jesus may have been thinking of several different kinds of “mourning” including:

a. The grief of lost loved ones. The Greek word used here for “mourn” describes lamenting for someone who has died. It is the sort of grief that consumes a person, and cannot be hidden. Therefore I believe that among other things, Jesus was referring literally to people who had lost loved ones to death. This is stunningly counter-cultural for me – how can we say someone who has lost a husband, a wife, a child, a sibling or a parent is blessed? The point is, of course, we can’t say that – but Jesus can. And the reason he does say it is simply and only because of his own resurrection. Remember, Jesus is talking here to Christians – people who know him, who have placed all their hope in him alone. Therefore, as with all of these blessings, it is not so much the condition described which brings blessing, but rather, being in that condition at the same time as knowing and trusting Jesus. In other words, not everyone who mourns the loss of a loved one is blessed – it is only those who know Jesus who receive true comfort for their mourning. When we lose a loved one who is in the care of Jesus, we know that we will see that person again. We know that in fact, we get to spend eternity with our Christian loved ones in the presence of God. We know that even before that, our loved ones are in a better place. Now, on the other hand I have often struggled with the idea of losing a loved one who doesn’t know Jesus – there doesn’t seem to be much comfort there. And yet, I receive in faith the promises of Revelation 21:4

“He [God] will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

There is a tremendous grief in losing someone who is close to you, but the blessing comes in the fact that this grief is temporary – for they shall be comforted.

b. There is another kind of mourning that brings blessing in Jesus. I call it the grief of brokenness. This is not so much mourning about losing someone else, but rather losing something inside yourself, or something that you desperately wanted or needed. For some, it might be that they didn’t receive the approval they sought from their parents. For others, perhaps they simply do not feel loved for who they are. Still others might be seeking self-significance, or a marriage partner, or healthy family relationships. What the world around us counsels in these situations is to do whatever it takes to make up for the loss in our lives. So people needing approval try to become successful or famous, hoping the adulation of the crowds will fill them up. Some try to make other people give them what they want – this is where we see unhealthy patterns of relationships developing. Jesus counsels us instead to mourn. The key to being comforted is first to mourn. So many of us (myself included) do not like to acknowledge those areas where we are truly weak and needy – it isn’t pleasant to go there. So we try to by-pass the mourning part, and go straight to the comfort. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. But when we acknowledge our brokenness, when we truly mourn the fact that we did not, and will not, get what we needed from circumstances or other people – then Jesus has an opportunity to heal us, and to bring comfort. This is a very deep truth, but very important. We can’t receive the blessing of comfort that Jesus promises unless we first learn to mourn. The mourning of brokenness, like the mourning of lost loved ones, is an acknowledgement that we can’t do anything about the situation, and that it grieves us to the core. It is only when we give up control that Jesus can begin to comfort. We must learn to mourn by giving up the right to try and fix ourselves. When we do mourn our own losses of love, approval, significance, relationship or anything else, we find the comfort of Jesus.

c. The grief of sin. The third sort of mourning I believe Jesus is talking about is heartfelt sadness and repentance for the sins we have committed. Our society has undergone a tremendous transformation in its attitude toward sin. Forty years ago, no one wanted to be a sinner, because everyone understood that there were consequences for sin. People cared about sin – it mattered. Today, most people freely acknowledge that they are sinners – but they don’t seem to care about it, and it doesn’t seem to matter to them. In short, although many people freely admit to sinning, they do not mourn about it. Sin does not grieve their hearts. Jesus is offering a better way. Listen to what James, the brother of Jesus writes about mourning for sin:

God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves then to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands you sinners, and purify your hearts you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up. (James 4:6-10, italics added by me)

When we truly, in our hearts, mourn for the sins we have committed, Jesus offers comfort. When we are sorrowful and grief stricken for the crimes we have perpetrated against Jesus and against our fellow human beings, God gives grace. We shall be comforted.

Very briefly, I want to consider the next blessing –unless we begin to move a little faster, we will never get through the sermon on the mount, let alone the book of Matthew.

Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. The way most of us remember this verse is something like “blessed are the meek…” This verse used to bother me, along with the poem “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild…” Meekness is not something which is initially attractive to me – frankly, it sounds wimpy. But what does Jesus mean by it? I think it is obvious when we read the gospels that Jesus was no wimp. So what does he mean when offers this meekness, or gentleness as an important trait of a disciple? While researching the Greek word for gentle/meek (“pra-us,” if anyone cares) I found an excellent definition that seems to me to really get at the heart of what Jesus is saying here in Matthew 5:5. I’m not sure that I could word it any better than the lexicon, so instead I will quote at length:

Meekness toward God is that disposition of spirit in which we accept His dealings with us as good, and therefore without disputing or resisting…The meek are those wholly relying on God rather than their own strength to defend them against injustice. Thus, meekness toward evil people means knowing God is permitting the injuries they inflict, that He is using them to purify His elect, and that He will deliver His elect in His time. (Is. 41:17, Lu. 18:1-8) Gentleness or meekness is the opposite to self-assertiveness and self-interest. It stems from trust in God’s goodness and control over the situation. The gentle person is not occupied with self at all. This is a work of the Holy Spirit, not of the human will. (Gal. 5:23)^{^[1]}

Therefore the key to gentleness and meekness is to trust God to act on our behalf and to not rely on our own strength, which in comparison to God’s, is pitiful anyway. The result of such meekness, such trust? We inherit the earth, or in other words, the promised land. The promise is very germane to the business of trusting and being meek, because we cannot grab the land, or get it for ourselves. We receive it only as we trust God to get it for us.

I want to remind us again, that we cannot, simply through sheer effort, manifest these character traits in ourselves. We can’t just suddenly feel blessed as we mourn, or suddenly give up our own self-interests. Instead, remember, these are character traits of Jesus himself. The way we “get them” is first. to trust Jesus, and second, to allow him to own our lives, and to express His life and will through us.

May we be blessed this week as we mourn and remain humble and trusting!

Thanks again for making use of Clear Bible.

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You could also send a check to:

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Thank for your prayers, and your support!

[1]Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon, (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.) 1995, emphasis added by me.

ARE YOU REALLY BLESSED IF YOU HAVE NOTHING?

On April 8, 2014April 5, 2014 By Pastor TomIn House Church, Jesus, Matthew, Podcast, Religion, SermonLeave a comment

Jesus calls “blessed” what we usually call “NOT blessed.”

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Matthew Part 10

Matthew #10 . Chapter 5:1-2

Chapter five is the beginning of what many people call “The Sermon on the Mount.” At the end of chapter four, we saw large crowds of people following Jesus around, mostly because he healed people. Matthew records that Jesus took his disciples aside, up a nearby mountain and spent some time teaching them. It isn’t spelled out, but it the picture seems to be of more than just the twelve apostles here. Instead, this teaching was for everyone who wanted to follow him. I think the main point Matthew was making was that there was a difference between “the crowds” and “Jesus disciples.” In other words, this teaching was given to people who trust Jesus and want to continue to trust him and be related to him. These are not standards we should try to apply to people who are not Christians. They are, however for all disciples of Jesus. Today, if you believe in Jesus and trust him, you are one of his disciples. This teaching is for you.

I’ve always heard Matthew 5:3-12, (the first part of the Sermon on the Mount) called “the beatitudes.” This never made any sense to me, because the word “beatitude” doesn’t appear anywhere in this passage in the English translations; it is a word of Latin/French origin anyway, not a Greek or Aramaic term. Besides that, until I looked it up in a dictionary, I didn’t know what “beatitude” meant.[1]

What Jesus is really teaching in this first section of the Sermon on the Mount are attitudes of the heart that ought to mark every person who is a Christian. Once again, we need to recall that He is speaking to people who are already in relationship with him. I don’t believe that the “blessings” which he pronounces over these heart-attitudes can be separated. In other words, he is not saying, “some of you are blessed because you are poor in spirit, and others are blessed because they are pure in heart…” No, the truth is one cannot be pure of heart unless one is also poor in Spirit. Likewise it may not be possible to be a peace-maker unless one is also gentle or meek. So the point is, Jesus wants all of his followers to be growing, and possessing all of these character traits in increasing measure. Certainly, some people may find it easier to be a peace-maker than to maintain a pure heart, while others have trouble with the idea of persecution, even while they desperately hunger for righteousness. Jesus certainly takes us just the way we are. It is also true that when we come into relationship with Jesus, he begins to change us by the power of the Holy Spirit, to help us to become more like the original blue-print he had when he made human beings, before Adam and Eve sinned. In other words, if we are tune with the Holy Spirit and with the Bible, we will continue to grow.

Before we look at what Jesus pronounces “blessed” I would like us to briefly consider what most of our culture might say about these same topics, if we were honest with ourselves. I am sad to say that many of us who are Christians often fall into the same patterns of thought, myself included. So an American version might read like this:

Blessed are the financially secure, for they have no worries, and money sets them free to pursue who they want to be.
Blessed are those who never experience any grief or pain, for life is easy for them.
Blessed are those with ambition, for they will get what they really “go for.”
Blessed are those who remain outwardly moral and upright, for they will be respected by all.
Blessed are those who are kind when it doesn’t really hurt them, for we think they are both good and smart.
Blessed are those who “seize the day” and are not encumbered by prudish moral distinctions, for they get to enjoy all things.
Blessed are those who can arrange circumstances to get what they want.
Blessed are those who never face persecution.

I honestly believe that most people in America, even many Christians, would find themselves agreeing with some, or even most, of the statements above. As I just mentioned, in unguarded moments I even find myself thinking this way, especially with regard to the first two and the last one. But this just one example of how Jesus’ thinking is so counter-cultural. Many of the blessings above are diametrically opposed to the statements Jesus makes in Matthew 5. And some of them, while not precisely opposite in meaning, completely miss the intentions of Jesus. So what does Jesus say? We will begin to look at that in detail right now.

The sermon on the mount continues through all of chapters five, six and seven. It includes the teaching that to lust is equal to the sin of adultery, that to hate or call someone a fool is the same as murder. In Matthew 5:48, Jesus said, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” As we read these things, I think you will be continually struck by one recurring question: Who could actually live like this? Who is truly capable of living up to these holy standards?

We are meant to ask that question, and to struggle with it. The standards of the sermon on the mount show us our spiritual poverty. They make us hunger and thirst to be that righteous. This shows us clearly that we do not have the resources to be that Holy We are meant to realize that the answer is “not me.” In fact, only one person could possibly live up that standard: Jesus himself.

So where does that leave us? We need Jesus to live his holy live “inside” of our lives, through our lives. We need to recognize our deep spiritual poverty, our desperate need for Jesus.

And that is why Jesus begins his whole discourse with this sentence:

“The poor in spirit are blessed, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs. (Matt 5:3, HCSB)

We begin to have the right attitude when we realize that we are utterly without resources. We cannot be perfect. We cannot attain to the standard of Jesus. Instead, we recognize that we are dependent upon Jesus to manifest his holy and perfect character in and through our lives.

To be poor in spirit means to realize our true position before God. Consider Revelation 3:17. This is part of the message Jesus gave to the church in Laodicea.

“You say, ‘I am rich, and have become wealthy and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched, and miserable and poor and blind and naked…”

It is so easy to come before God thinking we have something of value to offer him. We think the fact that we live basically moral lives ought to count for something. We think that we are certainly not as bad as some people, and that ought to be a bargaining chip for dealings with God. Sometimes if we do something particularly noble or self-sacrificing, we suppose God has to recognize that. This is not the attitude of someone who is poor in spirit. The poor in spirit know that before God, we have nothing. They know that we are in fact wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked when it comes to spiritual things. Now, if this were our physical condition, I imagine we would be desperate. We would urgently seek help for our impoverished situation. In the same way, the mark of spiritual poverty is desperation for God. For the poor in spirit, all back-up plans have failed, all safety nets have broken, all contingency actions have been fruitless. The last drop of water is gone from the desert traveler’s broken canteen; the safety line of the rock climber has snapped in the fall; the last bullet is gone from the gun of the soldier, and the enemy is advancing.

Does this describe your spiritual life? Are you desperate for the Lord? Do you cling to his promises as a shipwrecked sailor clings to his life-ring? Do you truly believe that without the great mercy of God you have nothing, that without him you are utterly lost? And do you believe that you have no claim on him, that nothing you have or are can manipulate him to act on your behalf? Jesus once asked his disciples if they wanted to leave him. Peter said:

“Lord, to what person could we go? Your words give eternal life. Besides, we believe and know that you are the Holy one of God” (John 6:68-69)

Peter and the others were desperate. They knew that they had no where else to turn. And they knew also that they had no claim to make on God, no basis by which to demand deliverance. Desperate, they threw themselves on the mercy of God. The words of the old hymn, Rock of Ages put it very well:

Nothing in my hand I bring; simply to thy cross I cling

Naked come to thee for dress; Helpless, look to thee for grace;

Foul, I to the fountain fly; Wash me savior, or I die.

The Kingdom of heaven belongs to the spiritually poor because only the spiritually poor are willing to come on God’s terms. I encourage you this week to think of yourself as poor in spirit, and to receive the blessing of all of God’s fullness poured into all of your emptiness.

Hold on to this lesson, and return to it during these next weeks as we continue through the Sermon on the Mount.

[1] If you want to know, look it up yourself!

JESUS AND FISHING

On April 1, 2014March 29, 2014 By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Jesus, Matthew, Podcast, Religion, Sermon1 Comment

From the very beginning, Jesus invited all of his followers into the his own mission: to reach the world with the good news of forgiveness and grace through Him. This was not true only for Jesus’ twelve apostles, or for those with a special call to vocational ministry, but also for every Christian.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Matthew Part 9

Matthew #9. Chapter 4:17-25

The Light that came to Galilee in fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy was Jesus Christ himself. Matthew 4:17-25 records how he began his ministry. The essence of his message, at least at first, was much like the message of John the Baptist: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.” I think that brief sentence summarizes the main point of Jesus’ first preaching in Galilee. He is trying to raise awareness that God is near, and actively working, and the appropriate response to the presence of God in our lives is to turn away from our sins and turn toward God. Jesus has not yet broadcast to the general public that He himself is God the Son, one of the Three Persons who make up the one true God. However, he is sending the message that God is at work and it is time for people to repent and submit themselves to God’s ruler-ship.

In verses 18-22, Matthew records an encounter between Jesus and four other men: Simon (Peter) Andrew, James and John. This was not the first encounter between Jesus and at least some of these men. Before John the Baptist was put into prison, he pointed Jesus out to Andrew and another unnamed person. Since it is the apostle John who records this (John 1:35-42) it is likely that he (John the apostle) was the unnamed person. Andrew introduced his brother Simon (who later became known as Peter) to Jesus. Peter, Andrew and John spent at least a day with Jesus at that time. So did two other individuals, Philip and Nathaniel. All this probably happened in Judea, south of Galilee, before John the Baptist was put into prison.

What this means is that Jesus was not a stranger when he called Peter, Andrew, James and John to follow him. John the Baptist had told them he was the Messiah. They had spent time with him. They may have even heard some of Jesus’ preaching in Galilee (as recorded in verse 17) before he called them.

In fact, Luke 5:1-10 fills out this incident for us. Both sets of brothers made a living as commercial fishermen. Peter and Andrew were on shore, messing with their nets. Jesus, knowing them from before, borrowed one of the boats belonging to them, and used it as a platform to preach a sermon to a crowd that had gathered along the lakeshore. After he was done, he told the fishermen to try fishing one last time. Peter objected, but obeyed anyway. The result was a huge catch of fish – so large that they had to call in their partners for help. Their partners happened to be James and John. In fact the catch was so enormous, and the whole incident so unusual that the fishermen clearly regarded it as a miracle. When the fish were all in, Jesus called the four of them to follow him. He said their new job was to bring in people, not fish. They immediately left work and went with Jesus.

After this, Jesus continued to travel around in the region of Galilee, preaching. Apparently, Peter, Andrew, James and John went with him from that time forward. Jesus’ preaching was accompanied by miracles, especially healing and deliverance from demonic oppression. In a time before antibiotics or pain medications, the prospects of getting healing or relief were normally very dim. So, Jesus’ reputation as a healer drew huge crowds from all over the region, and even from Judea in the south.

Now, let’s unpack this text a little bit.

First, Jesus’ message of the Kingdom of Heaven and Repentance. By his death on the cross, Jesus made it possible for us to be forgiven. Many times he demonstrated God’s love and grace. Many times, he spoke about that same love and grace and goodness. But Matthew reminds us here that the very first thing he preached was repentance. Repentance opens the door to God’s love and grace. If we refuse to repent, the door stays shut, and God’s love doesn’t do us any good. When God comes near, the very first order of business is repentance. We covered the topic of repentance in some depth in part 5 of our series on Matthew. Some things are worth repeating, however.

To repent means to turn back, to go a completely different way. If you can read these words, it is not too late for you to repent. Jesus can handle whatever horrible thing you’ve done, whatever you’ve left undone, and even whatever terrible thing was done to you. But you need to drop it, to turn away from it, and turn to Him. To repent is to fully own the fact that you have been wrong, with no excuses, and then to turn away from it, for all intents, forever.

Now, our turning away forever almost never happens perfectly. But it does mean that you are going a different direction now. You may fall down sometimes as you walk in the new direction. You probably won’t walk it perfectly. But after you repent, your direction is different than it was before. Once in a while, perhaps, you fall back into the same actions as before. But your overall direction is new, oriented toward God, not away from him.

Many of you reading this blog have already repented and turned to Jesus, and received him as your Lord and your salvation. That’s wonderful. But for us who have done that, Jesus is still at hand. He still wants to show up in our lives in greater and more profound ways. He wants to give us even more grace, more joy, more peace, a more abundant life in Him. To receive these things from him, our path is the same: repent!

Now, let’s look Jesus’ call to the fishing brothers. I think there are two important things we find here. First, this demonstrates that Jesus has a unique calling for some individuals to leave ordinary employment, and work for him full time. We describe this as a calling to vocational ministry. Peter, Andrew, James and John (and others who came later) left their vocations and jobs, and dedicated themselves full-time to the mission of Jesus. Jesus asked them to do this. He did not ask everyone he encountered to do it, even if they believed in him, and became his disciples. Jesus once delivered a man from many demons. The man wanted to leave everything and become a full-time minister.

As He was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed kept begging Him to be with Him. But He would not let him; instead, He told him, “Go back home to your own people, and report to them how much the Lord has done for you and how He has had mercy on you.” (Mark 5:18-19, HCSB)

Jesus wanted the man to continue to follow him in faith; he wanted the man to engage in His mission and tell others the good news, but Jesus asked him to do it right where he was, in his everyday life.

Twenty years ago, I might not have bothered to point out that the four fisherman had a unique call to vocational ministry, and I doubt I would have thought it necessary to make the case that some Christians in every generation have a similar call. But in our post-modern, anti-authoritarian culture, I think we have gone too far. We are becoming so anti-institutional that many people have become suspicious of those who are called into vocational ministry. I’m not a fan of institutions or hierarchies myself. But the bible does clearly teach that God calls certain individuals to specially dedicate their lives to teaching and training other Christians.

Paul says:

Who ever goes to war at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its fruit? Or who shepherds a flock and does not drink the milk from the flock? Am I saying this from a human perspective? Doesn’t the law also say the same thing? For it is written in the law of Moses, Do not muzzle an ox while it treads out grain. Is God really concerned with oxen? Or isn’t He really saying it for us? Yes, this is written for us, because he who plows ought to plow in hope, and he who threshes should do so in hope of sharing the crop. If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it too much if we reap material benefits from you? (1Cor 9:6-11, HCSB)

Don’t you know that those who perform the temple services eat the food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the offerings of the altar? In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should earn their living by the gospel. (1Cor 9:13-14, HCSB)

James says this:

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. (Jas 3:1, ESV2011)

The author of Hebrews says:

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. (Heb 13:17, ESV2011)

Ephesians 4:11-12 says this:

And He personally gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the training of the saints in the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ (Eph 4:11-12, HCSB)

There are many more verses like this, which demonstrate the same point. Now, it is true that being called to full-time ministry does not make anyone a better or more important person. It is true that every Christian should be reading the bible individually, and engaging with others in the mission of Jesus. It’s true that every Christian should be willing and able to talk with others about Jesus. But there is a unique calling to teaching and equipping that is given to a relatively small number of people. I’ve seen individuals struggle and be led astray because some person just decided that he would start a church, or start preaching, without truly being called to it. I’ve heard and read a lot of bad, unbiblical teaching over the years because people have not appreciated that you should take a preaching/teaching equipping ministry very seriously; and few are called to it. I’ve also seen churches flounder because they reject a godly, biblical leadership model.

Now, I’m going to turn it around and try and have it both ways, because I think the text has it both ways. Just as this text shows us that some people are called uniquely to vocational ministry, it also shows us that everyone who trusts Jesus is called to participate in His mission. Not everyone is called to leave his or her career. However, all Christians are called to follow Jesus. For most, that means, among other things, expressing your faith and living for his purpose as you fulfill your everyday responsibilities at home and at work. It means being a disciple of Jesus when you are with your family, your friends, when you are at work, when you are driving, playing golf, fishing – in fact, all the time.

It is obvious that all New Testament Christians believed this and practiced it (Matthew 28:16-19; Acts 11:19-26; 1 Peter 2:12-15, 3:15-16). From the very beginning, Jesus invited all of his followers into the his own mission: to reach the world with the good news of forgiveness and grace through Him. This was not true only for Jesus’ twelve apostles, or for those with a special call to vocational ministry, but also for every Christian. For most Christians, the context for the mission of Jesus is your everyday life. Regardless, we should embrace that mission as part of embracing Jesus and his grace and forgiveness to us.

WHAT ABOUT THE NO-ACCOUNT, GOOD-FOR-NOTHING PEOPLE?

On March 18, 2014March 15, 2014 By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Faith, Jesus, Matthew, Podcast, Religion, SermonLeave a comment

Jesus came first to the backwaters; the boondocks; the sticks. He went to where people felt shame and humiliation and hopelessness. He brought light to dark places. He still does.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Matthew Part 8

Matthew #8 . Matthew 4:12-16

We’re going to cover some historical and cultural details this week. Please have patience with this. First, I believe it will pay off in understanding what the Holy Spirit might want to say to you today, through these verses. Second, this information will useful many times as we continue our study of Matthew’s Gospel.

Apparently some time passed between chapter four, verse eleven, and verse twelve; we don’t know how much. We do know that the gospel of John records events that must have occurred between Jesus’ baptism and the beginning of his ministry in Galilee. Particularly, John the Baptist pointed out Jesus to Andrew and Philip, who then introduced him to Peter and Nathaniel and perhaps others. In any case, after a period of time, John the Baptist was put into prison by Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great who had killed all the babies in Bethlehem. At that time, Jesus went back to the region of Galilee, and remained there for some time.

The region is named for the Sea of Galilee, which is a very large freshwater lake. At its widest points, the lake is thirteen miles long, north to south (21 km) and eight miles wide, east to west (13 km). The total surface area is about sixty-four square miles (166 square km). If you walked the entire shoreline of the lake, you would go about fifty-one miles.

Just to be confusing, the Sea of Galilee is also called Lake Tiberias and the lake of Gennesaret. In modern Israel it is sometimes known as Kinneret. To make matters even worse, the New Testament also refers to two towns (on the shore of the lake) with the same names as the lake: Tiberias and Gennesaret.

By the time of Jesus, the area around the lake had a checkered past and a questionable reputation. It was the ancestral home of the tribes of Zebulon, Napthali and Mannaseh. After the time of Solomon, when the Israelites split into two kingdoms, this area, being in the north, went with the Northern kingdom, of course (usually known as “Israel” while the Southern kingdom was called “Judah.”). The Northern kingdom was ruled from the city of Samaria, which was some distance from the lake. During its existence, The kings of Israel did not want their people going south to Jerusalem to worship (because it was in the kingdom of Judah), so they set up their own worship system in the north. They quickly became corrupted in their beliefs, and began to abandon worship of the One true God, instead, worshiping like the pagans. Though prophets called them to repent, they did not, and the Northern Kingdom was eventually wiped out by Assyrian invaders in about 723 BC (in other words, more than 700 years before Jesus was born). The people were deported and scattered around the Assyrian Empire.

The Assyrians resettled people from other places into the region of the old Northern Kingdom of Israel. There were still a few Israelites living there, and they began to intermarry with the foreigners. As time went on, they developed a kind of hybrid-Israelite religion, believing in the first five books of the Old Testament, but interpreting them differently, and not accepting the books of the prophets (i.e. the rest of the Old Testament). These hybrid-Israelites with their hybrid-religion became known as Samaritans, because Samaria was still the chief city of the area (all this is a simplification, but it gives you the general idea).

In terms of theology, it might have been a bit like the differences between Mormons and Christians. Mormons and Christians have a lot of outward similarities. At times, Mormons will even call themselves Christians. However, Christians know that there are profound differences between the Christian faith and the Mormon religion. We would say that it is totally inaccurate to consider Mormons the same as Christians. In the same way, Samaritans regarded themselves as a division of Judaism, but the Jews did not feel that way.

North of Samaria was the sea of Galilee. For a long time, no Israelites or Jews lived there, but a few hundred years before Jesus, Jews began to re-colonize the area around the lake. Those people saw themselves as connected with Jerusalem and Judea (previously known as “Judah”) in the south, and not a part of their nearer neighbors, the Samaritans, who were in between them and Judea. Immediately surrounding Galilee were other foreign powers. In fact, Jewish Galilee could really only claim the west side of the lake. The other parts of the lake, and the regions to the north, east and south-east were all inhabited by Gentiles (non-Jews).

Here is a map that roughly shows the territories involved. You can see Galilee near the top.

When Jesus was a boy in Egypt, the Jews in Galilee, being some distance from Judea, had tried to rebel the son of Herod the Great. It was a bloody, violent rebellion, and was put down ruthlessly, with the assistance of the Romans.

When you put this all together, it is not surprising that, although it was an area full of natural beauty, Galilee was considered to be an undesirable, no-account sort of place. It was surrounded by foreigners who did not worship God. It was far from the center of power and learning (Jerusalem). It had a history of violence and war and turning away from God. People in Jerusalem thought of Galilee the same way that people in New York City might think of the remote valleys of Appalachia. It may be pretty, but who would want to actually live there? The whole region was depressed, with nothing worthwhile going on, it was populated by “rednecks.”

If wanted to start a movement, and really influence people; if you really wanted to be someone, Galilee was not the place to go. It had been a no-account backwards place for seven-hundred years. But Jesus specifically chose Galilee as the starting place for his ministry. This depressed, hillbilly haven was where people first heard the good news of Jesus Christ. Jesus’ first miracle was performed in one of its towns (Cana). The Messiah grew up there. The light of the world (as John calls Jesus) first shined in this place. Matthew records that this fulfilled another Old Testament prophecy, Isaiah 9:1-2.

Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, along the sea road, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles! The people who live in darkness have seen a great light, and for those living in the shadowland of death, light has dawned. (Matt 4:15-16, HCSB)

Let’s just pause here a moment and see if the Lord has anything to say to you through this. It isn’t just about where Jesus chose to live. It is about the fact that he knew that this place and these people were held in contempt; he knew that they felt shame, and that is why he went there. He did this because He cares deeply about people who are overlooked by others, people who are living in shame, people who are considered no-account.

Perhaps you have felt overlooked. Maybe you’ve believed that you are unimportant. Maybe you have shame placed upon from something you’ve done, or by how others have treated you. Jesus isn’t afraid of your shame; he’s not worried about being tainted by your humiliation. He comes to you, deliberately, and says, “Let me remove your shame. Let me shine the light of my grace into your life. Let me show you that you are important to me, and I am the only one that really matters.”

Possibly you feel that you have been “walking in darkness” for a while now. Could it be that the Lord is saying to you: “A light is coming to you. You won’t be in darkness forever!”

As for being unimportant, or doing unimportant things, listen to what the Holy Spirit says through Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:26-30

Brothers, consider your calling: Not many are wise from a human perspective, not many powerful, not many of noble birth. Instead, God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God has chosen what is insignificant and despised in the world — what is viewed as nothing — to bring to nothing what is viewed as something, so that no one can boast in His presence. But it is from Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became God-given wisdom for us — our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, (1Cor 1:26-30, HCSB)

Jesus came to take our shame and humiliation upon himself. He came to take our checkered pasts, our sordid family histories. He came to shine light into places that may have been dark for centuries. If you think you are of no account, or you are not worthy, then know this: he came exactly for you. He comes to us all, continually. Open your heart to the light.

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