Tag: Jesus

“DO NOT JUDGE”: ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST MISUSED BIBLE VERSES.

On By Pastor TomIn Jesus, Matthew, Podcast, Religion, Sermon2 Comments

I don't Want to Judge

It has never made sense to me to try and get people who do not trust Jesus to live according to His teachings. Many Christians condemn where they should not, and fail to correct where they should.

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 21

 

Matthew #21 . Matthew 7:1-6

“Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged. For with the judgment you use, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye but don’t notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and look, there’s a log in your eye? Hypocrite! First take the log out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. Don’t give what is holy to dogs or toss your pearls before pigs, or they will trample them with their feet, turn, and tear you to pieces. (Matt 7:1-6, HCSB)

Matthew 7:1-5 has probably been one of the most misused, misunderstood passages in the Bible during my lifetime. Let me give you a few examples of how it is used wrongly.

· Suppose a friend of mine claims to be a Christian, but he watches pornographic movies and visits nude-bars. He sees nothing wrong with doing these things. I might say to him, “You claim to follow Jesus. But the lust in your heart is something wrong, Jesus died to make it right. You shouldn’t continue to feed your lust that way. Jesus is calling you to repent.” He replies to me (quoting the bible) “Jesus said, ‘Don’t judge others!’”

· Suppose someone else says, “I’m a Christian, and I don’t believe sex is wrong for gay people or unmarried people.” I might direct the person to Ephesians 5:1-5; Colossians 3:5-7; Galatians 5:19; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; 7:8-9; 1 Timothy 1:10 and Romans 1:26-27. Their response is “Well, Jesus said, ‘Don’t Judge!’”

“Don’t Judge” has become a kind of rallying cry for many Christians who are ignorant about what the Bible teaches. They use it against anyone who ever dares to suggest that their actions might not be what Jesus wants from them.

It has also become a stock-response for people who are not Christians at all. If a Christian suggests in a public forum that any activity is immoral, or even harmful, we are quickly silenced with “Jesus said, ‘do not judge.’” In fact “judging” or “intolerance” has become one of the only things that our society as a whole is willing to call an evil thing. Why non-Christians care that Jesus said ‘do not judge,’ I have no idea. I suspect they don’t, and are only looking for a chance to accuse us of hypocrisy.

So how do we respond to these things? Remember, the entire New Testament – including the words of Jesus – comes to us through the teaching and writing of the apostles. We Christians believe that the Holy Spirit inspired the apostles to remember and record the words of Jesus. We believe equally that the Spirit inspired them to write down the other teachings found in the New Testament also. To put it another way, the teaching of Jesus is the teaching of the apostles, as the Holy Spirit inspired them to remember and write. So let’s look at what the Holy Spirit has to say about holding on to the truth, and telling others the truth:

“If your brother sins against you, go and rebuke him in private. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he won’t listen, take one or two more with you, so that by the testimony of two or three witnesses every fact may be established. If he pays no attention to them, tell the church. But if he doesn’t pay attention even to the church, let him be like an unbeliever and a tax collector to you. (Matt 18:15-17, HCSB) [This one was said by Jesus, by the way, later on in this very same book written by Matthew]

Publicly rebuke those who sin, so that the rest will also be afraid. I solemnly charge you before God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels to observe these things without prejudice, doing nothing out of favoritism. (1Tim 5:19-21, HCSB)

I solemnly charge you before God and Christ Jesus, who is going to judge the living and the dead, and because of His appearing and His kingdom: Proclaim the message; persist in it whether convenient or not; rebuke, correct, and encourage with great patience and teaching. (2Tim 4:1-2, HCSB)

There are many more verses like those I have listed here. Jesus Himself, just a few minutes before saying this, was telling his disciples to avoid being like the Pagans and the Pharisees. Before that, he told them to avoid all kinds of different sins. Obviously then, “do not judge” should not prevent us from speaking the truth in love and gently correcting Christians who stray. It does not mean we cannot call something “sin” when the Bible calls it sin. It should not prevent us from having moral standards, or believing in certain absolute truths. It doesn’t mean we should never be discerning, or use our critical thinking. Paul describes it like this:

For the grace of God has appeared with salvation for all people, instructing us to deny godlessness and worldly lusts and to live in a sensible, righteous, and godly way in the present age, while we wait for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for Himself a people for His own possession, eager to do good works. Say these things, and encourage and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you. (Titus 2:11-15, HCSB)

But also obviously, Jesus did mean something by his statement. What was it? For “judge,” Jesus uses the word “krino.” It is a common word, used in ninety-seven different verses of the New Testament. Sometimes it simply means “to firmly decide.” More often it means something like “official judgment.” It is used frequently to describe God judging the world, or Jesus judging at the end-times. In these contexts, it might equally suggest condemnation. It is used many times for “sitting in judgment” as an official government magistrate does, or a court of law. At times, this words is clearly used to mean “condemn.”

I think when we consider all that New Testament has to say on this matter, I think there are three important aspects of Jesus’ command: “do not judge.” First, we should not condemn other people. We can say that something is wrong without condemning the person who is doing it. The approach I usually take is something like this: “Look, I want to make sure you know what the Bible says about this. What you do about what the Bible says is not my call. I’m telling you what I know of the Bible, and the rest is between you and God.”

The second aspect of not judging is that we should not set ourselves up in the place of God. It isn’t our place to decide someone’s eternal fate. It is our place to say what the Bible says. But we need to stop there. Saying what the Bible says is not the same as condemning someone. The Bible may say a particular behavior is sinful. If we pass that information along – with the goal of helping our fellow Christians – then we have not set ourselves up as judges. We are only saying what the Bible already says. What the other person does about it is between them and God. We need to bear in mind that we are not the authorities here – God is the one true judge.

Third, Jesus was talking to people in culture of First Century Judaism. The people in that culture, particularly the religious leaders, were prone to call out others and sit in judgment over them for things that were not even sins in the eyes of God. For example, they made up their own rules about the Sabbath, and then judged people for not obeying them. Understanding that context, I think we can safely say that Jesus is also telling us not to judge one another over things that are not in the Bible, or over man-man regulations. Once again, we have other passages in the New Testament that explain this:

Accept anyone who is weak in faith, but don’t argue about doubtful issues. One person believes he may eat anything, but one who is weak eats only vegetables. One who eats must not look down on one who does not eat, and one who does not eat must not criticize one who does, because God has accepted him.

Who are you to criticize another’s household slave? Before his own Lord he stands or falls. And he will stand. For the Lord is able to make him stand.

One person considers one day to be above another day. Someone else considers every day to be the same. Each one must be fully convinced in his own mind. Whoever observes the day, observes it for the honor of the Lord. Whoever eats, eats for the Lord, since he gives thanks to God; and whoever does not eat, it is for the Lord that he does not eat it, yet he thanks God.

For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. Christ died and came to life for this: that He might rule over both the dead and the living.

But you, why do you criticize your brother? Or you, why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before the tribunal of God. For it is written: As I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow to Me, and every tongue will give praise to God. So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore, let us no longer criticize one another. Instead decide never to put a stumbling block or pitfall in your brother’s way. (Rom 14:1-13, HCSB)

So the Holy Spirit is saying, through Jesus and through Paul, “There are some issues that should not be issues. Don’t sit in judgment or condemnation over each other. Especially, don’t get into fights about things that are not actually commanded or forbidden in scripture.”

I know someone who was in a church where they condemned you for wearing blue jeans. I’ve been judged and criticized for not being the kind of pastor that some people expected me to be. When I sat down with my critics, I learned that what they were upset about had nothing to do with what the Bible says pastors should be like, or do. Sometimes people are judged for the music they like, or what they wear, or for drinking a glass of wine with dinner.

The Bible does have certain standards of Christ-like behavior, including moral standards. Jesus is not telling us to ignore those, or throw them out, but rather to approach each other in gentleness and humility about those things. And there is also lot of freedom in how we live out and express our faith. Jesus is telling us not to judge each other at all in these areas of freedom.

Jesus did not only say: “do not judge.” He had more to say on the whole subject. Jesus actually says we should examine ourselves first, and then we will be able to help someone else who has a problem. He says we should recognize that the same standards apply to us, as well as the other person. In other words, when there is an issue of Biblical morality or false teaching, we need to be humble, and recognize our own faults before we approach someone else to help them with their problem. But Jesus’ words here (in context) assume that we should still approach the person, once we are appropriately humble. The Holy Spirit inspired Paul to flesh it out like this:

Brothers, if someone is caught in any wrongdoing, you who are spiritual should restore such a person with a gentle spirit, watching out for yourselves so you also won’t be tempted. Carry one another’s burdens; in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. (Gal 6:1-2, HCSB)

We are not to approach each other in condemnation. We are not to set ourselves up as judge in God’s place. We are to be humble, to let our own lives be under the authority of God’s Word (the Bible) and then – only then – in gentleness, with the goal of helping fellow-Christians, we can approach someone else about a sin.

Jesus’ last sentence in this section seems a little strange. He says:

Don’t give what is holy to dogs or toss your pearls before pigs, or they will trample them with their feet, turn, and tear you to pieces.

Make no mistake, this is also about judging others. I think what he is saying is that we should not waste time trying to bring grace-filled correction to people who are not humble or open enough to receive it. Proverbs says:

The one who corrects a mocker will bring dishonor on himself; the one who rebukes a wicked man will get hurt. Don’t rebuke a mocker, or he will hate you; rebuke a wise man, and he will love you. (Prov 9:7-8, HCSB)

In other words, we don’t take the log out of our own eye, and then graciously approach someone who isn’t even a follower of Jesus and try to help them stop sinning. When we share the truth about Jesus, the good news, of course we talk about how our sins have separated us from God and from each other. But our goal in sharing the good news is not really to get people to just quit sinning. It is to exhort people turn to Jesus for grace, forgiveness and help.

Look at it this way. Suppose you have a friend who is not a Christian, who gets drunk all the time. Your friend is sinning, and, according to the bible she will go to hell because she has not trusted in Jesus who call Himself the only Way, Truth and Life. Now, suppose you convince her that it is a sin to get drunk, and she stops doing it. She is now not sinning in that way, and yet she will still go to hell because she still isn’t trusting in Jesus. All your efforts to get her to stop sinning have not helped her at all spiritually.

Not only that, but it has never made sense to me to try and get people who do not trust Jesus to live according to Jesus’ teaching. Suppose one of my Muslim friends came to me and said, “Tom, you need to stop eating pork. According to the Koran, it is a sin to eat pork.”

I would say, politely, “I don’t follow the Koran. I don’t believe what it says. It doesn’t matter to me what it says about pork.”

But too many Christians try to get people who don’t even trust Jesus to follow what the Bible teaches. Jesus is saying here, “Don’t bother. There’s no point to it. It’s like feeding dogs a gourmet meal, or dressing pigs up with pearls. It’s a waste of time and effort, and the precious truth of God’s word will be trampled in the mud.”

I don’t think he means that we should view unbelievers like dogs or pigs. He’s just saying, trying to bring correction to people who do not believe is silly and pointless.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians about this subject:

I wrote to you in a letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. I did not mean the immoral people of this world or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters; otherwise you would have to leave the world. But now I am writing you not to associate with anyone who claims to be a believer who is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or verbally abusive, a drunkard or a swindler. Do not even eat with such a person. For what business is it of mine to judge outsiders? Don’t you judge those who are inside? But God judges outsiders. Put away the evil person from among yourselves. (1Cor 5:9-13, HCSB emphasis mine)

So, I actually have no moral problem with people who do not claim to be Christians, and live in sin. They are morally consistent. In fact, I would find it surprising if they refrained from sin even while they do not trust Jesus. Now, of course, I pray for such people to turn to Jesus. I pray that they see the futility of their lives without him. I pray that they fully experience how their sin separates them from God and from each other, and become desperate for the forgiveness and grace they can have in Him alone. But I’m not interested in making them clean up their lives first. I’ll let the Holy Spirit do that, once they have put their trust in Jesus.

On the other hand, if someone claims to be a believer, and yet persists in an ongoing pattern of sin, I will examine myself, and then humbly, gently try to remind them what the Bible says. Paul says (inspired by the Holy Spirit) to let them know they are no longer acting like believers. Even so we are supposed to do this without condemning, and without putting ourselves in God’s place, as if we are the ones who get to decide their fate.

This is a nuanced teaching. We are to try and bring correction to fellow believers (not outsiders) when they stray from what the Bible teaches. But we do so humbly and gently, and not judgmentally. We bring correction by reminding them what the Bible says; we are not supposed to bring judgment and condemnation. And we don’t even do that with those who are not Christians. In addition, we are not to bring any kind of judgment at all in areas where the Bible gives us freedom.

Let the Holy Spirit speak to you about this subject right now.

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.

Please pray that this ministry will continue to be a blessing to those who hear it. Ask God, if it is his will, to touch even more lives with these messages. Ask him to use this ministry in making disciples of Jesus Christ.

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Thank for your prayers, and your support!

MARRIAGE = GOD’S FOUNDATION FOR CIVILIZATION

On By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Jesus, Matthew, Podcast, Religion, SermonLeave a comment

divorce

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.

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 17

 

 

 

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.

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.

Please pray that this ministry will continue to be a blessing to those who hear it. Ask God, if it is his will, to touch even more lives with these messages. Ask him to use this ministry in making disciples of Jesus Christ.

Please also pray for our finances. Pray for us to receive what we need. Please pray for us in this way before you give anything. And then, as you pray, if the Lord leads you to give us a gift, please go ahead and do that. But if he doesn’t want you to give to us, that is absolutely fine. We don’t want you to feel bad about it. We want you to follow Jesus in this matter. But do continue to pray for our finances.

If the Lord does lead you to give, just use the Paypal Donate button on the right hand side of the page. You don’t have to have a Paypal account – you can use a credit card, if you prefer. You can also set up a recurring donation through Paypal.

You could also send a check to:

New Joy Fellowship

625 Spring Creek Road

Lebanon, TN 37087

Just “Clear Bible” in the memo. Your check will be tax-deductible. Unfortunately, we cannot do the tax deductible option with the paypal donate button, however the money does go directly to support this ministry.

 

Thank for your prayers, and your support!

DOES JESUS FORGIVE RACISTS?

On By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Jesus, Matthew, Podcast, Religion, SermonLeave a comment

 

Sterling Racist

(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 21st 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 By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Jesus, Matthew, Podcast, Religion1 Comment

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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!

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

WHY CRUCIFIXION?

On By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Podcast, Religion4 Comments

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Jesus was killed by torture. There is really no other way to say it. It began with three beatings during the course of about eighteen hours.

On Good Friday, we remember the crucifixion of Jesus – how we was killed by torture on a Roman cross. On Easter Sunday, we celebrate his resurrection – the fact that he physically came alive again and appeared to many of his followers. But the truth is, the two go together. If we had a crucifixion with no resurrection, the result would be simply despair. It would mean that Jesus was not who he said he was, and there would be no hope for us for forgiveness or eternal life. But a resurrection without the crucifixion first would also be meaningless. Jesus wouldn’t be dead in the first place, so there would be no need for one. But if Jesus simply revealed his full glory, and then went back to heaven, it would be great for him, and everything he said would be proven true…but we would still have no way of receiving forgiveness or eternal life.

Jesus was killed by torture. There is really no other way to say it. It began with three beatings during the course of about eighteen hours. First, Jesus was taken to the high priest’s house – and you can bet they weren’t gentle in the taking. Most likely they pushed him and perhaps even struck him on their way there. Once there, he was surrounded by an angry mob, and beaten with fists (Matthew 26:67-68; Mark 14:65; Luke 22:63-64). At least some of the blows were to his head. This kind of beating alone would probably put most of us in the hospital, at least overnight. Picture an LA street gang finding the member of a rival gang alone, and deciding to teach him a lesson. You can imagine several people holding the poor man up, while others took turns punching him. It is possible that Jesus sustained a concussion from this, and certainly he received multiple bruises; possibly even broken ribs or teeth. Remember, there was no pain medication in those days.

After a mock trial from the Jewish religious leaders, they took him to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, who did not live in Jerusalem, but was there to try and keep the peace during the Passover festival. A standard Roman response to suspected trouble makers was to have them “scourged.” Pilate had this done to Jesus. In common language, this means he was whipped – not horse-whipped, but beaten with an instrument designed to inflict pain on human beings. Instead of one “tail” to the whip, it had several strips leather. At the end of each strip was fastened rocks or bits of glass or even pieces of lead. So each strike of the whip caused multiple gashes, laying open the flesh, and bruising the muscles as well. Most probably Jesus was given the 39 lashes, which had been known to kill people occasionally. Remember, Jesus had been beaten up by a mob, just hours earlier. In addition to his other injuries, Jesus certainly lost a lot of blood from the whipping, and perhaps sustained more broken ribs. Between these two beatings, the overall physical shock to his body was enormous. Coming so close together, there is no doubt that many men would have died from the combination of these two traumas.

After that, Jesus was turned over to the Roman cohort for crucifixion. Before they did their job, however, the entire cohort had fun mocking him. This involved about 600 brutal, hardened soldiers. They jammed a crown made of thorns on his head. They took a staff most likely made out of a cane stem (something like bamboo, but smaller in diameter) and gave it to him, and then took it away and used it to beat him over the head. This cane rod would probably not have created any serious injury, unless it was used to strike Jesus on the face, and thus open up cuts on his cheeks. Even so, they were likely hitting the crown of thorns, driving thorns into his head, and the direct blows themselves would have been very painful.

But all that stuff – physical punishment which could easily have killed many men – was only preliminary to the suffering which killed the Son of God. After these severe beatings, they strapped a big beam to his back and made him carry it a mile or two. The beam was likely equivalent to a 4”x4”, perhaps six or eight feet long. Considering what he had been through, it was no wonder he needed help. When they got to the place, they put metal spikes through his hands, into the crosspiece. Though tradition pictures these as going through the palms of the hands, it is more likely that they put the spikes through his wrists between the two bones of the forearm, so that the flesh would not tear away and drop him from the cross. Either way, that alone would have been painful beyond belief. His legs were slightly bent, and then they pressed his feet, one on top of the other, and drove a spike through them into the upright beam of the cross. Tradition pictures a kind of triangular piece of wood for his feet to rest on, but this is doubtful. Then they raised it up.

At this point, Jesus had two choices. He could let the weight of his body hang from his wrists, tearing away at the flesh, and rubbing on bare bone. Or he could straighten his legs, and push up against the spike driven through his feet, inflaming the wounds there, and grinding against broken metatarsals and tendons. Each movement probably drove splinters into his raw, lacerated back. If he he had an itch, he couldn’t even scratch it. If he had to go to the bathroom, it would be right there in front of everyone.

Over time, victims of crucifixion spend more and more time hanging from their arms, since pushing up on the spike through the feet was intensely painful, and required effort. As Jesus’ body weight pulled on his arms, and kept them above shoulder-level, his lungs gradually began to fill with fluid, and breathing became difficult. The only relief for this came from thrusting against the spike in the feet. By pushing himself up this way, he could straighten his body and breathe more freely. But the pain was such that no one could endure this for long. It also required strength and energy. He was undoubtedly weakened by his beatings to start with, and as his body grew weaker through this torture, he got less and less air. In this position, fluid also collected around his heart, putting pressure on it. As a result the organs slowly got less blood and oxygen.

Incidentally, this was why, late in the day, they broke the legs of the other men who were crucified alongside Jesus. By breaking their legs, it became impossible for them to straighten up and get air, and so they died more rapidly.

Jesus was taken to the Roman governor early in the morning. He was put up on the cross before noon, possibly as early as eight or nine in the morning. He endured this suffering until it killed him, about eight hours later. It killed him, either by filling his lungs with fluid and suffocating him, or by the pressure of the fluids surrounding his heart, which could have caused it to stop.

This was actually a relatively short time for death by crucifixion. When we read the gospels, we find that Pilate was surprised when he heard that Jesus had died by late afternoon. But then, most people being crucified were not beaten three times with hours before they were put on the cross. Jesus’ suffering began not when he was put on the cross, but in the early hours of the morning, with the first beating.

But the suffering wasn’t only physical. He also went through emotional and spiritual agony.

First, he endured the anticipation of suffering. He knew, long before what happened, what was waiting for him. When I have some special event approaching in the future, anticipation is almost half the joy of it. I enjoy the feeling of looking forward to a good thing coming. But the reverse is also true. If you know about something you dread that is coming up, part of the negative experience is anticipating what you don’t want to go through. It is clear that Jesus knew about his approaching suffering, and that he dreaded it. That is why he said hours before he experienced any physical torment:

“My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Matt 26:36-39)

He also experienced humiliation. He was the King of the Universe, the very One whom everyone around him professed to worship. And yet, in order to accomplish his purpose, he had to allow them to mock him, to spit on him, to humiliate him as if they were right and he was wrong. There was a physical aspect to the humiliation as well. It is a terrible experience to be a man, and be struck, and yet not be able to strike back. In addition, they almost certainly stripped him completely naked when the put him on the cross.

In addition, Jesus experienced abandonment. All his followers ran away and left him to his fate. His faithful lieutenant, Peter, denied him publicly. But even worse, he was abandoned by God. 2 Corinthians 5:20 says this:

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

God the Father abandoned Jesus the Son in a way that he has never abandoned any human being, ever, nor ever will. The bible teaches us that if we choose to reject God’s grace through Jesus, then ultimately God allows us to do that. In other words, God doesn’t reject us, but he gives us the freedom to reject Him. If we choose that, we will experience what it is like to be without God – but it will be our doing not His. He does not willingly forsake us. But in the case of Jesus on the cross, it was the opposite. Jesus never turned away from the Father. He followed him obediently, and perfectly to the end. But when the Father made Jesus into sin – for our sake – He turned away and abandoned him. He had to, if Jesus indeed took our sin on himself.

All this is the depth of God’s love for us. This is picture of the true horror of our sin. This crucifixion is the gulf that would exist between us and God if Jesus had not taken our place.

But the devil mis-stepped. Death is Satan’s most potent weapon. But it didn’t work on someone who had never sinned. When he twisted Judas into betraying Jesus, when he gloried in the sadistic death that he had no doubt inspired the Romans to develop, when he rejoiced at the evil that destroyed the physical body of God’s son, he was actually embracing a time-bomb. The bible suggests that Jesus descended to hell (1 Peter 3:18-20). I think he went to hell, and there it all blew up in the devil’s face.

I’ve preached at length in the past about how all the evidence points to an actual, physical resurrection of the body of Jesus. He was raised by God. His body was the same and yet different, just like the grain of wheat, and the wheat plant, are both completely wheat, and yet the plant is more, different and better than the single grain from which it rose.

Jesus’ resurrection proved that his suffering was not in vain. It means that it truly was all on our behalf, and not for his own sake. It means that death is not longer the end, or just the dark doorway into into an evil eternity of suffering or oblivion, but rather just a portal that we pass through into eternal life and joy. As the writer of Hebrews says:

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2)

As we consider all this, I want us to be very aware of one thing. God’s grace is free to us, but it was not free to Him. It was very costly. It is free in the same sense that a diamond is free to the girl who is getting engaged. It is free, but it still costs a lot. And like the diamond engagement ring, it is offered not just as a trinket, but as an invitation into a lifelong relationship that will change the course of our future forever. A single woman doesn’t accept a diamond ring from the man she loves and then go on in her life without him, except for maybe occasionally remembering him fondly. No, when she accepts that gift, she enters a new relationship, a relationship that is strengthened and reaffirmed daily as they make their lives together. The acceptance of that gift is life-changing.

What Jesus did for us on the cross – the grace that God offer us – is far more precious than any diamond ring that ever has, or ever will, exist. It should not be received any less casually than a marriage proposal. To receive this gift is to give your life to Jesus, to commit to Him for forever, to live in a daily relationship with him. It is life-transforming.

WAS JESUS JUDGEMENTAL?

On By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Christianity, Jesus, Matthew, Podcast, Religion, SermonLeave a comment

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While Jesus is not a judgmental figure, the whole world is judged by its response to him. He does “separate the wheat from the chaff,” simply by being who he is.

When we trust Jesus and continue on in that trust, God the Father includes us in all the grace and blessings of 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 6

Matthew #6. 3:11-17

Some people have called John the Baptist “The Last Old Testament Prophet.” The Old Testament prophets often pointed out the sins of the Israelites, and of the nations around them, and warned that God would bring judgment upon them if they did not repent. John had a similar message, but there were two key differences. First, while the Old Testament prophets aimed their message at whole nations, John’s message is for individuals. He isn’t calling the nation of Israel to repent – he is calling you to repent. Second, the Old Testament prophets predicted (correctly, it turns out) that judgment would come about through war and destruction. But the judgment that John saw coming was to come about from an individual – the Messiah.

Matthew records a difference between John’s baptism and that of Jesus: John’s was symbolic of repentance; the baptism of Jesus would accomplish something internally – it would bring “the Holy Spirit and fire.” John says some things about Jesus that may seem a little strange to us:

“His winnowing shovel is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn. But the chaff he will burn up with fire that never goes out.”

First, this is strange to us, because we don’t know what a winnowing shovel is, and maybe not even chaff. Back in those days, when people harvested wheat, they would generally take it to a threshing floor. Usually, this was simply a wheatheadcleared, flat area on a hilltop. They would beat the heads of the grain, either by gathering stalks and bashing the heads on the ground, or maybe by hitting the heads with a stick or wooden hammer. They would throw the empty stalks aside. What was left was a mixture of wheat grains, very short pieces of stalk and pieces of the outer part of the wheat seed structure, called “chaff.” At this point, the famers would take a winnowing shovel. They would scoop up the mixture of wheat grains and chaff, and throw it up into the wind that blew across the hilltop. The chaff is lighter than the wheat grain, so the wind would carry that away, while the grain fell back to the ground on the threshing floor. Obviously, the grain was collected and stored. The chaff was sometimes burned up. This picture is one of getting rid of useless material that you do not want, and refining and saving what you do want.

winnow1

Now that we understand what John is saying, it is still strange to us, in that we often do not think of Jesus as bringing judgment. There is no question that judgment is what John means. Those who belong to God are going to found and refined and saved, and those who do not are going to blow off in the wind, and, after, be burned in the fire. John’s main point is: “It’s time to get ready! Repent, be among those who are saved!”

I think in our modern times, we view Jesus as just mellow and loving and sort of “all encompassing.” That is reinforced by many bible verses in which Jesus declares God’s love, and many other bible verses which teach that grace and forgiveness come through Jesus Christ.

But the bible also teaches that Jesus is the dividing point between those who will be saved, and those who won’t. Jesus is the meeting point for both grace and judgment, salvation and condemnation. Even Jesus taught this:

Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. (John 14:6, HCSB)

In Jesus, we know the way, the truth and life. But without Jesus, we are lost. This is both grace and judgment. It is important to understand though, that the judgment and condemnation come only when we reject Jesus. John explains in his gospel:

For God did not send His Son into the world that He might condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. Anyone who believes in Him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the One and Only Son of God. “This, then, is the judgment: The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. (John 3:17-19, HCSB)

Thus, everyone in the whole world is judged by how they respond to Jesus. If they respond in faith, the result is grace and salvation. But those who reject Jesus are separating themselves from God’s grace and life:

And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. The one who has the Son has life. The one who doesn’t have the Son of God does not have life. I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. (1John 5:11-13, HCSB)

So, while Jesus is not a judgmental figure, the whole world is judged by its response to him. He does “separate the wheat from the chaff,” simply by being who he is. If you are in Jesus, you are the wheat, you are safe in God’s storehouse. If you are not in Jesus, you are the chaff.

Throughout history, Jesus has been this dividing point. Many people are willing to look at Jesus as a good moral teacher. Many more are happy to acknowledge him as a prophet. But when it comes to putting faith in Him as fully God (God the Son, one God along with the Father and the Spirit) and as a personal savior, many people seem to balk. I have had many cordial conversations about religion with my Muslim friends. One time, a friend and I had a long talk, and he said, “Tom, we have so much in common. But there is just one point that is a problem. You worship Jesus as God. According to Islam this is the one thing that will send you to hell.”

I said to him, “That’s interesting, Abdul, because that is the one problem I see, also. You don’t worship Jesus as God, and according to Christianity, this is the one thing that will send you to hell.”

Neither one of us was upset with the other. Most Muslims I have met in America are very open to talk about religion without getting upset. But we had both arrived at the same conclusion: Jesus was the point of division. How we respond to Jesus meant life or death, heaven or hell. Though we differed on which response went which way, we agreed that our attitude toward Jesus was the defining thing. Jesus’ very life and message sorts out who belongs to God and who does not.

If you haven’t put your trust in Jesus, if you haven’t surrendered your life to him, now would be the time. You are either in Christ, or you are not. If you are in Jesus, you are in God’s favor. If you are not in Jesus, you are not in God’s favor, and you are in judgment.

By in Jesus, I mean you are continually trusting him as you go through life. It is a daily (sometimes hourly) habit of continuing to believe who Jesus is, what he has done for us, how he feels about us, and continuing to rest upon it. This is not a one shot deal. This is not a situation where you just say, “Well I got baptized, so I’m good now.” Or “Well, I got saved five years ago, so I’m good now.” This is a process of continually putting our trust in Jesus, day by day. That is what it means to be “in Jesus,” and we are saved and safe, only in Jesus. I’m not saying that you have to work hard and live the Christian life on your own strength in order to be in Jesus. But I am saying that to be in Jesus, you need to continually rest in Him with trust in what his Word says, and in what he has done for us.

After John has been talking about Jesus, Jesus himself showed up and asked to be baptized. I’ve mentioned previously that John and Jesus probably knew each other before this; in fact John responded in faith to Jesus when they were both still babies in the womb! So when Jesus asks to be baptized, John is shocked.

But John tried to stop Him, saying, “I need to be baptized by You, and yet You come to me? ” Jesus answered him, “Allow it for now, because this is the way for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he allowed Him to be baptized. (Matt 3:14-15, HCSB)

I think what Jesus was saying there was all about his mission, his very reason for coming into the world. He came to take on humanity, and the sin of humanity. Jesus entered into repentance for that on our behalf. He identified with us through John’s baptism. It was the first public step in fulfilling his mission to bring righteousness to the world. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says:

God made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2Cor 5:21, HCSB)

Jesus was baptized as part of that “becoming sin” for us. I don’t mean he became sinful, but I mean he identified with our sinful humanity, and God eventually (at the cross) placed all of the sin of the world upon him, so that we could be called righteous by placing our faith in him.

Matthew writes:

After Jesus was baptized, He went up immediately from the water. The heavens suddenly opened for Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on Him. And there came a voice from heaven: This is My beloved Son. I take delight in Him! (Matt 3:16-17, HCSB)

“This is my Beloved son, I take delight in him!” These words came from heaven not only at Jesus’ baptism, but also again, on a mountainside, as recorded in Matthew 17:5-6.

While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said: This is My beloved Son. I take delight in Him. Listen to Him! When the disciples heard it, they fell facedown and were terrified. (Matt 17:5-6, HCSB)

The apostle Peter wrote about this in his second letter. He says that the repetition of this voice from heaven means that the message is “strongly confirmed.”

For we did not follow cleverly contrived myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ; instead, we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, a voice came to Him from the Majestic Glory: This is My beloved Son. I take delight in Him! And we heard this voice when it came from heaven while we were with Him on the holy mountain. So we have the prophetic word strongly confirmed. You will do well to pay attention to it, as to a lamp shining in a dismal place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. (2Pet 1:16-19, HCSB)

Peter says we would do well to pay attention to this. So let’s pay attention to it.

First, I think this reminds us that it’s all about Jesus. Sometimes we get confused, and we think faith is all about what Jesus did for us. That’s important, but when we look at things that way, it puts the focus on ourselves. Quite apart from us, Jesus is focal point of history. This word from heaven reminds us that.

Second in Jesus (see above) this is God’s attitude toward us. When we trust Jesus and continue on in that trust, God the Father includes us in all the grace and blessings of Jesus.

Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens. For He chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us to be adopted through Jesus Christ for Himself, according to His favor and will, to the praise of His glorious grace that He favored us with in the Beloved. We have redemption in Him through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding… We have also received an inheritance in Him (Eph 1:3-8,11 HCSB)

The New Testament is full of verses explaining that in Christ, we have what God gives Christ. In other words, if we are in Christ, God looks at us, and has the same attitude toward us that he has toward Jesus himself. So, in Jesus, God is looking at us, and saying “You are my son, my daughter. I am so pleased with you.” Really. I know we are inclined to think that can’t be right, but listen to the Holy Spirit through Isaiah:

Let the wicked one abandon his way and the sinful one his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, so He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will freely forgive. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not My ways.” This is the LORD’s declaration. (Isa 55:7-8, HCSB)

God viewing us “through the lens of Jesus,” so to speak, doesn’t make sense to us. But it makes sense to him. So, if you trust Jesus today, I want you to hear these words spoken to Jesus, applied also to you: You are his beloved son or daughter. He looks at you, in Jesus Christ, and say, “I am so pleased with you.”

~

Clear Bible is a listener supported ministry. We reach more than 15,000 people each year with clear, understandable bible teaching.

 We ask you internet readers/listeners to pray for us. Seriously, before you give any financial support, please give us some prayer support. We value that more than anything else. Pray for this ministry to touch lives. Pray also for financial provision for my family and me.

But then, as you pray, do ask the Lord if he wants you to give financially as well. Be assured, after a small fee to Paypal, 100% of your donations will go to help support my family and me in ministry. In turn, supporting this blog means that you are helping to bless more than 15,000 people each year who visit this blog.

 Some of you may have noticed that I am also a novelist. Often, people have misconceptions about authors. Most of us, including me, make a part-time income through writing, and no more. In other words, we aren’t “raking it in” somewhere else. Now, we trust the Lord to provide, and I don’t want you to give out of guilt or fear. I just don’t want you to get the idea that your donations will only be an “extra” for us somehow.

 If most of our subscribers gave just five or ten dollars each month, (or even less, if everyone pitched in) we would be in good shape. It’s easy to set up a recurring donation when you click the Paypal donate button that is located on the right hand side of this page, down just a little ways.

 You could also send a check to:

New Joy Fellowship

625 Spring Creek Road

Lebanon, TN 37087

 Your check will be tax-deductible. Unfortunately, we cannot do the tax deductible option with the paypal donate button, however the money does go directly to support my family and me.

 Thank for your prayers, and your support!

WELCOMING JESUS

On By Pastor TomIn Bible Teaching, Christianity, Churches in Lebanon, Jesus, Matthew, Podcast, Religion, SermonLeave a comment

002-john-baptist

The kingdom of Heaven is still at hand. The Lord still wants to work more fully in your life. We can still help prepare the way and welcome him in by repentance. The Holy Spirit does the work, all he needs is our willingness.

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 5

Matthew #5 . Chapter 3:1-10

I want to remind you that when I preach, I am really trying to do two things. First, I want to make sure we understand the basic background of passage, and the basic meaning of it. Second, I am always “listening” to see what the Holy Spirit might want to say to us through it. Sometimes I focus more on the first thing, and sometimes more on the latter. I guess my point is, I doubt that any single thirty-minute-teaching can capture everything there is to capture about a bible passage. So, I assume that in some ways I am leaving some things out that might be said about any bible passage. Just keep it mind – there’s always more to learn, even from bible passages you know pretty well.

At this point, Matthew skips from the early childhood of Jesus directly to his adulthood. Luke tells us that John the Baptist was the son of Zechariah the priest and his wife Elizabeth. Elizabeth was related to Jesus’ mother, Mary, and in fact, Mary spent some months with her while they were both pregnant. According to Luke, John responded to Jesus, even when they were both unborn babies.

In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. (Luke 1:39-44, ESV2011)

Because their mothers obviously had a close relationship, it is almost certain that John and Jesus knew each other as children. Certainly, by the time they were adults, before John began to preach, John knew Jesus personally (Matt 3:14), and believed he was the Messiah.

John’s father was a priest, descended from Aaron. This meant that John would have been technically eligible to serve as the high priest. Instead, however, he went into the wilderness of Judea and began to preach. It’s hard to pin down exactly where he was. In the Old Testament, “the wilderness of Judea” referred to an area south and east of Jerusalem, in the vicinity of the Dead Sea. However, it records that John baptized people in the Jordan river, which is north of the Dead sea. Most likely, John wandered around for a little bit.

Not much is said here, but John’s ministry was very remarkable in many ways. The journey from Jerusalem to the Jordan river where John preached was extremely rough. To go from Jerusalem to listen to John would have involved a round trip of several days, and it included very hard travel and the danger of bandits along the way. And yet, his preaching was so compelling that many people made the trip to hear him. Jewish historian Josephus records that John began a significant movement that lasted even into the 100’s AD. Obviously, many of his followers missed his message about Jesus as the Messiah, and started their own sect of Judaism. John the Baptist was a very big deal. Matthew’s concern, however, is not with John himself, but his role in preparing people for the Messiah, Jesus.

Matthew says:

3 For he is the one spoken of through the prophet Isaiah, who said:

A voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

Prepare the way for the Lord;

make His paths straight!

This is the eighth fulfilled prophecy that Matthew refers to. Besides reinforcing his theme of fulfilled prophecy, Matthew shares this to explain that John’s remarkable ministry was all aimed at preparing people to receive the Messiah when he arrived.

How, exactly, did John prepare people to receive Jesus? Matthew says the basic message was: “Repent, because the Kingdom of Heaven has come near” (3:1). That’s a very brief summary, of course. I think the idea was that John preached that God wanted to do something for people personally, that he was drawing near to His people. The appropriate response to the presence of God is realize how we’ve strayed away from him, and turn back to him, away from our sins and wanderings.

The people responded by confessing their sins, and being baptized to show that they were repenting. By the way, the New Testament makes a distinction between the baptism of John, which was for repentance, and baptism into Jesus (see Matthew 3:11; Matthew 28:19; Acts 2:38; Acts 19:4; Romans 6:3).

When the religious leaders came to see John, and to be baptized by him, he had some harsh words for them. As I mentioned earlier, John was enormously influential and popular with ordinary Jewish people. Most likely, the religious leaders came to be baptized by him in order to gain popularity with the “regular folks.” But John saw through that, and castigated them for it.

His response to them made two basic points. First, he told them to “produce fruit consistent with repentance. (verse 8).” In other words, “if you are truly repentant, act like it.” Second, he warned them not rely on their ancestry as Jews to do them any good with God (verse 9).

Let’s stop here for this time, and try and unpack what the Lord might say to us through this text.

First, is the Kingdom of Heaven near? I believe since the coming of the Holy Spirit in about 30 AD, the Kingdom of Heaven has always been near to anyone willing to receive it. If you are reading this and you have never turned your life over to Jesus, he is coming to you right now. He wants to shower you with his own real presence, with grace, joy and a new start on life. The way to receive that is the same way shown in this text: to repent. 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.

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!

Let me give you an example. Suppose there is a Christian man who wants more of Jesus in his marriage. He is not happy with his marriage. He is unhappy with his wife. Jesus wants to come into this part of his life – the kingdom of heaven is near. Now, the Holy Spirit, working in this man, shows him that he often makes cutting remarks to and about his wife. The Holy Spirit is calling him to repent. Repentance is not saying “Yeah, I know that’s wrong. It’s just hard because she never does what I want. Sorry.” It is isn’t even saying “I admit that I do that, and I admit that it’s wrong.” 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. In the case of the man with the unhappy marriage, he commits to turning away from cutting down his wife. Suppose normally he makes an average of six cutting remarks each day. When he first repents, he is so sincere that for a week, he makes none. But after a while, he loses some of his focus, and he goes back to making some cutting remarks, but maybe now only three each day. The Holy Spirit reminds him again, and he renews his repentance and consciously relies on the Holy Spirit to help him, and he gets it down to two cutting remarks each day. He realizes he needs help, and so he asks a Christian friend to pray for him about this, and to hold him accountable by asking him about it regularly. Now, the man usually does not make any cutting remarks to or about his wife at all. As time goes on, prompted by the life of Jesus inside him, he begins to actually compliment and encourage his wife. From time to time, he still slips and makes a nasty comment, but it is no longer a habit, and for the most part, he has become kind and encouraging to his wife. Within a year or two, his attitude is transformed, and he and his wife are closer than they have been for years.

I think that is a realistic picture of what the fruit of repentance looks like. Sometimes Jesus transforms us dramatically in a single moment. But a lot of the time, what is actually happening is that we are “working out our salvation” (Philippians 2:12). What I mean is, the Lord uses gradual transformation like this to strengthen our hearts and minds and to make us more like him. When you repent you are on a new path. You may not walk the path perfectly, but you are no longer going the old direction. Your your progress, however slow, however often you might fall down, is in the new direction, toward Jesus.

I want to make something clear however. A lot of people admit their sins, but do not really repent of them. A lot of people feel, in the heat of a moment, that they want to do better next time, and even resolve to do so, but they do not fundamentally commit to going a different way forever. If you are a Christian, and have struggled with the same thing over and over again, and you don’t seem to make any progress, ask the Lord to show you if you have truly repented in that area of your life. If the bible says you need to repent, or if the Holy Spirit shows that you need to repent, then make a decision to turn back from that (action, habit, attitude) forever. Don’t worry about whether you will fail again at times: make the commitment to turn away from it forever, and invite the Holy Spirit to give you the strength to keep that commitment.

John the Baptist had some very harsh words for religious people who did not really want to repent, but only wanted to pretend to do so to look good to other people. Unfortunately, there are still a number of people who take this approach. Let me say with John the Baptist: Give it up. Pretending to repent without really doing it is pointless, and it will not save you or help you in any way.

I will add that people who pretend are the ones that typically give Christians a bad reputation. So you are hurting not only yourself, but others too.

The good news, it is never too late to truly repent, not as long as you are still alive. Jesus wants to come to us; some of you for the first time, others in new and deeper ways. How do you need to prepare for him? Where can you make the way more straight for him through repentance?

~

I want to briefly make you aware of our situation. This ministry (Clear Bible) until recently was supported by our local church. However, we have had some changes there, and we are now a house church. Today, we have about 8 families. Our church cannot fully support me financially any longer.

 In contrast, about 430 people subscribe to this blog, and an additional 300 or so each week come and visit the site. In other words, by far, most of the people who benefit from this ministry are not part of our little church.

 I’m asking you internet readers/listeners to pray for us. Seriously, before you give any financial support, please give us some prayer support. I value that more than anything else. Pray for this ministry to touch lives. Pray also for financial provision for my family and me.

But then, as you pray, do ask the Lord if he wants you to give financially as well. Be assured, after a small fee to Paypal, 100% of your donations will go to help support my family and me in ministry. In turn, supporting this blog means that you are helping to bless more than 15,000 people each year who visit this blog.

 Some of you may have noticed that I am also a novelist. Often, people have misconceptions about authors. Most of us, including me, make a part-time income through writing, and no more. In other words, we aren’t “raking it in” somewhere else. Now, we trust the Lord to provide, and I don’t want you to give out of guilt or fear. I just don’t want you to get the idea that your donations will only be an “extra” for us somehow.

 If most of our subscribers gave just five or ten dollars each month, (or even less, if everyone pitched in) we would be in good shape. It’s easy to set up a recurring donation when you click the Paypal donate button that is located on the right hand side of this page, down just a little ways.

 You could also send a check to:

New Joy Fellowship

625 Spring Creek Road

Lebanon, TN 37087

 Your check will be tax-deductible. Unfortunately, we cannot do the tax deductible option with the paypal donate button, however the money does go directly to support my family and me.

 Thank for your prayers, and your support!

WHAT BARACK OBAMA HAS IN COMMON WITH JESUS

On By Pastor TomIn House Church, Jesus, Matthew, Podcast, Religion, Sermon1 Comment

obama1

 

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 4

 

 

Matthew #4 . 2:12-23

Sometimes, at my house, we have leftovers for supper. We often do this on Sunday nights, so no one has to cook, and we can all have a day off. I actually really enjoy this, particularly when we have high-quality leftovers. So, we might get it all out, and then call the family together and say something like:

“OK, everyone, we have some leftover lasagna from when we went out to eat, some spinach pie, and some curry. Take your pick, and dig in.”

Sometimes, I think of bible passages like leftover-night. We’ve got several good things to choose from, and maybe everyone will get something a little bit different from it. That’s how I feel about our text this time. So, I’ll set out the food and let you dig in. Start out by reading the passage, if you haven’t already (Matthew 2:12-23). For those of you who got sucked in by the title, let me offer full disclosure: I’ll get to Jesus and Barack Obama in the second half of this post. That’s part of the “second serving.”

Last time, we looked at the Magi (wise men). Our text this time picks up at the end of their appearance in the bible. On the way to see Jesus, they had stopped first in Jerusalem and asked King Herod about the birth of the Messiah. Herod had pretended to be interested for the sake of worshipping the Messiah himself, but in truth, he asked the Magi to come back and tell him about it so that he could learn the identity of the child, and have him killed.

Herod had become king of Judea through scheming with Rome, and he held the position because he was supported by the Roman army. He wasn’t a Jew, and the Jews resented him. Just a little more than a generation before Herod, the Jews had still been ruled by a Jewish king. As a king, Herod was smart, insecure and ruthless, which was a bad combination for the people he ruled. Most likely, he thought that the child was some kind of descendant of the Hasmonean (Jewish) kings who had ruled the region in his father’s time. He saw the messiah as a real and political threat to his throne and to his life.

God warned the Magi in a dream not to go back to Herod, and they obeyed. After they left, God spoke to Joseph in a dream also, and warned him to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt to escape from Herod. Joseph also obeyed. The fact that Jesus spent time in Egypt fulfilled another Old Testament prophecy, the fifth fulfilled prophecy that Matthew refers to:

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son. (Hos 11:1, HCSB).

After time passed, and Herod never heard from the wise men again, he realized he was not going to learn the identity of the Messiah. He flew into an evil rage, but it was also a cold and ruthless rage. By simple mathematics, he figured out how old the Messiah would be, and had every male child that age and younger in Bethlehem killed. This fulfilled yet another prophecy, from Jeremiah 31:15.

This is what the LORD says: A voice was heard in Ramah, a lament with bitter weeping — Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children because they are no more. (Jer 31:15, HCSB)

After Herod died, Joseph had yet another visit from the Lord in a dream. This time he was told it was safe to return to the territory of Israel. One more dream warned him not to go back to Bethlehem or Jerusalem, however, which were controlled by Herod’s son Archelaus. So Joseph settled the family back in Nazareth, Mary’s hometown. Matthew makes reference to one more prophecy, the seventh so far, that the Messiah would be called a Nazarene. This probably comes from one or two sources. Isaiah 11:1 says:

Then a shoot will grow from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit. (Isa 11:1, HCSB)

In Hebrew the word “branch” sounds a lot like the word Nazarene. There is another prophecy that does not name Nazareth, but it does name the region (Galilee):

Nevertheless, the gloom of the distressed land will not be like that of the former times when He humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali. But in the future He will bring honor to the Way of the Sea, to the land east of the Jordan, and to Galilee of the nations. The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; a light has dawned on those living in the land of darkness. (Isa 9:1-2, HCSB)

Matthew may have been thinking of either or both of these passages, which were widely regarded to apply to the Messiah.

These fulfilled prophecies are important, not only to the Jews who first read Matthew’s book, but also to us. Let me review them for you, with a reference to where Matthew shows them as fulfilled. The Messiah was supposed to be a descendant of David (1:1-17), but born of virgin (1:18-25). He was supposed to be born in Bethlehem (2:1) and associated with a star (from Numbers 24:17, fulfilled in Matt 2:1). Though born in Bethlehem, he was to come from Egypt (2:14), and there would be lamenting in Bethlehem near the time of his birth (2:16-18). Though born in Bethlehem and called from Egypt, the Messiah was supposed to come from Galilee/Nazareth (2:23).

Even if you took out the virgin birth, the probability of a single individual meeting all these criteria is extremely low. You see, this is one reason that prevented every woman who had a baby boy out-of-wedlock from claiming that she was really a virgin and her baby was actually the Messiah. There were simply too many strange requirements to meet. Only Jesus met them. And Matthew is not even close to finished pointing out all the ways Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament. If you were with us on our study called “Understanding the Bible” you know that there is no doubt that all those prophecies were written long before Jesus was born.

That should encourage our faith. This is one of our “meals” this time. Do you need to hear again how unique Jesus was? Do you need the faith-boost of understanding how he fulfilled things that were written about him hundreds of years before he was born? Do you need to be reminded of how amazing and how reliable the bible is? Sink your teeth into these fulfilled prophecies.

There is another one here that is very personal for me. Some of you know that I grew up in Papua New Guinea. When you grow up in a country that is not the home-country of your parents, you experience some very unique things. People who grew up this way are called Third-Culture-Kids (TCKs), because we are not really from the first culture (the home country of our parents), but we aren’t really from the second culture either (the place in which we grew up). By the way, President Barack Obama is one of us.

When I was younger I had to come to terms with the fact that I am a person without a real home culture or home country. Sometimes, I felt like I was from outer space. Even after more than twenty years in the same country, I still feel like this at times. For all my life, I’ve had to deal with being absent from either one home, or the other. I’m not trying to say “poor me,” but the fact is, I’ve found that only other TCKs really understand. When I was coming to terms with all this, I remember complaining a little to the Lord. I said, “You say that you can understand and empathize with our weaknesses, because you’ve been tested in every way just as we have (Hebrews 2:17-18). What about this? What about the strange struggles of being a TCK?”

I thought I had him, until the Lord pointed me to this passage in Matthew, and it hit me like a cement truck: Jesus was a Third Culture Kid. Like me, and like Barack Obama, Jesus was a TCK. He was born in Judea, but raised for some of his childhood in Egypt, a place where his parents were not from. He wasn’t really from there either, but by the time he came back to Nazareth, he would not have really thought of himself as from that place, either. If you had asked him, “Where are you from?” he would have given a typical TCK type answer:

“Well, I was born in Bethlehem, Judea, but I grew up in Egypt. I come from Nazareth, but right now I’m living in Capernaum.”

To make this more applicable to people other than TCKs, let me clarify the main point: Jesus can really, truly identify with you. There are probably only a few hundred thousand TCKs in the entire world (maybe far fewer), but Jesus made sure he could relate to us, and us to him. Whether you are a TCK or not, realize this – Jesus has made it so that he can truly understand you and your struggles. Don’t doubt that he knows and understands what you are going through, and cares about you in the midst of it.

A third “dish,” that I notice in this passage is the way the Lord spoke to people in dreams. In this passage, he did it four times – three to Joseph. Joseph also heard from the Lord in a dream in Matthew 1:20. Dreams are a tricky thing. First, and most importantly, I want to caution that you should never listen to your dreams if they are “guiding” you to do something that the bible clearly says you should not; or if they guide you to refrain from doing what the bible says you should. The bible is our final and authoritative guide. Even so, I do think that sometimes Christians put God in a box – that is they won’t even consider the possibility that he may speak to them in dreams. Joseph’s experience shows us that the Lord can and does lead us directly in choices and directions where the bible is not specific, or in things that the bible does not address. It may be through dreams, or some other method, but the point is, God remains active in our lives.

Yes, it is true, Joseph was the step-father of the Messiah, so his choices were pretty important. But there is nothing in the text that suggests other Christians should be different, or treated differently by God. In fact, the Holy Spirit gave dreams to lead Peter (Acts 10:10-19) and Paul (Acts 16:9-10) and even Cornelius (Acts 10:3-5). Joel, the prophet, inspired by the Holy Spirit, predicted that the Lord would use all sorts of ways to speak to his people after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit

After this I will pour out My Spirit on all humanity; then your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your old men will have dreams, and your young men will see visions. I will even pour out My Spirit on the male and female slaves in those days. (Joel 2:28-29, HCSB)

So, what I get from Joseph’s dreams is that God wants to speak to us, even about our specific lives and the choices that we face. As you face choices, I encourage you to ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you and guide you; and then trust that He will. In fact, I trust that he is speaking to you right now. Why don’t you pause and listen, and absorb what he wants to do right now?

~

I want to briefly make you aware of our situation. This ministry (Clear Bible) until recently was supported by our local church. However, we have had some changes there, and we are now a house church. Today, we have about 8 families. Our church cannot fully support me financially any longer.

 

In contrast, about 430 people subscribe to this blog, and an additional 300 or so each week come and visit the site. In other words, by far, most of the people who benefit from this ministry are not part of our little church.

 

I’m asking you internet readers/listeners to pray for us. Seriously, before you give any financial support, please give us some prayer support. I value that more than anything else. Pray for this ministry to touch lives. Pray also for financial provision for my family and me.

But then, as you pray, do ask the Lord if he wants you to give financially as well. Be assured, after a small fee to Paypal, 100% of your donations will go to help support my family and me in ministry. In turn, supporting this blog means that you are helping to bless more than 15,000 people each year who visit this blog.

 

Some of you may have noticed that I am also a novelist. Often, people have misconceptions about authors. Most of us, including me, make a part-time income through writing, and no more. In other words, we aren’t “raking it in” somewhere else. Now, we trust the Lord to provide, and I don’t want you to give out of guilt or fear. I just don’t want you to get the idea that your donations will only be an “extra” for us somehow.

 

If most of our subscribers gave just five or ten dollars each month, (or even less, if everyone pitched in) we would be in good shape. It’s easy to set up a recurring donation when you click the Paypal donate button that is located on the right hand side of this page, down just a little ways.

 

You could also send a check to:

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Your check will be tax-deductible. Unfortunately, we cannot do the tax deductible option with the paypal donate button, however the money does go directly to support my family and me.

 

Thank for your prayers, and your support!

PAGAN PRIESTS FIND JESUS THROUGH HOROSCOPE

On By Pastor TomIn Bible Teaching, Christianity, Faith, Matthew, Podcast, Religion, Sermon2 Comments

Astrologer

The story of the Magi is actually kind of strange and disturbing when you think about it. Pagan Shamans were led to Jesus through astrology. What can we learn from this?

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 3

Matthew #3 . Chapter 2:1-12

To be honest with you, if I was God, inspiring people to write the Bible, I would either keep the wise men out of the gospel of Matthew, or I would explain more about them.

Only two out of the four gospels tell us much about the birth of Jesus in the first place – Matthew and Luke. Matthew leaves out the shepherds; Luke leaves out the wise men. In the first six chapters of his gospel, Matthew takes great care to point out how the birth and early life of Jesus fulfilled various prophecies about the Messiah from the Old Testament. In fact, in the first two chapters, Matthew points out four specific instances where prophecies were fulfilled. Surely, if there was a prophecy in the Old Testament about these visitors from the east, Matthew would have mentioned it.

Not only does this incident have nothing to do with prophecy, at first blush it seems to have nothing to do with Biblical Christianity or even Orthodox Judaism. The term translated “Wise men” or “Magi” usually refers to a sort of Babylonian priest or scholar who was especially acquainted with the study and interpretation of the stars, and of dreams and things like that. In different times or places they might have been called Shamans, or Druids, or Seers, or even Magicians. That’s right. The Babylonian or Arabian Magi held roughly the same position in their society as Druids did in Celtic society. Do you understand? – we are talking about pagan priests, coming to see Jesus. Now are you interested?

Not only are these people pagan priests, but somehow, they have learned about Jesus’ birth – through astrology. It was the behavior of the stars which told them that someone very important and significant was born. The stars even told them generally where in the world to look for the child. As far as we know, it was not because they searched the scriptures, or listened to a Jewish preacher on TV or anything else. The wise men don’t really fit into my typical way of looking at world. Pagan priests are drawn to Jesus through astrology?! I think what bothers me most is this question: does this mean that all religions really do lead to the same God?

First, I want to point out that this is another one of those passages that seems to confirm the authenticity of the New Testament. If we are honest, we must admit that it raises troubling questions and ideas. If the New Testament were made up, or if the stories about Jesus were extensively edited and changed, this story would have been one of the first to be cut. In other words, there seems to be no reason to have this here unless it really happened, and God wants us to learn something from it.

I want to briefly set up the historical timeline here. Matthew makes it clear this occurs after Jesus was born (2:1). Herod asks the Magi when the star appeared. When the Magi find Jesus, he is living with his parents in a house (not a stable). Later, Herod thinks that Jesus might be up to two years old (2:16). So, while it is very picturesque to imagine the wise-men standing in the stable with the shepherds and donkeys on Christmas night, that is almost certainly not how it actually happened.

So, what does the Lord want to say to us through this little section of scripture? First, and probably most importantly, the message is this: This little baby, born in Bethlehem, in accordance with the prophecies for the Jewish Messiah, is for all people. His life, death and resurrection and his teaching also, are not intended only for the Jews and the small nation of Israel. From birth, his influence and significance are there for the whole world. The wise men were not Jews by religion nor by birth. But Jesus was for them too. We call Christmas a “Christian” Holiday. But God calls it a gift for the whole world; a gift for all people – including pagan priests.

Second, let’s look at those wise men. By the way, the Bible does not actually tell us how many of them there are, or what their names were. All of that is folk legend. Probably, the idea of three wise men came about because three kinds of gifts were presented: gold, frankincense and myrrh. We only know that there was more than one (the Greek word for Magi is plural), and it is reasonable to suppose that it wasn’t an extremely large group either. In any case, we can be reasonably sure that not every pagan priest in the region came to see Jesus. Presumably, other pagan priests also studied the stars. They saw what the traveling wise men saw. But why did only these particular men come to see Jesus?

I think the answer is this. These men saw Jesus in the stars because in their hearts, they were honestly seeking the truth and they were hungering for God. When they made it to Jerusalem, they told Herod they were there to worship the child revealed in the stars. When they actually found Jesus, that is exactly what they did – they worshiped him. You see, I don’t think this is an affirmation of pagan religion. Instead, it is an affirmation of honest seeking. These pagans didn’t know any of the Bible. They had never heard of the Messiah. But in their hearts, they hungered for God, and they pursued him honestly and diligently. And even though they were looking in the wrong places, they really were looking. Since there were no other means available, God used the stars to direct them to him.

This is in contrast to Herod and the Jewish leaders. Herod wasn’t a Jew, but he was surrounded by them and easily could have learned about God if he chose. The Jewish leaders studied the scriptures. They knew that Messiah was supposed to be born in Bethlehem. In fact, Matthew lists the scripture here, allowing us to see yet another way in Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecy. But the Jewish leaders at that time weren’t seeking God. Instead, it was pagan priests, completely ignorant of the Bible, who found God when he came into the world. Jeremiah 29:13-14 says this:

If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. I will be found by you,” says the Lord.

Jesus says it like this:

Keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep searching, and you will find. Keep knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who searches finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. (Matthew 7:7-8)

The wise men were seeking. And in accordance with the promises listed above, when they looked wholeheartedly, they found the true God. It wasn’t their pagan religion that led them to “the same God worshiped by all religions.” Instead, it was that their seeking, hungering hearts led them to true faith in Jesus Christ. Other pagans didn’t come to Bethlehem, even though they had the same information. Those men didn’t have the same hearts. Herod didn’t come, and neither did the Jewish leaders – even after they heard what the Magi had to say. They didn’t have seeking hearts as the Magi.

The wise men who saw Jesus didn’t go to Bethlehem and then perform pagan worship rituals. They went to Bethlehem, put their faith in Jesus, and worshiped Him, specifically. To express it another way, the moment they worshiped Jesus, they were no longer pagans, but Christians.

That may answer the question about other religions. I think the idea is sort of this: a true seeker will not remain in a false religion, but that false religion may be the initial point from which a true seeker eventually comes to know Jesus. The wise men didn’t receive eternal life through pagan religion – they received it through faith in Jesus. A Hindu won’t get to heaven by being a good Hindu. But suppose something in Hinduism leads him to find out about Jesus. Suppose he eventually puts his faith in Jesus – then he would have eternal life. It would not be Hinduism that saved him, but Jesus. By and large, Hinduism does not point to Jesus; but God could certainly use some aspect of it to draw a true seeker to the truth and salvation found only in Jesus Christ. That is very much like what he did for the Magi.

What initially drew the Magi to study the stars was only a shadow of the reality found in Jesus, who is called the Bright Morning Star (Numbers 24:17; Revelation 22:16). The Christmas tree is a pagan symbol too. But maybe the pagan imagery of tree worship, like that of astrology, is just a memory of the real thing, which goes farther back still, all the way to the Garden and the tree of life. The real thing is what those pagan priests sought.

So, with these strange pagan shamans in mind, I think there is a question worth considering: What are you seeking these days? Are you interested in finding the truth? Do you really want God himself, or do you just want God to do something for you? Maybe, like Herod or the Jewish leaders, your biggest concern is how Jesus might affect the plans and ambitions you have for your life.

What has led you to this place? Family, friends or your horoscope? The hope of a day’s comfort? Whatever it might be, let go of the shadow, and see the true reality that the Magi saw – the little toddler, invested with all the fullness of God. True hope. True life. True love. With the wise men, fall down, and exchange the empty shadows for the truth. Worship him. Receive him.

WHAT DO CHRISTIANS DO WITH SILLY OLD TESTAMENT LAWS?

On By Pastor TomIn Bible Teaching, Christianity, Faith, House Church, Jesus, Old Testament, Podcast, Religion8 Comments

law-books-and-gavel

Jesus did not set aside the laws of the Old Testament. He fulfilled them. This is very important, as we seek to understand the law-genre we find in the bible. When we really understand how to interpret those ancient laws, there is tremendous blessing and grace there for 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 Understanding the Bible Part 7

 

 

 

Understanding the Bible #7 .

One of the most misunderstood and misused genres in the bible are the laws, particularly the laws contained in the Old Testament.

Here’s an example. I have heard it said, many times: “In the same section of the bible where it says homosexual sex is wrong, it also says eating shellfish is wrong. It also says it is wrong to wear clothes with more than one kind of fiber. Therefore, unless you want to stop eating shrimp and wearing anything that isn’t 100% cotton, you can’t say that homosexual behavior is a sin.”

Let me say that I do understand the confusion. However, let me also say that if you say some such thing, it reveals that a) You haven’t read the bible in context and b) You don’t understand how to read laws in the bible.

First, let me remind you about context. The verse in question is Leviticus 18:22. The immediate context includes more laws regarding sexual behavior. The verses just before 18:22 prohibit incest, including child sexual abuse. The verses just after it prohibit sex with animals, and also the practice of burning babies alive. So, if you throw out Leviticus 18:22 because of context, congratulations! You’ve now endorsed incest, bestiality and the brutal murder of live infants. You don’t get to the part about two kinds of cloth for another 28 verses, and before you get there, you find laws protecting the poor and prohibiting oppression and hatred. By the reasoning I shared above, you ought to throw those things out also! (By the way, the verse about shellfish isn’t anywhere near Leviticus 18:22 – it’s in chapter 11).

However, there is a legitimate core question here. Let’s move the question over to Leviticus 19:17-19, to make it more clear:

“You must not harbor hatred against your brother. Rebuke your neighbor directly, and you will not incur guilt because of him. Do not take revenge or bear a grudge against members of your community, but love your neighbor as yourself; I am Yahweh.

“You are to keep My statutes. You must not crossbreed two different kinds of your livestock, sow your fields with two kinds of seed, or put on a garment made of two kinds of material. (Lev 19:17-19, HCSB)

Here we have a law that says you should not hate or hold grudges. It says we should love our neighbor as ourselves. Immediately after, we have a law against cross-breeding and also the one against wearing clothing made up of mixed fibers. Why do we agree that we shouldn’t hate, but yet we have no problem wearing something that is 75% cotton and 25% polyester? That’s a legitimate question.

There are three types of laws given in the bible: Laws for Ancient Israel; Ceremonial Laws for Worship; and Moral Laws. One of the difficulties is that the bible doesn’t always make it clear which ones are which kind; even worse, sometimes you find all three different types of laws mixed together. Sometimes you might have a moral law (“do not commit adultery”) combined with a law that applies only to ancient Israel (“adulterers must be put to death”) as in Leviticus 20:10. Since we feel free to not execute adulterers any more, does that mean we should also feel free to commit adultery?

The laws for ancient Israel are exactly that: laws that applied literally and directly to the nation of Israel from about 1400 BC until Jerusalem was destroyed in 587 BC. No one lives in ancient Israel any more – that nation has not existed for more than 2,000 years. There is a modern nation of Israel, but they are set up with a constitution and a set of laws that are different from those given by Moses. So when we read a law that applies to citizenship in ancient Israel, we know right away that we should not apply it literally without further investigation.

Some Jewish leaders once tried to trick Jesus with one of these ancient laws. They caught a woman in adultery, and brought her to him, and said “According the Law, we should stone her.” The truth was, they weren’t serious. At the time of Jesus, the Jews lived under Roman law, which forbade such things. It was illegal for them to stone her. If Jesus affirmed the Old Testament law, they could bring him before the Romans for attempted murder. If Jesus rejected the law, they could claim to his followers that he did not follow the teaching of Moses. It’s the same thing I’ve seen countless times on blogs and facebook posts: “You claim to follow the bible, but the bible says this. Are you going to do that, or not?”

Jesus knew it was a trap. He couldn’t explain about ancient laws without being misquoted. So he said

“The one without sin among you should be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7, HCSB)

Caught in their own trap, they left. When they were gone, he told the woman that he did not condemn her (meaning, condemn her to death) but he also said: “Go, and from now on, do not sin any more.” (John 8:11). The whole story is in John 8:1-11. It shows us Jesus’ attitude toward two kinds of laws. The laws of the ancient nation of Israel no longer apply in the literal sense. Jesus himself changed all that (more on that in the next paragraph). But the moral law – “do not commit adultery” – still applies. Jesus called it a sin, and told the woman to stop it.

There is something else. The law of death for adulterers was fulfilled. There was death for the woman who committed adultery, the one they brought to Jesus. Only, it wasn’t her death. Jesus died in her place. He did not set aside the law – he fulfilled it. Death came as a result of her sin. This is why she did not have to be condemned – he chose to fulfill the law on her behalf. He also chose to fulfill the law on our behalf. Do you see, how (as Jesus said) all the law and the prophets are fulfilled in Jesus? When we understand that, so much more of the bible opens up for us.

I want to pause here and reiterate something I said earlier in the series. Even though the ancient laws of the Israelite nation no longer apply in a direct, literal sense, they do still apply in the sense that they teach us important eternal principles. We no longer directly apply the law “death to adulterers.” But it still means something for us. It means that adultery is a very serious thing in God’s eyes. It is a graphic illustration, even today, that sin leads to death. It shows us again our need for Jesus, and how amazing is his love and grace to us.

By showing us Jesus’ attitude toward Old Testament law, I just did something that demonstrates the final common sense principle of bible reading. I used one part of the bible to help us understand another, more difficult, part. We call this rule Scripture Interprets Scripture. The idea includes several things.

First, we let the clear parts of the bible shed light on the obscure parts. Remember our book on penguins? The author said “Penguins are large, flightless birds.” Later she said she rejoiced as she observed them “soaring and diving through the open blue.” The first statement is very clear – it tells us that penguins are birds that cannot fly. Therefore, when we look at the second statement, we already know that it must not mean flying. We should use the bible in the same way. Much of it is very clear. We should use the clear parts to help us understand the more difficult things.

There’s another thing with the bible, however. The New Testament quotes and explains the Old Testament on numerous occasions. We use the explanations of the New Testament to help us understand the Old. The bible explains itself in many places, if we pay attention.

Scripture Interprets Scripture is a very helpful principle when it comes to understanding the laws of the Old Testament. What I mean is, the New Testament helps us a great deal in understanding those laws. Let’s look at how:

1. Laws of Ancient Israel. We’ve already looked at how Jesus viewed these. He fulfilled them in his life, death and resurrection. What remains are not things for us to do, but principles that we can learn. Paul demonstrated this when he referred to law about not muzzling oxen (1 Corinthians 9). That is no longer a law for anyone to obey literally. But that ancient law does contain an eternal principle that we should try to apply to our own lives as Jesus-followers. The same is true of all of those ancient-Israel laws. Sometimes it takes work to uncover the principle. We have to read in context, and learn the cultural and historical setting of those laws. We are guided by the New Testament. We don’t apply these thing literally. But there is good stuff for us there.

2. Laws regarding worship ceremonies. There are hundreds of laws in the Old Testament about how the people of Israel were to worship God. Among these are laws about what makes a person ceremonially “clean” or “unclean” – including what we call “kosher” laws about food. Thankfully, the New Testament is very clear about all of this. Jesus himself said this:

“Are you also as lacking in understanding? Don’t you realize that nothing going into a man from the outside can defile him? For it doesn’t go into his heart but into the stomach and is eliminated.” (As a result, He made all foods clean.) Then He said, “What comes out of a person — that defiles him. For from within, out of people’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, promiscuity, stinginess, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a person.” (Mark 7:18-23, HCSB)

Mark comments “As a result, He made all foods clean.” He is clear that Jesus eliminated the kosher laws, while, at the same time, affirming the moral laws.

Peter had a vision that confirmed the fact that kosher laws are not necessary for those who are in Jesus (Acts 10:9-16). The first apostles wrestled with what the law meant after Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Acts 15:28-29 records their conclusions:

For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from idol-offerings, and from blood, from smothering [abortion], and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”

(Acts 15:28-29 My rendering from Greek. The word variously translated “what is strangled” or “smothered” was a colloquial expression referring to the practice of smothering unwanted newborn infants)

In other words, the New Testament permits you to eat all the shellfish you want, and wear what you choose.

In addition, the book of Hebrews deals extensively with the laws regarding worship. The short version is this: All of the Old Testament worship ceremonies and practices were designed to do two things: 1. Show us our need for a Messiah, a savior and 2. Help us to understand what he would do for us.

Therefore, Jesus fulfilled all of these laws. It is not necessary for us to practice them any more.

These serve as a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was warned when he was about to complete the tabernacle. For God said, Be careful that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown to you on the mountain. But Jesus has now obtained a superior ministry, and to that degree He is the mediator of a better covenant, which has been legally enacted on better promises. (Heb 8:5-6, HCSB)

Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the actual form of those realities, it can never perfect the worshipers by the same sacrifices they continually offer year after year. (Heb 10:1, HCSB)

So we do not need to sacrifice animals in worship, or wear special clothes, or burn incense, or live “kosher” or follow any of those Old Testament regulations for worship or festivals and feasts. However, learning about those things can still greatly enrich our appreciation and understanding of Jesus and what he has done for us. For example, our family has celebrated the Passover Feast for the past 20 years. We don’t believe it is necessary. But it is a helpful tradition that points us toward Jesus and reminds us of all the promises God fulfilled in Him. We can learn similar things by studying these other Old Testament worship laws. But we do not have to literally follow them as written.

3. Moral Laws. The moral laws in the bible are a reflection of God’s Holy nature. They do not change. The ten commandments are moral laws. Laws about not hating and sexual purity and loving others are all moral laws. The New Testament teaches that Jesus fulfilled the entire moral law for us, so we do not have to do the impossible task of keeping the moral law perfectly. However, Jesus, living inside us, wants to continue to keep the moral law. He doesn’t want to hate, or murder, or commit sexual sin or lie or cheat. Therefore the moral law remains a standard for Christians. Jesus himself affirmed the ten commandments. He affirmed that sexual purity is found in abstinence before marriage, and faithfulness in marriage. He affirmed that we should love others, and not hate. He taught that lies and oppression were sinful. The apostles of Jesus also affirmed the moral law in every book of the New Testament.

We can’t keep it perfectly, but when we break the moral law, it is sign that there is something wrong in our relationship with Jesus. We are not meant to engage in a lifestyle in which we regularly break the moral law that is a reflection of the Holy nature of God. When we do as we please, and consistently, deliberately live in a pattern of breaking the moral law, we reveal that either we don’t have real faith in Jesus, or that we are in danger of rejecting Jesus.

Thanks to Jesus, the moral law is no longer a standard we must reach in order to be reconciled to God. Jesus has already done that for us. Even so, it’s a good thing to want to please God by doing the right thing. I’m pleased when I see my kids following the moral law – being kind, being responsible, staying away from drugs and so on.  But it doesn’t cause me to love them more nor does it have any bearing upon their identity as my kids.

In addition to showing us how God would like us to live, the moral law remains like a warning sign. The moral law tells us when we are danger of messing up our lives. It tells us when we are in danger of moving away from Jesus, and heading toward rejecting who He is, and what he has done for us. It is a message that shouts “Danger! Wrong Way! Turn Back! Death Ahead!” We ignore the moral law to our own peril and destruction.

I encourage you to take some time with these sermon notes. This is an important subject that too few Christians genuinely understand. As you do, I encourage you to listen to the Holy Spirit. As we Christians, we do not need to be afraid of the law any more. In Jesus, the law is no longer dangerous and condemning – it is a blessing. The ancient laws show us God’s grace and compassion. The ceremonial laws show us God’s holiness, and how much we need Jesus. And the moral laws protect us, by keeping us away from danger, and close to God.

Let the Holy Spirit speak to you today.