Tag: love

2 SAMUEL #17: TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION

On By Pastor TomIn 2 Samuel, Bible, Bible Teaching, Christianity, Jesus, Old Testament, Podcast, Religion, SermonLeave a comment

This Old Testament narrative reveals profound insight into redemption, forgiveness and the tension between Truth and Love. This scripture points beyond itself to Jesus Christ as the only satisfying answer to our need for both justice and reconciliation.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 2 Samuel Part 17

2 SAMUEL #17. 2 SAMUEL 13:37-14:24

Remember the horrible story: David’s firstborn son, Amnon, the crown prince, raped his half-sister, Tamar, who was full sister to David’s next son, Absalom. Absalom killed his half-brother Amnon, and then ran away to Geshur, which was the kingdom of his grandfather.

David mourned for his firstborn son. He had turned out to be a rapist, but nobody is just one thing, and that’s important for us to remember. This isn’t just a story, it’s about real people, who are usually a very complicated mix of good and bad. David probably mourned for what Amnon had become, as well as the loss of any opportunity for Amnon to become a better man. And certainly, David simply mourned because he lost someone he loved.

But after three years, David put Amnon’s loss behind him. Now he mourned for the second son he had lost—Absalom. But of course, Absalom wasn’t dead, just banished from Israel. Remember, when it came to Amnon, David did not know how to reconcile both love and justice, and he erred on giving love without justice.

Now, with Absalom, he is making the opposite error. He has banished him forever, which was his attempt at justice, but he has not provided for any way to love Absalom.

It is interesting that Joab is the one who does something about this state of affairs. A little history about Joab is useful here. If you remember, Joab was the son of David’s sister, Zeruiah (therefore, he was David’s nephew). He had two brothers, Abishai and Asahel. After Saul’s death, during a battle with Saul’s son’s men, Asahel insisted on fighting Saul’s old war leader, Abner. Abner didn’t want to engage with Asahel, and it seems that when he did kill him, it was almost by accident (2 Samuel 2:12-23).

Joab did not forgive Abner for killing his brother in battle, and he later tricked him and murdered him while there was a truce between them (2 Samuel 3:20-30). This shows us something about Joab. He was not like David. He did not have any use for grace or forgiveness. He didn’t even have a sense of honoring any kind of agreement with an adversary. Instead, once someone was his enemy, he wanted to kill him, no matter what. There was no change of heart for Joab. You saved the people on your own side, and you killed the ones who weren’t.

With regard to Absalom, I think Joab was thinking two things. First, Absalom had killed a rapist and I’m sure that such a thing met with Joab’s approval. That’s the sort of thing that Joab himself would have done, and had done. Joab understood it, he probably had sympathy with Absalom because he was suffering for doing the kind of thing that Joab himself would do. So, I think that Joab approved of Absalom as his kind of prince. Second, Joab knew that David did not trust him since his murder of Abner. He wanted to get back into David’s good graces. Joab thought, rightly, that David needed some kind of excuse to forgive Absalom, so he cooked up the scheme that the wise woman presented to David in chapter 14.

To finish out the story, at Joab’s prompting, a woman came and presented a story to David, much like Nathan the prophet had done in confronting  David about adultery and murder. The story was basically the same situation as the one with Absalom. As expected, David got into the story, and proclaimed that the woman should not have her only remaining son executed for murder, but that he should be given mercy.

Obviously, the point of the whole exercise was verse 13, in which she says that David’s own judgment tells him he should forgive Absalom.

13 She replied, “Why don’t you do as much for the people of God as you have promised to do for me? You have convicted yourself in making this decision, because you have refused to bring home your own banished son.

However, there are important differences in this event compared to the story told by Nathan the prophet. First, David had not sinned in any way. Absalom should have been banished. In fact, he should have been executed. Second, Absalom’s situation is actually not really like the fake situation cooked up by Joab and the woman. In her scenario, her sons got into a fight, and in the heat of the moment, one of them was killed. She had only the one remaining son, and if he was executed for murder, she would be destitute, and her family name would be erased from the people of Israel. That is not like the situation of David and Absalom at all. Absalom did not kill his brother in the heat of the moment. He waited two years, and schemed it all out carefully. It was utterly premeditated. And he was not David’s only remaining son, either.

Even so, David was willing to listen, and respond graciously. I think sometimes we in the 21st century don’t understand what a big deal that was. David was king in 1000 BC. We read his psalms in the Bible, and we see his heart for God. We see, rightly, that he was God’s man. But culturally, he was still an ancient king and warrior. Such people were held in great awe, and had as much power as any dictator that has ever lived. If you got him angry, even accidentally, you could end up dead in a heartbeat. So, the woman who told him the story was, in a very real way, risking her life. So was Joab. That is, Joab was risking both her life, and his own.

I think Joab was a complicated person. There is no doubt he felt personal loyalty to his uncle, David, and probably even admiration. He also got very frustrated with David at times, and felt that David sometimes looked weak or cowardly. Joab had seen David do amazing and courageous things, so he couldn’t believe David was actually weak, or a coward, but it is clear that he never understood David’s heart for God, and therefore he deeply disagreed with many of the decisions that David made. In addition, Joab in the past had utterly refused to forgive or reconcile with those he thought had done wrong (like Abner). Because of that, he would have no standing at all to tell David to forgive. David could rightly call him a hypocrite for suggesting that he forgive Absalom.

In any case, Joab knew that David wanted someone to tell him to bring Absalom back, and Joab knew it couldn’t be him, because David hadn’t trusted him since he murdered Abner. So Joab was trying to help David. But I think that Joab also admired Absalom for being bold enough to kill his enemy. Finally, I think perhaps Joab thought that Absalom might be king one day, and it wouldn’t hurt for the next king to owe him a favor.

So, David allowed Absalom to return to Israel, but he was forbidden to see David, the king. It was a kind of combination of justice and love, but it was a weak and ineffective one. Absalom was not grateful to either David, or Joab, and he didn’t thank either one of them. Absalom was not repentant in any way. He was, however, ambitious, and he needed to have the king’s official blessing for a little while in order to fulfill his ambitions. So, he tried to get Joab to help him again. When Joab ignored him, Absalom set fire to one of his fields. Finally, Absalom got Joab to do what he wanted, and David fully restored him as a prince in Israel. But I think Joab realized at that point that Absalom was not likely to remember that he owed favors to anyone except Absalom. Absalom’s mistreatment of Joab, and his lack of gratitude, had fatal consequences for Absalom in the future. Again, it is significant that nowhere here did Absalom show any sign of repentance or remorse.

One of the things that jumps out at me from this chapter is the tension between justice and reconciliation, between truth and love. We talked about this last time, but I want to draw out the importance of this in our relationships and churches.

We human beings are very bad at holding truth and love together at the same time. Usually, we err on one side or the other. David certainly did so. With both Amnon and Absalom, David tended to prioritize love and mercy at the expense of justice and truth. With both people, that backfired in spectacularly tragic ways.

Many churches, and even whole Christian movements, also tend to err on one side or another. I know of a small church near us where the pastor often publicly shames people who come to Sunday morning worship. I heard from someone who was there that one day he proclaimed to the church that a young woman was sleeping with her boyfriend. The pastor made this declaration while the young woman herself was present at the worship service. If his information about her was correct, the pastor was right about one thing: the young woman and her boyfriend were sinning, and they needed to know that their actions were jeopardizing their relationships with the Lord. But the way the pastor went about communicating that makes me sick to my stomach. There was no love or kindness in that pastor’s actions. He had truth, yes, but no mercy or compassion. His approach would likely generate anger, or shame, or both, but I doubt it led to repentance.

To make it perfectly clear: scripture does tell us in several places that we ought to speak to Christians who are openly sinning, and to make the truth known to them. For example:

1 Brothers and sisters, if a person gets trapped by wrongdoing, those of you who are spiritual should help that person turn away from doing wrong. Do it in a gentle way. At the same time watch yourself so that you also are not tempted. 2 Help carry each other’s burdens. In this way you will follow Christ’s teachings. (Galatians 6:1-2)

It is not OK to deliberately, consistently, live a lifestyle of sinning. The truth of scripture should be proclaimed generally, including clear words about things that God declares are sinful. Also, people who have meaningful relationships with a Christian who is living in sin should speak to that person specifically in the hopes of leading them to repentance. But the Bible tells us clearly that such a process should be done first of all in love and gentleness, and when applied to a specific person, it should begin with a private conversation. So, truth without love can be harsh and legalistic, and drive people either to despair, and sometimes to turn away from God.

On the other hand there are churches who prioritize “love” over truth. In such places, out of sensitivity to the feelings of others, the leaders proclaim that some things that the bible calls sins are not, in fact, sinful. Not even people who are openly living sinful lifestyles are confronted. The message seems to be that God affirms and loves everyone, so the way you live doesn’t actually matter. The truth about God’s holiness and justice is lost.

And frankly, love without truth ceases to be loving. If you truly love an addict, you won’t “affirm” him in his addiction. If someone is walking toward the edge of a cliff but believes she is perfectly safe, it is not loving to affirm her course of action.

I think one of the most damaging lies these days is the idea that to tell someone the truth, when the truth will force them to face the idea that they are sinful and wrong, is less loving than simply accepting them how they are, no matter what.

So, Truth without love is harsh, condemning and legalistic. It offers no hope.

Love without truth leads to compromise and eventually it fails to be loving at all. It also offers no hope for change.

I know that here in the Southeast USA, there are a number of Christians and churches who emphasize truth at the expense of love. I do not give them a pass. Truth without love ultimately condemns all people, even those who prefer truth over love. This approach does not honor Jesus Christ.

On the other hand, I think the overall practice of our culture, including a majority of churches in America and the Western world, is to try to prioritize love over truth. We don’t like to suggest that anyone is wrong, or sinful, or needs to address things that are painful, but true. We offer only affirmation, and not correction. As I just said a minute ago, when this is pushed very far, it ceases to be loving. We end up affirming people every step of the way on their journey away from God.

The wise woman who confronted David said something very profound:

14 All of us must die eventually. Our lives are like water spilled out on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. But God does not just sweep life away; instead, he devises ways to bring us back when we have been separated from him. (2 Samuel 14:14, NLT)

This was said one thousand years before the time of Jesus. I think it was a kind of prophecy, because it sounds exactly like the gospel as we find it in the New Testament.

6 When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. 7 Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. 8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. 9 And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. 10 For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. 11 So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God. (Romans 5:6-11, NLT)

21 For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ. (2 Corinthians 5:21, NLT)

27 And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment, 28 so also Christ was offered once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. He will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation to all who are eagerly waiting for him. (Hebrews 9:27-28, NLT)

One of the remarkable things about this is that the New Testament writers don’t ever explicitly quote this verse from 2 Samuel. In other words, it’s not like someone thought of this verse in 2 Samuel, and then constructed the gospel to fit it. And yet, you can see that the basic idea is the same: human beings are separated from God, and are doomed to die in despair. God, in his mercy provided Jesus as a way to reconcile to God all of those who will receive him. Once again, we find the gospel in the Old Testament, but in such a way that we can see it was intended by God, rather than clever human beings.

Jesus is the answer to the struggle between truth and love, justice and reconciliation. The truth of our sins is fully evident in the things that Jesus suffered for us. Our sins—all of them—were severely punished by God through the suffering and death of Jesus. God doesn’t just give us a pass—he deals with sin as it deserves. We see how serious sin is. Sin is terrible. We can’t just say, “it’s no big deal,” when we look at the death of Jesus. We can’t say, “no, that’s not really a sin.” As it says in Romans 6:23, the wages of sin is death.

At the same time, when we look at the death of Jesus, we cannot claim, “God doesn’t love us.” We cannot say that God doesn’t want us, or that we must be cut off from him forever. We cannot say that love is too weak to help us, or that there is a limit to God’s love for us. We cannot say that anyone is beyond redemption, because to say that would be to claim that the sacrifice of Jesus was not enough.

In 2019 there was a movie called “Unplanned.” It is an extremely powerful story about a woman who became the director of a Planned Parenthood clinic because she wanted to help women. After several years working for Planned Parenthood, she was called to assist with one of the abortions – the first one she had ever witnessed. She saw the baby in the ultrasound—clearly, a tiny human being—writhing in pain, and trying to move away from the needle that was killing him. This experienced caused her to see abortion in an entirely new light. She came to believe that abortion was morally equivalent to murder. One night she broke down sobbing about her own part in the deaths of so many children. She said something like: “How can I ever be forgiven?”

This was the worst moment in the film, in my opinion, because the question was not answered satisfactorily. But there is a satisfying answer. It isn’t enough to say, “It’s OK, no one is perfect.” That is an entirely inadequate response to such turmoil of soul, and the horror of sin. On the other hand, It is horrible to say, “There is no hope, you’re going to hell.”

But what if your sins were fully punished and paid for? Could someone then be welcome in God’s kingdom? Of course.

And that is what Jesus accomplished for us. We can’t say sin doesn’t matter. If we do, we are also saying that the death of Jesus was pointless, and we are actually really good people. But if we are honest with ourselves, we know we don’t have enough goodness to make up for our selfishness.

On the other hand, we can’t say that we, or anyone else, must still pay for our sins. To say that would be to claim that the death of Jesus was not enough, that we demand more than God himself asked for.

In Jesus, love and justice are perfectly fulfilled and balanced, opening up for us a way to be fully reconciled with God, even though we deserve to be separated from him.

Receive Jesus today. Trust him. Trust the love of God that he was willing to suffer for you. Trust the justice of God that your sins have already been paid for.

2 SAMUEL #16: THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN JUSTICE AND LOVE

On By Pastor TomIn 2 Samuel, Bible Teaching, Jesus, Old Testament, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

After his son committed a horrific crime, David was caught between the need for justice, and his love for his son. He didn’t know how to reconcile justice and love, so he did nothing. God faces the same dilemma with us, his children. But God did satisfy the demand of justice, while at the same time, satisfying his great love for us. 2 Samuel 13 reminds us of why it was so important for Jesus to do what he did for us.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 2 Samuel Part 16

This is surely one of the most difficult passages in the entire bible. There are a few others like it, but that doesn’t make it any better. The first twenty verses describe a rape. The detail of the actual sin is not graphic, but the writer takes time to describe the premeditation that went before it. It is all the more awful because it was also incestuous. The bare facts are that David’s eldest son Amnon raped his half-sister, Tamar.

Leviticus 18:9 and 20:17 expressly forbid sexual relationships between brother and sister – even half-siblings, which they were. In fact, it is forbidden, even between adopted siblings. And of course rape—of any person—is always forbidden. But this is one of the cases where even the most non-religious do not need to be told that this was a vile, despicable, evil act. Even without the bible, the vast majority of human beings still know that this is wrong at every level.

Amnon, the one who committed the crime, was the firstborn son of David, and heir to the throne. He was the crown prince. Chileab, David’s second son, is not mentioned anywhere here, so it is probable that he died when he was younger. Therefore, the next in line after Amnon was Absalom, David’s third’s son, full brother of Tamar.

A quick language note. When it says that Amnon “loved” Tamar, it is the Hebrew word ahab, (pronounced something like uh-hahbv). This is a flexible word with many different meanings, just like “love” in English. It can mean romantic love, or friendship love. But it is not the word hesed, God’s unfailing covenant love, which we have previously learned about.

When we read the passage, modern readers might be surprised and wonder at Tamar’s attitude after the rape. Ancient Israelites thought very differently about certain aspects of sexuality than we do. Of course it was a horrific act of violence that was done to Tamar. But following that, she seemed to want to remain with Amnon. Amnon, however, once he had satisfied his lust, despised his sister:

15 Then suddenly Amnon’s love turned to hate, and he hated her even more than he had loved her. “Get out of here!” he snarled at her.
16 “No, no!” Tamar cried. “Sending me away now is worse than what you’ve already done to me.”
But Amnon wouldn’t listen to her. 17 He shouted for his servant and demanded, “Throw this woman out, and lock the door behind her!”
18 So the servant put her out and locked the door behind her. She was wearing a long, beautiful robe, as was the custom in those days for the king’s virgin daughters. 19 But now Tamar tore her robe and put ashes on her head. And then, with her face in her hands, she went away crying. (2 Samuel 13:15-19, NLT)

Of course the rape was horrible and traumatic. But why would she say that sending her away was even worse? It’s like this: Even worse than the sense of personal violation was her sense of public shame in the culture of that time and place.

Because Amnon had raped her, she was no longer a virgin. Because of that, no other man would ever consider marrying her, even though it wasn’t her fault in any way. It’s unfair and stupid, but that’s the way the culture was at the time. So, if Amnon had not kicked her out, but instead had gone to David and gained permission to marry her, Tamar would have at least been able to retain a respectable standing in the community. Her only chance of living an honorable life was if Amnon married her.

The brutal reality is, she would have had no expectation of marrying for love, anyway. She was a princess in 1000 B.C., and her marriage would probably have come about as part of a political bargain. She would not expect to even know her husband before hand. So if Amnon had married her, it would not have been much different, from her perspective, than what she expected anyway.

But his rejection meant that she now would never be married. Not only that, but in those days, having children was a very big deal. If Amnon rejected her, Tamar could be certain that she would never have children, because no one else would ever marry her. The rape was one event that was over quickly. I’m not minimizing it, but clearly, for Tamar herself, there were other factors that were equally important. Because Amnon refused to “make an honest woman of her,” her shame, and her loneliness were going to continue for the rest of her life. So he not only violated her personally and stole her virginity, but by also kicking her out he doomed her to lifelong shame and loneliness. In one way you might say that in Tamar’s mind, it wasn’t fully rape until Amnon revealed that he didn’t want to marry her. Once he showed that, the full weight of her tragedy came down on her.

This is probably difficult for most people in Western culture to understand. I have spoken to Muslims, and people who live in Muslim nations, who, even today, understand Tamar’s perspective.

Obviously, it was horrible for Tamar. This event also had to be hard for David. He surely must have thought that Amnon was following in his own footsteps: He sees a woman he wants, and he takes her. Only, Amnon’s sin was even worse than David’s, because it was rape, and incest. So David’s sin has been multiplied and is even worse in the second generation. Nathan’s prophetic words are beginning to come true.

Two years later came another horrific crime. Absalom, Tamar’s full brother, was furious with his half-brother Amnon, for the rape. We learn a great deal more about Absalom later, and so I think it is safe to assume that Absalom also saw that taking revenge for the rape would clear the way for himself to become the crown-prince – David’s primary heir, and heir to the throne.

So Absalom waited and schemed. Eventually (two years later), he invited Amnon and his other brothers to a feast, where he had Amnon murdered.

Not only did Amnon follow in David’s footsteps with lust and sexual sin, but now Absalom has followed David by committing conspiracy to murder.

There are clearly so many troubling things in this text, but one of them is a bit subtle. If we pay attention, we notice that David, apparently, did not do anything about the rape. Why is this? It might be that this frustrated Absalom, and led him to the sin of murder, and later on, rebellion. So what do we make of David’s inaction?

There are several possible explanations, of course, but I want to focus on three main ones.

First, in all fairness, the text doesn’t actually say when David learned of the crime of rape. It just says that he was furious when he found out. So there is the possibility that he found out only shortly before Absalom held his murderous feast. The text does show that David hesitated when Absalom wanted to invite Amnon to the feast, perhaps thinking of the rape, and wondering if there would be strife between his two sons. If David had only learned about the rape shortly before the feast, then it could be that Absalom took matters into his own hands before David himself had a chance to do anything.

A second way to look at it is this: Amnon committed a terrible crime. But David had done something similar, himself. Thus it might be that David found it too difficult to judge his son harshly for doing something like what he himself did. He might have felt like a hypocrite. What David did was lust. Lust is not merely sexual – lust means demanding that we have what we want, on our own terms, no matter what. So you can lust after food, power, money, success, the perfect body – anything that you demand to have, and work to get, regardless of the consequence. So the root sin—lust—was the same in both David and his son Amnon, though it took different outward forms. Therefore, David’s own sin may have cost him the moral fortitude to be a just and righteous ruler of his own family and kingdom. I see this quite often in our own culture. There is so much sin going around, that everyone is afraid to call any of it wrong, because people might point the finger back and say, “what about you?”

But if we have accepted God’s judgment of our sin, repented and received forgiveness, we should not feel bad calling sin the evil that it is. If we can agree that it is evil in us, it shouldn’t be a problem saying it is evil everywhere.

But there is a third possibility, and this is the one I favor, because I think it is true to the character of David, and to the overall message of scripture. I think David did not hold Amnon accountable, because he was trying (though failing) to reconcile justice and mercy; truth and forgiveness. The crime was real, and heinous. It had to be punished. And yet the punishment, at the very least, (according to Leviticus 18:29) was that Amnon should be stripped of all of his rights as a prince, and a citizen, and exiled for life. Some interpretations of the law might have even meant the death penalty. So to bring justice meant that David would be separated forever from his first born son. David clearly loved Amnon, as shown by the fact that he grieved for him for three years after his death. David, manifesting the heart of God, had a deep commitment to justice. David, manifesting the heart of God, had a deep love for his children. But David could not find a way to reconcile both that justice and that love. To follow love would mean justice would not be satisfied. To follow justice meant love would be forsaken.

And here, once again, is Jesus. God faced the same dilemma as David, only on a much larger scale. All of his children—all of us—have harbored sin and wickedness in our hearts. We have all fallen. We may not have sinned outwardly as heinously as Amnon, but the thing in Amnon’s heart that made him sin is also in our hearts. Amnon manifested what is in every human heart, and that shows us the deep need for justice. The law says we should be punished by eternal separation from our heavenly king and father. God will not violate that law. But he also loves us with an everlasting, deep, wild, love and he will not compromise that, either.

David could not reconcile love and justice, so he did nothing. But God did do something to reconcile the two. He sent Jesus. Justice for all of our sins was done—upon Jesus. Our unrighteousness was severely punished. It was punished in the person of Jesus Christ. Justice was done upon his body and soul. Jesus became a human precisely so that he could take that punishment upon himself. But because he was pure and remained God, that punishment did not destroy him like it would have destroyed us. And so, because of Jesus, justice was done. And because of Jesus, God can show his love to us, with no barrier.

We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.

 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.  Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.  For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he declares sinners to be right in his sight when they believe in Jesus. Romans 3:22-26 (New Living Translation)

As I said last time, we do need to receive, through faith, the justice and love offered by God. It has been accomplished for us, but if we do not believe we need it, or if we do not trust we have it, or if we don’t want it – it does us no good. If we are unwilling to repent, if we want our sin more than we want God, we are rejecting the sacrifice of Jesus.

Unfortunately for him, Absalom shows us that this is true. He did not seek justice from his father. He did not trust the king to satisfy the demands of justice. Instead, he took matters into his own hands. In the next chapter, we see that when Absalom wanted something from David he knew how to get it. When he wanted to be pardoned, and later restored, he was persistent and cunning until David responded. But in the case of Amnon and Tamar, Absalom never even tried to get David to do anything. In fact, from the start, he pretended that the incident meant nothing to him.

Perhaps he didn’t trust David to be both loving and just. I think also, he didn’t trust his father, the king to take care of him.

I think it is also almost certain that Absalom realized there was an opportunity here for him. Tamar’s rape gave him an excuse to remove Amnon, the one person ahead of him in the succession to David’s throne, so that it would not look like ambition, but rather an attempt at justice. The reason Absalom had for murdering his brother might just make David and the people sympathetic enough so that when it was all over, they would still accept Absalom as the next heir to the throne. I think is likely that at some point, Absalom decided to do this for both revenge and in order to become the next king.

Absalom did not seek justice from David for his sister. But even if he had, and David refused, it did not give him the right to commit a sin himself. We might do this with God in lesser ways and in lesser situations, and in some ways, it is worse for all that. David was king. He had the right to deal with Amnon however he saw fit, even if it didn’t meet Absalom’s expectations. As it turned out, David gave Absalom himself mercy rather than justice. Absalom surely had no right to demand that David withhold mercy from someone else.

God is our king. He has the right to deal with his creations however he sees fit. When it comes down to it, at great cost to himself God offers us mercy rather than justice. Do we have the right to demand justice for some person or situation, even while we depend upon his mercy for ourselves?

Sometimes we try to take matters into our own hands because God doesn’t seem to be doing anything. I think when we do that, it can lead us down a path toward rebellion, just as it did with Absalom.

What Amnon did demands justice. Justice was given, through Jesus. That allows love to also be given, and reconciliation to happen. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you today about the need for both, and about accepting both things from the Lord.

2 SAMUEL #1: WHEN DREAMS KINDA, SORTA, COME TRUE. MAYBE. A LITTLE BIT, ANWAY.

On By Pastor TomIn 2 Samuel, Old Testament, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

David shows us that God does not hate those who hate him, and does not delight when bad things happen to them. He also serves as a model of patience. God’s promises were only partially fulfilled for him at this point, but he trusted and waited, because he recognized his life was about God’s purposes, not his own ambitions. In this life, even for Jesus, God’s promises have only been partially fulfilled. We wait with joyful expectation for the day when all of them come to complete fruition.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 2 Samuel Part 1

We recently finished the book of 1 Samuel. However, that book leaves off in the middle of the action, so to speak. It doesn’t tell us what happened to David after Saul died. The reason for this is that originally, First and Second Samuel were one book. The Jews who translated the Old Testament into Greek divided this history into two books. Probably the division arose because Greek uses vowels, where Hebrew does not. This means that the Greek translation is much longer than the original Hebrew. As a result, it had to be put into two separate scrolls – the “first,” and “second.” Bear in mind as we study it, however, that it is all part of one work.

At the very end of 1 Samuel, we considered the lament that David wrote about Saul and Jonathan (2 Samuel 1:17-27). But there were a few things which preceded that. Remember, David and his men had fought a battle of their own with the Amalekites, who had attacked when everyone else in the region was off to the Israelite-Philistine war. Two days after he got back from defeating the Amalekites, a man came from the north, bringing news of the great battle between the Philistines and Israelites in the valley of Jezreel.

This man got the main news correct – Israel lost the battle, and Saul and Jonathan were killed. But then his story diverges from the one recorded in 1 Samuel 31. In 1 Samuel 31, it says that Saul killed himself when the Philistines got close to him. The writer does not make editorial comments, but it is clear that whoever wrote it regarded 1 Samuel 31 as the accurate record of events, and the story of this stranger as embellishments and lies.

Jewish tradition holds that the man who came to David with this story was actually the son of Doeg the Edomite, whom they also suppose was Saul’s armor bearer at the time Saul died. They think his claim to be an Amalekite was to hide from David the fact that his father was the infamously evil Doeg. There is nothing in the text one way or another to tell us if this is so or not, but it is possible that Doeg was elevated to the status of Saul’s personal armor bearer and bodyguard after he did him the favor of killing the priests when no one else would. If this man is Doeg’s son (and if Doeg was Saul’s armor bearer), it would explain his presence close to Saul, and how he was able to take Saul’s crown and escape.

He claims that the Philistine chariots were coming close to Saul. This shows us, the readers, that he is not being completely truthful. He probably said it to try and justify to David why he (allegedly) ended Saul’s life. Chariots were formidable weapons that the Philistines had and the Israelites did not (at this time). It would be the modern equivalent of tanks closing in on an infantry position. If the chariots were close, then indeed all was certainly lost. However, we know that Saul was on Mount Gilboa, and the messenger even affirms this. There were no roads (the way we think of roads) in those days. Chariots simply did not work well, if at all, on roadless mountainsides. Therefore, it is extremely unlikely that they used chariots on the mountain where Saul died.

David, experienced warrior that he is, probably sensed right then there was something wrong with the story. Even how the messenger begins is quite suspicious: “I happened to be on Mount Gilboa…” He “just happened” to be in the middle of a battle? Just “happened” to be near king Saul? Not likely.

It was clear however, that this man thought claiming to have killed Saul would make him a favorite with David. Whoever he was, he completely misunderstood David. This was because he assumed that deep down, David was not really serious about being the Lord’s man; or perhaps since he was part of Saul’s retinue, he had never heard anyone talk about David’s strong faith. He condemns himself with his lie.

16 And David said to him, “Your blood be on your head, for your own mouth has testified against you, saying, ‘I have killed the LORD’s anointed.’”

David had him executed immediately for the crime of killing Saul. Once again, as harsh as this seems, it is a reflection of David’s humble heart and in a way, a reflection of how the Lord felt about Saul. God is not happy that Saul is dead. Neither is God’s servant. And David, by executing this man showed everyone that there was nothing to be gained by lies or treachery or unnecessary bloodshed. If anyone thought they could ingratiate themselves to David with that kind of behavior, their illusions would be shattered. God didn’t want Saul dead, and neither did David. You won’t earn any favors with God by hating or hurting people whom you think are God’s enemies. People do turn away from God and do evil, and God does not want them to do that. But he doesn’t hate them — He grieves over them, as he grieved over Saul. Saul was destroyed by himself and his own choices, not by God. You can destroy your own life, as Saul did, but the Lord is never out to destroy you.

I am writing this less than a week after someone tried to assassinate former President Trump, who is campaigning to become president again. Our political situation in America is very tense at the moment. It is a good and timely reminder that God does not rejoice at the death of those who have turned away from him. So, we who follow Jesus should not be happy at the downfall of others, even others whom we think might be enemies of God. We will not earn God’s favor for hating, or trying to harm his “enemies.” This goes for all sides of the political spectrum. War and the punishment of crime are situations in which evil might be restrained, or good defended, but they should not be motivated by hatred or anger. Rather, they are a sad necessity in this fallen world. Listen to how the Lord puts it to the people who were rebelling against him:

11 As surely as I live, says the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people. I only want them to turn from their wicked ways so they can live. Turn! Turn from your wickedness, O people of Israel! Why should you die? (Ezekiel 33:11, NLT)

 By the way, this lesson is repeated three times in the first four chapters of 2 Samuel, which means we are really supposed to pay attention to it, and take it seriously.

OK, moving on, once Saul was dead, David’s reason for staying out of Israel was gone. His main obstacle to becoming king and fulfilling the Lord’s calling was removed. David knew he was anointed to be the next king of Israel. A large portion of the population knew this also. I think a lot of people at this point would move ahead and “just go for it.”

Not David. The first thing he did was to ask God what he should do. He did not assume anything. I think the reason for this is that David was not trying to establish his own kingdom – instead, he was trying to be God’s servant. His attitude was not, “How can I behave so that God can help me?” That was Saul’s basic approach to life. But David’s heart was this: “Lord, what do you want to do next?” He did not view God as his assistant in achieving his goals. Instead, he felt that his whole life was God’s own project. His role was to try and assist God, not the other way around. David’s anointing and his destiny were not about David – they were about the Lord. So becoming king is not David’s idea nor his goal – his goal is to serve the Lord.

I also want to point out that in this matter, David learned from his mistakes. He did not ask God before he took his family, his men, and their families to live among the Philistines (1 Samuel 27:1-3. We looked at this in 1 Samuel sermon #28). However, after that mistake, he started asking God what to do even for decisions where the conclusion seemed obvious.

As I have pointed out before, David is one of the people in the Old Testament who sheds light on what Jesus is like (that is, David is a “type” of Christ). Jesus expressed this same attitude of being here for the Father’s purposes in John 8:28 and 12:49 (among other places)

So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. (John 8:28, ESV)

For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment-what to say and what to speak. (John 12:49, ESV)

This is not complicated, but it is HUGE when it comes to living out our faith practically. It is so easy to fall into the idea that the life of faith is about God helping us each achieve our own destiny. We make this seem good and spiritual, because we assume that our destiny was created by God. And of course, it is. But it isn’t about us. It is about God. When we think that it is about us, we inevitably get angry or disappointed with God when he fails to do things for us that we think would bring about our destiny.

Our true destiny is to bring glory and honor and praise to God – not  to meet our own personal goals. Achieving that destiny is God’s business from beginning to end. Some people, like David, brought glory to God in very public ways, like becoming a well-known leader. Others do it quietly, like being a loving wife and mother, or praying regularly for others.

I think some things in life get a bit easier once we really accept this. We should give all of our strength, skill and energy to the things God wants us to, but we no longer have to control the outcome. Our hearts can be at rest as we trust God to fulfill his own plan and purpose.

Now, I think it would be wrong to assume that David didn’t care either way if he became king. First, he wanted what God wanted, and God did want that. Second, because God wanted to work in this way through him, David was drawn to it. He wanted to lead because he was created for it. So I am sure that David really wanted to become king. Even so, he subordinated his own desires to God, because he understood that it wasn’t really about him. Like Samuel’s mother, he had real desires that he acknowledged, but at the same time, he also surrendered them to God.

This is important, because right after he asked God what to do, David received a partial fulfillment of God’s calling, but it was only partial. The Lord told David to return to Israel, to the town of Hebron in the territory of Judah. When he did that, the tribe of Judah received David as their king. However, Saul’s war-leader, Abner, rallied the other tribes around Saul’s one remaining son, Ish-Bosheth. So the other 11 tribes still did not acknowledge David as their king.

Judah was one of the largest, most powerful and prestigious tribes. Though just one of twelve tribes, their territory made up about one quarter of all the land held by Israel in Saul’s lifetime.  In two generations after David, Judah became its own independent country and most of the Jews living today come from that tribe (that’s why they are called Jews. “Jews;” from “Judah”). Even so, being king over just one tribe and about one quarter of the territory of Israel isn’t exactly what David thought the Lord had planned for him. It is sort of a fulfillment of God’s promise and calling. He was now a king. But he wasn’t the king of the whole nation. At that point, his kingdom was only 25% of the kingdom that Saul had ruled.

There was potential here for David to become frustrated. After all, you could not make any argument that Saul was more worthy than David, but even so, Saul’s kingdom was much larger than David’s (at least during this period of time). And David waited a really long time, even for this partial fulfillment of God’s call on him.

Think about it. Samuel anointed David when David was perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old. At first it seemed like everything was falling into place. He grew a little, killed the giant and became a famous warrior and trusted member of the king’s court, all while he was very young. But it all fell apart again after just a few years. It was likely more than a decade that David had been living like a vagabond, with only a band of misfits who called him their leader. When Saul died, David was thirty years old. Probably fifteen years went by between the time he was anointed to be king and the time when Saul died. That’s a long time – half of his entire life up until that point. And now finally he was one out of two kings of Israel. His kingdom was the smaller of the two. It will be seven more years before he becomes king of all Israel. That’s a total of twenty-two years waiting for God to fulfill his promises.

This partial fulfillment is also a “type of Christ.” The kingdom of Jesus Christ has only come in part so far. Jesus reigns over the hearts of those who will let him, but not everything is under his rule, as it will be when this world ends. Speaking of Jesus, Paul writes:

9 For this reason God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow — of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth — 11 and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil 2:9-11, HCSB)

But currently, at the name of Jesus, not every knee does bow, not every person does worship. There is a part of Jesus’ exaltation and kingship that is still in the future. It is not fully here yet. The writer of Hebrews says:

7 You made him lower than the angels for a short time; You crowned him with glory and honor 8 and subjected everything under his feet. For in subjecting everything to him, He left nothing that is not subject to him. As it is, we do not yet see everything subjected to him. 9 But we do see Jesus — made lower than the angels for a short time so that by God’s grace He might taste death for everyone — crowned with glory and honor because of His suffering in death. (Heb 2:7-9, HCSB) (added italicization)

We do not yet see everything subjected to Jesus. The fulfillment of the prophecies about Jesus are, at this point in time, only partial. In the same way, we too have only partially what has been promised us. Paul writes to the Ephesians:

13 You heard and believed the message of truth, the Good News that he has saved you. In him you were sealed with the Holy Spirit whom he promised. 14 This Holy Spirit is the guarantee that we will receive our inheritance. We have this guarantee until we are set free to belong to him. God receives praise and glory for this. Ephesians 1:13-14, God’s Word)

We haven’t received the whole inheritance yet. We have the Holy Spirit as a guarantee that some day we will fully receive everything that He has promised us.In other words, right now, we have only part of what has been promised us. This means that Christianity is above all, a faith that is all about hope. We know this world doesn’t fully satisfy. True justice isn’t available here and now. True, unblemished joy is scarce and temporary. True satisfaction, contentment and fulfillment are always elusive. Those who don’t surrender their hearts to Jesus get angry at God because of this. But they aren’t listening. The true fulfillment of  God’s love for us and his promises to us comes after this world ends. We don’t have to make the credits outweigh the debits in this life. We don’t have to have everything we have dreamed of before we die. It is still coming. It was still coming for David. It is even now, still coming for Jesus, who is not yet king over everything. And it is still coming for us.

How is the Lord speaking to you through this text today? Perhaps you need to remember that even those who have rejected the Lord are not our enemies. We could all use a reminder that not even God is happy when those who reject him are hurt. I am not suggesting that we allow people to do evil without attempting to resist it. But even when we have to be involved in restraining evil and defending good, we can reflect God’s heart of sadness that people have chosen to reject him.

Possibly you need to remember that your life is not really yours, but that it belongs to God. I think we could use reminding that God is not there to help us fulfill our personal desires or destinies. Instead, we are here to serve God.

Maybe you are struggling because it seems like you have received only part of what you think God has promised you. First, make sure you know what God has indeed promised. And then, remind yourself that in this life, all fulfillments are partial. We have an amazing future in which everything that God has promised will indeed be completely ours, and that future is in a New Creation where there is no more sorrow, suffering or death. Until we reach those eternal shores, everything we have here is just a temporary shadow of the stunning reality that will be ours. This should help us to have patience as we wait in hope.

VODDIE BAUCHAM ON MARRIAGE: PART 2

On By Pastor TomIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

This is the second of the four-part series on marriage, by Voddie Baucham.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

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No

THE BEAUTY OF MALE AND FEMALE, PART 2

On By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Colossians, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment
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These instructions to men and women teach us to die to our own self-centeredness, and live for others. They also they point us to the incredible love and sacrifice of Jesus.

COLOSSIANS 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 Colossians Part 33

Colossians #33  Col 3:18-19 PART B

Last time we looked at Colossians, we considered the fact that God created our genders deliberately, and with a purpose. The Bible teaches us how to work with that fact in loving each other and following Jesus. The latest science decisively confirms that human beings are gendered to the core. However, because we are all made in the image of God, gender is something even deeper than biology. Women and men are made to relate to one another in a way that shows the world something of the glory of God. This happens in all sorts of contexts, not just marriage.

By the way, I want to be sure we acknowledge and recognize that some people have difficulties in coming to terms with their biological gender. As Christians, we must have compassion and grace for people who have these difficulties. Our churches should be safe places for such folks, places where there will be no insults or cruel words. The facts of science and biology do not change the very real emotional struggles that some people have.

At the same time, as Christians, we should not compromise what the bible says. In the case of gender, science is also crystal clear. Our call is to speak the truth, but to do so in love. Simply agreeing with whatever anyone thinks is not loving– often that is actually cowardice. We are afraid of getting flak, or of being seen as hateful, or we want to be “on the right side of history.” But it is when we disagree with someone that true love can be shown. Jesus pointed out that naturally, anyone loves his friends. But real Christian love can occur when we care for people and respect them as human beings even when they disagree with us, even when they make choices that we think are wrong. Real love, deep love, always wants the best for others, even when those others may not recognize or agree with what “the best” means. So it is my ongoing hope and prayer that anyone at all would feel welcomed by our house churches, and also that in our house churches anyone at all would come face to face with the truth of the gospel, which is that we need to repent, turn away from all sin and self-centeredness, and surrender all to Jesus, receiving his grace and forgiveness.

The Bible claims to be God’s special revelation to humankind. It comes through human authors, but it originates with God. In short, it is God’s Word to us. One of the things the bible tells us is that all human beings have sinned, and our thoughts, attitudes and desires are often corrupted by sin. If this is true, it means that the bible will contradict and challenge some of our thoughts, attitudes and desires. Since every human culture was developed by sinful human beings, the Bible will challenge every culture at some point or another.

One of the most difficult things in understanding the Bible is learning to recognize our own cultural biases, and being willing to consider things that challenge our “normal” way of looking at the world.

The culture of Papua New Guinea when I was growing up was one that highly valued both debts and vengeance. The economy of that culture was based upon people owing each other favors, and sometimes people owing each other revenge. For that culture, accepting what the Bible says about forgiveness – especially forgiving and loving enemies – was challenging and difficult.

Texts like ours today in Colossians about men and women present a challenge to 21st Century Western culture. Our culture does not see gender the way the Bible teaches us to see it. In addition, our society encourages us to be highly sensitive about the possibility that someone or something is oppressing women (or, in fact, oppressing any one of several different categories of people). I’m not saying that is always a bad thing to be sensitive to this, but we should be aware of our own biases  when we read a text like this one. In case you think I am wrong, and you believe that our culture is more likely to oppress women than to be worried about oppressing them, let me give an example.

There has been a great deal of awareness raised about the fact that more men than women are involved in Science Technology Engineering & Mathematics (STEM). More men than women get degrees in STEM fields, and work in those types of careers.

A few years ago the Microsoft Windows lock screen was used to raise awareness about the fact that the STEM fields are dominated by men. These days, scholarships, internships and opportunities abound for women interested in STEM education and careers. In addition to all that, there are vast numbers of organizations and foundations which exist to help women especially get both bachelor’s and graduate degrees in all fields. There is constant awareness-raising for women’s education.

However, the truth is, women have far outpaced men in education for more than forty years. Since 1980, far more women than men have gone to college and received degrees at all levels. Women dominate many different academic fields. On average, female college professors make more money than their male counterparts with the same qualifications and experience.

The average male high school senior reads at the same level as the average female eighth-grader. Grade school boys are disciplined and reprimanded more than twice as often as girls. Boys and men have fallen far behind in every academic area except STEM.

So, where are the organizations and foundations trying to create more opportunities for men in the arts and humanities? Where are the endowments for specifically male writers, or the scholarships for men to make up the gap in literature, or sociology or history? Where are the windows lockscreens agonizing over the fact that men don’t even go to college as often as women, let alone graduate with a degree?

I will say it again: our culture is primed to expect women to be oppressed. Am I saying that women are never oppressed? Of course not! But I am saying that when it comes to gender and sexuality, our culture has a chip on its collective shoulder. We are waiting to get angry about gender injustice, even in cases where the facts say there is no issue there. So, take a deep breath. Recognize that we may not be totally objective about gender issues. Try to be conscious of our cultural biases while we deal with these verses.

In order to avoid knocking the chip off our shoulder, I will deal first with what these verses are telling men to do and be. Again, however, I want to make sure that we recognize the cultural biases that make it necessary to take these verses out of order. For you women, as you read, look past these instructions to men, and recognize and remember the great love that Jesus has for you.

With that long introduction, let’s look at this verse, and then one that says the same thing, but with more detail. For our verse today, I provide my own translation:

You husbands, love your wives sacrificially, and do not cause them to be grieved, or make their lives bitter.

And then, the expanded instructions come from Ephesians 5:22-33:

22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. (ESV, Ephesians 5:22-33)

The New Testament uses three different Greek words for love. There is eros (air-rohs), which is romantic/sexual love; phileo (fil-lay-oh), which is brotherly/friendship love; and agape (uh-gah-pay), which is self-sacrificing love. Husbands are told to agape their wives. Agape is the way God loves us. Jesus provided the ultimate example of agape when he suffered on the cross, died, and suffered hell on our behalf. He did not need to do any of it for himself. It cost him everything to love us this way. This, my dear brothers, is how we husbands must love our wives. We love, even when it costs us dearly, when it costs us our own comfort, our own desires, yes, even if it costs our own well-being.

We men are to sacrifice for our wives. We are to cherish them and nourish them physically, spiritually and emotionally. Jesus is not passive in the way he loves the church. He pursues us. He gently, but purposefully moves into our lives, giving us opportunities to trust him. So we too should relationally pursue our wives, purposefully seeking to deepen and strengthen our connection. As Jesus led through self-sacrifice and service, so we too are called to lead – not by commanding or controlling, but by serving like Jesus did.

Men are often consistent in pursuing their wives sexually, because that is something that we want. But we must also pursue a deep relational and emotional connection with our wives, to seek to meet their needs as diligently and consistently as we seek to meet our own.

Just in case we miss the point, let’s use some concrete examples. You are both tired from a hard day. You sit down together, with no energy, but someone needs to do something about supper. As a husband, loving your wife like Jesus loves the church, what is your response to this situation? I think most often it should be that you, called to love sacrificially, take responsibility for dinner. Now, that doesn’t rule out ordering pizza, but it should mean that you serve your wife by taking care of the thing that nobody wants to deal with.

Or suppose your wife feels the need to talk about something, even perhaps, just how her day went. You are tired, or there is something else you want to do, or maybe even the game is on. Sometimes sacrificial love means giving her time and attention when you really don’t feel like it. By the way it wouldn’t be wrong to ask her if you could have the conversation after the game you want to watch is over, but be sure she’s OK with that, and be sure to follow through.

Sacrificial love for your wife may mean that you get up and deal with your daughter’s nightmare, or the cat’s throw-up. It may mean that you take responsibility for caring for the house, or doing the finances. In our case, Kari wants to be part of handling the bills, but we discuss our finances and make decisions together, and it is understood that if she doesn’t want to work (and is willing to take a hit in our standard of living) she doesn’t have to.

Above all, sacrificial love means you men accept responsibility for your life together as husband and wife. Leaning on Jesus and all of his power, you do your best to make sure that your wife feels loved, safe, and secure, to the extent that you can. I can’t make Kari feel at peace with everything, but I can make sure that her lack of peace isn’t because of me. I can’t make her feel secure, but I can ensure that she isn’t insecure because of me.

One aspect for men of loving sacrificially is that this also encourages men to be actively involved. If we are supposed to love like Jesus, it means we ought to be pursuing our wives, and actively leading our families closer to Jesus. Obviously, we won’t do those things perfectly, but we are to try. Coming home, watching TV and offering up one-syllable responses to your wife’s conversation are not usually consistent with loving your wife sacrificially.

Too many men prefer not to take a stand, or take ownership. Sometimes, we’re afraid of messing up, and we think our wives probably know better than us anyway, so let them do it. But that is not legitimate sacrificial love. Sometimes we don’t really know what to do, and we forget to ask Jesus. Sometimes, we’re just plain lazy, and it’s easier to be passive than to try, and then fail anyway. It feels safe if we don’t have to lead. But we men don’t have that luxury. We are supposed to love our wives to such an extent that they are the ones who feel safe, because they know that we will care for them as much as we care for ourselves, we will love them, even if it means hardship for ourselves.

By the way, women, you don’t get to take these words and taunt your husband with them. These words are not here for you to say: “Hah! You are supposed to love me sacrificially, so here’s my honey-do list, and be sure not to wake me up from my nap when you’re done.” These words are spoken from the Lord to the men, and I think it is meant for men to struggle through what it means to apply them. Your turn will come next.

The biggest threat to any marriage (actually to any relationship at all) is the fact that all of us are deeply self-centered. We are focused on ourselves, on our own needs, what we want, and what it takes to get our wants and needs satisfied. The verses here are meant to destroy our self-centeredness. Men, you don’t get to be passive and coast through life doing as little as necessary. You don’t get to demand whatever you want from your wife. Neither do you get to check out, and ignore your responsibilities. Instead, you die to yourself by loving her sacrificially. You allow the Holy Spirit to put to death your self-centeredness by learning to love your wife selflessly. When you do that, you are doing your part to show the world the glory of God.

The model for men is Jesus Christ. Now of course, husbands, you will never be able to love your wives as well as Jesus loves all of us. However, Jesus invites you to lean on him, and allow Him to work through you and in you, so that you don’t love your wives from your own strength, but from all the resources that Jesus has. Ask him to help you, and lean on him as you love your wives.

For both men and women, our attention is supposed to be directed away from ourselves, and to Jesus. Like a perfect husband, he makes us, his people, secure. We know we are loved, and safe. He has provided all that is needed for forgiveness and a life of eternal joy in Him. He is patient with us, and He loves us, not because of what we do for him, but rather because he has decided to do so, and nothing will sway him from that commitment. He didn’t wait for us to come to come to him – he died for us while we were still enemies of God. Let’s remember God’s grace to us through Jesus, and thank him for it.

COLOSSIANS #29. THE KEY TO MEANINGFUL, LASTING PEACE.

On By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Christianity, Churches in Lebanon, Colossians, House Church, Jesus, Podcast, Religion, Sermon1 Comment
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Most of what the world sells to us is about being in control of one area of our life or another. Anything at all, other than trusting God to do what is best, when it is best. But Jesus offers us peace in a different way. The way of Jesus to surrender control to him. This requires that we trust him. It means we must trust him to have our best interests in his heart, and the best interests of those we love. It means we must trust that he is able to what is best. It means we trust that his timing is better than ours. It means we must trust even when – no, especially when – we do not understand what he is doing.

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 Colossians Part 29

Colossians #29  Colossians 3:14-15

14 Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. 15 And let the peace of Christ, to which you were also called in one body, rule your hearts. And be thankful.

Starting in verse 12, we were told to “clothe ourselves” or “put on” seven different aspects of the character of Christ. This is what it looks like when Christ lives both in each of us individually, and among us corporately:

Compassion, kindness, humility, patience, gentle restraint (meekness), bearing with one another and forgiving each other. Paul caps off this thought with the following:

“And above all these, the love; it is binding all together to perfectly complete the purpose.” (my “literal” translation)

By the way, when I offer my own translations of various Bible passages, I am not claiming to be a better Bible translator than those who work on the major English versions. Sometimes, however, those who create translations cannot get at the “feel” of the Greek text, because to do so would not be proper English, and more than a few sentences of it would be hard to read and understand. The main thing I want us to see is that love not only binds people together, it also fulfills the purpose of the character of Christ in Christian community. The idea here is very much like the one that Jesus spoke very plainly

34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (NIV Matthew 22:34-40)

Paul summed it up like this for the Galatians:

14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (NIV Galatians 5:14)

He explains more clearly for the Romans:

8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. (NIV, Romans 13:8-10)

In other words, if we really love another, we will be compassionate and kind with one another; we will be humble, patient, meek; we will bear with one another and forgive one another. Love is at the heart of the character of Christ, and so love – and all that loving each other means – perfectly fulfills Christian community.

The next line is this: “And let the peace of Christ, to which you were also called in one body, rule your hearts. And be thankful.”

There are two ways in which this peace should be applied. The application is peace among members of the church. There can be no doubt that this is part of Christian peace. The Holy Spirit is speaking through Paul to Christians who are members of house churches. They are actively involved in a small Christian community. He says that peace should rule between members of these communities – because we together, as one body, have been called to peace. To look at it another way, if we put into action all of what Paul has been saying so far about having compassionate hearts, being kind, gentle, forgiving and so on, we will be at peace with one another.

The second way peace should be applied is within the heart of each individual Christian, because he says that peace should rule our hearts.

Before we go on, let’s talk about what exactly the bible means by “peace.” I think there are three parts to it. First, peace means the absence of strife and worry. In other words, if you have peace, you will be free from conflict, and free from worry, or anxiety. This should be obvious. If you are at peace with someone else, you are not fighting with them. If you are at peace within yourself, you are not worried or agitated.

Second, peace is also the positive presence of calmness or tranquility. Peace is a powerful force that brings rest and quiet confidence into our hearts.

Finally, when the bible talks of “peace” it is often referring to our relationship with God. Peace with God means we are no longer “fighting” with him, or at odds with him. We know that because of Jesus, all is well between us and God.

I think it may be helpful to understand what prevents us from having peace. First, deep in our hearts, we have decided we will do everything we can to get what we want, even if it is not what God wants. For whatever reason, in some area of our lives, we have decided that what we want is non-negotiable. We don’t mind using God to try and get it, but if he won’t help us, we plan to make it happen anyway. Sometimes, maybe it is not something we want, but it is something that we are afraid of. It works the same way, however: we have decided that we must prevent something, even if God has decided to allow it. If God won’t get with the program, then we’ll try to stop it on our own.  

If we are doing anything like this, peace will never rule in our hearts. All the pressure is on us. It is all up to us to either prevent the bad thing from happening, or make the good thing happen. Even if we enlist God’s help, we will not permit him to be in charge, because we must determine the outcome. If we let God be in control, he might allow an outcome that we think is unacceptable.

From all of this it is clear that one the great barriers to peace is our demand that we must be in control. The beginning of peace is to give up control. The Holy Spirit makes this clear by saying “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.” It is something we have to allow. We have to stop preventing Christ’s peace from entering.

I want us to dig deeper. Why must we be in control? What is it inside of us that wants to take over, and do all that we can to get our own desired outcome? Selfishness might be part of it. But I think the deepest problem is this: we don’t really trust God.

One of my own biggest barriers in the past was that I thought if I let God be in charge of my life, he would make me miserable. I would have live somewhere I didn’t want live. I would have to do things I didn’t want to do. Now, there is a certain kind of truth to that. I am by nature introverted and selfish. When God called me to be pastor, I had to open up life not only to God, but also to other people. I had to have more chaos in my life, and some heartache that maybe I could have avoided (watching people I had grown to love as they made bad choices). But when I surrendered fully to the Lord, I found tremendous joy in his will for me. I see how empty and vain my life would have been had I insisted upon my own ways. God may have you go through something, or do something, that you don’t want right now. But when we surrender fully to him, when we trust him and give up control, there is a joy that outmatches the hardship.

I certainly never wanted five years of unbelievable pain (I still sometimes say to myself: “This is unbelievable!”). But I have found joy in the midst of this pain. It is not as hard as it sounds, because, by and large, the peace of Christ rules in my heart. I am literally squirming in pain as I write this. Even so, I am at peace. I can’t imagine how angry and depressed I would be if I was still trying to control the outcome of this pain; if I did not trust Jesus fully in the midst of it.

Another issue in trusting God is that sometimes we are not fully convinced that he is good, and that he is working for our good. We think maybe we know better than he does.  We think maybe if we let go and trust him, he may not prove trustworthy. And as long as we insist upon our own expectations and desires, it will indeed often seem like God is letting us down. But when we fully release ourselves in trust to him, we will find that He is indeed good, and his ways are best.

This is not complicated. It is often hard to do, but it is not difficult to understand. If we want the peace of Christ, we must give up on trying to control life, and we must trust Jesus to do what is best, when it is best. We must give up upon insisting that we get we want. We must also give up trying to control things by preventing anything negative from happening. We have to trust God more than we trust ourselves. We have to recognize that if we have Jesus, everything else is ultimately OK. We will certainly have times where we do not understand what God is doing (or why he is not doing something). But we have to trust even when we don’t understand.

I know this is hard to do at times, but we also need to remember that our own sense of being in control is an illusion. You can’t actually prevent a loved one from getting sick. You can’t actually prevent your child from being killed by a drunk driver. You can’t actually insure that you won’t get ALS, or Alzheimer’s. Jesus said:

27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. (NIV John 14:27)

How does the world offer peace? Only through control:

Are you afraid of being alone all your life? A dating app will help you get control. Afraid of being judged for how you look? We’ve got your health clubs, your make-up, your clothes, your hairdresser, everything you need to get control of the situation. Afraid of getting sick? We’ve got your supplements, your diet programs, your exercise regimens, pharmaceuticals, and much more. Most of it is only $19.99. Are you worried you’ll be stuck in a terrible marriage? Our divorce lawyers will help you take back control. Concerned about finances? We’ve got spreadsheets, tax advisors, financial planners, investment opportunities and much, much more.

Most of what the world sells to us is about being in control of one area of our life or another. Anything at all, other than trusting God to do what is best, when it is best.

But Jesus gives peace in a different way. He says “Let me handle it; I will take care of it it my way. All you have to do is trust.”

The Holy Spirit tells us to let peace rule our hearts. This is the opposite of us being in control. It is no mistake that right after, he adds, “And be thankful.” Thanksgiving is a gateway to peace. When we thank the Lord, we are recognizing that he is in charge, and that he is trustworthy to do for us what is good. If you are struggling to give up control, struggling to trust God, I highly recommend developing a habit of thanking God for everything.

When I get up in the morning, I’m usually pretty miserable. I don’t sleep well, so I’m very tired. The night time is my longest stretch between doses of pain medication, and I’m usually in a lot of pain. So I don’t feel thankful at that time of day. But you know, I can thank Him for coffee. I wouldn’t survive without it at this stage of my life. Then, of course, electricity is required to make coffee (we don’t have gas appliances), so I can thank him for electricity. Kari usually greets me right away when I get up, and I can thank the Lord for her. Basically, what I am saying is that we should start with anything at all we can think of about which to thank the Lord. As we thank him for little things, more things keep coming to mind. If we do this consistently, it becomes a wonderful habit, and it helps us to trust more, to give up control more, and therefore to allow the peace of God to rule our hearts.

In addition to thanksgiving, reading the Bible is helpful for letting the Peace of Christ rule our hearts. There are more than 80 verses in the New Testament alone about peace. I want to leave you with a few to meditate on:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (ESV, Philippians 4:6-7. Note that thanks-giving element in there!) 

13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. (ESV, Romans 15:13)

23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely. And may your spirit, soul, and body be kept sound and blameless for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it (ESV, 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24)

 

 

 

 

 

COLOSSIANS #24: THE TRAP OF LAWLESSNESS AND THE SOLUTION OF LOVE

On By Pastor TomIn Bible Teaching, Christianity, Colossians, House Church, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

god's love

How can we avoid legalism, and trying to earn points with God, but also avoid lawlessness and sinning?

The answer is love. Love is at the heart of Christianity because love is at the heart of the Christian understanding of God, and what it means to have faith. Love not fear, nor selfishness, is what changes us and radically influences our behavior.

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Download Colossians Part 24

Colossians #24. Colossians 3:5-7

 5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. Colossians 3:5-7

We are taking things in small bites, but it is very important to remember our overall context. Paul started this section by saying: “In the same way you received Christ, now walk in him.” He reminded us that all the fullness of God dwells in Christ; and the fullness of Christ dwells in us. Through faith, by God’s grace, we were buried with Jesus by baptism, and raised to new life. Our old life, the sinful flesh, has been put to death. Paul then began to discuss one potential problem in the Christian life: the issue of legalism. Legalists don’t fully believe in the work of Jesus. They think perhaps that they can add to what Jesus has done. They want to be in control of their own fate, and they often want to control the behavior of others. But Paul demolishes legalism by reminding the Colossians that in Christ we have nothing left to prove. We can’t be righteous enough to please God. We don’t follow God according to the ways of the world.

Last time we talked about the amazing truth that our real life, our true life, is found not in external things, but in Jesus Christ. It is already there, waiting for us. It will be fully revealed in all its glory at the same time that Christ is revealed in all of his glory. This is because part of the glory of Christ is what he has done for us. Real life comes from God, into our spirits, and from our spirits into our souls, and from our souls, it influences how we behave.

So, while some of this might be hard for us to hear, let us not forget the message of grace and life that the scripture has been hammering into us for many weeks now. Context is everything.

With all this in mind, Paul now begins to address a second potential problem in the Christian life: lawlessness. Remember the picture of following Jesus as a road? On one side of the road is a deep and dangerous ditch called legalism. Now, Paul begins to address the deep and dangerous ditch on the other side of the road: Lawlessness. In many ways, lawlessness looks like the opposite of legalism. Instead of following rules, like legalism, lawlessness rejects any kind of standard for behavior at all. A lawless person might think like this: “Well, the Bible tells us that Jesus did everything for us. There’s nothing for us to do. Therefore, I can live in whatever way pleases me best. I know I’m not married to this person that I’m attracted to, but I can’t earn points with God anyway, so I’m going to go ahead and have sex with her. And with anyone else I feel like.” Lawlessness says: “Paul just wrote that restraint and self-discipline don’t help us in our relationship with God, so I’m not going to restrain myself at all. If I want to do something, I’ll do it. If I can get something I want, I’ll get it. If I don’t feel like doing something, I won’t do it.”

Lawlessness is lazy, and, above all, self-centered. Like legalism, the heart of lawlessness is being in control. Lawless people might think that they are the opposite of “in control,” but behind the “anything goes” behavior is an attitude that says: “No one can tell me what to do, or not do.” Like legalism, lawlessness says, “No one is the boss of me. I’m in charge of my own life, so I can do what I want.”

Unfortunately, most public schools in America, along with most universities, indoctrinate young people with the ideas of lawlessness. They tell people that the most important thing is to be true to yourself. In other words: “Make sure that you do what you really feel like doing. Don’t do anything that you don’t feel like doing. Do not accept any standard for behavior except what feels right to you. Don’t let anyone else impose any kind of standard on you.”

Legalism had a tiny bit of truth behind it. So does lawlessness. It is true that Jesus, and Jesus alone makes us right with God. If we trust Jesus, we are thoroughly forgiven, and we can’t add anything to what Jesus has done for us. In Jesus, our sins are not counted against us, and the righteousness of Jesus is counted for us.

But we need to understand something: if we truly believe this, our behavior will change. If we truly love Jesus, the most significant part of us will not want to sin at all. If we belong to Jesus, we have accepted him as our Lord and King, and we have given up the right to live for ourselves.

I’ve used this illustration before, because the Bible uses it in many places. Picture a marriage. Two people love each other, and they agree to give up their lives as single people, and from their wedding day forward, they make a new life together. Part of marriage means you give up some of the independence you had as a single person. Now, you organize your life not only to please yourself, but to please the two of you together. When you were single, you might have gone out with your friends, and stayed out late. But when you are married, you decide together what you will do with your time. You don’t stay out all night unless you have talked it over and agreed with your spouse. You don’t spend your money as if it was all your own. You prioritize together how you as a couple will allocate your resources. You do things for each other and with each other because you love one another. Sometimes, you do things you would rather not do because you love your spouse. At other times, you might refrain from doing something you would like to do, because you love your spouse. You don’t behave in these ways because there are laws about marriage. You do it because you love your spouse. And you behave in ways that are loving sometimes even when you don’t feel all sorts of loving feelings, because you have made a commitment to honor and value your spouse.

Now, if you were a legalist, you might say: “I must sit here and listen to my spouse talk, because if I don’t, I must not really be married.”

There is no love there, only fear and obligation.

If you were a lawless person, you might say: “I don’t feel like sitting here and listening to my spouse talk, because I’m not getting anything out of it. I’m going to go watch TV because that’s what I really want to do right now. Besides, even if I don’t listen to her, we’re still married, right?”

There is no love here, either, just self-centeredness.

This is why I say the good, true road of Christianity is love. Love eliminates both legalism and lawlessness. Being a Christian is all about receiving the love of Jesus, and loving him back. And because of his love, also loving our neighbors. Love changes us. It reorients us, reorients our lives, toward the one we love. Love affects how we live, and the choices we make. If it doesn’t, it isn’t really love.

This has to be really clear: we don’t change our behavior in order to become acceptable to God. Jesus, and Jesus alone makes us right with God. But once we trust Jesus, once we believe what the bible says, our behavior will change, because we grow in the love that Jesus has for us, and the love we have for him. If our behavior does not change at all, not even a little, perhaps we don’t really believe what the Bible says about Jesus.

When Paul was speaking about legalism, he talked about some of the things that we died to: false humility, working to get God to accept us, and so on. Now, Paul is telling us about a whole different category of things to which we have died: the things of the flesh. He starts with five. These five are all about things that we might wrongly desire: sexual immorality; moral impurity; evil passion; lust; and covetousness.

The word for “sexual immorality” is the very broad Greek term porneia. Porneia means “any sexual activity apart from that between a man and woman who are married to each other.” To be specific, it includes: sex between people who are not married at all; sex between people who are not married to each other; homosexual sex; prostitution; sex between more than two people, rape, etc.

Moral impurity catches pretty much anything left after porneia. Just in case you have someone (for instance, like former President Clinton) who wants to argue about what exactly “sex” means, this Greek word covers basically any other kind of immoral thought or behavior. We might throw pornography of all types into this category also.

The next term is “passion.” The Greek word used does not always mean something negative, but in this context, it is safe to assume that Paul means any kind of ungodly passion, and probably passion with immoral sexual overtones.

Following that, Paul mentions evil desire. Sometimes, this might be translated “lust.” This is desire for something more than, or in addition to, what you actually need, and it includes a demand that the desire be satisfied, even if it is wrong. You can lust, or have evil desire, for all sort of things, including (but not limited to) food, power, money, sex, control, or material things.

I want to pause before we move on. The problem with all of these things is that they are corruptions of things that would otherwise be good. The Bible teaches us that sex between married couples is a good thing, and in fact, it says very clearly that married couples should not withhold sex from one another (1 Corinthians 7:1-5). But Jesus teaches us to avoid corrupting and debasing God’s good gift of sex. Passion is often a good thing. But when the passion is directed to an object or person that it should not be, it becomes a sin. Desire is good. It is the same word used when Jesus said he eagerly desired to eat the Passover with his disciples. But evil desire is for something that should not be desired.

The final sin in this set of five is “covetousness.” The idea behind it is that you want something that is not yours to properly want. That could be money, it could be a relationship, it could be a certain status or possession. The ten commandments give us some examples of the ways we might covet:

17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.” (ESV, Exodus 20:17)

I’ve never coveted a donkey in my life, though I may have come close with a cow or a goat. But the idea of house or spouse is helpful. Your neighbor’s spouse is not available for you to want. Neither is her house, or car. You want something that should not belong to you anyway. You wish you could take it away from someone else, and have it for yourself. That is covetousness.

In verse six we are told that the wrath of God is coming because of such things. This is important. Sometimes, the attitude of lawlessness is that sins are not such a big deal anymore, because Jesus has forgiven us. But Paul is telling us that these things are deadly. Those who do not turn to Jesus will be under the wrath of God for such things. They aren’t something to play around with.

Each of these five sins refer primarily to strong desires for things that we should not desire. Let’s make sure we put in this context. Last time, Paul said that our real life was in Christ. Right now it is hidden, but it is no less real for that, and one day it will be fully manifested. We learned that we should seek life in Christ, not in external things, not in things that will wither and die anyway, things that will never satisfy us. So, now Paul is saying, put to death your habit of seeking life in the wrong places. These five sins: sexual immorality, impurity, evil passion, lust, and covetousness, are all ways in which we seek to find life. When we engage in such things, we are seeking life in the flesh, in things where there is no life. Paul says, “put those habits to death, where they belong. They are dead ends; worse, they are roads leading to even more death. Seek your life in Christ, and be done with seeking it in things like that.”

Paul also says: “This is how you used to be. You used to do these things, but now, in Jesus, all of that is changing.” I don’t want to gloss over verse Sometimes after people become Christians, they feel bad about what they did in the past. But that is over. The new reality is Christ. A few verses later Paul writes:

You have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. (ESV, Colossians 3:9-10)

That reminds me of what Paul said to the Corinthians:

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation (ESV, 2 Corinthians 5:17-18)

Yes, I know we still sometimes fail and fall back into evil desires. But our real life is hidden with Christ in God. Our flesh (as it is right now) is destined for destruction – the part of us that wants to sin is as good as dead already. We need to remember that the part of us that wants to go on sinning is no longer who we really are. We are now holy and blameless in Christ. We are in a spiritual marriage with Jesus.

Meditate on these things right now. What does it mean to put to death the things of the flesh? One nuance of “put to death” in Greek is “deprive of strength or power.” I think this is a helpful thought. What gives these sorts of sins strength or power, and what takes power away from them? How will feed your desires for the things of God, and starve the desires of the flesh?

What does it mean to put off the old self, and put on the new? How will you do that in the coming days and weeks? How will you avoid both the trap of legalism, and the trap of lawlessness?

And finally, how will you help your brothers and sisters in Jesus to do the same?

LOVE CHANGES THE BELOVED.

On By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, Single Sermons, Uncategorized1 Comment

Love Changes

Imagine that my sister is a drug addict. Precisely because I love my sister, I will move heaven and earth to try and help her change. Because I love her, I am not content to “accept her as she is.” Love desires the best for the beloved. That is why God is not content for us to live our own lives on our own terms; that is not the best thing for us, not even close. Because of God’s love for us, our best good has become fully intertwined with God’s best good.

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EPHESIANS 2:1-10

If I could use only one chapter of the Bible to summarize Christianity, it would be Ephesians chapter 2. Everything is here. It is Christianity 101. But one of the challenges of that is that it’s so “big.” I grew up in the country of Papua New Guinea. It’s an amazing place, and pretty much unlike anywhere else in the world. When I was younger, and people found this out, they would say, “What was that like?” I understand the kind spirit behind the question, but frankly, it was unanswerable. Growing up in New Guinea was my entire life, it formed who I am today. There were many things about my childhood that affected me profoundly; I had many remarkable experiences, and traveled more in my first 18 years than many people travel in a lifetime. If I hadn’t grown up there, I would be a very different person than I am now.

So, usually I answered the question by saying, “It was nice.”

But this Ephesians passage is like that. It is everything. The truth that is here has a deep, and profound effect on those who believe it. It forms who we are today. There is no way that I can do it justice. In the short time I have here. But I approach this passage, as always listening for what the Holy Spirit might want to draw out at this moment in time.

About 500 years ago, this verse, and a few others like it, shook Western civilization to its foundations. One of the men who was involved in that process was Martin Luther. Luther used to talk about the tensions in the Christian faith as if it were like riding a horse. It takes a certain physical grace to keep your balance on a horse. Some people fall off the right side, and others the left. (I myself, when I was young, managed somehow to fall off the back of a horse, but that story is irrelevant to my point here).

The left side of the horse is where we essentially take God’s love for granted. Of course God loves everyone – that’s part of what it means for him to be God, right? “Because God loves me,” (say the left-siders), “it doesn’t matter at all how I behave. I have a free ticket to heaven, so I can live however I want to, here on earth. God’s love is so great, that he doesn’t really care. He just wants to affirm me as I am.”

In our culture today, if there is one thing that most people believe, it is that every person should be the best version of themselves that they can be. To make it personal, I should try and best me that I can be. God made me, and so he wants me to be me. Since he made me, and loves me, everyone should just accept me how I am, and not try to change me, or put rules or restrictions on my behavior. But if this is how you think, I believe you haven’t yet understood what love is all about. Real love does not accept the beloved with no desire for change. Real love desires the best for everyone, and that usually means change.

Let me give you an example. Suppose a friend of my cousin is a drug addict. As a drug addict, my cousin’s friend is harming his body. He is destroying his relationships. He is ruining his financial future. He is inexorably deteriorating physically, emotionally, relationally, and spiritually. If I find out about this concerning someone I don’t know – like my cousin’s friend – I may say, “Gee, that’s too bad.” But honestly, I’m not particularly motivated to make sure that that person changes. Do I except my cousin’s friend as he is, because I love him? No, in fact it’s almost the opposite. It is because I don’t care about him that I’m content to let him be “who he is.”

Now, imagine that the drug addict is not my cousin’s friend, but my own sister. Precisely because I love my sister, I will move heaven and earth to try and help her change. Because I love her, I am not content to “accept her as she is.” Love desires the best for the beloved. That is why God is not content for us to live our own lives on our own terms; that is not the best thing for us, not even close.

Listen to how Paul describes our situation apart from Christ:

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins 2 in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler who exercises authority over the lower heavens, the spirit now working in the disobedient. 3 We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also. (HCSB Free. Ephesians 2:1-3)

I want to make sure that we don’t skim over verse two. The “ruler who exercises authority over the lower heavens, the spirit now working in the disobedient,” means demonic forces, possibly the devil himself. Apart from Christ we are pawns of the devil. Either we belong to the kingdom of God, or we are in deep trouble. We are most certainly not okay as we are.

Sometimes Christians get the sense that once they are saved, they have a ticket for heaven and now they can live however they want to live until it’s time for them to go to heaven. That too, is the attitude from the left side of the horse. That too, is wrong. The deeper we get into this, the more you’ll see that, but I will just say that the end of this passage is in contrast with the beginning. In the beginning, apart from Christ we were “walking” in sin and trespasses. By walk, or walking, Paul simply means our way of life. But at the end, once we are redeemed in Christ, saved entirely by his grace, there is more. Still continuing on by grace (not by works). God has prepared good works for us to “walk in” (verse 10). So we are to go from living in a way that is contrary to God’s loving desire for us to a way of life that God has prepared for us, a way of life that brings honor and glory to himself.

But we don’t get there on our own. Remember the horse? We’ve been talking about the left side. The right side of the horse is to put too much emphasis on what you do for God. In Martin Luther’s time, everyone was falling off the right side. Almost everyone believed that they would be saved by being good people and doing good things. That might sound OK, at one level, right? I mean, it means people will try to behave well, and that’s good thing. But people who are trying to justify themselves are ultimately people who will hurt others in order to help themselves. They are under tremendous pressure to perform right, and to judge how well they are doing. Very few people can avoid also judging how everyone else is doing. People start making up rules so that they can know that they are “safe,” and they quickly become harsh and unloving.

Luther’s great task in life was to show those people that they were wrong, that God’s grace, as this passage teaches, has nothing to do with our efforts. Not only do our good works accomplish nothing, but apart from Christ, our good works are energized by the devil. That’s a scary thought. Sometimes, in our pluralistic society, we can sort of think that people who don’t trust Jesus are kind of in neutral territory. I hope that we Christians often meet people who think and believe differently than we do, and I hope we can be respectful and kind and loving to them. But we need to be very clear about what the Bible says here: there is no neutral ground. Now, let me be clear: we should never imagine that other people are the enemy. But they do live under the influence of the enemy. Either we belong to the kingdom of God, or we walk “according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler who exercises authority over the lower heavens, the spirit now working in the disobedient (2:2). Apart from God, we have no hope of actually being morally good, because there is no moral good apart from God.

This is offensive to those who fall off the right side of the horse, but it is what the Bible says. The text says, “you were dead in your transgressions and sins.” A corpse can’t “try hard.” A dead person can’t “do the best he can.” No, if you are dead, your actions are taken completely out of the picture, because a dead person can’t do anything. There is nothing we could possibly do for ourselves, spiritually. We don’t “do our best and God does the rest.” God does it all. We can’t do our best. Our ‘best’ is sin and gratifying the desires of our corrupt nature. Our ‘best’ results in us being used as pawns of the devil. “Doing our best” is ridiculous, because a dead person can’t do anything, and we were spiritually dead. Now, bearing that in mind, look at what Paul says next:

4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love that He had for us, 5 made us alive with the Messiah even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! 6 Together with Christ Jesus He also raised us up and seated us in the heavens, 7 so that in the coming ages He might display the immeasurable riches of His grace through His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

Now, I want to make sure we understand God’s grace fully. Let me start by taking human beings down a peg or two. (I am going to say “you,” but please understand, I include myself in this.) Life is not about you. Once again, this is in contrast to our culture, which is all about people being the “best authentic selves” that they can be. Self-fulfillment is a by-product of trusting God, but it should never be our goal. God does not exist to help you become a fulfilled person. He does not exist to fix the people around you, or to make your circumstances better. If God is, in fact, God, than the Supreme Good in the Universe is Himself. If He is the best and most wonderful thing in existence, than it is only right that he should seek to please Himself, to glorify Himself. There is nothing better than him, no greater good than His own pleasure. So, just as we should seek to honor and glorify God because he is the Highest Good, so he should seek to bring honor and glory to himself – for the same reason. That is God’s focus. That is His continual, ongoing activity. We are not necessary to God’s happiness, nor to his glory.

But here is the amazing part: he has chosen to bring glory to Himself by being gracious and kind to us in Jesus Christ. We are part of God’s plan to glorify Himself; we are part of God’s plan to please himself. In his love, he has made us part of the best thing in the Universe. We get to be a part of this highest, best good. That means, it becomes part of the best thing in the universe for us to be saved by Jesus. Our best good has become wrapped up in God’s best good.

Imagine a billionaire who wants the world to see him as a kind, generous man. So, he buys two square miles of slum in the worst part of the city. He tears down all the houses, and builds a resort-style complex, and then settles all the former slum dwellers into million-dollar homes there. The billionaire might be building this for selfish reasons, but there is no way that the result is actually selfish. He has chosen to make the well-being of poor people necessary to his own sense of self as a generous person. He does this not because the poor people have pleased him, but rather, because it pleases himself to do it, and to have others see it.

That is a little bit like God, except that, because he is God, it is good and right for him to please himself. But he didn’t have to include us in that plan – he just did, because he is so gracious, kind and loving.

So, we need to fully understand what we do contributes nothing to our salvation and cannot earn God’s approval and grace. Those things have already been given freely to us and we receive them simply by believing and trusting that God has given them to us in and through Jesus Christ. That’s it – no “ifs,” “ands,” or “buts.”

With that firmly understood, let’s go back to the good works I mentioned earlier:

For we are His creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10)

Being a part of God’s plan to glorify himself means that he has prepared good works for us to walk in. These are not good because we do them, but rather because God has already set us up to do them.

Let me explain it like this. Consider a family that has adopted a baby. The child belongs to the family for one reason only – the family loves her, chose her and wants her. There is nothing that a tiny baby could possibly do to earn that love. It starts with the love of her parents, long before she can ever return that love. This is how it is with us and God. After all, we already saw in Ephesians 1:5 that,

“In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and will…”

Now think about an adopted child again. As she grows older, she will start to behave in certain ways simply because she has already been adopted. She may hug and kiss her mommy and daddy. She’ll come running to them with her fears and problems. This adopted child will probably grow up speaking like others in her family. She’ll fight and forgive and love her brothers and sisters. Her parents will train her concerning the rules, and will have to discipline her at times, and at times she’ll have to adjust her behavior. She will do these things, not to try and get into the family, but rather, because she is already in it.

Can you imagine a little boy who cleans his room daily, is always kind to his brothers and sisters, mows the lawn and fixes supper twice a week? I can’t either. But just suppose there was. Suppose his parents asked him why he did these things, and his response was: “Well, I want to get into this family. I want you to love me, and I know if I don’t do these things you won’t love me and I can’t be part of the family.” That would break the heart of any parent. We don’t accept our children on the basis of what they do for us. We accept them and love them because they are ours.

Consider it from another angle. Imagine there was a boy from another family who came over to your house and washed the dishes, cleaned the rooms and spoke to you respectfully. Would you, simply because he behaves well, adopt him as your own child? Of course not. Good behavior is not enough to make someone part of your family. It would be ridiculous if it were.

So, we are God’s children. There are certain things that the Lord wants us to do. There are certain behaviors he would like us to either change or start doing. But we do these things because God has already adopted us. We do them because that’s part of what it means to be in this family. There is no way that we can get into the family in the first place by trying to act like family members. We are adopted by God’s choice. “Doing” is a result of our adoption, not the cause of it.

In fact, we are God’s creation (not our own) and he has created certain things for us to do. There is a stunning truth about our good works: they aren’t ours anyway. God has already prepared in advance the good things he wants you to do. You see, when God made you, he had already planned certain things he wanted you to do.

God has worked for years to bring you to the place in your life where you are now. He created you and at the same time he created the opportunities for you to do certain things that only you can do. The Bible says that God formed your inmost being and put you together in your mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13-16). The Lord told the prophet Jeremiah this:

“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I set you apart for my holy purpose.” (Jeremiah 1:5, God’s Word version).

Those words are not just for Jeremiah – they are for you too. You are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works that he has already set up for you to do. You are unique, and the good works that you are to do are also prepared by God uniquely for you.

Now, we can take this uniqueness a bit too far sometimes. It would be ridiculous to say – “well, I was not uniquely created to do the good work of obeying the commandment, ‘do not lie.’ Honesty is just not one of the good works I was created for.” No, because we are in the family, there are certain “good works” that are common to everyone. In other words, God created all of his children for the good work of honesty, and the other things in the ten commandments. Scripture is in fact very clear about the good works that are common to all believers in Jesus.

But there are good works uniquely prepared for you to do. Those things, also, are to show off God’s glory. We used to walk – to live our lives – in sins and transgressions, under the influence of the devil. Now, through God’s incredible grace, we are included his plan to glorify himself. You have a place. You have a purpose. You, as you trust in Jesus and walk in the good works he puts in front of you, are bringing glory to God. You, by God’s grace, are a part of God’s glory. I know you don’t always feel that that is true. But we are called to believe God’s Word (the Bible) even more than our own feelings. He says it is true. Rest in it. Do not sell yourself short, or undervalue your worth in Christ Jesus.

By the way, we do those good works not through striving, but through trusting. The more we believe what these verses say the more room the Lord has to work in and through us. Trust him, he will fulfill his plan to make you part of the best purpose in the universe. Thank him for his grace. And stay on that horse!

LOVING OBEDIENCE…OBEDIENT LOVE. JOHN 15:9-12

On By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Gospel of John, Jesus, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, Single Sermons, Uncategorized5 Comments

Loving Obedience

In the Bible, the opposite of rules is not “no rules.” It is loving relationship. It is a completely different paradigm.

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Single Sermons. Loving Obedience. John 15:9-12

 9“As the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you. Remain in My love. 10If you keep My commands you will remain in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commands and remain in His love. 11“I have spoken these things to you so that My joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. 12This is My command: Love one another as I have loved you. (John 15:9-12, HCSB)

This is a stunning passage of scripture. We could spend weeks finding new and wonderful things in these few verses alone. I don’t have weeks, so let’s see if we can break off a digestible portion of this wonderful part of God’s word.

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. It’s easy to drift over this quickly, but just stop for a minute and listen. How does the Father love Jesus? In the first place, he is the heavenly Father. His love has no limit. His love has no flaws. The Father has loved Jesus eternally. Here on earth, our love is hampered by our limited capacities. It is corrupted by our sinful flesh. Sometimes, loving others is a lot of work. At times, we lose patience with those we love; we get irritated with them; we become frustrated, or just plain weary. None of those things are a factor in the way the Father loves Jesus. Therefore, none of those things are a factor in the way Jesus loves us.

In fact, Jesus offers us the same experience of love that He has as a member of the Holy Trinity.

God is a Trinity – that is, He is one God, and yet he exist in three persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There is something here that is beyond the grasp of human imagination (incidentally, the doctrine of the Trinity is one of the best arguments that Christianity is not made up by people – human beings would have come up with something more understandable). Between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit there is a constant flow of love and joy. Jesus tells us “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.” He is, amazingly, offering us the kind of daily experience of love and joy and grace that He himself has. His own experience of the Father’s love is deep and abiding. It is not something that goes away, and it is something that sustained Him and influenced Him every weary day of His time on earth. I’m reminded of what Paul wrote to the Ephesians:

14For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Eph 3:14-19, ESV2011)

We need the power of the Holy Spirit at work in us, strengthening us, in order to even begin to understand the love that Jesus Christ has for us. It is beyond our ability to know completely, it is abundantly far more than all that we could ask or think. The unfathomable, unlimited love of Jesus for us is the bedrock for everything else in our lives. Particularly, it is the foundation upon which the rest of this text is built. We’re going to talk about what it means to keep the commandments of Jesus. But we cannot begin to understand what this means without the foundation of his all-surpassing love for us.

Abide in my love. “Abide” is not a word that we use very often anymore. Some good synonyms might include: remain, dwell, rest-upon, stay, be, exist-in. We are to dwell in the love of Jesus. We are to rest upon it, to exist continually in it.

Everything in our entire lives ought to be built on one foundational fact: that God loves us. If we get that fact wrong, there will be a host of other things in our lives which we will get wrong, and many things will not make sense. This is not to say that when we truly grasp by faith that God loves us, everything makes sense, and nothing ever goes wrong. But if we build our lives on any other basis than the love God has for us, sooner or later the uselessness and hopelessness of it all will come crashing in.

For many of us, there have been times, perhaps brief periods, when we have truly understood how much God loves us, and those times stand out as high points in our walks of faith. But much of the time, though we know it with our minds, we find it hard to believe that God truly delights in us. On Monday morning at 8:30 when the boss is upset and you’re still smarting from the fight with your spouse, it seems difficult to feel God’s love, and almost impossible that His love should make a difference in your situation.

In John 15, Jesus is inviting us into an abiding experience of His love. He appears to be offering a life wherein most of the time, we will be conscious of God’s love for us, and that love will make a real difference in our daily experiences. Jesus did not simply come down from heaven, hand us a one way ticket redeemable upon our death, and say, “See ya when you get there.” No in His invitation to abide, He is offering a life that is different in quality, right here and now. And the central fact affecting the quality of our lives is meant to be His affection for us.

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. Now we hit the difficulty. Many times when we read this phrase after the other two we think, “Aha! I knew it was too good to be true. Now the other shoe has dropped. Sure, God loves us: but only if we obey his commands, only if we can be good enough to earn his love.”

As we look at these verses, it is important for us to understand the concept of “paradigm.” A paradigm is a way of looking at the world. Paradigms tells us how to interpret our experiences. We all have paradigms, and use them every day. Think about it. The color green does not actually mean “go” and red does not mean “stop.” But in the driving paradigm, we interpret those colors to indicate those things.

When it comes to obeying God, and keeping his commands, it is common to find two different and extreme views,. The first view says, “Jesus died to forgive us [this is true]. His death took away the power of the law to condemn us [also true]. Therefore, once I’ve prayed the sinner’s prayer and ‘gotten saved’ I can go off and live my life however I please [this is not true].”

The second view goes like this: “Even the New Testament – after Jesus’ death and resurrection – tells us we need to obey God [true]. It says we should be holy and righteous people [true, but we need to understand this in the proper way]. Therefore not only should we try to live sinless lives, we actually can do so [not true]. Therefore, if we sin, we may not be true Christians [really not true].”

The underlying problem with both of these approaches is the paradigm. They both view our faith as set of rules. One way thinks we have to follow them; the other way thinks we are free from them. But the paradigm in both cases is about following rules. Both ways of understanding the scripture are legalistic, because they view obedience to Jesus as something to do with the law.

However, in the Bible, the opposite of rules is not “no rules.” It is relationship. It is a completely different paradigm.

In the book of John, Jesus relentlessly pushes the idea that real life only found in a daily faith relationship with Him. In fact, that is the central message of the entire New Testament. What Jesus says here in John 15:10 about keeping his commands can be properly understood only in the context of relationship with him. And in fact, that is true of any verse about obedience in the entire Bible. The paradigm is not rules and laws, but rather, relationship.

Marriage (the way God intends it to be) is supposed to be the strongest and most enduring voluntary relationship we have with another person. That is why the Bible often uses marriage as an illustration of our relationship with the Lord (Ephesians 5:25; Isaiah 54:5, 62:4-5; Jeremiah 3:15, 31:32; Hosea 1:2, 2:19-20; Revelation 19:7-9). That’s also why I often use it as a sermon illustration. It is applicable once again here.

What brings a husband and wife together? Does the man sign up to follow rules laid down by the woman, then, if he follows those rules correctly, they get married? Of course not. They are brought together by love. But what about after the marriage? Do they say, “I know love brought us together, but we are married now, and from here on our marriage will based on fulfilling the rules we have for each other.” Ridiculous.

So, if marriage is not based on rules, does that mean that I am free to go have an affair if I want? Also ridiculous. Why? Because there are certain things that destroy love, and destroy relationships, and having an affair is one of those things.

I think one of the biggest problems we have in marriage is that we fail to see how our actions affect the love between us. We don’t realize (or we pretend not to) how our actions have the potential to either help or harm the relationship. So when a wife wants her husband to quit going out to bars with his buddies, it isn’t that she’s trying to base their relationship on rules. What she’s really trying to say is “when you do that, it injures the love we have between us. It hurts me and it hurts our relationship.” When the husband says, “I’m looking for more from you in our physical relationship,” he isn’t trying to say that he only loves her because of what happens in the bedroom. He’s saying, “This helps to build my love for you, and therefore it helps our relationship.” These aren’t rules. They are relationship builders (or relationship busters). Because I am married, my behavior conforms to certain standards. These are not rules I follow – I live this way because I love my wife.

It will put tremendous pressure on a marriage if one or both spouses start looking at behavior toward each other as rules, instead of actions that affect the quality of love.

Jesus is telling us today, it’s the same with him. He uses the language of “commands” and “obedience” because there is supposed to be submission on our part to the Lord. But what it is all about is relationship. Listen clearly: “If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love….You are my friends if you do what I command you.” He’s saying, “this is all about our relationship. If you love me, your behavior will reflect that. If you know that I love you, your behavior will show that also.” John writes about this more in his letters:

For this is what love for God is: to keep his commands. Now His commands are not a burden, because whatever has born of God conquers the world. This is the victory that has conquered the world: our faith. (1 John 5:3-4)

And this is love: that we walk according to his commands. This is the command as you have heard it from the beginning: you must walk in love. (2 John 6).

In other words, “keeping his commands” is all about that faith-relationship of love we have with Jesus. You should be able to tell I love Kari, not only because of the ring around my finger, but also because of how I behave with regard to her. You should be able to tell I love Jesus, not just because of a cross around my neck, but because of the way I behave with regard to Jesus.

Let me suggest one more thing. I don’t always feel like listening when Kari wants to talk. I don’t always feel like being kind or encouraging. I don’t always feel like helping her with things or doing her favors. But sometimes I do those things even if don’t feel like it, because the more I do, the closer we become; and the closer we become the more I actually want to do those things. Also, of course, the closer we are, the more I enjoy and treasure our relationship.

What I’m saying is, I choose to behave in such a way that I become closer to my wife. In the same way, obedience is a pathway to intimacy with God. The more we live as he asks us to, the easier it is to continue to make choices that increase our closeness to him. The more we obey, the more we learn to love Him, and our satisfaction and fulfillment – and our joy – grows.

When we remember that Jesus said this about keeping his commands in the context of abiding in Him it is impossible to doubt that he is talking about how we are behave in relationship with him. Basically, he is saying, “this is how to grow in my love and stay living in me. This is how you and I get closer.”

So what are the commands that Jesus wants us to keep? What are these things that help us grow closer to Jesus? In John chapter 6, some came to Jesus, wondering about this.

“What can we do to perform the works of God?” they asked.

Jesus replied, “this is the work of God: that you believe in the One he has sent” (John 6:29)

Another time, some experts on Jewish law came along and asked, “What’s the most important commandment to obey?” Jesus summed it all up when he said:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40)

In other words, to obey is to act in love. This exactly what we have been learning. Love for God and neighbor is obedience, and obedience to these commands (which really sum up all of the commandments) demonstrates love for God and neighbor. If I love my neighbor, I will not steal from Him. If I love God, I will listen to Him and His will for my life. If I love God I won’t sin, because that hurts him. If I love my neighbor, I won’t sin, because that hurts her.

Now, in reality, I don’t always love perfectly in action. From the way I talked about marriage, you might think I’m the perfect husband. Not even close. Sometimes, not only do I not feel loving, but I don’t act in a loving way either. That’s true in my relationship with the Lord, and with others also.

But we need to realize this: through dying on the cross, rising again and sending the Holy Spirit, Jesus has made it possible for anyone to keep his commands. There are people who believe we can attain perfect behavior in this life. They are mistaken, and they take a very poor approach to understanding the Bible. But the power of Jesus’ death on the cross is such that when we fail, forgiveness is available to us, and we can continue as if we never failed to obey Him. While we don’t reach perfect behavior, through Jesus, our Spirits are counted as perfect by God. Because we are in relationship, not under law, we repent, receive the love and grace and forgiveness God has made available to us, and so continue on in obedience. Through Jesus’ work, it possible for us to be in, and to stay in, right relationship with Him.

When I hurt Kari, or vice versa, it doesn’t mean divorce. Instead, we come to each other honestly, talk it over, ask for, give and receive forgiveness, and then move on. Remember, marriage is supposed to be a reflection of God’s relationship with us, and that is exactly how it works with the Lord.

Spend a few minutes now, reflecting on what the Lord is saying to you.

LOVE AND LIES

On By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Christianity, Churches in Lebanon, House Church, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Love is easy. This is one of the big lies that destroys marriages, but it also destroys churches and personal friendships. When love gets hard, too many people “bail out” on marriages, churches and friendships. Real love does involve warm feelings. But real love also involves hard work. Forgiving others is hard, sometimes, but it is indispensable to lasting love. Being humble, saying sorry, and admitting that you are wrong are all very difficult, but all vital to real love. Withholding angry retaliation, being patient, listening, serving someone when you are tired and crabby – these are all important parts of true love, and they all take significant emotional energy and self-discipline. There are payoffs, of course. Many times, real love fills us with joy, happiness and wonderful feelings. But we need to know, and to remember, that true, lasting love is sometimes hard work.

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Overlooked Letters # 4. Love, and Third John.

 I ran out of time/space in my last message about Christian love. I’d like to finish the topic of Christian love. Since John’s concern is for both Love and Truth, let’s consider some lies about love, and how we can live and love in the truth.

My focus last time was to show you how the Bible teaches that it is of utmost importance that we Christians love our fellow Christians. According to the New Testament, after God’s love for us, this is the most important kind of love. For many of us, that message should convict us that we have to change our lifestyle. If the way we live does not allow time and energy to put into relationships with other Christians, then we will find ourselves disobeying the command of Jesus (2 John 5). If we do not make room in our lives to love our Christian brothers and sisters, we cannot truly claim to be following Jesus.

20If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother he has seen cannot love the God he has not seen. 21And we have this command from Him: The one who loves God must also love his brother. (1John 4:20-21, HCSB)

Now, unfortunately, our culture has, in large part, separated love from truth. Remember, John is deeply concerned about both. We need to be aware of cultural lies about love.

One of the biggest lies about love is that it means unconditional acceptance. In other words, if you love me, you will accept, without reservation, anything I do, or don’t do. In fact, our culture is rapidly becoming even more extreme about this, and now many people believe that if you love someone, it means you must agree with, and endorse, all of their choices. Author Rick Warren puts it succinctly:

“Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate.”

So, contrary to popular opinion, loving our fellow-Christians does not mean that we must agree with them on everything, and endorse everything they do (or don’t). Sometimes, the truly loving thing is to tell someone that they are wrong, or are headed in the wrong direction. The other side of that coin is that just because someone confronts you about something does not mean that they hate you, or are acting in an unloving way. We Christians need desperately to remember this, and to model it to the culture around us. I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably say it again: If I believe you are going to hell (even if I’m wrong in my belief) and I say something to you about it, my motivation is loving – I don’t want you to go to hell. On the other hand, if I truly believe you are going to hell (rightly or wrongly) and I say nothing, I must hate you a great deal, because I’m content for you to go to hell, without warning you. So, many times, the hateful thing is to remain silent, while the truly loving thing is to share your belief.

In Christian relationships, it often isn’t about going to hell; it’s usually more nuanced. But often, we keep silent about things because we don’t want to put the time and effort into having real and genuine relationships with each other. Subconsciously, we know that if we speak, it might cause conflict, and deep down, we aren’t sure we love the other person enough to spend the time and energy to work through that conflict.

Here’s another lie about love that is very destructive, especially in Christian relationships: Love means never having to say “I’m sorry.” It’s a nice idea, I get it. The thought is, if someone really loves you, they will accept and forgive everything you do, and so you don’t have to apologize about anything. In reality, if you really love someone, one of the greatest gifts you can give them is to say: “I’m sorry. I was wrong. Please forgive me.” If you believe you are never wrong in relationship to someone else, or that you need never apologize, you are not living in the truth, and without truth, real love cannot thrive. Humility, apology, confession and forgiveness are powerful tools that make love grow. Our culture would like to minimize them. Don’t let it happen in the church. Love each other in truth, and that means being humble and saying sorry.

6But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” 7Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (Jas 4:6-7, ESV2011)

5Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 6Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, 7casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1Pet 5:5-7, ESV2011)

31Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. (Eph 4:31-32, ESV2011)

Here’s another cultural lie about love: Physical attraction means love. The vast majority of our movies, television, music, and other popular art promote the idea that the highest expression of love is sexual intercourse. This is one reason the culture is so sensitive about sexual issues – any sort of sexual moral standard is viewed as interfering with “love.” This means the church is in trouble, because a) Churches who are “in truth” teach that sex is only for married couples. So the culture thinks we are somehow restricting true love. b) If sex is the highest expression of love, that means people in the church will never share the highest form of love with each other (unless it’s a weird, perverted cult, which, of course, would not be a true church). So Christian fellowship becomes kind of a “second class” love.

However, the Bible teaches us that highest form of love is self-sacrifice. In New Testament Greek, there are several words for love, including: romantic love (eros), brotherly/friendship love (phileo) and self-sacrificing love (agape). The love of Jesus, and of God, is described as agape. The famous “love chapter” that is often read at weddings – 1 Corinthians 13 – describes agape. All throughout the New Testament, it is agape – self-sacrificing love – that is the highest form of love. That kind of love, we can have in the church among everyone, and it transforms lives. There is indeed no Biblical restriction on this highest kind of love.

Another one: Love is easy. This is one of the big lies that destroys marriages, but it also destroys churches and personal friendships. When love gets hard, too many people “bail out” on marriages, churches and friendships. Real love does involve warm feelings. But real love also involves hard work. Forgiving others is hard, sometimes, but it is indispensable to lasting love. Being humble, saying sorry, and admitting that you are wrong are all very difficult, but all vital to real love. Withholding angry retaliation, being patient, listening, serving someone when you are tired and crabby – these are all important parts of true love, and they all take significant emotional energy and self-discipline. There are payoffs, of course. Many times, real love fills us with joy, happiness and wonderful feelings. But we need to know, and to remember, that true, lasting love is sometimes hard work.

Let me close the topic of Christian love by simply sharing a brief sermon given by the Apostle Paul on this matter. 1 Corinthians 13, “the love chapter” is one of the most-read passages in the Bible, and many people are quite familiar with it. Go ahead and read it on your own. But I want to share a different one, here. This passage below describes many practical ways in which Christians can and should love each other. This is how we should love one-another, Christian to Christian.

1I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

My comment: We can only love by surrendering to God, and presenting ourselves to Him. Then, he can use us. It will be his love, passing through us, to love others.

2Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

My comment: this is about rejecting the lies of our culture (as I’ve described) and instead, being conformed to the truth about love, as given to us in the Bible.

3For by the grace given to me, I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he should think. Instead, think sensibly, as God has distributed a measure of faith to each one.

My comment: This is talking about humility again.

4Now as we have many parts in one body, and all the parts do not have the same function, 5in the same way we who are many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another.

My Comment: We belong to each other. When we come to Jesus, we join a body. Every part (including you) is indispensable.

 6According to the grace given to us, we have different gifts: If prophecy, use it according to the standard of one’s faith; 7if service, in service; if teaching, in teaching; 8if exhorting, in exhortation; giving, with generosity; leading, with diligence; showing mercy, with cheerfulness.

 9Love must be without hypocrisy. My Comment: there we are: truth again.  Detest evil; cling to what is good. 10Show family affection to one another with brotherly love. Outdo one another in showing honor. 11Do not lack diligence; be fervent in spirit; serve the Lord. 12Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; be persistent in prayer. 13Share with the saints in their needs; pursue hospitality. 14Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep. 16Be in agreement with one another. Do not be proud; instead, associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own estimation. 17Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Try to do what is honorable in everyone’s eyes.

18If possible, on your part, live at peace with everyone. 19Friends, do not avenge yourselves; instead, leave room for His wrath. For it is written: Vengeance belongs to Me; I will repay, says the Lord. 20But If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For in so doing you will be heaping fiery coals on his head.

 21Do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good. (Rom 12:1-21, HCSB)