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Once again, I will be adding things in the recorded audio sermon that may not show up in the written version. Please consider listening to the audio.
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13, the famous chapter on love, that among the many things that is true of divine love is this: “…love keeps no record of wrongs” (v. 5).
If you lament however, and pour out your complaint to the Lord, as David did in Psalm 142 (discussed last week), it may seem that you are doing exactly that. Yet, I am trying to make the case that there is a difference between lamenting, in which you identify the specific nature of your troubles, and in keeping a record of wrongs. The two can look very much alike, but what distinguishes them is your “why.”
If you take offense and allow yourself to become bitter, you view everything in your life through the lens of what was done to hurt you. You become a victim. To everyone who will listen, you will recite in detail what various people did to hurt you. You do this in order to receive sympathy and support for your case against those who injured you. There is a tone of resentment that seeps through these discussions. This is evidence that your heart is unhealed and it is a clear indication that you need both healing in your heart and you need to learn to cancel the debt of the person or people who have hurt you. By the way, this is a bit different than processing your hurt with people who can help you heal. The person who has taken offense is someone who doesn’t plan to heal. They just want to complain.
(Tom here, now, for this paragraph) We should remember that it is possible take offense at God, and even resent him. In such cases, we might complain to him, but our complaint to God has no trust, no hope. In such cases we are merely expressing our dissatisfaction, and we want to show not that we trust God, but rather, that it seems he has failed us. This was the kind of grumbling that the people of Israel did in their journey between Egypt and the Promised Land.
By contrast, the lamenter’s focus is one of trust in God. He or she has a purpose in verbally identifying the specific nature of his or her troubles in order to invite God into them. This process is very similar to asking God to heal your physical body. Usually when you do that you are very familiar with the particular ailment that you want God to heal. You mention it by name. When you are asking Him for healing, it is likely you will say something like, “Lord, I would like you to heal my back…” Or, “Please heal my skin cancer…”
When you do that, you are not offended by the problem. You certainly don’t like the thing that afflicts you, but you want to identify it in order to bring it to the Lord for healing. That’s what we are doing when we are lamenting and pouring out our complaint to the Lord. This is why doing so is not grumbling or murmuring.
What I’m recommending in this series is identifying to God the things that are creating misery, anguish, torment, grief, relational loss, anger, or even a sense of rejection in your life.
I am encouraging you to get specific in your lamenting to God about the particular nature of the pain you are feeling. Perhaps you have experienced a relational injury and you know that eventually, it will be to your benefit to get to a place of forgiving the person who hurt you. That’s good, but you won’t get there by pretending everything is okay. It’s much more authentic and beneficial to you if you talk to God about how you were injured. What was said that you find hurtful? Christians often make the mistake of prioritizing forgiving someone over receiving healing for the pain that sets them up for future resentment. If you attempt to forgive before you lean into your pain and bring it to the Lord, you short circuit the process. In order to be able to authentically cancel someone’s relational debt, you must not minimize what happened. It may be that there are a hundred other people who have experienced worse than what you experienced, but if what happened to you hurt you, it matters. So begin there. Feel your feelings. They are there to serve you. It was God who gave you the capacity to feel. Your feelings are like spiritual nerve endings which inform you of an injury. Pay attention to them. Identify them. Say out loud how someone’s actions make you feel. Did they make you feel shamed? Accused? Condemned? Judged? Insulted? Disrespected? Dishonored? Misunderstood? Rejected? Exploited? Victimized? Abused? Admitting them is an important first step to healing. Admit them and lament them. Grieve them. And, invite God in.
Lamenting is good for your spiritual health. It keeps you from imploding. It helps you avoid fakery. Lamenters understand that you don’t have to “fake it till you make it.” Lamenters are not image managers. They get comfortable letting it all hang out because they know God is a God of big shoulders. He’s not fussy– not annoyed by the lamenter’s anger, frustration, hatred or by the raw language they may use to express their frustration. Why? Because a lamenter is turning toward God in his pain.
Grumbling is not good for your health. Grumbling causes you to focus on your problems. The grumbler is stuck in a rut because He stopped inviting God in. He or she is actually keeping God at arms length. Grumbling is the breeding ground for resentment. The grumbler has an entitlement mindset and his temporary disappointment with God becomes permanent because He views God as someone who was supposed to help Him cope. He views God like an illicit drug– something to make him feel better. In their hearts, grumblers feel that God is a means to an end, and they feel he has failed to do for them what they expect him to do. In other words, the grumbler’s world is oriented around him/her self and not around what delights God. Perhaps it never was.
It’s been occurring to me a lot lately that this way of thinking, that is, the one that is based on orienting my life around myself is a counterfeit version of real Christianity. The real disciple of Jesus is called to a life that is oriented around, centered in and based on Jesus of Nazareth. It’s normal for every person, including every genuine follower of Jesus to want things to go well. It’s normal to work hard at making life work, however we define that. BUT and this is a big “but,” but an actual follower of Jesus has embraced the idea that it is right, good and holy to forsake literally everything to follow Jesus, to surrender every agenda, every longing, every ache, every hope, dream and ambition in favor of living to please the Savior. He or she adopts and begins, over the course of time, to embody the motto, “not my will, but Yours be done.” He or she has come to the realization that he or she must be grounded in the value that God’s Kingdom is his/her first priority (Matthew 6:24).
A lamenter can sound a lot like a grumbler. The thing that makes lamenting different is the reason behind your complaining. The lamenter is turning to God, not away from God and inviting God into his or her hardships. Doing this can lead to some questions, questions like “Why?” This question usually bubbles out of the profound confusion that disables the lamenter. The lamenter’s pain is profound, and his/her confusion is great. He or she simply must ask, “Why?” Next week we’ll lean into this question more fully.
Join me this week in an approach that is different from my usual teaching. Let’s pray through Psalm 25 together.
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Advent really has three main purposes. First, it helps us remember and celebrate how God came into the world as a human being, two thousand years ago. The church-term for this is “the Incarnation.” The second purpose of Advent is to help us look forward to the time when Jesus will return to the earth, bring history to its conclusion, and bring us into the New Creation. In fact, if you happen to come across this message during some other time of the year, it can still be relevant to you, because in a very real way, we are always living during advent. Since we are waiting for Jesus to return, every day and every year is, in a sense, during advent.
You might say the first purpose is about the past, and the second is about the future. But Advent is also about our present. Advent reminds us to receive Jesus into our daily lives, here and now.
Psalm 25 is one of the readings for the second Sunday in Advent this year (technically, it is part of the Sunday evening lectionary). Psalm 25 is really about the third purpose of Advent – receiving Jesus into our lives in the present. There are also themes in this psalm of waiting for God with anticipation.
Normally, I like to do what is called “expository preaching.” If you’ve heard two or more of my sermons, you’ve probably heard my expository preaching. It’s what I do about 90% of the time. This time, I feel like the Holy Spirit was asking me to step outside my comfort zone, and take a different approach. So, rather than my normal approach, I want to invite you to pray this psalm with me, and reflect upon it during this season of waiting and expectation. If you sometimes struggle to pray, I recommend praying with a psalm, like we are about to do here. If you struggle to come up with words, or know what to say when you pray, using scripture to pray could be very helpful. Since we are using the very words of the Bible, we can also know that our prayers are on track.
I encourage you to listen to the sermon this time, even if you normally read it. I’m not sure the written version captures this as well, although it may be better for some people.
I encourage you, after reading this message, to go back through the psalm yourself, and pray it your own way. Consider doing that two or three times this week as part of your prayer life.
1 To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul.
Yes, Lord, I do!
2 O my God, in you I trust;
let me not be put to shame; let not my enemies exult over me.
I trust you, Lord, but not as much as I should. Please help me to trust you more. Lord, please protect my loved ones, and me, from the Evil One, and from all the forces of evil.
3 Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame; they shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.
Thank you for this promise, Lord. Help me trust it, and cling to it.
4 Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths. 5 Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.
Lord, please increase my desire to know your ways. Let me live moment by moment in your truth. Give me patience to wait for you, and for your promises. I wait for your salvation to come to those I love who are not following you right now.
6Remember your mercy, O LORD, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old.
7Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the sake of your goodness, O LORD!
Even after receiving you, I continue to sin. I confess my self-centeredness, my pride, my gluttony. Please forgive me! I trust that you do so, not because I deserve it, but because of your goodness to me, and to the world, through Jesus.
8 Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in the way. 9 He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way.
Help me Lord to be humble enough to be taught by you, and led by you. Help me to be humble even when I see others around me who are not, and who still seem to succeed. Teach me to live in your ways, day by day.
10 All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies. 11 For your name’s sake, O LORD, pardon my guilt, for it is great.
And thank you, Lord, that you forgive me because it is according to your nature. Your forgiveness is not contingent on me in any way. I praise you for that!
12 Who is the man who fears the LORD? Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose. 13 His soul shall abide in well-being, and his offspring shall inherit the land.
Lord, do instruct me to choose the things that you choose. Please do let my soul abide in well-being. Help me to trust these promises even when I don’t see them.
14 The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant.
Thank you, Lord! I receive this promise!
15 My eyes are ever toward the LORD, for he will pluck my feet out of the net.
Lord, keep my eyes fixed on you.
16 Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. 17 The troubles of my heart are enlarged; bring me out of my distresses.
Lord you know my troubles. My daily pain, my lack of self-discipline, my concern for my family, and the future. I lay all my troubles in front of you. Be gracious, O Lord!
18 Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins. 19 Consider how many are my foes, and with what violent hatred they hate me. 20 Oh, guard my soul, and deliver me! Let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.
Yes Lord! I agree with all of this, with your Word. Forgive me, deliver me, guard me. Do all those same things for my loved ones.
21 May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you. 22 Redeem Israel, O God, out of all his troubles.
Thank you, Lord that your promises to Israel are also promises to all who trust in Jesus. Give us hope and patience as we wait for you this advent season. You see what a crazy and dangerous place the world is right now. Come soon, and redeem your people. Protect us as we wait. Let the uprightness and integrity of Jesus guard our hearts, minds, and bodies. AMEN.
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To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Serenity Prayer Part 12
This week I just want to do a brief summary of the lessons on the Serenity Prayer. We’ve talked about a lot of things, and while I don’t expect everyone to connect with everything, I also trust that at least some things have been helpful in your journey with God. As I quickly go through the lines of the prayer, I’d like to ask you to consider these questions:
What is one new or refreshed way of thinking about my life in Christ that I have seen through this study?
What is one practice, habit, or discipline in my life in Christ that I have begun to practice or would like to begin practicing after this study?
What is one area we talked about that I’d like to know more about, whether in this group, or in my own personal times of studying God’s Word?
Ok, let’s walk through the lines as we did week by week. And if your most important takeaways were different from what I summarize here, I think that may well be a good thing. We serve a God who speaks to us both as a community and as individual children.
God, grant: The character of the God we pray to shapes the way we pray and how we expect Him to answer. And we recognize our dependence on God, not just for our salvation, but for our day-to-day sanctification.
The serenity to accept the things we cannot change: Life is outside our control, and that’s not only ok, it’s actually good. We can turn to the God who is in control and trust Him as we learn to accept life on life’s terms. We also recognize the truth that we are limited beings, not gods ourselves.
The courage to change the things we can: Living faithfully means doing hard things and costly things at times. We operate in trust that God is at work, and that He will give us what we need to make the changes in ourselves that He is asking us to make. We set aside fear-based decision making and the need to blame others and bravely face what we can do something about.
The wisdom to know the difference: We look for wisdom from God, not from ourselves. That wisdom will come through His Word, through Christian community, and through our time in prayer. It will generally be found in humility and peace.
Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time: We don’t stay trapped in the past, or live in anxiety about the future. We try to pay attention to what God is doing in our lives right now and respond to Him in the present. We enjoy what He has given us today for our daily bread more than we focus on what we had in the past or hope to have in the future.
Accepting hardships as a pathway to peace: Hardship and suffering are part of the normal Christian life. We can fight against that reality, or we can look for ways to accept what we have and find contentment in the presence of God with us in the middle of the pain.
Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as we would have it to be: Jesus was able to live a holy and righteous life of perfect submission to the Father in the middle of a very broken and sinful world. If we want to navigate this world well, as He did, we need to adopt the same tools of prayer and acceptance.
Trusting that He will make all things right: Trust does not just mean agreeing with an idea, it means taking actions that show that idea. And God gets to determine what “right” looks like. If that doesn’t match our definitions, we choose to trust Him and revise our definitions.
If we surrender to His will: Choosing to follow Jesus means I die to my self and give control of my life to Him. I don’t have to like His will. I don’t have to understand His will. I choose to give up my rights to Him and obey His will.
That we may be reasonably happy in this life: There are things about living God’s way that work even in this life. They won’t give us perfect happiness, but happiness is not really our goal anyway; it is a by-product of having good and God-centered goals for our lives.
And supremely happy with Him forever: Following Jesus is ultimately not about this life anyway. It is about life in a kingdom that is coming and will last forever. We live in all these ways (because God makes it possible for us to do that) because we believe that our lives after the resurrection are going to be incredible in union with Christ. We are learning to live now in ways that will make sense then.
Before we pray the Serenity Prayer together one last time (at least in this study), let me share again the questions I asked at the beginning.
What is one new or refreshed way of thinking about my life in Christ that I have seen through this study?
What is one practice, habit, or discipline in my life in Christ that I have begun to practice or would like to begin practicing after this study?
What is one area we talked about that I’d like to know more about, whether in this group, or in my own personal times of studying God’s Word?
And now let’s pray.
God, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardships as a pathway to peace.
Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as we would have it to be.
Trusting that He will make all things right if we surrender to His will – that we may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever.
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 Serenity Prayer Part 1
Last week, we finished the book of First Samuel. We will pick up with Second Samuel in a few weeks. In between, I’m really excited to host a short series of messages by Wade Jones. Wade is my daughter’s father-in-law, and one of the pastors of a church about thirty miles away from us here in Tennessee.
Wade will spend the next few weeks talking us through the Serenity Prayer. Although the prayer itself is not from scripture, Wade will use plenty of scripture as we go. One reason I’m excited about this is because I think it will get very practical, very relevant to living day-to-day as we follow Jesus.
A note to to those who will listen to the audio version:Wade is a good preacher. Before this, he had never recorded a message except in front of a live congregation. So, during this first message, he said he felt a bit stilted—he was worried about making too much background noise. But I’ve already heard the second one, and he seems to have gotten into the flow quite well for that one. My point is: have patience. I think this will be good stuff for us.
Without further ado, here’s Wade!
SERENITY PRAYER #1: GOD, GRANT
Greetings, brothers and sisters of ClearBible! My name is Wade Jones. I’m one of the pastors at Priest Lake Christian Fellowship, where we pray for your church family at each service. Perhaps more importantly, I have been blessed for many years by the friendship of your pastor, Tom, and we have become family – not just metaphorically, as my son Matthew is married to his daughter Alana. I talked with Tom recently about a teaching series I’d done at Priest Lake, and he asked me to share it with your fellowship as well, which I feel honored to do over the next several weeks.
The substance for these messages will come from the Serenity Prayer. It’s unusual for me to spend this much time on writing that is not specifically from Scripture, but I have made an exception in this case, in part because this prayer specifically has greatly blessed my life and walk with God, and I hope it will prove to bless yours as well. My father had the words of this prayer on the wall of his study at home when I was child. Later, when I came into the world of 12-step recovery, I learned that this prayer was (at least in part) important to that community as well. Praying this prayer has become a regular part of my spiritual disciplines and routines, and God often speaks to me through it. Today will mostly be an introduction to this series, so bear with me through the first part.
Depending on what your spiritual background and tradition is, the idea of praying a prayer that someone else wrote may feel awkward or impersonal to you. And certainly, you have the freedom to pray as the Lord directs – I have no intention of insisting that you use this prayer in the same ways that I have. However, I have found that it is at times useful to pray words that others have written, and I want to spend a few minutes talking about that before we get to the prayer itself.
Often when we pray, we speak conversationally with God, using whatever words and phrases come to mind. That kind of extemporaneous prayer is a wonderful thing. I practice it regularly. At the same time, I find that I sometimes have difficulty putting into words what I am thinking or feeling, or knowing how to come to the Father with what is on my heart. Four different approaches have helped me in those times. Sometimes my best response is to pray in tongues (and talking about that might be a whole different series). At other times, I will turn to the Psalms, and pray the prayers that Jesus would likely have learned in his home and in the synagogue. Yet again, I may sing my prayers with hymns I learned as a child or the most recent worship tunes, and let the words of those texts express my heart’s cry. And I will also turn to prayers that have been a part of classic Christianity – some for hundreds of years, some for decades. One of those last prayers is this one: the Serenity Prayer.
The origins of this prayer are unclear, and go back to classical philosophers. Certainly, the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr used part of this prayer in the 1930s, and he attributed it to a German theologian named Friedrich Oetinger. But as with many good sayings and quotes, there are several different theories and attributions for it. No matter who wrote it, the important part is what it says, and whether or not the words of the prayer fit with the teaching of the Bible and can help us as the Holy Spirit works in our lives to bring us closer to living the life the Jesus has given us.
This prayer has also become very important in recovery circles. I’ve been in 12-step recovery for over 20 years, and almost every meeting I’ve attended has started with the beginning and most familiar part of the prayer. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” There’s quite a lot to unpack there, and we will focus on those lines over the next three weeks. But the prayer goes beyond that to say this: “Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardships as a pathway to peace. Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it to be. Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His will – that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever.”
With that background, I want us to spend the rest of this week’s time focusing on just the first two words of the prayer: “God, grant.”
There are many types of prayer: prayers of praise and adoration, prayers of confession, prayers of intercession, prayers of petition – even prayers of complaint! (If you’re not sure about that last category, there are several psalms I can show you.) The first words of this prayer show us what kind of prayer it is. This is a prayer of petition, of requesting. We are asking God for something. And so, let’s talk about what it means to ask God for something.
Let’s start with God. This prayer is addressed to God, which is just a generic term, although we often think of it as a proper name. For us, we mean specifically the God of the Bible, the Creator of heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them; the God who revealed Himself to the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the God who spoke to Moses, giving him the law and using him to lead Israel out of Egypt; the God who spoke through the prophets, did miraculous works through kingdoms and exiles and returns, and the God who has revealed Himself most fully in Jesus the Messiah, His beloved Son. When we approach this God, what does it mean for us to ask Him for something?
Here’s one important piece. When we come to God to ask Him for something, that means that we know Him well enough to expect that we have the invitation to ask Him. I don’t just go up to strangers on the street and ask them to give me something good. But when I come to someone I know and love, and someone I trust loves me, I am free to ask with hope and expectation. Jesus talks about this in Matthew 7:7-11:
“7 Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. 9 Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”
What does this passage tell us about asking God? First, Jesus actually directs us to do this. It’s a straightforward instruction. Ask, seek, knock. But not just ask anywhere, or seek for anything, or knock on any door. Look at the last verse of the passage. “How much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!” Jesus is pointing us to the Father as the one who can give us the things that we need for life. And He compares the Father’s response to the response of parents. While there are cruel and painful exceptions to the general rule, most parents want and try to give our children what they need when they ask for it. When it’s time for dinner, we give our kids food they can eat, not rocks or serpents. But Jesus says the Father in heaven’s goodness in giving is so much greater than ours that the kindness of parents is evil by comparison. That’s pretty strong! We could talk a lot about what and when and how the Father gives, but the point I want to emphasize here is that it is good and right and even necessary for us to go to the Father to ask Him for what we need. That’s what He expects; it’s what He wants.
What would keep us from going to Father God to ask for something? Well, the picture we have of God will certainly influence that. And often that picture has been distorted by things that we have experienced, or even by beliefs that we have absorbed from the world around us – often without realizing it. If you experienced a parent who was unpredictable, untrustworthy, or unkind – one who might in fact give you a stone or a snake – that can distort the image of who God is. And it can become a vicious cycle. We don’t trust God to give us what we need, so we don’t ask Him, so our life gets worse, and then we trust God less, so we ask Him even less – and it just goes downhill from there. On the other hand, when we can push through whatever barriers the enemy has erected in our relationship with our Father (or when He tears those down for us), and we ask Him for His help, we will receive it. It doesn’t always look like we might choose – sometimes dinner includes broccoli because it’s good for you – but it will in fact be good. And the more we experience His goodness, the easier it becomes to trust and ask Him again.
This is part of what the Hebrews writer is saying in Hebrews 11:6: “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” Don’t hear this as a reprimand – it’s an encouragement found in the middle of a long list of deeply flawed people who were nevertheless blessed by Father God. Do you believe that God exists? If you don’t, you aren’t going to ask Him for anything, are you? And do you trust that what He gives is good? That He will reward those who seek Him? We will talk more about trust later in this series, but for now, think about trust as enough willingness to ask God for help. Or maybe it isn’t willingness, but desperation.
One more note about God before we turn to the second word. James 1:16-17 says,
Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
The ultimate Source of anything good in your life is God. If it’s a good gift, it comes from Him, even if it passes through other channels to get to you. The air you breathe? A gift from God. The car you drive? A gift from God. The work that puts food on your table? That’s a gift from Him as well. The people in your family, your community, your life? Those are His gifts as well. If it’s good, and you have it, you have it because God has given it to you.
Now on to the second word – and we are not going to go word by word each week, but these two initial words set the context for us to understand everything else that we would pray in this prayer. “Grant.” Or give. Provide. The Person we are asking for something is God, and in asking Him we are acknowledging that He has something we lack and need.
That can be hard for us for at least a couple of reasons. A few minutes ago, I mentioned beliefs that we have absorbed from the world around us. Here’s one: “God helps those who help themselves.” Do you remember where that is found in Scripture?…That’s right – it isn’t! Benjamin Franklin popularized it in America, and while he did many good things, his religious beliefs are not generally ones we want to take for ourselves. And he was expressing a belief that goes back to Greek myths about their gods and goddesses and the ways they interacted with people. Again, not a good source for us to build our understanding of the Christian God on. But many of us have internalized that as a part of our faith. We thank Jesus for salvation through the cross, and then proceed as if the rest of life and godliness are up to us. I’m reminded of the prayer Jimmy Stewart prayed at the dinner table in the film Shenandoah: “Lord, we cleared this land. We plowed it, sowed it, and harvested it. We cooked the harvest. It wouldn’t be here, we wouldn’t be eatin’ it if we hadn’t done it all ourselves. We worked dog bone hard for every crumb and morsel, but we thank you just the same anyway, Lord, for the food we’re about to eat. Amen.” Wonder what picture of God Jimmy Stewart’s character had? It doesn’t appear to be the same as what Jesus revealed. But it is one that can easily slip into our thinking, and so we don’t ask God because we believe it is really all up to us anyway. We adhere to salvation by grace, but then act as if sanctification and daily Christian living are things we are supposed to do for ourselves.
Peter, however, in 2 Peter 1:3-4 says,
“His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
Now, we aren’t passive in all this. Peter goes on in the next verses to tell us to make effort to put these gifts into practice. But they begin as gifts – things God is doing for us that we cannot do for ourselves.
That brings us to a third and final (for this week) barrier to asking God to grant us something. Sometimes, our pride gets in the way. At times I don’t like acknowledging how badly I need God. A cultural message of self-sufficiency and independence, being able to do things on my own, has infected our faith. In fact, I need God desperately. Not just for the big things, but even in the small details of my life – sometimes in those more. I love the bumper sticker that says, “Do I really need Jesus to go to Heaven? Man, I need Jesus just to go to Wal-Mart.” And yet, it’s easy for me to adopt the attitude of a toddler who insists on doing it myself rather than admitting that I need help. And when I say, “God, grant” I am beginning with an admission that what I am and have is not enough, and that I am coming to the One who does in hope and expectation that He can give me what I need for this day.
I want to end each week by praying the Serenity Prayer, and I hope that over time, as you listen, you may decide to learn it and pray it as well.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardships as a pathway to peace.
Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it to be.
Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His will – that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever.
Thank you for letting me be a part of Clear Bible, and New Joy Fellowship for a season. May God bless you and keep you as you go through this week. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.
This is the third (of four) in the series about Heaven from pastor Peter Churness.
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 Heaven Part 3
Peter preaches from an outline, and does not provide a written version, but below is a rough outline.
Jesus promised three major things about life after death:
Psalm six is a good example of a psalm of lament. There is a pattern here that shows us what a life of faith looks like when times are difficult. It begins with genuine honesty: “I’m struggling. This is rotten. I feel awful.” Then as David, we ask for help: “Deliver me Lord! Be gracious to me! save me!” And then finally, we trust that God does indeed hear our prayers, and will certainly take notice of them. We don’t minimize what we are feeling. But at the same time, we trust and acknowledge that God is more powerful than all things, including our struggles, and we entrust ourselves to him, resting in the faith that he loves us and will deliver us in his way and time. We are honest, but we also cling to God in faith, and that requires that we trust him even when we don’t yet see how he will make it right.
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 Psalms Part 3
PSALMS #3: PSALM SIX
I know that some of you prefer to read these messages, rather than listen to the audio version. I myself typically prefer to read something, rather than listen to it, if there is a choice. Also, I’m a writer, so I love it when people like to read.
Even so, every so often it seems to me that the Holy Spirit moves me in a special way when I’m preaching one of these messages, a way that doesn’t quite show up in the written version. This message is one of those times. So, I’m encouraging you to listen to the audio version. If you have time, I’d be thrilled if you read it first, and then listen, and then tell me what you think, because maybe my perception about this is wrong. In any case, I do encourage you to listen this time.
Let’s get a couple of “technical” details out of the way, before we jump into Psalm 6. Some Bibles have created titles for various psalms. For psalm six, the ESV has “O Lord Deliver My Life” written in bold type. This is not part of the text of the actual Bible – it is a title added by the publishing company. There is however, something written in Hebrew before the psalm begins:
“To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments; according to The Sheminith. A Psalm of David.”
These words are not really part of the psalm itself, but they are technically in the text of the Hebrew Bible. Clearly, as with many psalms, they were added by the time the book of psalms was gathered together. Just a reminder: “of David” could mean that David himself wrote the psalm. It could also mean that it was written “in the tradition of David’s psalms.” For simplicity’s sake, I’m just going to refer to the writer as David.
“The Sheminith,” means something like “the eighth,” or “to the eighth.” Some people speculate that it refers to an eight-stringed instrument. Others suggest it is a musical instruction having to do with scales/octaves (there are eight whole-steps in a musical octave). This shows us that at some point, psalm six was probably used musically, probably in worship.
One more little note that is helpful when we read the Old Testament in English. The name of God that God revealed to Moses is “YHWH” which we usually pronounce “Yahweh,” (there are actually no official vowels in Hebrew). The Hebrew people, however, would not say “Yahweh” for fear of taking God’s name in vain. So instead, when they saw “YHWH” in the text of the Bible, they would read it out loud as “Adonai,” which can mean “Lord.” As a result of this tradition, most English Bibles translate “YHWH” as “LORD.” So when you see “LORD” as in this psalm, the Hebrew word is actually “Yahweh.” Also, sometimes the name given to God in the Hebrew text is: “Adonai YHWH.” In those cases it is usually translated “the Lord God.” (Just for additional confusion, the term “Jehovah” is what you get when you combine the Hebrew letters in “YHWH” with the vowel sounds of the Hebrew word “Adonai.”) I say all this, however, so that you can see that David is using the personal name for God – Yahweh – as he prays. He is praying specifically to the God of Israel, and he calls him by his special, personal name.
I chose this psalm because it is a good representative of a type of psalm that we might call “a prayer for help” or “a lament.” There are many other psalms that are similar to this one in both language and structure. Also, this is one of the shorter ones of its type, so it’s easier to cover the whole thing in one sermon.
Before we “analyze” this psalm, take a moment to feel it first. This is one important thing about the psalms – they weren’t written primarily to “teach” but rather to engage us at the level of heart and soul. So, let it engage your heart and soul. Feel what the psalmist feels. Enter into his experience and relate it to your own life. If you want to, speak the words out loud yourself as a prayer, thinking about your own life as you do so. If you can’t relate personally, think about someone you know who might relate to this psalm. (If you’re really stumped you can think of me: I felt very much like the writer of this psalm several times while working on this message). Before you do that, pause for prayer, and ask the Lord to speak to you through this scripture today.
Now, ready? Read the psalm:
1O LORD, rebuke me not in your anger,
nor discipline me in your wrath.
2 Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing;
heal me, O LORD, for my bones are troubled.
3 My soul also is greatly troubled.
But you, O LORD—how long?
4 Turn, O LORD, deliver my life;
save me for the sake of your steadfast love.
5 For in death there is no remembrance of you;
in Sheol who will give you praise?
6 I am weary with my moaning;
every night I flood my bed with tears;
I drench my couch with my weeping.
7 My eye wastes away because of grief;
it grows weak because of all my foes.
8 Depart from me, all you workers of evil,
for the LORD has heard the sound of my weeping.
9 The LORD has heard my plea;
the LORD accepts my prayer.
10 All my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly troubled;
they shall turn back and be put to shame in a moment.
I think this particular psalm was probably written by David himself, so I’ll call him “him,” or “David.” Obviously, David is experiencing some kind of pain and suffering, possibly physical. Certainly, he is also experiencing turmoil of the heart, because he says so pretty plainly.
In the ESV, it says, “Be gracious to me LORD, for I am languishing.” We don’t often use the word “languishing” any more, which is a shame, because it’s a great word. It means “slowly wasting away,” or “slowly falling apart.” David’s life is slowly coming apart. In short, he is suffering. Some people assume that the main problem is sickness, because he asks God to heal him, and he mentions his bones. But the Hebrew word for heal, like the English one, can mean physical healing, as well as emotional or spiritual restoration, or even cultural restoration (as in “Lord, heal our country.”)
We know that David was a man of faith, and even if it wasn’t David who wrote this, the words of the psalm itself express faith in God. So I think the first thing to engage with is this: The life of faith sometimes involves suffering, pain and inner turmoil. David was not somehow “out of faith,” when he wrote this. He addresses the psalm to God, and clearly believes that God alone is the source of all deliverance, help and salvation. Someone with no faith would not talk to God, certainly not the way David does here. Even so, he is miserable as he writes this, and he does not pretend otherwise.
This brings me to a second point: People of faith should be honest about where they are physically, emotionally and mentally. Frankly, a lot of Christians in America are terrible about this. In fact, some seem to believe that if you admit you are struggling, that amounts to a lack of faith. I’ve met many people who have really tough stuff going on in their lives, and they say things like: “Well, it’s not ideal, but I’m just believing things are going to turn around.”
They seem to think that if they admit that they are having a hard time, it somehow means that they are letting God down; they apparently believe it indicates a lack of faith, or weak faith, to say: “Life is really hard right now.” They think faith means always thinking positive thoughts, or always looking on the bright side.
However, I’d say it’s the other way around. If you can’t be honest with yourself, God and others, you probably don’t have much faith. You think God is so fragile, he can’t handle it if you are unhappy. Or maybe you believe that God will only come through for you if you show the right attitude, and it seems to me that means you have faith in your own actions more than in God. Maybe it’s a kind of faith in your own faith, if you know what I mean. You might be putting your trust in the fact that you are saying the right kinds of things, and maintaining the right kind of positive attitude. But that is not faith in God.
Even more troubling, some people believe they can control God by always sounding like they have faith (though they wouldn’t describe it as controlling God, that’s what they are trying to do). In other words, they think that if they never acknowledge the negative, it motivates God to “honor” their “faith.” Again, this is a sort of faith in your own actions and attitudes, more than faith in God.
The same people often claim things like: “we speak things into existence.” So they are afraid of saying something negative, because then maybe the negative thing will happen to them. This is superstitious garbage, but unfortunately it is taught by many prominent ministers who use those ideas to make themselves a lot of money from fearful people.
In contrast, right here in the psalm, we find David, the greatest King of Israel, the one who is known as a man after God’s own heart saying: “I’m falling apart. My soul is in turmoil. I’m soaking my sheets every night with my tears. I am so grieved, I can hardly see any more.” If David, the true man of God, wasn’t afraid to say such things, we shouldn’t be either. I think real faith requires that kind of honesty, and if we avoid it, it is because of fear, not faith.
Considering all the negative feelings that are expressed, Psalm Six might be called a kind of lament. Bible commentator Rolf Jacobson says this:
Lament is not the absence of faith or an expression of faith being tempted into despair. To lament is to speak precisely from the position of faith, from a position which recognizes that the Lord hears the cries of those who suffer and is not indifferent to them. To lament is to lay claim to God’s hesed with the faithful expectation that the Lord will vindicate the lowly.
(The New International Commentary, Old Testament: Book of Psalms, psalm 6. I will explain the term “hesed” shortly)
Now, having made that point, I stand by it. I have something else to say also, not to contradict what I’ve just written, but to explain it, and add to it. There are some folks who are not afraid to be honest when they are struggling. They own the fact that their hearts are sad and troubled. But some of those people forget what else is in this psalm. They end up making their own troubles the dominant thing, the main thing. They own their struggles but they forget the lesson here about trusting God. They say: “I am troubled. End of story.” They make everything about their struggles, rather than about God. But that’s not how David approaches his problems at all. He owns his struggle, but he also trusts God.
Where do we see David trusting God? In the very first line, David asks God for mercy and grace. In verse four, he prays for deliverance. In verses 8-10, David expresses confidence that God has indeed heard his prayer, and will answer him in due time.
So that is the next piece I think we ought to pay attention to. We should not only be honest about our struggles, but we should also make our problems submit to our faith. What I mean is, we should say, “I’m struggling. This is rotten. I feel awful.” Then as David, we ask for help: “Deliver me Lord! Be gracious to me! save me!” And then finally, we should trust that God does indeed hear our prayers, and will certainly take notice of them: “The Lord accepts my plea, the Lord has heard my prayer (verse 8).” We don’t minimize what we are feeling. But at the same time, we trust and acknowledge that God is more powerful than all things, including our struggles, and we entrust ourselves to him, resting in the faith that he loves us and will deliver us in his way and time. We are honest, but we also cling to God in faith, and that requires that we trust him even when we don’t yet see how he will make it right.
I want to focus on verse four for a minute. This is the heart of David’s prayer:
4 Turn, O LORD, deliver my life;
save me for the sake of your steadfast love.
There are two key words in Hebrew here that are worth knowing for all Christians. The first is “turn,” which, in Hebrew, is sub (pronounced “shoob”). It means to turn around, to change course. In many contexts, it means “to repent.” David is asking the Lord to change the whole course of events, to turn everything around. Sub is a powerful word, and, as I say, it’s worth knowing for the future. The point here is that David is not asking for just a minor adjustment. He’s asking God to change the whole course of the future. In other words, David feels he is close to dying, and he wants God instead to save his life. It is important to realize that for David, whatever he’s struggling with is a very big deal, and he needs a major intervention from God.
The second word comes at the end of the verse. In the ESV it is translated “steadfast love.” The Hebrew word is hesed (pronounced heh-sed, except use a faint clearing-of-the-throat sound with the first ‘h’). In some ways, it is the agape of the Old Testament, but some of the shades of meaning are slightly different. I might define hesed as unconditional, everlasting love that expresses itself by acting on behalf of the one who is loved. God’s hesed is found in his covenant to care for his people faithfully.
When David asks God to save him, he gives this reason: “for the sake of your hesed.” It is connected to God’s covenant with his people. This is important. David is saying “help me because you have promised to be my God. Help me because you are loving by nature.” Not: “Help me because I’m showing my faith by being positive and minimizing negative words.” Not:“help me because I need it,” or “help me because I ask it,” and certainly not “because I deserve it.” Instead, it is: “help me, because that would be according to your own character and your own promise to your people.”
Many people, when they are struggling, try to make bargains with God. “God, if you just help me now, I’ll give up this, or I’ll do that.” That is never the way of faith. In reality, we have nothing to bargain with. God doesn’t need anything from us. When he wants us to give up something, or start doing something else, it is always for our own benefit, not his. Instead, our only hope, as David knows, is to give up on trying to offer God anything, and appeal to God’s own character, and to the love that he showed us in Jesus Christ. And when we cry for help, we know for certain that God does love us, and that he does have our best interests at heart. We know it because Jesus gave up his own life, and went through unimaginable suffering to save us. Though we may not understand what he is doing, we always have a solid basis to trust God’s love for us.
David ends his lament in faith. He trusts that the Lord has heard his prayer. He declares to his enemies that God is his God, and will indeed come through for him. I think this psalm encourages us to be honest, but also to have faith, as David did.
The essence of fasting is embracing our weakness, and our need of God. It leads us to a place where we are more deeply connected to our need for Him, where we are joyfully humbled by our utter dependence upon Him. It doesn’t hurt our prayer life, either.
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 Lent 2
LENT #2. FASTING. LUKE 4;1-2
1 And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness 2 for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. (Luke 4:1-2, ESV)
Last time we talked about how God often leads those with whom he is pleased into difficult things. This is not because God is mean, or perverse, but rather, because he knows more than us, and sometimes suffering brings us tremendous blessings. Some of the blessings we receive through suffering may not be fully realized until we stand with Jesus in our new, resurrected bodies:
16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
(2 Corinthians 4:16-18, ESV)
This time I want to look at the spiritual discipline that we call “fasting.” As we see from our text in Luke, Jesus went without food during a period of forty days. I used the ESV translation above because it captures the Greek quite well: “And he ate nothing during those days.” This could mean that Jesus had nothing to eat, whatsoever, for forty entire days – in other words, for 960 hours. It could also mean that for forty days, Jesus had nothing to eat while it was daylight. The Greek would support either meaning. If you pushed me, I would say that I think Jesus ate one simple meal each day, after dark for forty days. Again, however, it could mean that he had no food whatsoever during all that time. I also want to point out that it says nothing about drinking, and since the human body cannot survive longer than about three days without liquid, I’m quite sure that Jesus at least had water to drink during this time.
This practice of deliberately going without food for a period of time is called fasting. The English word “breakfast” simply means to break (that is, end) the fast of the night-time hours. Protestant Christians are often both confused, and somewhat ignorant about fasting. One of the things most Christians do know is that fasting from food is not a necessary part of following Jesus. I quoted this same passage last time:
16 So don’t let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths. 17 For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come. And Christ himself is that reality. 18 Don’t let anyone condemn you by insisting on pious self-denial or the worship of angels, saying they have had visions about these things. Their sinful minds have made them proud, 19 and they are not connected to Christ, the head of the body. For he holds the whole body together with its joints and ligaments, and it grows as God nourishes it. 20 You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the spiritual powers of this world. So why do you keep on following the rules of the world, such as, 21 “Don’t handle! Don’t taste! Don’t touch!”? 22 Such rules are mere human teachings about things that deteriorate as we use them. 23 These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious self-denial, and severe bodily discipline. But they provide no help in conquering a person’s evil desires.
(Colossians 2:16-23, NLT)
Fasting certainly falls into the category of food and drink, and also practices of pious self-denial. Paul’s point in the Colossians passage is not that you should never have a special holy day, or that you should never fast, but rather that you should not allow anyone to condemn you for what you do, or don’t do, with regard to such things. Fasting, merely for the sake of fasting, accomplishes nothing. Fasting will not make you more holy. If done with the wrong attitude, it will not help you fight temptation. Jesus himself condemned the way some people practiced fasting:
16 “And when you fast, don’t make it obvious, as the hypocrites do, for they try to look miserable and disheveled so people will admire them for their fasting. I tell you the truth, that is the only reward they will ever get. 17 But when you fast, comb your hair and wash your face. 18 Then no one will notice that you are fasting, except your Father, who knows what you do in private. And your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.
Matthew 6:16-18, NLT.
When we use fasting as an opportunity to show off spiritually, we have made it almost useless. When we make fasting into a rule that we have to follow, we destroy its value.
However – and this is a big however – since at least the time of Moses (that is, for more than three thousand years) followers of God have engaged in fasting. You can find followers of God fasting in almost every Old Testament book. Jesus fasted, obviously, on more than one occasion. His disciples fasted, after Jesus was crucified and raised. In the two-thousand years since then, millions of Christians have engaged in this spiritual discipline, some quite regularly. In short, fasting, done the right way, can be very beneficial in our relationship with God.
I’m going to talk about my own fasting experience. Please understand something however: I am not trying to give you the impression that I fast twice a week for years on end, or anything remotely like that. I believe I have done it often enough to help me teach about fasting, but I’m quite sure I would benefit from fasting a lot more often than I actually do it. Perhaps this message is also for my own sake, to become more regular with it.
Usually, I plan ahead of time the sorts of things I want to bring up with God during a fast. Maybe I’m feeling burdened for a particular person or issue. Maybe I want to be closer to God. Perhaps I want God to address something in my life that I am having a difficult time dealing with. Sometimes I write down my “fasting concerns” in a notebook. Sometimes I don’t.
The normal Biblical model of fasting is going without food for a set period of time. As I mentioned before, sometimes that means not eating while the sun is up for one day, or many (and not “making up” for your missed meals by gorging in the evenings). Sometimes fasting might mean going without food for a set number of hours. I would say that to get any benefit from it, you ought to go without food long enough to develop hunger pangs for a period of time. When the hunger pangs come, you can use them in at least two ways.
First, every time you feel hungry, use that as a reminder that there is something special going on between you and God today. Let the hunger pangs remind you to pray. Briefly pause what you are doing, and pray for the concerns that you want to address in your fasting. You might then continue working, and continue praying as you work, if possible. As you pray, use the hunger. You might think or pray something like this: “Lord, I am hungry, but I want your intervention in these things even more than I want to eat.” Let your hunger become an appeal to God. Present your hunger to God as a prayer.
Second, when you feel hunger (and perhaps weakness along with the hunger) use that feeling to maximize your dependence on God in general. I might think something like this: “Oh wow, I feel weak and hungry right now. God, as much as I feel like I need food right now, I need you, even more. As much as I desire to eat, I have an even greater desire for you, and for your work in my life. I confess to you that I need you even more than I need to eat.” Embrace the weakness you feel. Embrace the desire for food (without satisfying it), and let God turn them into dependence upon Him, and desire for Him.
If you haven’t fasted before, some of what I’m describing might make more sense to you after you have tried it.
Many people have adapted “fasting” to include things like abstaining from only certain kinds of food (like not eating sugar, or red meat). Or, abstaining from watching television, or from watching sports, or playing video games. Some people might even say it like this:
“I’m giving up _________ for lent.”
Myself, every year, I give up football for lent (to my overseas listeners, this is a joke: there is no American football during that time of year).
These are admirable ideas, but to really engage the power of Biblical fasting, I think it needs to be something that provides constant reminders throughout the fast (like hunger pangs), and something that makes you aware of your weakness, and your absolute need for God. You need to abstain from something in such a way that the fasting continually leads you into dependence upon God, into prioritizing him above all else. To be honest, I’m not sure that abstaining from video games or sugar would do that. One thing I can think of that might be comparable to not eating is ceasing smoking. From what I understand, if you are a smoker, and you quit, you will have constant cravings, and you will be reminded of your weakness and need for God. Along those lines, the apostle Paul says it is OK for married couples to fast from sex for a short period of time, as long as they both agree to it (Note: he doesn’t command it!). He does command couples to not take that particular kind of fasting too far. My own struggle with pain has sometimes provided the same sort of experience as fasting: The pain becomes a reminder that is felt by only me. I feel a deep need for God, and I use the pain almost as a prayer.
In spite of these few exceptions, I wonder if it is significant that in scripture, the only kind of fasting it really talks about is fasting from food. One of my concerns about other types of things that are called “fasting” these days, is that they sort of emphasize our own will power and achievement, without emphasizing our weakness and dependence on God. If I “fast” from watching TV, I might be tempted to become proud of my self-discipline, proud of doing something that feels righteous. When I fast from food, I feel too weak, too needy, to become proud. Not only that, but if I fast from sugar, or TV, or video games, basically, I am just becoming a healthier person. I’m not casting myself in dependence upon God, I’m working to make myself a better person. That’s a good thing, but it is definitely not the main spirit or intent behind the discipline of fasting.
I will add two very important things. First, it might be wise to check with a doctor before you fast. Particularly if you are diabetic, or have some other kind of health condition, you ought to make sure it is safe before you try it.
Second is this: If the fast is becoming a hindrance, rather than a help, just stop, and eat something. This doesn’t mean that fasting won’t ever work for you. It means that this particular fast, at this point in time, isn’t helpful, so let it go. A few times, I have fasted, and all I could think about was how hungry I felt. I wasn’t feeling dependence on God, and I wasn’t really praying any more, I was just obsessing about my desire to eat. I talked to the Lord about it, and I felt clear permission to go ahead and eat. At a later time, I fasted again, and that later fasting was very spiritually helpful. So, even if the first time you try it, it doesn’t go well, don’t give up. If you have a time when it doesn’t seem helpful, don’t write it off for the rest of your life.
A few practical thoughts. If you are new to fasting, I would suggest going without food from one evening meal until your next evening meal. In other words, eat the evening meal, and skip snacks for the first evening, and then fast from breakfast and lunch (and any snacks) the next day. Break your fast with the evening meal twenty-four hours after your last meal. This is not too terribly challenging. You should be able to get in a few hours of hunger pangs that way.
While you fast, please be sure to drink plenty of non-caloric fluids – water, black coffee or tea (though be careful with too much caffeine on an empty stomach!), or plain carbonated water. I don’t recommend diet drinks, because they can sometimes fool your body into thinking you’ve had something sweet, which can mess with your blood sugar, and actually make the fast more difficult. If you are really struggling, but you also really want to finish the fast, a cup of broth or bullion sometimes helps you feel better, and contains only a handful of calories.
If you have already done some fasting, and/or if you want to challenge yourself a bit, you could fast from after the evening meal of day 1, throughout all of day two, and then break your fast the morning of day 3. That would make basically a thirty-six hour fast.
People who fast for multiple days in a row are usually only fasting during daylight hours (in other words, they have one meal per day, in the evening). One other approach for multiple-day fasting is to drink broths, and diluted fruit juices throughout the fast. Please do be careful about multi-day fasting without any food at all. Do some research and prepare well before embarking on a long fast.
I also want to reiterate the advice of Jesus. Fast during a “normal,” day, going about your normal routine (apart from food). Don’t advertise the fact that you are fasting – the point of the fast is what is happening in your own relationship with God, and it doesn’t have to concern anyone else. If someone asks you why you aren’t eating, you don’t have to be paranoid about it – you can admit you are fasting without feeling proud or bad. On the other hand, if you start as I suggested, most people won’t even notice you skipping breakfast and lunch – the evening meal is the one you are most likely to share with others, so no one has to know that you’ve been abstaining all day long. Again, you don’t have to be all mysterious – if someone happens to ask why you aren’t eating, you can mention it. But try not to use fasting to make yourself look good in the opinion of yourself, or of others. That’s what Jesus warned about.
Sometimes, in the bible, a group of people would agree to fast together. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with that, and nothing wrong with other people in the group knowing that you are fasting along with them. There is no basis for anyone in the group to become proud, since everyone is doing the same fast. I will say this however: we should be very careful to not coerce anyone into fasting with us. I was once part of a group where two people basically shamed the rest of us into fasting with them. There was no clear purpose or goal for our fasting. It was more that they wanted us all to show what hard core Christians we were. Needless to say, that fast didn’t go very well for me. Don’t let yourself be forced into it, and don’t try to force others to join you, but it isn’t wrong to invite, without pressure, others to join you.
It makes sense to me that Jesus began his ministry work with this long fast. As we will see later, the things gained in fasting tended to counteract the temptations the devil gave Jesus. Fasting leads us to depend on God, not on ourselves, or the resources we might have. So, when the devil tempted Jesus to turn stones into bread, Jesus was already in a place of deep dependence on God.
Even though Jesus had a perfect union with the Father, he found it helpful to fast. Without making it a law, I would like to suggest that if even Jesus practiced fasting, we too, could find tremendous benefit in it. For now, at least let us remember that we need God more than anything, even food. Our need points us to God’s satisfaction of all needs: Jesus Christ. Rely on Him today!
We are called to live a life bathed in prayer and worship. This is something to persist in, persevere in, even when answers don’t come easily. We are to watch over and guard our spiritual lives, and pray also for the teaching and spreading of God’s word. We cannot do any of this on our own. We need the power of the Holy Spirit in us to live this way.
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 36
COLOSSIANS #36. COLOSSIANS 4:2-4
After dealing with seven whole verses last time, we will turn our focus to three more verses: Colossians 4:2-4. As always, remember the context. This is part of what it means to do all things for the sake of Jesus, and in reliance upon Jesus. Chapter 3 started with the general idea: since our real life is hidden with Christ in God, focus on the things above, where Christ is, where our real life is. Then throughout chapter three, Paul began to spell out some specific scenarios, so that we could understand what that idea means in our relationships with other Christians, and then in our family relationships, and following that, in our relationships at our jobs. Now, he caps off the entire section with 4:2. The Greek uses only seven words in this verse, but four of those words are densely packed with meaning. So, I offer you my “amplified” translation. Again, I am not claiming to be a Greek scholar, but I want us to understand what this sounded like to the first people who read it:
“As to prayer and worship – in fact, your whole spiritual life – be always sticking with it, be continually persevering in it, staying awake and alive in it, guarding your spiritual life, all with thankfulness.”
I “translated” it this way so that we can see several important things that we might otherwise miss in English. First, the word for “prayer” includes more than bowing our heads and reciting words to God. It points to the entire life of worship and devotion to God, both for individuals, and for the church as a whole. So it isn’t only about “saying prayers.” It is also about worshipping God alone while you are driving, and worshipping God with other Christians while you sing with your church. It is about asking God to intervene in specific ways, and is also about keeping an informal conversation with God going at all times. It is talking about life with a Christian friend, and then praying about your concerns together before you move on. It involves reading the scriptures, and talking about God with fellow Christians, as well as those who don’t believe yet.
Second, in my translation, I make it clear (as the Greek does) that this should be an ongoing, never-ending process. This isn’t a religious duty that you do, and then you’re done. Of course, that should be obvious by now, since Paul has been applying faith to all of life. But these verbs are in the present tense, active mood, which means these are real, actual, actions that should be carried out continually. It isn’t theoretical, or abstract. It is also ongoing.
Now to a couple of the important words. The word translated by the ESV as “continue steadfastly” is the same word used in Acts 2:42, where it says “they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and prayer.” The idea behind the Greek term is a that a group of people are together earnest, persevering, diligent and utterly committed to something. In other words, they didn’t just “say a prayer.” They were earnest and diligent about praying; they persisted and persevered in their prayers, even when they did not receive immediate answers. They didn’t just “listen to a sermon.” They diligently persevered in learning what Jesus said and did, and what it meant. They persisted in applying it to their lives, even when at first it didn’t feel like it made anything better.
I think this idea is very important. What we really believe as Christians is that spiritual reality is more real and important than what we call “physical” reality. I don’t mean the physical isn’t real, or that it doesn’t matter; but Christians believe the spiritual is the more powerful of the two and certainly the more lasting. That means we persist in our devotion to spiritual life even when the physical reality is whispering to us that we are stupid and silly to do so. We persist in this because it makes a difference in spiritual reality Eventually, that difference will also affect the physical realm, but even if it does not do so during our lifetimes, we trust in what we don’t see. That is what faith is: “the reality of what is hoped for; the certainty of what is not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1).
Next we have the term “being watchful.” This word is used fairly often by Jesus himself, when he teaches us to be alert and expectant about his return to earth. Peter uses it in his first letter:
8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 Resist him, firm in your faith (1 Peter 5:8-9, ESV)
So the word means to remain awake and alert, to be diligent in guarding or watching over something. In this case, we are to be alert and diligent in watching over our spiritual life with Jesus, our life of prayer and worship, both public and private and all the time.
And we are to do this, with thankfulness. This is the seventh time Paul has mentioned gratitude in this short letter of Colossians. I think we should pay attention. Our entire spiritual life – and even the guarding of our spiritual life – should be deeply soaked in thankfulness to God. Bible scholar R.C. Lenski says:
This indicates Paul’s meaning: our great thankfulness for all that Christ has done for us and all with which he has filled us (2:9); see also 3:15, 17. He has freed us from all superstitious fears; he has placed us into the pure and happy Christian life. Cling to him in prayer and watch that nothing removes us from him and constantly thank him for all that we have in him. (Lenski’s Commentary on the New Testament, Colossians 4:2)
I have said it before, but I even need to remind myself, so I’ll remind you too: Thankfulness helps us to take hold of spiritual blessings. Sometimes we don’t know exactly how grasp the wonderful promises of God in scripture. We struggle to make them real in our life. Thanksgiving is the answer. Thanksgiving makes us like sponges, so that we can absorb the goodness that God is showering on us through Jesus Christ. Sometimes, it seems to me that we pray for things that are deeply concerning to us, and when we are done, we feel no better. I wonder if perhaps that is because we are not thanking God at the same time. Perhaps if thankfulness was a part of all our praying, we might find a greater rest for our souls through prayer.
Paul adds something interesting in verses 3-4:
At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison— 4 that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. (ESV, Colossians 4:3-4)
In addition to the life of prayer and worship, Paul asks Christians to pray for him, and for his ministry of declaring God’s word. I do not think that we still need to be praying for the apostle Paul. But I think we can learn a few things from these verses. First, though Paul is gone, the ministry of declaring God’s word clearly remains. I think it is still good and right and appropriate for us to pray that God’s word will be made clear all over the world. All Christians should be interested and invested the spreading of God’s word, and all of us can be involved in that through prayer.
In addition, part of that includes praying for the individuals who are called to the ministry of teaching God’s word. In fact, I ask, without embarrassment, that you include me in those prayers. God has called me to make his word known, as clearly as I can, to the best of my ability. You may have noticed that the name of my sermon blog is “Clear Bible.” That comes directly from this idea here in our text. Obviously, I am not the only person called to this – not remotely so! But as you pray for God’s word to made known all of the world, I deeply appreciate it if you include me in those prayers.
I think this also gives us a standard for the declaration of God’s word. It should be done clearly. One of the reasons I was never able to become an academic theologian is because I am impatient with the tendency of such people to make the bible more obscure, rather than clear. The Bible was not written for scholars, but for ordinary people, and the ministry of the word should help make it more clear. That doesn’t mean there is nothing complicated or difficult in the Bible, but a minister of the word should be able to help others through those parts, not make it worse.
On the other hand, I do think that those who declare God’s word should have at least some education, especially training in how to interpret the Bible, and how to communicate with people, including how to adapt your communication to the people whom you serve. I have met many preachers who have no training in these things, and frankly, in their own way, they are as bad as the overly-academic types. They don’t understand the word well enough to make it clear in all of its fullness and grace. If you have never learned about the culture of Bible times, if you know nothing of the Biblical languages, or history, or if you don’t know the basics of how to study something, you are sure to misunderstand many parts of the Bible. If you are also a preacher, you are going to pass those misunderstandings on to others. You will tend to be more easily influenced by people around you. Instead of diving deeply into God’s word, you will tend to accept and repeat whatever interpretations are most popular among your peer group, and you won’t be equipped to evaluate whether or not they are true, good and helpful.
You see why Bible teachers need prayer? It’s a big and important responsibility. Along with praying in general for God’s word to be taught clearly, and along with praying for the specific Bible-teachers in your life, I think from these verses we can see that it is important to pray for the word of God to spread all over the world. Jesus told his followers to make disciples of all nations. He gave John a heavenly vision where people from all ethnic groups would be together in heaven. In order to make those things a reality, the word has to be brought to people who have never heard it before, specifically, people in places of the world where Christianity has not yet been present.
I believe God sometimes makes concrete changes in the world through prayer; that is, in response to our prayers, he makes things happen, or stops things from happening. What an honor we have to be part of God’s work in the world! But persisting steadfastly in prayer and worship also changes the hearts of God’s people. It deepens our connection with God, and, if we do it with thankfulness, increases our peace and trust in him.
As usual, all of this seems like a tall order. It is not something we can do on our own, with our own willpower. Our failings in the life of prayer and worship should draw us back to Jesus. We need to lean in on his grace, and lean on the power of the Holy Spirit to make us into people who are devoted to prayer. We can’t do it on our own, but the power of the Lord in us can make us into the people he wants us to be.
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Colossians #13 Colossians 2:1
1 For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, 2 that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Colossians 2:1-3, ESV)
As I write this, the covid-19 craziness is spreading all over the globe. Italy, Spain and several other countries are in full lockdown. There is a lot of uncertainty about the future. Even if you don’t fear getting the virus for yourself, the extreme measures that have been taken could seriously affect our lives for some time to come. I have been suffering a surprising and inexplicable pain for more than five years. If I have learned anything from it, it is that if my hope is truly, fully grounded in Jesus, suffering, uncertainty and hardship will be used for my good. I can deal with whatever comes, if my hope in Jesus is solid.
One of the ways to cultivate that hope is by immersing ourselves in God’s Word, the Bible. Therefore, it is entirely appropriate, I think, to take this time to do that every day on our own, and every week together.
With that in mind, let’s continue in Colossians chapter 2.
Paul has been talking about how he is working, and yet it is Christ who works through him. In chapter 2 verse 1 he assures them that his toil is for the sake of the Colossians, also for the other Christians in their region (Laodicea was nearby, to the north of Colossae, a journey of a day or two). I want to make sure we don’t rush over something here. Paul says that he has a great struggle for these Christians. His struggle did not involve physically being with them. It did not involve him working with them personally. It’s not like he is there personally leading them closer to Jesus. In fact, he freely admits that he has never met any of them face to face! How then, can he be struggling on their behalf?
I think that there are three pieces to Paul’s struggle. In the first place, Paul’s ministry was always aimed to benefit the entire church of Jesus Christ, wherever they were. He taught people who could teach other people, so that men and women that he didn’t even know could hear the gospel from someone besides himself. He was building not one local church, but a whole movement.
As part of his work for the church-at-large, Paul also labored at the writing of letters like this one, so that the true teaching of Jesus could be spread by the written word. The writing of these letters was no small thing to Paul. There was no text messaging, no email, no mass-produced paper or ink. In the ancient world, a letter was a very big thing, and often people would labor for days over a letter. You wouldn’t want to waste ink or paper until you were perfectly sure what you wanted to say.
Let me describe a typical letter-writing process from that time and place. Paul apparently had some issue with his eyes, so typically, one his companions served as an amanuensis (think “secretary”) to do the actual writing. Paul would speak out the words he wanted to say. His “secretary” would probably have used a large flat container of wax. The words were carved into the wax. Then, it was read back to Paul, and he could decide if he wanted to make any changes, or rearrange any of his thoughts. They would correct grammatical errors, typos, and clarify things. They might make two or three versions of the letter in wax (or sometimes, they may have used chalk and slate, if it was available). After Paul had everything the way he wanted it, the “secretary” would carefully use ink and papyrus to copy out the finished product. The whole process could take days. I can testify myself that good writing is hard work. It isn’t physical labor, like building a house, but anyone who has ever written a book knows that it takes a great deal of mental and emotional energy, and a lot of self-discipline. The word “struggle” certainly applies. I might say, with Paul, “I want you know, brothers and sisters, what a labor and struggle of love it is to bring you these messages.”
Second, Paul struggled in prayer. Later in the letter, Paul writes:
12 Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. (Colossians 4:12, ESV)
The word “wrestling” above is the same Greek word as “struggle” in 2:1. (For language geeks, 2:1 has it in the form of a noun, and in 4:12 it is a verb). I said a minute ago that writing can be hard work. So can prayer. It can, in fact, be a struggle to pray. Paul was deeply engaged in prayer for all of the Gentile (non-Jewish) Christians. He didn’t just say, “Jesus, please bless the Gentiles.” Here is an example of how he prayed for people:
15 This is why, since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 16 I never stop giving thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. 17 I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, would give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the mighty working of his strength (Ephesians 1:15-19, CSB)
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:14-21, ESV)
12 And may the Lord cause you to increase and overflow with love for one another and for everyone, just as we do for you. 13 May he make your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints. Amen. (1 Thessalonians 3:12-13, CSB)
11 In view of this, we always pray for you that our God will make you worthy of his calling, and by his power fulfill your every desire to do good and your work produced by faith, 12 so that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified by you, and you by him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Thessalonians 1:11-12, CSB)
4 I always thank my God when I mention you in my prayers, 5 because I hear of your love for all the saints and the faith that you have in the Lord Jesus. 6 I pray that your participation in the faith may become effective through knowing every good thing that is in us for the glory of Christ. (Philemon 1:4-6, CSB)
Prayer is no small thing. Jesus told us to pray, and gave us the Lord’s prayer as format. In case you didn’t know, the Lord’s prayer is not just “a prayer.” It is an outline, teaching us how we should pray. We are told to pray continually (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Jesus himself spent a great deal of time in prayer, and if He needed to do that, then we need it even more. The early church devoted themselves to just four things. The word “devoted” means that they persisted in it, and were deeply committed to it. One of the four things was prayer.
The apostles believed that prayer was one of their most important responsibilities. When the church came to them for help in ministry to the poor, this is what they said:
2 The Twelve summoned the whole company of the disciples and said, “It would not be right for us to give up preaching the word of God to wait on tables. 3 Brothers and sisters, select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and wisdom, whom we can appoint to this duty. 4 But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” (Acts 6:2-4, CSB)
Prayer is vitally important, and Paul engaged in it so deeply that he called it part of his struggle.
There is a third element that I think Paul was referring to when he said that he was engaged in struggle for these Christians he had never met. The third thing is this: Spiritual warfare. In Ephesians, Paul writes:
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens. (Ephesians 6:12, CSB)
8 Be sober-minded, be alert. Your adversary the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour. 9 Resist him, firm in the faith, knowing that the same kind of sufferings are being experienced by your fellow believers throughout the world. 1 Peter 5:8-9
I would remind us who are afraid at the current world craziness, that Christians throughout history have faced tremendously difficult times. This is nothing new, and Jesus is, and always has been a certain, sure, hope in times of trouble. I have been in pain for five years, and you can’t accuse me of having never faced hard times. I know it is easy to say. But I have lived in suffering, and found Jesus to be up to the challenges I face.
Another Spiritual warfare verse:
1 Now the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will depart from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons, 2 through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared. (1 Timothy 4:1-2, CSB)
In John 14:30, Jesus refers to the devil as “the prince of this world.” There are many other verses like these. Now, the idea of spiritual warfare is not intended to be an excuse. We don’t get to say: “The devil made me do it!” We are still responsible for what we do, or don’t do. However, we need to be aware that we don’t live in neutral territory. The world around us is under evil spiritual influence, spirits that do not submit to God. Our own flesh was born in sin and tends always to rebel against God. And the devil himself, along with his demons, constantly lie to us. They try to discourage us, daunt us and scare us. We are in a war. We should have a wartime mentality against our flesh, against the godless influences of the world, and the devil. We should not be surprised when it is hard to follow Jesus well, and we should not be ignorant of the reasons it is hard.
Jesus said some very important things just before he was arrested. Here is one of them:
3I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33, ESV)
If someone says to you that being a Christian is easy, they are either just ignorant, or lying. Jesus himself said we would have trouble in this world. Peter writes that we shouldn’t be surprised at trials. James says we should rejoice when we have them. Do not expect that following Jesus should make life go well here and now.
There is a joy that comes with following Jesus, and a sense of “rightness” and goodness about life. We have vast resources of love and courage and strength that are available only in Jesus. But following him does mean that everything will go well in life. Quite the opposite. The struggle is real, and should be expected. We need to plan and act accordingly.
At the same time, we don’t need to be afraid. We will have trouble in this world, but Jesus also promised that at the very same time, we could have peace in Him. Seek it, and you will find it.
Many people interpret this to mean that we can do whatever we want to through faith. I think a much more accurate way to look at it is that the Father can do through us whatever he wants to, if we live in the total dependence of trust in him. So we see, this is not a blank check for us to do whatever we want to do in prayer as long as we drum up enough faith to accomplish it. It isn’t about manufacturing faith, or a feeling of faith. It isn’t about believing really hard. It is about living in total dependence upon the Father.
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18Early in the morning, as He was returning to the city, He was hungry. 19Seeing a lone fig tree by the road, He went up to it and found nothing on it except leaves. And He said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again! ” At once the fig tree withered.
20When the disciples saw it, they were amazed and said, “How did the fig tree wither so quickly? “
21Jesus answered them, “I assure you: If you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you tell this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will be done. 22And if you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” (Matt 21:18-22, HCSB)
For me, this has always been one of the most troubling incidents in the life of Jesus. In the first place, it seems so arbitrary – almost like Jesus is throwing a fit because he didn’t get the fruit he wanted. In the second place, what Jesus says afterwards about faith and prayer seems so contrary to my own experience.
Let’s begin with the first issue. What was wrong with the fig tree? Why would Jesus be angry at it? We should know something about fig trees, before we proceed. In that area of the world, the fruit of the fig tree appears at just about the same time as the leaves. So, if one saw a fig tree in which the leaves were fully mature, one would expect to find figs on it. Matthew records, as does Mark, that this tree had leaves on it. If the tree was showing leaves, it ought also to have had fruit – at least the first, young fruit. However, this tree had leaves but no fruit at all. You might say, in a way, that the tree was deceptive. It wasn’t fulfilling the purpose for which it had been created, though in a sense, it was pretending to, by showing leaves.
The Bible tells us that not only did God create the earth, but he continues to actively sustain and uphold the cosmos. As Augustine said, “God is not a workman who, when he has completed his work, leaves it to itself and goes his way.” Jesus, as God-the-Son, is intimately involved with this ongoing sustaining of everything in the universe.
16For everything was created by Him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17He is before all things, and by Him all things hold together. (Col 1:16-17, HCSB)
28And why do you worry about clothes? Learn how the wildflowers of the field grow: they don’t labor or spin thread. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these! 30If that’s how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, won’t He do much more for you — you of little faith? (Matt 6:28-30, HCSB)
1Long ago God spoke to the fathers by the prophets at different times and in different ways. 2In these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son. God has appointed Him heir of all things and made the universe through Him. 3The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of His nature, sustaining all things by His powerful word. (Heb 1:1-3, HCSB)
So, you might say that one of the “jobs” of Jesus included even the little detail of checking on whether or not this fig tree bore fruit, as it was intended to. Jesus finds that here is a tree that is not maturing according to its created nature. For whatever reason, it is not fulfilling its purpose. And so Jesus, as sustainer of all creation, puts an end to it.
Now of course, the tree was not doing this consciously. So, is Jesus throwing a fit, like a spoiled child? I don’t think so. I think Jesus took this opportunity to create an object-lesson. He used the fig tree to demonstrate at least two things.
Remember the context of our passage. Just before this, Jesus was in the temple. He was very upset at how the temple no longer demonstrated the holiness of God. It was no longer serving the purpose for which it was originally intended. God’s people, Israel, were treating the temple like a marketplace. Last time, we looked at the verses which Jesus quoted from Jeremiah, and saw that one of the things upsetting him was the profound hypocrisy of the religious leaders. They thought they could live however they wanted, and then come to the temple and say “we are delivered!” God set aside the people of Israel to show his grace, holiness, and redemption to the world. But they were no longer serving that purpose. In some ways, perhaps they looked like they were still doing that, but they were not bearing any useful fruit. They were not serving the purpose for which Israel was created.
I believe that Jesus was thinking about the people of Israel, and the temple, when he withered the fig tree. Like the fig tree, they had leaves, but no fruit. They had the appearance of holiness, the appearance of following God’s will, but nothing truly useful or meaningful resulted from their activity. They were not fulfilling the mandate for which the people of Israel were created, when God spoke to Abram and said:
2I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3I will bless those who bless you, I will curse those who treat you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you. (Gen 12:2-3, HCSB)
At the time of Jesus, the people of Israel were not particularly interested in being a blessing to all the peoples of the earth. They were more interested in securing their own blessing. Jesus uses the fig tree as a warning. In fact, Luke records that at some point, Jesus even told a parable about a fig tree, and how it was doomed to destruction unless it bore fruit. In that parable, the fig tree is unquestionably the people of Israel. So here, Jesus acts out the parable. In fact, I think Jesus had in mind a prophecy from the prophet Micah:
1How sad for me! For I am like one who — when the summer fruit has been gathered after the gleaning of the grape harvest — finds no grape cluster to eat,
no early fig, which I crave.
2Godly people have vanished from the land;
there is no one upright among the people.
All of them wait in ambush to shed blood; they hunt each other with a net.
3Both hands are good at accomplishing evil: the official and the judge demand a bribe; when the powerful man communicates his evil desire, they plot it together.
4The best of them is like a brier; the most upright is worse than a hedge of thorns.
The day of your watchmen, the day of your punishment, is coming; at this time their panic is here. (Mic 7:1-4, HCSB)
Micah records that God was looking for good fruit from the people of Israel and found none. Instead of godly people, he found immorality, and he warns that punishment and destruction is coming as a result of their failure to bear the fruit which they were created to bear.
I believe all this matches up very well with the message of Matthew 21:12-17, which we considered last time. It is in fact, a continuation of the same theme. So the first reason Jesus withers the fig tree, is because it is an object lesson for the people of God. Lest we Christians start to feel smug, let’s remember that we are now the called people of God, and we are in this world to bring God’s blessing to all humankind. Like Israel, like the fig tree, God is hoping for fruit from us. Before you get too scared, however, remember that even bearing fruit is the result of God’s work in us. Jesus has already met the standard of perfection, and so we do not have to be perfect. What Jesus tells us, is that in order to bear fruit, we must remain connected to him:
4Remain in Me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me. 5“I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me. (John 15:4-5, HCSB)
If we remain in Jesus, if we stay connected to him through reading the Bible, prayer, and fellowship with other believers, he will use us to bear fruit. I know that many Christians get discouraged about how little fruit they think are bearing, or what quality that fruit is. I don’t believe that we are called to judge our own fruit. We are called to remain connected to Jesus, and by doing that, to allow him to bear the fruit from us.
From time to time, I have had the wonderful experience of hearing from people about how God has used me to bless their lives. I am always deeply humbled and filled with joy, but above all, surprised, to hear these sorts of stories. God often works through us when we do not realize he is doing so. If we remain in Jesus, we will bear the fruit that he wants us to bear.
Now it seems to me that as usual, the disciples missed the main point of what Jesus was doing. I don’t think they connected the fig tree to the temple, or to Israel, or bearing spiritual fruit, until later on. What really got their attention at the time was the power of the miracle. So Jesus uses that to teach them something else, something about prayer and faith.
Now, I’ll be honest with you: these words of Jesus about prayer and faith trouble me, because they don’t necessarily reflect my experience. Not only that, but I see these words abused. Sometimes, I feel full of faith, and yet what I pray for does not come to pass. At other times I offer up a halfhearted, faithless prayer, and it is answered resoundingly exactly as I ask.
But I think that Jesus is talking about something much deeper here. He is talking about the kind of total dependence upon, and connection with, the Father that he has. Jesus didn’t curse the fig tree whimsically, it didn’t just occur to him to do. Every action of Jesus on earth proceeded from dependence and trust on the Father, not on his own divinity or idea:
5Make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus, 6who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be used for His own advantage. 7Instead He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a slave, taking on the likeness of men. And when He had come as a man in His external form, 8He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death — even to death on a cross. (Phil 2:5-8, HCSB)
Jesus was truly God. Even so, while he was on earth, none of his miracles were accomplished by his own power, or on his own initiative. He chose to live like Adam, who was created without sin. Only, unlike Adam, Jesus never did sin. And so while he was on earth, he was in continual, ongoing, complete dependence upon the Father. The miracles that he did were accomplished by the Father working through him, while Jesus trusted in him. You might say that Jesus came and lived and fulfilled his mission with both hands tied behind his back; specifically the “hands” of his own divine nature.
19Then Jesus replied, “I assure you: The Son is not able to do anything on His own, but only what He sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son also does these things in the same way. (John 5:19, HCSB)
36“But I have a greater testimony than John’s because of the works that the Father has given Me to accomplish. These very works I am doing testify about Me that the Father has sent Me. (John 5:36, HCSB)
27They did not know He was speaking to them about the Father. 28So Jesus said to them, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing on My own. But just as the Father taught Me, I say these things. (John 8:27-28, HCSB)
I speak what I have seen in the presence of the Father (John 8:38, HCSB)
32Jesus replied, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. Which of these works are you stoning Me for? “ (John 10:32, HCSB)
And so, when the disciples are amazed at the withering of the fig tree, Jesus is reminding them that it was accomplished by his trust and dependence upon the Father. It was not accomplished by Jesus’ divine nature, but by trust. Jesus chose not to use any power except that which is also available to any human being who trusts the Father.
This idea of close connection and total dependence upon the Father helps me as I seek to understand this passage. Jesus spoke to the fig tree, not because he was irritated with it, not because he felt like it, but because the Father wanted to wither it as an object lesson. In accomplishing this miracle, he was doing the will of the Father.
Many people interpret this to mean that we can do whatever we want to through faith. I think a much more accurate way to look at it is that the Father can do through us whatever he wants to, if we live in the total dependence of trust in him. So we see, this is not a blank check for us to do whatever we want to do in prayer as long as we drum up enough faith to accomplish it. It isn’t about manufacturing faith, or a feeling of faith. It isn’t about believing really hard. It is about living in total dependence upon the Father.
In other words, it isn’t about God answering our prayers to accomplish what we want, it is about us being used by God, to accomplish what he wants. In fact, we have here the same lesson as the one on fruit-bearing: that we must remain deeply connected to the Lord.
All right, let’s start thinking about this in our own lives. As a result of what you have received from God’s Word today, what do you think He is giving you to believe or do in the coming week?
Is he speaking to you about bearing fruit? Have you been holding out on him? Have you been thinking you can live your own life, claiming him as Savior, claiming your salvation from him, without submitting to him as your Lord? Have you been so disconnected from Jesus that he has not had the opportunity to use you to bear fruit? If so, hear him call you to repentance from his word today.
Perhaps the Lord is reminding you that he is the Lord of all creation, and that nothing, not even a little fig tree, escapes his care and notice. If so, hear him call you to trust him with all the details of your life today.
Maybe, like the disciples, you are interested in the power that Jesus exerted in this miracle. Maybe you are moved by the idea that your prayers could be answered as thoroughly and dramatically as those of Jesus. If so, hear him call you to a deeper connection with himself.
In fact, if there is one theme that runs through all of this, it is that we must remain deeply connected to Jesus. The word of God invites us to believe that today, to repent of the times we turned away from that, and to receive his power to renew and maintain that connection.
Clear Bible 