I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord. Who is, who was, who is to come. The Almighty. This is the Jesus that we serve. This is the Jesus that we believe in. This is the Jesus that will return.
For the christian the return of Christ is a glorious thing. For the christian Jesus is no longer the baby in the manger, he's not merely a sacrificial lamb, but as John writes in Revelation 5, he is the lion of the tribe of Judah. The root of David, who has conquered. He is the one who sits on the throne. The one who is worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals. For he was slain, he was sacrificed. His blood ransomed. And by His blood he ransomed the people of God from every tribe and language and people and nation.
[Now let me just say], Do you think that you're going to mess this up?
For those of you that struggle, maybe with assurance, thinking that you're too sinful to be a believer, and yet you're holding on, you're trusting ... Do you think that you're going to mess this up? That you're going to overturn the blood that ransomed? ... that your sin is going to overturn the blood that ransomed a people of God from every tribe and language and people and nation?
It will never happen, dear believer. Jesus has taken care of your sin once for all. Just as certainly as He rose from the grave, He will return to bring you home with Him.
-- Jason Achmoody
From the First London Confession of Faith (1646)
XXIII.
All those that have this precious faith wrought in them by the Spirit, can never finally nor totally fall away; seeing the gifts of God are without repentance; so that He still begets and nourisheth in them faith, repentance, love, joy, hope, and all the graces of the Spirit unto immortality; and though many storms and floods arise, and beat against them, yet they shall never be able to take them off that foundation and rock, which by faith they are fastened upon; notwithstanding, through unbelief, and the temptations of Satan, the sensible sight of this light and love, be clouded and overwhelmed for a time; yet God is still the same, and they shall be sure to be kept by the power of God unto salvation, where they shall enjoy their purchased possession, they being engraven upon the palms of His hands, and their names having been written in the book of life from all eternity.
On the heals of my previous post, I listened to two sermons that proclaimed "The Gift" that came to us on that first Christmas. And each, in its own way, deals with:
1. What is that gift.
2. What it looks like to receive that gift.
On the heals of my previous post, I present to you the salient parts of each sermon, distilled to less than 5 minutes of audio, for your discernment.
Audio: < 5 min. - "The Gift that Lasts and Lasts"
John 3:16 is, in so many ways, the Heavenly Father leaning over into the cradle of our dark existence, and saying to people who are struggling with failure, and weakness, and shame, and uncertainty, and do not know how they will take care of it all, "Don't you know that I would move heaven and earth to help you."
John 3:16 is saying, "Don't you know that God loves you this much." And yet it is the very things that we stuggle with ... our weaknesses and our faults and our failures that somehow make God seem so distant that this can't possibly be true. And so He begins to reveal Himself to us in such simple but profound terms to say, "Don't you know, how big is my heart, for you."
And the evidence of it is in the great gift that is being described. You know these words ... "God so loved the world that He GAVE His only son." And the reason that you and I need to say that is even here today there are those among us who say, "Listen, I've heard this gospel, and you gather at church, and you look good, and you look fine, and I know Jesus died for you. But if you knew who I really am, and what I struggle with, and what's in my life, you would not want me part of this church." And what you need to hear me say is, "God does know, and sent His son for you." That was His very purpose. That He could know the worst, and still say, "But I give the gift." That is how big is the heart, that is how great is the gift, that it would be even for those who are undeserving, because that's ultimately who we all are.
And because He loves us that much we ultimately have a great hope. That God gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. It's so important to read the words, "whoever BELIEVES in Him." The persons who are made right with God, who get this great gift, are those who believe in Him.
Because formal religion says that you're made right with God because of some religious practice, like you've been baptized, or you joined the church. You pray long enough, or read your bible well enough, or you've done things exceptional, made a pilgrimage of some sort. It may even be that you're saying, "my faith is in my faith". I have the right frame of mind, I have the right doctrine. Listen, whether you are saying that your faith is in your practice, or your faith, in all of those kind of frame of mind, frame of reference, frame of activity, your actual faith is in you.
No, the faith [of a believer] is in Him. Not in the degree of your faith, not in the rightness of your practice, not in the goodness of your background, the faith is in Him. Well, what does that mean? You have to believe that Jesus was SENT for you, and was SIN for you. That on the cross, what made you right with God was not your background, not your religion, not your practice, not even your correct beliefs. That what makes you right with God is that God put your sin upon Him, that what was represented in Jesus was the penalty that we deserved. I'm not made right because of what I do or think. I am made right because of leaning upon what Jesus has done.
We have to remember that faith is the catchers mitt, it's not the pitch. Right? It's something I receive. It's not that I've thrown enough faith at God. It's not that I've thrown enough practice or baptism. It's not what I have done. It's what I have received. He was sent for me. And I believe I'm made right with God because of what He has done. It's the step away from self, not the building up of something in self.
Believe in Him. That God sent Him for you. And that He was sin for you. And when you depend on that alone, you are His now, and for ever. Father, would you work the gospel into the hearts of all who are here. You call us to believe this very simple but profound gospel. That your heart is so big, that you would give your Son for us. And that if we believe in that, that He was sent for us, and took our sins upon Him on the cross, that we are ... yours.
Audio: < 5 min. - "The Greatest Gift Ever"
Because as we think about the coming of Jesus, we could certainly look at it from the angle that God gave the world the most remarkable gift the world has ever known. He gave His Son. Moreover I think you can also think about it from another angle ... you see as with any gift this gift that God gave must be received. It has to be received. Tonight what I want to do is just spend a few minutes as we prepare out hearts for Christmas, to think about the gift that God gave us that first Christmas, how amazing that gift really was, and what it looks like to receive that gift.
Jesus is the gift. Jesus is the greatest gift ever given. He looked into our brokenness. He looked at our fallen world. And He sent His Son. The bible says, in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He sent His only Son, that whoever would believe in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." Romans 5:8 says, "God shows His own love for us in this ... while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." God sent His Son into the world that very first Christmas to reconcile His wayward people back to Himself. And He would do this by coming to earth as a man, and going to the cross.
The bible makes it clear ... all of us have sinned. We've all rebelled against God and our sin separates us from our perfect God who cannot tolerate sin. But at the cross, the bible tells us that every single sin of those who would believe ... every sin past, present and future ... was nailed to Christ. Now, how's that dear friends for an amazing gift.
But here's the thing. Like any other gift, this gift, for it to apply to you, must be received. And remarkably, this is a gift that is often outright rejected. Or one that is rejected by those who think they have received it.
There are some who believe the truths of what I'm telling you academically, and yet still reject this gift. They believe that Jesus came and walked the face of the earth. They believe that Jesus really lived. They believe that He was really crucified, that He was really dead, He was buried and He was raised on the third day. But they reject Christ with their life style.
And John [in 1st John] is very clear that false claims about ones relationship with God mean absolutely nothing. He says [that] if we claim to have fellowship with God and yet walk in the darkness, (in other words we don't live for Him), John say we lie. Or he says that if any one says, "I love God", but does not love his brother, (and that's referring to a brother in Christ, and that's referring to, when you read 1st John, knowing brothers and sisters in Christ, being connected to a church, serving people, laying down your life for others), he said if someone says, "I love God", and does not love his brother, he's a liar.
You see, receiving the gift of God, receiving Jesus, truly believing in Christ is a life changing experience. Jesus Himself said [that] if anyone wants to come after me, if anyone wants to be my follower, he must deny himself, pick up his cross, and follow me. You see we can't earn or purchase a right standing with God. We've already seen it's a gift. God did it. And yet when you read the scriptures you know this gift will cost you your life.
When we come to believe in Jesus, He becomes the king of our life. Jesus says [that] if you love me, if you really love me, you will keep my commandments. Receiving Jesus means believing in Him entirely for your right standing with God. And it means submitting your life to Him as your King, as your Lord, as your master ... following Him wherever He leads ... now, and for all eternity.
We live in a time, in a religious atmosphere, where Christianity is often presented as something that needs to be appropriated by the individual. It's offered to you, but you have to do something, believe something, show some kind of earnestness, some kind of seriousness before it can really be yours. We take this so much for granted in our Western way of thinking, that it's hard to imagine that this is precisely how Martin Luther did not view the gospel. It was not something that was appropriated by the individual after assessing it's value. It was something that was given ... to the unacceptable, to the unworthy, even to those who didn't particularly want it. Now that is very different.
I like the text this morning ... "The Lord has bared His Holy arm before all the nations. All the ends of earth shall see the salvation of God." Translation: He's played His hand. He's let it out in the open. It has become accessible, available, real. Grace is not a hidden agenda. At Christmas we return again to that fundamental of the Christian faith.
God has shown Himself. God has expressed Himself. He's taken the mystery out of Himself, but for a very particular reason. Why does He show us what He shows us in Jesus? Why does He speak in the word so that our ears can detect what he says? For this reason ... for our salvation. God doesn't come in Christ Jesus, in the word of the gospel, to answer our religious questions, or to demonstrate Himself to us in the sense that He has to prove anything to us. He comes to do something for us. And to put a finer point on it, to do something 'to us'. He comes to give us salvation.
God didn't wait for our assessment before He came into the world in the baby Jesus. No, He came because He chose to come. He came even though He wasn't wanted. "He came to his own people and his own people didn't receive him. (John 1)" He's not waiting for us to decide something or to change our lives and get ourselves straight or right with God. He comes to us in the midst of our tangledness, our lostness, our confusion, our sin, our hurts, our hopes, our dreams, and He takes a hold of us right there in the middle of it. That's the gospel! He doesn't wait for us to make a decision. He makes the decision for us. This is a really challenging way of thinking about the faith for people today. Because we've all decided, one way or another, many of us, that somehow, "Well…that’s all well and good but we have to have the final say ... somehow."
But today we are here to proclaim God with us ... Emanuel. Not because we've asked for Him. Not because we're particularly happy that He is around. But because in His grace, and His mercy, He has chosen to be with us.
Your sin is forgiven for Jesus sake. If you heard it ... it happened. It's as simple as that. "But I have to do something…don’t I ?" And what's the answer? "No". That's why the Christian community, early on, called this message, "Good News" ... of great joy! For everybody! Born for you, this day in the city of David, is a Savior. God has expressed Himself ... like a mother gives milk to a child. Like a parent takes a child in a warm embrace. It's right there. Immediate. Present. "This is my body, for you. This is my blood, for you." Don't try to take it inside and spiritualize it. Don't try to bring it inside and write theology about it. Don't try to take it inward and figure it out. Just taste it. Let it be what it is. God for you. Pressing and impressing Himself on you, with His forgiveness and mercy, promising you life and hope.
So grace is not a hidden agenda. The gospel is not a spiritual idea for us to internalize and have to kinda figure out. It comes utterly from outside of us. Asking nothing from us. But given solely by His grace, to us, that our confidence may be in God's grace. And, as Luther said, "In God's grace ... alone." Amen.
-- Pastor Mark Anderson
From the First London Confession of Faith (1646)
XXIV.
Faith is ordinarily begotten by the preaching of the gospel, or word of Christ, without respect to any power or agency in the creature; but it being wholly passive, and dead in trespasses and sins, doth believe and is converted by no less power than that which raised Christ from the dead.
XXV.
The preaching of the gospel to the conversion of sinners, is absolutely free; no way requiring as absolutely necessary, any qualifications, preparations, or terrors of the law, or preceding ministry of the law, but only and alone the naked soul, a sinner and ungodly, to receive Christ crucified, dead and buried, and risen again; who is made a prince and a Savior for such sinners as through the gospel shall be brought to believe on Him.
We cannot go to the kingdom; it must come to us. When we feel the desire to be restored to God, it is natural that we should think of returning to God, and we hope that, after a long journey, we may reach the kingdom. We resolve not to be discouraged by the steepness and length of the road, by its rugged heights and dangerous paths. Prayer, good works, piety ... these we imagine to be the road to God. But we cannot thus go to the kingdom; it must come to us. The door is before the narrow way, and the door is very nigh unto us—even Jesus Christ crucified for sinners.
Certainly, we will seek to do all that we do with excellence. However, we refuse to give room to the myth that our church is in the business of making the gospel effective. Rather, we are committed to the exact opposite. The church does not make the gospel effective, but the gospel makes the church effective.
-- Don Willeman,
Founding pastor of Christ Redeemer Church in Hanover, NH
from, "A Gospel Driven Vision For All Of Life"
So at the end of the service the pastor walked to her and simply asked, "Would you like to know the forgiveness that is in Jesus Christ, and the help that He can give you."
And her eyes once fallen now fell even deeper, toward the floor, filled with tears. And to the question, "Would you like to know Jesus, His forgiveness and help.", she said, "I am not worthy."
To which the pastor said, "The issue is not whether you are worthy, but whether you are welcome."
What Jesus is doing in this particular passage is reminding us of what the real issue is. In terms of His offer of His help and forgiveness to others, He is making it very clear ... the issue is not whether we are worthy, but whether we understand His welcome.
If we don't understand that, something will wither in us too. So that the welcome that God expects to extend through us, not only doesn't echo, but we don't even feel it any more ... if we don't understand that the issue is not worthiness, but welcome.
All the sighing, mourning, sobbing, and complaining in the world, does not so undeniably evidence a man to be humble, as his overlooking his own righteousness, and living really and purely upon the righteousness of Christ.
If I thought family was there to make me strong,
if I thought friends could be there when family was shattered,
if I could give you a thousand verses for the reasons
God wants to make those elements part of our faith,
I would be right.
But
since those gifts are not the Giver, they will cripple me if I use them to actually walk.
Until I am aware that my soul can be well and whole in my Jesus
without those earthly blessings,
until I learn that I am not broken without them,
that God will actually come through for me
and hear my prayers when I am utterly alone,
then I've missed the point of Christianity.
God's words to His children pierce through the pages of Deuteronomy.
He says He didn't love them
because they were "more in number than any of the peoples,"
because they were "fewest of all peoples."
He says He fed them in the wilderness,
because otherwise they might proclaim in their hearts,
"My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth."
He says "it is not because of your righteousness
that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess,
for you are a stubborn people."
And it all comes home to me.
I have been guilty of assuming that life goes well for me
when I have God's gifts around me.
With those gifts for support, I become arrogant,
because I've never known isolation.
I assume that so many of the blessings of walking with God have something to do with my power to surround myself with His creations.
I forget.
He can take those things away at any moment.
The question is, will I fall then?
Or will He answer my prayers when I am in truth,
as thoroughly alone as Israel
eating manna that came out of nowhere in the wilderness?
--Kellie
a reformatted excerpt from her blog post, read her complete post: here
We do not glorify God by providing his needs, but by praying that he would provide ours - and trusting him to answer.
Here we are at the heart of the good news of Christian Hedonism. God’s insistence that we ask him to give us help so that he gets glory forces on us the startling fact that we must beware of serving God and take special care to let him serve us, lest we rob him of his glory.
This sounds very strange. Most of us think serving God is a totally positive thing; we have not considered that serving God may be an insult to him.
...There is a way to serve God that would belittle him as needy of our service. “The Son of Man came not to be served” (Mark 10:45). He aims to be the servant. He aims to get the glory as Giver.
--John Piper
Desiring God, page 168
"The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth,
does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath
and everything." (Acts 17:24–25)
Well I did it again this past weekend. I listened to two sermons. And I again see an opportunity for discernment of the Good News by juxtaposing them. But it's not all smooth sailing. The two sermons differ quite a bit, and even conflict in ways that I hope sharpen your powers of discernment. Each perhaps gives some insight into a weakness or two of the other. But it's my hope that ultimately, by comparing the two, it's the gospel that you will be able to see more clearly. What do you come away with?
Each sermon has been distilled to almost exactly 5 minutes of audio.
Part of our gathering might have something to do with our desire for faith. And that would be OK. But again, what is it we're actually asking for? Well, Amy was pretty sure she knew what a lot of people were asking for when it came to faith: I want something to help me. I want some advantage from belief. I want it to do something for me. And I think this plays right into our deep insecurity, doesn't it? Because isn't that, in fact, what some of us think? If God is good for anything, it ought to be to give some advantage to people who believe in Him. Well there was a time when I thought that way too. And the more I showed my seriousness, and my willingness to commit, that the more likely it would be that God would give me more faith. And I'd get the benefits of all that work. Well, somewhere along the way, I was dis-abused of this false idea. And faith became something quite different.
And today, He speaks to His disciples. And they, like we, want some advantage from Jesus. So they say to Him, "Lord, how about a little more faith." Plug us into the power source. Give us more faith. At just at that point in the text, we can say some things about what Jesus is doing. And of course what He's doing is He's exposing them. And of course what the scenario here portrays in the text among the disciples is ... well if even a tiny bit of faith can do these huge, amazing things, then there really must not be much faith in us at all. And that's what Jesus is trying to point out.
Well that poses a problem for me because I thought that faith is supposed to be that empowering thing, that trusting thing, that makes it possible for me to be all that I can be. No, that's not what the bible talks about as faith. That's what religion talks about as faith. The power source to overcome the obstacles of life. But remember some months ago we talked here about the paradigm of the christian faith is not from lower to higher, from immoral to moral. It is from death to life.
Years ago a very wise person said to me words that were oh so true. And have always been a great help. "Never forget that you are a dying man preaching to dying people." Don't ever forget it. Because they are going to want you to pretend you are a living man who is there to make them live even better than they are now. And that's the false gospel of glory.
The faith that we are talking about is not the message that says, "If you only had more, think of what you could do." "You need to get your christian act together." "You need to read the bible more." "Pray more, spend more time around the church." "It's all you!" That's not our message. The faith that Jesus speaks of. That faith that is *in* Jesus, is precisely that. It is trust, (faith means trust), it trust that the promises of God, for us, will be fulfilled, in His time, for His sake, for Christ's sake.
Faith and love don't require a list of do's and don'ts. You see, Jesus was on to these guys, these young men of his, his followers. And He's on to us too. How many of us need lists, so to speak, to do something decent once in a while, the right thing. If when left to our own devices we'd just as soon blow it off and forget about it.
So, God has not left us to ourselves in the Gospel. In Jesus Christ, God who fully understands our inwardly turned ways, our profound self interest, our lack of love and trust and faith, has taken it upon Himself, thereby ensuring that God's word of 'yes' is greater that our word of 'no'. That this faith, this confidence, does not have to reside inside ourselves, where we start questioning it, and spinning it, and distorting it. But that it is given to us externally in these words of promise, and so there our inner doubts and our inner failures, and our inner uncertainties are met by the certainty of God's promise... The body of Christ, the blood of Christ, given and shed for you, which cannot be compared to any word of faithfulness on our part, where God is concerned.
This is what the bible says ... to our world ... "your pleasure is too small." That's what the bible says. Do you understand this as a believer? You need to understand this. If you are anchored in God, if you have tasted the joy of salvation, the world can't touch you. You have tasted eternal pleasure. You have tasted the joy of obedience. There is nothing more pleasurable than holiness. And if we are not, in other words, finding pleasure and delight and happiness (pervasive happiness), [not in a kind of smile on your face way, but deep abiding happiness that winds its way through the path of life, in other words that navigates the valleys and the peaks of life and is always cemented in God.] Then we are cued up to understand why heaven will not be boring.
This eternal life, has begun now. You and I aren't waiting for pleasure to kick in. Do you see this? We have seen the eternal way of pleasure, of joy, begin now. That's why the bible looks at this world and says to it, "Your joy is too small." Show me joy that lasts forever, and you will have my attention. But God never promised us, did He, that we would be safe and secure in a worldly sense. Right? Outside of Christ. The only security and comfort and confidence we have in this world is at the right hand of God.
So this way of life has begun now. You have security and pleasure now. As you go about your life... working, raising children, going through the small parts of your day that are seemingly inglorious, you are living the life of pleasure. It's not the people in the club, who are leading the life of pleasure. It's not the people who have way more vacation time than you do who are leading the good life. It's you!
But lastly, how do we get there? I want to suggest to you that there is only one answer to the problem of pleasure in an ultimate sense and it is Jesus Christ. He is the way to pleasure. How? How do we take control of our lives? ... Jesus Christ, slain and ascended. How is it that we become transcendently happy? ... We enter into this world, by the grace of God, taking up our cross. In Jesus Christ, in repenting of all your sin, turning your life over to Christ, trusting in His death on that cross and His resurrection from the grave, it is in Him, it is by that work, that we become truly happy, and truly holy. We want as much as we can get, more that we can handle, of pleasure. And where do we find it? ... We find it in doing the will of Christ.
So in application, four quick things. Number one, remember that you were made for happiness. You're not supposed to grimly discharge your duty as a christian until you get booted up to heaven. Right now you are made for happiness. Number two, know that you will grow in happiness as you grow in holiness. Happiness will not ultimately come outside of holiness. So number three, kill sin. Kill every sin you can find. If you are killing sin, you are undertaking truly pleasant work. Ask a friend, if you're single, ask a friend how you can grow in holiness. If you're in a marriage, have a conversation and say, "how could I grow as a believer?" "How could I care for you better as a husband or wife?" And then lastly remember that it is in setting our eyes on Christ, and daily taking up our cross, that we will be most happy.
[Let us pray...] Heavenly Father, we are pulled by the world, the flesh, and the devil today. ... Father I pray for myself and for this congregation, that we will resist that temptation ... and we will recognize that your gospel is far more powerful than the flesh, and than satan. You have made us, as Paul said, more than conquerors through Christ. So we can conquer any setting, any trial, any sin, any challenge.
