epcblog

Devotional thoughts (Monday through Thursday mornings) from the pastor of Exeter Presbyterian Church in Exeter, NH // Sunday Worship 10:30am // 73 Winter Street

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Prayer based on Jeremiah 36

Almighty God, we thank You for the gift of Your Word, spoken to us through the prophets. We are very grateful that You have provided for us a written record of Your voice in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Grant to us Your Spirit that we might hear Your Word read with deep reverence and with a willingness to worship and obey You. Use the ministers of Your Word to accurately explain to us the meaning of what they read to us. Show us the great themes that are so clearly put forth in the Bible. Some would show the most profound disrespect toward Your Word. They would not tremble at Your threatening, but would gladly destroy any record of Your message to us. They will not succeed in their wicked plots. Though they would seem to be the most powerful people on the earth, they will not be able to take away the power of Your promises to us. We hear Your voice through the Scriptures, and we bow before You.

Friday, January 30, 2009

Matthew 27

The official verdict against the Son of God, the Savior of Israel, was delivered by those who were in charge of the religious courts of the covenant people of God. The Messiah had come to the descendents of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their chief priests and elders had determined that He should be put to death. For this reason they brought Him to Pilate, since the Roman civil authorities would be the ones to oversee his execution if they determined Him to be a capital criminal.

Meanwhile, the betrayer of our Lord from His own close disciples, Judas, was filled with hatred of himself for his actions. He knew that Jesus was innocent, and he knew that he, Judas, had sinned greatly by betraying the Lord to the chief priests and the elders. He went to these men directly, an amazing act of boldness, but when they refused to get their hands dirty with his ugly situation, he executed his own justice against himself. Throughout all of these events we see the fulfillment of the words of the Psalms and the prophets, for God had decreed these important events. He did so not out of hatred, envy, or greed, but out of love, and covenant faithfulness.

Jesus was now in the hands of the Roman authorities, but it did not at all seem certain that He would be put to death. In fact the Roman Governor, Pilate, was trying to prevent His execution, in part based on information from his wife who had been troubled in a dream concerning the One she called "that righteous man." First Pilate looked to Jesus to defend Himself against His accusers. Then he looked to the crowd to have them ask for His release. Shockingly, they went along with the venom of their religious leaders, and demanded the release of a dangerous prisoner instead of Jesus. Even more than this, they were the ones now insisting loudly on the crucifixion of the One who came to die for the sins of His people. When Pilate protested that he was innocent of the blood of Jesus, it was the crowd that insisted that the blood be upon, not only their own heads, but upon the heads of their children! The truth is that the guilt of the cross is upon the heads of all who are covered by the saving blood of Christ. Whether Jew or Gentile, our common confession is this: Jesus died for our sins. Our sins brought Him to the cross.

When Pilate consented to their demands, the Lord was handed over to those who would exactly fulfill the facts of Psalm 22, written so many centuries before, long before any evidence of any crucifixion. It was not Jews who were performing these detailed actions according to some strange scheme to work out a gruesome fulfillment of this ancient Hebrew song. It was Gentile soldiers who were doing things described there, things that were hidden in its verses, things that only God could have known. But Jesus knew. That is why He quoted the first verse of this psalm from the cross before His death. "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"

On the way to that death, the facts of Psalm 69 were also accomplished, as those who were watching gave the Son of God gall and bitter wine. Isaiah 53 was accomplished as Jesus was crucified with the wicked, as well as another detail from Psalm 22 in the dividing of His garments, as the soldiers casts lots for them. But especially it was the fact of crucifixion, detailed amazingly in Psalm 22, that captivates our attention, as our Lord faces what was written so long ago. All three of these substantial passages contain two other important truths in a very prominent way. First, this was happening not only through the hands of wicked men, but according to the decree and action of God. It was God's plan that was fulfilled here, for God's good purposes. Second, this death was not to be the end of the story, either for Jesus or for us. He would be set on high, and would give hope to those trusting in Him (Psalm 69); He would be a victorious warrior, dividing the spoils of war with His comrades (Isaiah 53); He would be heard by God and would live, and He would bring our worship as His resurrected brothers before His Father in heaven, even the worship of those who had lived long before Him, and the worship of a people that had not yet been born (Psalm 22), all to the eternal glory of God.

For any of this to be accomplished it was necessary for Him to stay on the cross. It was necessary for the One who could have commanded legions of angels in His defense, to die, so that the penalty that stood against us would be fully paid, and so that heaven above, and the coming age of resurrection, would be filled with redeemed worshippers of God, worshippers whose sins were atoned for by the Lamb of God. This is what He did. He yielded up His spirit. He died, and He was buried in a rich man's tomb, fulfilling Isaiah 53 yet again.

Because He did this, death could not have the final say over the dead. Graves would be opened. Because of Him and His cross, we have bold access into the heavenly sanctuary of Almighty God. The curtain of separation between God and His people was torn from top to bottom. Because of Jesus and the good news of His life, death, and resurrection, millions have been able to confess that this Man truly was, and is, the Son of God. No guard of soldiers would ever be able to keep Him in the tomb. His Spirit was in Paradise, in the place of His own Almighty power. In a matter of a few short days, He would be the firstfruits of the Age of Resurrection.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Matthew 26

Jesus knew that He had come to die for us as the Passover Lamb, and He taught His disciples clearly about the fact that He would suffer and be crucified. In Matthew 26 we see this great truth through the stories of two weak men who were close followers; Peter, who denied our Lord, and Judas, who betrayed Him, handing Him over to those who sought to kill Him.

The immediate initiating event that led to the cross is presented here as an encounter between Jesus and a woman who anointed His body for burial. She poured out upon His head a very expensive ointment. This disturbed many of the disciples, but it was apparently a turning point in the life of Judas. It was after this extravagance that Judas went to the chief priests, who were looking for an opportunity to quietly arrest Jesus away from the eyes of a sympathetic crowd. They offered Judas thirty pieces of silver to turn over the Messiah to those who were determined to end His life. The wheels of human injustice were now clearly in motion. It only remained for Judas to find the right opportunity to betray the Christ.

That opportunity came at the time of our Lord's choosing. All of these events were in His sovereign control. It was on the night associated with the Passover, when Jesus instituted the sacrament of His body and blood, that Jesus would bring up the topic of betrayal. He said, "One of you will betray Me." He knew that Judas was that one. Judas would do what was determined for him to do, despite the warning that this act of betrayal would be worthy of God's sure judgment, and that it would have been better for him if he had never been born.

What Judas and the chief priests sought to secretly accomplish, Christ was willing to do openly by His own holy will. They wanted to see Him dead, and He was willing to die. He was going to the cross in order to obey His Father, and to shower us with the greatest love, for He would take the debt of our sins off our broken backs and carry the load for us. Jesus gave His body for us. He shed His blood for us. This would be a fulfillment of the necessary requirements of the covenant of grace, so that our sins might be atoned for.

The disciples supposed themselves to be spiritually strong men who were ready to die rather than deny Jesus. They rejected the clear word of Christ that night that they would all be scattered. Especially Peter insisted that he would never abandon Jesus, even if all the rest fled.

The sufferings of Christ were devastating. He was near to death from His own grief, even before His arrest. He understood what was ahead of Him, and He asked His Father if there was any other way. The answer was clear. There was no other way for the requirements of the covenant to be met. There was no other way for heaven to be won for redeemed sinners. All this could never have been accomplished by the goodness, wisdom, or the power of men. When Christ was in anguish in the garden, His three closest disciples could not even stay awake and pray according to His instruction. Only our Messiah could work our redemption, and that salvation could only have come through His death. He was resolved to do His Father's will.

What other alternative could there have been? It can be our unholy impulse to assume that we, as disciples of Christ, could have won peace with God through our own dedication to Him. What about those original followers of the Lord? Would they not have easily had the same foolish impulse? Could a Judas save? Could the one who betrayed the Lord with a kiss bring blessing to anyone? What about Peter? He was ready to use the sword to bring about the kingdom. Could this have brought us heaven? He was not even able to stand firm as an observer of the awful proceedings that would follow, and he denied the Lord three times in one evening. The Scriptures would be fulfilled. All the disciples fled from the King of the church. He would save us by His own righteousness and love.

There certainly were many powers that seemed to be arrayed against Jesus that night. Yet it would not be the lies of false witnesses or the plots of powerful religious leaders that would be the ultimate causes of our Lord's death. Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, from before the foundation of the world, consented willingly to this extreme humiliation, this suffering that lead to the height of God's glory. The One who died on the cross is now at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory. He did not have to be pushed to die, or trapped by His enemies. He was willing to suffer and save.

The pains of our Messiah have become for us a part of His glory. Was He despised by men? Did they spit in His face? Did they slap Him and mock Him? Did one of His friends betray Him? Did His leading disciple claim to have no knowledge of Him? These disturbing events have somehow become our boast. They remind us of His unique power and love, and motivate us in His service. Judas could not save anyone, neither could Peter, and neither can we. We will not boast in any man's gifts or accomplishments, but we will boast in Jesus Christ, especially in His suffering love.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Matthew 25

The current gospel age is very significant, because it is the last age for this world of mortality. At the close of this age, there will be a great renewal of the earth. In the end of most of the prior ages in the Lord's saving work, the change from one period to the next was not easily seen as dramatic or important. Abraham began an era known as the promise, Moses began the age of the Law, and Christ brought to us the age of the gospel. Yet all of these major moments of very serious change were easily missed by the great majority of people living in their day. Those who study the Bible and engage in discussions of these matters may even disagree about the reality or meaning of each of these epochs. But no one will miss the end of the age of the gospel, and the concurrent coming of the fullness of the resurrection age. The analogous fact in any of our individual lives is our physical death. It cannot be missed. There is a distinct end coming, and the life that we have beyond that moment, while having some continuity with our way of life now, will be very different from our experiences across all the prior ages of mortality.

Our Lord here forces us to consider these matters personally, and not just as questions of theological debate concerning events that may seem unreal to us, or at least far away. No, there were ten virgins that were claiming to be waiting for a great wedding day, but five of them were foolish, and they had not considered adequately the reality of the coming return of the bridegroom. They were not prepared for the sound of His arrival. Consequently they were lacking the oil that was necessary to go out into the darkness to meet Him, and there was nothing that they could do at that point, the point of His return, to make up for a life of thinking about His coming like a far-off dream. Those who act this way must be the ones that Jesus spoke of in the last chapter, who do not keep their charge in the church, as if the day of their death did not mean a point of reckoning with their God, or as if the day of the Lord's return was just a myth with little practical significance for their actions among those for whom our Lord shed His blood.

Such people who call themselves servants of the Lord, and who claim to be working for Him, if they are not using the talents that He has given to them with an expectation that the King will come, that their lives will end, and that the Christ is coming again to judge, will surely fall into wrong thinking about a God who they imagine to be so far away as to have little resemblance to the Lord who has revealed Himself in Scripture to be the God of sacrificial faithfulness. They cannot expect that they will be commended for their faith and life, or that they will be entrusted with great responsibilities in the present heavens and in the resurrection age to come, for they imagine a Christ who is cruel and distant, a hard man who would use His power to take from us the fruitfulness that has come from the sweat of our brows. Is this the same Christ who died on the cross for our sins? Is the real Christ so lacking in merit that He needs to steal some from us, or is it not instead the case that everything that we could ever do for Him is an expression of the gifts that we have received from Him? To bury our talents is just an excuse for our wickedness and laziness. It is stealing from the One who expects us to use these gifts that are entirely His to begin with, in such a way that we show our appreciation for the great Lover of our souls.

The Lord of heaven and earth will return. Beyond the fact of the coming unknown day of the end of the gospel age, and the end of ages of mortality, each person must deal with the truth of the end of his life. We will die, and we will stand before the Judge of all the earth. He is so kind to us, that He has not only provided for us all the merit necessary for our safety in communion with Him and with His Father forever, but He has also determined to count our smallest acts of grace-born obedience as a reason for heavenly celebration. For those who are His sheep, there is no talk of the overwhelming evidence that could have been brought forward of our wickedness, laziness, poor attitude, poverty of fortitude, nastiness, and all our small-minded and foolish decisions that have hurt others who needed us. Instead, He has determined to treat us like heros of grace, like those who have consistently given our lives away for others, based on the smallest pieces of evidence that He has planted within our lives, evidence of true gospel charity, evidence of love for Him, evidence so small that we hardly seem to know what He is talking about.

But for those who have not loved Him and His people, who have hated the story of a Redeemer, who have not embraced the wretched Christian that Jesus counts as His own brother, what will be the fate of such a one? What will be the fate of the one who has thought of this Christ as only a distant figure who would never return? What will be the destiny of the one who thought that he was safe abusing the ones for whom Christ gave His blood. We shudder to think of what these words "eternal punishment" mean. There will be an eternal society of devils, demons, and depraved men. As I have reflected on the horrors of such an existence, chief among them is the knowledge, without any doubt, of the existence of another place, a place of perfect communion with God, the holy angels, the redeemed of the Lord, those many who were killed as unwanted or despised on this earth, or who suffered relentless attacks of pain, disease, famine, and abuse, and were yet counted as children of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. To know of the existence of such a society of perfect blessing, and to be cut off from it, this may be the worst horror of hell, and it is enough to yield great weeping and gnashing of teeth in that place. It is best for us to lack all experiential knowledge of hell. It is enough for us that Christ has faced the pains of divine punishment for us. Let us love Him who is coming. Let us follow Him in faith and suffering now, with the confident expectation that we shall be with Him forever in eternal life, by the grace of this same Lord, knowing that He is even now near to those who call upon His Name.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Matthew 24

The temple was an amazing building, easily the most impressive structure in Jerusalem. Yet in the day when our Lord was preparing to die for our sins, the time for this impressive structure was coming to a close. The reason was that the entire age of the Law, the age of Old Testament Israel, was about to be fulfilled in the death of the Messiah. Here was the only Law-Keeper, but He would be cut down by God's justice that stood against us, paying our great debt to God. Though this great edifice would exist for a few more years, the entire age of the Law was essentially over in the events that took place between Passover and Pentecost that year. In that short period one age was gone forever, and a new age, an age of gathering the people of God into a new temple, a temple of people connected to the Messiah, was coming into being.

The disciples did not entirely understand about the age of the gospel. This age, in which we now live, is a time when people are being given new life in Christ through the proclamation of the cross and the resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Though souls are being made alive, bodies are still dying. This is necessary in order for the Lord's plan for the proclamation of the gospel to have time to take place. Eventually, when Christ returns, the gospel age will be over, and the fullness of the eternal resurrection age will have come. The disciples do not seem to understand that gospel age. They seem to expect that the close of the age of the Law will mean that the reign of Jesus as a resurrection King over a resurrected Jerusalem will immediately begin. They simply want to know when will be the destruction of the temple, and when will be the close of this time of mortality. They do not seem to imagine that these are two questions that have a complex answer. The temple will be destroyed in AD 70 by the Romans, but even today, Christ has not yet returned with the fullness of the resurrection age.

The Lord begins to patiently prepare them for a long period that He calls the "birth pains." The new baby that is being born is the resurrection temple, made up of Jews and Gentiles who are filled with the Spirit of God. But during this very long period of troubling labor pains, there will be time for kingdoms to come and go, and all kinds of natural disasters to occur, none of which are a sure sign that the return of Christ will be immediate.

During this entire period there will be trouble for the church, trouble inside from false prophets, and trouble outside from religious and political persecution. Many will fall away during these birth pains, but many others will be gathered into this new temple of people, the church. One thing is certain about this gospel age, this gospel of a coming resurrection kingdom where the Messiah reigns, must be preached as a testimony to all nations. Then, and only then, will our Lord return, and the gospel age will be over. Then the fullness of the resurrection will be here as heaven comes to earth and brings us the great delight of a renewed earth, a world of love, without any sin, but a true physical world with great beauty, order, goodness, and truth.

Before that time, something referred to in Daniel as the abomination that brings desolation, must take place. This refers to the defiling of the temple by some gross offense within her. Naturally we are not talking about something that might defile the Old Testament temple on Mount Zion. That has already happened many times. We are talking about the New Testament temple of the people of God. The coming of those who pretend to love God and His worship, but who reject Messiah and His mercy, this is an abomination in any time and place when it happens. It happened prior to the coming of Christ, and Daniel spoke of it. It happened in the first century church when those who should have embraced the Messiah, such as the Pharisees that Jesus has spoken of in the prior chapter, reject the King of Israel. It will happen again, according to the Apostle Paul in a more worldwide manifestation throughout the Lord's church, as there is a great apostasy connected to a central figure who is seductive and persuasive to many, one who looks to be worshipped in the Lord's church. One manifestation of this abomination prophesy came in the years after the ascension of Christ in the conflicts recorded in the New Testament when Jewish authorities that hated Christ and the gospel persistently persecuted the church. There will be a more global appearance of this same antichrist spirit before our Lord's return. Here we learn that our God, who knows our weakness, will cut any period of testing short, that we might have strength to continue in the faith, lest all testimony of Christ be removed from the earth.

The final coming again of our Lord will be sudden, and, for many, unexpected. The Lord is not telling us when this will happen, but He is telling us that it will not be missed. There will be no secret arrival of the Messiah again. The elect will be gathered and together with the resurrected saints who come with the angels of heaven, we will be a part of the great victory that Christ died to win. This age (a better translation choice than "generation" in verse 34), this gospel age will not pass away until all these things take place: the preaching of Christ to all nations, a long period of birth pains, a dramatic worldwide apostasy in the church centered around a particular figure, and finally the coming again of the Lord with all the host of heaven.

It is not ours to figure out exactly when Christ will return, or to suppose that we know things about the end of this age that God has not revealed. The key is to be ready for our Lord's coming at a time of His choosing. We must see the love of our King who was willing to die for our salvation. We must remember that His death was successful, and that the coming resurrection age is sure. We must live with the reality of the present heaven filling our hearts as we serve God fruitfully on the present earth, and we must not be part of any abomination in the church that rejects our only Savior, bringing death and destruction in its wake, rather than healing and life.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Matthew 23

The great conflict within Judaism of the first century would be between the Pharisees and the Christians. The temple-oriented Sadducees would see their day come to something of an end with the crushing fact of the Roman attack against Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple in AD 70. It would be the Pharisees and the Christians who would live on to fight the battle for the hearts and minds of the Jews and for that segment of the gentile world that had shown strong interest in the ways of the Jewish synagogues. The ascendancy of a Christ-centered Judaism that came to be known as the Christian church would be a great humiliation to those who had a series of fundamental disagreements with the One who came as the true King of the Jews. This chapter, from beginning to end, is one of the best statements of the fatal flaws of the Pharisaic way, presented by the One who by His own blood, founded the faith that became their chief rival. He chooses here not to focus as much upon their teaching as He does upon their lives.

Their way of understanding the Law, their mingling of divine Law and tradition, and their suggestion that peace with God could come through Law, these things were all very wrong. But what was maddening about it all, is that after constructing a complex system of burdensome law-keeping, they were content to see people fall under the weight of it, and would not help them in their struggle with the evil and misery that we face in this life. They have nothing of real resurrection power to offer the weak.

Rather than being moved by true compassion for others who needed some way of peace with God and real hope beyond death, they were motivated to be seen. They wanted to be seen as the first and not the last; they wanted to be seen as holy and not the unrighteous; they wanted to be seen as knowledgeable and not ignorant; they wanted to be seen as good and not bad. These are not specific problems associated with one race or type of people. They are human problems. Self-righteous displays of religiousness are not the answer for us. They are the proof of our deep need for rescue that can only come from the righteousness, love, and power of God.

This way of self-promotion was not the way of Christ, and it must not be the way of His church. Our passion is for the exaltation of our Father in heaven, not for the applause of men on earth. Our Instructor is the Anointed One, the Christ, who was despised and rejected by men. Our way of life is to be humble servants, following in the path of a Servant-King, but we should really admit that we can so easily play the same games as the Pharisees did.

The Pharisees believed in an afterlife, and they certainly believed in eternal rewards, but they pursued resurrection goals through self, rather than through substitution. Once again, this does not distinguish them from the rest of the humanity. Whether expressed or unexpressed, this seems to be the way of all flesh. The thing about the Pharisees is that their way was very much expressed. They worked to convert others to a system that could not bring life, but only seemed to breed further hypocrisy among men. At all costs it was necessary to convince others, and even yourself, that you were religiously in the right. This is a foolish game for sinners to play.

How did their system of being right work? It was a system loaded down with man-made rules that had the appearance of great dedication to God, to holiness, and to the Law, without actually helping in any way with the deep problem that we all have with indwelling sin. Being a person with a true heart is difficult, so the Pharisees had a system of truth-telling where the truth of your promise depended on the form of your words. If you swore by the temple, that was nothing, but if you swore by the gold in the temple, you had really promised. They did not see the connection between God, to whom we must give account, and all of creation which He owns. Everything comes back to this God, so we must be true to our word. But this is hard, and would require an admission that we are in the wrong, as well as a willingness to turn away from what is wrong. A system of surface scrupulousness is more appealing to the one who is dedicated to being right through his own law-keeping. Better to tithe even on your spices, than to deal with the necessity of showing justice, mercy, and faithfulness in a broken world. This is simply the way of death, where a finish coat of righteous paint covers a structurally unsound bridge over the grave.

The way of the Pharisees did not solve greed, self-indulgence, and lawlessness. A person could follow the Pharisaic philosophy very closely, and still justify killing a true prophet of God who had come to expose the sins of the people and point to the way of true life. The Pharisaic heart cannot bear to have sin exposed, and would rather find a way to kill the messenger of righteousness, than to listen to the word spoken and then turn away from sin.

This has always led to much suffering for those like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, and Amos who brought the truth from God to the beloved people. The way of the Pharisee is a dangerous way. It cannot cover the guilt of sin, and it has no power to truly reform the sinner. What it can do is teach a man to murder, while keeping his hands clean. It can show a man how to kill the innocent, in order to defend an appearance of righteousness. The way of Christ is different. It teaches a man how to die, in order to save the unrighteous. This is what Jesus has done for us. While Old Testament Jerusalem largely would not have Him, He gave His life to save the Jerusalem that is above, that Jerusalem that has learned that true blessing can only come through a Substitute, the righteous Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Prayer Based on Leviticus 1

Great God, Your Son came as a whole burnt offering for us. What He gave to You was in every way full and complete. Our sins have been placed upon His sacred head. We mourn for our awful transgressions, but we thank You for the peace that we enjoy in Christ Jesus our Lord. There was nothing wrong in His offering to You. He had no thought, word, or deed of sin. In Him we have been credited with this perfect offering, and we are grateful for this abundant mercy.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Prayer based on Jeremiah 35

Our Father, the disobedience of Your people is so unusual. We have been given a very good and holy law. We would do well to follow it carefully. Yet we find obedience to Your commandments to be a great spiritual struggle. Others may be able to do what their ancestors have handed down to them. They follow old customs and do not hate the ways that their fathers have given them. Your people have treated You with such a dishonorable rebellion, despite the fact that Your moral law is so far superior to the traditions of men. Forgive us for this deep treachery, and remember the full obedience of Your Son on our behalf. Your ways are so very good. We will obey Your commandments. Have mercy on us.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Matthew 22

Our Lord is going to the cross. He is dying for the true Israel of God, the elect Israel that is composed of Jews and Gentiles who have taken refuge in Him. All these will be a part of the coming kingdom of heaven. The old kingdom of Israel is ending. For many centuries there has been no true king in Israel. Yet it remained the hope of some that God would reestablish the old kingdom again. This was not to be. God is doing something different now with His Son. Jesus will be the King, but He is bringing in the kingdom of heaven. The old subjects of the old kingdom of Israel have rejected the true Son of David. The new kingdom is coming with a glorious wedding feast, where God's Son will be shown to be united to His bride. Israel was largely unwilling to come to that feast. They had demonstrated this over many years in their unwillingness to receive the Word of God. Even now, people all over the world are regularly deciding that they are too busy to meet the Lord of the kingdom of heaven and to hear His Word.

God is not pleased with those who murder His prophets. He is similarly displeased with those who would spurn His Son. Those who will not see the kingdom for the jewel that it is, those who would despise the Son of God and refuse to call upon His Name, are not worthy of the glorious kingdom. The sad fact is that we would all fall into such a despicable group without the Lord's grace. Even in the life of the most godly servants of King Jesus, there is ample proof that we have violated the Lord's great commandments, for we have not loved Him with all our hearts, and we have not love one another. By His grace He sends forth messengers of the Word far off into Gentile lands. Throughout the world, everyone is invited to believe in the Son of God and to hope in the resurrection. The Lord will fill His great wedding hall with guests.

We make a serious error if we think that God has dismissed His concern for righteousness concerning our participation in His kingdom. Our Lord has always demanded the fullest obedience from those who would desire to be with Him forever. The key to the system of grace that comes through Christ is this: Christ has become our clothing of righteousness before the Father. He is our wedding garment, for He has stained His own garments with the bloody mess of our sin, and He has granted to us the perfect spotless clothing of His righteousness. This is true grace. Many are called through the preaching of the Word, but only those who find their perfect righteousness in Christ will display the fact that they have truly been chosen by God.

This is the time for Israel to hear the Word of the true King, and to embrace Him. They should see His holiness, and admire His works of power. They should seek Him and find, laying their burden of sin upon Him for the fullest redemption. Instead the various groups arrayed against our Lord are trying to trap Him, to embarrass Him, and to cause Him harm. The Pharisees and the Herodians attempt to flatter Him, with hopes that He will then speak against Roman taxation. They are unsuccessful. He affirms the proper role of civil authorities, but asserts the higher duty that we have to submit to God, as the one in whose image every man has been created.

The Sadducees attempt to show the Lord of wisdom to be a fool. They deny the hope of the resurrection which has been so central a teaching throughout the entire Old Testament. They think themselves too smart to agree with a bodily life beyond the mortality of this world. They attempt to expose what they imagine to be insurmountable problems with such a physical realm. In playing their insulting game they provide us with an interesting bit of historical evidence: It is obvious from their attack of the Lord on this matter that the teaching of a coming resurrection was understand by many to be a central doctrine of our Lord's ministry. He refutes their unbelief concerning this doctrine based on two points. First, they do not understand the Scriptures, and second, they do not know God and His power. The Scriptures promise the coming resurrection of the dead. The fact of God's power displayed in the Lord's great healing miracles assures us that the One who created all things out of nothing is able to bring about the hope of the righteous in a great work of physical regeneration.

In His answer to the Sadducees, our Lord also demonstrates that He knows things about the present heaven that His adversaries have no experience with. He knows how angels relate to one another. In revealing to us that we will not enter into new marriages in heaven, he says that we will be like the angels in heaven in some way on this matter of relationships. Of course we have only a few hints in the Scriptures concerning relationships between and with angelic beings, but Jesus knows all about angels. We have no record that anyone asked Him the interesting question of how we will be like the angels in heaven. They were true busy trying to make the only one there with firsthand experience of heaven look like a fool. Abraham is still alive. So are Isaac and Jacob. They are in the present heaven, and the way that they exist even now is apparently great evidence concerning the resurrection of the dead. Jesus knows all about this.

Before them that day was the answer to our longing for eternal life. Here was David's Son and David's Lord. Here was the one who knew not only the obvious testimonies to a coming resurrection age, like Ezekiel's vision of dry bones coming back to life, but also the thousands of more subtle references to the Lord's eternal plan of physical life, like the simple identification of Yahweh as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Here was the one who not only knew how to speak about the Law of God in its two great headings, but who had Himself fulfilled these commandments entirely. Why could they not have asked Him the many questions that could have come to Him that day from a true heart of faith?

Yet this was His day and not theirs. When they thought that He was trapped, they were only following the script of His loving Father's design, a script that He had agreed to before the foundation of the world. This Jesus who died and rose again is the Lord of glory. He is currently at the right hand of the Father reigning in heaven. God will put all His enemies under His feet. He is certainly not a fool. He is the wisdom and power of God.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Matthew 21

We have come to the final days of our Lord's earthly ministry. Consider the eternal plan of God to bring glory to His Name through both His greatest acts of justice and His greatest acts of mercy. Then think back to the story of mankind, and consider all of the events that have taken place since sin entered the world through Adam. Finally meditate on the Lord's promises, and imagine all that is ahead of us in the age to come because of what Christ has done for us. Without a doubt, the events of Matthew 21 through 28 describe the most important happenings in the history of men and angels. We have here the dramatic turning point in the glorious progress of God's grace. Christ will come into Jerusalem in humility, but He will be the great King spoken of in Zechariah 9:9. Everyone will play their part in these days, and every detail will be under the perfect sovereign control of Almighty God.

Even the crowds will be under the Lord's majestic authority. They will fulfill their part from Psalm 118. There are many psalms that use the Hebrew plea to God, "Save me!" or "Save us!" This is what "Hosanna!" means. It is a cry for help. As we see from the specific actions and words of the crowd that day, it is especially Psalm 118 that is in view here, a psalm used in preparation for the Passover. Jesus is recognized as the coming King, the Messiah, the Son of David. He comes in the name of the Lord, and He is the Lord. Little do they know that the way He will save will be through His death as the Passover Lamb, a point that is marvelously tucked away in the ending of Psalm 118 itself. Now they praise Him and call on Him for help. In just a few short days, another crowd will shout out different words: "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!"

As the Lord moves toward Mount Zion, it is not immediately clear that everyone understands what the uproar is all about. Word begins to spread that this is Jesus of Nazareth who is thought to be a great prophet from Galilee. He soon enters the temple area, and does again what He did at the beginning of His ministry. John's gospel tells us about the first cleansing of the temple that set in motion the Christ's public work over the following three years. Now as the three years come to a close, Matthew's gospel records for us the second cleansing, as our Lord prepares to die for sinners. Once again He is moving in complete authority in a way that simply cannot be explained. He is overturning tables and pronouncing judgment on those who have misused God's provision of this house of prayer. In fulfillment of Jeremiah 7:11, our Lord declares His judgment against His people, for they have turned the place of God's presence into a den of robbers. In contrast, He is there as the one who is the Temple of God, and the one who will make us, united to Him, into the perfect resurrection temple. How appropriate that He not only cleanses the old temple, but also heals the blind and the lame as the great new Temple, the Messiah King.

As they were shocked by Him the first time He did this, once again the religious authorities begin to question Him. They have noticed His wonders that He is performing and the reaction of the crowd to these displays of glory, but they are indignant, rather than in awe. He answers them by referring to Psalm 8, for He is not only the Son of Man, He is the Lord who receives praise, even from infants. This is what God has ordained, and it is happening.

Something old is going away. The Lord's plant of Old Testament Israel has been declared fruitless and cursed, for the Age of the Law must come to an end. Yet something new has come in its place, a people who will call upon His Name, not only of the Jews, but even of the nations. They will pray and be heard, and a mountain of unbelief throughout the world will be cast into the seas. The new people of God will soon hear the Word and proclaim it everywhere. They will be a people of faith who know about the real Temple of God, the true Passover Lamb.

The leaders of the Old Covenant community stood against this Messiah. They continued to question Him concerning the source of His authority. He would not answer them, for they were unwilling to even acknowledge the fact that God had sent John the Baptist. If they could not see John's mission as divinely ordained, what point would there be in talking about the One for whom John prepared the way, the One who would shower the church with the Holy Spirit? They claimed to love and obey God, but they did not obey Him, they opposed Him; this while obvious covenant-breakers, tax collectors and prostitutes, would be making their way into the kingdom of heaven ahead of these leading men. God's grace would be victorious, and the way of true righteousness would be revealed; a righteousness that would come through Christ alone.

Their day in the Lord's vineyard had come and gone, and Old Testament Israel had proven herself unworthy. They had no fruit for the Lord, and they had abused and killed the prophets. Finally, they were preparing to put the Son of God to death, imagining that this would serve their own agenda. Instead, they too were playing their part in the fulfillment of Psalm 118. The turning of the age from the era of the Law to the age of the gospel would happen in their midst. They would reject the Rock of Ages, but in their act of rejecting Him, He would become the cornerstone of a new temple of the Lord. Here was the sacrifice appointed to bear the guilt of all who would be a part of the kingdom of God. All of this was not merely through the plans of evil men, but according to the eternal purpose of God who would fulfill His great decrees. This was marvelous in His eyes. It is our joy that we have come to see this despised Messiah as our Lord, and have been welcomed into a new kingdom, a kingdom that will yield the greatest fruitfulness and blessings of grace ever known among men.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Matthew 20

What is heaven going to be like? We know that those who have turned to Christ as our safe haven from the judgment to come, and are living as a part of His church community throughout the world, calling upon the name of the Lord in worship, experience something of the heavenly life even now. We do so by faith, and not by sight. Our sins have already been forgiven, but we do not yet live in the complete freedom of holiness that is ours in Christ. We have been called to worship by the Lord of the kingdom. We are working in His vineyard, but we sometimes seem unaware of the great blessings that belong to us. We return to our question: What is heaven like?

Of course this is a very big question, but the Lord is continually shedding light on this topic through His miracles and through His parables. As He speaks to His disciples at the opening of Matthew 20, He teaches them in greater detail what He had said at the end of the previous chapter, "(The) first will be last, and the last first." Everyone serves the Lord with a hope of heavenly blessings, yet some may come to the life of the kingdom earlier and others later. Is the life of heavenly reward like receiving wages, so that those who work longer are owed more?

The parable of the vineyard teaches us that the Lord is the sovereign Distributor of all the blessings of heavenly life. The arrangement that He has made with us is simply this: All who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. We are to believe in our hearts in Christ and the resurrection and confess this before God and man as a part of the church. Any work that the Lord has for us and any reward that He determines is solely a matter of His own great generosity. We are counted as righteous by faith, and our service of our king is a privilege. We cannot complain against the Lord for the way He treats us, or for the richness of His blessing to others.

It may seem to us that the most obviously faithful servants of God are not being fairly treated when we consider the greatness of heavenly blessings that will be given to others who may come to exercise faith in ways that make us wonder if they have served the Lord at all. We do not understand the system of gracious rewards that is such an important part of the kingdom of heaven. If we demand to be treated as workers who should be given the wages that we deserve, then we are insisting that we receive the Lord's eternal judgment against us, since as workers demanding wages, this is what we deserve. That wage was paid by Christ on the cross. We need to understand that anything that we receive beyond hell is all an expression of the tremendous generosity of God. In heaven, we will not complain about the Lord's gracious blessing of those who seem to be among the last. We will rejoice with God in the wisdom of His bountiful displays of mercy. We will count our own lives as ransomed from a pit of unbelief and hypocrisy. We will be happy just to be doorkeepers in the Lord's house. We will marvel that we who have been unworthy servants are now counted as sons of God. What is heaven like? It is a place where the citizens will be eternally delighted to see the most wonderful mercy of God to the most unlikely and unworthy sinners.

There is one Worker who has won for us all the blessings of heaven. He is the one that went to His death in Jerusalem. He was delivered over to hostile religious authorities, leaders of both temple and synagogue life. He was condemned to death. He was turned over to the Gentiles, mocked, flogged, and crucified. He did this for us. But He also was the one who rose again on the third day.

The lessons of the cross and the Lord's sovereign mercy in the kingdom of heaven are not easy things to embrace. They bother our flesh. The sons of Zebedee, John and James, and their mother, wanted to be the greatest in a place where being the greatest is under God's control alone, and where the cross is the way to the crown. Though they claimed to understand the workings of the kingdom, they did not yet understand the kind of sacrifices that were ahead of them in the years that would follow.

The other disciples were really the same. They showed their confusion by being indignant about the requests of their compatriots for special glories. The example for us was clearly presented to the apostles in their day. This kingdom of heaven would not be like the places of normal power struggles in the existing worlds of politics or commerce. The greatest in heaven was the one who served. The one who gave His life as a ransom for many was surely the greatest of all. There is not normally a long line of people waiting for the privilege of dying a death that takes away the sins of others. In any case, there was only one man who could rightly stand in that line, since only one man had what was necessary to accomplish our redemption. He is the only man of merit in the kingdom of heaven. Everyone else there lives off of His generosity.

The humble are brought to understand this. They cry out for mercy, not for what they deserve. At the end of Matthew 20, two blind men show forth the zeal of heaven's people for the grace of God. Though everyone around them might like them to give up on their pleas for the kindness of Jesus, they continue to cry out to the descendant of David who is heaven's eternal King. They are granted sight by our compassionate Lord. It is passages like this one that persuade us that God will have mercy on the unworthy. May we see the kingdom of heaven rightly, and may we rejoice with those who live in heaven now at the greatness of our King's favor upon the unworthy.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Matthew 19

Everywhere that Jesus was going, He was healing people. What was that all about? Why does Jesus not heal everybody now? I understand the loss that people feel when they pray earnestly and then something worse happens to them than they even imagined. How can this be? God does answer prayer, and I am convinced that many of the things that we have asked for on earth are waiting for us in the kingdom of heaven even now, but Jesus was doing something very special in His healing ministry when He came to die for our sins. He was displaying signs of the kingdom of heaven, where the fullness of healing is a reality. He was showing us something about our life to come.

We want things to go well. Especially in our marriages and in our family we want things to go well. We don't want to be planning for things to fail. Christ came displaying signs of a kingdom of great wellness, of the fullest shalom. This kingdom of heaven is displayed in marriage, since the final and eternal realm of life involves the most blessed marriage between Christ and His people. There were others all around Christ who were schooled in a different way of religious thinking. Even though they believed in the coming age of resurrection, their religious way of life, and their understanding of how they could be right with God was sadly deficient. That led them to be thinking of ways that God's Law could be used so that they could be sure that they were right with God through their own obedience. They sometimes faced problems in their families, sometimes very serious problems, like everyone else in this world. That meant that some of them for a variety of reasons faced the unhappy reality of broken relationships.

We understand that. Yet since they felt that their peace with God came through Law, and since their consciences were probably bothering them concerning their own part in breaking up what God had joined together, they wanted to find a way to justify themselves in light of the painful reality of their broken marriages. They were trying to find a loophole either in the Bible or in their traditions that would allow them to say that they were in the right, since they thought their own success in being in the right with God was the only way that they could ever know peace with God. Jesus does not give them any out. He was speaking of resurrection shalom. He was thinking of one man (Himself), and one woman (the church), and He did not want any way out, even though staying in this plan for marriage was going to lead Him to the cross. He wanted them to see the privilege of living out that bigger story in their own life of intimacy, even when that may at times and for seasons seem to be for worse, rather than for better.

They did not like this answer, so they brought Him a passage from the Bible that they felt gave them a loophole. Moses in the Old Testament Law did make provision for a certificate of divorce. That was for the protection of the abandoned party, so that she could be declared free from the one who abandoned the intimacy that was a gift to them both. God had not commanded the loss of marriage, but there was a recognition that sometimes that loss happened, and that in marriages there were always sin problems. God knows about our sin. Why else did Jesus die on the cross, if not to take care of our sin? God knows about sin, and He knows about people getting hurt by sin. He had provided some help for hurting people through the certificate of divorce in the Mosaic Law. The Pharisees, who thought that their peace with God depended on their own obedience wanted to use that provision to make it seem like they had not sinned. Jesus' answer to their question made that very difficult.

They were not the only uncomfortable people there that day. Jesus' own disciples started to think that it might not be a good idea for anyone to marry. But our Lord has made it clear from the beginning of the Bible that most people are not gifted for the single life. It is a good thing to find a partner for life. It is a rich blessing to rejoice together, and even to suffer together as that becomes necessary. It is a good thing to be able to appreciate things just because your loved one likes them. It is a good thing to be blessed with children. Our Lord showed that the little ones were important to Him, and He would not allow His disciples to keep the kids away. Once again, He began talking about heaven, a real world that we cannot usually see, but without which nothing makes sense. Jesus, who knows all about heaven, says that heaven belongs to children, and therefore He belongs to children. He is happy to bless them, and happy to bless marriages.

This did not change the stubborn fact that there will still many people thinking that the way that you could be part of a resurrection world, the way that you could have peace with God, was through keeping Law. Like the rich young man in our reading, they had looked for loopholes in all of God's laws, so that at the end of the day they could say that they had kept them all. It was, in fact, necessary for someone to entirely keep the commandments, in order for anyone to enter heavenly life. Jesus knew this, because He knew that His death for us would have no meaning unless He first became our Substitute in His perfect obedience for us. For us to understand and embrace this way of being right with God, through the obedience and death of Jesus, rather than through some way of law, we need to see that we have not obeyed the Law of God, that Law which Jesus perfectly obeyed. Sometimes we need to have God speaking directly to us, telling us to give up our everything for Him, in order for us to come to grips with the fact that we have not loved Him as the only God. The first commandment: "You shall have no other gods before Me."

There simply is no way for anyone to get to that best of all marriages, that heavenly peace with God, while we still cling to something other than the Christ of the cross and the resurrection. You have arms for only one husband, and not for your own way of being right. That's why we finally surrender to His love, and we follow Him. That's the way that the impossible becomes possible; with God. With God all things are possible. With God it is possible for guilty people to be forgiven. It is possibly for abandoned people to find a home. It is possible for shy people to be comfortable. It is possible for sick people to be well. It is possible for people on earth to enter heavenly shalom.

These disciples who were nothing would be something in heaven. These ones who would lose so much to continue to testify to the truth of the resurrection of one man, would themselves have resurrection life, in a new society without sin, and with the best of all governance. Of course we cannot understand all of that now. Some who seem to be first here will be very happy to be last there. Others who seem last now will be shocked to be first there. But all who give up anything now for this marriage, for this husband, will receive a hundredfold. And we will be with Him. We can only imagine… and then by His grace, we can believe, and we can follow.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

More Snow

No Worship service Sunday night because of continued snow.

We will have an evening service at 6:30 Monday night for all who would like to attend.

The Order of Worship is as follows:

Evening Liturgy

January 19, 2009

Call to Worship:

Psalm 107:1-2

Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good!

For His mercy endures forever.

Let the redeemed of the LORD say so,

Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy

Hymn 1 “All People That on Earth Do Dwell”

Prayer of Adoration

Corporate Reading of the Ten Commandments

Exodus 20:1-17 And God spoke all these words, saying, 2 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 You shall have no other gods before me. 4 You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. 7 You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. 8 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. 12 Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. 13 You shall not murder. 14 You shall not commit adultery. 15 You shall not steal. 16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 17 You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's."

Prayer of Confession and Declaration of Pardon

Hymn 162 “Of the Father's Love Begotten”

Prayer of Illumination

Reading of Psalm 69

Sermon

Singing of Psalm 69:30-36

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

Offering and Doxology

Confession of Faith – The Apostles’ Creed

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

Lord’s Supper

Gloria Patri

Benediction


Snow

No Sunday School or Morning Worship today because of the snow. We will assess the situation later in the afternoon to see if we can meet this evening for worship.

We'll be calling people later today.

You can read Psalm 69 in preparation for tonight, in case we are able to meet.

Prayer based on Leviticus 1

Great God, Your Son came as a whole burnt offering for us. What He gave to You was in every way full and complete. Our sins have been placed upon His sacred head. We mourn for our awful transgressions, but we thank You for the peace that we enjoy in Christ Jesus our Lord. There was nothing wrong in His offering to You. He had no thought, word, or deed of sin. In Him we have been credited with this perfect offering, and we are grateful for this abundant mercy.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Prayer based on Jeremiah 35

Our Father, the disobedience of Your people is so unusual. We have been given a very good and holy law. We would do well to follow it carefully. Yet we find obedience to Your commandments to be a great spiritual struggle. Others may be able to do what their ancestors have handed down to them. They follow old customs and do not hate the ways that their fathers have given them. Your people have treated You with such a dishonorable rebellion, despite the fact that Your moral law is so far superior to the traditions of men. Forgive us for this deep treachery, and remember the full obedience of Your Son on our behalf. Your ways are so very good. We will obey Your commandments. Have mercy on us.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Matthew 18

It is not an easy thing for us to think about the kingdom of heaven. Every breath that we have ever taken has been on an earth where there is much sin and misery. What might it be like to breathe the air of a place that is fully captivated by the holiness and glory of God? What would it mean to be great in such a place, even the greatest?

This was the question that the disciples brought to Jesus. His answer to them had to be surprising. He called over a child, someone who would not have been thought of as the greatest in their culture in any sense of word. Did the disciples want to even enter the kingdom of heaven? Then they would have to be like this child.

Of course there would be many things about a child that would have nothing to do with heaven and might not be worthy of imitation in any way. His specific point was that they needed to humble themselves before God. This is closely connected to true faith. They needed to hear God's Word and believe. The posture of humility is so different than that of pride, pride that will not hear, pride that knows better than the Lord God Almighty and refuses to obey.

Those who humble themselves before God will receive their brothers and sisters in Christ as beloved children of God. People who would take advantage of the weak and the ignorant and lead them astray are of a very different spirit, and are acting as if the Lord does not see what they are doing, or does not care for His own. This kind of way of life is diametrically opposed to the life of faith. It is unbelief working itself out in actions of great ugliness. These kind of impulses rising up within us must be dealt with according to the greatest severity, since we know that they are utterly inconsistent with the kingdom of heaven.

God who reigns in heaven over men and angels will use all His resources for the ultimate vindication of those who belong to Him. He is like a shepherd who knows every one of His sheep well, and will rescue the one who goes astray. It is not His will that any of those who belong to Him shall perish. This is the value system of heaven, and it informs the way that we are to care for one another within the church on earth.

Our Lord is more aware than anyone in the church that His body is comprised, not of those who are already perfectly righteous, but of those who easily go astray. He faced the wrath that was due against us in His death on the cross. He has felt the eternal consequence of our sins in ways that we never will. He is the one who tells us what to do when one of the beloved sins against us. We are to address these matters as personally as possible, working toward the most blessed resolution possible in this world of misery and trouble here below, seeking both the peace and purity of the Lord's house.

As God will not quickly abandon those who are weak and broken, we are to be those who keep on forgiving, knowing that we have been forgiven by one who had a very good case against us, but was unwilling to give us over to hell. He has released us from such an overwhelming debt. Will we then be quick to condemn one another for smaller offenses, whether real or imagined? This is the attitude of ungrateful servants, not of the sons of God.

Our willingness to forgive is a testimony to our understanding of what Christ has done for us. This is the only way for forgiveness to be a delightful privilege for sinful people. We must see it as our testimony to the greatness of the cross. Our Savior has loved us, and He loves us still. It is not a pleasing thing for Him to hear of small-minded and petty grudges that we hold against others.

The thing that we must increasingly resolve in our hearts and minds is that we wish to live on earth even now as those who believe in heaven. If we truly believe in heaven then we can show that faith by honoring the God of heaven through the pursuit of the ethic that He commands. Then we will seek the humility of faith as the wonderful gift granted to all of heaven's children, a humility that hears and believes; a humility that believes and follows. If we believe in heaven then we will love the weakest ones who have the songs of heaven in their hearts and on their lips, and we will care for the child of even one believing parent, for we look to see each of those little ones claimed by the same Father who has captivated our hearts. If we believe in heaven we will seek peace and purity in the Lord's house on earth, and we will thank God for every opportunity that we have to forgive.

To live this way now, is to believe now. The one who pursues this life with humility and mercy will not always be considered to be great by some on earth. Nonetheless, such a person need not regret a life lived in grateful imitation of Christ, the greatest Son of the Father in the kingdom of heaven.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Matthew 17

The Lord Jesus Christ has promised us a glorious kingdom. We believe; help our unbelief. We perhaps think that it might help our faith if we could see a glimpse of that kingdom now. This is precisely what Jesus gave to Peter, James, and John. The last words of the prior chapter were, "There are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom." The fullness of the Lord's coming in his kingdom will not occur until He returns. Peter, James, and John tasted death a long time ago. But only six days after Jesus made them this promise, He gave them a wonderful glimpse of the glory of His coming and the glory of His kingdom in this event called the transfiguration.

In this kingdom-coming miracle, Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus Christ, who shined as a personification of the glory cloud of God. At this time, the era of the Law was coming to a close, and the new prophetic Elijah, John the Baptist, had already completed his work of pointing to the Messiah. Yet Moses and Elijah were still alive in some other realm. Somehow their presence was known that day and was visible to the disciples, who clearly did not know what to do. Unless this appearance was completely misleading, we must concluded that heaven is a real place as we know and experience places now, a place from which visitors could come, though a place that we cannot normally see. Men like Moses and Elijah appeared to be aware enough about the events of redemption transpiring at this turn of the ages for them to have a conversation about these things with the Son of God.

The glory cloud of God then was suddenly manifest as a separate presence from the Son of God, and the voice of the Father spoke in their hearing. The words were very important for our consideration. The Father confirmed that the man known to many as Jesus of Nazareth, presumed to be the son of a man named Joseph, was in fact the Son of our heavenly Father. This Jesus was called the beloved Son. There was nothing lacking in Him or offensive about Him that would cause His Father to turn away from this Son. The Father was well-pleased with Him, and apparently wanted His disciples to know this, and to hear His explicit instruction: "Listen to Him."

This was a terrifying and deeply impressive experience for these men, one which definitely Peter, and probably also John referred to in their writings that were recorded for us in the New Testament. It was Christ that was able to calm them at that time, and He spoke of His coming resurrection. The Son of Man would be raised from the dead. They would be witnesses not only of this glorious transfiguration, but of post-resurrection appearances of Christ as well.

These men were confused about the timing of future events, and they were trying to make sense of it all. They had seen Elijah on the mountain, but was not Elijah to come first before the Messiah? The expectation that people rightly had of a preparatory Elijah-like ministry was correct, but this had already happened in the prophetic work of John the Baptist. People did not recognize him for who he was, and they did to him what their forefathers had done to the earlier prophets. John's suffering and death needed to inform their expectations concerning what would happen to Jesus, for He too would soon suffer at the hands of men. They needed to listen to the Son of God about this, and about everything, as the Father had commanded from heaven.

Soon they were down again with rest of the disciples and with people who needed healing. The contrast between the present heaven and the present earth was well displayed in these events. Moses and Elijah do not live here any more, but we do. And there are other people here, and they need held. Here we have the effects of the fall and of God's curse. Here we also have opportunities to walk by faith, to obey God, and to serve Him. It was not easy for Jesus to be here, and it will never be easy for people of faith to live in a faithless and twisted place. If we are to be followers of our Lord, we must hear what He has said and listen to Him. We need the kind of listening that moves out in love, seeing God do the impossible, and even using us.

No matter how God would choose to work wonders through His church today, this earth still awaits the glory of the Lord, the glory that we will go to when we die, the glory that will descend upon the earth from on high when Christ returns. Until that time, this is still the placed where the Son of Man was killed by men, but it is also the place where He put a stake in the ground for the resurrection age to come by rising from the dead. It is the place where the rulers of this world collect taxes to do what they will do, and we try our best to be peaceful and law-abiding. But it is a fact that we are the sons of the coming kingdom, a kingdom that is in some ways here already in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and in the subsequent movement of His gospel across the entire globe.

If we could just climb a mountain to get to heaven now, we would do so. We could be with our reigning Lord, the One who is the visible glory of the invisible God. We could see people like Moses and Elijah, and talk to those who are alive in that place, embrace them as completely healed people, eat with them, laugh with them, work with them, and rest so very well. But there is no mountain like that for us to climb. Yet Christ Himself is with us and in us, and He is the One upon whom angels from heaven descend to earth and ascend back to that realm above. We are in Him, and He is in us. Therefore glory is not so far away after all, and today is another day to walk in faith, a day for waiting and serving in a glorious hope, a hope perfectly secured for us in the Word of Christ, and in His death and resurrection.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Matthew 16

The Lord Jesus Christ, in the days of His earthly ministry, was attracting large crowds because of the tremendous healings that He was performing. Any blind man by the side of the road would probably have known who to turn to by now in order to receive sight. People had heard that there was a man from God who was doing amazing works. Yet the leaders of the Jews spoke to Jesus as if He had done nothing to demonstrate who He was. They asked Him to show them a sign from heaven, as if he had not already cleansed lepers, and caused the lame to leap for joy.

The Lord could have performed an amazing miracle at that very moment, but He did not come in order to stand before a Board of Approval from the Pharisees and Sadducees, so He did not comply with their wishes. He did use this opportunity to say that they were unable to see the signs of the time of the Messiah all around them. They prided themselves in being able to predict the weather, but they could not see that a new gospel age was being born in front of their faces. The ultimate sign would soon come, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, an event he refers to cryptically here as the sign of Jonah. That Old Testament prophet spent time like a dead man in the belly of a fish and began a new life when he found himself again on dry land. Christ's body would soon rest briefly in the grave, but the sign of a new age would come with an empty tomb.

The Pharisees did not understand what he was saying, but then there was much that the Lord's disciples did not understand, and Jesus spoke to them more plainly. Our Lord warns his disciples that they must beware of the teaching of the leading Jewish parties of their time. In different ways these religious groups had embraced such serious errors that their teaching could not be safely received. It was a dangerous leaven that could soon spread throughout the Lord's followers. As Christ warned His disciples on this matter, they very mistakenly came to the conclusion that He was making some point about their need for physical bread; this after the Lord has now twice shown His ability to supply bread to thousands of people.

Yet it was at this moment, when the disciples seem to be so confused, that Peter actually confessed Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, and the Son of the living God. This was absolutely right, and was something that could only have come to him by God. The church would be built upon Christ, the true and only Rock, as both Peter and Paul would later write in their letters. He is the cornerstone, and the apostles will be the foundation aligned with that one perfect Stone, rejected by men, but chosen and precious in God's sight, Jesus Christ. The church that is built upon that apostolic foundation has been granted by her Lord the sacred task of receiving people into her number, and declaring their sins to be forgiven according to the Word of Christ. All who would believe in Him are called to profess their faith before God and man, for this Jesus is the divine Messiah, who alone can save us from our sins through His atoning death for us.

It is this last part that Peter immediately rejects, for when Christ speaks to His disciples about His coming suffering, His death, and His resurrection, Peter takes Him aside and has the audacity to rebuke the one He just called the Son of God for suggesting that He would soon die. Jesus is uncompromising in His rejection of Peter's unholy sentiment. His earlier confession had come from heaven, but this rejection of the cross comes from hell, and the one who speaks it, speaks for Satan.

The cross is the way of God for the Messiah and His followers, but it is not the way of the world. The true followers of Jesus must travel in this way of the cross. They will embrace the death of Christ for them as their only hope, and they will follow in a kind of sacrificial living, since the call of our King will be a call to suffering and even death. They are willing to face loss now, since they believe that the Son of Man has not only died for us, but He is coming back for us from heaven. He will come with angels in the glory of God, and He will judge the living and the dead, repaying them according to their deeds.

This is the story of the real Kingdom of God. That kingdom will one day come in glory, a glory that a few of the disciples will shortly see with their own eyes at the transfiguration of Christ. That miracle was a glimpse into heavenly light. We do not live in heaven right now, but we live with the assurance that heaven is real, and that it is better to be in the number of those who are headed toward heaven than to have all that the world can offer us many times over.

The theology of the Pharisees and the Sadducees would never lead anyone to a cross. They surely wanted the crown, but they would get that crown through careful obedience to their own laws or through the cultivation of relationships of influence with the right sort of people. But this is not the way that the kingdom of heaven comes to men. That kingdom comes through a cross and a resurrection. This is the life that has saved us, and it is the life that we are called to live even now, a life that was most powerfully testified to through the sign of Jonah.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Matthew 15

The religion of the Pharisees and the scribes had become a religion full of man-made traditions. Especially prominent among these traditions were rituals concerning washing. These were so firmly imbedded within the mindset of religious Jews, that it was generally thought by the people of the day that this way of cleansing was the God-fearing way of life. This is why people were asking Jesus about this issue. It seemed obvious to them that the leader of a movement that professed allegiance to Israel's God would certainly keep the established traditions of the elders concerning ceremonial washing.

In answering their concerns, the Lord first exposes the fact that they have grown used to preferring their traditions to the explicit commandments of God. We need to notice that Christ is showing again the depths of God's Law, while the Pharisees are emphasizing outward rituals that could easily be followed by those who had no real love for God or for people. He turns to the fifth commandment, and rather than minimize the obligations of the Law through traditions that defined ways of guaranteeing that someone could be sure to look holy, Jesus teaches us that our obedience to God includes caring for our elderly parents when they are in need. It is the height of anti-religion to figure out outward ceremonies that feign devotion to the Lord, and then to allow one's parents to suffer without any help that could have been given to them.

This is not following the heart of a God of mercy, it is man-made hypocrisy. Such things were frequently spoken against in the Old Testament prophetic books. Jesus is saying nothing new here in exposing this kind of behavior. Isaiah had forcefully pressed this point centuries earlier when He had distinguished between the Law of God and the commandments of men. Those who focus on the latter at the expense of the former misrepresent God, and are only pretending to serve Him when their hearts are very far from Him.

He then returns to the matter of unclean hands which was the specific issue that the Pharisees had addressed. Our Lord indicates that the uncleanness that they need to concern themselves with is not the supposed outward uncleanness that comes from a lack of attention to ceremonial washing traditions, but the inward uncleanness of sin that originates in our depraved hearts, an uncleanness which soon finds expression in our speech and our lives. This is the most serious problem of being unclean that we could ever have, and no amount of water-sprinkling will ever take such a deep problem away.

The disciples of Jesus were very concerned that the words of Christ had offended the Pharisees. It should be of far greater concern to all of us that we offend God when we give ourselves over to idolatry and man-made ceremonies. Jesus speaks plainly about the dead-end pathway of Pharisaic Judaism. It is not the way of life. It is the way of blind men leading other blind men, all the while pretending that they can see better than anyone else. One of the purposes of Christ in His ministry is to show to all that the way of the kingdom of God is very different than this.

In contrast to those who are so sure of their righteousness, but are actually far from the kingdom, Matthew then relates the story of a woman who is not a Jew, a woman who is desperate for the mercy of Jesus Christ. At first it appears that she will be rejected precisely because she is not of the Israelites. Yet it quickly becomes clear that our Lord has only seemed to dismiss this woman, and His initial response has brought forth from her a wonderful humble statement of faith in Him. Yes, she knows that she belongs with the dogs, yet the dogs around the table of Jesus could certainly lick up the crumbs of the floor, and a crumb from the table of this Jewish Messiah is all that she would need that day. She finds not rejection, but abundant mercy. She was not alone in finding help. Matthew tells us that there were so many desperate people who were receiving powerful healing as our Lord displayed His love and mercy to the weak.

Not only were their afflictions removed by the Messiah, but once again a large crowd of people found their needs supplied, as the Lord gave bread to thousands. All of these miracles were great displays of the glory of Christ and the bounty of His coming kingdom. Where does all this powerful help for the unworthy come from? The God who extends mercy to us through His Son is not only a God of compassion; He is also a God of justice. The same Christ who healed the sick, and who gave us glimpses of a much better day beyond the curse, was the Jesus who would fulfill all righteousness, and then died as the perfect Lamb of God.

It is only from the blood of this Lamb that we can be truly clean. It is only from His great work of sacrificial love that can we know anything close to permanent healing. The proper attitude of the one who wishes this kind of extravagant blessing is not a proud insistence on some supposed claim of ceremonial righteousness, but a great cry of thanksgiving. Such praise can only come from the humble who are poor in spirit, those who recognize they have no recommendation in themselves that could justify such a glorious redemption, and who see the great worth of even a crumb of mercy granted to us from the table of the Son of God.