Reconciliation: God’s Solution to Alienation

Posted by David on February 25, 2001 under Sermons

Our society has a Ph.D. in alienation. Every teenager and every adult know what alienation is. Most of us have personal experience with alienation. Even though I wish it were not so, too many preteens have experienced alienation. Stated simply, alienation is the separation of two individuals or groups who have experienced togetherness. In this sense, alienation produces the unfriendliness, the hostility, or the indifference that separates two persons or two groups.

In the following, I used the most recent statistics available. In 1998, there were 1,135,000 divorces in the United States. In 1999, 27% [more than one in four] of the children in the United States lived in a one parent home. Over half of the Americans who are alive this morning will experience one or more step situations before they die. Each day 1,300 new step-families are formed in this country. Of these families, two out of three will divorce. Most divorced people remarry, and most remarriages involve children.

If we only consider family realities, most Americans experience alienation first hand. Yet, alienation experiences certainly are not restricted to family situations. Have you ever had a good friend who became an enemy?

1. One of life’s helpless feelings is the earnest desire to end alienation, and to be unable to end it.
   1. Consider an adult, of any age in any situation, who desperately wants alienation to end and reconciliation to begin, but cannot make it happen.
      1. This person’s heart yearns for reconciliation.
      2. He or she make sincere efforts to reconcile, but every effort fails.
      3. He or she is confused because he or she does not understand why the alienation happened or why reconciliation cannot happen.
      4. Or, he or she is grieved because he or she knows what caused the alienation but cannot do anything about it.

   2. Consider an adult, of any age in any situation, who desperately wants alienation to end and reconciliation to begin with God, but thinks it is impossible.
      1. Do you remember an experience when you felt like a Mack truck hit you?
         1. You feel totally crushed.
         2. You do not know what hit you.
         3. You simply do not know what happened, but it was bad!
      2. Life’s experiences can run over you like a eighteen-wheeler.
         1. Life’s events can run over you with guilt, depression, despair, and grief.
         2. When they do, you can feel the separation from God.
         3. Your heart yearns for reconciliation.
         4. And you try to be “good enough” for association with God, but you cannot.
         5. You see your own flaws and failures, and you grieve–there is nothing you can do to change the past and “make it right.”

   3. If what you do is search for a way that you of yourself can “fix” your relationship with God, you are right–there is nothing you can do.
      1. You of yourself cannot destroy the alienation.
      2. You of yourself cannot create reconciliation.
      3. You of yourself never can associate with God because you are “good enough.”
      4. If what you are trying to do is deserve relationship with God, it cannot happen.

2. Let’s play a game of questions and answers.
   1. Question # 1: What was God’s basic objective in sending Jesus to this world?
      1. Answer: “God’s objective was to give the world a Savior.”
      2. Most of us agree God’s basic objective was to give the world a Savior.

   2. Question # 2: What is a Savior?
      1. Answer: “A Savior rescues us from a situation that will destroy us.”
      2. Most of us agree that a Savior rescues us from destructive situations.

   3. Question # 3: How do people learn about this Savior?
      1. Answer: “People learn about the Savior by hearing the ‘gospel.'”
      2. Most of us agree that people learn about the Savior by hearing the gospel.

   4. Question # 4: What is the “gospel”?
      1. Answer: “The ‘gospel’ is the ‘good news.'”
      2. Most of us understand that “gospel” means “good news.”

   5. Question # 5: What is the “good news”?
      1. I do not want to try to answer that question.
      2. In the claim of “preaching the gospel” the religious world has shared every attitude and perspective imaginable, and so have we.
      3. “Paul, why don’t you help us understand what the good news is?”
         Colossians 1:19-22 For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in [Jesus], and through [Jesus] to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven. And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet [Jesus] has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach
         1. God the Father’s pleasure was for the divine fullness to live in Jesus.
         2. God the Father’s pleasure was to reconcile everything to Himself through Jesus.
         3. God the Father’s pleasure was to make peace through the blood of Jesus’ cross.
         4. The Christians at Colossae needed to understand before they were Christians their evil deeds alienated them from God.
         5. But, Jesus died on the cross to reconcile them to God.
         6. Jesus made it possible for people to stand before God as holy, blameless people who were beyond reproach.
         7. Christians can stand before God as holy and blameless because Jesus reconciled them to God.
         8. What is the good news? In Jesus, we are reconciled to God.
            Romans 5:10,11 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
         9. Paul told the Christians at Rome that God paid the full price for everyone’s reconciliation while people were still enemies, still alienated from God.
         10. If God by choice paid the price of reconciliation while people were His enemies, God will do much more than that by saving us in Jesus’ new life.
         11. So God is the Christian’s greatest, highest joy. Why? Jesus Christ ended the alienation and reconciled us to God.

   6. Just how much did God want to reconcile us to Him?
      2 Corinthians 5:18-21 Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
      1. You never wanted anything as much as God wants to reconcile us to Himself.
      2. Think of something you want and have wanted above everything else, and realize God wants reconciliation with you more.
      3. What God did in Christ was reconcile the world to himself.
      4. God gave Paul and his mission companions the ministry of reconciliation–God wanted them to inform everyone that God paid the price of reconciliation.
         1. God did not use Christ to take an accurate count of people’s sins.
         2. God used Christ to destroy sin so we could have reconciliation.
      5. God wanted reconciliation so much that He made Jesus sin for us so we might become God’s righteousness in Jesus.

3. So, how do people react to that good news? Different people react in different ways.
   1. Some people react by declaring that is totally useless information
      1. In fact, they say it is not even information.
      2. To them there is no God, no good, no evil, no right, no wrong, no alienation, and no reconciliation.
      3. To them, religion is useless and Christianity is “bad news.”

   2. Some people react by declaring, “I do not need reconciliation because I am basically a good person. Evil is not and never has been a problem in my life.”
      1. “There are no absolutes; nothing is always good or bad.”
      2. “Every consideration of good and evil is relative.”
      3. “God is not upset with me–everything between God and me is cool.”
      4. “God wants me to be happy, and that is what life is all about–me being happy.”

   3. Some people react by acknowledging that guilt, despair, and depression are major problems.
      1. Many of these people try to “fix” problems on their own.
      2. They try to be good and do right, but the harder they try the deeper the guilt and despair become.
      3. Peace is not an option in their lives.
      4. They are convinced God would never look at them; their situation is hopeless.

   4. Some react by saying, “I do not need reconciliation nor an understanding of reconciliation.”
      1. “God is obligated to take care of me.”
      2. “I did what He said I must do.”
      3. “God owes me.”
      4. “Because God owes me, reconciliation is not an issue for me.”

   5. Where are you? What is your reaction?

4. I conclude the following scripture I want to share with you is Paul writing about himself.
   1. Paul had the whole range of experiences: keeper of the law, expert in the scriptures, religious persecutor, guilt’s devastation, dependence on the grace of God.
   2. Please read and listen.
      1. Hear the despair.
      2. Hear the solution.
         Romans 7:18-8:2 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin. Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.
         1. The despair: human effort cannot make a person pure. Our mistakes always condemn us.
         2. The solution: there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

[Prayer: God, help us accept and trust reconciliation in Jesus Christ.]

Are you alienated from God? Or, do you live in peace because you live in God’s reconciliation?

Liberating Faith: Obedience (part 2)

Posted by David on February 18, 2001 under Sermons

Because of several good things that happened the last three Sundays, four weeks have passed since my last Sunday evening lesson. A painful part of preaching is being honest with yourself. In all honesty, as painful as it is to admit, I doubt many of you still retain much of what I shared four weeks ago. My first objective in tonight’s lesson is to connect tonight’s lesson to my last lesson on obedience.

The “over-all” theme we are considering is “Liberating Faith.” I want us to believe and respond to everything God reveals about Himself, His Son, His Spirit, His will, and His purposes. I do not want us to mistrust or reject anything God reveals. I do not want us to oversimplify anything God reveals.

I want us to do three things in understanding God’s will and purposes. (1) I want us to base our understandings on God’s perspective and balance as revealed through His word, scripture. (2) I want us to grow in the awareness of all God did and is doing through Jesus Christ. (3) I want us to accept, even welcome, the discomfort of spiritual growth and development. [I personally know and understand that spiritual growth and development produces personal discomfort!]

1. In my last lesson on “Liberating Faith” we started studying obedience.
   1. Many of us, maybe all of us, have oversimplified God’s concept of obedience.
      1. We oversimplified the definition of obedience: “Obedience is doing what God says.”
         1. “God is the authority.”
         2. “You must yield to authority.”
         3. “You do what God says you must do.”
      2. In that definition, the primary focus [maybe even the exclusive focus] of obedience is on physical acts.
         1. Obedience is simply a matter of doing the right acts.
         2. Stated negatively, most Christians are confident that a person obeys God if he or she does not rebel against God.
      3. That concept and definition of obedience is an oversimplification.

   2. Tonight I will not present again the material in the lesson of 1/21/01 p.m.
      1. If you want to consider that material in detail, it is available to you on audio tape, in written copy supplied by the office, or on our Web site.
      2. To basically recap that material:
         1. We looked at the Sabbath command [one of the ten commandments] found in Exodus 20:8-10 and noted it clearly stated the Sabbath day [the seventh day, Saturday] must be kept holy by Israel by not working.
         2. We looked at Leviticus 15:32-36 and noted the execution of a man who worked on the Sabbath day by picking up sticks.
         3. We looked at the fall of Jericho (Joshua 6) and noted that on the Sabbath that the military at least marched around the city.
      3. My personal conclusion is that Israel’s army fought the battle that conquered Jericho on the Sabbath.
         1. That is my personal conclusion because Exodus 20:10 specifically declared the seventh day is the Sabbath.
         2. Joshua 6:4 states the attack was to occur on the seventh day.
         3. Israel’s victory over Jericho had a highly symbolic significance to Israel.
            1. One of the reasons Israel did not enter Canaan about a year after leaving Egypt was their fear of walled cities (Number 13:28).
            2. Joshua, Caleb, Moses, and Aaron told them that God could give them victory even over a land of walled cities (Numbers 14:7-9).
            3. Thirty-nine years later when Israel began conquering Canaan, God gave them the first city, a walled city.
         4. The fall of Jericho was a constant symbol of the fact that Israel would conquer Canaan because God would be with them.
         5. My conclusion is this: God took that symbolism to its height in two ways:
            1. God brought the walls down.
            2. God did it on the Sabbath.
            3. So all the spoil taken by that battle belonged to God.

   3. When I take all this into consideration [the Exodus 20 Sabbath law; the Leviticus 15 execution of the Sabbath violator; and the fall of Jericho], this is my conclusion: obedience is the complex response to God.
      1. The obedience response involves far more than human acts.
      2. An action without faith is meaningless.
      3. An action without repentance is meaningless.
      4. If obedience occurs, it must involve the mind, the heart, and the act.
      5. The act always depends on understanding God’s priorities and purposes.

   4. I really appreciated your responses.
      1. Let me suggest three kinds of response, some vocal, some silent.
      2. Response one: “I have never thought about Jericho being marched around or attacked on the Sabbath.”
      3. Response two: “That unsettles me. What does it mean? I always have considered obedience to be such a simple thing.”
      4. Response three: “David, I think that you are snatching straws out of the air.”
         1. “We decided a long time ago what obedience is.”
         2. “That closed the matter, and we should not reopen it.”

2. Do you think that Jesus “snatched straws out of the air?”
   1. In the first century, the Pharisees were the best versed, best read, most accurate students of scripture.
      1. Even Jesus acknowledged their factual knowledge was accurate (Matthew 23:2,3).
      2. Yet, their leaders viciously attacked Jesus’ teachings and actions.
      3. Their criticisms and judgments were intended to destroy Jesus’ credibility and effectiveness.
      4. They constantly challenged:
         1. Jesus’ understanding of the scripture.
         2. Jesus’ application of the scripture.

   2. Interestingly, one of their continuing, constant challenges was this: Jesus violated the Sabbath.
      1. When Jesus countered their criticisms concerning the Sabbath, he called their attention to the same types of situations I asked you to consider in the last lesson.
      2. Jesus’ disagreements with the Pharisees and scribes about what constituted working on the Sabbath day resulted in the Pharisees feeling enormous animosity against Jesus.

   3. Consider Matthew 12:1-7.
      1. The situation:
         1. It was a Sabbath day, a Saturday.
         2. It was harvest time.
         3. Jesus and his disciples were walking along the edges of grain fields (the line that paths commonly took).
         4. His disciples were hungry, so they stripped the “heads” of the mature grain from their stems and ate the raw grain.
      2. The accusation:
         1. The Pharisees, following them, looking for faults and mistakes, said the disciples broke the law.
         2. They violated the law by violating the Sabbath.
         3. They violated the Sabbath because eating the grain necessitated the act of harvesting which was an act of work.

   4. Jesus said there were three basic problems with their accusation.
      1. First, “you form your concepts and conclusions before you consider the full information of scripture.”
         1. When David fled from King Saul, David asked for and took from the priest the shewbread [the twelve loaves of bread that represented the twelve tribes of Israel in the tabernacle] for emergency rations (1 Samuel 21:1-6).
         2. Such bread was to be in the tabernacle before God continually (Exodus 25:30).
         3. It was to be renewed [replaced] every Sabbath day as an everlasting covenant (Leviticus 24:8).
         4. That bread was holy, and only the priests were allowed to eat it (Leviticus 24:9).
         5. However, the priest gave it to David [who was not a priest], David ate, and nowhere did God condemn the priest or David.
         6. Jesus declared that was relevant in forming a complete, correct concept of God and Sabbath expectations.
      2. Second, “you form your concepts and conclusions without considering exceptions.”
         1. The priests violated every Sabbath by offering sacrifices.
         2. Offering sacrifices involved major acts of work.
         3. Yet, God expected them to work and did not condemn it.
         4. If the pharisees justification was that this work was required to maintain the temple, they needed to understand that Jesus was more important than the temple.
      3. Third, “you form your concepts and conclusions in ignorance of God’s full intents and purposes.”
         1. Hosea [a prophet of God to the northern ten tribes of Israel] told those people they did not have a proper understanding of scripture.
         2. Jesus said neither did the Pharisees have a correct understanding.
         3. Hosea said (Hosea 6:6) that God desires compassion, not sacrifice.
         4. Jesus said, “You have no compassion; you condemn the innocent.”
         5. Without compassion for people, a sacrifice given to God has no meaning.
         6. Let’s put that in words we use and understand.
            1. Sacrifices were commanded acts of worship.
            2. Commanded acts of worship are meaningless to God when the people who worship have no compassion for others.
            3. Jesus said, “If you Pharisees understood that, you would not have judged and condemned my disciples.”

3. Let’s be honest by examining the obvious (at the cost of painful awareness).
   1. First, Jesus declared there were relevant considerations in understanding the Sabbath law that we would not likely use.
      1. David eating the holy bread did not directly involve the Sabbath.
      2. The priests offering sacrifices on the Sabbath did directly involve the Sabbath.
      3. Hosea’s statement did not directly involve the Sabbath.
      4. However, Jesus declared all three examples were relevant to understanding God and His interactions with people.
      5. Therefore, when you fail to properly understand God, you cannot understand the Sabbath.
      6. If you understand God, it will affect the way you treat people.
      7. If you do not understand how to treat people properly, the worship you offer to God has no meaning to God.

   2. Second, Jesus said understanding his true identity is the number one relevant consideration in understanding the will and purposes of God.
      1. The Pharisees did not understand Jesus’ true identity.
      2. The basic reason they failed to understand Jesus’ identity was this: Jesus did not agree with or endorse their conclusions, and they were the experts in scripture.
      3. Because they failed to understand who Jesus was, they failed to understand God’s purposes in Scripture.
      4. The result: the people who should have been Jesus’ greatest friends actually were Jesus’ greatest enemies.
      5. That is scary!

It is impossible to understand everything we need to understand when we become a Christian. It is impossible to understand everything we need to understand in a lifetime of faith. There will never be a point in our lives when we do not need to grow spiritually. The easiest thing to do is stop growing. We must never, never do that!

Atonement: Paying the Bill

Posted by David on under Sermons

People are quite different. That is an undeniable fact. The fact we are different is the foundation of many crises. Almost every teenager considers his or her family weird because everyone in the family is different. Then we marry someone different. And, after a few years of trying to change the person we marry to be “like me”, the differences distresses us. At the same time, we have children, and every child we have is different. And those differences distress us. Then our children become teenagers, and they think their family weird because everyone is different. And the cycle begins all over again.

People are quite different. When we look at the same thing, what we see is different. When we hear the same thing, what we hear is different. When we examine the same facts, we come to different conclusions. When we consider the same concepts, we reach different determinations.

1. Consider some common understandings about “paying life’s bills.”
   1. Some were taught this basic understanding of life: “I made my bed; now I must lie in it.”
      1. Life is about enduring consequences.
      2. In this concept, a person “pays the bills” by living with their mistakes.
      3. Whatever the consequences, you live with them.
      4. That is only “fair;” you made the mistake, so you pay the consequences.

   2. Others were taught this understanding: “I got myself into this; it is up to me to get myself out of it.”
      1. Life is about escaping consequences.
      2. In this concept, there is a way out, but it is up to “me” to find it.
      3. “I” must accept full responsibility; that is the only way that “I” can escape consequences in life.
      4. If “I’ do the right things, “I” can escape consequences, but “I” have to do it; it is up to “me.”

   3. Others reach adult life with this conviction: “There are no bills to pay, and if bills exist, someone else should pay them.”
      1. In life, there are no consequences.
      2. Life is about “me,” and everything exists to benefit “me.”
      3. Even when someone else pays, if “I” use it, it is “mine.”
      4. “I” have no responsibilities; “I” only have rights.
      5. Let me share an example of this thought process: if “I” have primary use of a car, the car is “mine.”
         1. Dad may be making the payments.
         2. The company I work for may own the title.
         3. But if “I” use it, it is “my” car!
         4. Possession is determined by use, not by who pays the bill.

   4. These three understandings are also three views of life.
      1. “I made my bed, so I must lie in it” declares it is impossible to escape the consequences of my mistakes. Life is about living with consequences.
      2. “I got myself into this, so I must get myself out of it” declares mistakes can be escaped, but escape is all up to me. Life is about escaping consequences.
      3. “There are no bills to pay” declares significant mistakes cannot happen, and I will not accept consequences. When bad things happen, it is not “my” fault.
      4. All three views are in fundamental error.

2. To understand this situation, we need to understand a basic truth about God.
   1. The truth: God and evil are total, complete, exact opposites.
      1. The presence of evil and the presence of God exclude each other.
      2. That is why evil cannot stand good and good cannot stand evil.
      3. Good and evil are enemies dedicated to each other’s destruction.

   2. That puts all of us in a major crisis.
      1. Everyone of us is guilty of evil.
      2. There always are things in our minds, our hearts, and our actions that oppose God’s will and purposes. That means three things.
         1. Every person is guilty of his own evil.
         2. Unresolved evil, without exception, excludes a person from God.
         3. No one of himself or herself can solve the problem of personal evil.

   3. That crisis is seen in two facts.
      1. None of us, of ourselves, can approach God because God is absolute purity and each of us is evil.
      2. It is impossible for us of ourselves to produce reconciliation with God.
      3. If any of us saw ourselves through God’s eyes for thirty seconds, we could not stand what we saw.
         1. If you doubt that, consider Isaiah’s reaction when he had that experience.
         2. Isaiah found himself in God’s presence, and he immediately reacted.
         3. Isaiah 6:5 Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.
         4. If it is only me, I do not dare approach the holy God–not in prayer, not in worship, not in repentance, not in anything.
      4. Yet, God wants us to approach Him.
         1. Therein is the problem.
         2. God wants me to approach Him, but my evil and His purity make that impossible.

3. Look at the problem: the holy, pure God cannot be approached by people guilty of evil.
   1. God in His purity cannot be approached by impure people.
      1. Just as human nature is made of many parts and is complex, God’s nature is made of many parts and is complex.
      2. We like some parts of God’s nature: God is loving, merciful, kind, forgiving, compassionate.
      3. But God’s nature also includes wrath, justice, absolute holiness, and absolute purity.

   2. God is totally removed from evil.
      1. For us, that is a problem.
      2. We are evil; we even consider some of our evil to be good.
      3. The result: our evil makes it impossible for us to approach God.

4. God solved the problem none of us could solve, and God’s solution is called atonement.
   1. In the Old Testament, Israel could approach God if Israel atoned for their evil by offering animal sacrifices.
      1. The Hebrew words for “atonement” come from a common root word that means “covering.”
      2. Atonement allows two who are estranged to come together as one.
      3. We do not use the word “atonement” much; we use the word “reconciliation.”
      4. The Old Testament word is atonement; the New Testament word is reconciliation.
      5. In the Old Testament, the people of Israel could approach God because they offered animal sacrifices.
         1. The animal’s life and blood “covered” their sin and allowed them to approach God.
         2. But the life and the blood of a sacrificed animal “covered” the people’s evil only for the moment; animal sacrifices could not permanently “cover” evil.

   2. For a permanent solution, someone “had to pay the bill in full.”
      1. Humanity’s evil created an enormous “bill.”
      2. Our individual “bill” was enormous.
      3. Humanity, collectively or individually, could not pay the “bill.”

   3. For atonement to work, some definite conditions were required.
      1. The sacrificial animal had to be “perfect;” or in Old Testament words, “without blemish.”
      2. The sacrifice had to cost; evil was and is a serious matter.
         1. It cost the sacrificial animal its life.
         2. It cost the one who offered the sacrifice the best animal he had.
      3. To use words familiar to us, atonement required the sacrificial death of the perfect specimen.

   4. Permanent atonement exists for us because God “paid the bill:” God sacrificed the life of the perfect specimen.
      1. God let His sinless Son die on the cross.
      2. Listen:
         Hebrews 10:4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
         Hebrews 10:10-14 By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but He (Jesus), having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

5. The more I understand Jesus Christ, the more terrified I am by what I see among Christians.
   1. Let me ask you to read a scripture with me.
      Ephesians 4:17-20 So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. But you did not learn Christ in this way.
      1. Paul was writing to Christians who in their past did not even know God.
      2. He said, “Christians cannot live and act like people who do not know God. Christians cannot have the attitudes, the emotions, or the value system that people who do not know God have. Christians cannot treat others as do people who do not know God.”
      3. “It is not possible to know Jesus Christ and act like people who do not know God.”
      4. “You were not taught Jesus Christ in a way that told you to act like godless people.”

   2. Why is it impossible for people who know Jesus Christ to live like godless people?
      1. When I accept Jesus’ atonement, God renews the spirit of my mind (Ephesians 4:23).
      2. When I accept Jesus’ atonement, I want God to re-create me in the righteousness and holiness of truth (Ephesians 4:24).
      3. When I understand Jesus’ atonement, I want to be the new self who lives in God’s likeness (Ephesians 4:24).

   3. Why? Why would an adult ever choose to be baptized into Christ?
      1. Why would anyone choose to be buried into Christ?
      2. Why? Atonement! Reconciliation!
      3. Jesus died on the cross, was buried in the tomb, was raised to a new life for me.
      4. When I understand atonement, when I understand God was covering my sins in Jesus’ death, I want to die with Jesus, be buried with Jesus, and be resurrected with Jesus.
         1. Jesus did that for me so I could be one with God; Jesus reconciled God and me.
         2. I want to participate in Jesus’ death and resurrection so I can be one with God.

[Prayer: “God, help us see and understand everything You did for us in Christ.”]

Atonement means no one has to lie in the bed he or she made. Atonement means it is not up to me to discover the way to escape consequences. Atonement means all of us make mistakes–big ones. Atonement means God paid the bill in full with His own Son’s death to “cover” my evil. Atonement means that I can be reconciled to God.

Because we are all different, atonement individually reconciles us to God by individually “covering” the evil in our individual lives. That “covering” is permanent. We recognize that “covering” as forgiveness. A Christian needs to believe and repent every day. A Christian does not need to be baptized every day. Have you accepted the atonement?

God Is the One Who Justifies

Posted by David on February 4, 2001 under Sermons

There are many experiences I hope I never have. I hope I never lose my freedom. I hope I never exist without love. I hope I never live in circumstances that show me no respect. I hope I never live in a situation completely ruled by fear. I hope that I am never forced to exist without hope.

It appears to me that people use two basic approaches attempting to escape adversity. The first approach simply stated is never attract attention to yourself. Be as invisible as you can. If no one sees you, other people never think of you. Therefore they do not cause you trouble. The second approach also simply stated is maintain a high profile that radiates strength and power. If you are too important to bother, no one will bother you. If you are too powerful to bother, no one will bother you.

Both approaches can be stated simply. Neither approach is accomplished simply. People who attract no attention are sometimes considered weak. Their perceived weakness can attract a lot of attention when adversity strikes. People who maintain a high profile that radiates strength and power are sometimes considered the target. People who use adversity greedily want their position. When adversity strikes, high profiles can become challenges.

Whose attention do you want to avoid if at all possible? Some do not want to attract God’s attention. Speaking personally, I want God’s attention. I would like to avoid Satan’s attention.

1. One day Satan had the audacity to walk in on a meeting God was conducting (Job 1:6).
   1. Instead of making Satan leave, God interviewed him (Job 1:7-12).
      1. God: “Where have you been?”
      2. Satan: “Roaming around the earth.”
      3. God: “Did you notice Job? He is the most outstanding follower I have on earth.”
      4. Satan: “He should be the way You protect him. He is not stupid; the only reason he follows You is because he knows it would be foolish not to follow You. If he lost Your protection, Job would curse You.”

   2. God knew Job followed Him because of faith, not because of the physical blessings.
      1. God said, “You can do what you wish, but do not touch him.”
      2. In quick order, Job lost everything, but Job did not blame God (Job 1:13-22).

   3. Satan visited God again, and God again interviewed him (Job 2:1-6).
      1. God: “Where have you been?”
      2. Satan: “I have been roaming around the earth.”
      3. God: “What do you think about Job now? He lost everything without cause, and he still is a man of integrity.”
      4. Satan: “Oh, but You still protect him. Let him suffer, and he will curse you.”
      5. God: “You may cause him suffering, but you may not kill him.”

   4. In that way we are introduced to an ancient question that we still struggle with today: why does a godly person suffer?
      1. Three of Job’s friends came to visit and explain why these ordeals fell on Job.
         1. They take turns explaining why this happened.
         2. All their explanations were wrong, and Job knew they were wrong.
         3. Job answered each argument presented to him.
      2. The fact that the arguments were wrong made Job increasingly bold.
         1. Job was so convinced of the injustice of the whole situation that he was certain he could argue the injustice to God…and win (Job 23:1-7)!
         2. Finally God spoke to Job, and instantly Job realized there were aspects of the situation that he knew nothing about (Job 38-40:5).

   5. There are a lot of questions we have about Job, but there is one certain thing we never want to happen: we never want Satan making accusations against us to God.

2. Zechariah 3 informs us of another interesting situation.
   1. Some of the Israelites who were in Babylonian captivity returned to Jerusalem.
      1. The first tasks were to rebuild the temple, reestablish the priesthood, and restore sacrificial worship.
         1. Zerubbabel started rebuilding the temple, but the project came to a stand still (Ezra 4 and 5).
         2. Even when the temple was completed, the priesthood had to be activated and a high priest put into position.
      2. Both challenges–the rebuilding the temple and putting a high priest in place–were enormous challenges.

   2. This is my understanding of what happened in Zechariah 3:1-5.
      1. God selected Joshua to be high priest [Joshua was the grandson of the high priest in office when the temple was destroyed].
      2. Satan stood at Joshua’s right hand to accuse him.
         1. Satan’s accusation: “God, you cannot make Joshua high priest. By Your own standards this is not right.”
         2. “Joshua is not pure; his impurity prevents him from serving as high priest.”
      3. God rebuked Satan.
         1. God had an angel standing near Joshua to remove his filthy clothes.
         2. By removing the filthy clothes, God destroyed Joshua’s iniquity.
         3. Then God clothed him in clothing suitable for the high priest’s work.

3. In both situations, Satan served a common role.
   1. Satan was Job’s accuser before God.
      1. Satan challenged Job’s motives.
      2. Satan questioned Job’s faith in God.
      3. Satan the accuser caused Job’s suffering in an attempt to prove that Job had ulterior motives for following God.

   2. Satan was Joshua’s accuser before God.
      1. That is why Satan was there: to accuse Joshua.
      2. It was Satan who challenged Joshua’s fitness to be high priest.
      3. It was Satan who wanted God to focus on Joshua’s mistakes.

   3. I think I can predict many of our reactions: “I certainly do not want Satan making me and my mistakes a topic of his accusations before God.”
      1. If you are a Christian, Satan cannot do that to you.
      2. Satan does not now have the access to God that he had when Job and Joshua lived.
      3. God does not listen to Satan’s accusations now as He did then.
      4. Now God will not listen to Satan’s accusations against His people.
      5. Why? What is the difference between now and the ages when Job and Joshua lived?
         1. The why and the difference have the same answer, the same reason.
         2. Satan does not have access to God now because of Jesus Christ.
         3. Satan cannot accuse God’s people now because of Jesus Christ.

4. Perhaps your reaction is, “Aw, David, that is ridiculous! I think you are just pulling that out of the air somewhere.”
   1. Consider with me Romans 8:31-34.
      What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.
      1. Paul wrote this statement to the Christians in Rome who experienced a lot of suffering.
      2. Paul wanted them to understand these things:
         1. Our eternal blessings will make the sufferings of now seem insignificant.
         2. We are sustained in our painful experiences by this expectation.
         3. When we are so distressed that we do not know what to say, the Spirit intercedes for us.
         4. If we love God and seek to fulfill God’s purpose, God will use every experience we have to produce eternal good for us.

   2. This is my understanding of the scripture we read.
      1. God is on our side–always.
      2. If God invested His son’s death in us, we should understand God will do whatever it takes to keep us for Himself.
      3. No one can accuse the man or woman who lives in Christ because God justified that person.
         1. When God looks at His people, He does not see our flaws and failures.
         2. Justification in Jesus Christ destroys our flaws and failures.
         3. No accusations can be made; in Christ we are forgiven; our mistakes are destroyed.
         4. Jesus did and does three things for us: he died for us; he was resurrected for us; he intercedes before God for us.
      4. If we belong to God, there is nothing Satan can do that will remove us from God.
         1. Can we be tempted? Yes.
         2. Can we sin? Yes.
         3. Can we choose to leave God? Yes.
         4. But if we do, we separate ourselves from God; Satan cannot.
         5. We have a tempter, but we do not have an accuser.

God’s justification makes it impossible for us humans to be each others judges. Satan cannot accuse the person in Christ, and people cannot judge the person in Christ.

Why? Justification destroys Satan’s power to condemn. Justification destroys people’s right to judge.

Does that mean godly people are free to do ungodly things? No, it means quite the opposite. Justification is not a license to sin. Justification means God did for us in Jesus what it was impossible to do for ourselves. We are totally dependent on God’s forgiveness. God knows the heart, knows the struggles, and knows our motives.

The issue will never be, “Are you perfect?” The issue will always be, “Is your heart and mind faithful to God?”

The Power of Our Joy

Posted by David on January 28, 2001 under Sermons

We do not know nearly what we need to know about joy. In our culture, we confuse joy with pretense, or lust, or greed, or selfishness, or indulgence. Joy is a vacation trip that lets me pretend I have escaped reality. Joy is an incredible high, regardless of how it produced. Joy is having what I want. Joy is no one bugging me. Joy is doing exactly what I want to do.

The New Testament places considerable emphasis on joy. My understanding of a fundamental New Testament message is this: joy is discovered and experienced in healthy relationships. Joy begins by entering a healthy relationship with God. That joy embraces a healthy relationship with Jesus Christ. There are three natural products of this joy. The first natural product is sharing that joy by establishing and nurturing healthy relationships with other Christians. The second natural product is sharing that joy with your physical family. The third natural product is sharing that joy with those who do not know God and Christ.

If our relationship with God reflects a life of distress and depression, we misrepresent God’s family, we penalize our physical families, and we sabotage our outreach. Everyone has more than enough distress in life. Too few are sustained in this evil world by God’s joys. We must realize that joy attracts people to God and His people like an outdoor light on an early June evening attracts flying insects.

1. Let me share some scriptures with you. Surely you are encouraged to read with me in your Bibles. Listen and think.
   1. The first scripture is very familiar to most of us; it describes the conduct of the first Jews who became Christians in Acts 2:44-47.
      And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.
   2. The second has to do with the persecution of the Jerusalem Christians: Act 8:1-4.
      And on that day a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Some devout men buried Stephen, and made loud lamentation over him. But Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house, and dragging off men and women, he would put them in prison. Therefore, those who had been scattered went about preaching the word.
      1. Can you imagine fleeing your home to escape imprisonment?
      2. Can you imagine sharing the message that made it necessary to flee?
      3. Did their joy in Christ have anything to do with that?

   3. The third scripture I want to share was a reaction to the existence of the first sizable non-Jewish congregation: Acts 11:22-24.
      1. The Jerusalem congregation, a Jewish congregation, had many questions about the congregation in Antioch, Christians who were not Jews.
      2. To answer their questions, they send Barnabas as their representative to evaluate this congregation.
         Acts 11:22-24 The news about them reached the ears of the church at Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas off to Antioch. Then when he arrived and witnessed the grace of God, he rejoiced and began to encourage them all with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord; for he was a good man, and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And considerable numbers were brought to the Lord.

   4. The fourth scripture was a plea and an encouragement Paul wrote from prison to Christians in Philippi: Philippians 2:1-4.
      Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.
   5. The fifth scripture gives us a incredible insight into the mind and thinking of those who endured persecution: Hebrews 10:32-36.
      1. These words were written to Christians [my understanding is to Jewish Christians] who endured persecution for years and were about to decide to deliberately abandon Jesus Christ.
      2. The writer challenged them to remember and not to leave Jesus Christ.
         Hebrews 10:32-36 But remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated. For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one. Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

   6. Now let me share with you the emphasis in several additional scriptures.
      1. Paul’s writing to the churches in the Roman province of Galatia declared in Galatians 5:22 that joy was a component of the fruit of the Spirit.
      2. In Acts 8:8 the result of Philip preaching about Christ and performing miracles in the city of Samaria was this: there was much rejoicing in that city.
      3. Acts 13:52, as a result of the teaching of Paul and Barnabas to non-Jewish Christians, these Christians were continually filled with joy.
      4. Acts 15:3 states that Paul and Barnabas reported on their mission work to non-Jewish Christians in Phonecia and Samaria, and those reports brought great joy to all the brethren.
      5. In the conclusion to his letter to the Christians in Rome, Paul wrote this:
         Romans 15:13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

2. Let me share some observations.
   1. Observation one: Christians must know each other if they are to share their joy meaningfully.
      1. Knowing each other requires more than “going to church building worship assembly” experiences.
      2. We cannot really know each other if all we do together is come to worship assemblies.
      3. That is one thing the churches I knew fifty years did really well–they shared their lives, and they knew each other.

   2. Observation two: Christians must respect and trust each other if they are to meaningfully share their joy.
      1. We do not trust and respect each other because “we are supposed to.”
      2. We trust and respect each other because we know each other.
      3. The joy produced by that trust and respect comes from the fact that we know each other.

   3. Observation three: Christians must associate in relaxed times to be joyful in distressed times.
      1. You never get to know me if the only time you spend with me is when I am stressed, “uptight,” or “on guard,” and I never get to know you if the only time I spend with you is when you are stressed, “uptight,” or “on guard.”
      2. We get to know each other when we are relaxed and laughing.
      3. We share more about ourselves and “open more windows” into our lives when we are relaxed and laughing than we ever share in other circumstances.

   4. Observation four: if we are to discover and share our joy, we must spend some “down time” together.
      1. We need to laugh together as godly people laugh.
      2. We need to have godly fun together.
      3. We need to relax together.
      4. We need to know each other to be able to care about each other.
      5. That takes association.

This congregation works to create “being together” opportunities. I appreciate each one of those opportunities and all those who make those opportunities possible. May we accept two challenges. The first challenge is to increase such opportunities. The second challenge is to do all we can to encourage friendships.

It is in our friendship with God, Christ, and each other that we will find our greatest, enduring joy. And Christian joy has great power. It has the power of eternal relationships.

Jesus Lived Here

Posted by David on under Sermons

Jesus said this in a prayer the night before he was killed.

John 17:1-5 Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.”

Paul wrote these statements years later when he urged Christians in the city of Philippi to stop rejecting and opposing each other.

Philippians 2:5-11 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

1. For centuries Christians have struggled to grasp the fullest meaning and significance of the fact that Jesus “emptied himself” when he was born.
   1. Many suggestions have been proposed through the centuries.
      1. Some suggested the “emptying himself” was just the fact that a preexistent divine being left heaven and became the human Jesus.
      2. Some suggested the “emptying himself” declared man Jesus was divine, but not fully human; the emptying focused on the fact that he lived on earth.
      3. Some suggested the “emptying himself” declared Jesus was fully divine and fully human; the emptying declared Jesus lived in a human body.
      4. Some suggested the “emptying himself” meant Jesus surrendered his divinity to experience the total human experience and depend on trusting God.
      5. My conclusion: no person in this world, bound by this world can comprehend fully Jesus’ experience of “emptying himself.”
         1. Every person will comprehend in the fullest sense.
         2. That comprehension will occur the moment we pass from our world to God’s world, and it may be our first comprehension.

   2. In that which concerns Jesus, we know this about the emptying:
      1. Jesus’ incarnation (the divine one being born into this world as a flesh and blood human) was the first of God’s two greatest interventions in history.
         1. The other great act was God’s act of raising Jesus from the dead.
         2. God intervened in human history a number of times, but the incarnation and the resurrection are God’s two greatest interventions.
      2. Jesus willingly, by choice, made sacrifices in becoming human that no one in any age can fully comprehend.
         1. He did not cling to his divine form.
         2. He willingly become human.
      3. He became human to humble himself in human existence.
         1. The greatest act of humility on earth is unselfishly surrendering life.
         2. Jesus humbly surrendered life.
         3. He died the most disgraceful, disgusting, debasing death possible in his day: he was executed on a cross as a criminal.
         4. He died in complete unselfishness.

   3. In that which concerns us, this is what we know about the emptying:
      1. As Christians we are to learn and be controlled by the same attitude that led Jesus to first empty and then humble himself.
      2. The man or woman who commits to a godly life in Jesus Christ empties himself or herself and then humbles himself or herself after the emptying.
      3. Emptying self in devotion to God cannot be separated from self-sacrifice.

2. We live in a complex culture in a complex age among complex people.
   1. We struggle to deal with the complexities.
      1. Often we are shocked and dismayed by the fact that everything is now so complex.
      2. For a long time, American Christians thought everything was simple.
      3. The American restoration movement that produced us as an American religious body was a rural religious movement in an agricultural society.
         1. For many years, we as Christians were convinced everything was simple.
         2. For farming families, life was simple.
         3. For farming families, the world was simple.
         4. For Christians who lived on farms, God was simple.
         5. For Christians who lived on farms, the church was simple.
         6. For Christians who lived on farms, the understandable, natural, logical conclusion was this: if it is from God, it is simple.
         7. For Christians who lived on farms, understanding the Bible and determining God’s will was simple.
         8. Among us, in spiritual matters, simplicity and faithfulness were inseparable.
      4. We are no longer an agricultural society, and our urban society produces a far more complex culture.
         1. Whether we want it or not, all of us now have a complex existence.
         2. The complexity surrounding us every day causes enormous struggle.
            1. Are any of you in a business that does not struggle with complexity?
            2. Are any of you in a profession that does not struggle with complexity?
            3. Are any of you in a corporation that does not struggle with complexity?
            4. Are any of you on a management team that does not struggle with complexity?
            5. Are any of you in any form of leadership that does not struggle with complexity?
            6. Are any of you in any involved relationship that does not struggle with complexity?
            7. Do any of you have a personal life that does not battle complexity every day?
      5. All this complexity stresses us as the church.
         1. In the past everything was simple, but today everything is complicated.
            1. In the past we thought, “If, as a Christian, I just do X, Y, and Z nothing bad can happen in my family.”
            2. In the past we thought, “If, as a Christian, if I just do A, B, and C, I can eliminate all the ‘undesirables’ from my children’s futures.”
            3. “If everybody knew what I knew, our society would not have problems.”
            4. “If everybody would accept my understanding and look at things the way I do, Christians would not have problems.”
            5. “If everybody would just think my thoughts in the sequence I think them, everyone would be like me, and that would be wonderful.”
            6. “If everybody would hear what I hear when I listen to God’s word, then all Christians would be just like me, and that would be wonderful.”
            7. “If everybody would see what I see when I read God’s word, then everyone would emphasize exactly the same things I stress, and that would be wonderful.”
            8. “Everything would become so simple, because I have the answers; I have it figured out; and I know God thinks just like I think.”
            9. And anyone can think and reason that way as long as we do not have to deal constructively with what is happening in anyone else’s life.

   2. But inevitably something happens in my family, in my work, in my experiences, or in my world and shouts, “Things are not simple; things are complicated.”
      1. “I did X, Y, and Z, and bad things happened in my family.”
      2. “I used A, B, and C to rear my children, and they were not protected.”
      3. “Some Christians do know what I know, and come to different conclusions.”
      4. “Some Christians do understand me, and still do not agree with my understanding.”
      5. “When they read the Bible, they do not hear what I hear or see what I see.”
      6. “The people I know and love do not have simple problems.”
      7. “The people I know and love do not have simple options.”
      8. “The people I know the best have complex relationships.”
      9. “And that does not even consider all those people that I neither know nor understand.”

   3. Honesty demands that we realize life is not simple for anyone.
      1. The only way that I can share Christ in the middle of all this complexity is to empty myself.
      2. But emptying myself is not enough.
      3. After I empty myself, I must unselfishly humble myself.

3. I do not know how long the war between good and evil has existed, but for people it began on earth in the garden of Eden.
   1. In the arena of this earth, Satan made human life a battle ground and began a hot war against God by perverting everything God made.
      1. Satan, the prince of darkness and wickedness, perverted everything God made by seducing the people God created.
      2. This is much too complex for me to wrap my mind around, but for a reason God needed to neutralize the injustice of evil produced by human ungodliness by letting His son die for our sins.
         1. I understand Jesus’ blood was to atone for our sins.
         2. I understand Jesus’ death is the foundation of our redemption, the way God bought us back from evil.
         3. I understand that Jesus’ death was substituted for our eternal death.
         4. I understand the Bible teachings on the essential nature of the crucifixion.
         5. But I do not understand all the whys.

   2. The combination of Jesus’ death and resurrection defeated Satan, but the war is not over.
      1. The war will not end until Satan is cast into the abyss and imprisoned forever (Revelation 20:10).
      2. An enormous conflict between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan has been raging since our first act of rebellion against God, and now the only arena in which Satan can show his hatred for God is on earth.
         1. Satan convinced God’s people to ask for Jesus’ execution.
         2. According to traditional sources, Satan killed eleven of the twelve apostles.
         3. Herod executed the apostle James by the sword (Acts 12:1,2).
         4. Stephen was executed by the Jewish court (Acts 7:60).
         5. Before conversion, Paul ravaged the church in Jerusalem, dragged Christians out of their homes, and put men and woman in prison (Acts 8:3).
         6. After he became a Christian, Paul was severely abused and finally executed (2 Corinthians 11:23-33).
         7. If you have studied much in the New Testament, you know in some places Christians were physically persecuted.
         8. Revelation declared that the persecution was so severe in Asia Minor that many Christians concluded that Christianity would become extinct.
      3. “What is your point?”
         1. My point: something much bigger than us, something eternal is ongoing in the war between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan.
         2. The war between good and evil will not allow life to be simple.
         3. Nothing would please Satan more than to steal you from God and take you to hell with him.

Each summer I audit a graduate course at Harding Graduate School of Religion. “Why do you do that? You have the job!” I do it for three reasons. Reason one: it is an incredible opportunity to learn. Reason two: it refreshes my understanding of a truth. Only the person who empties self walks with God. Reason three: it is an humbling experience. It reminds me of how much there is to know, and how little I know.

Is God greater than Satan? Absolutely! Is Jesus Christ more powerful than evil? Absolutely! Does that eliminate suffering, injustice, and death in the world? No. God and Jesus’ greatness guarantees our eternal victory over Satan and evil. Why? Because the incarnate, resurrected Son of God guarantees our personal victory over death. The resurrected one will resurrect us. In the war against Satan’s kingdom, God makes good use of our lives and our deaths, if we trust Him and we let Him.

Liberating Faith: Obedience

Posted by David on January 21, 2001 under Sermons

This evening I want to continue my encouragement to you to expand your biblical understandings that allow your faith to grow. We will examine some simple concepts many of us have held since childhood. In accepting these simple concepts, most of us did one of two things. (a) We developed the simple concept when we were children (during one of our most impressionable ages) and we hold those concepts as an adults as though they were the full, complete truth. (b) We accept those simple concepts as an adult to fortify or defend adult religious convictions. We often associate loyalty to those simple concepts as faithfulness to the truth.

This evening I want us to think from a specific perspective. Most, if not all, of us are committed to full faith in God. Most, if not all, of us are committed to the Bible as God’s word. Most, if not all, of us are fully convicted that an accurate understanding of God’s will must be the foundation of our lives. Most, if not all, of us declare that we should be committed to the “whole counsel of God” which means we should be committed to a full understanding of all that God said.

Let’s use some simple focus questions. What is obedience? May I anticipate our most common answer: obedience is doing what an authority figure tells you to do. If you do what God tells you to do, but have little or no understanding of what you do, are God’s purposes and the objectives of obedience fulfilled? If you do what God says but have no desire to understand, are God’s purposes and the objectives of obedience accomplished in your life?

Is proper, spiritual obedience simply a matter of doing what God said do? What is the relationship between trust and obedience? For a Christian, is biblical obedience authority based or love based? Do we obey because “all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18), or do we obey because “If you love me you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15)? Is obedience just a matter of unquestioningly refusing to rebel against God (“don’t talk back to Me!”), or a matter of being motivated by deep affection for God?

Those questions do not have simple answers. Too often some of our basic problems arise from the fact that we assign them simple answers. Most of them cannot be fully answered with a yes or no, or with the “correct” multiple choice selection.

We frequently do God a grave injustice that misrepresents Him by making simple things that are not simple.

1. Let me illustrate from the Bible with Israel (between the Exodus and the initial entrance into Canaan) that not even the concept of obedience is simple.
   1. After the Exodus from Egypt, God began revealing Israel’s law by verbally declaring the ten commandments from Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:1-20:21; Deuteronomy 5:1-23).
      1. God’s spoken declaration of the ten commandments included these statements:
         Exodus 20:8-10 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you.
      2. Look at the content:
         1. Each week you will observe the Sabbath day, the seventh day of the week, our Saturday, as a holy day.
         2. You can work Sunday through Friday, but you must not work on Saturday.
         3. Saturday belongs to God, and you give it to God by not working.
         4. Adults will not work, children will not work, servants will not work, livestock will not work, and any visitor staying with you will not work.
      3. Is that clear and understandable?
         1. Is that authoritative?
         2. Can that be obeyed?
         3. Yes, as long as you understand the correct definition of work.

   2. Numbers 15:32-36 is our first encounter with a Sabbath violation.
      1. An Israelite man is arrested for gathering sticks (firewood?) on the Sabbath.
      2. He clearly was in violation of the Sabbath law.
      3. They did not know the proper punishment for his violation of the Sabbath.
      4. Moses took the situation to God.
      5. God said execute the man for violating the Sabbath command, and he was.
      6. Is that clear and understandable?

2. Now go with me to one of your first children’s Bible stories, the fall of Jericho.
   1. Joshua 6 records the capture of that first city in the promised land.
      1. Joshua 6:1-5 records God’s instructions.
         Now Jericho was tightly shut because of the sons of Israel; no one went out and no one came in. The Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and the valiant warriors. You shall march around the city, all the men of war circling the city once. You shall do so for six days. Also seven priests shall carry seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark; then on the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. It shall be that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people will go up every man straight ahead.”
      2. Examine God’s instructions.
         1. In preparation for the attack, God said, “I have given you Jericho.”
         2. God’s instructions for each day, Sunday through Friday:
            1. The entire Israelite army would march around the city’s walls one time.
            2. Seven priests and the ark of the covenant would march with the army.
               1. The seven priests carried seven trumpets made from ram’s horns.
               2. They were to blow the trumpets during the march.
               3. Verse ten declared these first six circuits were to be in total silence except for the trumpets.
         3. God’s instructions for the Sabbath day, the seventh day.
            1. On the Sabbath day the army, the seven priests, and the ark marched around Jericho seven times.
            2. The first six trips were to be in silence except for the trumpets (verses 15,16).
            3. After a long trumpet blast, Joshua would order everyone to shout.
            4. The walls would fall and the army, in unison, would close the circle.
      3. Joshua 6:17-21 records additional instructions from Joshua.
         1. The solders could take nothing from the city for their own possession.
         2. Only Rahab and the people in her house were to be allowed to live.
         3. All other people (men, women, and children) were to be killed regardless of their age, and all the livestock was to be killed.
         4. All silver, gold, bronze, and iron were the Lord’s and were to be given to His treasury.

   2. Many of you are quite familiar with the details of the fall of Jericho.
      1. What is your personal, private understanding of the fact that Jericho was attacked and captured on the Sabbath day?
      2. Is God’s Sabbath law clear to you in Exodus 20?
      3. Is God’s command to capture Jericho on the Sabbath clear to you?
      4. Should Israel have said to God, “We cannot attack Jericho on the Sabbath because You said not to work on the Sabbath.”
      5. Was obeying God justification for disobeying God?

   3. I do not see a great divine contradiction.
      1. Jericho was the first city to be defeated as Israel entered the land God promised Abraham that He would give to Abraham’s descendants.
         1. God did not capriciously and arbitrarily decide to take some land away from good, innocent people and give it to Israel.
         2. The nations that lived in Canaan were extremely wicked.
            1. Because of their wickedness, Deuteronomy 7:1-5 gave Israel specific instructions about their destruction to prevent Israel being exposed to their wickedness.
            2. Deuteronomy 9:5 made it very clear that God did not give them Canaan because they were righteous with upright hearts, but (a) because of the wickedness of the nations in Canaan and (b) His promise to Abraham.
      2. God gave Israel the land.
         1. The first city that they conquered (which was a powerful symbol) was given to them by an act of God.
         2. God’s act gave them Jericho just as God’s act released them from Egypt.
         3. He did it on His holy day in His way and everything taken belonged to Him.
         4. Jericho falling on the Sabbath was a powerful message from the living God that Israel was totally dependent on God, and that was a wonderful situation for Israel filled with blessing.

   4. Obedience is a complex response of a person to God.
      1. It involves the interaction of four things: respect for God, love for God, repentance of evil, and trust in God.
      2. Only God can look at a person’s heart and see the interaction of those four things.
      3. Only God knows:
         1. The degree to which the person really respects Him.
         2. The degree to which the person really loves Him.
         3. The degree to which the person nurtures a penitent heart.
         4. The degree to which the person trusts him.
      4. We humans know only what we see, and appearances can be deceptive.
      5. God reacts to what He sees with mercy and grace.
         1. It is not our nature to make mercy and grace primary responses.
         2. It is certainly alien to us to use mercy and grace in the manner God does and to the extent God does.

3. Obeying God is not a matter of memorizing the correct lists of dos and don’ts and then doing what you are supposed to do.
   1. Obeying God is a matter of building a personal relationship with God.
      1. If I asked, “How do you build a personal relationship with God?” what would be your answer?
      2. May I anticipate our most common answer: “Obey him.”
      3. I disagree. If a young bride asked you how to build a great relationship with her husband, would you say, “Do whatever he tells you to do”?
         Matthew 7:21-24 Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’ Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.
         1. These people did acts (prophesy, cast out demons, miracles) that Jesus himself did.
         2. They obeyed in the name of Jesus, but they did not do the will of God.
         3. Doing God’s will involves more than dos and don’ts.
         4. “But Jesus stressed ‘hearing these words and acting on them.'”
            1. What words?
            2. In context, the words of the sermon on the mount.
            3. They included: respecting other people, not lusting, being a person who is trustworthy; being kind to those who hurt you; loving enemies; having the right motives; trusting God; not judging; treating other people like you want to be treated.
            4. Are those simple dos and don’ts?

The obedience of a Christian is based on his or her loving relationship with God. Obedience focuses on God’s will. God’s will is complex, not simple. That of necessity means that obedience is complex, not simple. When we are committed to doing God’s will, we will never justify ourselves by pitting one statement of God’s against another.

How Low Will Jesus Stoop?

Posted by David on under Sermons

What was the greatest cost you personally ever paid to help someone? I am not asking what was monetarily the most expensive benevolent act you ever performed. I am asking what was to you the most costly thing you have done to reach out to someone. What was the most humiliating thing you ever did to help someone? What was the most unselfish thing you ever did to help someone? What is the most prolonged sacrifice you ever made to help someone?

Is it true that it is natural and common for you to pay great personal prices to help other people? Does that just describe the kind of person you are?

1. I cannot imagine leaving an existence in heaven with God to assume a life as a human on this earth.
   1. In the realm the son of God left, there are no physical needs–it is not a physical world.
      1. My specific understanding is this:
         1. Where God lives, there is never hunger, thirst, discomfort, fear, weakness, weariness, sadness, pain, grief, or death.
         2. The only realm that has hunger, thirst, discomfort, weakness, weariness, sadness, pain, grief, or death is in an earthly existence.
      2. I thought long and hard about a way to create insights into Jesus’ sacrifices, to present those sacrifices in a way that penetrated comprehension instead of being “church building preacher talk.”
         1. Consider your “right now” lifestyle. Would you consider completely leaving your “right now” lifestyle, taking nothing with you but your knowledge and the clothes you were wearing, and becoming a peasant in a remote area of China, India, or Africa?
         2. If you did that:
            1. You would live without electricity.
            2. You would never own a car.
            3. Your housing would be primitive by any standard, without plumbing.
            4. You would do most of your traveling by foot.
            5. All your work would be physical work done by man power with primitive tools.
            6. Your only water source for cooking, washing clothes, or cleaning your body, would be a stream or a drainage ditch.
            7. No medical treatment and no medicines would be available to you.
            8. You never, ever would have any discretionary money to spend, and the money you would have would never be enough to feed you and your family.
            9. You would not average one day a month having enough to eat.
            10. You would have no privacy, no freedom, and no hope of changing anything.
            11. Your life expectancy would be forty years, and if you lived forty years you would be considered an old person.
            12. There would be no creature comforts.
                1. Each day’s basic issue would be physical survival.
                2. Every morning you would wake up with no assurance that you would live through the day.
            13. No aid or assistance programs of any kind would be available.
            14. You would not have a choice of jobs; you likely would not have a job.
            15. The only power you had would be your knowledge, and people feared your knowledge.

   2. Can you imagine making that choice–deliberately, consciously, with total awareness?
      1. You probably cannot.
      2. Would you seriously consider making that choice?
         1. For a week?
         2. For a month?
         3. For six months?
         4. For a year?
         5. For the rest of your life?
      3. If you made that choice, and the sacrifices you made were compared to Jesus’ sacrifices when he came to this earth, in that comparison, your sacrifices as that peasant would not cover the point on a pin when compared to Jesus’ sacrifices.

2. I struggled as I looked for illustrations of how low Jesus stooped to help people. I did not struggle because there were none; I struggled because there were so many.
   1. I decided to use three men and three women.
      1. The three men:
         1. My first is Matthew; Jesus selected Matthew to be one of twelve people to fill an unusual, unique role on earth.
            1. Matthew collected taxes for the Roman government.
            2. That tax system was extremely corrupt.
               1. A wealthy man bought from the Roman government the right to collect taxes in a region of the Roman empire. Anything he collected above the government’s assessment was his profit.
               2. The people he hired to do the collecting made their profit from the amount they collected above his assessment.
            3. Tax collectors commonly abused their position to make money. Everyone regarded tax collectors to be thieves. Israelites who worked as Roman tax collectors additionally were considered to be traitors to the nation of Israel.
            4. The apostle Matthew worked as a tax collector before Jesus invited him to be his disciple.
         2. My second man is the leper mentioned in Matthew 8:1-4.
            1. Have you personally seen a person with leprosy? Many with leprosy are grotesquely deformed because the nerves of infected areas die, and they cannot feel in that area.
            2. If you cannot feel, you are not aware when injuries occur. Neglected injuries produce the deformities.
            3. Israel had strict laws regarding leprosy:
               1. Those with leprosy could not be among the general population.
               2. You could not touch anything a leper touched.
               3. A leper had to warn anyone approaching them not to come closer.
            4. This leper came to Jesus, bowed before him, and said, “You can cleanse me if you want to.”
            5. And Jesus touched him…and Jesus said, “I’m willing”…and Jesus immediately destroyed the man’s leprosy.
            6. Wonder how long it had been since someone without leprosy had touched him?
         3. The third man is one of the two thieves who died beside Jesus at the crucifixion.
            1. Matthew 27:44 indicates that at some point in the crucifixion both thieves dying beside Jesus insulted him.
            2. Luke 23:39-43 gives some detail of what happened.
               1. At some point in the agony and pain of crucifixion, one thief said, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!”
               2. At that point, the other thief rebuked this man, asked him did he not fear God, and acknowledged that they deserved their execution, but Jesus had done nothing wrong.
               3. Then he made an incredible request of Jesus that reflected an understanding that few Jews had: “Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom.” Do you have any understanding of why that request was so unusual?
               4. Jesus promised him that he would be with Jesus in Paradise that very day.
               5. Can you imagine Jesus making that promise to a thief who was being executed for his crimes?
      2. The three women:
         1. My first woman had hemorrhaged for twelve years (Luke 8:43-48).
            1. Jewish law said a person like her was “unclean” and should not be in physical contact with anyone (Leviticus 15:19-30).
            2. Though she was a woman and though she was forbidden to have physical contact with people, she knew if she fought through the crowd and touched Jesus’ clothing, her hemorrhage would stop.
            3. She did, and Jesus felt power leave him.
            4. In the middle of a “pushing, shoving” crowd, he asked, “Who touched me?” and she was terrified.
            5. In terror, she explained why she touched him, and Jesus said, “Your faith has made you well; go in peace.”
         2. My second woman is the immoral woman in Luke 7:36-50.
            1. Jesus was invited for a meal in a Pharisee’s home.
            2. This immoral woman, likely a prostitute, came uninvited into the house to the place the meal was served and touched Jesus.
            3. Everything she did was strictly forbidden: she touched Jesus, washed [with her tears] his feet, anointed his feet, kissed his feet; let her hair down to dry his feet.
            4. The Pharisee said, “If Jesus knew who she was and what she did, he would not allow her to touch him.”
            5. Jesus knew what he was thinking, and proved to him that he knew exactly who and what she was, and that what she did was superior to what the Pharisee did.
            6. Jesus told this immoral woman, “Your sins have been forgiven. Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”
         3. My third woman is the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well in John 4.
            1. Jesus was alone with this woman when the conversation occurred.
            2. He did several things that simply were not done, were not proper.
               1. He initiated a conversation; Jewish men were not to have conversations with Samaritan women, and men were not to speak publicly to women.
               2. Jesus asked her for a drink, and his request astounded her; she responded by asking what was happening.
            3. Jesus offered her living water that produced eternal life.
            4. Before that conversation, before he offered her living water, Jesus knew she was five times divorced and was living with a man to whom she was not married.
            5. Incredibly, she did something that perhaps only the apostle Peter did–she recognized Jesus as the Christ.

   2. If you consider Jesus’ interaction with those six people, how low does Jesus stoop?
      1. May we allow Jesus to answer our question? Consider Matthew 9:10-13.
         1. The Pharisees said Jesus associated with people God obviously condemned, and he went way too far in stooping to help people.
         2. He absolutely should not reach out to tax collectors and sinners.
         3. Their condemnation of Jesus was very judgmental and very critical.
      2. Jesus gave three statements in answer.
         1. The people who need a doctor are the sick people.
         2. The Pharisees needed to understand the prophet Hosea’s point when he said to the Israelites God considered compassion to be more important than worship (Hosea 6:6).
         3. Jesus’ mission was to call sinners.

   3. Jesus’ answer reminds me of Paul’s statement.
      1 Timothy 1:15,16 It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life.
      1. Before he was a Christian, Paul was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an aggressively violent man (1 Timothy 1:13).
      2. Jesus stooped, forgave this enemy, and made him the greatest cross cultural missionary this world has ever known.

I want to ask a question and make an observation. My question: is this what the community of Christians at West-Ark is all about? Is our commitment the same as Jesus’ commitment? What opportunity exists here for thieves, men and women who are social outcasts, and prostitutes who turn to Jesus?

My observation: no matter where you are or what is happening in your life, Jesus can help you.

Liberating Faith: God’s Grace

Posted by David on January 14, 2001 under Sermons

I love to teach people how to find life and hope in Jesus. This is my understanding of God’s purpose in liberating people through forgiveness: the discovery of life and hope in Jesus Christ. That is my understanding of God’s work and business in the New Testament.

I love to help struggling people. My understanding of the foundation responsibility of spiritual leadership: people building. What is the primary focus of people building? Relationships.

This is my understanding. (1) The better people understand God, the better people will understand God’s purpose for life. (3) The better people understand God’s purpose for life, the better their attitudes, priorities, hearts, and values become. (3) Better attitudes, priorities, hearts, and values enable people to love like God loves. (4) That love teaches them how to produce and nurture godly relationships.

I am confident I can assure you of two things after death. Each of us will die, each of us will have a conversation with God, and each of us will explain to God why we used life as we did. When that happens, I am confident one thing will not happen and another thing will happen. (1) God will not measure your life by using prevailing Church of Christ positions. None of your explanations will begin with this phrase: “I did this because the Church of Christ said…” (2) God will measure your life by your understanding of His work in Jesus Christ. Your responses will be based on your understanding of Jesus.

I want to devote the next few Sunday evenings to encouraging and challenging us to let our faith in God make some major growth steps. This evening I want us to examine God’s grace by considering some of the early Genesis stories.

1. May I begin by asking a simple question: “What do you think about grace?”
   1. I would be shocked if one person present did not have some form of reaction to grace.
      1. Some Christians genuinely do not like the concept of grace.
         1. When Paul did mission work among people who were not Jews, many Jews (both Christians and those who were not) deeply resented teachings about God’s grace.
         2. There still exist Christians who resent the concept of grace; I heard a mature member of the church declare, “I wish the church had never heard anything about grace.”
         3. Christians who resent grace commonly consider grace and obedience as natural enemies.
      2. Some Christians think grace is God’s only expression of love.
         1. To them, the existence of grace gives us the right to be irresponsible.
         2. To them, God’s grace is such a dominant reality that nothing else matters.
      3. Most Christians experience struggle as they try to understand God’s balance between God’s grace and our personal responsibility.
         1. Very few Christians locate that balance at identical places.
         2. We struggle to trust the interaction of God’s goodness with our sense of responsibility.
         3. Any honest Christian acknowledges God’s grace is not a simple concept.
      4. God’s grace is something that is to be more accepted than understood.
         1. We need to leave God’s decisions in God’s hands.
         2. We need to be very careful about limiting God.

2. In your understanding, what basic lessons should be learned from Adam and Eve’s garden of Eden experience, Cain’s murder of Abel, and the situation when Noah built the ark?
   1. Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden:
      1. God created Adam and Eve to be husband and wife as they shared a unique form of companionship.
      2. God placed them in a special garden home that perfectly provided for every physical need.
      3. They were instructed not to eat fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and they plainly understood if they ate they would die.
      4. Evil deceived them.
      5. The consequence of disobedience was the loss of their garden home, the loss of ideal relationships, and specific consequences to each individually.

   2. The Cain and Abel conflict:
      1. Both offered sacrifices to God.
      2. God was honored by Abel’s sacrifice, but not by Cain’s sacrifice.
      3. Cain was a very self-centered, vain, selfish, angry man.
      4. He vented the anger he felt for God by killing his brother.
      5. After Abel’s death, God interacted verbally with Cain in one of the most unusual, fascinating interactions recorded between God and a human.

   3. Noah’s pre-flood world:
      1. Humanity degenerated into such complete evil that God regretted making people.
      2. Only one person was receptive to God–Noah.
      3. With an incredible level of trust, Noah began to build an enormous boat to prepare for an event that had never occurred in history.

   4. In those three stories, what are the obvious, simple lessons to be learned?
      1. Adam and Eve:
         1. How long did they live in the garden before they sinned?
         2. Were children born prior to their sin?
         3. How do you explain all the flesh eating animals that did not eat flesh?
         4. Were dinosaurs living then?
         5. Were Adam and Eve physically like us? Did they have belly buttons?
         6. What fruit did they eat when they disobeyed God?
         7. Did God lie? They did not die.
         8. Are those the obvious, simple questions we should ask to learn the obvious, simple lessons?
      2. Cain and Abel:
         1. Did Cain know what kind of sacrifice he was supposed to offer?
         2. Did he deliberately offer the wrong sacrifice?
         3. Did Cain knowingly disobey God?
         4. What was the mark God placed on Cain?
         5. Are those the simple, obvious questions we should ask to learn the simple, obvious lessons?
      3. Noah:
         1. Had Noah ever seen rain before?
         2. Was Noah a super godly man in a totally evil world?
         3. What was gopher wood? Would the boat sink if Noah used some other kind of wood?
         4. Where did the flood occur? Did all people at that time live in that area?
         5. Did the flood cover the surface of the earth in that region killing all people, or did the flood cover the entire world?
         6. Are those the simple, obvious questions that reveal the obvious, simple lessons we should learn?

3. “David, what do you see as obvious, simple lessons that are basic to our faith in God?”
   1. I see three obvious, simple lessons that are fundamental to a correct view of God.
      1. Simple, obvious lesson # 1: the destructiveness of evil.
         1. Evil is the most destructive force in human existence.
         2. Nothing a human will ever encounter is as destructive as the power of evil.
         3. With Adam and Eve:
            1. Evil perverted God’s entire creation.
            2. It destroyed the ability of anything to serve its intended purpose or to be truly good.
            3. It destroyed human relationship with God as He designed it.
            4. It destroyed human relationship between man and woman as God designed and intended it.
         4. With Cain and Abel the power of evil escalated its destructiveness.
            1. It destroyed a human life.
            2. It produced a human being who was totally selfish (to the point of murder) and who desired absolutely no association with God.
         5. In Noah’s pre-flood day, the power of evil controlled the minds of people.
            1. They had no good motives.
            2. They had no good intentions.
            3. They made the world intolerable to God.
      2. Simple, obvious lesson # 2: every person is accountable for his or her thoughts, decisions, and actions.
         1. Eve was.
         2. Adam was.
         3. Cain was.
         4. The people of Noah’s day were.
         5. Noah was.
      3. Simple, obvious lesson # 3: God is a God of grace.
         1. While Adam and Eve endured incredible consequences for their thoughts, decisions, and actions, God’s grace permitted them to live.
         2. While Cain endured incredible consequences for his thoughts, decisions, and actions, God’s grace protected Cain from a death at the hands of other people.
         3. While the people of Noah’s day endured incredible consequences for their thoughts, decisions, and actions, God’s grace did not eradicate humanity.

   2. Those three simple, obvious lessons are the foundation of the fundamental struggle humanity has today.
      1. We are not afraid of evil because we do not regard every in any form or expression to be destructive.
         1. The knowledge of good and evil destroyed God’s creation.
         2. Jealousy and selfishness destroyed a human life.
         3. Corrupt motives and ungodly intentions destroyed the world.
      2. We do not believe that we individually are accountable for our thoughts, decisions, and actions.
         1. We are convinced that we will find a way to blame someone else or to “slide it by.”
         2. We are convinced that other people’s failures will make our failures trivial, explainable, and unimportant.
      3. We do not trust God to be a God of grace.
         1. We understand there are limits to human goodness and kindness.
         2. We conclude that God’s goodness cannot surpass human goodness.
         3. We tend to reject a goodness that we do not understand.

My conclusion is very simple. The person who does not understand (a) the destructiveness of evil, (b) the accountability of the person, and (c) God’s grace will fail to do one of two things. He or she will not come to God because he or she feels no need for God. Or, he or she will not trust God.

If we do not understand those three lessons, faith will not be liberated.

How Low Will God Stoop?

Posted by David on under Sermons

We are capable of incredibly compassionate acts. This congregation tends to be a compassionate people. It is easy to touch our hearts. We are quickly moved by tragedy and injustice. To many of you, suffering is a magnet–you are drawn to help those who suffer.

We are moved to help struggling people if those people do not expect us to stoop. BUT … there is one thing that can quickly “turn off” our sense of compassion: expect us to stoop. We do not like to stoop. Demand we stoop, and we are turned off. We are called to help, not to stoop.

What does that mean? What is stooping? In this use of the word, stooping implies a downward reach to assist someone unworthy of our effort. To stoop is to do something that is beneath us. It is an act that lies below our dignity. We naturally associate stooping with being debased or degraded.

“I am glad to be of help, but never ask me to stoop.”

The more important we consider self, the harder we find it to stoop.

1. There are people we will not stoop to help.
   1. Examples exist everywhere.
      1. People controlled by their prejudices will not stoop to help the objects of their prejudice.
         1. Such prejudice is and has been the foundation of wars from Eastern Europe to the Middle East. Hate will not stoop.
         2. Such prejudice is and has been the foundation of tribalism on continents such as Africa for centuries. One tribe refuses to stoop to help people they classify as inferior in another tribe.
         3. Such prejudice is and has been the foundation of racial prejudice in this nation. People of one complexion and facial contour will not stoop to help a person of a rejected complexion and facial contour.
         4. Such prejudice is and has been the basis of attitudes of sexism world wide. Too many men see too many women as inferior objects, and too many women look at men in the same manner.
         5. Such prejudice is and has been the foundation of economic snobbery in all cultures. “My economic status makes me important and gives me significance over you because you are economically inferior.”
      2. Everyone refuses to stoop to help someone.

   2. All of us are guilty.
      1. What kind of person would you regard to be so far beneath you that you would not help them?
      2. Let’s look at some typical situations.
         1. Typically we will not stoop to help anyone who causes us to suffer. “If you want my help, don’t cause me any pain.”
         2. Typically we will not stoop to help anyone who seriously disappoints us. “If I am ashamed of you and what you do, do not expect me to help you.”
         3. Typically we will not stoop to help anyone who made us a victim of serious injustice. “If you hurt me without cause and were mean to me, do not expect me to help you.”
         4. Typically we will not stoop to help anyone who used humiliation to embarrass or devastate us. “If you caused me public embarrassment and ridicule, do not look to me for help.”
         5. Typically we will not stoop to help anyone who disgusts us. We all know a kind of people with a kind of problem whom we feel are too disgusting to help.

2. Because of attitudes about stooping, we have redesigned the church.
   1. “No, we have not!”
      1. Yes, we have.
      2. “No we have not! The deliberate, conscious commitment of the Church of Christ for two hundred years has been to restore the church of the first century in the world of today!”

   2. What are we trying to restore?
      1. James 2:1-4 Brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, “You sit here in a good place,” and you say to the poor man, “You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives?
         1. Is that an important focus in our restoration efforts?
      2. Romans 14:1 Now accept the one who is weak in faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions.
         1. Is that an important focus in our restoration efforts?
      3. 1 John 3:10-18 By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another; not as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous. Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.
         1. Is that an important focus in our restoration efforts?

   3. “Get back to the point! You said we redesign the church. That is ridiculous!”
      1. May I explain what I mean by that statement?
      2. Too often “our” issue before “our” church is staunchly cemented to “our” conviction that the church does not stoop to help people.
         1. Our basic conviction: the church is to hold people accountable for evil, not to stoop to help people who do evil.
         2. Our issue is about us.
         3. Our question is, “Who will we stoop to help?”
         4. If we decide God’s will in Christ is that we not stoop, then we will not stoop.
      3. We devise all kinds of questions to eliminate stooping.
         1. Is it wise to stoop?
         2. What will the precedent of stooping cause?
         3. Where will stooping lead the church?
         4. If we have to stoop to reach a person, can God use that person?
         5. If you have to stoop to help a person, how could that person possible help get God’s work done?
         6. Is it good stewardship to stoop?
         7. Our conclusion: stooping is against the will and purposes of God.
      4. But we ask the wrong questions.
         1. The question is not, “What do we think about stooping?”
         2. The question is, “Does God stoop?”

3. If you and I are genuinely Christians, then we belong to the God who stoops.
   1. God started stooping when Adam and Eve sinned, and He never stopped.
      1. When the world became so evil that no one thought a single decent thought or had a single good motive, God stooped, and began again by saving Noah and his family.
      2. When God called Abraham to follow Him, He stooped.
      3. When He made a promise to Jacob as this thief fled from Esau, God stooped.
      4. When Joseph became a slave in Egypt, God stooped.
      5. When He delivered the Israelite slaves from Egypt, God stooped–a lot!.
      6. When those freed slaves built a golden calf gave that idol credit for delivering them from Egypt, God stooped.
      7. God stooped continually in the age of Israel known as the judges.
      8. He stooped when David sinned by committing adultery with Bathsheba.
      9. He stooped when Nehemiah cried to him in Babylonian captivity.
      10. He stooped very low when Jesus was born.
      11. He stooped even lower when Jesus was crucified.
      12. He stooped all the way to the world of the dead when Jesus was resurrected.
      13. He stoops His lowest a sinful person is resurrected from burial in baptism to begin a new life.
      14. He stoops every single day as He forgives every single Christian.

   2. Do you really question that God stoops? Listen.
      1. Romans 5:7-11 For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
      2. Ephesians 2:1-7 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

During Jesus’ earthly life and ministry, he repeatedly emphasized a truth the religious leaders of Israel did not like. The truth was simple. People who refuse to stoop to help sinful people cannot belong to the God who saves sinners.

Whom did we say we typically refuse to stoop to help? We typically refuse to help those who are the source of suffering, disappointment, injustice, humiliation, or disgust.

Have you ever caused God suffering, disappointment, injustice, humiliation, or disgust? Are you not glad that God is not to arrogant to stoop to help you?

“How far will God stoop to help a person?” If that person trust what God did in Jesus on the cross and in the resurrection, if that person wants to direct his life away from evil, God will stoop as low as necessary to catch the hand of faith.

No matter where you are in your life, God can reach you…and wants to.