sermon-archive – Page 49

confidence in ultimate victory

“Who is this coming from Edom, with bright red garments from Bozrah … this one so fabulously robed, tilting forward in his great might?” “It is I, announcing righteousness, strong enough to deliver.” “Why are your robes red, and your garments like theirs who tread the wine press?” “I have trampled the wine press alone, and no one from the peoples was with me; I trampled them in my anger and crushed them in my wrath; their juice spurted on my garments, and stained all my robes. Because the day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year for my redeeming work had come. I looked, but there was no assistant; I was shocked, but there was no one to support me; so my own arm brought me victory, and my wrath supported me. I stomped down peoples in my anger, I made them drunk on my wrath, and I poured their juice out on the ground.” — Isaiah 63:1-6

We are too prone to idolatry for us to fool around with carved, painted or engraved images of God, and those who do soon discover that the image takes a life of its own, and leads to dependence on the image, rather that dependence on God. That is why the Bible specifically forbids us to make graven images of God.

But even though the Bible forbids our making images of God, the word of God itself uses numerous word-images from nature to describe him, so that we can understand better who our God is.

· a rainbow teaches us that God is faithful to his promises,
· a consuming fire teaches us that God is jealous, and destroys his enemies,
· a mountain fortress teaches us that God is our refuge in time of trouble,
· a rock teaches us that God is a solid foundation for our lives,
· streams and rivers speak of God’s abundant provision,
· the stars in the night sky speak of God’s glory and his plan,
· rushing wind speaks of God’s omnipresent Holy Spirit.

These, and numerous other word-pictures just give us a tiny glimpse of who our God is. In today’s text, the prophet Isaiah pictures God as a warrior coming up from the battle, his garments stained with so much blood that it looks like he has been stomping grapes all day. If I had asked any of you to draw a picture of God, I doubt any of you would have chosen that image. But Isaiah’s message was very important for the people of his day to understand, and it is just as important for us today.

The people of Israel in Isaiah’s day were captives to two separate kingdoms, and Isaiah’s message is that Yahveh is strong enough to deliver them from both. First, they were captives of the nations around them. During Isaiah’s time, the Assyrian empire was ruling over many nations, including Israel.

Isaiah describes Yahveh as the deliverer, coming up from Edom as an army in bright red uniforms. Bozrah was Edom’s capital city, and its name may have been associated with grape gathering. The Lord used the Assyrian empire to crush and subdue Edom, that ancient nation which had long been an enemy of Israel. The symbolism of a God as a warrior clothed in red as if he had been crushing grapes speaks of the comprehensiveness of God’s victory over his enemies.

Isaiah’s point is that Edom is only the first of many nations which will be judged and crushed under the power of Yahveh’s might. The end result will be freedom from all oppressors, and the one making this happen is God himself. This promise was especially helpful for the Israelites in Isaiah’s time because it seemed that all the power was in someone else’s hands. The people felt oppressed, with no deliverer. In fact, deliverance from one enemy was coming from another enemy.

God’s people needed deliverance, but they had no power and no resources to achieve their own deliverance. In that context, Isaiah pictures the God of Israel coming up from the winepress, where he has crushed the enemy into wine. He was telling his people that God is strong enough to deliver them by himself. God does not need an army. He does not even need one strong warrior. When he gets ready to overcome his enemies, he can do it all by himself.

So, Isaiah tells his people to rest on his power and trust his grace, and the empire of Assyria will be overcome by God himself. He sees their bondage, and he will bring it to an end. History tells us that the Assyrian empire was defeated in stages, but by the time Babylon took power, their power was broken. The Israelites did not do this. God did it using the surrounding nations.

But Israel was experiencing another kind of bondage as well. The LORD comes “announcing righteousness” because the people are first and foremost in bondage to sin. In fact, it was this bondage to sin that had led to the bondage to the Assyrians. God’s vengeance against these other nations is also vengeance against that kingdom, and the end result of his judgment will be the obliteration of sin and evil.

Do you know that? Do you know that sin and evil are not a permanent fixture in God’s universe? Some teach that God can never get rid of sin and sinners – that there will always be a hell burning with God’s creatures who rebelled against him. But Jesus said that God is able to destroy sinners’ souls and bodies in hell. He will do this on judgment day. Listen to the word of God about what is going to happen that day:

Psalm 37:38 “transgressors shall be altogether destroyed”
Isaiah 13:6 “the day of the LORD is near; as destruction from the Almighty it will come!”
Joel 1:15 “the day of the LORD is near, and as destruction from the Almighty it comes.”
Matthew 7:13 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.”
Matthew 10:28 “fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
Mark 12:9; Luke 20:16 “He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others.”
Romans 9:22 “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction”
Philippians 3:19 “Their end is destruction”
1 Corinthians 3:17 “If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him.”
1 Corinthians 6:13 “”Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”- and God will destroy both one and the other.”
1 Corinthians 15:26 “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”
2 Thessalonians 1:9 “They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction”
Hebrews 10:39 “we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.”
James 4:12 “There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy.”
2 Peter 3:7 “the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.”
1 John 3:8 “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.”
Revelation 11:18 “your wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged, and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear your name, both small and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.”

God’s ultimate victory will be when he destroys sin and evil, sinners and evildoers. We will be on one side or the other side in that ultimate war. Either we are on the side of God’s righteousness through faith in Christ, or we are on the side of the defeated and destroyed enemy.

The New Testament picks up on the imagery of Isaiah 63 and pictures Jesus as this conquering deliverer: “He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. …From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty” (Revelation 19:13,15).

Isaiah’s message to his people is the same as John’s message through Revelation: The Lord is the only one strong enough to deliver us from all our bondage. True freedom comes only from him. The message is that sin and evil will be with us all during this age. We will not defeat it. We will not be able to right all the wrongs, and fix all the problems in this world. We can try, but eventually we will all discover that our ability to change things is severely limited.

The good news of the gospel is that God does not require that we correct all the defects in our fallen world. He has a Saviour for that. The picture of Christ coming down from heaven with his robe dipped in blood is the ultimate picture of victory. But it is not our victory for Christ but his victory for us. He is going to overcome our bondage just as definitively as he overcame Israel’s bondage to Assyria. One day we will look around at this world and we will find that Jesus has utterly and completely purified it.

LORD, we long for the true freedom which can only come from you. Come and set us free. But, before you return to conquer sin utterly, we invite you to come into our personal lives and destroy sin’s power over us.

confidence in the resurrection

Mark 12:18-27

¹⁸ Sadducees, who say that resurrection is not possible, came to him and questioned him, saying, ¹⁹ “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving behind a wife but no child, the man should marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. ²⁰ There were seven brothers; the first married and, when he died, left no children; ²¹ and the second married her and died, leaving no children; and the third likewise; ²² none of the seven left children. Last of all the woman herself died. ²³ In the resurrection whose wife will she be? Because the seven had married her.” ²⁴ Jesus said to them, “Is not this the reason you have gone astray,[1] that you recognize neither the scriptures nor the power of God? ²⁵ Because when they rise from the dead, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. ²⁶ And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the story about the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?[2] ²⁷ He is God not of the dead, but of the living; you have gone extremely astray.”

I like to watch a good debate. I don’t mean when two or three political candidates get together and call each other names, and reveal the fact that neither knows what they are talking about. Let’s call that a category one debate. I mean an honest-to-goodness real debate, where we actually learn the facts behind the issue, and are left with the ability to make an educated decision about which side is best. That’s the kind of debate I like to watch. We will call that a category two debate. The trouble is, most debates don’t have participants who approach the task with integrity, so they wind up being category one debates, and leave the audience with the wrong impressions.

Today’s text records what started out as a category one debate, but it ended up as a category two debate. Mark records Jesus and the Sadducees having a fundamental disagreement here over the concept of bodily resurrection. Their disagreement comes from the fact that each has a presupposition about the promise of resurrection, and their presuppositions are diametrical opposites.

The Sadducees say that resurrection is impossible, and that such a concept implies ludicrous things – a view they demonstrated with their little hypothetical story to Jesus. What they are actually doing is trying to have the wrong kind of debate with Jesus. They want to throw out a bunch of wrongheaded arguments and leave their audience thinking they know something about the subject, but they don’t. I have actually read scholarly books where the same kind of argument is made. Here’s some examples of that:

· The resurrection cannot happen because if people really die, they have to be recreated in order to live again, so they are not the same person.

· The resurrection does not need to happen because all that is really important is the soul, and that never dies.

· A universal resurrection cannot happen because some people are completely are completely disintegrated, so there is nothing left to resurrect.

· A universal resurrection cannot happen because some people are eaten by animals or cannibals so their bodies become part of the bodies of those who eat them.

I’m not going to stop and answer each of these arguments yet. I just want to demonstrate that the debate over the resurrection still goes on. I do want to say that any argument against the concept of a coming, universal resurrection of all the dead tends to try what the Sadducees were trying. They tried to show that the promise of the resurrection is not possible. The Sadducees used as their debate tactic a hypothetical story about a woman with seven husbands. If the argument had been stated as a syllogism, it might sound something like this.

· resurrection restores a dead person back to life.

· if a woman marries seven men in succession, when she is raised, she will either be a polygamist, or she will be forced to divorce six of her legitimate husbands.

· therefore the resurrection is immoral, so it cannot happen.

The argument does not sound half as convincing today as it probably did back then. But the problem with category one debates is that they do not have to be convincing. As long as the debaters are saying something, they think their job is done. They don’t have to prove their point, all they have to do is make their point.

Jesus reveals his presuppositions about bodily resurrection here. In so doing, he proves not only that he is right about the coming resurrection, but he also proves that all three presuppositions that the Sadducees had about resurrection are false.

· He proves that resurrection involves more than merely restoring a dead person back to life.

· He proves that a person married in this life will not be married in the next (even if you are Mormon).

· He proves that there are no moral obstacles to the resurrection.

Here is how Jesus frames his argument:

First, he explains that the resurrection is not a debate to be fought, but an event to be experienced. It is promised in scripture, and God’s unstoppable power is behind that promise. So, Jesus does not address the resurrection as a hypothesis. He does not say “if they rise,” he says “when they rise” (25). He had the advantage of not having to sort out all the questions and figure out solutions for them. He knew that there would be a resurrection, and that he, himself would be the one who brings it about.

Do you remember when Jesus was talking to Martha when he arrived in Bethany, four days after the death of Lazarus. Martha told Jesus that she knew her brother would be raised on resurrection day. Jesus told Martha “I am the resurrection and the life.” He explained to her that on that day, anyone who had died, he would bring them back to life. He went on to explain that anyone who believes in him who was not dead on that day – would never die.

Some people read Jesus’ words to Martha with blinders on, because they are convinced that it must somehow be about what happens when you die. It is not. It is about resurrection day. That day will start out with two kinds of Christian: dead Christians, and living Christians. Then Jesus will do his thing, and suddenly, and eternally – there will be only one kind of Christian. He will literally raise the dead, and make all living believers immortal.

The second point in Jesus’ argument is that the resurrection will not be a mere resuscitation to the same corruptible bodies and sinful souls that we have today. God will restore us not to our present status, but to the one he intends us to have for eternity. He addresses that argument that the Sadducees made, presuming that resurrection is merely bringing a body back to life.

All resurrections that have ever happened in history have been merely resuscitations. But the resurrection that God promised is so much more than that. The apostle Paul explained that in his first letter to the Corinthians. He compared the original body with a seed that is sown. We all know that when a plant grows out of the earth that it started as a small seed, but we also know that the end product is something different – something much bigger and more glorious than the seed.

^“42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. ⁴³ It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. ⁴⁴ It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. ⁴⁵ Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. ⁴⁶ But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. ⁴⁷ The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. ⁴⁸ As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. ⁴⁹ Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven” (1 Corinthians 15:42-49 ESV).

When we Christians talk about our longing for the resurrection, it is not just that we want to be brought back to life after we die. We want much more than that. We want this sin and death that destroys our relationship with God and each other to be destroyed. We want a new life – a sinless, holy, God honouring life. That is what the resurrection promises for us. In the end, we will look more like Jesus than like Adam. We will have more in common with the eternal heaven than this present corrupted earth. You cannot really understand our desire for the resurrection as long as you see resurrection as mere resuscitation. It is more like complete regeneration.

Finally, Jesus argues that the resurrection must happen because God has a plan, and that plan cannot be realized among the dead. God’s promise is to all his people, not just his people of the future. His words to Moses were in effect a reminder that he is not through being faithful to those who have died. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had long been dead. They were truly dead and they still are. Jesus was not denying the reality of death. What he was saying was that God always sees into eternity. He sees Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and David alive in their final perfected state. He sees you and me there as well. So, God is always our God. Even when we die, he is our God. He sees not just this part of his plan, but his whole plan.

To me, that fact is comforting on so many levels. The Bible says that Christ, “by a single offering … has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14). God sees that. He sees the trouble I am having right now following him, and he is not worried. He looks back in time to the cross, and he sees the debt paid forever for my sins. And he looks forward into time to the resurrection, and he sees me changed into my eternal, perfected self. He sees me in that perfected state for a million years, and a million more. God sees me, and he sees you, and he is not ashamed, and he is not worried. He sees his children, and he smiles.

Something wonderful happened to me as I got a little older. I stopped worrying so much about my children. I used to be anxious about making the wrong decisions, and scarring them for life. Now, I look at those same kids, who are now raising kids of their own, and I realize that I worried too much about them. I should have trusted that God would take care of them the same way he took care of me. It’s a lot easier for me to do that now that I can see them acting with maturity and consideration for others.

The reason why people don’t have confidence in the resurrection is that it hasn’t happened yet. One day we will look back on all the pain and struggles that we are going through now, and realize that we should have just trusted God to work out his plan. If we can believe the first four words of the Bible (three words in Hebrew) we can believe in the resurrection. Those words are “In the beginning, God…” He was there in the beginning, setting his plan in place. He will be there at the end, restoring all things to himself. If we just look at the cemeteries, we will wonder about the resurrection. But if we look to the one who was here before us, he will bring us to a time when all the cemeteries are history. His plan for us is eternal, abundant life.

how faith defines us

Titus 1:1-4 From Paul, servant of God, and missionary sent by Jesus Christ, representing the faith of God’s chosen ones, and the awareness of the truth which godliness brings; ² In hope of eternal life, which God (who is free from deceit) promised before the ages began; ³ But he has revealed that promise in our own times through preaching, a task which has been handed over to me by order of God our Saviour; ⁴ To Titus, a legitimate child representing that shared faith: Grace, and peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour.

I’m starting a new series of messages today based on Paul’s little letter to Titus.

Titus is not mentioned in the book of Acts, but he is mentioned 13 times in Paul’s letters, which leads me to assume that he was a trusted and valuable member of Paul’s missionary team.

Given what Paul says about the inhabitants of Crete in the letter to Titus, he had his hands full. The Cretans had a reputation of being untrustworthy, lazy, and scoundrels who lacked self-control. In fact they actually had a Greek word kretidzo, which was formed from the name. The word meant to lie. So, the Gentile inhabitants of Crete were going to be hard for Titus to deal with.

But there’s more. The Jewish population at Crete was apparently infested with teachers of that false doctrine that had given Paul so much trouble in Galatia and Rome. Paul called them the troublers. So you had former pagans having trouble living like Christians in a non-Christian culture, and you also had people who were teaching them that they had to become more Jewish to be blessed by God, which goes against the gospel of salvation by grace.

On top of all that, there was a scarcity of leaders in a growing church community. Titus had to find appropriate leaders for churches on the island, train them, and appoint them to head those churches, and he had a limited time to do it. Titus had what you might call a high stress/ high pressure mission.

So, what can we learn from this little letter – one of the last to be written by the apostle Paul? I’m assuming that Crete was a kind of test case. Titus’ mission was to see if the gospel, and faith in Christ – would work there. Can a community with so many problems actually change simply by believing and living the gospel message? Can the Christian faith change us? Those are the questions I want to ask as we examine the message of Titus in this series.

My hypothesis is that faith can change us. No matter who we are, no matter what our background, no matter how many mistakes we have made in the past, no matter how many questions we have today, faith in Christ can transform us individually and as a community.

From these first few lines of Paul’s letter we get the impression that the Cretans’ faith in the gospel had already begun to change them. I think this community had put their faith in Christ, and that faith had begun to redefine them as a people. That’s where it can begin with our community as well.

FAITH DEFINES US BY MAKING US AWARE OF THE TRUTH

Paul sometimes says things that are really quite profound, and if we are not careful we will miss them. This is an example. He uses all the words that we would expect, except he puts them in the wrong order. We might expect Paul to say that recognizing the truth leads to faith and faith leads to godliness. But what Paul says in verse 1 is that both faith and the awareness of truth are the result of godliness. Many miss this fact, and never get real faith or confidence that they know the truth.

It all starts not with a confession of faith, but a commitment to godly living. Submitting to the Lordship of Christ leads to obedience to his commands. The results of that obedience are faith and awareness of the truth. So, if you are struggling with your faith in Christ, there is an answer. That answer is obey what he taught. The resulting godliness with empower your faith and solve your truth issues.

FAITH DEFINES US BY GIVING US HOPE BEYOND TODAY

Today is a problem for everyone, because none of us totally live up to our own expectations, and we never completely get what we want. But the secret of the Christian life is that there is hope beyond today. That hope rests on the foundation of the faithfulness of God, who promised to make us his everlasting children.

If your faith rests on what is happening in your life today, you are on shaky ground. Because even if you are having a good day, you know it won’t last. You know the other shoe is going to drop, and failure is just around the corner.

But if your faith rests not on your today, but on what God promises for your tomorrow, that faith is based on him, not you. So, even if you are having a bad day, God remains faithful, and you can still end the day encouraged.

You just have to keep telling yourself that God is faithful, and he is not a liar. What he promised is what is going to happen.

FAITH DEFINES US BY GIVING US PURPOSE FOR TODAY

I like the way Paul narrows the focus of his life and ministry, making it a very simple matter. Reading about Paul in the book of Acts and his epistles, we realise that he had a very important role in the establishment of the early church. He was a missionary, and planted churches all over the known world of his time. He brought around him a large group of missionaries, and put them to work on that same missions task. Titus was one of the members of his team. He trained many of those people, and he oversaw their ministries, as is made clear by epistles like Titus and 1 & 2 Timothy.

But Paul described himself as a preacher. He did not allow the complicated nature of what he did to confuse him as to his purpose. Paul found his purpose in preaching the Gospel. The details as to how he would do it were going to lead him to do what he did. But his purpose was always in the back of his mind. That kept him going when it became no longer possible for him to do this or that. His faith defined him as a preacher. When he could no longer go and preach, then he would write and preach.

Every one of us has to find our purpose, and for each of us it will be different. Ask yourself, what is it that God wants you to do, no matter what. Then, find a way to do it.

FAITH DEFINES US BY REWRITING OUR PAST

Notice that Paul describes Titus as a legitimate child. Why would he say that? It could be that Titus was not a physical legitimate child, so Paul described him as a spiritual legitimate child. Titus could not change what he was. But his faith in Christ did change what he had become. If I’m reading that right, it makes sense for Paul to send Titus to Crete. His ministry there would be a demonstration of how God can take a messed-up life and make it special and godly and beautiful.

That’s something that faith can do for us. Each of us has things about our life that we regret. But a life focused on Christ, obeying and preaching his word – can rewrite our past. It can turn our past ugliness into something nice and desirable. It can heal our hurts and use them to heal the hurts of others.

Each of us has a choice. We do not have a choice about all the challenges and difficulties that we face. They are here, and here to stay until Jesus returns. But we do have a choice as to what we allow to define us. We can be defined by our fears or our faith. In Titus, we are challenged to let our faith in Christ define who we are.

WE ARE … watching for his return

We have been exploring the ideas expressed in our church identity statement. We, as a church identify ourselves as “an open family of believers seeking to follow Jesus Christ and live out His teaching while we watch for his return.”

Identity statements like that are important for churches because they summarise ideas which we can band together behind. They also serve to help us decide the kinds of things we as a church should be doing, and what kinds of things we do not have to do.

I particularly appreciate the last phrase in our identity statement because it shows our expectation of what the scripture calls the blessed hope – the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Here is the day’s text:

³ Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. ⁴ I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, ⁵ for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind– ⁶ just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you– ⁷ so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁸ He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord (1 Corinthians 1:3-9).

I had a number of texts to choose from, because the New Testament has a lot to say about the promise of Christ’s return. But I chose this text, because it is one which is probably not used very much, but it definitely relates to the topic.

When we preach about the second coming, there are about five “usual suspects” that we round up.

The story of the ten bridesmaids is a helpful passage, because it shows that some people who think they are ready are not ready. It is a call to be authentic, and to be really prepared, not just to look prepared. You may recall that in the story all ten bridesmaids expected to be invited to the wedding, but five were not really prepared for the long wait before the bridegroom came.

I also like the warning that Jesus gave us when he described his second coming as a trap. He said “³⁴ But be on your guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day close down upon you suddenly like a trap. ³⁵ For it will overtake all who live on the face of the whole earth. ³⁶ But stay alert at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that must happen, and to stand before the Son of Man.” Luke 21:34-36 NET.

He also described his second coming like a burglar who comes at night. Back in Jesus’ day, people would bring their valuables (including their animals) into their homes at night. They would sleep up in a loft, or on the roof of their houses. Burglars would wait until the wee hours of the morning, burst into the homes and make off with the loot. Jesus used the story to express the same kind of warning as the previous passage: Don’t get caught unprepared for the second coming.

Another favourite passage for preaching about the return is the Olivet Discourse, also called the eschatological discourse, where Jesus answers three questions about his return. One of the questions that his disciples asked was how long it would be until the end of the age. Jesus told his disciples that a number of signs would occur over and over again, like contractions in a birth. His point was that those signs are not proof that his coming was soon, because the signs would keep coming over and over, like contractions during labour.

There was another set of signs that Jesus gave during the same discourse. These signs identified a more immediate group of events, particularly identifying the date of the return. So, while Jesus did say that no one would ever know the day or the hour, we would always be able to identify the season when Jesus could return. It would be just as obvious as when a fig tree spouts all its leaves. Anyone looking at world events today can clearly see that the season is right for Jesus’ return.

But I want us to focus today on the 1 Corinthians text today because it shows that there are some other reasons why believers should be watching for Christ’s return. Firstly, it talks about our being called into fellowship with Jesus. Now, what exactly does that mean?

In Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, a group of people were called together into a fellowship for the purpose of destroying a powerful ring. In spite of the differences in the people, it was the singular purpose of the fellowship that united them.

But there is something even more significant here. Paul is saying that every born-again believer is called into fellowship with Jesus Christ. We are called to be where Jesus is. But that does not happen yet. We are bound on this planet, and Jesus is with his Father in heaven. That poses a severe problem for fellowship. Some have suggested that when believers die, they go to be with the Lord in heaven. That would be a solution to the problem. But that is not the solution that the apostle Paul gave. He taught that Jesus is going to come back to earth – literally and physically. Then we can be a fellowship again.

His point in today’s text is that we are promised a permanent fellowship with Christ. So, he has to come back to fulfil that promise.

And there is yet another reason why Jesus has to come back. Paul notes the fact that the Corinthian Christians have been enriched by the grace of God. In other words, God has invested himself in the Corinthian Christians. The same is true for all Christians everywhere. God has begun an investment in us. It only makes sense for him to complete that investment.

Let me put it this way. Suppose (and I’m really going out on a limb here) I had invested a million dollars in a company. Do you think I would just walk away from that company, and let its leaders do whatever they want with the money I invested? Of course not. I would be making a nuisance of myself, always wanting to be involved in the company’s business because I am so heavily invested in the company. The future of the company would be my business.

Now, God has invested the life of his only Son in us. He has also given us the Holy Spirit who reveals his truth to us and empowers us for ministry. He’s not going to drop everything and go off and play in a distant galaxy for eternity. Jesus is coming back, and we know that because of what he has already done for us.

This is how Paul described this reality to the Ephesian Christians: “For he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we may be holy and unblemished in his sight in love. ⁵ He did this by predestining us to adoption as his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the pleasure of his will– ⁶ to the praise of the glory of his grace that he has freely bestowed on us in his dearly loved Son. ⁷ In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace ⁸ that he lavished on us in all wisdom and insight. ⁹ He did this when he revealed to us the secret of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, ¹⁰ toward the administration of the fullness of the times, to head up all things in Christ–the things in heaven and the things on earth. ¹¹ In Christ we too have been claimed as God’s own possession, since we were predestined according to the one purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will.” Ephesians 1:4-11.

God had a purpose in mind when he called us to himself, and that purpose will not be fulfilled until Jesus returns.

And finally, we can expect that investment by God to continue throughout our entire lives. The strength to persevere through the trials of life and keep proclaiming his word in spite of those trials will stay with us until Jesus returns.

Are you watching for Christ’s return every day of your life? I think we often forget about the fact that his coming is coming. It is no wonder that sometimes we feel powerless to keep going. It is that blessed hope, that expectation of the return which can motivate our perseverance like nothing else.

LORD, help us to fix our eyes on Jesus, so that no matter how hard the race, we can run well, and finish well.

Listen to the audio at Takanini Community Church.

We are… seeking to live out his teaching

We have been exploring some biblical texts that line up with our vision and mission statement as a church. Here at Takanini Community Church we describe ourselves as “an open family of believers seeking to follow Jesus Christ and live out His teaching while we watch for his return.”

Today’s text helps to clarify what we mean when we talk about living out Christ’s teachings. It is found in Luke’s Gospel, chapter 6 and verses 46-49.

⁴⁶ “So why do you keep calling me ‘Lord, Lord!’ when you don’t do what I say? ⁴⁷ I will show you what it’s like when someone comes to me, listens to my teaching, and then follows it. ⁴⁸ It is like a person building a house who digs deep and lays the foundation on solid rock. When the floodwaters rise and break against the house, it stands firm because it is well built. ⁴⁹ But anyone who hears and doesn’t obey is like a person who builds a house without a foundation. When the floods sweep down against that house, it will collapse into a heap of ruins.”

In the last text we looked at in this series, we saw what it meant to be a follower of Jesus Christ. We saw four men on a beach being challenged to let Jesus change them into fishers of men. We saw a large crowd bringing all the broken people they could find to Jesus, so that he could heal them.

We can naturally pick up from those images, and see another aspect of the gospel message in today’s text. Reading the larger context, we see that Jesus had prayed all night on a mountain. When he came down to a level place, he then called the twelve whom he was training as missionaries. Joining them was a large crowd of other disciples, and an even larger crowd of people from all over the surrounding regions, and they had brought all the people with something wrong with them for Jesus to fix. So, there were four groups in all, interacting with Jesus: the twelve apostles, the larger group of disciples, the even larger crowds watching, and the people being helped. The message Jesus taught was directed to all four groups. It was a message about being authentic in one’s Christian walk.

Now, consider this: of all the people in all the groups I just mentioned, no one doubted that Jesus was real. They brought crippled people to him, and he healed them. They brought people attacked by demons and after Jesus did his thing, those people left with their lives back under control. Jesus was the evidence of his own genuineness. But, what about the Christians? What was to be the evidence of their authenticity?

Here is where you will find some differences in answers depending on who you ask. Some Christians come from a background that teaches them to expect God to always heal the sick and do other supernatural things as the sign that their faith is real. I do not doubt God’s power to heal at all. Neither do I doubt that the Holy Spirit gifts certain Christians with supernatural healing gifts, or manifests his power through some other kind of miracle. But I’m not one of those Christians who comes from a background where we always expect God to do that. When I look carefully at this text, I see Jesus authenticating who he is by his miracles. But he teaches the apostles and disciples to authenticate who they are some other way. We Christians authenticate ourselves by living out his teaching – by doing what he commanded us to do.

Jesus had noticed that there were many who had professed faith in him, and even owned him as their Lord, but their confession had not produced any obedience. There are some groups that emphasize God’s election so much that it sometimes seems like they are saying what you do does not matter. But what you do does matter. It matters to Jesus. Those he chooses choose to obey him. Simply claiming that Jesus is your Lord puts you in the latter two groups, not in the former two groups. Those in the latter two groups have had some awareness of who Jesus is and what he can do. They may even have had some experience of him. He may have even healed them or delivered them from demons. But simple awareness or even a simple experience is not enough. The question Jesus asked challenged them to seal their commitment by becoming part of group two: the larger group of disciples. He had given a number of commands in his gospel sermons. He expected those who were really sincere about calling him Lord to start obeying those commands.

The message for us today is that professing faith is still not enough. We can say we are Christians all we want. We can even attend Christian services, listen to Christian music, back Christian political candidates, and put a fish sticker on our car’s back bumper. Still not enough. So, what is enough? That’s what Jesus teaches here. A life of obedience demonstrates authentic Christianity.

Jesus describes that life of obedience by comparing our lives to a house built on the solid foundation of a rock. He talks about floodwaters rising and breaking against that house and – nothing happens. In the simile that Jesus is using here, you can tell an authentic Christian life because the trials and troubles which destroy the lives of others cause no destruction in the true Christian’s life. The evidence is … nothing. No cracks, no leaks, no landslides, no roof caving in, no disintegration. The evidence is a lack of negative evidence.

But do not forget the reality that we saw first. Simply professing Christ as your Lord is not the same thing as building your life of the rock. There is only one way to build a Christian life. It is not having good Christian parents. It is not having a good Christian education. It is not learning a solid Christian theology. All of these are good things, but neither is the thing that Jesus identified as building one’s house on a rock. Building my life on the rock is learning and obeying the teachings of Jesus.

The apostles who wrote the epistles of the New Testament picked up on this same building analogy to teach their churches how to live authentically as Christians.

— “let us aim for harmony in the church and try to build each other up” (Romans 14:19).
— “We should help others do what is right and build them up in the Lord” (Romans 15:2).
— “ (Equipping ministers’ ) responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12).
— “So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing” (1 Thessalonians 5:11).
— “But you, dear friends, must build each other up in your most holy faith” (Jude 1:20).

What I find most significant about the way the New Testament epistles read Jesus’ teaching about building our lives is that they all describe the process that Christians do for each other. We’re not used to thinking of it quite like that. I think of building my own life on the rock, and I tend to think of obeying Christ’s teachings personally, remaining pure, not being hypocritical, staying personally devoted to the Bible, etc. But the apostles understood that Jesus actually gave very few commands that his followers can obey individually. In fact, it is in the laboratory of community living that we will find the most challenges to our desire to live out his teachings. So, that is one reason why Christ taught his disciples to form churches. It is in the context of church, family, society where we can build our lives into something stable that will outlast whatever destruction comes our way.

Of course, there is a cosmic, future, ultimate sense in which Jesus’ illustration applies as well. The ultimate challenge that we all face is our own mortality. The ultimate floods that sweep down on the house are age and disease, accident or violence. If the atheists are right, and there is no God, we all just die. But if Jesus was right, and God exists, there is a solution to the death problem. Jesus taught in many different ways that there is hope for a second life, an eternal life. How do we guarantee that we will make it into the right side of the judgment? Answer: the same thing we do to authenticate our Christian profession: living out his teachings.

We have committed ourselves as a church to learning Jesus’ teachings, and applying them to our lives as individuals and as a Christian community. We want to build each other up into a building that will survive the disasters of this life, and make it into the future life. You are invited to join us. We are an open family: there’s always room for more. But if you are serious about joining us, you have to know that we do not compromise the teachings of Jesus. Living out those teachings is the building process itself.

Jefferson Vann

Takanini Community Church

Auckland, New Zealand