Speech and Reach

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
(1 John 3:16-18 – ESV)

As Christians we are to demonstrate sacrificial love for those of the household of faith, but also to those who are not (Galatians 6:10). As we lay down our lives in service, we are doing so as unto the Lord (Colossians 3:23), knowing that our labor is not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58). This is the driving force behind our benevolence, and the truth is that Christians have shined as lights in the world (Matthew 5:16 / Philippians 2:15), and as showers of blessing upon mankind (Ezekiel 34:26).

Now it is also certainly true that many horrible things have been done in the name of Christianity. However, for all of our many problems, it is the church that has maintained the moral standards that are the fabric of our society. The church has built the hospitals, the schools, the orphanages, and was the backbone behind the civil organizations as they were born. The church fed the poor, and ministered to those whom the world forgot. It is the church that is the first to respond to disasters, personal, regional, and national, giving sacrificially and giving when no one is looking.

Yes there are humanitarian and other religious efforts not associated with Christianity that reveal God’s love in an indirect way by their sacrifices to help other people, and these give glory to God even if they do not subjectively do so, because objectively speaking, they show forth the fact that God shows mercy through other people and that the Christian ideals are the right ones. But this does not constitute saving faith or Christianity. It is not Jesus teachings, but Jesus Himself that makes Christianity what it is.

Now as Christians, when we do these things, but also by our words and hearts give glory where it really belongs, to God, and do so proclaiming the gospel while we do it, then we subjectively and objectively give glory to God, and not only are people helped, God is praised and pleased as we rightly give Him what He is due in a conscious fashion. It is not merely social action; it is spiritual action. We speak of Christ, and His sacrifice, as the ultimate demonstration of God’s love, which is why we reach out to others.

It is not that these things aren’t good, in many cases they are, but the fact is that as non-Christians they are not thanking God for them, and God is the source of all that is good. It is good that they do civil good, but it is God that has made them do any good at all. This speaks of common grace, but as Christians we must speak of saving grace as we reach out to help. Let us thank God that we can do any good at all.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

In Every Way?

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
(Hebrews 4:15 – ESV)

But one who in every respect has been tempted as we are – we read this verse and we think, in our hearts, "No way, Jesus never had to deal with what I've got to deal with". Or perhaps, "Yeah, but Jesus didn't have the magazines, the billboards, the short shorts, the movies, the TV shows, or the computer in his face all day long". Or we think of some other modern manifestation of the old sins, and think Christ didn't have it as hard as we do. Or we tell ourselves that Jesus had the power of the Holy Spirit, and so He had the advantage, and the list goes on and on.

When we seriously meditate on the Bible and what it teaches about sin, we can see the truth of verses such as 1 John 2:16 – by this verse we understand that all temptation comes into three categories: pleasures, possessions, and pride/position.

He was tempted with all this in the wilderness (Matthew 4 / Luke 4) –

Stones turned to bread – lust of the flesh (pleasures)

Kingdoms of the world – lust of the eyes (possessions)

Top of the Temple – pride of life (position)

We know that Jesus was tempted numerous other times, but here we see that He was indeed tempted in every respect. If you have had cancer you can sympathize with someone else who has it, even if it is in a different body part, it is still the same disease. Jesus was tempted under stress and pressure to abandon the will of God, to use His divine prerogatives and find His own fulfillment through His own way, instead of relying on God for strength. That is what He was tempted with, and that is what we are tempted with, and He can sympathize with us. That is what Jesus was tempted with in the wilderness, that is what the Jews were tempted with in the wilderness, that is what we are tempted with, and the question is will we make it out of the wilderness by entering in? Will we cave in to the pressure, or enter in to the throne room?

Yet without sin – Jesus did not yield under pressure. Now this is saying more than that. He is the Son of God, and is impeccable; He was not able to sin. If He was peccable it would mean He was able to sin, but didn’t. He can’t sin, and He did not know sin but He did know temptation.

C.S. Lewis, imagining someone objecting here, said, “Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is . . . A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in . . . Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means – the only complete realist.”

Jesus did not have internal temptations to sin as we do, but Jesus had the limits of hunger, thirst, and weariness, and through these the enemy strikes. He sympathizes with the assault of temptation in times of crisis. Jesus knows temptation in a way we don’t, because only the one who never gives into temptation knows the full strength of temptation.

The pressure mounted until it reached its peak in the garden of Gethsemane. “If it be possible let this cup pass” was His cry, yet He also said, “not My will but Thine be done”. Unlike Christ, we feel the least bit of pressure and we go running back into the wilderness of our own worldliness. It is true that Jesus never faced temptation in an inner sense the way we do, because there was never a sinful nature pulling Him to sin from the inside. But He knew the strength and fury of external temptation in a way, and to a degree, that we can never know. He knows what we go through; He has faced worse. Thanks be to God that He passed every test.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Faith

And this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith.
(1 John 5:4 – ESV)

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The reason why God’s commandments are not burdensome (1 John 5:3) is because of the power we have received from God upon being born again, attested to by our faith. We can continue to keep the righteousness of God and His commands to us in view, in focus, and stay on target, because even when then world would try and drag us back, the power of God brings us through. That is the power of the faith that God gives us to overcome the world. Faith is more about being a martyr than it is moving a mountain. The mountains moved might be when they have fallen on top of you, yet they hold no eternal weight to truly crush you. They have been moved, they are light as a feather compared to the weight of glory (Romans 8:17-18).

Faith is not the power to zap problems out of existence; it is the power to trust in God even when they are trying to zap you out of existence. Faith is not “I now have enough so I don’t have to go through those things again”; it is “look, even though I have gone through these things my faith in God is intact, and even stronger”. It is not, “I won’t be beat down again”, it is, “Pressed but not crushed, struck down but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9). Overcoming doesn’t mean overpowering the natural, it means being able to survive spiritually despite being overwhelmed in the natural. We overcome even when we die (Romans 8:35-39). We overcome the devil and the world by Jesus, loving Him more than life itself, and sometimes having to die to prove it (Revelation 12:11). We have overcome Satan’s accusations because we count on the blood of Christ as our righteousness.

This isn’t about living some successful, victorious, abundant, physically rich and healthy life, it is about things that money cannot buy, and the devil cannot steal. The abundant life that Jesus says Satan is trying to steal, kill, and destroy, he can’t, because it is spiritual abundance (John 10:10). Our faith is what teaches us that (1 John 5:4). The victory that overcomes the world even our faith doesn’t mean our faith gets us out of the problems it means we remain faithful even while we are in them! We have been granted the faith and the power to endure suffering not to remove it. It isn’t the more faith you have the less suffering and trials you will have but the more faith you have the more faithful you will be during them! We keep on conquering what the world would try and have us do, turn our backs on God, and instead, our faith turns us back to God, crying Abba Father (Romans 8:15)!

When the rest of the world would fear, Jesus says fear not, because even though you will have trials, troubles, and tribulation in this world He has overcome it (John 16:33). THAT is how we identify with Christ, even while we are being shot at with flaming arrows from the enemy. Overcoming is not, “I can avoid all falls”, but “nothing can keep me down”. Not, “I will never have any bruises”, but “I will continue to fight on”. Not, “There will be no more pain”, but “I can see the redeeming power of Christ through it”.

I don’t want you to feel guilty for feeling good, and if things are good rejoice. But when things aren’t so good, rejoice, because they will be eventually, and that for eternity (James 1:2 / Philippians 4:4). That is the eye of faith. Faith isn’t, “I can take control in Jesus’ name, and I can do what I will”, it is “I give God control in Jesus’ name, and He can do what He will”. Amen.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Too Cool For School?

…the anointing … abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you
(1 John 2:27 – ESV)

Teaching – Christ in us does not mean that we don’t need teachers. It is a self-refuting thing to declare that we don’t need teachers. Think about it: Isn’t the person who might say this trying to “teach” others this idea? Those type of statements do not align themselves with the whole counsel of God, for example Ephesians 4:11-12 / 1 Timothy 3:2 / 2 Timothy 2:2 / Titus 1:9 and so forth. We do need teachers, what we don’t need are spiritual goons who tell us that we don’t because we all have some special power, or spiritual gurus who tell us that they are the one with some special power. Using 1 John 2:27, John 14:26 and the like to say that you don’t need a teacher only proves that you do need one.

In this verse the Apostle John was condemning the notion of spiritual gurus, the agents of a mystical elite society, namely the gnostics. He was saying that scripture is perspicuous, or clearly presented and able to be understood. He was not saying that we don’t need teachers at all. He was a teacher himself. Truly the perspicuity of scripture is an important doctrine, but it doesn’t preclude being taught in the Word. It means that we don’t need to have enlightened masters to initiate us into secret truths. We just need to learn to interpret the Bible like anyone and everyone else can and should. The Bible isn’t a secret code for the swami’s to solve.

We must all start out as students, and students are not scholars, and even scholars learn and glean from others. When we talk of the doctrine of the perspicuity of scripture it means that we can understand the most basic and fundamental truths about salvation and such, not that we can all have an easy handle on all things. And so we do need teachers. You don’t have to have a PhD to study and learn and know the Bible, but a teacher can help you understand it more fully.

The reason we use terms in Latin like “sola scriptura” and “ordo salutis” and the like, or phrases or big words that may not be initially understood is that they communicate concepts. They help us to communicate without having to necessarily go over previously understood territory, which would only be a waste of time. They convey in a few words a whole lot of agreed on information, therefore we can discuss things without having to go over material that is already understood. Otherwise we would have to restate all of what is included in every instance in order to communicate the same idea that we want to get to. It helps get to the source of the discourse. When we say “justification”, for instance, we are using that word, a biblical word, to talk of right standing with God, how that is achieved, what it leads to, and so on.

By using the acronym TULIP, for example, it is understood by those whom can dialogue about such matters that it is a whole system of doctrine, and we can then go about and talk about its implications without having to go over exactly what it all means first, we can move on. It is the nomenclature, the vernacular, it is the “trade specific” language used by those in theological discussion. Liken this to an electrician, or plumber, or others who do the same things. Imagine if a team of builders had to explain all of the catch phrases to each other every time, that structure would never get finished!

You can say, “I don’t need teachers, I just need Jesus”. Well friend, Jesus is the one who gave us teachers (Ephesians 4:7-16) so that we may grow up in Him. Do you want that Jesus?

Hopefully after using many words to say it we can see why this one phrase is important:

We do need teachers.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Love and Holiness

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.
(1 John 4:9 – ESV)

The power of God is to be able to take something broken and make it better than before, a new thing, a redeemed thing, bought with a price, infused with the Spirit of God, made lovely, given grace, given value, given God. Made holy. From the holiness of God springs our justification, but it also leads us to a moral change from darkness to light. To sinners God says, "Ye must be born again," to the saved, "Be ye holy, for I am holy" (1 Peter 1:16).

We think love is His most beautiful thing, but it is holiness; the Bible says we are to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness (1 Chronicles 16:29 / Psalm 29:2, 96:9), to praise the beauty of holiness (2 Chronicles 20:21), we are to give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness (Psalm 30:4), walk on the highway of holiness (Isaiah 35:8), and be working to bring our holiness to a more complete place (2 Corinthians 7:1). God’s all-encompassing attribute, the one from which all the others flow, and flow perfectly, is His holiness (Isaiah 6 / Revelation 4:8). It is what makes everything else in perfect proportion. That is why we can trust His justice, His goodness, His mercy, His love, and so on, because He is holy.

The New Testament is centered on Christ, and its exhortations on the holiness of believers. This is not a simple call to obedience, but to holiness. Holiness is not righteousness, righteousness flows from holiness. Holiness isn’t simply obedience; it is being set apart for God and depending on God by drawing your boundaries, as God would have them. Obedience flows from holiness, and holiness is cultivated by a right understanding of God and what He has done for us in Christ. To understand Christ more fully is to be made more holy in practice. That is why we are studying this as intensely as we are. This is the highest privilege that we can experience this side of heaven, to know Christ, and it should be the center of our preaching and goal of living. If you understand what we have been teaching now about God, His own righteousness, the gospel, and justification by faith, then you will come to understand this. We are already made holy (Hebrews 10:10), we do not work for it; we work from it.

This is the difference between being God entranced and self-entranced. The self-entranced person says I want God to help me, so I will be more obedient. He tries to make it happen. He tries to be righteous. The God entranced person says I want to be more like Christ, and therefore he is more obedient. God makes it happen. Don’t put God on your agenda, get on God’s agenda and you will see the results He wants for you. Listen, He paid the ultimate price for you to be redeemed, to place value in you, the value of Himself. No, you weren’t worth it, He was, but He incorporates us into Him. Now don’t you think He wants great things for you (Romans 8:28-29)? Romans 8:32 – all things are from Him, and you can trust Him, because He is holy.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Love Understood

And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
(1 John 4:14 – ESV)

One of the truths of the gospel is that God saved us in a way that upheld His justice. Justice was neither compromised nor set aside; it was completely satisfied. One of the great mysteries not revealed in the Old Testament but fully revealed in the gospel is how forgiveness is possible without compromising the justice of God. The bloody mercy seat showed the truth that sins must be paid for because of the holiness of God. His love requires justice to be done, but animal blood cannot pay for human sin, and human blood alone cannot pay for offense against God.

Only Jesus was worthy enough to pay. Christ offered a full atonement that included payment in full for all the sins of every sinner who would ever believe (2 Corinthians 5:21 / Romans 3:25 / 1 John 2:2). Our salvation is therefore grounded in the justice of God as well as His mercy, which is in perfect proportion because of His holiness. In other words, the gospel is not only a message about the love of God. It is that; but it is more. The true gospel magnifies His justice as much as it magnifies His love, because in doing that it magnifies His holiness.

Why do we need to understand this, why do we need to discover and develop our thinking this way? In order to become better grounded in Christ (Colossians 2:7 / Ephesians 3:16-19); this is greater than simple understanding but not simply a feeling. Rooted and grounded in love, which we see more clearly as we have been discovering in 1 John 4:7-10 and Romans 3:25-26, etc. The breadth and length and height and depth, in other words, the encompassing nature of His love, which is most clearly understood through His holiness.

You want a faith that is getting richer, deeper, and stronger, and we find this in the Bible, it is not merely an intellectual pursuit, as this passage says, it is a knowledge but it goes beyond knowledge, it is sight beyond sight (Ephesians 1:16-20). We cannot naturally envision holiness, but when we endeavor to rightly understand God, He grants us the power to do just that. This is why you can receive a word, and want it for your life and love it, but if you don’t dig deep enough, there is no root and it will wither away. The seed gets planted but you must be working on your soil. What I am trying to do is to get you to understand the love of Christ more fully.

Convince yourself and deepen your faith, Coach others and develop their faith, Contend for and defend the faith. 2 Peter 12:1-2, 3:18 – This is what knowing and understanding Jesus is, becoming more and more familiar with just how righteous He is and beautiful and holy and that is worship and looking at Him and that is how we are changed (2 Corinthians 3:18).

When it says God is love that includes all aspects of His love including justice. Love without justice isn’t love it is favoritism. Simple pardon is simply preference. God’s love is much deeper than that, His love satisfies justice and upholds His character. His own holy being demands that payment be made, or justice would not be served, and He would not be a holy God. He is a holy God, and He Himself makes the payment to satisfy justice. He doesn’t just find a way to get you out of it; He makes a way that can never be taken back (Romans 8:33).

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

The Fountain of Love

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
(1 John 4:10 – ESV)

People say all sorts of things about love today, and there are all sorts of notions about what love really is. But how does God define it? What does God say it is, and where does it come from, how can we see and know it, in truth? Believers, unbelievers, and make-believers alike quote the last part of 1 John 4:8, God is love, and then try and make it say whatever they want it to, and use it as an excuse to do or believe just about anything, but that isn’t what the Bible is teaching here. Only what God means is what counts. So what does the Bible teach? God is love, yes, but God further defines that in the following verses, as we see propitiation declared here once again (1 John 4:10). We have gone into detail about that already elsewhere.

You cannot change it around here; John does not say that love is God, but that God is love. In the Greek, the two terms are not interchangeable. This same book declares God is light (1 John 1:5), and John writes in his gospel that Jesus said God is Spirit (John 4:24). Yes we want to declare His love, but it is even better understood in its proper perspective, it is an unfailing love because it is grounded in His unfailing character, not in everyone else’s ideas.

Now we can see that God defines His love here through Christ on the cross, and we can relate that back to many passages, including Romans 3:25-26. God’s righteousness flows from His holiness, His love flows from His holiness; it isn’t that God’s holiness is greater than His love, His mercy and His justice, but that holiness is the character that encompasses all the other attributes of God. His love is defined by His holiness. His justice, His mercy, His grace, they are all defined by His holiness. Perhaps we can make it clearer by saying that holiness is godliness, or God-likeness.

His justice is equal to His love and so He had to do it the “cross” way to satisfy both. God’s mercy did not nullify His justice; He had to be propitiated as our text plainly declares. If you redefine the atonement to remove the idea that Christ suffered the judgment for sin in our place, you destroy the heart of the gospel (1 John 4:10 / Romans 1:17 / 1 John 1:9). If that payment had not been made, there would never have been any forgiveness whatsoever (Hebrews 9:22). But forgiveness springs from the unfailing fountain of God’s character.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©