One Spirit, One People, One Peace

Texts:  Isaiah 2:1-5; Ephesians 2:11-22

WHEN I WAS A FRESHMAN IN college, I met a guy at a party who introduced me to the concept of world citizenship.  He said he was working with a group who were lobbying the UN to make my hometown of Kansas City a "city of the world."  Somehow, the very mention of this filled me with excitement.  There was something so big and thrilling about the idea, something larger and grander and more hopeful than anything I'd conceived of before, and the thought that I myself might be involved in it made it all the more amazing.

Well, nothing came of this plan as far as I know, and it's been a long time since I thought that humanity united under a single human government is a good thing.  Still, there's something inherently appealing about the idea of human oneness and unity.  How wonderful it would be-- No barriers, no conflicts, just perfect communication and peace between man and man.

But that's not how things are in this world.  In fact, it seems like parties, opinion groups, and factions are more polarized and more in opposition than ever before in human history.  You probably have friends you don't talk to much any more because every time you get together, you end up in an argument about some issue or other.  With some people you can't even talk about the weather without things getting political!  It wouldn't be so bad if people would stick to evidence and facts, but the dividing walls of hostility are erected so high and so thick things too often end up in name-calling and insults.  So we stay in our own camps with that figurative wall standing between us, and human oneness is only a dream-- if we think it's a good thing at all.

With the way things are today, it should give us perspective on the polarization between the Jews and the Gentiles in the Roman world, as we read in St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians.  But their conflict concerned more than current issues; it cut to the heart of created reality, for was over who or what should be worshipped as the true God and what that deity requires of us as humans.

This question is way bigger than the debate over, say, global warming or government-run health care.  In such matters let us take our stands based on the facts as we know them, but allow that more information may prove us to be wrong.  But in this matter of Jew vs. Gentile-- or, rather, Jew vs. pagan, the Scriptures leave us in no doubt as to who was and is right, or at least, more right, in this conflict.  The Jews absolutely were, before the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the only people on the face of this earth who worshipped the true Lord and Creator of the universe, while the gods of the pagans were useless idols.  The Jews were the only ones who'd been given His laws to follow, the only ones whom the Lord had made His people through solemn covenant, the only ones to whom He had powerfully revealed Himself with unshakeable promises of blessing. And although the prophets spoke of a Messiah to come who would somehow bring benefit to the nations as well, they were also clear that it was through Israel alone that this Savior would come. When it came to the divisions between Jews and pagans, it was not a matter of each side giving up a little on the human level and coming to a friendly compromise.  Compromise was something Israel could not do and remain Israel.  For whenever Israel compromised with the Gentile nations, that's when they got into deep trouble.

No, as Paul writes in verse 12, time was when we who were born Gentiles were

separated from Christ [that is, the Messiah of Israel], alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

In fact, for many centuries the dividing wall of hostility was a necessary barrier to preserve Israel from total disobedience and dissolution before the Messiah could come.   It was essential that the pagans and their evil influence be kept at a safe distance from the commonwealth of Israel, and the further off the better.  But, Paul says, the time has come for the dividing wall to be taken down.  Better than that, the time has come when it has been taken down, and the two indeed have become one.

How?  By us holding interfaith councils and agreeing that all religions lead to the same god?  By us avoiding controversial subjects and just talking about puppies and kittens and blue balloons instead?

No.  It took Jesus Christ Himself to break it down and bring Jews and Gentiles together.  For as we see in verses 14 and 15,

He is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances . . .

Now when we read that Jesus has "abolished . . . the law of commandments and ordinances," we might conclude that the Jews were wrong all along and we can indulge in and celebrate all sorts of immoral behavior and do it with Jesus' blessing.  That'd save a lot of arguments, for sure!  But we'd be wrong if we did.  For Paul has just finished, up in verse 10, saying that God has created-- recreated, actually-- us in Jesus Christ for good works.  And all the Scripture tells us that a godly life is the only way to please our Creator.  So what is this abolition?

In such a case, it helps to look at the original Greek. The word translated "abolish" literally means "down-un-acting" and, in the case of this verse, scholars interpret it as "made ineffectual or powerless; nullified; invalidated."  So what was the law considered to be effectual or valid for previous to Christ?  Well, the Jews looked to keeping the Law as an effectual and valid way to please God and be justified in His presence.  And that is what Moses had said by the Spirit in Leviticus, "The man who does these things will live by them"-- that is, have life, peace, and fellowship with the Lord of life.  But by the same Spirit he also said in Deuteronomy, "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law."  And who can live up to that?  The Jews never could.  Certainly the Gentiles could not.  We cannot.  The Law which reflected the holiness of God only served to prove how unholy we all were.  But in His flesh-- in His perfect obedience in life and His sacrificial death on the cross, Jesus fulfilled the commands of the Law in our place and set it aside as the way to peace and fellowship with God.

And as Paul writes in verse 13, in Christ Jesus we (and we're included with the Gentile Ephesians here) who were far off from Israel and alienated from God's promises have been brought near by the blood of Christ, shed for us all on Calvary's cross.  In Christ the vision of Isaiah is fulfilled, when the nations would miraculously stream up to Mount Zion and know peace walking in the ways of the God of Jacob.

I've heard that outside the United Nations building in New York there's a sculpture called "Let Us Beat Our Swords into Plowshares," frankly taking its title from the verses from Isaiah 2 that read,

They shall beat their swords into plowshares,
And their spears into pruning hooks.

In other words, let's bring about peace on earth.  Well, people, if you're trying to achieve that by what goes on in that building, good luck.  You'll be at it a long, weary time.  No, the Scripture is clear: Man cannot end hostility: Our peace is Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone.  In Him is the one and only peace that can make Jew and Gentile one and create one new man out of the two warring peoples.  It took the Son of God made Man to make peace between God's covenant people and those who before had been excluded from His covenant, and He did it by His atoning death.

But His death accomplished even more.  As wonderful as it was that Jesus should make one people out of the warring human factions of Jew and Gentile,  He also reconciled humanity to Almighty God.

And we all needed reconciliation to God.  Because as we can read in Ephesians 2:3, by nature-- fallen human nature-- we are all children of wrath.  In our natural sinful state we are at war with God and God is at war with us.  But in Christ and through Christ and because of Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, God who is rich in mercy chose us in love to be saved through Him.  And so now, as verse 16 says, He has reconciled both groups "to God in one body through the cross, bringing the hostility to an end."

But how does this come to be true for you and me?  Verse 18 answers that question: it is the work of the Holy Spirit who gives us access to the Father through Jesus Christ our mutual Lord.  By His gracious work we're no longer illegal aliens who deserve no amnesty; God Himself as in Psalm 87 has declared us to be born citizens of the heavenly Zion and by Christ His living Word it is so.  In Jesus we are made fellow-citizens with the saints-- and by that Paul would have meant the holy men and women of faithful Israel-- and members of the household of God.  In Christ the earthly nation of Israel is redeemed and rebuilt together with the elect Gentiles into the spiritual Zion, founded upon the apostles and prophets with Jesus as the head and cornerstone.  The dividing wall has been broken down, and in its place one building rises under His power.  Together we are that building, and it is no ordinary house: it is a holy temple intended for the dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

I hope you have a sense of how beautiful this is!  But beyond that I want us all to understand the power these beautiful truths must have for our lives in this fallen world.

First of all, we were not saved to be lone-wolf, individualized Christ-followers.  Back up in verse 11, the apostle begins this passage with the word "therefore."  In the previous verses he was reminding us of our salvation in Christ and God's will for our lives in consequence of that.  But we are not on our own.  God raised us up in Christ to be incorporated into one holy people by the ministry of one Spirit.  It is absolutely false that you can be a perfectly good Christian without being part of Christ's church.  Membership in Christ's church is a fundamental part of what you were saved for.  Indeed, everyone who has been reconciled to God in Jesus Christ is a member of His Church whether he or she is able to sit in a pew or not.  Therefore, let us support and build up and act in love towards one another, for Jesus Christ is our peace.  In Him and in the power of His Spirit we can demonstrate that we are one new man, as we look out for the good of on another just as we would for ourselves.

Second, we cannot take our position as citizens of the heavenly Zion for granted, as something that simply comes with our living in our particular time and place.  No, for if things had kept on going as they had for hundreds of years, we who are not ethnic Jews would have remained strangers and aliens, unforgiven sinners, with no hope and without God in the world.  It is by grace you have been saved, just as it is by grace that the Jews who believe in Jesus as their Messiah have by grace come to know that reality.  This should give us all a sense of humility before God and a heart of compassion towards our unsaved pagan neighbors.  For we were once as they are, and the blood of Christ that brought us near to God will, in His mercy, one day bring them in as members of the household of faith, too.  So let us conduct our lives in the power of the Spirit so Christ indeed will be seen in us, that through us others might also be reconciled to the God who made them.

This brings us to the third and final truth I believe we should take from our Scripture readings today.  Despite our compassion, there will always be plenty of people around us who are perfectly content to be without God in this world.  We Christians, they charge, are the ones who are unenlightened.  Indeed, when we conduct ourselves as citizens of God's holy nation and stand up for His righteousness in this world, we will be reviled as fools, bigots, even as enemies of humanity.  It can be hard living as a Christian in this world, the way things are going.  It may threaten your position, your income, and your reputation.  But you are members of Christ's one holy nation, and our heavenly citizenship takes precedence over all other loyalties.  Yes, let us be good Americans, good members of our political parties, good trade union members, good service club members, good members of our families.  But when any direction or practice or mindset of our nation, party, union, club, yes, even of our own families contradicts the will and nature of God as we know it from His revealed Word, He calls and commands us to stand firm in the Spirit and hold fast to the truth of Christ.

It won't be easy, but we can do it.  We can do it because we are God's one new people through His one Holy Spirit.  And the one peace we rest in is Jesus Christ Himself.  He is the Peace that will always last and never fail.  He has already accomplished the cosmic work of making peace between Jew and Gentile, and between both of us and God.  And so we can find our peace in Him, no matter what our conflict with the world may be.  Rejoice, Church of God!  We are His people, bought with His blood and brought together by His Spirit.  We are God's holy temple, His dwelling place on earth, and He will see to it that His temple, His spiritual Zion, stands forever, to the glory of His name.

Worth Repeating

Texts: Psalm 136; Romans 8:31-39

       O GIVE THANKS TO THE LORD, FOR He is good:
        for His steadfast love endures forever.

Is this a statement worth repeating?  Our spiritual ancestors the ancient Israelites thought so.  All through the books of Kings and Chronicles, at times of celebration at the Jerusalem temple, frequently when the armies of the Lord go out to war, we read of this call and response being made between priest and people. It stands as a confession of faith for the Old Testament church.  And since the Lord's church is one church, it is a confession of faith for us.  The Lord is good; His steadfast love endures forever.  This is a confession we should take upon our lips daily.  We should find it marvellously worth repeating. 

    But what happens when the goodness of the Lord seems to fall short?   What if we feel that His love isn't exactly steadfast, or not exactly what we'd define as love?

    I was moved to preach on these two passages a couple weeks ago, long before a hurricane called Sandy began making its way up the Atlantic coast.  Around here we got off pretty light.  But elsewhere--!  Even now there are still people in New York and New Jersey who are cold and hungry and suffering.  They have no heat and no running water and they're short of food.  Ordinary people just like us in a terrible situation.  What if that was us?  Would we still be able to respond, "His steadfast love endures forever!"?  Would we want to?  Today's readings teach us that not only should we want to, even in the worst of circumstances, but through that same steadfast love of God, we can.

    The first step is to understand what this steadfast love is.  It goes way beyond a feeling or preference, it includes the active kindness and mercy of God toward men.  The word is hesed, and it describes how God is in Himself and also how God behaves as He reaches out to us in grace and favor.

    But here's our problem: We get the idea that if somebody loves us they should give us exactly what we think we want right now, whether it's the best thing for us or not.  And if he or she doesn't give it, it means they don't love us after all.  This attitude can make it hard for us to repeat that "His steadfast love endures forever!"

    I hope you and I aren't so childish as that.  I pray the Holy Spirit has opened our eyes to see that God shows His steadfast love towards us first and foremost in giving us a relationship with Himself, in allowing us to catch even the reflection of His greatness.  The psalmist proclaims,

        Give thanks to the God of gods,

and

        Give thanks to the Lord of lords.

Think of it!  Only we among the creatures are made in His image.  Only we are privileged even dimly to recognize who He is. The animals, the rocks, the trees: they worship God in being what they are, but they are totally unaware of the splendor and majesty of their Creator.  But Lord God has granted that we should see His glory, and in His love He has enabled us to enjoy Him in worship.  This is a privilege that nothing can take away from us, for God in His splendor always remains God.

    But as we see from verse 4 through 9, this loving God is more than great in Himself, He is also the Doer of wonders who made heaven and earth and all that are in them.

    And that includes us.  Our very existence is proof of the Lord's steadfast love!  He didn't have to create us.  He wasn't forced to give life to you or me in particular. We breathe and inhabit this earth out of the loving mercy of the Lord, and this should call forth our thanks-- even when that existence is threatened, because even in danger our lives are in His loving hands.

    For He knows our trouble and frailty.  Our God is not a wicked king who takes delight in being a tyrant over his subjects.  Our Lord is a God who shows His steadfast love in saving His people.  Verses 10 through 15 speak of the Exodus of Israel from Egypt.  That was the great founding event in the history of the Old Testament church. At the Red Sea God displayed His power and salvation right there in human history and forged the Hebrew people into the nation of His choice. A Jewish friend recently asked me how we could know that the God of the Bible exists.  I reminded him that the God of the Bible has actually acted in loving acts towards real people in real time to real effect.  As a Jew this friend isn't particularly faithful to the Scriptures, so I don't know how much my reminder convinced him.  But for us who are under His New Covenant, these verses about Israel's salvation from Egypt should move us to thanksgiving, for they remind us of the greater salvation the Exodus looked forward to.

    For as great as God's victory was over Pharaoh and all the gods of Egypt, even greater was the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ when He triumphed over sin, Satan, and death on the cross of Calvary.  As wonderful as God's love was when He safely brought His people Israel through the Red Sea, even greater was His love when He brought His Son through death to resurrection.  This was love shown to us, for we know that when Jesus rose from the dead, all of us who were chosen in Him from the foundation of the world were raised with Him as well.

    God shows His steadfast love for us in salvation.  But like the people in Staten Island and Queens, we want to be saved now and saved the way we want to be saved.  We can't judge those storm victims for being in the state they're in.  Even if they had evacuated, they couldn't have gotten far and they'd still be in dire straits.  And who of us can really visualize a fifteen foot tidal surge slamming up and washing away homes and taking out the power supply?  But when it comes to my sin and your sin and the sin of all mankind, we must judge ourselves.  I must give thanks for God's lovingkindness in salvation, because I myself am a sinner who needs to be saved.  No, none of us is Adam or Eve who first rebelled against God in the beginning.  But every day by my human nature and by my sinful acts I follow in my first parents' footsteps and I am covered in guilt.

    And so are you, and every human being who ever lived.  We do not deserve God's steadfast love or His favor.  In fact, it was the sin of mankind in Adam that disrupted creation so that superstorms like Sandy are so terrible and devastating.  In our chapter from Romans if we read verses 19 to 22 we see that creation was subjected to frustration and is in bondage to decay, because of the sin of mankind.  God in His steadfast love decreed that the creation should not be freed until we His elect are revealed as His glorious adopted sons.

    And this is what God has predestined us to be.  Our God doesn't merely rescue us and let us go where we will; He also guides us to our new home in Him.  This is what we see in verses 16 to 22 of Psalm 136.  Especially significant are the verses about the defeat of Sihon king of the Amorites and Og king of Bashan.  We can read their stories in Numbers 21.  The Israelites always knew they were going to have to fight the Canaanite peoples on the other side of the Jordan.  But Sihon and Og ruled on the east side of Jordan, and both of them attacked Israel with no provocation.  Oh, no!  Do we see terrible situations coming at us like that and conclude that God's love isn't steadfast and doesn't endure forever?  No!  That's when we like Israel stand strong in the power of the Lord and trust His steadfast love to help us overcome the foe. 

    Verse 23 and 24 tell us how even after Israel entered the Promised Land there were still times when, due to their disobedience and sin, they suffered humiliation and attack by their enemies.  But even then God's merciful love towards them prevailed and He saved them again and again.  And that's how God acts towards us who belong to Him through Jesus Christ.  In His steadfast love He keeps on forgiving our sins and redeeming and repairing what we destroy in our own foolishness.  It is worth repeating: "His steadfast love endures forever!"

    Let us never forget: God's salvation isn't something we deserve, it's something we need.  And in God's perfect timing, there it is for us!  Even as we cry out "How long, O Lord, how long?" we can also affirm that His steadfast love endures forever, because our God is a God who keeps His promises.  Did you know that the Lord told Abraham that his descendants would be oppressed for four hundred years in Egypt, and then He would save them?  Four hundred years!  All that time, God was working out His perfect plan, making the conditions just right.  It was the same in the centuries before Jesus won our salvation on the cross.  But what about all those who died before Moses?  Who died before Christ?  God's loving kindness extends to them as well.  All whom God has chosen are included in His great salvation, no matter when they lived and died.  The One who made the moon and stars is capable of seeing to that!  And one thing we must learn and hold onto: The salvation of God is not limited to this earthly life.  Its goal and purpose is to bring us into His presence in the life of the world to come.

    And so in the midst of storm and trouble; yes, even as "the nearer waters roll; while the tempest still is high" we can respond "For His steadfast love endures forever!"  Because we know that God in His grace and wisdom is working all things out for our salvation; and not only for our salvation, but also to make us holy and wholly glorified in Jesus Christ.

    For as we read in our verses from Romans 8, it is actually in the midst of trouble and persecution that we can lift up our heads and repeat that "His steadfast love endures forever!"  For above all we see His love displayed in His Son Jesus Christ, who suffered trouble, persecution, and death for our sakes.  The loving Father God who has saved us from our sins will certainly not let us be overcome by those who hate and harm us because of our salvation!

    It is sad, tragic, even, that so many Christians have been falsely taught that as soon as you ask Jesus into your heart all your troubles will be over.  And when trouble comes, they conclude God doesn't love them or isn't faithful, and they fall away.  Our unbelieving enemies sneer at us on the strength of this lie:  See, they say, your God isn't so powerful or loving after all!  Will we listen to their trash?  Will we let their attacks and taunts make us doubt the steadfast love of the Lord?  When we suffer  "tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword" for the sake of Christ, shall we conclude that all this means that God has forgotten us?

    No!  "In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us."  It is no mere mantra or affirmation when we repeat that God's "steadfast love endures forever"; we know it's true because of what Jesus Christ did for us.  In Him God is totally, irrevocably, and lovingly for us, so who or what can be against us?  He has given us His Son Jesus Christ!  What an immense and unfathomable act of enduring love!  Truly, "His steadfast love endures forever!"

    And lest we falter, lest we forget, our Lord has given us this sacrament of the Lord's Supper.  Here at His Table we have physical elements that we can see and touch and taste.  Here God confirms that just as surely as we take this physical food into our bodies for our nourishment, just as surely His Spirit nourishes us with the broken body and shed blood of Jesus Christ our crucified and risen Lord, to the nourishment of eternal life.  Brothers and sisters, as you partake of this holy meal, remember that no matter what happens, God's love is faithful.  For

    . . . neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Amen.  So give thanks to the Lord, for He is good.  And let God's people repeat: "For His steadfast love endures forever!"
   

Persevering Through Faith

Texts:    Psalm 16; Hebrews 10:19-25, 35-39; 11:1-6; 12:1-3

   HERE'S SOMETHING SHOCKING: I didn't watch much of the Olympics.  It's not that I didn't care, it's just that I don't have a working TV since the government switched everything to digital.  But even without being glued to the screen, I was aware of the accomplishments of our U.S. team and the other athletes who competed.  Talk about drive and determination!  Talk about pushing through against all odds and reaching the goal!  Those athletes were perfect illustrations of what it means to persevere.

    "Perseverance."  We don't use that word much in everyday speech, but it's an excellence principle for life.  It means to keep on keeping on.  To never give up.  To maintain confidence and  "just do it," despite all the obstacles in the way.  The entire Letter to the Hebrews is about perseverance, about focussing singlemindedly on one goal and not letting anything get in the way of our achieving it.  This goal is beyond anything earthly or temporal; no, set before us is the glory and joy of the heavenly kingdom of Jesus Christ our Lord, which we will enter fully when He comes again at the last day.  Reaching that goal involves living every day as witnesses to the grace of Jesus Christ, in our behavior, in our decisions, in how we treat one another, in what we say about who Jesus is and His will for the world.  It's like being an Olympic athlete in training to win the gold.  Focus. Dedication.  Perseverance.

    But bad things happen in this life.  We run into opposition when we confess Jesus Christ as the only Lord.  Often it's uncomfortable and inconvenient to live the Christian life God has marked out for us.  It can be damaging, even dangerous.  Does God really expect us to keep standing on His word and following Christ in situations like that?  Is it all up to us to grit our teeth and keep going?  Or has He Himself provided us a way for us to stay the course and persevere?  The Letter to the Hebrews gives the answer to this last question as a resounding Yes.   God has provided a way, and we need to take it, if we want to receive the reward He has promised.

    This letter was originally written for 1st century Jewish Christians who were shaking in their confidence in Christ.  Trouble and persecution were tempting them to give up on Jesus as their Messiah and Lord.  Why not go back to Judaism?  After all, the Jews were protected under Roman  law.  As a Jew you got a special religious exemption: you didn't have to worship Caesar; you were free to practice your religion according to the books of Moses.  Why take on more difficulty?   Wasn't the Old Covenant good enough after all?  Why not decide Jesus was just one more of the prophets, and live in peace?

    The writer spends the first nine and a half chapters demonstrating that the Old Covenant was not good enough; in fact, God had given it only to lead up to the New Covenant in Jesus Christ.  The prophets were not good enough-- they were sent to speak of Him.  Angels were not good enough-- they are Christ's servants and our servants for His sake.  Moses and the Law were not good enough-- Jesus God's Son is the true Builder of God's house.  Keeping the seventh-day Sabbath was not good enough-- Jesus alone is our true Sabbath rest and He's what the Sabbath observance was all about.  The animal sacrifices in the Tabernacle and Temple were not good enough-- the blood of bulls and goats could not permanently cover sins, that was done only by the blood of the sinless Lamb of God shed on the cross.  The whole priesthood in the line of Aaron was not good enough-- it took a unique, eternal High Priest in the order of Melchizedek to offer the one true and perfect sacrifice of atonement, even Jesus Christ our Mediator.  None of these Old Testament types and shadows were sufficient to save the Jews or anybody from their sins.  Only Jesus Christ the righteous one was worthy and able to do what we needed to present us holy and righteous before the face of almighty God.   We really need a Savior, and He's the Savior we need.  That was true for those Hebrew Christians and it's true for us today. 

    Do you believe that?  I hope and pray so, for everything that follows is based on the facts of who this Jesus is and what He has done.

     So in chapter 10, verse 19, our writer draws the logical conclusion.  He begins, "Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus . . . " Every Jew would know what the writer was referring to.  The Most Holy Place, or as the King James Version puts it, the Holy of Holies, was that room in the Tabernacle and later, in the Jerusalem Temple, where the Ark of the Covenant was housed.  The High Priest (and only the High Priest) would enter it only once a year, on the Day of Atonement, to obtain forgiveness for the sins of the people.  But the Most Holy Place spoken of here is not anything on earth, it is the very throne room of God.  And now it's not the blood of an animal that justifies entry, but the blood of Jesus.  And now it's not only the High Priest who is allowed to come into the presence of God, it's all of us whom the blood of Christ has covered.  Formerly, it was a fearsome thing even for the High Priest to enter the Holy of Holies; now we all can have confidence to come before our Lord and God, because Jesus Himself is our great priest over the house of God.  Because of who He is and what He has done, we have every reason to persevere in devotion and service to Him until we taste the wonders of His kingdom. 

    Understand this!  The goal and meaning of human life is blissful fellowship with the God who created us.  Our sin got in the way, but by the blood of Christ we can walk right in to the presence of God and trust that His forgiveness is ours!  Unfortunately we don't have time this morning to explore all the rich Old Covenant imagery the author presents to us.  But see these words he uses.  In verse 22 he urges us because of Christ to draw near to God in full assurance of faith.  In verse 23 he encourages us to hold unswervingly to the hope we profess.  Verse 24 incites us to spur one another on toward love and good deeds.  All these words hammer home the message that we can keep moving on in the Christian life, and we keep moving on because we can trust in Jesus who has saved us.  So don't give up!  Keep on keeping on as the Day of Jesus' return approaches!  Persevere!

    We did not read verses 26-31; they warn us against turning our backs on Christ as if His death meant nothing.  Verses 32-34 reminded the Hebrews how God had enabled them to stand strong in the face of earlier persecution and should remind us that what we have done for His sake once, He will enable us to do again.

    So in light of all this (as we pick up in verse 35), let us not throw away our confidence.   "You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God you will receive what he has promised" (verse 36).

    But let's be clear about this word "confidence."  If we don't watch it, we might think it's some feeling or effort we make in ourselves.  Like telling somebody to keep their chin up.  No.  It's not ourselves or our cheerful attitude we confide in, it's Jesus Christ whose blood enables us to enter the Most Holy Place of the throne room of God.  He's the One we can trust, He's the One in whom and through whom all God's promises to us will be fulfilled.

    And here's some essential encouragement: The time of struggle and trial will not be forever.  The day is coming when Jesus will return as the righteous Judge of the world, and all things will be put right.  Meanwhile (as the writer quotes the prophet Habakkuk in verse 38), God's righteous one-- that's you, who have been cleansed by the blood of Christ-- will live by faith.  By faith we do not shrink back and stop trusting Jesus; for to do so is the deserve destruction.  No, by God's grace we are those who believe-- who keep on believing-- and are saved.

    Faith is the key to our perseverance.  But what is this faith?  Ask people these days, and you'd think it was some kind of force.  Or again, something we ourselves gin up.  But the writer won't let us come away with this false impression.  No, he spends the entirety of chapter 11 giving us illustrations of what faith in God is.  We read only a few of those examples this morning, and what I want us to look at is this: That in every case faith means identifying God as trustworthy and living our lives based on that fact, even when the evidence of His reliability is not immediately before our eyes.

    "Faith," says 11:1, "is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."  Our hope is in the return of Christ and the joy we will share in Him in His kingdom.  Is this a fantasy we've made up in our heads?  No!  We can be sure of it, because we have good and reliable evidence of the power of Jesus Christ, first and foremost in His resurrection from the dead.  It really happened.  Even though we didn't witness it ourselves, we can still trust in His promise to raise us, because He kept His promise that He Himself would rise from the dead.

    Again (verse 3), by faith we understand and confess that God made the universe by command of His word.  We have confidence in His nature and His power, that He was able to make everything we see and touch and enjoy out of nothing. 

    Then in verse 6, we read "Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him."  That should be obvious, right?  After all, why bother to please a being whom you don't believe to exist?  And why try to please a being who doesn't care about being pleased?

    The odd thing is, there are people who think they can be good without God.  They have some vague idea of what is Just or Right, but they refuse to identify that with Him who is just and righteous.  So in the end they are left to their own human conceptions of what is good.  But there is no true good in this world without it being anchored to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Faith has an object and a goal, and that goal is the triune God.

    And so, after the great account of the Old Testament saints who lived and died trusting in God and His promises, we come to chapter 12.  If we didn't understand before what perseverance means, if we were in any doubt about the object and focus of our faith, the writer makes it clear here.  "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus," he writes in verse 2, "the author and perfecter of our faith."  Jesus is the goal we run towards and He's the One who enables us to run at all.

    Something about verse 1, however: The "great cloud of witnesses" mentioned here.  Are they sitting in the heavenly stands cheering us on as we run the race marked out for us?  No.  The cloud of witnesses are those who, like the saints of chapter 11, lived and died testifying to the greatness and faithfulness of Jesus Christ.  They are the martyrs, if you will, who ran their races before us and won the crown of life that is promised also to us if we persevere.

    And we can persevere, for we run trusting in Jesus Christ and what He has accomplished for us.  Our faith itself is His doing-- He is its author-- He originated it and established it in us.  He is its perfecter-- He will bring it and us to the final goal of eternal life in Him.

    And He'll do this is in spite of the difficulties and disasters of this life.  For see what Jesus Himself endured: The cross, with its pain, shame, and degradation.  But He kept His eyes on the goal of pleasing God and the joy that would bring.  He is now enthroned as Victor in the great race.  Sure, we will have opposition from sinful men.  What do we expect, when we consider how they treated our Lord?  So let's not grow weary or lose heart.

    When I was a kid in elementary school, I'd walk home through the grounds of a nearby private girls' high school.  One day I picked up a strip of paper, maybe 3" x 12", an art class calligraphy exercise it was, and on it was lettered the motto, "Never lose sight of your goal, and it won't lose sight of you."  To a 5th grader this seemed very profound, and I took it home and taped it to my bedroom wall.  It stayed there for years, till I got to thinking, "Wait a minute, how can a goal keep sight of me or not, either way?"  After all, a goal is only a concept, not a person.

    But when it comes to persevering in the Christian life, this motto is very true.  For our goal is a Person.  Our goal, our object, the course we run and the One who keeps us running our course, are all Jesus Christ our living and victorious Lord.  We can trust in Him, all our confidence and assurance are in Him, and through faith in Him, we will persevere.

Working Together for the Truth-- or Not?

 Texts:    Acts 4:1-31; 3 John 5-10
  

    HAVE YOU EVER DAYDREAMED ABOUT the glories of the ancient church?  Oh, if we could've lived back then, when everyone faithfully drank up the apostles' teaching and the Spirit had His way in every heart and all believers worked together in love and unity to spread the gospel of Christ!

    But you and I all know that's nonsense.  Only people who haven't actually read the New Testament can get all dreamy and romantic about the early church.  They had troubles and conflicts just like we do.  Which works out well for us.  Really.  Because if they'd had no problems, we wouldn't have the Apostles' words written down for us to help us work out our difficulties. Because like our 1st century brethren, we too are called to keep on working together for the truth.

    As we continue our study of the Third Letter from John, today we'll be looking at verses 5-10. As we noted last week, this is a personal pastoral letter to a Christian named Gaius.  So John the writer, elder, and apostle, doesn't go into a lot of detail.  I'll try to flesh out the situation from what I've gleaned from the commentaries, and if the Holy Spirit commends my explanation to your mind and soul, good.  Take the best and leave what isn't accurate or helpful behind.  But this letter is in the Bible for God's good reasons, and when it comes to what is plain and open in the text, let's accept it gratefully so we may work together for the truth, as Christ's own church.

    In verse 5 John writes to Gaius, "Dear friend, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers, even though they are strangers to you."  Who are these brothers?  We see from later in the passage that they were sent from John.  As I mentioned last week, John acted as a kind of presbytery executive, or, as Pittsburgh Presbytery is arranged, he was like the Pastor to Presbytery.  These days, it's only in times of trouble or transition that a congregation has much to do with representatives coming from presbytery.  But in Gaius' day the New Testament was not yet concluded.  The apostles-- who were eyewitnesses of Jesus and His works-- were still speaking to the church in the authority of Christ, and still teaching men (and yes, possibly, women) to carry on after them.   The brothers John sent would be his personal students in Ephesus, where he lived before he was arrested and exiled to Patmos.  They'd go out to the local churches as missionaries and evangelists, to build up the believers in the faith and help them settle disputes in the peace of Christ.  These brothers from John were not personally known to Gaius; they were strangers to him, as John says.  But Gaius was faithful in serving them, because they came with the Apostle's authority.

    What might Gaius have done for the brothers?  First and foremost, he probably provided them room in his home, or made sure someone else in the church took them in.  He made sure they were fed, that their worn-out sandals were mended or replaced.  He might arrange a time and place for them to speak to the members of the church-- not necessarily an easy matter, as we'll see pretty soon.  Whatever he did, we know he did it lovingly and graciously, because as we see in verse 6,  the missionary brothers had come back from previous trips and told the church in Ephesus all about his love.  Now John writes that Gaius will do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God.  This tells us that a fresh team of missionaries is presently staying with Gaius, and brought this very letter to him.  When they finished their work in Gaius' town, with his help they'd go on to the next town or village on their itinerary, to preach the Word and strengthen the church.

    As Christians we should always do what we do for the church and its ministers in a manner worthy of God.  Remember that our God and Savior Jesus bought the church with His own precious blood, she is His, and when we serve the church, we serve Christ.  And keep in mind always the service God deserves in Himself.  His name is to be honored and feared, and, as John writes in verse 7, it is for the sake of the Name that these evangelist brothers went out.

    In our reading from Acts 4 we see how weighty it is to invoke the name of God in Christ, in the church and in the world.  Peter and John healed a crippled beggar and consequently preached  Jesus as the only Christ and Saviour.  For this the Jewish authorities threw them into prison and are now trying them before the Council.

    Peter and John aren't daunted.  They declare that it is by the name of Jesus that the man was healed.  Friends, the name of Jesus has power.  Peter maintains that there is no other name under heaven besides that of Jesus by which anyone can be saved.  The name of Jesus brings salvation.  The Council consult together and decide to order the apostles never again to speak to anyone in this name.   But Peter and John assert that to preach the name of Jesus is to declare the truth of what they had seen and heard of Christ and to obey what God has commanded them to do.  To speak in the name of Jesus is to declare what He has done.

    The Sanhedrin don't know what to do, and release the apostles.  When Peter and John return to the church, do they say, "Oh, guys, please tone it down about Jesus, you're going to get us all into trouble!"  No!  They recognise that the persecution the apostles have faced is just one more example of the unbelieving world's resistance to God and His Messiah, Jesus Christ.  And they pray that the Lord God will "Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus."

    The name of Jesus carries His power and authority in this world, whether the world likes it or not.  For the brothers to go out from John for the sake of the Name is for them to speak the healing and salvation of Christ. It's to command obedience to His Word.  So it's only right for the church in each town to house and feed and worthily send on evangelists and missionaries who come in Jesus' name.

     There was a time during our Lord's ministry, before He died and rose again, when it was appropriate for His disciples to find lodging for Him with friendly folk who didn't yet understand who He was.  But now wherever Christ's church has been planted, it's not up to the pagans to support our travelling preachers and teachers; in fact, they might well refuse to do so.  No, it's the church's privilege and duty to receive and entertain those who come to us in the name of the Lord, whether they drive over from Pittsburgh or arrive from the other side of the world.  As John writes in verse 8, "We ought therefore to show hospitality to such men so we may work together for the truth."

    Think of that!  You don't have to be a missionary or evangelist to work together for the truth that is Jesus Christ.  Simply opening your home or helping at a church supper in support of a preacher or teacher is pleasing and profitable in God's sight!

    But even in the early church, not all hearts were willing to be hospitable.  John says, "I wrote to the church, but-- "

    Wait a minute.  In verse 6 John said the brothers had told the church about Gaius' love, but here he talks about writing to the church.  Which church, where?  From the context, the verse 6 church is the congregation in Ephesus, and here in verse 9, it's the congregation in Gaius's town.  But I think it's on purpose that John doesn't make the distinction.  For the Apostle, the church is everywhere that Christ is faithfully preached and believed, all one body united in His love. There are local manifestations of the body, but one church, one apostolate, one saving Word; one Spirit and one Christ, to the glory of God the Father.

    But too often there are brothers and sisters in the local church who want to make it their private kingdom.  Men like Diotrephes, who loved to be first.  We've all known some Diotrepheses, and Diotrephas, too, in our time.  Judging from the power he wielded, Diotrephes was one of the pastoral team or a ruling elder, but a Diotrephes doesn't have to be ordained.  He-- or she-- is distinguished by his attitude.  Your typical Diotrephes would never say, "Yes, I want to cause disruption and disunity in the church and destroy the faith of many, because it feeds my ego."  No.  He'd plead, "I'm only doing it for the sake of the church!  I work so hard around here, if I stepped back nothing would get done!"

    John says Diotrephes will have nothing to do with him and his apostolic circle.  Diotrephes would answer, "Apostles?  We don't need no stinkin' apostles!  We know everything about Jesus Christ right here, we're doing just fine!"  Jesus sent out His apostles in His authority to be heeded and obeyed, but Diotrephes refuses.  He doesn't merely ignore John and his emissaries, he says nasty things about him, not openly in the church as official charges, but as gossip behind the scenes.

    Friends, it's shocking the malicious stories people will spread about pastors and church leaders.  I'm sorry to say I had a Diotrephes once who falsely accused me of everything short of murder and child sexual abuse.  We can conclude that for John it's bad enough for himself to be slandered at a distance, but Diotrephes willfully extends that evil personally to the brothers John sends.  He refused to welcome them-- by which we know he prevented them from speaking to the church in the Lord's Day services--and he wouldn't even permit other church members to extend hospitality to them.  Members who did, he put out of the church.

    Which brings us back to Gaius.  It really appears that he himself has been excommunicated for welcoming the brothers from John.  Notice that John doesn't make a victim out of him.  There's no "Poor you, that mean Diotrephes has treated you so badly."  No.  He commends and supports Gaius as he does the right and godly thing for the brothers, as they and the other wrongly excommunicated members work together for the truth, despite the in-house persecution.  But because of Diotrephes' attitude, this indictment of his behaviour can't come to the church, it has to be addressed to faithful Gaius. 

    For surely Gaius knows from experience what this bull elder-- as my EP calls them-- has done!  John doesn't need to tell him!

    Yes.  Surely Gaius knows.  But unlike a lot of modern church authorities, John will not leave Diotrephes in the dark as to the charges to be levelled when the Apostle arrives to exercise church discipline.  No fake niceness.  None of this vague "Well, you're not a good fit for this church" or "oh, the dynamics here are just bad."  No, Diotrephes will know exactly what he has to answer for.  And if he will wake up out of his self-deluded blindness and humble himself to hear, he'll know what he needs to repent of.  For even Christians like Diotrephes are called to work together for the truth, who is Jesus Christ our Lord and the church's only Head.

    One thing more, then I'll close.  Don't be too quick to assume someone in the church is a Diotrephes.  Sometimes people genuinely believe what they're doing is for the best.  You do the church no good by gossiping about them or keeping your mouth shut as you drop your membership. If someone in the church is pursuing a policy that's unhelpful or even harmful, go to him openly and honorably and let him know.  Most of the time you'll come to a deeper understanding of one another and be able to work together better than ever.

    In his Letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul writes that we are all

    . . . fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 

    To work together for the truth is to support and uphold and proclaim the message that John and the rest of the apostles preached, that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father, for there is no other Name under heaven by which every human being must or can be saved.  As we come to one another with this message, as we work to promote this true word, let us humble ourselves to serve and support one another.  May we welcome and be gracious to our brothers and sisters in the faith, whether they're sitting in the pew next to us or come from afar.  This is how we demonstrate the love of Christ that overcomes the world.  This is how we work together for the truth.

The Word of the Shepherd King

 Texts:    Acts 9:1-6; Galatians 6:7-10; Matthew 25:31-46

     IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A lot like Christmas!  At least, the merchants have had the decorations up for the past three weeks or more.  And up where I live in B--, some people already have their wreaths up in their windows.  However you feel about rushing things like this, in five weeks Christmas will be here.

        But there may be signs something else is coming soon, too.  A lot of people are asking, "Could we be getting closer to the end of the world?"  It's not just false prophets like Harold Camping and chatter about the Mayan calendar and December 2012.  We've got natural disasters coming so thick and heavy.  Civil unrest all over the world, especially in our own streets.  Our whole economic system seems to be headed for collapse, with greed and selfishness championed all the way up and down the economic ladder.  Our moral standards are getting worse and worse, faith is growing cold in many hearts, and even those who call themselves Christians proudly follow their own devices and desires instead of clinging to Jesus their Lord.

    Could these all be signs of the end?

    Maybe, maybe not.  As Christians, we need to be ready for our Lord's return as King and Judge no matter when it occurs.  In Matthew chapter 24 Jesus' disciples asked Him what will be the sign of His coming and of the end of the age.  He told them, and us, that no one knows that day or hour, and that He, the Son of Man, would come as a thief in the night.  Therefore, we must be prepared.  But prepared for what?  Beginning in the 31st verse of Matthew 25, Jesus our coming King tells us what will happen when He returns.

    First of all, Jesus will come as King, King of kings and Lord of lords.  And He will come as the Son of Man.  He will sit on the throne of the universe as a glorified Human Being, in the same flesh He brought with Him resurrected from the tomb.  In Christ, for our sakes, God has become Man forever!  He will sit on His throne as King in heavenly glory, and all the nations will be gathered before Him.  All the nations.  Not just the so-called Christian nations, but all of them, regardless of what religions they professed here on earth.  All people will learn that Christ is King, and Christ alone.

    But what does Jesus mean by "the nations"?  Remember, God ordained that Jesus should be born a Jew.  Jesus was speaking to Jewish disciples in a Jewish context.  For a Jew, the word "nations" (ethne in Greek and goyim in Hebrew) meant the Gentiles.  That is, everyone who wasn't a part of God's chosen people Israel.  The disciples would assume-- and assume rightly-- that God's faithful remnant would find blessedness when Israel's Messiah and King came as Judge.  But what was going to happen to all those other people Out There?

    Something the disciples would not have suspected.  Jesus says He will take the people of the nations and separate them from one another, and some He will put on the right as sheep, and some on His left as goats.  That tells us first that all mankind are under His staff as the universal Shepherd, whether they ever confess faith in Him or not.  In verses 37 and 44 we see that all the dead acknowledge that, they all call Him "Lord."  When Christ sits on His glorious throne, all nations will bow the knee and every tongue will confess that He is King and Lord, to the glory of God the Father.  But on that day He will sort out some who did not visibly belong to His chosen Israel, and He will put them with His chosen ones, with the sheep He loves. 

    These days, we often assume that almost anyone can be saved, if only they're nice enough.  For good 1st century Jews like Jesus' disciples, it would have shocked them to think any Gentiles who didn't convert to Judaism could get into the kingdom at all!

    To these unexpected sheep Jesus the King will say, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world."  Who could have thought it?  Ever since the world began God had included these sheep from the nations in His glorious kingdom, along with His chosen people Israel!

    But why?  On what basis?  Because He was hungry and they fed Him; He was thirsty and they gave Him something to drink; He was a stranger and they invited Him in; He needed clothes and they clothed Him; He was sick and they tended to Him; He was in prison and they came to visit Him.

    These righteous from the nations are amazed.  They don't understand how they could have rendered all these good services to Him, the Lord of glory.  And the King will reply, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."

    We think we understand this.  But again, Jesus is out to undermine our modern understanding of how things will be at the Judgement, just as much as much as His word subverted the ideas of the typical 1st century Jew.  Here's the question: Who are Jesus' brothers?  Who are His sisters?  Who are this family with whom He identifies so closely?

    Two thousand years ago, the assumption would be that since He was the Jewish Messiah, His brothers and sisters would be the nation of Israel, people who were born Jews by blood.  But over and over again in His teaching Jesus kept letting everyone know that the true Israel was not those who attempted to keep the law in their own righteousness; rather, His brothers and sisters are those who do the will of His Father in heaven, as we read in Matthew 12.  And what is the will of the Father?  St. John tells us that the Father's will is that we believe in the One He has sent, the Man Jesus Christ.

    The consistent teaching of the New Testament is this:  that Christ's brothers and sisters are His believers, the Church.  They-- or rather, we-- are His Body, the New Israel made up of ethnic Jews and ethnic Gentiles alike, formed by the new covenant in His blood, shed on the cross.

    So in Acts 9 the risen Christ casts Saul of Tarsus down on the road to Damascus and demands, "Why are you persecuting Me?"  Like the righteous from the nations at the Judgement, Saul can't understand.  He'd been attacking a rabble of Nazarene heretics, not this heavenly Being he now had to call Lord!  But Jesus identifies with His Church and says, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting."  To do evil to His disciples is to do evil to Him; to do good to His disciples is to do good to Him.

    And who are "the least of these"?  Please note that this doesn't mean "only the least of these."  No, Jesus is saying that the surprised  righteous have done good to Christians even when those believers were so humble no earthly credit could possibly come from it.  Jesus taught us in Matthew 18 that the greatest in the kingdom of heaven are those who humbly repent and become like little children and follow Him.  In Luke 12 Jesus calls His disciples His "little flock" and says that the Father has been pleased to give them the kingdom.  Jesus exalts the humble in His kingdom, and at the judgement the nations will share in their exaltation.

    I realize that this goes against much popular thought on what this passage in Matthew means.  The usual interpretation is that some people will enter the kingdom by believing in Christ, while others can get in by doing good to the financially poor.  But nowhere does the Scripture hold out any possibility of any man or woman entering eternal life on the strength of his or her own good works.  It is only through the blood of Christ shed for us that we can inherit blessedness forever with Him.

    Yes, you might say, but if "the nations" in this passage are those who didn't identify with Christ's Church in their lifetimes, doesn't it sound like they can earn their way in by good deeds done to those who belong to Him?

    Well, think of it this way: When are Jesus' disciples most likely to be hungry, thirsty, refugees, naked, sick, or in prison?  In times of persecution for the faith.  Today, particularly in Muslim and Hindu countries, Christians are being harried, arrested, burned out of their homes, put to death-- all because they dare to confess Jesus Christ as Lord.  Now think of yourself as a Muslim neighbor of one of these despised Christians.  Everyone else is pouring on the violence.  But something moves you to step out and help the followers of Christ.  Even though your friends will shun you for it; even though you could be arrested yourself as a Christian sympathizer, you go ahead and open your home to the refugees.  You visit the tortured pastor in prison and work for his release.  You make sure those orphan Christian children are fed and clothed, and you don't pressure them to convert to Islam. Whether you realize it or not, you're identifying with the believers and identifying with Christ.

    In Matthew 10 Jesus sends His disciples out with the good news of the kingdom, warning them they'll face danger and hardship for His sake.  But in all this, He says, "He who receives you receives me," and "anyone who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man's reward," and "if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward."

    At the Judgement there will be many who never considered themselves to be part of Christ's flock the Church, but they sympathized so strongly and actively with Christians because they were Christians that Jesus will recognise them as His sheep themselves.  To their surprise they will receive eternal life, the righteous man's reward.

    But what about those on the left, the "goats" who did not minister to Christ's faithful in their need?   To say they didn't identify Christians with Christ will be no excuse.  When they see the King enthroned in glory it's too late to say, "Oh, my Lord, I'd do anything for you!"  What about that insignificant Christian they saw beaten, tortured, starving, or simply slandered out of a job, and they did nothing to intervene?  The King will reply, "If you did it not for the least of these my brothers, you didn't do it for Me."

    So.  Here we are, and we belong to Christ's church on earth. Can we sit satisfied and sure we'll go to the King's right hand in the Judgement?  Not necessarily.  This passage is a warning to us, too.  A lot of people are members of Jesus' New Israel on paper, but actually they belong to the unbelieving nations.
    We have to examine ourselves!  How do we treat our fellow members in the Church?  The truly committed disciple will feed and clothe and help and heal their fellow Christian precisely because he or she is a fellow Christian.  A true believer in our Shepherd King will strive in the Spirit to see and serve Christ in everyone in the congregation, no matter how humble or struggling that other believer may be. 

    In the course of my life I've seen too many churches and church people focus all their ministry on those outside the church.  And yes, like Christ Himself we do extend the love and grace of God to all.  But sitting all around you are brothers and sisters who are hurting.  They're struggling with troubles of body, mind, and spirit.  They need someone to help them repair their house, to watch their kids for an afternoon, to sit for awhile and just listen.  But there's this assumption in the Church today that as soon as someone becomes a believer, they're set up for life and have all they need.  No!  Jesus calls us into His little flock because we do need each other, and He expects us to minister to one another for His sake.  As St. Paul says in his letter to the Galatians, "Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially those who belong to the family of believers."

    Remember, Paul puts the command for Christians to do good in the context of judgement.  If we take one another for granted, if we live to please our sinful natures, we will reap destruction.  Goats all along we will show ourselves to be, and as Jesus says, we'll go into eternal punishment.  But if we follow the Spirit of Christ who has saved us and do good to one another, we will show that we are His sheep. We will reap eternal life and enter into the blessed inheritance prepared for us by our heavenly Father before the creation of the world.

    As baptised believers, we no longer belong to the nations; we are citizens of Christ's new chosen people and sheep of His little flock.  Since this is true, let us strive in the Spirit to do the things that belong to Christ.  Do good to all, but especially to your brothers and sisters in the faith, from the greatest to the least.  Care for, help, and build up one another because you belong to Christ.  And so by His grace, His judgment at the end of the age will bring no fear for you, but only exultation, blessedness, and joy as together with all the saints you enter the realm of your Shepherd King.

Don't Be Surprised

Texts: Psalm 116; John 15:18 - 16:11; 16:33

THREE OR FOUR WEEKS ago I decided to preach today on the theme, "In this world you will have trouble. But be of good courage, I [Jesus] have overcome the world." I use the New International Version for my personal devotions, and "trouble" is how it translated the Greek here in verse 16:33. And after the events in Japan this past week, I thought that it'd be more appropriate than ever to preach on the whys and wherefores of the trouble and disasters that comes to us in this world, especially when it seems to contradict our belief in an all-powerful and all-good God.


But the Scripture has a way of speaking for itself, and when I looked closer at this passage in John, I had to admit that the "trouble" Jesus is speaking of isn't things like earthquakes and tsunamis and bankruptcy and cancer, terrible as those things are. It's the tribulation and persecution that will certainly come to those who belong to and identify with Jesus Christ.

I mentioned last Sunday the sort of comments that were coming up online, in response to videos of the destruction in Japan. Comments where people were using this tragedy as a soapbox from which to deny and blaspheme God and insult His believing people. Examples? "Your god is a fairy tale." "I don't believe in a sky monster that causes disasters." "You're a schizophrenic primitive-minded retard who's still living in the dark ages." "Your Jesus story doesn't make any sense." "Stop praying, start helping." And so on. I've been online since 1998 or so, and it seems to me that this sort of thing is getting worse and worse. Used to be, if someone disagreed with another person's religious position, they'd keep their mouths shut about it. Or at least have an honest go at proving why the religious person was wrong. But more and more, the vitriol, nastiness, and just plain hatred leveled at Christian believers is unveiled, aggressive, and totally unapologetic.

But should we be surprised? Not at all. John records in chapter 15, verse 8 of his gospel that Jesus said this to His disciples, the night He was betrayed: "If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you." In fact, we should feel more surprised and worried if we never get any trouble for being a Christian, for then we might need to question our identity in Christ.

Jesus says that the world hated Him before it hated us. First, maybe we should define this word, "world." After all, doesn't John 3:16 say, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life"? Yes, Jesus said that there. But let's keep in mind that that "world" is all the lost, rebellious, God-hating sinners that love darkness rather than light, the world that needed the blood of the Son of God to be shed before even one of us could be called out of darkness into God's marvellous light. "The world" is the whole manmade system of thinking and believing that denies God and sets up thousands of idols rather than bow the knee to Him. It's the evil urge in all of us that says "Me first!" and be damned-- yes, damned-- to anyone who gets in our way.

Last Sunday evening, I was participating in an online conversation on Facebook. One friend, who's the mother of four, posted this statement: " . . . the most destructive force on the planet is not a tornado, tsunami or earthquake, it's a 16 month old human child."

Well, some people sympathized--we know how one-year-olds can be--and one aunt Expressed Astonishment that anyone could imply such a thing about her adorable nephew. But one friend wrote a comment that simply said, "Too soon."

Too soon to be minimizing the tragedy unfolding in Japan by saying that it takes a back seat to the depredations of one's destructive toddler. Too soon, while post-tsunami victims were perhaps taking their last despairing breaths under the wreckage; too soon, while survivors were numbly searching for lost loved ones, while the crises at the nuclear plants grew worse and worse. Surely, to liken all that pain and horror to the rampages of a self-willed infant was bad taste at best and cold-hearten unkindness to the people of Japan at worst.

But that very spirit of rebellion that's frustrating but cute in a toddler is the same heart of sin that erupts in hatred of God and persecution of His Church. Jesus says, "If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world-- therefore the world hates you."

Remember, now we are in Christ. We are identified with Him, as He has identified Himself with us. He is our Elder Brother, our greatest of Friends, and our Master. If you have trouble in this world because you belong to Jesus, don't be surprised. As He reminds us, "Remember the word that I said to you, ‘Servants are not greater than their master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you."

But it hasn't seemed to be that way, not here in America, at least. For a long time in the 19th and 20th centuries, if you were a nice, respectable, middle or upper class person and you weren't Jewish, you were considered to be a Christian. And that was a good thing. In fact, you weren't considered a good candidate for certain jobs or offices if you couldn't claim membership in some church or other. And we all believed in God and Jesus Christ (or we thought everyone did) and when it comes down to it, maybe a lot of us believed in God and Jesus Christ because we thought everyone did.

But now it's getting harder. Now we're encountering more people we know and even like who think Christianity is silly or even dangerous. Now our faith has to be in Jesus, and not in the idea that society in general believes.

There in the Upper Room, Jesus was preparing the Eleven for the fact that life was not going to be easy when He's gone. And if it wasn't easy for them, in a way, it's even harder for us. For unlike them, we have never physically seen, heard, and touched Him. What we know, however, is that we have been marked with His name; He has put His new life into us and we are His. So now, let's not be surprised when the world treats us badly, for it only proves they neither know Christ nor the One who sent Him.

And there's no excuse for it. Just because everything Jesus said and did is in the past does not mean He didn't do them or that they're no longer true. The Son of God was born into this world to manifest the power and glory of the Father in this world. He did this in everything He did and in every word He spoke. Those who complain, "Your Jesus story doesn't make sense" really mean "it doesn't fit in with my desire to be the god of my own life." For such people, the existence of God is the most inconvenient thing there could be. And we, as symbols of the risen Christ, get in their way just by existing.

But, you might say, not everyone denies there's a God. Most people do hold to the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of humanity, right? And even if they don't believe in Jesus, they're still on our side, yes?

Well, actually, no. Jesus Himself is the touchstone, the definition of what it means to have faith in the one true God. If you're going to talk about God the Father, it's crucial we make sure we're talking about the One, True, and Living God, not some idol we've made up in our heads. God is triune, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You can't have God as your Father if Jesus is not the Brother who saved you, first. Our Lord says in verse 23, "Whoever hates me hates my Father as well." He proved He was the Son of God by the miracles He did, and after this teaching, in four short days, He would prove it conclusively by rising from the dead. If He hadn't done all this, people might have some excuse, "But now," Jesus says, "they have seen and hated both me and my Father."

But doesn't that raise the question, what about people who have never heard about Christ? The hidden assumption goes something like, "God isn't being fair to those other people, therefore I don't have to believe in Him." The real question is, What about you now that you have heard? And if you have heard and believed and you're concerned about the heathen (or so you say), what might God want you to do for them so they can hear?

Don't be surprised when the people of this world come up with every excuse they can to reject Christ and ridicule you for your faith in Him. And do not fear when it comes time to testify to what Jesus has done on your behalf. For that is the job of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate. He's your crack attorney when the world tries to put you in the dock for the offense of the cross. He gives witness to the truth of Jesus and in His power, you and I can testify to Jesus, too.

The Holy Spirit speaking through the Scriptures reminds us what "testifying on Jesus' behalf" means. It's all about the cross, how the Lord of life was slain to give eternal life to sinners like me and you. If we go telling people they should come to Jesus because believing in Him will make their earthly existence all comfortable and easy, we deserve every bit of ridicule we get from the pagan world. It amounts to taking the Lord's name in vain, for He never promised that being His servant would be comfortable or easy. When disaster comes and people mock that false sugar-daddy god, we shouldn't be surprised. As we shouldn't be surprised when people reject the message that they need a Saviour from their sin. That's going to happen, so Jesus warns us ahead of time, so we will not stumble when rejection comes.

And we need to be warned that the most painful rejection will come from people who seemed to be fellow-Christians. For the disciples, the fiercest and most tragic persecution came from their fellow-Jews, the ones who were the most religious, the ones who would have claimed they had the best interests of God's people at heart. It's the same for us today. In the March/April issue of Modern Reformation, Reformed pastor Fletcher Matandika, from Malawi, writes an open letter to the North American churches, lamenting our shallow refusal to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints. He writes, "A few years ago, an older minister from a mainline denomination who had reached retirement age lamented as we talked. ‘Fletcher,' [the pastor said], ‘I cannot preach about sin in my congregation. People get mad at me and they would walk out of the church if I did that.'" If it's difficult for us pastors, how much harder it will be for you. People who claim the name of Christ will call you narrowminded and bigoted for upholding the standards of Scripture. They'll tell you we know more today about Jesus' identity and mission than Jesus knew Himself-- and they'll say it in the name of God. As Jesus said to the Eleven, "They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God."

This happened literally to most of the disciples. I pray the Lord will spare us and it will not come to the shedding of our blood. In many parts of the world, you know, it does. And if you truly are in Christ, your heart will bleed over what the world says about Him and about you for the sake of His name. "But I have said these things to you so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you about them." Don't be surprised!

And do not fear. The Holy Spirit is with you, helping you to withstand whatever the world may throw your way. The world may mock and ridicule and deny, but the Spirit exposes the guilt of the world. The fact that they rejected the Son of God when He came proves their sin. The fact that Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven proves His righteousness. And the fact of His triumph proves that Satan has already been judged.

The world will do whatever it can to deny the witness of the Spirit about Jesus Christ. Indeed, they cannot receive His message, for their minds are darkened by their own rebellion and wilfulness. So do not be surprised if the world hates you, for it hated Jesus first.

Rather, be of good courage. Jesus Christ took your sin and bore its penalty in His own body. Testify to that fact, whenever the Spirit leads you. Pray for those who persecute you-- the Lord saved us, and He is able to save whomever He chooses to call. In this world, we will face persecution. But be of good heart and stand strong, for Jesus our Lord has overcome the world.

Redemption Drawing Near

Texts: Jeremiah 33:14-22; Luke 21:5-36

A FEW YEARS AGO I WAS at a pastors’ conference where we were doing an in-depth study of the Book of Psalms. During one of the question and answer periods, one pastor gave his opinion that the psalms where God’s people complain of hardship, trouble, grief, oppression and so on simply shouldn’t be used in white middle-class American churches. Middle-class American Christians don’t have troubles like that, he said. Such psalms are irrelevant to our lives and we shouldn’t say them.

I wondered if he really knew what went on in his parish. True, we don’t tend to undergo suffering to the extent our brothers and sisters in Somalia or India or Saudi Arabia do. But we know what it’s like to have trouble. Especially with the economy as bad as it is and the future of our country as uncertain as it is, we find ourselves subject to worry, care, and for some of us, real hardship. The Psalms are given to us for our comfort, as is our passage from the Gospel of St. Luke.

. . . Comfort? Where’s the comfort in Luke chapter 21? It begins all right in verse 5, with the disciples pointing out the marvellous beauty of the Lord’s Temple in Jerusalem. Life was hard and uncertain when you were a poor Galilean peasant, and being a follower of Rabbi Jesus could make things even harder. The Temple, at least, was something solid and permanent. An ordinary Jew could rely on it and feel sure about things, even when life wasn’t so good. That’s because it was a sign of God’s covenant with His people Israel. The disciples and all the Jews could look at the temple and know that in spite of the Roman occupation and everything else they were going through, God was still with them.

So does our Lord Jesus confirm their confidence? No. He says, "As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down."

What a knife in the gut! Good on the original disciples--they didn’t contradict Jesus (for once) or say, "But Lord! That’s impossible!" Instead, they asked, "Teacher, when will these things happen?" By now they’d learned to trust Jesus to know what He was talking about.

Jesus doesn’t answer their "When?" question. It wasn’t His will to give them an exact year and day and hour. Instead, He revealed to them and to us the circumstances surrounding the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem with it. And at the same time, Jesus let us know how we can recognise the end of the age and the time of His coming as Judge and King.

We’re looking forward to that, right? His coming will be the end of all our trouble and the beginning of our eternal bliss. But before that Day comes, things on this earth will not get better, they will get much, much worse. Wars. Natural disasters. Pandemics. Terror. Cataclysms in the heavens and on the earth. Jesus said so, and He can be trusted to know what He’s talking about.

A lot of Bible commentators and ordinary Christians, too, get confused over this prophecy. Some say the whole thing applies to the time in A.D. 70 when the Romans marched in and destroyed Jerusalem and dispersed the Jews to the four corners of the world. While others say it all has to do with events that will happen sometime in the future, and the destruction of Jerusalem long ago has nothing to do with it.

But Bible prophecy again and again is fulfilled in a layered way. God revealed His will in pictures and mirrors. One event in the short term would serve as a symbol for something to happen thereafter. For instance, God’s great salvation in freeing His people from Egypt is a picture of what God would do in freeing us His people from slavery to sin by Christ’s death on the cross.

And here in Luke 21, the terrible events Jesus prophesied for Jerusalem were a picture of what will take place someday in the future when God’s judgement descends on all humanity when the Son of Man returns as King. We know from the text itself that the two events have been put together in one prophecy, for the Holy Spirit has Luke write very clearly in verse 24 that "Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles are fulfilled." These events couldn’t all happen at once, in the past or in the future. When Jesus talked about the destruction of Jerusalem and about the end of the age, He wasn’t talking about the same time. Rather, He was talking about the same thing. And that thing is the process by which our sovereign God will judge unfaithfulness and evil in this world, install Jesus the Righteous Branch of David as King on the throne of the universe, and bring relief and redemption to His faithful people.

Advent’s a lot like that. It also has two parts. We look for the coming of Christ, the King. We prepare ourselves to receive Him in memory as the human Child born over two thousand years ago. But we also must make ourselves ready for His coming again in glory. We don’t know when that will happen; our Lord didn’t give us the year or day or hour. But it’s all part of God’s sovereign act of judging unrighteousness, making Jesus King, and bringing us redemption that He started long, long ago.

Let this passage be a warning to us, not to load God’s symbols with our own meanings. The Jews thought the Temple would stand forever as a sign of God’s favor to them. We humans see the Christ Child in the manger and think it’s all right to make God out to be weak and manageable and subject to our wants and desires. We sinners can cope with Jesus as a helpless baby. We can even take the grown-up Rabbi preaching woe to the Pharisees-- as long as we think "the Pharisees" are always Those Other People. But in our rebellion and idolatry we cannot take the Son of God hanging on a cross; much less are we ready to welcome the Son of Man come to judge us and rule over us forever.

None of us can accept Christ as He really is-- until God by His own unfettered will and sovereign initiative moves in our hearts by the power of His Holy Spirit and converts us into His own people. But when He does, we become a whole new people! People of redemption, people of righteousness, people of hope! In our Jeremiah passage, verse 16 says, "In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it will be called: The Lord our Righteousness." But if you go to Jeremiah 23, it speaks there as well of the Righteous Branch raised up from David, and says "This is the name by which He will be called: The Lord our Righteousness." The Jerusalem Jeremiah foretells is not the city destroyed in his day. It’s not the rebuilt city overthrown by General Titus in A.D. 70. It is God’s new Jerusalem, His new Israel, His Church, and we can bear the name "The Lord our Righteousness" because it’s the name of our Redeemer Jesus, the righteous Son of David. We now belong to Him and live in Him, and because we do, we will escape the eternal judgement that will come on the God-hating generation of this world.

In verse 28 Jesus says, "Stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." Interestingly, this word "redemption" doesn’t mean "ransom"-- for the payment that bought us out of slavery to sin was the blood He shed long ago on His cross. Rather, the word means "release" or "deliverance." When all the world is melting in terror and hiding from the wrath of almighty God, His people can stand on their feet like free men and women liberated by Jesus’ blood and expect to be freed from the persecutions and hardships of those last days. Be of good hope, Christian people! No matter how terrible things may get, God is in control and will bring you through. You may give your physical body as a witness to Christ and His gospel, but as to your soul, not a hair of your head will perish.

However, this is no time for complacency, Christian friends. As our Lord says in verse 34, both pleasure and hardship can weigh down our hearts so we lose faith in the goodness and saving power of God. At this season of the year, it’s doubly heart-breaking to hear someone say, "I’ve lost my job; at our house we won’t have any Christmas." Oh, no, no! You’ve lost your livelihood; does that mean you’ve lost Jesus the living Lord as well? You say you can’t give your children any Christmas this year? But my sad friend, God has already given Christmas to your children and to you as well! Tell them the story of the Son of God who became flesh, who died and rose for their salvation, and you’ve given your children more of a rich and blessed Christmas than most of the richest households will get around this fallen world!

Or there are hearts touched by tragedy, who say Christmas has been destroyed for them because of the grief that has torn apart their lives. If that is you, I beg you to see that this is the time for you to lift up your head, for your redemption is drawing near! Sorrow may have invaded your life, but the Son of God has invaded this world of sin and pain and death; His arm is stronger than the worse that can happen to any of us, and by His cross the victory is already yours.

The Devil wants us to be distracted and not be watching for the second coming of our Lord. He wants us to stop being faithful to Jesus in our everyday lives. For what is it for us to be on the watch? In every other place in Scripture where the return of Christ is described, keeping watch means to keep doing the work He has given you to do, cheerfully, in His name and to His glory. To watch means to endure the ordinary hardships of human life gracefully, drawing always on the power of your Lord Jesus Christ, so that when the greater trials come we’re used to depending on Him. And always, always, to watch means for us to seek and enjoy the means of grace-- reading His word, hearing it preached, praying in Jesus’ name, celebrating and sharing the sacraments He has given us, assembling and serving with His people, the church. In this way Christ Himself will prepare you to be a witness to Him, both in times of peace and in times of persecution and hardship.

After our sermon hymn, we will administer the sacrament of holy baptism to D---, daughter of S--- and L--- and granddaughter of C--- and J---. Do not be deceived: You may see only something being done to an adorable baby. But baptism is a sign of the great conflict between heaven and hell that Jesus describes in the Gospels. War is waged over the souls of little ones such as this, and by baptism we signify that we claim her for Jesus Christ. Greater than that, in baptism God claims her for His own, that she might not be in terror on the Day when Christ comes as Judge, but lovingly look up and hail Him as Her Redeemer and King.

This is God’s promise to us in all our baptisms. If King Jesus comes soon, we will undergo a baptism of fire we never could endure on our own. But our God is strong. He is in control. And just as He brought us through the waters of baptism to new life in His Son, He will also bring us through the deathly fire of that Day to eternal life and peace with Him.

Be of good hope. Your sin was judged and destroyed on the cross of your Lord Jesus Christ. In this Advent season, prepare yourselves to relive the coming of your King as the Babe of Bethlehem. And at the same time, keep watch and live prepared to welcome Jesus your King when He comes to receive you into His glory. In His name and by His power, you can stand and look up, for your redemption is drawing near.