The Servant Comes Softly

Isaiah 42:2-4

Jesus was born in a manger to an earthly audience of two parents and some stable animals.  The King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the One at whose name every knee will bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord, the one who created all things by the word of His mouth – entered this world in near complete anonymity.  A handful of foreign wise men were looking for Him, and one hillside lit up with the glory of God around some surprised shepherds, but that is about it.  The Servant of God came softly.

No other anticipated earthly king came this way, but Jesus was no earthly king in need of contrived pomp and circumstance.  And despite this being a surprising turn of events, it turns out that we knew He would enter this world in this fashion.  Isaiah told us that, “He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street” (Isaiah 42:2).

It is telling that Jesus came this way, but why?  The answer, I believe, lies in the next thought:

“a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench” (Is 42:3).

Why did Jesus come quietly?  Because I am a bruised reed.  I am a lamp with nearly no oil left and whose flame is near extinction.  Jesus came quietly because that is what the human condition demands – a God who enters the world we actually live in to bring the healing and justice we actually need.

Broken and bruised people do not need more failed promises, failing people or coercive political regimes.  They need a Savior.  The world can wear down the strongest among us and even those with a seemingly unlimited reservoir of patience and endurance come to the end of their strength.  Jesus comes to strengthen and restore.  But it isn’t just a restoration for a single lapse of judgment or strength for one difficult season in life; it is a healing of our very natures.   Jesus comes quietly because we need quite in this cacophony of noise from false idols.  Jesus comes gently because we long for a gentle, saving hand.  Jesus comes meekly because we need a strong, stable, kind hand untouched by the corruption of our world and our sin.

And though we are faintly burning wicks, God’s Servant will not faint.

“He will not grow faint or be discouraged” (Isaiah 42:4).

God knows we grow weary in this world and falter in our faithfulness, so it was necessary for a Servant who would not faint to come and complete his will.  We lose our strength and resolve – He never will.  We lose sight of justice – He will unfailingly bring it to all.

For this Servant to be unfailing and faithful means that no circumstance will turn Him away from accomplishing the will of God.  Not even abandonment by friends.  Not even betrayal by one of His closest disciples.  Not even the bloody and body-breaking death of the cross.  None of it causes him to “faint or be discouraged” because He will bring justice to all the earth and salvation to whosoever will believe.

The Servant comes softly, dies an unjust death, and rises from the dead as Lord of all.

God's Servant Described

Isaiah 42:1

The Lord stands as the Judge in a dramatic courtroom scene.  All the idols and gods of this world are brought before Him to decide if they have the power to foresee the future or to bring to pass the things they say will happen.  Every promise of salvation, power and meaning that is not from God is brought before him and every one of them fails miserably.  Every idol of this world is exposed as incompetent and impotent – they cannot do what they claim and lack the power needed to fulfill their promises.  So, it turns out, “they are all a delusion” (Is. 41:29).

So the next step is a dramatic one: “Behold my servant, whom I uphold.”  God takes our attention off the constant failures of this world to His Man, His will, His Servant – His Son, Jesus Christ.  In direct contrast to the manufactured gods of wood and stone (and marketing and circuitry), God wants us to consider and understand how His Servant will be different.  And it is the difference between the light and the dark, between the false and the true, between life and death.

To begin with, God’s Servant is upheld by His power.  Every other false god may claim a certain kind of power or potency, but all of them fail to have the divine power within them.  Jesus is not just the Servant of God, He is the very presence and power of God among us.  He is, as Isaiah says elsewhere, Emmanuel – God who is with us.  We cannot escape the reality of the power of God because it was the literal presence of God on earth in the birth of Jesus Christ.

The Servant is God’s chosen to perform His will.  God knows we fail and falter even when we are at our best as we live out this life of a disciple, so His chosen Servant will not fail.  We are faithless, He will be faithful.  God’s desire for this world will be done, and it will be accomplished through the Servant.

And surprisingly enough, the Servant is the focus of God’s delight on earth.  Early in Jesus’ ministry, He went to John the Baptist to be baptized and it was one of the rare moments in the New Testament when the heavens opened and God spoke audibly.  He said,  “You are my beloved Son, in you I am well pleased.”  God delights in his Son; God delighted in the birth of his Son on the first Christmas day.

And the Servant will be lead by the power and wisdom of the Spirit of God.  Jesus told the disciples that the Spirit of God would be their comforter and guide in all truth and the will of the Father.  It turns out he knew the same Spirit.  If we return to Jesus’ baptism, we see God the Son rise out of the water, God the Father speak His delight, and God the Spirit descend upon Christ in the form of a dove – a wonderful image of the Triune God in harmony.  We read nearly the same scene in Isaiah 42:1.  God the Father speaks of His delight in the Servant, God the Son, upon whom God the Spirit will rest.

We cannot ascend to the Father through any achievement, speculation or desire.  We cannot construct an ideology, a movement, or a program that has the power to guide and heal the human condition.  Every one of our hand-crafted idols is a false hope, so we need a true Savior.  Because we could not ascend and become like Him, He descended and became one of us.  Because we live in the visible and material the invisible and immaterial God stepped into human flesh taking on the form of a servant.

In the birth of one infant on the first Christmas day we are able to behold the Servant of God.

The Ambition of the Call

Romans 15:20

Every disciple is a called disciple.  Every follower of Christ is called to live for Christ.  The Christian is not just saved from an eternity apart from God, but is saved to live a life like Christ’s while here on this earth.  God called each believer to follow Christ.  And God calls each believer to do something for him, to live a certain life for him, to become a certain kind of person for him.  And this calling is not just for the special disciples, the intellectual or the super-spiritual.  If you are a child of God, you are called by God.

As Paul wraps up his letter to the Romans, we get a glimpse into his calling.  And though many of the specifics of Paul’s calling are unique to him, we learn a lot about our calling as we learn how Paul approached his call.  The way he treats the life God gave him gives me insight into how God wants me to treat my life with him.

“And thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel” (vs 20).

Paul’s calling – to preach the gospel where it had never been preached before – was the driving ambition of his life.  In fact, it was the reason he had been delayed in visiting the Romans.  Apparently he had planned to go Rome several times, but was unable to because he was waylaid by open mission fields.  Paul wanted to preach the gospel; Paul loved to do what God put him on earth to do, and in this context of Romans it is easy to imagine an exciting and fulfilling life for Paul.  But when we peel back the call itself, we see something else.

Acts chapter 9 tells us the story of Paul’s call, how Paul was persecuting the church, how God knocked him off his donkey, and how God used Ananias to deliver His message to Paul.  Just days after Paul’s conversion, God explained the call in his life this way, “he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:15-16).

From one point of view, this call seems hard if not impossible.  And it does so happen that Paul endures severe hardship in the service of this call, and eventually suffers martyrdom for preaching the gospel.  But from another point of view – the one that dominates Paul – the calling is a pleasure, a joy, a glory, even his life’s ambition.  When Paul writes the Romans and calls his life’s work his “ambition,” he has already suffered greatly, but it is as if none of that matters.  The call to preach the gospel, to do the thing God put him on earth to do, far outweighs the trials that come with the work.

The word he uses for “ambition” is telling.  It is a kind of love.  In fact, it can be literally translated as a “love of honor.”  Paul loves to do what God called him to do.  Paul considers it his highest honor to be called by God to proclaim the gospel and he will do it until there is no breath left in his body.

We often shy away from our calling because we are afraid of what God will make of our lives.  “I’ll give you everything but…” or, “do with me what you will, just don’t make me a…”  These all too common reactions miss the logic and the power of God’s call.  God made you and formed every corner of your being.  In the end, only he can make of your life everything it was intended to be.  Your calling is nothing to be afraid of.  We cannot consider it drudgery.  We must make it our ambition – our honor and driving love – to do what God called us to do.

The Virtue of Giving Thanks: The Consequence of Humility

Colossians 1:12

Christ told us that “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34).  In its full conversation, that verse is aimed at hypocritical Pharisees who were attacking Christ by attributing the work of God to Satan.  Their hearts were corrupt, so their mouths were necessarily corrupt.  Though they put on a show of purity and religiosity for all to see, they were rotten at their core and ended up blaspheming the God they said they so deeply loved.  The condition of their hearts literally came out of their mouths.

The mouths of the humble will naturally express thanksgiving to God.  Paul, a man full of thanksgiving, expressed himself this way to the Colossians: “May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light” (Colossians 1:11-12).

His expression of thanksgiving here is utterly dependent upon the work God has done for him.  Paul did not deserve the inheritance God gave him, and the most influential missionary in the world did not work his way into God’s favor.  Paul tells disciples to thank God in the same way.  We have been made children of God; He has done the work of qualifying us to live in His kingdom.  We are thankful for God’s work, not ours.

Humility is a way of looking at the world, God, and our place in it.  If we think we are the most significant thing in the world, or even one of the most significant things, humility is not a burden we bear.  If we believe God is the most important thing in all of time and space, then we are on our way to understanding our proper place in the world and the proper attitude we need to take toward others.  When God is primary, He is the source of my salvation and I am thankful.  When I am primary, God benefits from my presence on earth.  When God is primary, I am thankful for the gifts of creation, family, friends, work, and so much more.  When I am primary, all these people ought to be thankful for me.

Pride collapses our world.  We become self-consumed as our eyes are turned inward on our own perceived greatness, our own needs, and our own wants.  We become self-idols, looking like statues with heads bowed, not in worship but in self-adoration and self-absorption. 

Humility opens our world as wide as the greatness of God.  Our eyes can now gaze outward and upward as we can give thanks to God for all He has done and all He has given without the fear of losing the importance of ourselves.  In fact, the humble soul freely gives thanks in all things, finding in thanksgiving a divine valuation of all things.  People are no longer valuable to the degree they are useful to us, but in the degree to which they are valuable to God.  The objects of creation are no longer means to serve our selfish ends, but become beautiful objects displaying the handiwork of their Creator.  The humble disciple is able to see the world through the lens of thanksgiving.

The abundance of the prideful heart is a small, dark world.  The abundance of the humble heart is a joyous and expansive thanksgiving.  It is the humble disciple who sees God more clearly.  It is the humble disciple who gives thanks to God for all He has done.

The Virtue of Giving Thanks: An Antidote to Arrogance

Romans 1:21

We don’t give thanks for things we believe we have done on our own.  If we were not given any help, than what are we to give thanks for, and to whom should we give thanks?  A pattern of thanklessness like this is not a surface problem; it betrays a deeper issue – the problem of pride.  We are the source of our strength.  We are the beneficiaries of our own cleverness and intelligence.  We have taken care of ourselves just fine.

But is pride a problem?  Can we be legitimately proud of ourselves without negative consequences?  Arrogance, as it turns out, has deep and character-forming costs.  Arrogance is the stance that God is not necessary for the work of my daily life.  I may believe that God can save the day when things get really complicated, and I probably get angry with him when things don’t go my way, but outside of the extremes of life I have things under control and don’t need God’s intervention.  But a point of view like this one turns us into people without faith, heart, and the intellect God wants for us.

Paul describes the corruption of a thankless life: “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Romans 1:21).  These same thankless people are later described as becoming, “foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless” (Romans 1:31).

There are severe consequences to a person’s soul and character if they are not able to genuinely thank God.

Thanking God for the simplest of things is a great place to start.  God, the Creator, put the sun, moon, and stars into the sky.  He created a cycle of light, water, plant and animal life that makes life itself possible for each of us.  The very air we breathe is a gift from the hand of a wondrous, powerful and loving God.  We thank God for fresh air, for the warmth of the sun, for a beating heart, and for an attentive mind.  And when we do, we begin to notice how dependent upon God we are for every moment of life.

Thanking God for the skills and talents he gave you is another good place to begin.  God warned his people that when they entered the Promised Land and became prosperous they would be tempted to think that they had “done all these things” (Deuteronomy 8).  They would get past the difficulties of creating arable farm land and the first years of vineyards and crops, and in the shadow of their labors in the sun they would think that their hands had given them everything they needed.  But who gave them hands?  Who gave them the knowledge they needed to tend to the land properly?  Who removed the giants in the land?  When we thank God for both our abilities and the fruits of our labors, our attention moves from our hands and minds to the God who formed them and filled them with His grace.

From thanking God for the things around and in us, we will want to move to thanking God for Himself.  We will want to begin naming the character traits of God and thanking Him for each and every one.  He is my Provider.  He is my Lord, Redeemer, Savior and Friend.  He is my Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  He is the Only Wise God.  At each thunderous attribute, pause in thanksgiving, allowing the Holy Spirit to fill you with Him, and to overflow in the thanksgiving of praise.

A heart and mind filled with this kind of thanksgiving simply does not have room for the squalor of arrogance.  It is too busy being overwhelmed with the greatness of their God.

For Christ Did Not Please Himself

Romans 15:1-3

Christians come in every possible variation, color, and background.  And when we come together as the church we are intended to leave all the non-essentials at the door and live in unity under Christ.  At least that is the ideal.  It is how God is constructing his church, but we, the bricks of that construction, often get in the way.  Our differences divide us too easily.  We may gather in a vague sense of the supremacy and Lordship of Christ, but we are often far more taken with our pew-mate’s difference of opinion on the color of the pews than with our mutual Savior.  Our pettiness ought not be.  It should not be the thing that defines the body of Christ.  Instead, Christ shows us a much more excellent way.

“We who are strong have an obligation.”

Among our differences, Christians come in all degrees of maturity of lifestyle and faith.  Some have found a deep sense of intimacy with Christ and a strong understanding of their life of liberty and God-honoring behavior.  Others are still young or relatively immature in the faith and stumble easily at the lives and opinions of others.  When Paul mentions the “strong” and the “weak” to the Romans he recognizes the reality of weakness among Christians but places an obligation on the strong.  They are obliged to bear with the failings of the weak and live so as to please them in God’s goodness instead of living to please themselves.

The mature believer views the body of Christ as an opportunity to tend to the good of their weaker brother or sister’s life in Christ, and to make an effort to build them up.  Paul’s vocabulary about building up the other believer is vivid – it means to erect an edifice, to build a house, to edify.  In this way of living with each other in Christ, the disciple continues to learn what it means to view the other as more important than themselves.  As Paul put it to the Philippians, Christ’s way of thinking was to view you as more important than himself, and we ought to think the same way.  And in a relationship where one believer learns to love the other in spite of differences over non-essentials, we learn to enter another’s life as a builder instead of a destroyer.  We can actually be a part of God’s work in their lives to raise them to maturity in Christ and intimacy with their Heavenly Father.  Isn’t that a better vision of the body of Christ than a group of grumps quibbling over meaningless legalistic jots and tittles?

“For Christ did not please himself.”

The reason for our behavior is always grounded in Christ.  In order to explain and justify this radically selfless view of harmony in the church, Paul makes the ultimate appeal for the Christ-follower – this is how Jesus actually lived.  His incarnation was for our good: he “made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:7). His life was for our good: “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve” (Mark 10:45). His death was for our good: “he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5). His resurrection was for our good: “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).  The way Christ lived his life on earth 2000 years ago has profound consequences in our lives today.  It gives us our reasons for behavior and practical grounding for our relationships.

Christ lived his life among us so that we might have his life.  Do we live with each other in the same way?  Does the life of the church mean it is easier for God’s people to find God’s life?

God's Loves, God's Hatreds

Romans 12:9

One of the fundamental transformations that takes place in the hearts and minds of disciples of Jesus Christ is that they learn to love the things God loves and hate the things God hates.  While it may be easy and even common for us to reflect on and talk about loving the things God loves, we don’t always take into account the things God hates.  Much less do we meditate on hating the same things.  The maturing disciple learns to both love and hate, but only in the fashion and image of God’s loves and hatreds.

“Abhor what it evil; hold fast to what is good.”

If we are sensitive to it, Scripture is full of descriptions of God hating evil and injustice and loving righteousness.  Psalm 45:7 describes God’s faithful people and ultimately the Messiah by saying, “you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.”  The very character of Jesus Christ is marked by God’s love and God’s hatred.  Jesus taught the things God loves, touched the people God loves, lead the life God loves, and taught his disciples to continue in the same way of life.  But by the same token, Jesus had some uncomfortable things to say about the behaviors and ideologies God hates, and the hypocrites that perpetuated them.

To abhor, or to hate, is to see the vice or evil in a thing, a behavior, or an idea.  To love (or as Paul puts it, “hold fast to”) is to associate with, to promote as good and valuable, and to even sacrifice for something or someone.

How do we learn what we ought to love and hate?  The loves and hatred of God.  Learning what God loves becomes our moral compass – it is our matter-of-fact command to love.  A disciple is willing to surrender their fleshly loves and hatreds and let them be transformed by God’s point of view on the matter.  Every disciple comes to God with a set of loves and hatreds given to them by the world, and all of them must be surrendered.  And as the disciple is surrendered and submitted, their obedience to command becomes the very pulse of their desires.  Our loves become transformed so that we willingly and naturally love the way God loves and we righteously hate what God hates.

In becoming these kinds of disciples, a distinction becomes clear: God loves people and hates the things that destroy them.  Scripture says that I was an enemy of God in my sin, but God loved this sinner so much that he entered flesh, lived among us, died on the cross because of my sin, and rose again for my life.  The transforming disciple learns to view humans – even our enemies – in the same way.  Our enemies cease to become targets for our cursing and wrath, and become potential recipients of the grace and forgiveness of God.

In this we see that the love of God necessarily includes the hatred of sin – otherwise the cross of Christ is a superfluous act of torture and death.  Sin is a destroyer and needs to be destroyed.  Sin is hated by God and ought to be hated by his disciples so much so that they are ready to sacrifice themselves for the love of sinners.  Only in this way can the disciple of Jesus Christ learn to love what he loves.

I Beg of You, Be Disciples

Romans 12:1-2

There are people who have made a mark on this world, not because they were powerful or wealthy, but because they were faithful followers of Jesus Christ.  Often they shook the structures of their time for the single reason that they were people who belonged to the Kingdom of God instead of the kingdoms of this world.  And even though many of them faced (and still face) the persecution of this world and the fate of martyrdom, they are the heroes of their stories.  Their discipleship was stronger than earthly might, and their lives shine brighter than the candles of kings and kingdoms.

The difference is discipleship.  And Paul pleads with us to be disciples of Jesus Christ.

“I appeal to you, therefore, brothers.”

Paul’s appeal is strong.  This is Paul’s deep desire for followers of Jesus Christ.  This is, in many ways, his life’s work for them.   What Paul wants more than anything else for these followers of Jesus Christ is that their lives would reflect the image of Christ to an ever increasing degree.

When Paul writes to the Roman Christians he appeals to them to be disciples in a culture not made for Christian disciples.  The empire of Rome was not built around making it easy for Christians to deny the state gods and religious practices.  When someone converted to Christianity, the rest of their lives became harder.  And, of course, we all have the images of Christians in the Coliseum in our minds as we think of Rome and religious tolerance.  And yet, Paul pleads with them to look more like Christ instead of less.

While Paul pleads with Christians to become disciples, he tells us it happens by the mercy of God.  Discipleship is first and foremost a matter of engagement with God.  We do not strive and achieve to make our way into discipleship and the image of Christ by fixing the small, loose ends of our lives or tidying up the messy corners of our personality we haven’t gotten around to fixing yet.  Discipleship is a lifestyle of engagement and surrender to God.  The disciple surrenders what is destructive and engages with God in order that his Holy Spirit can, by his power, build in him the virtues of Christ.  It is complete surrender; it is constant engagement.  The disciple learns to turn their attention to Christ more often than not, and in the end, their attention can be completely occupied and colored by the presence and wisdom of God.

Discipleship is not a 12-step program or a formula that can be applied in each and every situation.  It is a daily decision to belong to God; and that daily decision can turn into a lifestyle, and that lifestyle really can turn into the life of Jesus Christ.  Paul has already told us and the Romans that God has predestined each and every believer to be conformed to the image and likeness of his Son, Jesus Christ.  Paul now pleads with each and every one of us – present yourself to God so that you may begin to look like, act like, and think like, Jesus Christ.

Discipleship is a new life and it is a life available only through the powerful mercies of God.  Please, I ask of you, follow Jesus Christ. 

Provision in the Desert

Deuteronomy 8:1-10

In this life temptation will come. It is inevitable. It is the very nature of the world. But not every season in life and not every temptation is the same. There are unique temptations that come in the difficult and desert seasons in life. We struggle with things we are not able to overcome and over issues we feel are noble but don’t seem to bring anything but pain. We feel as if God has abandoned us or may even actively be against us. These are real seasons in life with God, and can be some of the most difficult, but God has some things to say about the temptations of the desert.

Though the language is stark, it is nonetheless true – God led his people in the wilderness and even tested his people through the trials they faced there. Moses says, “And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness , that he might humble you, testing you” (vs. 2). In the desert God’s people faced some very real and difficult things, beginning with hunger and thirst. Adding to the natural difficulties is the fact that God did the leading into the desert with a few things in mind for them including humility, obedience and testing.

The inclusion of humility here is powerfully instructive. They were the children of generations of slaves and had spent their entire lives wandering in a barren wilderness. Do they really need humility? Hasn’t life been difficult enough on them? It turns out, however, that God’s most-used descriptor for them is not “humble,” but some form of “stubborn” or “stiff-necked.” Neither the ignominy of slavery nor the difficulty of the desert made them humble. Humility is not a function of our physical or material position in life, but of the position of our heart with God. The most destitute can be proud; the wealthiest among us can be humble.

In addition to humility, they needed to learn where their source of all sustenance came from. Moses says that God did these things, “that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (vs. 3). They wandered in a desert where there was no bread, so God provided bread from heaven. They had no meat, so God sent quail. There were no water supplies easily at hand, so God cracked open a rock and water flowed. There were no major cities along the way where they could buy new clothes for the ones that were wearing out in the wilderness wanderings, so God kept their shoes and clothes from growing thread-bare. These needs were met, not by what we might recognize as normal or natural means, but by the voice of God commanding that their needs be met.

Possibly the deepest fear we face when we wander through a desert is that we simply will not be taken care of, that our needs won’t be met. We are accustomed to working to pay the bills and applying our own skills and talents to our lives so things go as smoothly as they can. But when we are met with the barrenness of a land with no food or water, our abilities run out quickly. And often this is the only place where we learn – really learn – that the voice of God is our only source of provision.

And then we know that the abundant provision of the Promised Land is the voice of God working to provide for his people. “For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land” (vs. 7).

To drive the point home, when he was hungry after forty days of fasting in the wilderness, Jesus Christ rebuked Satan’s temptation to turn stones into bread by quoting from Deuteronomy 8. Jesus refused the bread of temptation in favor of the food that can only come from the voice of God himself.

Hope

Romans 8:23-25

Hope is a powerful desire deep within every human being. All of us hope for the better, the good, the resolution of tension and difficulty. All of us anticipate and work for the betterment of our own conditions and those of the ones we love. Hope is such an important part of the human make-up that its loss is devastating and often fatal. When a human gives up hope, or has enough of their hopes dashed, all meaning and purpose to life can slip away.

In Romans chapter 8 Paul speaks of the Christian’s hope of the glory of God and the kind of hope we have in a broken world. If the glory of God is far greater than the suffering and pain in this world (vs. 18), then what does it mean to hold onto the hope of this glory in a decaying and difficult world?

First of all, it is undeniably true that we groan under the weight of this world. “And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” (vs. 23) And though we groan, we do not suffer meaninglessly; we have the foretaste of the glory of God living and breathing in us. We have the firstfruits now of the feast of God’s glory to come because the children of God have been given the Spirit of God. We know there will be complete forgiveness because the Spirit is at work forgiving now. We know there will be a complete transformation of the human soul because the Spirit is at work transforming now. We know there will be a complete healing of body and soul because the Spirit is at work healing body and soul now. We know the feast is coming because we are eating the appetizers.

And into this hope, Paul says, you were saved. (vs. 24) We were given a firm and true hope when we became children of God.

False hope is a dangerous and manipulative tool. Because every human being is built to hope, there are people and ideologies that will play on that hope and destroy lives, draining them of every effort and energy in order to get their way. These people and ideologies promise the world and simply do not have the power or intelligence to make good on their promise. In false hope, human lives are utterly ruined.

But the hope of God is founded on the truth and power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. When you were saved you exchanged all the snake-oil of this world for the truth of the hope we have in Jesus Christ. His kingdom will come and his will will be done on earth just as it is in heaven, and followers of Jesus Christ partake in that kingdom here and now. Just as false hope ruins lives, the true hope of Jesus Christ restores them. It gives meaning and redemption even in suffering and pain. It provides the taste of the glory of God in a world that causes so much groaning.

It is true that we “wait for it with patience,” (vs. 25) but we can wait in truth and security because we know the power and the glory of God. God has not orphaned us here in this world – He has sent his Spirit to be a Counselor, Teacher and Guide, and even the firstfruits of the glory of the kingdom of God.

Lose every hope you have in the people and structures of this world. Do not lose your hope in the truth and the power of the kingdom of God. For you were given this hope when you became a child of God.

The Death and Life of Baptism

Romans 6:1-4

The freedom and forgiveness in the Christian life can sometimes be misunderstood as an excuse to continue in a life of sin and rebellion. And what is true today, it turns out, was true in Paul’s day. Paul had to confront the notion that if God’s grace is a good thing, then we need to continue to sin so God has more chances to display his forgiveness. This idea displays a radical misunderstanding of what God does to the human heart, and, surprisingly enough, baptism proves Paul’s point.

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” (vs. 3)

In certain parts of the early Christian church baptism was a rite that was earned and not simply given away. When a person became a Christ-follower, instead of being immediately baptized they were put through a sometimes lengthy process of education and life transformation. The church needed to be sure the convert knew what they had done and that their life reflected that change. Only when they were sure of these things did the church allow baptism.

While very few churches would treat baptism this way today, this practice highlights what is being demonstrated in the act of going under and coming out of the water. It is true that one of the clearest symbols of baptism is that our sins are washed away – we go into the water as a sinner, we come out a forgiven and cleansed child of God. But Paul takes us a couple more steps down the path of what the act means. As it turns out when we go into the water we are participating in the death of Jesus Christ. We lie in the grave with him, as it were. As Christ died, so we die.

And we die to a way of life. The life ruled by my dysfunctional passions and severely limited abilities has gone away in the death of the believer in Christ Jesus. I am dead now to sin.

But death is not all there is. As we go under the water and die with Christ, so we come out and now live in the new life that Christ offers. Just as Christ was raised from the dead, so now we can “walk in newness of life.” (vs. 4) It is telling that Paul does not say here that Christ rose from the dead that we might live with him for all of eternity. Though that is true, the point here – the point of baptism – is that we walk in the resurrection life here and now.

The resurrection life is not just about what happened to Jesus Christ 2000 years ago when he walked out of the tomb, and it is not just about what happens to the believer when they die and go to be with him. It is also about what I do when I wake up every morning. It is about the power of God living and breathing in his children so that we may live his kind of life in this world. We die to sin and we come alive to the life of God.

If you were put in that early church where they required a developed knowledge of Jesus and evidence of a transformed life, would you be baptized by now?

Unashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ

Romans 1:16-17

Paul has never been to Rome, but he is anxious to visit. He is looking forward to encouraging the church and to proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. He hopes, more specifically, that there will be a harvest among his brothers and sisters in Christ and among the Gentiles. Paul knows the gospel is powerful when it is shared among believers, and powerful when it is shared with people who don’t yet know and love Jesus Christ. In fact, under no circumstances is Paul ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

When Paul writes this letter he has already been around most of the Mediterranean world preaching and receiving mixed results. In some places he is heartily received by an excited set of new believers. In some places he is barely noticed, and in some places he is run out of town on a rail or stoned. But in all places Paul is unashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The gospel of Christ is true, powerful, beautiful, transformative, holy and glorious – all on its own. It is all these things without my help or contribution. The gospel is untarnished by human error or cultural corruption. Though it steps into our lives and histories and has the power to change us, we cannot change it. The gospel does not need my help to be attractive, my strength to stand in our world, my intelligence and cleverness to be true or triumphant. It is not within my abilities to make it what it is and always will be – the power of God for salvation.

There is no good reason to be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. But there are a lot of bad reasons.

It might be peer pressure of some sort. The crowd I find myself in may be put-off by Jesus’ story, or they may find it a quaint belief for some small set of people who don’t have the wherewithal to stand on their own two feet. We may even recognize that the crowd we want to fit into looks down on what they think is the childishness or lack of sophistication of the gospel. They are all wrong on all counts, and these are bad reasons to be ashamed.

I may simply be a spiritual sloth – a lazy bum when it comes to my relationship with God. How is this being ashamed? Will a lazy believer stand for the truth of their belief when the pressure is on? What about when there is a better offer from another point of view? Will they know how to address the skeptic who confronts them or the pains of life when they assail them? They won’t, and while the spiritual sloth may carry their faith lightly on good days, they will drop it quickly on the hard ones. Laziness is a bad reason to be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Paul writes these words maybe 15 years before he is able to actually visit Rome. We know Paul backs up these words with his deeds when he writes them. But when he actually gets to Rome – when his wish of visiting them is fulfilled – he arrives in chains. By then he is a prisoner for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ. When he raises his hand to hug his friends they are in shackles. Paul lives unashamed of the gospel and arrives in Rome unashamed of the gospel.

There is no good reason to be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the very power of God himself.

My Introduction

Romans 1:1-7

There is a lot we can learn about the Christian life from the way the apostle Paul introduces himself in his letters. Though these sections often feel like simple boiler-plate, they contain far more than inconsequential pieces of information about Paul. They become doors of insight into some of the goals of the Christian life. They challenge us to be able to introduce ourselves in the same way with the same level of authenticity.

“Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ.” Paul likes describing himself as a servant, the word means a willing slave, to Jesus Christ. We cannot confuse his sense of servanthood with our notion of slavery, however. When we encounter the concept, we tend to think of people carried across the world against their will, and the best thing we could do for them is set them free. The best thing for Paul, as far as Paul is concerned, is his willing slavery to his Savior. Paul has subjected himself to Jesus Christ as a servant on purpose. Have I?

“Paul…called to be an apostle.” Paul is called. This means God has done something with Paul. For most of us it could be said that we are doing something with ourselves, but that leaves us in the position of being subject to our own shortcomings and failings. A calling by God means there can be a divine purpose for our being and our doing instead of just my purposes for being and doing. As Paul will make clear over and over, being called by God means we are called to salvation for occupation. God does the work of making us His own, and then we are to live for and work for Him.

Paul is an apostle. In its simplest form, the term means he is a messenger. Paul travelled the Mediterranean world taking the Gospel to people who had never heard. And though Paul is one of the original, and probably unique, apostles, we are not exempt from the task. Before his introduction is over he tells his readers that “we have received grace and apostleship” (vs. 5).

Paul also addresses all of his readers, as he does in so many of his letters, as saints. He says the Romans were “called to be saints” (vs. 7). If we conjure up images of “saints,” our heads might be filled with half-remembered paintings of people with halos, and stories of special devotion to God under harsh and trying circumstances. And though those people may legitimately be saints, such images have the unfortunate effect of separating the rest of us from the calling of saint.

Paul says you are called to be saints – every one of you. If we strip away the caricatures, we see that people called to be saints have a new life running through their veins that is not tarnished or overcome by this world. We see that people who are called to be saints are anchored and secure in Christ. Saints are not people whose lives are free from storms, but people whose lives are safe and secure in every storm. And people who are called to be saints are not sedentary – they change things for the Kingdom of God.

You are called to be a saint. Anything less is beneath your dignity. Anything less is beneath who God created you to be.

The God of Fear and Mercy

Habakkuk 3:1-2

The prophet laid his heart – his broken and frustrated heart – out to God. Habakkuk saw evil and injustice around him and prayed for God’s presence and justice. In his anger the prophet cried out, and in His wisdom God responded. The first two chapters of this intense little book are a back-and-forth between the prophet and his God about where God is and what a holy and good God will do with a world like this. At one point God tells Habakkuk that He will indeed show up, but the prophet won’t like it when he does. But the prophet remains steadfast in his desire to hear from God and continue his “complaint.” But something changes the prophet’s perspective – God speaks, God explains, and God shows who He is.

And as a result, the complaining ceases and the prayer begins.

Chapter three is not the continuation of a complaint, but a psalm of prayer and worship. Not only is it something the prophet writes to express his personal reaction to the glory and power of God, he writes it for the whole congregation to sing. The “Shigionoth” is likely a form of music, and at the very end Habakkuk notes, “To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments.” We are all supposed to sing this prayer together because we all live in the same world, are beset with the same kinds of frustrations and evils, and because we all worship the same kind of glorious and powerful God.

The prayer begins with Habakkuk telling us where he now stands with God. In the beginning he stood in complaint against God crying out to the heavens without any response. Now he tells us God is great and deserving of our fear and awe.

“O Lord, I have heard the report of you, and your work O Lord, do I fear.”

In essence, Habakkuk says, “I have heard about you and have seen what you can do, and now I am afraid of you.” It is entirely appropriate and right for the believer to realize the God they worship is worthy to be feared. He is not a small and swayable god who exists to do nice things for us and to make everything “OK.” He is the God who can level mountains, dry up seas and destroy entire empires. We need to relearn how to come to God with the right sense of fear, awe and reverence. The right worship of God necessarily includes reverence.

But He is not an arbitrary tyrant in the sky who cannot be approached. Habakkuk does not move from an expression of the fear of the Lord to a plea to an oppressor. Instead, he turns to God in prayer for his people. This revered God is a God who hears His people’s prayers.

“In the midst of the years revive it.” Habakkuk prays that God will, even now, bring life to a rebellious and dead people. May it be today!

“In the midst of the years make it known.” Habakkuk prays that God will make himself and his work known in a world that rejects and ignores his counsel. May it be today!

“In wrath remember mercy.” Habakkuk will behold the ravaging destruction of his people. It will seem that wrath will have the last word, but he prays that God will remember and return in mercy, as he in fact does. May it be today that the mercy of God will prevail, many will come to know him, and his glory will be seen!

The Law of the Lord is Glorious

Psalm 19:7-11

There are times when a passage of Scripture is so well known to us, that in reading it we may lose sight of the context or the passage that follows. The opening praise of Psalm 19 is so catching it is easy to miss the lines that follow. It is gloriously true that all of creation sings the wonder and praise of its Creator. It is no less true that the law of the Lord is itself glorious.

This passage looks at the law of God the way we may rotate a crystal under a light. With each turn we see a new facet, a new color emerges. David rotates the law of God under a light and with each turn of phrase we learn something new and beautiful about the ways and precepts of our God.

The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.

There is nothing lacking in the law of the Lord. If we are searching for wisdom, meaning and truth, there is nowhere else to go. And since each human has an insatiable longing for God, it is only He who can quench that thirst.

The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

All God says is completely trustworthy. When we trust in the ways and wisdom of men, the wise become foolish. When the simple trust in the absolutely sure and steadfast word of God, they become wise.

The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.

We look for joy in all the wrong places. We return again and again to the empty and leaking wells of this world, when obedience to God’s precepts provides true joy.

The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening our eyes.

They are pure the way light is radiant. We cannot see in the dark – there is no light for our eyes to use. But when the light shines, our eyes work the way they were created to work and we see. The commands of our Lord shine on our lives, and in obedience we see.

The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever.

Our reverence can be measured by the thing we revere. To be in awe of empires and political schemes is to have a small and unrequited awe. But the fear of the Lord is fear rightfully and eternally placed. He is greater than and will outlast every human endeavor. Thus, the fear of the Lord is right and eternal.

The rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether.

My rules are not true. Your rules are not true. Neither are ours righteous for they are by necessity stained with our sin and short-sightedness. The rules of the Lord are not easy and comfortable to follow, but they are true and wholly right. His rules do not always fit well with what I want to do with myself, but they are my only source of true, righteous and moral guidance.

These laws and ways are to be desired more than any other thing.

Relearning Obedience

John 21:1-14

As the disciple John closes his gospel, he notes that Jesus revealed himself to his disciples in a particular way. The story of the great catch of fish is not just a filler between the resurrection and Jesus’ restoration of Peter, it is a deliberate act of revelation from Jesus to his disciples. And it is a revelation that happens through a simple, but consequential, act of obedience.

None of us are naturally tuned to happily and consistently obey the will of God. We naturally obey ourselves and the easy inclinations of the flesh, and learning to obey Christ is work that cuts against the grain of our nature. We often misunderstand obedience to God as a wearisome and life-destroying task, so we are wrongly prejudiced against it before we begin. But this fish story teaches us that obedience is in truth an amazing thing. Obedience is revelation about God, it is the entrance into his will, and it is the source of his power and the work of his kingdom. In all, the call to obedience is God’s invitation for us to join in his work and his will.

They fished all night and caught nothing. Like everywhere else in John’s gospel, work in the dark is fruitless. But just as the morning begins to dawn and light strikes the seashore, a stranger becomes visible and tells them to cast their nets on the right side of the boat. Amazingly, these frustrated and professional fishermen do it. And as soon as they do, an empty net becomes full and a fruitless night becomes a fruitful morning.

As soon as the fish are in the net, John sees something. He cries, “It is the Lord!” (vs. 7) They didn’t recognize Jesus until after an act of obedience. And the revelation here is the result of an act of obedience – obedience shows us God.

Obedience is a teacher. When we obey God rather than our own ways, we learn through experience that his ways are higher than ours and his power is greater than ours. The professionals were failing under their own power on the sea. Disciples brought in a net full of fish by obeying a simple command.

After Peter swims to shore and the remaining disciples pull in the catch, they all stand before their risen Savior. He has already prepared them breakfast: “When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid out on it, and bread.” (vs. 9) The disciples caught 153 large fish, and Jesus didn’t need a single one of them. This causes me to wonder, why the great catch of fish? Did they catch fish to provide Jesus with something he didn’t have? Were they bringing him something he couldn’t get on his own?

Was their act of obedience an act of giving Jesus something he lacked or something they lacked? Was their obedience about what he needed or what they needed?

We obey God because he is our Lord and we are his people. But we also obey God for our own sake – to fill our lack and to meet our need. Our obedience is God’s way of filling us with himself and bringing us into his work in his kingdom. He had already caught the fish he needed to feed them. They needed to learn that obedience brings them into the work he is already doing.

Obey the word and will of God today and you will find a Savior ready and waiting to fill you with his abundance.