A Promise Given in the Dark. Ezra 1:1

Though the book of Ezra appears relatively early in your Bible, it represents events that happen at the very tail end of recorded Old Testament history. What happens in Ezra, and the companion volume, Nehemiah, happen 400-500 years before the birth of Christ, so there is a lot of history and theology that gets focused in this book that then leads us straight to the New Testament and God's plan in Christ.

To begin with, God's people are captives in Babylon when Cyrus the king of the Persians defeats the Babylonians. Some of God's people have been in captivity for almost 200 years, and others only for a few decades. But because of their rebellion, the land has sat nearly empty for a long time. After the fires of conquest, the dust has settled, the embers have grown cold, and a long dark night has settled in on the Promised Land. But as Ezra opens, the light of dawn begins to crack over the horizon.

Cyrus decided it was time to send God's people home with plenty of wealth to rebuild the Temple. But this isn't just the kindness of a benevolent dictator. God stirred his heart. God laid out this plan since the days of Jeremiah the prophet, and even earlier. Through Isaiah the prophet, God called Cyrus by name and laid out what he was going to do for his people, temple, and city nearly 200 years before he was born. Then, decades before Cyrus defeats the Babylonians, God says through Jeremiah that he is going to send his exiled people home. In fact, this is the context of the most well known passage in Jeremiah,

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a home. Then you will call upon me and some and pray to me, and I will hear you" (Jeremiah 29:11-12).

When God tells his people this, they are powerless captives in a foreign and pagan land. Just before Ezra 1:1 opens, God's people have been given the promise that they will return home, but they have absolutely no earthly power to make that happen. If they do go home, it will have to be because someone more powerful than they are makes it happen. And so it does,

"In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus" (Ezra 1:1).

Something incredible is true for the follower of Jesus Christ - you can be utterly powerless in this world and still have good reason for hope. God's people were powerless captives, but got to go home anyway. They did not have what we would call economic leverage, but they went home loaded to the gills with Persian treasure and all the valuables plundered from the temple a generation before. And it all happened because God performed it and showed faithful love to broken and enslaved people.

God rebuilds his people. God has every desire to fill his children's life with his. God is powerful enough to not be put on his heels by any complication or disadvantage we have. God's promise to the exiles in Babylon belongs to all his children, but note what the promise is. It is that he will gather us in his presence, we will seek him, we will find him, we will pray to him, and he will hear us.

This is the promise given in our darkness and is the light of God dawning in our lives.

God Shows No Partiality. Neither Should We.

Acts 10:23-48

Part of the simple logic of the Christian faith flows from the nature of God. God reveals himself to

have certain qualities, and since his people belong to him, they ought to begin displaying the same qualities.  At a crucial point in the life of the early church, the typically heavy-footed Peter came face to face with this logic when he entered the home of Cornelius the Roman Centurion.

Peter had been raised, along with all his Jewish brothers and sisters, to believe that Gentiles were beneath them and the Romans were oppressors who needed to go.  But one afternoon he was praying on a rooftop on the shore of the Mediterranean when God began to change that. While he was staying in the home of a leather maker (an ironic twist in the story seeing that the job of leather making made one unclean), God put him in a trance and showed him a sheet full of unclean animals.  When God told him to rise and eat, Peter responded out of his upbringing and faithfulness to Old Testament Law. “Never,” he said. “I have not eaten anything unclean and I won’t start now.”  But God’s response is what changes things.  God told him to never call anything unclean, or common, that he has called clean.

At that moment an envoy from Cornelius shows up at the house where Peter is staying and asks him to come.  God told Cornelius to send for Peter.  God told Peter to go. God was up to something big.  As soon as Peter enters the house of the Roman Centurion something strikes him as so important he repeats the topic twice in a short span of time. He says, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I ask then why you sent for me” (Acts 10:28-29). And then, “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality” (Acts 10:34).

Peter was raised to show a harsh partiality.  He was raised with a strict “us vs. them” ethic and now God was teaching him something very different.  He was taught to see people like Cornelius as beneath the honor of his presence and on this day Peter brings a whole group of Jewish Christians into his house to fellowship, eat with him, and talk about Jesus.  Peter came face to face that day with a truth woven into the bones of the Christian faith: no human being is unclean.  Every human being is of inestimable value. Every human being is worthy of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  No human being is beneath a disciple of Jesus Christ.

The logic is clear – no human being is beneath Jesus Christ, the God who emptied himself and became flesh. Thus, no human being is “less than” any other human being, and certainly not “less than” a follower of Jesus Christ. And every human life can become something that glorifies its Savior, Jesus Christ.

And why is it no human is beneath another in the eyes of God? It is by virtue of our creation in the image of God, and, as God told Peter, God has called every human clean. In other words, our status measured in earthly or ethnic terms does not determine our worth. The creation and decision of God does. No human lacks the image of God. No human is unclean.

One of the radical beliefs a Christian carries into this world is that God does not show partiality.  For all of its bluster about equality and human rights, our culture loves to decide who is and who is not worthy of life and privilege.  Our culture loves building ladders out of people. The abortion rate for children diagnosed with Down Syndrome is 94%. In a now infamous study, the abortion rate for African-American children in the city of Manhattan is over 80%. Children are still sold as slaves on the streets of Western, advanced cities. Political schemes rely on dividing people into groups that suspect and hate each other. Politicians have become wealthy beyond reason stoking those fires. And we all know the story goes on, and on.

But the Christian belongs to another God, a different kind of God. One who does not show partiality. God does not draw distinctions between people, calling one better than another.  And thus, by the grace and strength of God, neither do we.

We Worship

Isaiah 12

Worship is a life transforming activity.  And because Scripture tells us that we become like what we worship, we must be deliberate and attentive to whom and what we worship.  If we are careful and honest when we search out the things we worship, we may discover the answer is not as clear as we would like.  Our attentions are usually divided among many things and people each vying for our attention and worship; each doing its part to turn us into copies of itself.

The worship of idols and false gods diminishes and shrivels our souls and turns us into shadowy reflections of lifeless things while the worship of the Beautiful Creator is part of the process of being transformed into the image of the Son.  As Paul puts it, when God does the work of transformation we are changed from glory to glory.

In this chapter Isaiah erupts in a psalm of worship. He not only reminds us of our great God and all he has done, he engages us in worship.  Here we catch a glimpse of what full-blooded worship feels like.  We hear the voices of the people of God lift up the God they adore.  Here we engage with Isaiah and the throngs of thousands upon thousands of the redeemed.  And we begin by giving thanks.

The role and power of thanksgiving cannot be underemphasized in the life of the disciple.  In fact, a thankless disciple is a person who simply has not come in contact with their God.  At the very least, the habit of thanksgiving turns us out of ourselves and puts our minds and hearts on the great things of God.  When we are most consumed with ourselves – either through pride or anxiety – is when our hearts are darkest.  Thanksgiving is light.  It is the eternal light of a Savior who is always great and good.

The thing Isaiah hears the people of God giving thanks for is the triumph of God’s grace.  They are fully aware that God was angry at their sin and rebellion and they deserved his wrath.  Consequently, they are overjoyed that this same God turned away from wrath and toward comfort.  It turns out that in my sin I deserve the full weight of God’s wrath, but in his grace the full force of his anger fell on my Substitute instead.  The saved are eternally grateful for the exchange of wrath for comfort at the cross.

The worshiper knows the difference between trust and fear.  In fear there is no stability or strength, but in trust the Lord is known as both strength and song.  Those who trust in the Lord alone experience his power and care in unique ways, and their worship overflows in song.  The disciple should never devalue the benefit of singing praises to God!  Music touches us mind, soul, and body, and is an activity of eternity (Rev 5).  Could it be that when we sing praises to our Lord there is a taste of heaven on our lips?

And worship helps transform us into people who glorify and proclaim.  We lift him up because he is worthy to be praised – in all seasons of life and all circumstances I face, God remains great.  And though our praises do not make him greater than he already is, for God cannot be made greater, our praises and lives of worship may make him greater in the eyes of the rest of the world.

Engage in worship of the one and only God, and you will begin to find the joy of people who live in the kingdom of the great and glorious One.

God with Us?

Isaiah 7

In this story, Isaiah speaks to a king and a nation in stressful times.  There are two nations in league against them, King Ahaz has already lost battles to both nations, and now he hears they plan on taking his city and setting up their own king.  The result is, as Isaiah so vividly puts it, “the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind” (vs. 2).  The way things look to Ahaz, there is very little hope of success unless he is able to form an allegiance with another, stronger nation, so that is what he does by sending treasures from the Temple to the nation of Assyria (2 Kings 16). He hopes to buy their support and save the day.  Isaiah sees things differently.

Ahaz is shaken at the prospect of enemies at the gate and an uncertain future.  Isaiah, though a citizen of the city in danger, is not shaken by foreign nations no matter how strong.  Isaiah has seen the One who shakes the foundations of the earth and whose glory saturates everything that exists, so the fears of this world pale in comparison to him.  Isaiah has seen the Lord and there is now no question of his faith and trust.  Ahaz only sees the foreign threat and everything that could possibly go wrong, so his faith and trust in God is shaky at best.  The difference is in what each man sees; one trusts God in the face of anything and everything, and the other cannot trust God no matter what God does.  And in the end, this difference is also the difference in how the greatest gift of God to a broken people in a difficult world is received.  What does it mean that, “God is with us”?

God wants Ahaz to learn to trust him.  Isaiah tells the king, “If you are not firm in the faith, you will not be firm at all” (vs 9).  What God means is that the only place to stand firm and secure in a world like ours is in him.  Even if Assyria sends the treaty back with good news, they will fail (and ultimately attack) Judah.  Ahaz will fall no matter where he stands unless he stands on God alone.  When God presents himself as the answer to our fears, he does not make our fears small, he makes himself great.  Our fears are real, but our God is greater than any fear we do or will possibly ever face.  Isaiah knew this.  Ahaz needed to learn it.

It is true that without God, Ahaz, and I, have everything to fear.  Every conspiracy has the potential to destroy me.  Every relationship has the potential to leave me hurt and alone.  Every career has the possibility of failure.  Every bank can collapse.  And on it goes ad infinitum, ad phobium.  But with God, it turns out that none of those fears are greater than he is and all of them put together are smaller than he is.  So standing in faith in God is the only safe place to stand.

I said God wanted Ahaz to have faith in him.  He wants it so much he goes to the extraordinary length of offering the king the opportunity to ask him for a sign – anything he can imagine.  And when he refuses out of false piety, God in exasperation offers a sign that would blow anyone’s mind – a virgin will give birth to a son whose life will mean salvation for God’s people.  And his life is a message – “God with us.”

Ahaz was waiting for a treaty to be signed that meant, “Assyria is with you!”  God was giving him what only God can possibly give, “God is with you!”  Ahaz missed it.  Will we? 

The Voice and Character of Wisdom

Proverbs 8:6-11

The voice of Folly in Proverbs speaks at twilight and into the night to foolish and simple young men who have wandered down the wrong streets.  Foolishness appeals to the simpleton within us and uses crooked and deceptive speech to lure us into her traps.  Wisdom, on the other hand, could not be more different.  Not only does she cry out on in the streets and marketplaces pleading with men and women to listen to her ways, but everything she says is trustworthy, straight, right, and true.  We can trust everything Wisdom has to say.  When we do not understand or agree with the particulars, we can know that what she has said is righteous and that there is nothing twisted or crooked in it.

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul admonishes them to meditate on the kinds of things that are true, noble, just, praiseworthy, and so forth.  Hearing Wisdom speak in Proverbs chapter 8 we learn that all these things turn out to be the voice of Wisdom.  Paul notes that when we think on these kinds of things the God of peace will be with us, will keep our heart and minds in Christ Jesus, will lead us through life.  And Solomon is just as sure of it – when we hear the voice of Wisdom our lives will become rightly-ordered.

Everything Wisdom utters is true, and she hates evil: “for my mouth will utter truth; wickedness is an abomination to my lips” (vs 7).  It turns out that truth valued and held to creates a disposition of distaste for wickedness.  When we long for truth and work for it, we not only reveal a taste of truth, we create a hunger for it.  We may long for an entire well-grilled steak at its first bite, but we eventually find ourselves full and a little sluggish.  And while truth also creates that longing at first bite, it is an inexhaustible source of nourishment.  We can eat and eat of it and never reach its end.  And along the way we learn to develop a distaste for wickedness.  Not only will the wise person recognize evil, they will also recognize it for the pain and destruction it causes in the human life.  And because Wisdom loves God’s creation, she hates its destruction.

All these characteristics highlight the inner landscaping Wisdom performs in the submitted human soul.  When we listen to Wisdom and when we meditate on these things our inner lives are reshaped to fit the way God created us and the rest of the world.  When a puzzle fits together the pieces do two things – they fit with each other and they match the picture on the box.  The way a rightly-ordered puzzle works is a lot like the way our rightly-ordered souls work.  When God’s wisdom has its way within us the pieces of our lives will fit together and our lives as a whole will fit the picture of what God created us to be.

So this passage on the voice and character of Wisdom is not just a story of what Wisdom sounds like, it is the template for what the follower of Jesus Christ begins to look like.  Is our voice in line with the truth, righteousness, and nobility of the voice of Wisdom?  Are our lives conforming to that very character, or are we still mired in the simplistic and destructive ways of folly?  Have the people of God become people of his Wisdom?

Keeping the Ways of the Lord

Proverbs 2:9-12

The wise person recognizes they are surrounded by temptation every day.  If there isn’t an external pressure to ignore the ways of God, there are internal pressures that lure us from the path of Wisdom.  So what is it this wise person does to not only recognize temptation but to avoid it?  The Apostle Paul once told the Corinthians that the Lord does not allow us to be tempted beyond our power to overcome, and yet we continue to fall.  How do we learn to break that cycle?

We are admonished over and over in the first few chapters of Proverbs to pay close attention to the voice of Wisdom.  We are supposed to learn how to recognize her voice, bind her sayings around our necks, and write her ways on our hearts.  And in this way the simple heart learns not just the words of Wisdom but her ways.  And her ways become the guardrails for our path.  If we are pulled too close to the edge of the path, we hit a guardrail – a precept – and we know what needs to be done.  In short, if we keep the ways of the Lord, the ways of the Lord keep us.

Solomon says that when we are attentive to Wisdom, “Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, and every good path” (vs. 9).  Wisdom is understanding – an understanding of the ways of the Lord.  If Wisdom decrees that we ought not be selfish but share our goods with those in need, we will only find the truth of that if we are walking in Wisdom’s path.  The fool, however, sees their goods in a different way and hordes instead of gives.  Or even if they give, do they do so with a heart inclined in the right direction?  How many of us give to be seen giving?

And Wisdom is a matter of both heart and hands: “for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul” (vs 10).  A wise life constructs in us a taste for God’s truth and His ways.  The wiser we are, the more we love the truth and revelation of God.  We will love getting to know him.  And as part of this path, our hearts are changed.  The wise life is lived from the inside out.  We can fake a wise act from time to time, but the insight and motivation that Wisdom creates in us cannot be counterfeited for very long.  Wisdom is an inclination; it is a way of perceiving and filtering the world.  Wise acts are like the surface spring of an underground stream.

This underground stream of wisdom, will in turn guide a life in the ways of the Lord.  “Discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard you, delivering you from the way of evil” (vs 11-12).  Thinking again of Paul’s remark about temptation and our ability to overcome, we see in the ways of Wisdom our path through temptation.  Discretion and understanding are results of a person’s dedication to the knowledge of God, and they turn into the clarity with which we see temptation and its destruction.  Then we gain, more and more, the strength to overcome.

The Lord will keep his people from the ravages of foolishness and sin, but his people need to hear and heed his voice.  Wisdom cries aloud in the streets and in the marketplace asking us to learn what she says.  Humans don’t magically or mistakenly avoid folly and end up living lives of wisdom.  That is a job – a life-long job of seeking after and valuing the wisdom of the Lord.  But in the end our lives are kept safe from our own folly when we learn to keep the ways of the Lord.

Seek Wisdom

Proverbs 2:1-5

The things we value go a long way toward making us the kinds of people we will become. We have heard the saying, "you are what you eat," and in a way it is true. On a soulish level it is also true that, "you are what you pursue." In more ways that we might expect, we get the things we strive for in life: if we value the praise of people we will become a fame-hound, if we value financial success we might become workaholics, and if we value the wisdom of God we might become disciples of Jesus Christ. If this is all true, and Solomon things it is, then we have an opportunity to seek wisdom and gain the grace of God.

Solomon wants us to "receive" the word of God and "treasure" them up in our hearts. When we receive something we wrap our hands around it. It has been extended to us, and now we take it. And to treasure a thing seems to mean we write it on our hearts and minds - we memorize it. I might be able to recite several lines from my favorite songs or movies with the right inflection and melody in place. But can the Word of God flow so easily from my lips? Do I have enough of it in my heart so that it comes to mind at appropriate moments? Is enough of it in me so that in my down time, my heart is meditating on what the Lord has said? This may sound like a tall order for many of us, but recall what does come to your mind now when you think of nothing else. Do those things teach you the fear of the Lord?

And we must seek for it like silver, like a hidden treasure. This is the value and effort the disciple puts on the wisdom of the Lord. We commonly seek silver. You may not actually mine silver ore from the ground, separate the rock, and refine the metal, but you seek silver. You wake up most mornings and prepare yourself to acquire it. You educate yourself so you can make as much of it as you need (or more). You encourage your children to do the same so that they will never go without it. None of this is evil, but reflect for a moment on how much effort you put into seeking and acquiring silver. Hidden treasure is even harder to find. It takes more of our time and resources to find it and make it our own.

So it is the believer ought to look for the wisdom of the Lord. We must awake with the driving desire to hear the voice of wisdom. We must be ready for the resources of our heart and home to be consumed finding her. In reality, silver is ash in the presence of God's wisdom and hidden treasure is a common trinket.

We strive in such a way to hear the voice of wisdom because it teaches us the fear of the Lord, and only then will we really come to terms with the knowledge of God. Listen for her tonight. Endeavor to wake up with your ears and mind open to what wisdom has to say. Read the Word of the Lord. Pray in listening silence for the voice that calls out to save God's people.

A Great God Saves Sinners

Isaiah 1:1-9

God sends us prophets so we can see things from his point of view.  This is more important than we might realize as we tend to get wrapped up in the ways we view things.  It is easy for us to understand our times through what is trendy to believe, what our favorite columnists or political pundits believe, or what the wind blows in under the guise of conventional wisdom.  In short, we tend not to see things through God’s eyes.  So he sends us prophets.  Their words are God’s words to us in our times so we can have our eyes opened to the way things really are.  And the view from there is not always pretty.

Isaiah begins with a lament.  “Ah,” he says, “sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity.” It is true that prophets were not always the most popular of people.  They were curmudgeons.  You typically did not want to hear what they had to say, but the more we hear the words of the prophets, the more we hear the sound of weeping.  The rebellion of God’s people broke their hearts.  They said the things they said, not because they were spiteful nags, but because they were compelled by the word of God and their love for their people.  I have no doubt that Isaiah would have said something different if the truth about God’s people was different.  But as it as it stood, they needed to hear some difficult things.

They were like a body broken out with disease from head to toe.  The boils were obvious, their heart was weak, and the wounds were raw.  Their sins were no longer hidden or hideable – they were out there for everyone to see.  A disease under the skin might be masked for a while, but once the boils begin to grow and the wounds begin to fester, the problem becomes clear to anyone who has eyes.  Except, it seems, to the diseased.

God’s people have not bandaged their wounds, lanced the boils or applied ointment: “they are not pressed out or bound up or softened with oil” (vs. 6).  In short, they are riddled with disease and have refused the treatment – they are full of sin but have forsaken the God who heals them.  They are a beaten and bruised boxer who thinks he is victorious.  They are covered with festering boils and believe they are healthy.  Their lives have become ugly and they believe they are beautiful.

This is the most powerful deception of sin.  We begin to consider sin itself to be righteousness, we take disease to be health, we begin to believe that wrong is actually right.  And in the end, we will begin to refuse the category or sin altogether.  Sin’s greatest magic trick is its disappearing act.  It does its damage; it ravages the soul, and convinces us that it was never really here.

The people of God need to see these things.  We cannot progress into a meaningful understanding of God or relationship with him until we understand what sin does to our souls.  Once we grasp this reality, we have the option of leaving the wounds open and festering, or turning to a great and gracious God.  Isaiah tells us that God has left us a remnant; fur us, it is an opportunity.  God’s grace has left a way of forgiveness and healing where we deserved to be destroyed.  We deserve what Sodom and Gomorrah got.  Their sin and rebellion led to utter destruction.  Will ours?

God decided to save sinners, so he has extended his healing grace.  May we see what God sees, and may we have the wisdom and humility to let him bandage the wounds of our sins and bring the healing only he can give.

Mom and Dad Wisdom

Proverbs 1:8-19

One of the first steps in wisdom is learning who to listen to.  Whose voice will I accept as wise and virtuous?  Which opinions will I learn to take with a grain of salt?  How will I learn to filter the bombardment of information and pressure in this life?  Solomon’s first answer at these questions comes quickly in Proverbs.  Mom and dad should be voices of wisdom into their children’s lives, and youth should learn to listen to what they have to say.

As voices of wisdom, parents are supposed to prepare their children for what is coming their way and offer commentary.  It does no good for a parent to allow a child to raise themselves, or sift through competing voices themselves.  Parents are designed by God to warn children and provide clear input on the ways that are foolish and the ways of God’s wisdom.  So we see in this passage that parents encourage their children to listen to them and then spell out how sin and foolishness will entice their children.  As a result, we see what kinds of arguments foolishness will use to look like wisdom and be appealing in its ugliness.  The enticement is powerful.

Foolishness tells the young man that they will lie in wait for blood.  They will take the first unsuspecting pedestrian, trap and beat them, and take their goods.  This is violence both for the sake of it (“ambush the innocent without reason”) and for the sake of unjust gain (“fill our houses with plunder”).  This is both the allure of violence, possibly especially for young men, and the promise of gain without work.  And though we are not all allured by a life of random violence, how many of us are tempted by gain without work?  If I can simply take it from another – no matter how violent or legal the means – and not have to work for it, isn’t that an easier way of life?  Why wait to have what I can have now?

The fool continues to draw in his bait.  The young man is promised community when the sinner says, “throw in your lot among us; we will all have one purse” (vs 14).  The promise of a group of people who will take care of your needs, provide protection and a sense of belonging touches a deep need within every human.  What family and the family of God is intended to provide, the fool promises to give.  And though fools and thieves are liars, their false promise is nonetheless a temptation for many.  God built us to desire community, and he built the family and the Body of Christ to meet that need.

Don’t listen to them.  Don’t walk down that path.  The advice is straightforward, and it is the voice of reason and wisdom in our lives if we listen to it.  And it isn’t just about joining gangs or throwing in our lot with violent thugs.  The voice of wisdom reveals what is being manipulated in every human heart with this appeal of the fool: “Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain” (vs. 19).  All of us need to watch our step.  I need to be aware of those ways in which I am tempted by greed and the collection of things in this life that cause me to step on other people.  Have I walked over someone at work?  Have I short-changed someone in a business deal?  Have I harmed a neighbor just to make my lot bigger or better?  Have I hurt a family member just to get my way?  Any way in which I am tempted to enlarge myself and my fiefdom at the expense of my neighbor is greed, and it will end up costing me my own life.

Begin listening to the voice of wisdom.  You may think you have a better plan or that you are too smart by half for the fool.  But you are wrong.  They end up setting a trap for their own lives and doing themselves in.  The path of the fool leads to your own destruction no matter how hard you try to manage it.  Listen to Mom and Dad Wisdom, and you will avoid the path of the fool.

Love and Blisters

1 John 4:20-21

The love of God has dirt under its fingernails.  Contrary to popular opinion, love, properly understood, is not an ephemeral emotion floating in the atmosphere just above treeline.  Christian love builds callouses on its fingers and feet.  Love does things.  It motivates us, teaches us what is good and what is destructive for the the human life.  It is - or it becomes - the love of God among us.

John is thoroughly earthy in his commands to love.  Though he talks about love a lot he is far from what we would call a romantic.  Christian love is intensely practical, intentional, and often difficult.  If we say we love God and hate a neighbor we are lying about loving God.  It doesn't matter how often we say we love God, how sincerely we mean it when we say it, or how many people believe us when we say it, if we hate a single human soul we are lying about our love for God.  It is a high bar, but the love of God is utterly incompatible with hatred for people.  In fact, the more we grow in the love of God the clearer love and hate become to us: we love people and hate the junk that destroys their souls.  We learn to hate sin just as God does.  In fact, God loves every soul so much, he deeply hates the sin that separates them from him and destroys their lives.

Every human deserves to know the love of God and Christians need to do the loving.  This world with all its promises of liberty and tolerance will never reproduce the power of the love of God, so it needs to be the people of God who show it.  People need to be loved.

These people we live with, get to know, build relationships with, all need to be loved.  The people we create families and communities with, the people who become our life-long friends need to be loved.  Even those who take more from us that they give need God's love.  The people we find difficult, annoying, arrogant, simple-minded, myopic, dangerous, or plain-old cruel need to be loved.

After all, this is how God did it.

Instead of loving us from afar and casting his affections our way hoping we might feel some of it or comprehend some fraction of it, he came here.  He became flesh and the life and love of God was manifest in our midst in a man who got dirt under his fingernails and blisters on his feet.  He walked the dusty roads of Galilee, feasted with friends and laughed in the company of people who befriended him.  He wept at the death of a friend.  He endured the fickle crowds who followed him as long as he had bread to give them at the end of the sermon.  He endured the years-long persecution of the religious leadership of his people.  His friends ran from his aid, denied, and betrayed him.  In this flesh he felt every ounce of pain in the flogging and the hammering of the nails.  In this flesh, the love of God died to save difficult, rebellious, stiff-necked, dangerous, and plain-old evil people.

We need to love people.  God did.

Believing and Behaving Disciples

1 John 4:15-16

John is known as 'the apostle of love' and for good reason.  In his first epistle his concentration on the love of God is obvious if not overwhelming.  But what can be lost in this love language is his concern that believers also confess the truth about Jesus Christ. There were false teachers coming through the church who were teaching new things about Christ, which, if believed, would separate disciples from the truth and the fellowship of the body of Christ.  John desperately wanted his congregation to hold to the truth in Jesus Christ and to love as he did with a unique and unquenchable fervor.  Both are needed for our faith, but we are often tempted to take up either one and drop the other.

One common mistake in the Christian faith is to hold to the truths of Christ without their implications reaching our behavior.  We believe; we don't behave.  There are times when this is a cold faith.  What we believe is reduced to formulae, to precisely worded statements of doctrine that must be adhered to under threat of inquisition.  We come to Christ as a set of doctrines to be held to (and to hold others to) instead as coming to a Person - the Person who lived, died and rose again.  Things like 'grace' become just terms and ideas instead of lifestyles and gifts of relationship.  And as such, we lose too much.

Sometimes this is a fiery and fervent mistake.  When Christ is reduced to statements of belief it becomes easy to recognize the impostors.  It becomes easy to vet the undesirables, throw out a pastor, split a church, or leave the fold altogether.  All because we had Christ down pat and they did not agree.  Zeal without knowledge is a dangerous thing.

The other mistake may be a reaction to the first, but is just as wrong-headed.  Down this path we take a journey of deeds, intentions, and emotions.  The faith becomes a matter of what we do, how often we do it, how well-intentioned we are when we do it, and how fervently we reject the other mistake.  Who needs doctrines and creeds that do nothing but divide? Here, we do not play those power games or exclude other deed-doers over minutiae.  We want people who will live lives of love to their fellow human beings, nothing more, and certainly nothing less.

With all its good intentions this temptation leaves the front door open to any and every definition of "love" and eventually of Christ himself.  After all, we are not going to divide and conquer over those kinds of things.  In this way, though the deed is done (or at least is intended to be done), the truth of the person of Christ gets left by the roadside like the spare luggage we should not have packed in the first place.

John, however, shows us the better way.  Christians confess and love.  Disciples of Jesus Christ know and believe in the true Christ and love their brothers and sisters as Christ loved them.  The believer with the robust and meaningful faith believes and behaves.  It turns out that whoever confesses that Jesus is the Christ, came in the flesh, and died as the propitiation for our sins abides in him.  And, not surprisingly, whoever loves as he loves abides in him and he abides in them.  This is the better way.

A God Greater Than Sin

1 John 3:4-5

Like all the early Christians, John’s first readers were facing false teaching that threatened to separate them from their relationship with each other and with Christ.  While there are times when John tells us exactly what the false teachers were saying, there are times when we are required to infer the false teaching from the correction John gives.  We learn the disease by reading the prescription labels.  It seems to be the case that John’s congregation was being tempted to take sin too lightly, to view it with a frightening level of indifference, to see sin as inconsequential to their lives with Christ.

To be sure, this is one way of dealing with the unremitting reality of our own brokenness.  If we are able to deny sin itself, justify any behavior we want, or even claim a certain kind of perfection, we are able (we think) to side-step the problem sin presents.  But this is not John’s solution.  His is radically different from the temptation to suppress the sinfulness of sin.  Instead, the closer we look at the depth and power of sin and all of its consequences in our lives the more we learn that God as greater than all of that.  The God who forgives does not forgive small and inconsequential things, He forgives the very thing that becomes our ruination.  Disciples of Jesus Christ do not live forgiven lives because they have diminished sin, but because God has done something about all their sin.

To remedy the false teaching John tells his readers that all “sin is lawlessness.”  Everything that is contrary to the will and character of God is a breaking of His law.  John does not make distinctions between the large, visible sins and the small or private sins implying that only the ‘big’ acts of rebellion are lawless while the others are not.  All that goes against God’s law is sin and all sin is lawlessness – every inclination, every action.

John, however, does not leave us there.  Christ “appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.”  John knows our lives are riddled with brokenness and that Christ came to fix that problem.  In fact, knowing the extent of sin is our doorway into understanding why Christ came.  If John’ s readers were denying their sinfulness, were they changing the reason why Christ came?  If I have decided that I no longer suffer the ravages of sin, who then does Christ become?  It is a short path from the softening of sin to Christ being reduced from a Savior to a moral example or a great human teacher.  Changing my need changes my savior.

But, if John’s congregation holds to the teaching they have heard from the beginning about their need and their true Savior, then both the problem is rightly understood and the remedy is rightly accepted.  Jesus Christ came to take away sins, not to be listed among some of the greatest philosophers or teachers in history.  And the only way to get to that saving God is to take sin seriously.

The lighter we take sin the smaller and more unnecessary God becomes to us.  But if we look unflinchingly at the power and ubiquity of sin and turn to the only One who can cure us, God becomes Lord and Savior of our lives.

The Blessings and Curses

Deuteronomy 27

Though famous for the severity of the blessings and curses, this passage of Scripture deserves to be seen both for its dramatic flair and its take on fundamental moral realities.  As Moses sets the stage for the events described in this chapter, he fills two facing hillsides with the tribes of Israel, places the Arc of the Covenant and the priests in the valley below, and proclaims the terms of their covenant with God.  At each declaration of consequence, the people reply in unison, “Amen,” declaring that they agree to the terms, to include the blessings and the curses.  Imagine the volume of the scene – thousands of people crying, “Amen!” Imagine the liability of the people of God publicly proclaiming that because they belong to God they are subject to the terms of that covenant.

Before the details of the blessings and the curses are understood, the place to begin is with a fundamental understanding of what it entails to be the people of God.  Though God called Abram from Ur generations ago, and though God rescued them from Egypt one generation ago, Moses makes a point of saying, “this day you have become the people of God” (vs. 9).  This is not the literal day in which God makes them his people.  This is the day the terms of the covenant are brought to bear in a unique way.  This is the day of reckoning.  This is the day of consequence.  This is the day of blessing and curses.

Being the people of God, both then and now, comes with a set of terms regarding reality.  Though God’s laws stand as immutable no matter who believes them, this is a unique conversation God has with his people about their lives as humans who both belong to him and represent him on this earth.

God’s people cannot live in relationship with him and act however they please.  Relationship with a loving and holy God is not a moral free-for-all.  God is not loving in a way that allows us to follow our own hearts and create our own paths in life.  God is our Creator; he created us to flourish as humans who live according to his will and his ways.  And God is so loving that he reveals those ways as clearly and as often as possible.  And as people who say, “Amen,” we are responsible to those ways.

God’s people cannot break the terms of the covenant and expect God’s blessing to continue to flow.  It is utterly human to expect good things to come if we act as though we mean well, no matter what we actually do.  It is utterly divine to act in accordance with the Word of God, knowing that it means our peace, salvation, and well-being.

God’s people need to grow comfortable with a moral standard other than their own wishes to which they are responsible.  If I had my way, I would set the standards by which I will be judged.  But reality doesn’t work that way.  Even the people who love me the most don’t let me get away with that kind of narcissism.  The Lord of heaven and earth has already set the moral terms of human behavior and when I say, “Amen,” I explicitly agree to his terms.

God’s people need to understand there really are consequences for behavior, both good and bad.  The blessings and curses are both natural and divine consequences.  Our actions have inevitable, natural consequences, and God is involved in enforcing the terms of the covenant.  We do not live in moral and spiritual silly-putty.

Am I ready to say, “Amen”?  Have I already said it and yet continue to live as if I haven’t?  The final call and response of chapter 27 is the call to live what we affirm.  “Cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them” (vs. 26).  And shall all the people say, “Amen”?

The Day After the Locust

Joel 1:1-4

A good Old Testament prophet is able to take the circumstances of the day and help us understand them through the will and word of God.  Whatever is pervasive in culture, whatever crisis is impending, the prophet helps the people of God understand God’s view on things.  Isaiah helps Israel hear God through the death of a king and the threat of Assyrians.  Jeremiah tries to get Judah to repent and avoid the invasion of the Babylonians.  Daniel lives as a faithful child of God in a pagan land and sees the power of the kingdom of God.

Joel gets bugs.  To be a little more specific, the crisis Joel’s generation faces, and the issue God wants them to understand, is a plague of locust.  It may not be glamorous, but through the faithfulness of Joel we end up learning a lot about God’s people and the power of a restoring God.

To begin with, the spiritual leaders of Israel are called on the carpet.  There is no evidence in Joel that they are responsible for Israel’s sins, but they are responsible to fulfill their role in a day of crisis.  They are spiritual leaders, and God’s people need to be lead back to him.  God’s appointed spiritual leaders are exactly that – they are not primarily business men, politicians, lawyers, or managers – they are leaders in things spiritual.  If the congregation of God is to come back to their senses and a right relationship with God, they will need to be lead by the priests and elders.

But the rest of the population is not let off the hook.  They are called to see what has gone on around them and learn how to respond faithfully.  They are not allowed to sit on the sidelines and watch as the priests and elders put things right with God, they are expected to be fully engaged in the process of repentance and restoration.

And then Joel tells the story of the locust.  A devastating plague has swept through their countryside and left nothing to them.  A plague of locust comes in waves, day after day.  Joel describes just that when he tells us that what the first wave didn’t eat, the second wave ate, and what they left the third wave ate, and so on.  From eyewitness account after account we can be sure of what happened to their countryside.  Nothing was left.  Crops, grass, seeds, heaps of stored grain, the bark on the trees – all gone.  Their consumption was complete. 

When the locusts come through, nothing edible is left.  Nothing promising any future value remains.  Joel and his people face a few pressing questions.  What can be done in the face of such destruction?  How can the people of God be faithful on a day like this?  Is there anyone who is great enough to restore all that was lost?

As it turns out, there is a God who is both powerful enough and faithful enough to restore what was lost.  And there is a way for God’s people – even people who have rebelled against God – to be faithful in a time like this.

To believe in a God of restoration is to understand the depth of the destruction.  And then we begin to understand how much greater this God we worship really is.  All is gone.  Everything we thought would take care of us tomorrow has been taken away from us.  So it is to you, O Lord, that we turn.

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?