Sermon Wrap-Up for June 17

Well, this past weekend I saw a somewhat crazy computer breakdown and collapse. My personal laptop is now running Ubuntu as an operating system, because the Windows Recovery Partition on it was corrupt and the PC was out of warranty. So, no fixing it without a huge charge, and I was going to lose all my data anyway. So, I put Linux on it and restored documents from a backup. I would spot a big endorsement to using an external hard drive right now—my Seagate FreeAgent Go saved me a trip to the Funny Farm.

Here are the links from Sunday’s Sermon. We just had service in the morning to allow folks time to celebrate their fathers, celebrate being fathers, or go home and celebrate a nap. Here you go:

Audio Link (alternate)

Come back to Luke 6:21-26

Raise these questions:

1. Are you striving to be filled with the things of this world?

     What costs are you paying for those things?

     What costs are your families paying for these things?

2. Are you doing the things you do to be praised by those around you?

3. Not only that, but what do we praise in the people around us?

     Either by direct action?

     Or by indirect action?

Whether as father, mother, or just a person following Christ, we need to consider these things:

1. Stop and consider the source of your values. Seriously.

     Did you get them from your parents?

     Did you get them from close friends?

     Did you get them from school? Movies? Books?

     Did you then compare those values to the values that are given in the Word of God?

2. Understand this: the world will have differing values from the Word of God until we reach the Millennial Kingdom of Christ. That is a fact: lost people are not merely confused, they are dead in their sins and dead has different priorities from alive.

3. We have hit this point for several sermons in a row, but it is critical to understanding how to live for Christ in the current age: we can seek the approval of Christ or the approval of mankind. One is obedience and the other is not.

4. Even as we go to spread the Gospel, the key issue is to spread the Word in a manner that is faithful and true to the Word, not in a manner geared toward pleasing the world but instead in a manner that shows faithfulness to Christ.

     Alongside this point: nowhere in Scripture are we commanded to be well-liked by the world. We are told to be unified and loving to one another, and to show forth the fruit of the Spirit, which the world cannot make against the law, but this is different-> our lives are about pleasing Christ. Let the world see Jesus.

5. Do not be disheartened by the world's rejection

     This is one of the reasons we are put together as the body of Christ: what the world sinfully rejects, the church as the body of Christ should strengthen and embrace. When the world runs you down, we as a body should be here to encourage and strengthen.

     That is one of our main goals and purposes as the body of Christ: to be strengtheners of one another that we may all walk in obedience to Christ.

6. The world will eventually reject everything it now embraces: keep in mind that the "world" here is not the planet but the people. People that are going to go from one thing to the next until they realize their hunger is for their Creator. Some will never realize that, some will remain chained to the sinful nature inherited from Adam and Eve. 

Yet we must share the good news, that for those who will come, there is forgiveness and grace.

For you, if you will ask God for it, there is forgiveness and grace. it starts at the Cross and comes to now: what will you do?

Clean this mess up! Mark 11

Mark 11 (link) moves us from the general life and ministry of Jesus and into the last week of His life. We open up with the Triumphal Entry on Palm Sunday and start progressing through the events that lead to the arrest, trial, and the Cross.

What do we get in this week? Much of the focus for this chapter tends to fall on the first section, called the Triumphal Entry. This is where Jesus enters Jerusalem to the acclaim of many, riding on a donkey, and they wave palm branches. He then goes out to Bethany, from which He is essentially commuting for the week.

The real center of this chapter is not the Triumphal Entry, though. It's the narrative descriptions of Jesus exercising His authority in all matters. Let's take a look at those:

First: well, there's the "Go get a donkey" in the opening story. The simple statement to bystanders of "The Lord has need of it" takes care of any accusations of Grand Theft Beast of Burden, and on they go. Consider how you would feel if someone showed up, started to crank your new car and just said "The Lord has need of it" before driving away. You'd call the police, wouldn't you? (And, likely, the men with the nice jacket and the padded cell for the guy.)

However, that simple spoken phrase expresses Jesus' authority, and the donkey is freely allowed to Him.

The next day, as Jesus is leaving Bethany, He takes a look at a fig tree and finds no figs. The tree is green and leafy, but there is nothing edible present. Jesus then performs the only recorded destruction in the Gospels: the tree is cursed. That evening, the disciples notice on the way back to Bethany that the tree has withered. At the word of Jesus, a fully green tree turns to withering firewood. We'll spend some more time on this in the nerd note.

The big moment of this section comes when Jesus drives the moneychangers and merchants from the Temple. This is the image of Jesus that many people want to overlook. Certainly there is much appreciation for His condemnation of those who turn worship into a business, but we get very, very uncomfortable with Angry Jesus in this passage.

He does not walk up and calmly suggest the moneychangers leave or recommend alternate places to practice business. Neither is He gentle in speech: the accusation that the Temple has been turned to a den of thieves is calling the merchants thieves. Don't pretend that this is not a personal, direct, attack on them. If I called your house a "den of thieves" you would feel insulted.

Of course, if your house was filled with stuff that you took from others under the threat of force or by deception, you would feel insulted but the statement would be true. In this case, that's the fact as well: these men are effectively stealing, as they are deceiving and coercing funds from innocent worship participants.

Yet He is simply exercising His authority at this point. The Temple was intended to be the center-point of the worship of God on earth at the time, and yet it had become the center of man-driven organization. There were business decisions intruding into spiritual behaviors and it was all being allowed by those who should have been guarding righteousness.

So Jesus overturns their tables and drives out those who are distracting and wrongly profiting from worship. He then also refuses to answer the chief priests and scribes who questioned Him about it.

My fellow believers, we need to understand something about the Lord Jesus Christ that this passage should make quite clear: that "Lord" that we tend to address Jesus with? That's not there just to add a word. That is about His authority, His rule over His people.

It is a compassionate rule, but compassion sometimes requires strong action. We must be cautious, especially anyone who stands as a leader of those who worship Christ. He expects that you will allow Him to exercise authority, not you. He expects that you will not stand between the hearts drawn to Him and the One who is drawing them.

It is a warning worth considering for individual churches and for religious structures as a whole. For my fellow Southern Baptists, it's something to consider as many of our "great lights" will meet in New Orleans. Are we letting business come between us and serving Christ? Do we allow our debates and debacles to build obstacles between people and the God who saves them?

Woe be unto us if we do. Not just on an earthly level or even a denominational survival level, but on the level of damaging our relationship with Jesus.

Today's Nerd Note: Back to the fig tree: some people, like Bertrand Russell, found so much fault in this incident that they discard either the story or Jesus. Russell, generally, discarded Jesus. After all, if God Incarnate was so temperamental as to curse and destroy a tree for not having fruit out of season, what kind of God are we dealing with?

First issue: Interestingly, to discard Jesus (and theism, generally) over this story is somewhat contradictory. Here is a man, claiming to be God, that can kill a tree in a day with a sentence. There is power there, at the very least. While you may question the use of the power, there is another question: if it was not right, would it have happened? In this, we have an event that shows Jesus' divine nature, whether we like it or not.

Second issue: Fig trees, true, do not have mature figs until August-October. However, prior to sprouting leaves, the immature buds that will become figs sprout on the trees. By March-April, these buds are edible immature figs, called paqqim. It appears, based on my reading, that these should be in place before the leaves grow. Finding a tree in full leaf with nothing edible means it's a tree that will produce no fruit that year. It has nothing immature but edible, and will have nothing. So the curse is deserved.

Third issue: There is a measure of symbolism. The tree story bookends the cleansing of the Temple. The Temple is like the tree. It has full leaves, but what fruit does it have? At the time, none, for it is filled with robbers and thieves. The literal event echoes the point.

Finally: everything God does is good. Not because He meets the human standard of good, but because the human standard of good should be "anything that is what God would do, based on what God has done and has said." If God does it, it's good. If Jesus cursed a tree and it died, that action was good. When we read Scripture, what God does is good, whether or not we like it.

Don’t Have A Cow! Exodus 32

As a quick reminder, for the past several chapters, Moses has been atop Mount Sinai. Joshua has been about halfway up the mountain, waiting on him. The rest of Israel?

They’re at the foot of the mountain, camped out and waiting. Moses is gone for a week. They wait. Two weeks. They wait. Three weeks, and still waiting. Four weeks, and the waiting goes on. Then we come to Exodus 32 (link).

Finally, after about forty days, the people decide that perhaps Moses isn’t coming back. They are at the foot of a mountain, remember, that God has descended on in fire and thunder and cloud. After these forty days, the suspicion rises that whatever is going on up there, it’s not survivable.

So the people come to Aaron and tell him to make a god for them to worship and to be the center of their community. Aaron then tells the people to bring him some gold, and he fashions it into a calf. One question that has long troubled me about this passage is this: Why does Aaron know, so readily, how to fashion an idol? That begs for an answer, but I don’t have one.

After they start partying around the calf, God informs Moses that he had better get down the mountain and straighten them out, because God is ready to destroy them. They have, after all, bailed on the covenant commitment they made a mere 40 days before. Moses pleads with God for mercy, God grants it, and then Moses goes down to try and fix the problem.

The end result? People are killed in judgment, the original two tablets of the law are smashed, and the golden calf is ground up and added to drinking water. God threatens to send the people on without Him, and Moses pleads that God not do so.

Now, since none of us are headed from Egypt, up through the wilderness, and moving into Canaan (I assume), we need to dig through this and find the principles that apply to our lives. This is what you do in striving to understand Scripture. When you work through narrative passages, look at what is present. Examine the actions that are taken, examine the actions that are not taken.

Take the time to see if certain actions are given with a positive view or a negative view. If you want an example of how to look into that, find the same news story on CNN, MSNBC, and FoxNews. It will be obvious in how it’s phrased whether the same facts are viewed positively or negatively. I’d recommend reading four or five major sources on the next unemployment report. It’s a hoot at times.

So, when we come to this passage, what do we see?

We see people who have been waiting for forty days, and who get restless. Their restlessness leads to a loss of focus, which leads to idolatry, which brings judgment. Even in the judgment, there is a longer-term response of grace and restoration.

How does this apply to us?

First: there are a great many times in our lives that the extraordinary is distant from us. We have a day-to-day life that is, more often than not, routine. Even as followers of Christ, every day is not stunning and adventurous. While we see more day by day how deep the grace and the love of God is, and this should grow our astonishment at Him, most days remain on the border of mundane.

Normal days, though, should not lead us into temptation. The people of Israel are the example of what not to do in the situation. There was enough to do in honoring the covenant they had made a mere forty days before. They were supposed to spend their time learning to live with one another and in relationship with God.

The extraordinary times will come often enough: these people crossed the Red Sea and will see other great things. We need to understand the same is true of us. We will see extraordinary things from time to time, just not all the time.

Second, we need to learn from Aaron’s example. He is, again, a negative example. Very rarely does a whole community, whether a nation or a church, go quietly into sin without asking a few people what their opinion is. Take a look at the coming political season: every candidate will tout religious people to back their opinions. Every one. Obama will have his, Romney will have his--

The question is how many who are Christians will have the courage to either in public or in private actually address issues from a true, honest Bible-based perspective.

Third, we need to learn from Moses’ example. There is always a reason to plead for God’s grace for those around us, no matter how far away they are running.

We also should learn from the example of destroying the golden calf.  Do not keep stuff around that has been entrapping you to sin!

Today’s Nerd Note: This passage also gives us the origin of the Levites as the priests/teachers of the Israelites. They were the first to be willing to stand, even forcefully, for the truth. Is that what we think of when we think of religious leaders today? Or do we think of quiet little people who would never rise up to destroy the enemies of righteousness?

Historically, it was often religious leaders who led the way. Sometimes wrongly, but sometimes rightly: a good many sermons encouraged the way to Lexington and Concord. A good many of those even lamented slavery and had they been heeded, the Civil War would have been avoided. Christian preachers in Germany warned of the Nazis. Christians have been fighting human trafficking, African warlords, and drug problems for decades and centuries before they make the news and draw celebrities.

Christian leaders have often been wrong, but they have also often been right. Rise up for what is right.

Stop looking for the loopholes: Mark 10

One thing that keeps me in a consistent state of awe regarding the Bible is how clearly God's standards and ways are expressed in Scripture. This happens partly because I think there is an entire industry that exists to find ways to make the clear less-than-clear while also using the less-than-clear to build personal kingdoms. Some of that, though, is another sermon for another day.

Rather, let's dig back into Mark and take a look at Mark 10 (link). Here are few of the stories in this chapter:

First, you have a few of the Pharisees trying to get Jesus to settle one of their disputes. The Pharisees, to their credit, wanted to get the Law of God exactly perfect so they could obey it. The Pharisees, to their discredit, seemed to believe that they were better than anyone else for this effort and that God liked them better, too. One of the Pharisaic debates at the time was over divorce.

Back in the Old Testament, when Moses gathered from God the laws to govern Israel, divorce had been permitted. The law, though, was vague and only stated that a man was to write a certificate of divorce for his wife and send her away. It did not address the idea of causes or reasons for divorce. So, two basic views arose: one was that the law was permissive, that as long as you wrote the certificate, you could have a divorce. The other was restrictive: there had to be a reason, something based in the portions of the law that related to finding your newly-married bride was not what she should have been, to get a divorce. These two groups were the main lines of thought about divorce at the time.

Since this was a big deal, much like divorce and marriage are now, the Pharisees were assured that if Jesus sided with one side or the other, He would be angering a large contingent of the people. Should He side with the "wide-open" group, those who had struggled to make their marriage work or who thought this was a wicked, loose moral position would pounce on Him. So, too, would the groups of women who were disadvantaged in that society because of capricious divorce. Yet if He takes the stronger position, many would find Him being excessively legalistic and attack Him for that. After all, is this man not speaking much of grace? Plus, that puts Him adding to the words of Moses, which would have been more fuel for their fire.

Except Jesus does not truly side with either side. Instead, His response is this: the reason you guys want the divorce answer? It's because your hearts are hard and sinful. My Creation was this: a man and a woman marry, starting a new relationship of unity, and it lasts for their entire life.

He turns the whole problem on its head and points out that the Pharisees were, really, looking at the wrong issue. They wanted to know how to get out of a marriage. The real question, the real problem, was this: they were not paying attention to how to get into a marriage in the first place.

They were not supposed to go in while looking for the exit doors, but rather go in looking to glorify and honor God by holding true to their commitments. Instead, they were looking in marriage only for what would benefit them—whether they wanted to bail out for any cause or only if they found something "inappropriate" about their wives.

Marriage in the Scriptural ideal is one man, one woman, married to each other for life. This is what we should be striving toward in Christian community, teaching the next generation to seek this. To make this their commitment when they come down the aisle.

Does that make anything else unforgivable? Heavens no. Yet one area that we have got to mature in the American Church is this: we have to learn to acknowledge sin as being sin while knowing that grace abounds. We have to be mature enough to admit when even our own lives have gone down a sinful path without trying to excuse it or make it "off-limits" and something that cannot be spoken of.

One certain way to keep a cycle of failing marriages is this: never speak of the importance of marrying to honor God in the first place, and never speak of divorce as bad. That way, no one feels guilty for what has happened, but no one grows up enough to make sure it does not happen again.

Today's Nerd Note: More of an EMPHASIS point: Marriage is intended as a lifetime commitment between two people with a sinful nature. It may be a redeemed sinful nature, and ought to be. Christians ought only marry those who share their faith.

There are things that happen, though, that wreck this covenantal relationship, and man does render asunder what God has joined together. Further, there are people who seem one way and turn out differently, and that difference is violent and dangerous. The totality of the ethics of the situation are more than I will address here: you should seek spiritual counsel from those whom you trust. I will say this: life is too precious. Each human on this earth is made in the image of God, and no portion of obeying God regarding marriage should put your life at risk against your will. (I know some missionary couples who jointly risk their lives, and this is obedience.)

However, if one spouse is threatening bodily harm against the other, the right course of action is to find a safe place and remain, as best you can, in a place of safety. I believe that God can change the vilest offender, but God can do so through your prayers from another state. No amount of my belief that the marriage covenant is intended for a lifetime should be taken to mean that one spouse has the right to threaten (or take) the life of their spouse to get out. Nor that it is the responsibility of a spouse to "take it" for the sake of the marriage. Get safe. Get God-honoring counsel and pray for healing and restoration, but do it from a place of safety.

Sermon Wrap Up from June 10

Morning Audio Link Here (Alternate)

Evening Audio Link Here (Alternate)

Morning Outline:

June 10 AM Luke 6:22-23

Blessed by God when...

I. Men think otherwise

     A. Hate

     B. Ostracize

     C. Insult

     D. Scorn your name

II. If it is done: for the sake of Jesus!

     A. Not for our political leanings

     B. Not for our Economic prowess

     C. But for our commitment to Jesus

     D. And for our standing for His truth

III. Rejoice!

     A. The prophets were treated the same way

     B. God will reward you for your faithfulness

Evening Outline:

No Outline. Psalm 58

Book: Son of the Underground

Today's Blog Post is driven by the deadline on Kregel's Blog Tour Program, which also provided the free copy of the book for this review. There is no demand that the review turn out any specific way, only that it turn out within a specified time frame.

Next Sunday, June 17, is Father's Day here in America. Many people will celebrate the positive impact that fathers have on their children. Others will challenge fathers to step up and be more positive in the lives of their children. Alongside that, we will lament fathers who are not active in the lives of their children.

Yet we would do well to consider the story found in today's book, Son of the Underground. This is the short autobiography of Isaac Liu. Isaac's father is Brother Yun, a Chinese pastor whose story is told in the book The Heavenly Man. No, I have not read that book.

The story begins with the fact that Liu's father was absent at his birth. In fact, he did not meet his father face-to-face until he was four. Many of us who live in comfort here would condemn a man for fathering a child knowing that would happen, but we do not live where they did.

This book tells the story of Isaac Liu's growing up not simply with one father, who was often imprisoned and tortured for disagreeing with the state, but growing up with the collaborative influence of the underground church in China.

It is an easy, linguistically, book to read. The chapters are short and definitely bear the marks of someone who is not a native English speaker. After all, we are more inclined to run-on sentences than we ought to be. However, the book is well-presented.

The material is challenging. For anyone who thinks that ideas do not have consequences and one form of government is as good as any other, they should examine this text. If a society is measured by how it treats individuals, then many questions are raised here that deserve an answer. The most uncomfortable for me is this: what benefits do I receive from doing as much business in China as I do? After all, 50% of what I own was made there.

This book would be accessible for teens and up, and should be considered by any believer in that age bracket. It is going on the reading list for our homeschooled children and will likely be part of the illustration for my Father's Day sermon this year.

Doug

Note: yes, I got the book for free in exchange for writing a review. However, if you want ad copy, go to Kregel. This opinion is entirely my own.

Nothing is that important: Exodus 31

The last ten chapters of the book of Exodus have focused on instructions about how to build the Tabernacle and its associated materials. Yet there has been something missing throughout the instructions.

You have to have someone to put it all together. It is not very different from the kitchen: I have stacks and stacks of cookbooks, but I cannot cook like the authors of those books. For example, I’ve got all 3 of Alton Brown’s Good Eats Cookbooks, but you’d rather have him cook then me.

Well, with the instructions of the Tabernacle, it takes the right person to put the directions into reality. It is, though, not Moses. It’s not Joshua or Aaron or any of the priests. It’s a guy named Bezalel and another one named Oholiab. These are some great names, aren’t they?

These men, though, are specified by God as the ones to handle the craftsmanship of the Tabernacle and furnishings. Different views float around about whether or not these two had training or whether or not it was a completely supernatural anointing. I find it likely that it was a combination of both: a supernatural gifting that was reinforced through training and practice.

So, we have the Tabernacle directions. We have the Tabernacle builder. We have the necessity of the Tabernacle, as the centralized point of meeting with God in the community.

Yet immediately after all of this is summarized we have a restatement of the laws of the Sabbath. A reminder to take one day of the week and commit the time of that day solely to the Lord God.

Even in the midst of the most important things we can think of, it is never more important than following the commands of God. Whatever justification we may make for it, moving in violation of God’s expressed commands is not what we should be doing.

What most of us forget is that nearly every relationship has rules and guidelines about it. Even the best of relationships has those. Whether it is the relationship between husband and wife, parents and children, or just casual friendships, you have understood guidelines for it. The closer the relationship, the more important those guidelines to it.

Think about it: while you may be bothered when your work acquaintance violates your trust, you would feel quite different about your best friend or your spouse doing the same thing. You can imagine letting the one friendship slide, but the other would be devastating to either let go or rebuild.

Those guidelines, rules, whatever you’d like to call them are part of the glue that holds your relationship in place. They help you know what you can and cannot do, what you should or should not do, and what you can expect from the other person.

Now, when we talk about having a relationship with God, why would we expect it to be different? There is this instant revulsion to the idea that a relationship with God comes with no rules or expectations, that this one relationship is completely unlike any other relationship you have.

It is different, but not because it lacks the covenantal nature of other relationships, but because one side of the relationship never fails on His part. That God upholds His part perfectly does not mean that we do not have expectations on our part and we need to not forget that.

What’s the point?

This is the simple point: no accomplishment should be made at the expense of your most important relationships. Even if it is something that you are doing for the person. If it pushes beyond what is right for your interactions with each other, then it’s not worth doing.

Likewise, do not mistake doing stuff for God with living in covenantal relationship with Him. The former may be good, but the latter is indispensible.

Today’s Nerd Note: There are only a few specific guidelines on “Sabbath-keeping” in the Old Testament. Those statements, though, are pretty exhaustive: they use words like “any” “all” or “nothing.” Now, I do not think we should just lie about in bed all day one day a week, but I do think there is a reason that God commanded a day without any extraneous activity except for worship. If we let everything else roam on its own, we will overlook taking the time. Be cautious. Whatever you take on every day may crowd out that which is more important.