http://virb.com/brettwilliams Virb 2.0 (@brettwilliams) en http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/status/6941387 Mon, 21 Dec 2009 08:47:28 -0800 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/status/6941387 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/status/6782319 Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:39:48 -0800 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/status/6782319 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/status/6779576 Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:35:38 -0800 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/status/6779576 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/status/6700309 Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:21:16 -0800 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/status/6700309 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/status/6670039 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 07:38:44 -0800 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/status/6670039 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/status/6644916 Tue, 08 Dec 2009 07:03:31 -0800 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/status/6644916 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/text/6622270 Pray: that Jesus be exalted and that we like Zechariah by the power of the Holy Spirit would see what we formerly did not see and that we would see all that Jesus is for us as the Horn of Salvation and the Sunrise [Luke 1:57-80] “Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. And they would have called him Zechariah after his father, but his mother answered, “No; he shall be called John.” And they said to her, “None of your relatives is called by this name.” And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he wanted him to be called. And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they all wondered. And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. And fear came on all their neighbors. And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea, and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, “What then will this child be?” For the hand of the Lord was with him. And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He as visited and redeemed His people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David, as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us; to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant, the oath that He swore to our father Abraham, to grant to us that we, being delivered from the hands of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the Sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” And the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel.” I was listening to a lecture by J.I. Packer a few weeks ago about the Puritan Pastor’s and he said that they never had a long introduction to their messages to grab the people’s attention because the people had already prepared themselves for worship and the hearing of the Word of God and I’m going to assume you’ve done this and that you just want to hurry up and get to the meat of the Word of God, so let’s eat… “His Name Will Be Called John” “Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. And they would have called him Zechariah after his father, but his mother answered, “No; he shall be called John.” And they said to her, “None of your relatives is called by this name.” And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he wanted him to be called. And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they all wondered. And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. And fear came on all their neighbors. And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea, and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, “What then will this child be?” For the hand of the Lord was with him. Now coming out of these first few verses, I want to make a few points of observation that I think are helpful and applicable to us. Just as a reminder, application is a lot like a pharmacy. In the Bible we have many truths, many medicines, but those medicines do no good if they just sit on the shelf. They must be taken off the shelf, and given to the sick with instructions so that they will benefit and bring about the healing we need. So these points that I’m giving you are points of healing for your heart. Maybe some of these points don’t apply to your present situation, and I’ll tell you like the doctor told Jody with some of her medicine, “Don’t throw it away. They are good drugs, just save them for a rainy day, when you need them.” So if these don’t apply, they are good drugs, save them for a rainy day. I want to look at the three different characters mentioned here: Elizabeth, Zechariah and the Neighbors. 1. Elizabeth Was Clear About God’s Mercy: “And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her…” When most amazing events that happen in someone’s life are gossiped around a community, usually the credit falls into the wrong hands. We like to have someone to thank, it makes it easier for us, when we can find some tangible reason for the result of a situation. I’m sure there was a temptation for Elizabeth to spread the news and say that God had finally seen and honored their piety, and she could have then instructed her friends to do what she did, and continue to be faithful, and you should, but she didn’t do this. Or Elizabeth could have said to her friends, “If you want something that is good bad enough, you will get it. Just set your mind to it. Name it and claim it.” But she didn’t do this either. Elizabeth could have spread the news of their son in a hundred ways, that might have been true to some degree but would have really missed the point…Elizabeth knew the real reason, and to her it was more tangible than any other... “the Lord had shown great mercy to her.” And it is obvious that she made this clear, because when her relatives came, they came with the knowledge of knowing how this happened, “The mercy of God.” And let us be as clear as Elizabeth, when God gives us good gifts the only reason is the mercy of God! What we all deserve is punishment from the Lord, it is in His power and in His justice to punish and Elizabeth knew in her heart she wasn’t as righteous as people made her out to be, she probably knew that she deserved to be barren the rest of her life, so when God stepped in and gave her a son, she knew, she knew it was mercy. And the bend of Elizabeth’s heart was to magnify the mercy of God, not by spreading the news of her own piety, but the news of His great mercy. Also, let us be instructed by her relatives in their rejoicing. It says, “They rejoiced with her.” So when the time comes and the news of God’s great mercy reaches our ears, respond rightly and rejoice! And the truth is, that if we were more sensitive to the thousands of times God shows His mercy to us daily, we would have much good news to gossip and much rejoicing would be done! May God make us more like Elizabeth, more aware of His mercy, more eager to magnify His mercy and make it known, and may God make us more like her neighbors, rejoicing with one another for God’s great mercy shown to us. Are we aware of God’s mercy? Lamentations 3 says, “His mercies…are new every morning” do we believe that and do we see them? And after we see them do we gossip His mercy? Is that what we’re eager to tell our friends? 2. Zechariah Was Confident In God’s Word: And they would have called him Zechariah after his father, but his mother answered, “No; he shall be called John.” And they said to her, “None of your relatives is called by this name.” And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he wanted him to be called. And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they all wondered. And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. There are many reasons why I love this passage, but one of the reasons is that here, after nine months in a silent universe, we see a transformed Zechariah. We have come to the end of his discipline, the trial is over and the transformation complete, and what we see before we get into his song of praise, is his confidence in what God had spoken to him by the angel. Zechariah’s last words nine months ago were words of unbelief, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” And now, though they are written, they are written in confidence without any hesitation or wavering, “His name is John.” He’s totally transformed, his unbelief has been exposed and corrected and now Zechariah is more like the Man whom his son will prepare the way for. Here’s the truth about trial: trials will refine us if we receive them rightly. When trial comes you have 2 options: run or receive. In the Old Testament, King Ahaz ran when the Lord brought the trial of defeat upon him, and in 2 Chronicles 28:22 we read, “In the time of his distress he became yet more faithless to the Lord.” That’s option one, and a lot of people go down that path. Things get hard and they lose faith in the Lord and become more wicked. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen this and it is painful every time! I pray when trial comes you don’t go down the path of King Ahaz, but you walk the path of Zechariah, who in his distress, became even more faithful. On the back end of this trial, because he received the trial and didn’t run, he rejoiced. His trial refined him. It exposed the sin of unbelief in his heart and sometimes it is only in trial that certain sins can be exposed. For Zechariah the only way the sin of unbelief could be exposed for him, was in the gracious announcement of a son (lavish grace tested him). For you it will be the same, God will run you through a trial, and He will expose sin in your life, and then He will use the trial to refine you so that at the end of it there will be rejoicing. Jody and I were talking about this Friday night, and how this trial or her being sick has done that in our lives, for me I have seen how impatient I am and how much compassion I lack for those in similar situations. I got to feel for a few days what it is like to be a single father and take care of a child by yourself and still provide for your family. I also got to see what it is like for those who have to care constantly for a spouse who is sick, and let me say, this has refined me. I’ve learned to trust more in God’s sovereign ways that I sometimes cannot understand, I’ve learned to love my wife more and cherish the moments I get with her, I’ve learned to be thankful for health, and I’ve learned that I am a man who needs much grace and many more trials to be more like Christ. So when trial comes, let’s be like Zechariah and not Ahaz, so that we’ll be more like Christ and not ourselves. 3. Fear Came Upon Their Neighbors: And fear came on all their neighbors. And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea, and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, “What then will this child be?” For the hand of the Lord was with him. As I was reading and studying this, the words, “And fear came on all their neighbors” shocked me at first. I couldn’t understand what would produce the feeling of fear in everyone there, or at least why it would be so dominate as to be recorded. When Luke was investigating and recording the events that happened there, this feeling could have been easily overlooked, but it wasn’t. I think what shocked me is that it just doesn’t seem the same as the other times when fear fell upon people, such as the arrival of angels and the fear that comes from seeing a heavenly being, but then it made sense…fear is always the response when the Foreign interrupts the familiar. Here’s what I mean: when an angel shows up, that is foreign not familiar. In our present context, we’re not used to angels, so when an angel shows up and confronts our context with a greater reality, we’re fearful and the same response happens when God moves in such a mighty way that we can’t help but be confronted by the Foreign. That’s what happened here. In this moment, the Foreign interrupted the familiar and they sensed a greater Reality, a greater Power at work, and they knew it was God, and fear came upon them. And this kind of fear is something that we need, because what it led to was the people talking about the event throughout the hill country of Judea. This kind of fear, that the Foreign was real and present in the familiar leads to proclamation. Think about it, when you’re confident in the realness of God, you want people to know, that’s why the Resurrection of Jesus produced such a radical change in the disciples from fear of man to fear of God. Before Jesus appeared they were hiding in a room fearful they would die, but after they saw Him, they were filled with another kind of fear that made them bold. He was real and really alive and He was talked about through the whole world! And so I’m praying that we’ll be more aware of the Foreign and that the Foreign will interrupt our familiar and fill us with fear that we may talk about Him throughout the world. Do you have this kind of fear? Do you want this kind of fear? Do you ever pray that Jesus will be more real to you than your next breath? All right, so John is born and Zechariah is transformed and what comes next is the eruption of worship that had filled Zechariah’s heart for months…this song is the fruit of meditation and the filling of the Holy Spirit and here’s what happens… Zechariah’s Song After Nine Months of Silence And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He as visited and redeemed His people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David, as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us; to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant, the oath that He swore to our father Abraham, to grant to us that we, being delivered from the hands of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the Sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” This is a loaded song. There is so much to unpack here and there’s no way we’re going to be able to even come close to doing this. You know a song is a good song when you can chew on it a long time and still not taste all the flavors, . So what we’re going to do with this one sentence song is just look at 5 simple truths: 1) The Holy Spirit helps us see the unseen 2) Jesus came to be the horn of salvation to save us from our enemies 3) The goal of this powerful deliverance is that we may worship God 4) John came to prepare the people for a salvation that is about forgiven sin and 5) Jesus came to be the Sunrise for those who sit in darkness. So first… 1. The Holy Spirit Helps Us See The Unseen: “And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He as visited and redeemed His people…” As we’ve been studying through Luke’s Gospel, I hope you have begun to pick up on the prominent role of the Holy Spirit, and if you haven’t pay attention, you’re going to see a lot of the “shy member of the Trinity” here. But what I want you to see here is what happens when someone is filled with the Holy Spirit and that is we see the unseen. For Elizabeth in Luke 1:41-45 she was filled with the Holy Spirit and was able to see the unseen child in Mary’s womb and that this child she was bearing would be her Lord. What a claim! Elizabeth didn’t know that Mary was the mother of her Lord, but filled with the Spirit she did see. And here with Zechariah, he too was filled with the Holy Spirit and speaks of the work of Jesus as already accomplished and in great detail. Zechariah by the power of the Holy Spirit has seen the unseen and that’s what the Holy Spirit does in our hearts. Apart from the Holy Spirit you cannot see any glory in Jesus, you will find no beauty in Him, you will not surrender to Him…everything depends upon the Holy Spirit’s work. In John 3:3 Jesus said, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” So to see the kingdom of God, to enter it and be saved, you must see something you haven’t seen before, not physically but spiritually, and how the new birth happens is by what Jesus says in verses 5-8 “Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone is born of the Spirit.” You see this? We must be born again, and we experience the new birth when we’re born by the Spirit, and once we are born again by the Spirit we see the kingdom of God and enter it. In other words, the Holy Spirit helps us see the unseen. To see the kingdom of God initially we need the Holy Spirit and to continue to see it in it’s fullness we need the Holy Spirit and God gives the Holy Spirit to help us see, and mainly what we’ll see is the fullness of all that Jesus is for us and that’s what Zechariah sees here. He foresees Jesus’ work and foretells what will become of this coming of Christ… “He has visited us and redeemed us” and in this next point we’ll see how… 2. Jesus Came to be the Horn of Salvation To Save Us From Our Enemies: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He as visited and redeemed His people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David, as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us…” Here in these verses we have the first of two picturesque descriptions of Jesus, and here in this first one, Zechariah refers to Jesus as the “Horn of Salvation” that has been raised up by God for us. The “horn” is a symbol of not just power but destructive power! In the OT it was sign of strength, and a way in which the enemies were knocked out and then scattered. The clearest picture of this for me, apart from Scripture, was a Texas Longhorn. When I was little we went to Texas to see the place where I was born and to visit some old friends of my parents and when we were driving into Texas my parents stopped on the side of the road so that we could see the Longhorns and they were huge! Their horns were massive and you knew that if you got caught by one of those you were done! You think about it in the wild…no matter how big the prey is that would come after a wild ox or ram with massive horns, all it takes is one decisive blow and the battle is over. Let’s say an ox and a lion are going toe to toe, the ox may get beat up and scratched up, but all it takes is one right move and he’s gored the lion all the way through. And in fact, that is a great picture of what Christ has done against Satan who prowls around like a roaring lion seeking all whom he may devour. With one decisive blow, Satan has been gored and now Christ stands victorious over him. Hebrews 2:14-15 tells us that through death Jesus has destroyed the one who has the power over death, the devil, and has delivered all those who through fear of death were subject to life long slavery. Jesus has triumphed over Satan, sin and death and has brought about a mighty deliverance and so when Jesus came to earth, though He may have appeared like a Lamb at the cross, when He rose from the dead, He appeared as an ox. He came to win the battle against our enemies! 1 John 3:8 says, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy (like an ox) the works of the devil.” I love how John Piper describes the kind of picture he would like to have for his family at Christmas: “The scene would be of a distant hill at dawn. The sun is about to rise behind the hill and the rays shoot up and out of the picture. And all alone, silhouetted on the hill in the center of the picture, very dark, is a magnificent wild ox standing with his back seven feet tall and the crown of his head nine feet tall. On both sides of his head there is a horn curving out and up six feet long and twelve inches thick at the base. He stands there sovereign and serene, facing the southern sky with his massive neck slightly cocked, and impaled at the end of his right horn hangs a huge lion, dead.” Jesus is the ox, He is the horn of salvation! By His power the enemy is defeated and we have been saved by him and from the hand of all who hate us! As Paul says in Romans 8:31 “If God is for us, who can be against us?” When we see Jesus as the horn of salvation, our sure answer is no one! 3. The Goal of This Powerful Deliverance is That We Might Worship God: “…to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant, the oath that He swore to our father Abraham, to grant to us that we, being delivered from the hands of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.” Now I know what you’re thinking, “Brett, the verse says, that we’re delivered from the hands of our enemies that we might ‘serve Him without fear’ not ‘worship Him without fear.’” Well, I hope you were thinking that, if so and you noticed I changed the word it’s because the word “serve” here “lutreou” carries the idea of serving in the act of worship, and so what we’re seeing here is the reason why the “Horn of Salvation” has delivered us, and that is so we might worship Him! We are delivered from our enemies that we might praise God! So back to the picture, the Ox doesn’t just show His power by forgiving sin, the Ox shows His power by securing worship, which also is the securing of our eternal joy! This is how it will work in Redemptive History as well. In 1 Corinthians 15:26 Paul says, “The last enemy to be defeated is death.” In Revelation 20 we see Death and Hades thrown into the Lake of Fire and then in Revelation 21 there is world-wide worship in a new heaven and new earth without any enemies whatsoever! Our eternal joy will be secured and the outcome of the Ox’s work will be realized then! And notice the “how” of worship here in these verses: “it is without fear, in holiness and righteousness and before Him all our days.” Once again back to our picture, the Ox flexes His muscle and calms our fears of condemnation from sin and threats from Satan while also recreating us to be holy and righteous before Him. It’s not enough for Christ to forgive sin, He must transform the sinner and that’s what His first visitation was about. If you’re thinking this sounds familiar, it should, in Ephesians 1:3-6 Paul in view of the eternal plan of salvation says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ , who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him (there’s one part). In love He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved (there’s the worship piece).” So the goal of this powerful deliverance from sin and Satan is that we might worship God without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days. 4. John Came to Prepare the People For a Salvation That is About Forgiven Sin: “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people in the forgiveness of their sins…” The reason why Zechariah’s child, John, was so important is because the way in which he would prepare the people for the way of Christ. The Messianic expectation was one of a powerful deliverer who would save the people from political oppression, establish an earthly government immediately on earth, and usher in an era of worldwide peace that would last forever. They knew the Messiah was coming to save, they just thought that He was coming to save them from oppression, and so the people needed to be prepared; they needed to understand that their worst problem wasn’t “outside” Roman oppression, but the “inside” oppression of Sin. In order to be ready for Jesus, the people and we need to understand that the greatest problem we have is that we have sinned against God and what we need more than anything else is this sin forgiven by God, but the conflict is how can God be just and uphold His holiness while at the same time forgiving sinners who need to be punished? John the Baptist gave the answer the first time he ever saw Jesus when he said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Only by Jesus’ death is sin punished and God’s justice upheld! This is what everyone needs, this is what John came to prepare the people for. He had to radically reorient the people to the sickness of the soul and the salvation that Jesus would bring…the salvation of forgiving sin! 5. Jesus Came to be the Sunrise For Those in Darkness: “…because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the Sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” Here we see the second picturesque description of Jesus and we see Him as the Sunrise and what beautiful and rich imagery this is! I want us to savor every word here…it begins with the tender mercy of our God, before the rising of the Son of God, there is mercy that moves the heart of God to send the Son to rise upon sinners in darkness. The words “tender mercy” speak to the gut and entrails of God. So what this is saying is that God in the gut is moved with mercy toward us, He sees the state of those who are sitting in the darkness of sin and guilt and in the shadow of death, the fear of dying and the fear of spiritual death which results in eternal physical death. He sees our condition, and then by His tender mercy He calls out the Son! And when the Sun rises, He gives light, the knowledge of Him, to our hearts and He gives light to the fact that we are in the darkness and He makes clear the way out, and then He moves to guide us who were sitting in the shadow of death to stand to our feet and walk into the way of peace! Jesus is the Sunrise and as the Sunrise He would bring about the healing the world needed. That’s what His rising is about for those who fear His name: healing! In Malachi 4:2 we read, “But for you who fear My name, the Sun of Righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.” Do you see this? The Rising Sun ushers in a new day, a new day of healing and new life, in new righteousness and holiness with new purpose to worship God all our lives. When the Sun rises life is new, like a sleepy world that starts to sing or like a calf leaping from the stall or like the Son of God rising from the dead to new life, which ironically happened early Sunday morning! And because He is risen you to with Him have been raised to walk in new life. In Romans 6:4 Paul says, “just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of God the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” God the Father has been moved with mercy toward us, and the Sunrise has visited us and risen upon us, Jesus is glorious, and the way of peace is clear, let us go, and let us go walking in newness of life, leaping like calves from the stall for we are healed! Praise His holy name! ]]> Mon, 07 Dec 2009 07:47:27 -0800 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/text/6622270 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/status/6584911 Sat, 05 Dec 2009 04:42:12 -0800 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/status/6584911 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/text/6500666 Pray: that Jesus be exalted and that His glory and His glory alone would be our vision as we carry out the mission Jesus has given us If you have a Bible would you take it and open it up with me first to Matthew 22:37-40 and then we’ll look at Matthew 28:18-20. If you are a visitor here this morning, we are glad to have you with us, and if you get to the end of this morning’s message and you are wondering if it’s this bad every week, have no fear, I’m just the Student and Families Pastor, and Pastor Nick will be, if the Lord wills, returning here tomorrow sometime and will be back preaching next Sunday. This morning we are going to wrap up this 2 part series on the Great Commandment and the Great Commission and by way of reminder the reason for this series is 2-fold, 1) To connect our hearts with our Uganda Team in the mission and 2) to lay a foundation for why the Church has been commissioned by Jesus to be engaged in mission from Pentecost until the time of His Second Coming. Last week we noted that there are 3 main commands or imperatives that Christ has given the Church on earth, and they are found in the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. We summarized them with these three simple but deeply profound statements… 1) Love God Passionately: In Matthew 22:37-38 Jesus says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the great and first commandment.” This is the first and foremost command. It is the greatest command, and Jesus demands it from every person in the universe! In this one commandment the heart of every other is contained. We must love God with a passionate and affection filled love. Loving Him is to be our very life, we are to love Him exclusively, we are to love Him in all our thoughts and imaginations and in all our actions and strength! The first claim Jesus lays on every human heart is this: love God passionately. 2) Love Others Relentlessly: In Matthew 22:39-40 Jesus goes on to say, “And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Jesus says, there’s also another command that is much like the first. In fact the same word for love we saw in verse 37 is here in verse 39. And the object of our love is for our neighbors, but not just physical neighbors, it includes anyone near us, both like us and unlike us, and we are to love them as we love ourselves, which is relentless. This command requires that we love everyone with the same heart-filled affection and concern we have for ourselves; no exceptions and no excuses. The whole of humanity and all the individuals that make up that humanity are to be the object of our love. And the third command or imperative is this… 3) Make Disciples Globally: In Matthew 28:18-20 Jesus says, “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to Me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always even to the end of the age.” Jesus Demands and I Haven’t Delivered If in hearing those three commands you’re thinking to yourself, “Jesus demands this, and I haven’t delivered in obedience, so what does this mean?” Well, it means death. You’ve broken the Law of God and outraged the Spirit of Grace and you deserve eternal death! But the good news is that God has sent Jesus Christ to do what we could not do and to die the death we deserved to die, and by repenting of our Law-breaking sin and by faith in Jesus’ Law-abiding obedience God the Father credits to our account the perfect righteousness of the Son, and we know that the New Covenant promise in Jesus is that what He has done for us, He will do in us! He will write the Law of God on our hearts and cause us to obey all that He has commanded. So by God’s grace and the Spirit’s power we are positionally perfectly obedient to these imperatives through Christ, and we will be practically obedient to these commands because of Christ. The Explosion of Passionate Love Toward God and Relentless Love Toward Others These three imperatives are extremely important and I want to remind you here, that they are also connected, and related and how it works is like this: If you want to fulfill the Great Commission by making disciples and teaching them to obey everything Jesus commanded, you do this by teaching the Great Commandment because it serves as a summary for the rest of the commandments. But it also works in another way: If you want to fulfill the Great Commission it will mean, first and foremost, obedience to the Great Commandment, because it is most important. And when your heart is filled first with passionate love for God and second with relentless love for others, an explosion takes place, and it is called mission! And the goal of missions is that people from every nation, tribe, people, and tongue would love God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength, and love their neighbors as themselves. So if we love God and we love others, we will want to make disciples globally! It just makes sense. Can Anything Be More Inspiring? So we’re going to focus on that third statement: “make disciples globally,” because this is the Christ-given mission of the church on earth, and this is an important subject, vitally important, and one that I fear has fallen on hard times and I pray that will be picked up again with a new passion. John R. Mott, the leader of the Student Volunteer Movement, in an address given in 1901 said the following, “There is no subject, unless it be the study of the Life of Christ, the study of which is more broadening, more deepening, more elevating, more inspiring than the subject of world-wide missions. No subject more broadening; it embraces all mankind. No subject more deepening; it takes us down to the very depths of the designs of God. Surely no subject more elevating. I can think of nothing that so lifts a man out of himself. And can anything be more inspiring than that enterprise which commanded the life and death and resurrection of our Lord?” Let me ask you the same: can anything be more inspiring than the mission for which Christ came and lived and died and raised? Maybe you’re not there yet, maybe you’re listening to Mr. Mott and wondering if world-wide missions really that wonderful, or maybe you’re just not clear on exactly what yourself and the church’s mission on earth is (and by the way as a Christian it should be the same mission)? I want you to see this clearly, and to see the mission of the church on earth clearly, we’re going to look at 5 things that I pray will clear the fog for us and propel us into Christ’s purposes for His Church on earth: 1) This Phase of Redemptive History 2) The Position of the People of Christ and the Lost World 3) The Power for the Mission 4) The Purpose of the Mission 5) The Presence in the Mission I. This Phase of Redemptive History Turn in your Bibles to Matthew 24. When we talk about Redemptive History, we are talking about God’s timeline and activity in the history of mankind. It begins in a Garden in Genesis 1 and ends in a Garden City in Revelation 21. In Genesis 1 there are 2 people in Revelation 21 there is an innumerable multitude from every nation, tribe, language and tongue. Redemptive History, therefore, has a clearly set beginning, middle, and end and if you were to read Scripture all the way through this is what you would see. What this means is that at this moment we are in a set time in Redemptive History and Oh is this an awesome position: we are between Christ’s resurrection and return! So the question we must ask is, “What are we to be about now in this phase?” Jesus tells us in Matthew 24. Let’s start in verse 3…Matthew 24:3-14. In Matthew 24:14 Jesus clearly lays out what this phase of redemptive history is all about: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” So this phase is about the proclamation of the gospel going throughout the whole world to all nations. This is the only reason why we woke up this morning in this world. It is for gospel purposes that we are here! The morning and evening news really misses the point doesn’t it? They think it is about the rise and fall of nations and kingdoms, and leaders, and businesses and the dollar. Let me be clear Fox News, CNN, NBC, ABC and whoever else is caught up in the small things: there is only One news story, there is only One reason and One end for human history and it is about One Kingdom, and all of the rising and falling of nations and kingdoms and leaders and businesses and monies is all for the sake of the King of this Kingdom! It is for the Kingdom of God and His Christ! He is the Headline! He is the Issue! He is the Man of the Year, in fact, He is the Man of the Ages! This is what is really going on in the world, and O that we knew it, and that we saw things from heaven’s vantage point! We would no longer be entertained by the news but we would see it as a benefit for our gospel-strategizing. The weather would not inform us of what to wear, but where we could go with the gospel! The economic crises would not make us worried sick, but would serve as an opportunity to point people to an Inheritance and Reward that never fades or loses value! And the constant barrage of death and murders, and sicknesses and calamities would no longer make us simply feel bad, but would make us urgent and focused because life is short and eternity is long! The proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom is what we must be about until the heavens are ripped open and Christ appears in His glory! We will proclaim the gospel of the kingdom! I don’t know what you think this day is about, but this is what the Risen and Reigning Christ, who is ordering and orchestrating all the details says it is about! This is the phase of redemptive history we find ourselves in, and now you can answer the question of “Why am I here on earth and not in heaven?” For every single person on the planet, you’re on earth and not heaven for one of two purposes: either to proclaim Christ throughout the whole world or to receive Christ! Let me ask you a question church: What are you here for, and are you about the business of this phase of redemptive history? So the first thing we need to understand clearly is this phase of redemptive history and what it is about and the next thing we need to see and more specifically feel is… II. The Position of the People of Christ and the Lost World I want you to consider for a moment what you are in Christ and what you have in Him and the glory you have beheld in the Lamb, and I then want you to turn from this and consider the world in their miserable state apart from Him. You see the reason why I think many Christians are unconcerned about the position of people apart from Christ is because they are not amazed at their own position in Christ. Or you could say, as we saw last week, “We don’t love Him and see the loveliness in Him.” Maybe it just doesn’t mean as much as it should that God is our God and we are His people! In many ways the Western Church is just like the nation of Israel: blessed with food, clothing, shelter, and fatness and we have forgotten that we are to be a means of blessing to the world. Our luxury has made us lethargic and indifferent! We like it that we are in Christ, that we get blessings, that we will be with Him forever and we like to sing of these things, and learn about these things, and we get a T-shirt or two to prove it, but the question is this: do these things really move us? If we’re not moved to make much of Christ’s name on earth then we might not know much about what it means to be in Christ. You see, if the glories of Christ and our identity in Him will not move us to mission then nothing will! We’re not in our position in Christ to be happy and isolated from the world, but rather we are in this incredible position to go to the world! In 1 Peter 2:9-10 Peter says, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, (Why?) that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” You see this? It is our position in Christ that leads to the proclamation of Christ to those who are not in our position! It is from our position in Christ and our passion for the excellencies of Christ to be made known to a people who don’t know His heroic deeds that we engage in mission! He is our reason for the mission! It is because of what we have seen in Him that we renounce everything we have and obey every word He has given, and it is because of Him that we will go wherever He asks no matter what awaits us there. I want you to listen to what Paul endured in the mission and how he talks in 2 Corinthians 4:7-12 “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.” Notice what he says, he is “always being given over to death” for whose sake? “Jesus’ sake” (motive: the glory of Christ) so that others may experience the life of Christ, and then bring glory to Jesus’ great name! So Paul endures physical death so that spiritual life may come to those dead in sin, that Christ might be glorified for who He is! Why live like this Paul? What was behind this compelling force of proclamation? Yes, he loved Jesus, and O did he love Him, but more importantly, and listen closely, He knew that Jesus loved him! This is exactly what he says a little later in his letter in 2 Corinthians 5:14 “For the love of Christ controls us…” It’s the love of Christ for him that controls or compels him in the mission of telling the world to be reconciled to God! The word “controls” there means pressure that produces action. In some translations the word is “compelled.” So the love of Christ for Paul, was the pressure that produced the action of mission, it was what compelled him to suffer for the sake of other’s salvation, and it will be the same for everyone of us. In this, he was acting just like his Master, who loved us and gave Himself up for us, because He loved the Father and sought His glory! I wonder, does Christ’s love for us compel us to risk our lives for others? Are we astonished and awed by our position in Christ and the glory we now behold in Him and the fact that He is not honored among the nations? Are we? Paul was. You see, Paul had seen glory in Christ, and loved Him and knew Jesus’ love for him, and he also knew that Christ was worthy of all the glory and love of the nations! He knew Jesus to be worthy of praise and the hope of the world! He knew who Jesus was and he knew how desperate the world was apart from Him, and he was compelled to go and proclaim the Crucified One until His return or until he gave up his life for His sake, which he did!. Do you know this Christ and are you jealous for His glory among the nations? Do you care for those who don’t Him? Do you hear the voices of the damned souls in Hell? Does that ever haunt you in your sleep or when you’re in line at Wal-Mart or behind your desk looking out at your office? Do you hear the cries of the perishing from every corner of the earth, 3.7 billion who have never heard His name, who have no gospel, who will one day be crying out like the rich man, “…have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.” Oh, if for one moment you could hear the screams of lost souls in Hell suffering under the weight of God’s just wrath, experiencing the second death, knowing who God is but not enjoying Him at all you would not live the way you do! You would not! You would not! You would be concerned not only for this city and your cafeteria but you would have worldwide concern! You’re heart would say, “The nations must know Him! The nations must know Him, my glorious Christ, or else they are damned forever!” You see if we understand our position in Christ and those apart from Him, then we will be compelled to go and make disciples of all nations. At this point though, many people think about the worldwide task, and think it is impossible. They want to be like Paul, they want to be engaged in this mission, but it becomes overwhelming to them, and probably to many of you. “So many need Christ, what can I do?” And usually that’s as far as people get. Before a seemingly impossible task, we’re normally paralyzed by fear, the enormity of the task, or by our own weakness and knowing this, Jesus begins His global commission to a small group of His disciples on a hill in Jerusalem, not with a command but with a promise; a fear and weakness-conquering promise… III. The Power for the Mission “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.” The word “authority” here means the right and freedom to do whatever one pleases, and Jesus is saying to them and us, “All the rights and freedoms to do whatever I please in the universe are mine!” We must know this! Oh, and we must bank on this truth, because you will not move one finger for the sake of the gospel if you do not know who has all authority…but know for sure, this day, the power and the right to rule in whatever way Christ pleases on heaven and earth is His! This is the power behind us and before us and with us in the mission! The power for the mission is not ours it is His! He has authority over the angelic hosts, this means Jesus is the Commander-in-Chief over the armies of heaven, they are all His and they move when He says move!. He has authority over every demonic power and Satanic force, there is nothing Satan does on his own authority without the Commanding Christ overruling his actions. Satan’s weapons are disease, suffering and death and know that Christ has authority over all diseases, He has power over all suffering, and He has shown His power over all death because on the cross ‘death by dying He slew’ and raising from the dead He stripped death of it’s power and took ownership and now He holds the keys of death and Hades! He has authority over every cloud, over every drop of rain, over every hurricane, over every Tsunami and earthquake and forest fire! He has authority over all rulers, kings of the earth, governments, presidents, policemen, and school boards! He has authority and power over the course of human history including wars and famines and the rise and fall of kingdoms and nations. He has the power of authority over all men and women, husbands and wives, daughters and sons and He has authority over every single student in every single elementary school, middle school, high school and college on earth, and He has authority over all managers and CEO’s and workers in every office building from Salem to Sri Lanka and know this today, He has absolute authority and power over every one of us! He rules over the Church it is His! He has preeminence in it! There is no denomination, no local church, no mission board, no parachurch organization, no Christian bookstore and no band that names His name that He does not have absolute rights over! They are all His! All authority in heaven and earth has been given to Him! Why? Because “He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in this form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, (here’s why) God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father!” (Philippians 2:6-11) Everything is His and He wants us to know this! Know this! You’ve got to know the power is His so you’re not paralyzed by the fear of rejection, isolation, persecution, contracting diseases among the sick or dying! The power for the mission, then, is not the authority in us; it is the authority in Christ who said He is with us always, and so when we go out in this mission and live this thing out…we’re going in His power and authority! I love the way David Platt says it: “Be dominated by His authority.” West Salem Baptist Church be dominated by His authority! So after Jesus opens with the promise that all authority in heaven and earth is His, removing our fear and weakness He then gives us… IV. The Purpose of the Mission This is where we see our purpose and God’s plan for us being here on earth. This is our part, but remember in doing this part, don’t forget the power is His to accomplish this work in us! With the power and authority of Christ upon us, Jesus says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” 1) Make Disciples of All Nations: Now this is the central command in the Great Commission; make disciples of all nations. This is the purpose of the church on earth: “to make disciples.” Not make programs, not take trips, not just hang out, but to make disciples! And here we need to see 2 things: 1) The Command: “make disciples” and 2) The Scope of the Command: “of all nations.” First, The Command: “Make Disciples” First we need to ask what is a disciple? The Greek word used here for disciple, is a comprehensive word that means 2 things: learner and follower. It is someone who is committed to learning all of the truth about Jesus and also walking in the truths that He has learned. A disciple is not only a hearer of the word but a doer of the word, and is committed to a lifetime of hearing and doing. Also, giving more definition to what a disciple is we need to look to the “discipleship passages” in the Gospels and we don’t have time to read all of them [Matt. 10:34-39; 16:24-27; Mark 8:34-38; Luke 9:57-62; 14:25-33] but what we see coming out of those passages is that a disciple is someone who has left everything to follow Jesus, someone who has renounced everything for His sake, someone who has put their hand to the plow and not looked back, someone who has lost their life that they may find it, someone who has taken up their cross and dies daily as they follow Jesus, and someone who has counted the cost of following Jesus and has seen persecution and suffering and death but more importantly has seen Christ as infinitely valuable and has found following Him worth it in every way! In simple terms a disciple is a Christian, a disciple is not a super-Christian, just a normal one. The plain truth is this: if you’re not His disciple, you’re not His! This is the last command of Jesus to His Church on earth: “make disciples!” these kinds of disciples, and the gospel we preach by the power of the Holy Spirit will accomplish this! To “make disciples” also means that the Church is not only what God is saving, but the Church is the means through which God is saving in a process is called disciple making. Now I don’t know about you, but when I hear this, I’m struck with the utter impossibility in my self of making people disciples; I can’t do it on my own, none of us can and so in this mission we are completely helpless, but hopeful that the Spirit of God can do this and that God will accomplish this through you and I because the risen Christ has all authority in heaven and earth and He has given that to us to make disciples! Jesus told His disciples in John 13:20 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives Me, and whoever receives Me receives the One who sent Me.” That’s the authority we have in this mission. It is through us that Christ lays claim on His sheep and lays condemnation upon the goats! This is what we are to be about, making disciples, every single one of us! That’s the command and second I want us to see the scope of the command… Second, The Scope of The Command: “All nations” Now first of all, we need to know what Jesus means by “all nations.” The first thing we normally think of is nations in a geographic sense: Uganda, Laos, China, Somalia, Mexico, India, Brazil or the United States, but this is not what Jesus is saying, what He is saying by “nations” is “people groups” the Greek is “Panta ta ethne.” You should recognize the English origin of the last word “ethne” from which we get ethnic or ethnicity. This includes any people who have a particular culture, language, tradition, set of beliefs and practices, etc. For example, in Uganda there are several peoples. When we speak of Uganda we don’t speak of the Ugandan people, we speak of the different tribes, the different “ethne” that make up the Ugandan people. One of the people groups that Jonathan ministered to was the Ik people, they were a people group, and that is exactly what Jesus had in mind when He gave us the scope of the command. He commands us to make disciples of all people groups, which means that to fulfill the Great Commission will mean that we reach all of these unreached people groups with the gospel. It is also means that we can’t rest here in religious activity. So when we say, “make disciples globally” this is what we mean: make disciples of all people groups that exist on planet earth, for when all these people groups have heard of the glory of Jesus Christ in the gospel of the cross, then the end will come. If you want the end to come, if you want to see the Lamb surrounded in worship in heaven receiving the full reward of His suffering, then we must be engaged in making disciples globally. At this point the question that usually arises is this, “All right, so we are to make disciples of all nations, but what does this mean practically for us here? What is the local church’s role in God’s global plan for the nations?” There are several ways this works itself out but there are two immediate points that arise… A) The Local Church Is A Base of Operation: As a local church, this commission means that it transforms the way we operate as a Church in that we do not aim for a little kingdom here, that is comfortable, and happy, and holy with good religious activity, but we aim to be an outpost here for the kingdom of God. We are an outpost for the Kingdom of God, an embassy of light in darkness, citizens of the heavenly country, heralds of Christ’s reign, and a base of operation in enemy territory! At this base, called West Salem Baptist Church, we teach disciples to obey all that Jesus has commanded and then we go forward in battle with our King’s marching orders. That’s what Sunday School, and Small Groups are all about. They are not ends, they are means by which we become what Christ has created us to be and through which we reach the world in this age. We must live and work and talk as if we are merely stationed here for Christ’s global purposes, because we are! We have been sent here as agents of the kingdom of God to announce His good and gracious reign. We’re citizens of another world, and we must live here in this world as those temporarily stationed for the sake of the Gospel until Christ comes or calls us Home. For some of you this might be the base you stay at for the rest of your life, for some of you this will simply be a station from which you will go and set up an outpost for the kingdom in another area of the world where there is none, but if we desire to be obedient to Jesus, then our view of the local church must be transformed into seeing it as a base of operation. So what making disciples globally means first is that the local church is transformed into a base of operation. Second, it means that… B) Local Disciples Must Have a Global Ambition: A missionary once said, “The light that shines the furthest burns the brightest at home.” The point is that if the scope of our ambition is global, then it will change everything we do locally. In fact, this is almost exactly what Jonathan said he was going to Uganda for. He said that he wanted to go there to learn from the pastors and people there how to be a more effective disciple here. He went globally in order to be more effective locally. If we believe the mission of making disciples is really to all people groups of the world, then we must aim to be disciples who have a global concern. Some missiologists call these people “World Christians” and that’s a good term to use. In the book Perspectives in the World Christian Movement David Bryant has a chapter entitled “What It Means to Be A World Christian” and he writes, “…every Christian is meant to be a World Christian, whether you physically go or stay at home to provide the sacrificial love, prayers, training, money and quality of corporate life that backs the witness of those who go. World Christians are day-to-day disciples for whom Christ’s global cause has become the integrating, overriding priority for all that He is for them. Like disciples should, they actively investigate all that their Master’s Great Commission means. Then they act on what they learn. World Christians are Christians whose life-directions have been solidly transformed by a world vision. They are heaven’s expatriates, camping where the kingdom is best served. They are earth’s dispossessed, who’ve journeyed forth to give a dying world not only the gospel but their own souls as well.” These are the disciples we aim to make: Christians with a global awareness of the condition of mankind apart from Christ and a global concern to see Jesus’ named where He has not been, and they know that the end result of this global ambition is a people from every nation, tribe, language and tongue giving glory to the Lamb Slain! Local disciples with a global ambition will look forward to the end result of the mission, which is most clearly given to us in Revelation 7:9-12. “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” This picture is what should be painted on the heart and mind of every local disciple. It is to be a constant reminder of what will be, of what the Great Commission is aiming towards: global worship! Practically what this means for us as a local church is that this involves finding out who the unreached and least reached peoples are, and praying for them and seeking to find ways to minister to them. We must pray for more laborers to be sent out into the harvest, praying that the light of the Gospel would reach them, and be open to the fact that you or your children may be the very means through which God will accomplish His purposes among those peoples! Our prayer should be that of Psalm 67:1-2, “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make His face to shine upon us, that Your way may be known on the earth, your saving power among all nations.” That’s our prayer: God bless us, make your face shine upon us locally so that we may be a channel of Your blessing globally! As local disciples we must have a global ambition. Three Ways In Which The Disciple-Making Mission is Accomplished So that’s how making disciples works locally and what we’ve seen from Jesus is that making disciples of all nations is the central task or command we have been given as the church on earth. But that’s not all Jesus says here, He also shows us three ways in which this mission is accomplished…. 1) We Make Disciples of All Nations By Going: “Go therefore…” First I want you to see that our going into the world to make disciples is based on something and that something is the power and authority of Christ, that's what the "therefore" is there for. Jesus is saying, “Go with my power and my authority to make disciples of all nations. Go in My name!” Going is part of the process of making disciples; it is how the disciple-making mission is fulfilled. It’s hard to make disciples of all nations if we don’t go to the nations. And we don’t have Jesus’ authority to stay put; we have it to be witnesses. In Acts 1:8 Jesus, last words to His disciples show tell them of the power they will receive and the result of this power, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” You see that? We as they did have the power of the Holy Spirit to be Jesus’ witnesses not only where we are, but to the very ends of the earth! We have power to get to the ends of the earth with the Gospel! We must go, but the word “go” is written in a tense where the word “go” is assumed, “as you are going” Jesus says, and He says this because as Christians we are “sent” into the world as soon as we were given new life in Christ. That’s why you’re not in heaven right now…you’ve been, in Jesus’ words, “sent” here. In John 17:18 Jesus prays to the Father, “As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” In the same way, Jesus was sent, you who have been made new creations in Him have been sent into the world, notice the language “into the world” as if you’re out of it! It’s amazing! Now this means several things: like Jesus was sent into the world in the power of the Holy Spirit, so we too are sent in the power of the Holy Spirit. Like Jesus was sent into the world weeping with compassion for the lost so we are sent weeping with compassion for the lost. Like Jesus was sent into the world in a specific time, to a specific people for a specific purpose to seek and to save the lost so we too are sent into the world. Like Jesus was sent announcing the good news of the kingdom of God and calling men to repent so we are sent as His heralds. Like Jesus was sent into the world praying so we are sent praying. Like Jesus was sent into the world not to be served but to serve so we are sent not to be served but to serve. And like Jesus was sent into the world to suffer for the sake of others, so we too join Him in being sent into the world to suffer. In John 20:19-21, Jesus gives a visual sign of what being sent into the world will mean for His disciples, “On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked, where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, (look and listen carefully) He showed them His hand and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” In other words, Jesus is saying, “I was sent into the world to suffer, even so I am sending you to do the same!” So we must go and make disciples the same way our Lord came and made disciples. For all of us, we must suffer in some way for the sake of others coming to Christ, and for some of you, obedience to this commission will mean your life! But fear not, the authority is His! We must go, and second part of the process of which we make disciples of all nations is by… 2) We Make Disciples of All Nations by Baptizing: “Baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” This is the first step of obedience for every disciple of Jesus Christ. We see time and time again those in Acts who were saved were immediately baptized. In Acts 8 Philip has just been sent by an angel to go to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza and there he met an Ethiopian eunuch and explained to the man, from the Scriptures the good news of Jesus, and called him to be Jesus’ disciple and in verse 36 we read, “And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?” And they went do to the water…and he baptized him.” Philip had obviously explained the importance of baptism as a disciple of Jesus Christ, and the eunuch desiring to be obedient to Jesus asked to be baptized. It’s important that we understand that it’s not that baptism saves you, but baptism does give evidence that you are saved. So someone who does not want to be baptized or is a Christian and hasn’t been baptized they are a disobedient disciple and if one is not baptized or refuses it, how do we expect them to follow everything Jesus has commanded? So baptism is an important first step for being a disciple because of what it symbolizes and how it identifies you. Baptism is by the definition of the Greek word here by “immersion” which means that it is a plunging into the water. It is a powerful symbol of our death and resurrection in Christ Jesus, in that in Christ we have died with Him and we have risen with Him to new life. (See Romans 6) It also symbolizes our new relationship and fellowship with the Godhead: Father, Son and Holy Spirit whereby God is our Father and we are His sons’ and daughters, the Son is our Lord and King who has saved us, and the Spirit is in us and with us as the guarantee that we are God’s. But not only is baptism symbolic, it is also an identifying mark for the disciple. It is how one goes “public” in Christianity. It is a bold open statement to the world that we are with Christ! So we make disciples of all nations by going to them with the gospel and baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and… 3) We Make Disciples of All Nations By Teaching Them to Observe Jesus’ Commands: “Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you…” To make disciples of all nations will involve teaching. The Greek word here is “didasko” and carries the idea of shaping the will of the one taught. How we make disciples who are learners and followers is by teaching them truth of Jesus’ commands and teaching them how to apply that truth and put it into action. This is a mission that involves our mouths. It’s not a silent mission, but a teaching mission! The people we reach with the gospel must be taught to observe all that Jesus has commanded, and that’s why the local church becomes a base of operation where disciples are taught and trained that they may go and do the same thing among all the peoples of the earth. Jesus is saying, “I want you to teach them to observe my commandments as you have been taught by me.” Nothing new, no secret stuff, just plain revealed truth from the Word of God, that’s what we’re to teach, and being that a disciple is someone who is a lifetime learner and follower it is to be what we’re about as well: continually learning, continually observing, continually following! When we go to the nations to make disciples we don’t go to just get conversions, we go to get and make disciples! We’re not short-changing the nations, we’re pouring into them the Word and our lives! So we have seen the phase of redemptive history, the position of those in Christ and the lost world, the power of the mission, the purpose of the mission and finally we see what will sustain us through it all… V. The Presence in the Mission “And behold, I am with you always even to the end of the age.” I can’t think of any better promise than this, can you? Jesus will be with us always! You see, the Great Commission is not something that Jesus just watches His people do at a distance, but it’s something He is intimately involved with us in, or to say it more clearly, it’s something we’re intimately involved with Him in. So here, He grabs there attention, saying, “Look, check this out, pay attention, behold I myself am with you!” Let me ask you something, “What more could you want?” Nothing! Jesus promises that He will be with us in this mission! He Himself! And He says that He’ll be with us even to the end of the age, so right now in this phase of redemptive history, He is with us in Presence and Power giving us Position and Purpose! And I want you to see something here that is really important: Jesus promises His presence for those engaged in His mission. I would say that for every Christian the one thing they long for more than anything else on earth is the Presence of Christ. There is nothing like it when He draws near to us. We ask for His presence to be with us in prayer, in worship, in preaching and in private worship but there is a way that His people experience His presence unlike any other time, and it is when we are involved in His mission of making disciples of all nations. So in this task of making disciples, bank on this promise…He will be with us always! Always! We Shall Live or Die For the Evangelization of the World in Our Day At the beginning of this message I opened with John Mott’s words about the subject of world-wide missions and I believe that it would only be fitting to close with the closing words of that same address. In closing he said, “Therefore, friends, in view of the awful need of men who are living without Christ; in view of the infinite possibilities of the life related to Christ as mighty Savior and risen Lord; in view of the magnitude of the task which confronts the church of this generation; in view of the impending crisis and the urgency of the situation; in view of the conditions which favor a great onward movement within the Church of God; in view of the dangers of anything less than a great onward movement; in view of the great cloud of witnesses who gathered around us, of those who subdued kingdoms and wrought righteousness—yes, in view of the constraining memories of the Cross of Christ and the love wherewith He hath loved us, let us rise and resolve, at whatever cost of self-denial, that live or die, we shall live or die for the evangelization of the world in our day.” God help us to make disciples globally for the glory of Christ among all peoples! Amen! ]]> Tue, 01 Dec 2009 09:52:38 -0800 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/text/6500666 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/status/6379669 Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:16:48 -0800 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/status/6379669 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/text/6336635 The Way We Should Read This Before we read this, I want us to read it in the right frame of mind and heart. J. C. Ryle helps us when writes, “We have, in these verses, the announcement of the most marvelous event that ever happened in this world—the incarnation and birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a passage which we should always read with mingled wonder, love and praise.” [Luke 1:26-38] In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord will give to Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.” And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.” O God Forgive Our Familiarity! I hope when we read that you felt what J.C. Ryle was talking about in the mingling of wonder love and praise. My fear, however, is that familiarity has got the best of us. We’ve heard this story before…it’s about an angel who shows up and talks to a virgin girl who would have a child and His name would be Jesus, little baby Jesus and that’s what Christmas is all about, the end. There’s no wonder, no love, no praise just familiarity and maybe a few fleeting thoughts that this really could be the most spectacular truth ever, we just don’t have time for it: there’s food to eat, homework to do, and friends you need to talk to on Facebook about nothing. What’s wrong with us? J.C. Ryle is right, in these verses we have the announcement of the most marvelous events that ever happened in this world! Ever! The Son of God, the Messiah, Jesus, the One who has existed from all of eternity, without beginning was conceived in the womb of woman who had never known a man, and He would be born both Fully God and Fully Man, a Sinless Man, Perfect and Holy, and He was here for us, chasing us, seeking us, to be the only, only Savior who could save us from our sin! Oh God, forgive us for our familiarity! I don’t know about you, but I think the best way to begin this message tonight is in repentance…repentance for our lack of wonder, love and praise! Repentance for being too grown up and not child-like enough. Repentance for losing our awe. Repentance for losing Jesus from the center of all human history and our hearts. Repentance that He is not great or as great as He should be in our lives. So I want to give you a few minutes now to confess your sin of familiarity before God and to ask for forgiveness and a renewed wonder when it comes to this most marvelous event. Pray: that Jesus be exalted, that we would see Him as the Great One that He is and that before His greatness we would be humbled and ready servants to do whatever He asks of us whether that be finally lay down our arms against Him or take up our arms and fight for Him and His cause of truth in the world and that we would never lose our wonder when it comes to the One who is Wonderful How we’re going to look at this passage tonight, is by going straight through the text, chunk by chunk. I’ll read a few verses, that you’ll find under a heading in your notes, and then I’ll explain those verses and make points as we go along, and finally, I’ll close with a question of application. So let’s look at the first heading and the first two verses of our text tonight… Gabriel Sent by God to Galilee to a Virgin Girl (v.26-27) In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. When Luke writes, “In the sixth month” he’s talking about the six month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy. This would be the sixth month Zechariah’s silent universe and the sixth month of Elizabeth’s joy, by this time her reproach and shame in the community would be gone, and the forerunner for the Messiah would be rapidly developing. It was the sixth month when God sent Gabriel again to make another birth announcement, and this time it would be the announcement of the Messiah’s birth to a young virgin girl engaged to be married, living in a small town named Nazareth. Now there’s a few unexpected and unusual things that are very important in these verses that will lay the foundation for the rest of this passage: 1. Nazareth is An Unexpected Place For Such an Event: First of all, the location for this event to take place, is not the expected place you would think that the Savior-King of the universe would be born. If God weren’t the Author of this Story and we were, we’d pick another location. We would pick a powerful city, a city where many people would be, a city with a reputation and a hometown to be proud of. Nazareth is no Salem. They don’t have “Ole Nazareth Days” here, and they don’t make a big deal about their football team. In the gospel of John 1:44-46 we read an encounter between Phillip and Nathanael and Philip said to him, “We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said, “Come and see.” We have to ask the question of why? Why would God pick this place? The answer is this: Jesus first coming wasn’t so much of that of a King, but that of a humble servant to serve us by being poor and giving His life unto death for ours! So while Nazareth is an unexpected place it is the perfect place to symbolize what His first coming was about. 2. Mary is An Unexpected Candidate to Conceive the Christ: We’re going to see in a few minutes that Mary wasn’t expecting this at all. She thought it strange that she would conceive the Christ, but her humility isn’t the only thing that makes her an unexpected candidate, what makes her so unexpected is that she is betrothed to be married! Once again, if we’re writing this story, we would have had Mary had the child before she was betrothed to be married not after. Now you might be wondering what the word “betrothed” means, well, it’s kind of like our word “engaged” except being betrothed in that day was a lot bigger deal than being engaged in ours. To be betrothed was to be married just without the marriage supper and the living together part. It’s kind of like what we are as Christians, the Bride of Christ, with Christ: the marriage supper of the Lamb hasn’t come yet and we aren’t living with Him yet, but we’re as good as married! He will come for us, we will feast with Him and we will live with Him forever. We are betrothed and our engagement ring is the sealing of the Holy Spirit! But this was a serious deal, to break a betrothal, if that’s a word, you would have to break it with a divorce paper. It was serious, and it’s quite unexpected that Mary an engaged woman would be the candidate to conceive the Christ. (Example: Imagine Molly and Ben’s situation and Molly being chosen to bear the Messiah. Right now, Ben would say that would be really cool, because he’s looking back, if he was in Joseph’s shoes, he’d panic) 3. It is Unusual For a Virgin to Have a Child: Now this is the most unusual thing here. She’s a virgin. Virgin’s don’t get pregnant; they don’t normally have children. Pure girls don’t wake up and take pregnancy tests and get a positive answer! This is unusual! But it’s totally like God. God always breaks into unexpected circumstances and times and does the unusual. This was God’s stage, and the stage was set: an unexpected town, and unexpected girl, and one unusual way to have a child…something Big is about to happen. The spotlight is about to turn on…and it will be on Jesus! Next, let’s look at verses 28-29 and see how this encounter unfolds… Greetings of Grace and Great Trouble (v.28-29) And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. One commentator, notes that the words, “he came to her” are the same as “he entered in” and says that it carries the idea of a friend coming into your home. So the Gabriel, enters in, as a friend or relative or neighbor would come in your front door and he says to her, “Greetings” kind of like an angelic “what’s up” and then this is where it gets good…he calls her, not Mary, but “O favored one.” What a great way to be greeted huh? O Favored One! There’s an excitement in Gabriel’s voice, and he might not know it personally, but he knows that what the grace that Mary has received from God is exciting! This is Big. That’s what the word “Favored One” means one who has received grace or that grace has been given to. In a unique way she was given the grace of bearing the Son of God and in that since she was favored beyond all other men and women on the earth, but in a common way, this greeting is given to every child of God. We are all favored because of the grace that has been given us in Jesus. But what I find awesome about this verse is Mary’s response. Mary doesn’t say, “You better believe it!” And then does a “I Got the Favor Flavor” dance. No, this frightens Mary. Mary is literally disturbed at this greeting. Now it could be that this troubling was because Gabriel just showed up and busted in with a big “Greetings!” or it could be, and more likely is, that Mary cannot believe that she would be the recipient of such grace. You see sinners who receive grace are never comfortable with grace. The reason is that they know they don’t deserve it! They know that if anything they deserve the opposite of grace. They expect to receive the greeting, “O Fallen One” not “O Favored One.” And if you really know the grace of God, you know exactly how Mary feels. Grace makes you highly uncomfortable…it never feels right. You know it’s exactly what you need, it’s just the way we receive it that bothers us...freely! We wish we could pay for it or could pay God back for giving it to us and some people try to do that. They try to be really good and do right things and hopefully that will pay off in the end and they’ll get grace or there are others who have grace and feel that they must pay God back, so they’ll do all kinds of things and work themselves to death with no joy to pay God back for grace. But trying to pay to purchase grace or pay God back for it is not the way to get or keep it. Grace is undeserved favor for those who deserve the exact opposite. God gives the grace and you have the grace at a free price…the price of the Great One’s life! Maybe this grace disturbs you, and that’s probably a good thing, just don’t try to work for it or pay God back for it. Receive it, weep over the fact that you have it, and rejoice! So Gabriel greets Mary, and Mary finds out that she has a part in the story, and she has a part only by grace given freely from God, and then the angel responds to this trembling young lady… The Great One Revealed (v.30-33) And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord will give to Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.” 1. His Name Will Be Jesus: This is a loaded word! And one that I feel sinful for even trying to explain. We will spend all of eternity learning of the glory of His Name! His Name is Jesus! It comes from the Hebrew “Jeshua” or “Joshua” and means “Yahweh Saves.” Jesus means Savior or Deliverer. His name was not just a name, it was a title for what He would be and do. In Matthew 1:21 when the angel is describing to Joseph that his wife will have a son, he tells him this, “She will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, (and then he tells us why) for He will save His people from their sins.” This is His central work! Every time His name was spoken or called on earth it was a reminder of who He was and what He was there to do! He came to save His people from their sins! Some of you may not like the doctrine of election, but the doctrine of election is His very name! If you don’t like the doctrine of election you probably don’t like Him! He will save His people from their sins! This is why He came! Later on in Luke 19:10 when Jesus is speaking to Zacchaeus He tells him the reason for His coming, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” His name is Jesus! 2. He Will Be Great: For some reason, I just love this title for Jesus: Great! To be great means to be far above, better than, considerably above average, superior and supreme. This title makes an excellent contrast to Herod the Great, who probably gave that name to himself, whereas Jesus was given the title by His very nature. Herod was a king that was appointed by man to reign over Judea, Jesus is the King that was appointed by God to rule over Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth! Herod is a king who has to kill all his enemies and the people who fight for his throne that he may reign, Jesus destroys His enemies not to make sure He reigns but because He does reign! Herod killed his enemies, Jesus was killed for His! Herod rebuilt the temple and the city of Jerusalem and put his name on every brick, Jesus is the temple, and has built a city not made with human hands and that cannot be touched or destroyed. 3. He Will Be Called the Son of the Most High: To be Son of the Most High is to be equal to the Most High God. It does not mean He will be created and therefore a Son to the Father. Jesus is eternally the Son of the Most High, never made. Son, refers to His eternal relationship to the Father, not that He is created. And what this title means on earth is that Jesus, the Son of the Most High, is over all peoples and nations and over all angelic hosts. The first time, God was called the Most High God, was by Melchizedek in the Old Testament, a non-Jewish Priest-King, and it pointed to God’s universal rule. In the same way, this child will have a universal rule! And that leads into the next statement… 4. He Will Have the Throne of David and Reign Over the House Jacob: Gabriel is telling Mary here, that her Son is the fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant, an Old Testament promise that from the line of David would arise a King that would reign forever and ever. In 2 Samuel 7:11b-13 the Lord said through the prophet Nathan to David, “And I will give rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of His kingdom forever.” Jesus will have the throne of David and will reign forever. What’s amazing is that Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father, as we saw earlier is from the line of David…therefore in God’s wisdom, He has set up a way in which there will be a king from the Davidic lineage that will reign over the house of Jacob! 5. His Kingdom Will Have No End: Jesus will be King forever! His kingdom is unlike any kingdom because He is unlike any King. He is a king not limited by mortality, and His kingdom is one that is not able to be touched right now because His kingdom is happening in people, and when it is finally established on the earth after Satan and all sin has been defeated, it will not be able to crumble then because the whole world will be made new! His kingdom will not end! Isaiah 9:7 says, “Of the increase of His government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over His kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.” So this is the revealing of the Great One, the picture is clearer now at this point in history than it ever has been. The Main Character of God’s Redemptive Drama has now come in to clear view. The who of the story is settled…it’s the how that we now turn to… How The Great One Will Be Born (v.34-37) And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Mary’s first response to the truth that she will have the Great One is, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” In comparison to Zechariah’s response to the truth that he and Elizabeth would have a son when he said, “How shall I know this?” Mary’s response is radically different! Mary responded to the good news in belief, Zechariah in unbelief. Zechariah’s response was in effect saying, “I need more proof. I need more evidence. This word isn’t enough.” Mary’s response was in effect saying, “I believe You can do this, but how? How are You going to pull this off?” Her response was one of humble wonder. Zechariah wanted evidence. Mary just wanted an explanation. And Gabriel, didn’t have to give her an explanation, but he did…and the explanation he gave, you can tell, is something not even he fully understood; it is shrouded in mystery. You see, Gabriel is just delivering the words of God, he’s giving the answer, but it doesn’t mean he understands fully what he is saying. So he tells her how the Great One will be born, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you…” Let me ask you, does that help explain it to you? Probably not. All Mary gets from this is that somehow the Spirit of God will overshadow her, possibly like the cloud of God’s glory that covered the tabernacle when the Lord would meet with His people upon the ark, and that somehow in this overshadowing of the Spirit the omnipotence of God will cause her to conceive a child. As a result of this miracle the child will be holy, sinless, separated from sinners and yet fully human. He will be the most complete man to ever walk the earth, and He will be completely God; He will be the Son of God…God of very God. This is the explanation Gabriel gives as to how this child will be born, and then he follows it up with a promise, and this is the promise…Elizabeth in her old age has conceived a son, who was considered barren. The point is that God can cause new life to sprout out of dead life. In effect, Gabriel is saying to her, “God can and does work miracles. One miracle has already taken place, Mary, and another will happen in you.” And then Gabriel gives the reason why, “For nothing will be impossible with God.” What a promise? What a great comfort to Mary’s troubled soul? When there is no more explaining to be done, there needs to be trust, and trust in this: absolutely nothing is impossible with God. Mary’s Response to the Revelation (v.38) And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.” At first glance, Mary’s response may not seem that courageous, it might just sound like to you, that this is what you’re supposed to say when an angel shows up and informs you that you will have the Son of God in the power of the Holy Spirit, but Mary’s response is incredible and Oh is it challenging! Remember, Mary has just been told she, a virgin who is engaged to be married, is going to have a child, and Joseph is not going to be the father, but in the most mysterious way imaginable God the Father will be the Father…this is not an easy reality to live with, in fact, because of this she shouldn’t live at all! Turn with me to Deuteronomy 22:13-21 and let’s look at the laws concerning virgins, “If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then hates her and accuses her of misconduct and brings a bad name upon her, saying, ‘I took this woman, and when I came near her, I did not find evidence of her virginity,’ then the father of the young woman and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of her virginity to the elders of the city in the gate. And the father of the young woman shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man to marry, and he hates her; and behold, he has accused her of misconduct, saying, “I did not find in your daughter evidence of virginity.” And yet this is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.’ And they shall spread the cloak before the elders of the city. Then the elders of that city shall take the man and whip him, and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the father of the young woman, because he has brought a bad name upon a virgin of Israel. And she shall be his wife. He may not divorce her all his days. But if the thing is true, that the evidence of virginity was not found in the young woman (which a woman with child would be enough evidence for Mary’s situation), then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done an outrageous thing in Israel by whoring in her father’s house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.” When Mary says, “let it be to me according to your word,” she is doing this with all surrender and submission to the word of God, because if people didn’t buy her story, and trust me it would be difficult to buy it, she would be guilty of doing an outrageous thing in Israel! Mary is literally putting her life on the line here! And notice how she puts her life on the line…like a humble servant! She says, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord!” Look at this courageous and confident young woman! She say, “Behold” check it out, take note is what she’s saying, “I am the Lord’s servant.” She throws herself under the Word of God in submission to His Lordship with all courage! Women in this room…be a Mary! Though your life be on the line, though it may cause your friend’s and the world to wonder at you, be a servant of the Lord and not a slave to this world! Seek the inner beauty of a humble heart that draws the gaze of God instead of the outer beauty of a pretty exterior that only draws the gaze of little boys! So young women be a Mary! Young men, have heart, have her willingness, have her surrender, have her boldness! When you hear the revelation of Jesus Christ and all that He is for you…submit yourself to this truth! Real men surrender to God! It’s not manly to resist your Maker; its manly to submit to your Maker and risk your life for the sake of His Name! There was a young man by the name of CT Studd who did just that, he had a chance to play professional sports, but he turned it down to reach the unreached in China. Studd lived a life of abandonment to Christ, giving away all his inheritance in order to pioneer works in China, India, and Africa. His motto? "I'd rather run a rescue shop within a foot of hell than live within the sound of a chapel bell. If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, nothing I sacrifice is too great for Him." That is how the heart of Mary beats in a chest. What about you? In view of Mary’s response to the revelation of Jesus, I have one question I want to leave you with tonight as you go into your groups… How Will You Respond to the Revelation of Jesus? Are you going to wait for more reasons to respond or will you risk your life? May God give you the grace to do the latter! ]]> Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:45:34 -0800 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/text/6336635 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/text/6336380 Pray: that Jesus be exalted and that we this day would stand in awe before the matchless love of God and seek to love Him with all that we have and that we would love our neighbors as ourselves If you have a Bible, would you open it up and turn with me to the Gospel of Matthew, and we’re going to look at two passages: Matthew 22:34-40 and Matthew 28:18-20, but let’s start with Matthew 28:18-20. If you don’t have a Bible, there is a pew Bible in front of you there, and you’ll need to grab that, because the best of what I have to say will come from the Word of God. If you don’t know, Pastor Nick, Dr. Taylor, and Lindsay Bach are currently in Uganda speaking to the Church there and several local pastors at a conference, training these men to be faithful preachers of the gospel in their own culture and context. Pastor Nick, for those of you who are visiting, is our Head Pastor here at West Salem, a lover of Christ and a dear friend, and a faithful, and powerful preacher of the truth of God, and for this Sunday and next will be in Uganda and deeply missed here. What Is the Church’s Mission on Earth? What Drives Us? And what God has laid on my heart, is a series of 2 messages, first of all, to connect our hearts with theirs in the mission, and second of all, to lay a foundation for why the Church has been commissioned by Jesus to be engaged in mission from Pentecost until the time of His Second Coming. We will answer the question of what is the Church’s mission on earth? Through this I want you to understand what drives a 19-year-old student, Jonathan Murphy, half a world a way, on his own, to a foreign country to magnify the glory of Christ with another young man, Emma. Or what drove two Moravian young men, a few hundred years ago to sell themselves into slavery in order to reach the slaves, and never to return home? Or what drove 23-year-old Lottie Moon, at all 4ft 3inches to travel to China and evangelize there for 40 years, never getting married, and trading in a wealthy home life to be utterly broke in a foreign country, to only die on a ship famished and frail in her 70s, after she gave away all her money and food to help the starving Chinese. Or what drove Jim Elliot and 4 other men to leave their wives, children, and churches to an unreached people in Ecuador only to meet this people with spears in their hands to kill them? And more so, what drove their wives to go back to that tribe that killed their husbands and minister the Gospel to them? (And by the way, those very men who murdered their husbands were saved!) What makes you want to do that? What makes you want to go to refugee camps, and put yourself in dangerous situations, and go and stay with unreached peoples? What drives someone to do these kinds of things? What does that kind of heart look like? What goes on in the heart that says, “I must go! I must go!” And I’m praying that through these messages, the Spirit of God would birth in our hearts a passion to see Jesus’ name magnified throughout the world, among all nations, and peoples and that some of you, many of you, would go where Jesus has not been named! I pray that God would use these few weeks to make you restless and risk-taking for the praise of His glory among all peoples! That you, like Paul, in his vision in Acts 16 would have your own Macedonian call, as you hear the cries of helpless sinners saying, “Come over here and help us!” For everyone that will mean something different, but if just for a few minutes of non-distracted clarity, you would hear over 3.7 billion people on the earth who have never heard of the name of Jesus! 3.7 billion people know nothing of His glory, nothing of the depths of their offense against Holy God, and know nothing of the wonder of the cross of Jesus Christ, and have no idea that there is One whom the grave could not hold and who has ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God! People are perishing without this knowledge and will we remain quiet? God help us if we do! Countless millions are perishing throughout the world without this knowledge, and there are even thousands within a few miles of where we are sitting this morning who do not know Him! Do you hear their desperate cries this morning? “Come over here and help us! Help us!” And I want to answer the question of what will drive us to them in the mission the risen Christ has called us to? What is the propeller to this mission? What will make us restless and risk-taking for the cause of Christ among these people? What will we be about? And specifically, how will you, individually, engage in the mission that you have been given as a disciple of Jesus Christ? If you read the New Testament what you will find is that there are 3 main commands or imperatives upon the Church in this age, and they are connected and I want us to see this. Let’s look at Matthew 28:18-20 and then we’ll look at Matthew 22:34-40 and focus our attention there this morning. The Great Commission: Matthew 28:18-20 “And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” So here Jesus is before He ascends into heaven, and in Him all authority and rule and power exists, and as a result of this He calls everyone to make disciples (If you’re not His disciple, how you respond to the risen Christ is by becoming a disciple!), that’s the main command here. It’s not “go,” Jesus assumes we are already going. If you’re a Christian the only reason you’re on earth is because you have been sent here for this disciple-making mission. Jesus prayed, “As you (Father) have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” You’ve been sent here! You don’t just stay here once you’re saved, in God’s sight, you’re sent here! So in this mission we’re called to make disciples and how disciples are made, and this is important, is by “teaching them to observe all that (I) Jesus has commanded.” Now there are a lot of commands, and we should obey all of them and labor to know them, no exceptions, but I do think there is a way to summarize them that doesn’t reduce them or gut the other commands of their meaning, and the way to do this is to focus on the two commandments that all the others can be grouped under….The Great Commandment and the Second Like It. Of this verse Spurgeon says, “…it contains the heart of every other.” The Great Commandment: Matthew 22:34-40 “But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question to test Him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all you mind. This is the great and first commandment.” But Jesus doesn’t stop there, He says… The Second Like It: “And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” And here’s how they connect: If you want to fulfill the Great Commission by making disciples and teaching them to obey everything Jesus commanded, you do this by teaching the Great Commandment. But it also works the other way around: If you want to fulfill the Great Commission it will mean, first and foremost, obedience to the Great Commandment, because it is first and foremost. Or you could say it this way: The outlet for obedience to the Great Commandment is the Great Commission. That’s how this works, when your heart is filled with love for God and love for others, an explosion takes place, and it is called mission! And the goal of missions is that people from every nation, tribe, people, and tongue would love God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength, and love their neighbors as themselves. You see how these 3 commands work together now? All right… Let me give you a simple 3-part summary of this deep reality so that it will be easy to remember and teach to your children… A Simple Summary A Deep Reality 1) Love God Passionately: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” I’m using the word passionately because our love for God must include our whole being: it must be with all, not part. 2) Love Others Relentlessly: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” I’m using the word relentlessly because that is how we love ourselves. 3) Make Disciples Globally: “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to Me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always even to the end of the age.” The main command, Jesus says is to “Make disciples of all nations.” So from that we get “Make disciples globally.” Love God passionately, love others relentlessly, and make disciples globally. Pretty simple huh? Yes, but not shallow! Now, let me give you a word of caution here: don’t mistake the simplicity of these texts for shallowness. This is deep! And these commandments are difficult; they expose so much in our hearts. Just because you understand these truths in a simple form, doesn’t mean you are obedient to these truths, in fact, being completely obedient to this command is utterly impossible! And the Lord wants us to know this! It’s a commandment! There are no ways around God’s Law! There are no loopholes! That’s part of the whole point of the Law. It’s to expose the bar of God and to show you how miserably short you fall. In these commandments God is saying, “You must be here, but you are here!” So if we’re not there, but here in our disobedience, and we’ve broken the perfect Law of God then what does this mean for us? It means…death! The consequences of disobedience to God’s commands are enormous! Galatians 3:10 says, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” We’ve failed, we’ve all failed and as a result we’re all cursed this morning! The dark storm clouds of God’s wrath hang over your head this morning for your disobedience! You see how difficult this is? This is not shallow! None of us have done this perfectly, we all have divided love, no one has ever loved God in this way, and we haven’t come close to loving our neighbors like this, and I know it’s not a stretch to say that we aren’t living in obedience to the Great Commission! Because our disobedience to these three simple commands, we all deserve death, no exceptions, no excuses! The playing field is level here in this room! We are all under the curse this morning unless…unless we are covered under the blood of a Curse-Bearer! There Is A Way To Be Obedient to This Command You see, the only way to perfectly obey this command is to have Another accomplish it on our behalf and in our place, and this Other must not only be obedient in the place of our disobedience, but this Other must also suffer the curse for our disobedience. Here’s the good news church, we have Another who has done this and His name is Jesus! He has done this for us! Every second of the 33 years He lived and breathed on this earth, He did it with passionate love towards God and relentless love towards others all the while making disciples! He was and is the Greatest Missionary the world has ever known! He was truly a cross-cultural missionary, leaving the culture of heaven, to be incarnate in the culture of a sin-ravaged earth, to do what we were helpless to do in obeying the Law and to suffer the death we deserved to eternally die. Christ fulfilled God’s Law in every area we failed. He has done this for us! And the good news is this, listen…that for those who are His, He will do this in us! Therefore, at the very beginning of these messages, we need to see our desperate need for a Savior, our corporate need for the gospel, and our corporate need to be near the cross. Listen, these commands are not here so that we pick ourselves up by the bootstraps and get to work! They are first here, so that we are laid low in repentance before our Law-breaking and that we rise in hopeful trust to Jesus Law-abiding obedience and His Law-suffering punishment for us! The Gospel Frees Us To Love God and Fulfill His Global Purposes And if we have done this, if this has taken place in us by the grace of God through faith in Jesus…then know this: you are of that special, chosen race, that class of new creation which possesses a new heart, and now you are freed, you’re freed to love God and love others in this way, because the Law of God has been written on your heart and you are under divine compulsion to obey all of the commands of God. You now have a desire to obey! You love to obey almost as if you can’t help it! You’re compelled. And having this desire in your heart to love God is the result of the fulfillment of these words given to Moses in Deuteronomy 30:6 looking forward to the institution of the New Covenant “And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.” This is the Lord’s work! At the back of all of our love and passion for God, is a God who loves first, who moves first and comes to us and opens our heart to love Him! I John 4:19 says, “We love because He first loved us.” Isn’t that amazing? Jesus removes all barriers of impossibility that keep us from loving Him and knowing Him, namely our hatred of Him, and by the sending of the Holy Spirit, removes our hatred and fills us with love for God and a desire to obey and keep His commandments. Christian that’s what has taken place in you. That’s the only reason you love Him so much! So what formerly seemed impossible…loving God passionately, loving others relentlessly, and making disciples globally is now a possibility, and will be an actuality all because of Jesus! So now, with this foundation, by being near the cross let’s look at the Great Commandment. We’ll focus on the first two summary statements, which come from the Great Commandment and then next week we’ll see how the Great Commandment explodes into the Great Commission…so let’s dive into what Jesus is saying here in Matthew 22:34-40… 1) Love God Passionately: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.” The first thing that this command nails us with is a certain affection we are to have for God, and that affection is love. A) The Affection: Love “You shall love…” Jesus here is quoting from Deuteronomy 6 and in the Hebrew language the word for “love” is “Ahab” and means to love, desire, delight, like, be fond of, covet, be beloved, amiable, be a passionate lover. It implies an ardent and vehement inclination of the mind and a tenderness of affection at the same time…it denotes a strong emotional attachment for and a desire to possess or be in the presence of the object of love.” The Greek word used in the Septuagint is the word “agapao” and indicates a direction of the will and finding of one’s joy in God. You see this? He is commanding our desire, our delight, the direction of our will, and He demands that it be passionate: vehement, ardent, and tender! Jesus commands us to have this affection, this feeling, and this deep emotion. This is where Jesus starts…He starts with the affections because it is here where we need the deepest change. Jesus demands the feeling of love from every human being on the planet. John Piper in the book What Jesus Demands From the World writes, “If a feeling is proper to have, Jesus can demand it. The fact that I may be too corrupt to experience the emotions that I ought to have does not change my duty to have them. If Jesus commands it, I should have it. My moral inability to produce it does not remove my guilt; it reveals my corruption.” You see it? Jesus wants our hearts, He wants our affections and if He has our affection then He will have our obedience because obedience leaps out of affection for God. That’s why Jesus first deals with our hearts before He deals with our obedience. In John 14:15 He says it this way, “If you love, you will keep My commandments.” You see that? First affection and then obedience. That's how it works. So what about your affection for Jesus? How’s your heart? Does He have it? It’s not optional, and it doesn’t matter whether or not you feel like loving Him or not, you must, and it’s not just a passing interest in God or simple loyalty to God…it is love toward God! You can be loyal and faithful to your wife by not being with another woman and not love her, and you can do the same with God. You can come to church, you can go to Bible studies, you can avoid blatant sin, you can keep yourself pure from adultery or gross sexual sin, you can even speak in the tongues of men and angels, you can have all prophetic powers and all knowledge and all faith to remove mountains and you can give away all you have and give your body to burned, but without love toward God you’re speaking and singing is noise in His ears, your knowledge and faith is nothing to Him, and the sacrifice of your stuff and even your life gets you nothing! It’s love that matters! Spurgeon said, “God asks not for your admiration but your affection.” And without this affection…we are just like the Pharisees of whom Jesus said, “You honor me with your lips, but your heart is far from me.” Jesus demands a near heart! You shall love…and then He tells us what is to be the object of our love… B) The Object of Our Love: God “You shall love the Lord your God…” We don’t have love just for love sake, our love is to be directed toward an Object and that is God, this God is Yahweh. This is the I Am that I Am. This is God in Three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit co-eternal, co-existent and co-equal! The God we are to love is not a God we have fashioned or the God we would like to serve…the God we are to love is the God who is and who has revealed Himself in the Scriptures and the clearest expression and revelation of who God is, is Jesus Christ! The Bible says that in Him the fullness of deity dwells bodily, that He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature! So if you want to love God…love Jesus! He is to be the Object of this affection, and Him exclusively over all other loves! And you don’t get to pick and choose the features that you like about Him, like you would a new car. He does not come custom-made, nor does He come made at all! He just comes and says, “You shall love Me!” He demands this of every single person in the universe! Do you love Him exclusively and only? Do you love Him in His fullness: in His wrath and mercy, in His jealousy and grace? Do you love Him? You shall love the Lord your God…and then He tells us how by showing us… C) The Nature of Love to the Object: Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.” When Jesus mentions the nature of love in saying it is heart, soul, mind and strength which is included in Mark’s gospel He’s not dividing up our nature to say these are 4 main components of our nature; what He is doing is demanding that we love Him with the entirety of who we are! He’s covering all the bases. The entirety of who we are is to beat and live and move with the affection of love towards God! However, it is helpful if we look at these 4 words individually… With All Your Heart: The “heart”, in Hebrew “leb” refers to the core of one’s being, it is the totality of man’s inner or immaterial nature. It is here where we have the deepest, innermost feelings, and in Scripture the heart includes the whole spectrum of human emotion. It includes our will and our personality. So to love God with the heart is to love Him from the core of who we are, the totality of our lives, and our deepest and innermost feelings must boil with love to Him. We are demanded to love Him with our personality and with our will. Love Him with all your heart! With All Your Soul: The “soul”, in Hebrew “nephesh” refers to the life of someone. It can also refer to a craving for someone or something. So to love God with the soul is to love Him with our very life and to crave Him and Him alone. When you love Jesus like this you talk like the Psalmist in Psalm 63:3 “Your steadfast love is better than life.” Our life is to be one of loving Jesus! Love Him with all your soul for life is only found in loving Jesus! With All Your Mind: To love God with the “mind”, in Greek “Dianoia” is to love Him with our intellect and understanding, which would include our thoughts and imaginations. Jesus demands that He be cherished in our minds, treasured in our thoughts and to be our constant and best thought. Like the hymn says, “Thou my best thought by day or by night.” Love Him with all your mind! With All Your Strength: This word “strength” means loving Him with all your energy and ability. He demands that everything we do physically, all our energy be exercised in love for Him! Could we say that we love Him with all our strength, with all our energy? Love Him with all your strength! D) Love God First and Foremost “This is the great and first commandment.” This love toward God is to be first and foremost in our lives and is first and foremost in all the commandments! This is the Great Commandment! Everything begins here. This is where fulfilling the Great Commission begins…love for Jesus! So if there’s anything you aim to do with your life daily, let it be to throw your whole self into loving Jesus! This is first and foremost! But what’s amazing here in the text, and we need to observe carefully what Jesus is saying, is that He doesn’t stop with the answer the scribe asks for…Jesus goes further. Jesus directs us to what is great and foremost, and then He says…there is a second like it…and this is where we see our second imperative: 2) Love Others Relentlessly: “And a second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Once again, Jesus starts with our hearts, and He demands that we have a certain affection toward our neighbors and this affection is love… A) The Affection: Love “You shall love…” Jesus doesn’t change any words here; the word “love” is the same here as it was in the Great Commandment. We are to have a vehement and ardent desire for others, an inclination of the will toward them that is willing to sacrifice and serve. John MacArthur writes this: “To love your neighbor as yourself means to love all people with your whole heart. The love spoken of here is the same as the first commandment. It is the love of the will, intention, and action.” So this is the affection we are to have for others. Next we see… B) The Object Of Our Love: Your Neighbor “You shall love your neighbor…” The word neighbor here, “plesion” doesn’t mean our physical neighbors, but is expanded to include anyone that is near us. It is anyone we come in contact with or is in close proximity to us. So what this means is that when you walk into a gas station or school or work anyone that is near you, you are to love them. They are to be the object of your love and your care. The direction of your will should be toward them. What this means is most clearly illustrated in the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10, which ironically, comes after Jesus is teaching on the Great Commandment. The man Jesus is speaking to, is looking for a way to justify his current love to others, and Jesus blows up his understanding and calls him to love those who are utterly not like him! You see, the Jewish people thought they were being obedient to this command because they loved their fellow Jewish brothers, and that’s as far as their love went. That’s why they failed so miserably in being a light to the nations. They had no love for anyone but people like themselves of their own class, and culture, and color. So Jesus tells them a shocking story of what it means to love your neighbor, and He uses someone they hate to show them how they are supposed to be: a Samaritan. The way the Samaritan cared for the beaten, broke, and bloodied man is the way we are to care and provide for others, because in an ultimate sense this is how Jesus has loved us. We of all people did not deserve the infinite love of Jesus, and yet He laid down His life for us, and gave us, the beaten and broke, His righteousness and riches! So the object of our love is anyone we come in contact with. But what is the nature of our love to our neighbor? Jesus answers this… C) The Nature of Love to the Object: As You Love Yourself “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Let me make an observation here at this point. When most of us read this all we hear is “love your neighbor” but that is only part of what Jesus is saying. The issue is not so much who we are to love; it is how we are to love. This is an important distinction, because most of us seek to justify ourselves here, and say that if there’s any command we obey it is loving our neighbor, and we think we have this one because we get along with everyone and seem to like most people, but that’s not what Jesus is demanding of us…He demands more than getting along with someone, he demands you love them like you love yourself. I love how John Piper writes about this, “Loving your neighbor as yourself…is overwhelming because it seems to demand that I tear the skin off my body and wrap it around another person so that I feel that I am that other person; and all the longings that I have for my own safety and health and success and happiness I now feel for that other person as though he were me.” That’s what it means to love your neighbor as yourself! What it doesn’t mean is that you need to love yourself more before you love others...trust me, no one needs to do that. In fact, part of the problem of why we don’t love others is that we’re too in love with our own welfare and condition to consider anyone else. We relentlessly care and provide for ourselves. It never stops! It’s continuous, and Jesus is saying, “I want you to love others like you love yourself. I want you to care for them like you relentlessly care for yourself!” The Explosion of Passionate Love For God and Relentless Love For Others And now let’s step back, and put this in perspective missionally: Christian, if the best news you have ever heard of is that the Son of God has laid down His life for ours and taken upon His innocent shoulders God’s sentence against sin, how can you keep it to yourself? It’s not meant to be a little love party between you and Jesus. There’s a second part…you must love others, as yourself and how you love them is with the Gospel! If you know the love of God and love Him, and if you love your neighbor as yourself…you will not be able to keep quiet! You see, I think the greatest reason why we don’t evangelize is not fear, the greatest reason we don’t evangelize is because we don’t really love God and we are not moved by the love with which He loves us! That’s the real issue! The truth of Christ’s love for Paul, messed him up! He knew the love of God and how great it was and it caused him to long for the salvation of those near him and risk His life for their sake! Listen to how he talks in Romans 9:1-3 after he has just written about the truth that He cannot be separated by the love of Christ, he says “I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit—that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers according to the flesh.” You see that? You see how love for God exploded into love and gospel concern for his fellow Jewish brothers and sisters? And by the way, his gospel concern went beyond just his Jewish brothers and sisters, it went to the Gentiles, those unlike him! Paul knew a love that the world had to know! This is how we should talk and feel if we love God and love our neighbors! If you love it that the Heavenly Father loves you, and you love those near you then you will risk life and limb to tell them about Jesus! You see, the best way to hate your neighbor is to just be their neighbor, to be silent, or to talk with them while the flames of hell lick their legs and Satan continues to lead them to destruction! That is hate! Love says something! Love does something! Love for God and love for others in our hearts makes us restless until the world finds their eternal rest in Christ! And that’s why Jonathan is in Uganda, that’s why the two young Moravian men sold themselves into slavery, that’s why Lottie Moon starved herself that the Chinese might eat and hear the Gospel, that’s why Jim Elliot and his friends shot their guns into the air as the tribesmen threw spears into their chests, that’s why Pastor Nick and Dr. Taylor and Lindsay are in Uganda teaching pastors that will turn and teach their flocks, that’s why Paul risked his life day after day after day for the sake of the Gospel, and that’s why Jesus stepped out of the glories of heaven where He basked in the Father’s affection and came to the sin-filled dungeon of earth to bear the curse of our sin and to face the wrath of His Father for the sin of His enemies! This is what the heart that risks everything in the mission looks like: it is a heart that loves God passionately and loves others relentlessly. Hear again the words of the risen and reigning Christ who has all authority in heaven and earth: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” First things first church, if we want to be engaged in the mission Christ has given us, do you love God passionately and love others relentlessly? ]]> Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:35:35 -0800 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/text/6336380 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/text/6318682 Pray: that Jesus be exalted and that we would see Christ and Christ alone in the midst of exile, that our vision would be the same that Daniel had; a vision of the Sovereign Christ reigning in supremacy over all nations and working for the good of His people through the rise and fall of nations and the orchestration of history Around 600 BC four bright young men found themselves stripped from their land, from their families, from their culture and were even stripped of their very names. They were exiles in a foreign, godless, and pagan nation. Every imaginable fleshly indulgence was laid before them. Their God was despised and ignored yet they stood their ground, they stood for their King... in Babylon. This is obviously the story from the book of Daniel, but before we get there we need to do some background and foundational work so Daniel will hit with full force. What we’re going to do tonight is ask a series of 8 questions that will help us understand how the nation Israel ended up in Babylon, how it affected them, what God’s purposes were in exile and how this applies to our own context which will set up our study of the book of Daniel where we get an inside look of life in Babylon. 1. How Did the Nation of Israel End Up in Babylon? The simplest way to answer this question is that the nation of Israel ended up in Babylon by their disobedience to the word of God and by God’s faithfulness to His word. God had given His people the command to serve and love Him exclusively but the people disobeyed, and God didn’t ignore it. Yes, He was patient, unbelievably patient, but He was true to His word. He can be trusted and He wants us to trust His word. In Deuteronomy 28, an important passage for understand Israel’s calling to obedience and what the result of disobedience will be, and for us to be properly warned disobedience is not just blatant sin in the way we think of it, in verse 47 the Lord says, “Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies…” You see, sin is serious in every respect, when God calls us to serve Him with joy and gladness, be glad because if not it’s sin! Rejoice in the Lord! Take happiness in God seriously! However, one of the curses God promised that would come upon His people for disobedience was their removal from the land and their placement in a foreign land and awful things that would be the result of this. I want us to look at some the curses written here probably in 1400’s BC and how they were fulfilled some 800 years later so that we know God takes disobedience and commitment to His word seriously: Deuteronomy 28:25 says, “The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them. And you shall be a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.” The defeat of the nation of Israel to Babylon was promised under the reign of king Hezekiah, who in comparison to the other kings, was actually really good, but Hezekiah’s pride came before the fall of the nation. In 2 Kings 20:12-18 the story is told: “At that time Medorach-baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent envoys with letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he heard that Hezekiah had been sick. And Hezekiah welcomed them, and showed them all his treasure house, the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious oil, his armory, all that was found in his storehouses. There was nothing in his house or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them. The Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah, and said to him, “What did these men say? And from where did they come to you?” And Hezekiah said, “They have come from a far country, from Babylon.” He said, “What have they seen in your house?” And Hezekiah answered, “They have seen all that is in my house; there is nothing in my storehouses that I did not show them.” Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord: Behold the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up to this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord. And some of your own sons, who shall be born to you, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “Why not, if there will be peace and security in my days?” So Babylon defeated the nation of Israel and did it in a few stages, and fulfilled the word of the Lord here. In 605BC Babylon won the battle of Carchemish against Egypt and acquired what land rights Egypt had amassed, which at this time included the kingdom of Judah, under the kingship of Jehoiakim and he easily took control of them. But in 597BC Judah and Jehoiakim foolishly decided to revolt and they were quickly destroyed and took away the Temple treasures and set up another king in Jehoiakim’s place, Jehoiachin, who also revolted and brought more destruction upon the nation. After him Zedekiah came to reign in Judah and he too rebelled and Nebuchadnezzar had enough and besieged the place and here’s what happened as told in 2 Kings 25:3-5 to fulfill this promise of this curse: “On the ninth day of the fourth month the (2 year) famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land. Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, by the king’s garden, though the Chaldeans were around the city. And they went in the direction of the Arabah. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho, and all his army was scattered from him.” In other words, they went out one way and fled seven. The word of the Lord was fulfilled. Deuteronomy 28:32-34 says, “Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people (Daniel, Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael were probably about 15 years old at the time they were taken to Babylon), while your eyes look on and fail with longing for them all day long, but you shall be helpless. A nation that you have not known shall eat up the fruit of your ground and of all your labors, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually, so that you are driven mad by the sights that your eyes see.” Deuteronomy 28:36-37 says, “The Lord will bring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known. And there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone. And you shall become a horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the Lord will lead you away.” In 2 Kings 24:10-15 we see the fulfillment of this when we read: “At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up to Jerusalem and the city was besieged. And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to the city while his servants were besieging it, and Jehoiachin the king of Judah gave himself up to the king of Babylon, himself and his mother and his servant and his officials and his palace officials. The king of Babylon too him prisoner in the eighty year of his reign. (skip to verse 15) And he carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon.” Deuteronomy 28:49-50 says, “The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, swooping down like the eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand, a hard-faced nation who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young.” In the book of the prophet Habakkuk 1, he sees the vision of the coming army of the Chaldeans, which is Babylon and says in fulfillment of this curse, “Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize dwellings not their own. They are dreaded and fearsome; their justice and dignity go forth from themselves. Their horses are swifter than leopards, more fierce than the evening wolves; their horsemen press proudly on. Their horsemen come from afar; they fly like an eagle swift to devour.” Also the detail of the fulfillment of the curse is amazing, because the detail about the lack of respect shown the old, seems like a small thing but this is exactly what happened in Babylon. In Isaiah 47:6 Isaiah is prophesying against Babylon and through him the Lord says, “I gave them into your hand; you showed them no mercy; on the aged you made your yoke exceedingly heavy.” Deuteronomy 28:52-53 says, “They shall besiege you in all your towns, until your high and fortified walls, in which you trusted, come down throughout all your land, which the Lord your God has given you. And you shall eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the Lord your God has given you, in the siege and in all the distress with which your enemies shall distress you.” When you hear this curse that people will eat their babies, you probably think that this is just an exaggeration so that the people do not disobey God, but the shocking thing is that this is exactly what happened. In Lamentations Jeremiah is crying out, lamenting, about the conditions of what happened during the Babylonian siege, and looking at the men and women eating their children he says in Lamentations 2:20, “Look, O Lord, and see! With whom have you dealt thus? Should women eat the fruit of their womb, the children of their tender care?” and then in Lamentations 4:10 he says, “The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food during the destruction of the daughter of my people.” This is how the nation of Israel ended up in Babylon. But do you see the greater truth here behind all this? Do you see the God who keeps His word and fulfills not only His promises to bless, but His promises to curse? Oh, how can we ignore His word and not take it to heart! How can we ever doubt the promises and curses of Scripture? Every word of prophecy will come to pass! The unbeliever should beware before curses he or she cannot control and the believer should be hopeful that every promise that is yours in Christ Jesus will come to pass in God’s time! All right, so that’s question one, now all we have to do is 5 more, trust me they’ll go a little quicker, number 1 was the big one, the foundational one to set up the others, so second… 2. How Did the Nation of Israel Embrace Their Punishment? First of all, it was punishment in the worst way for them and had a profound impact on the psyche of Israel, which means they didn’t embrace their punishment with gladness. Early on we see them revolting and rebelling and later going a defeated foe. So you’re not just going into Babylon, you’re going into Babylon defeated. You’re gripped with the fact that you have sinned deeply against God, so your guilt is great and you know that you have transgressed the patience of God. Second, this exile for the nation of Israel broke their sense of security. They had been invaded and conquered, they were vulnerable. They could no longer trust in what they had built and made. There was nothing to trust in anymore that wasn’t God. They had nowhere to turn. Third, the exile completely uprooted them from all that was familiar in the life that they had: community, family, the land, and the temple. They were now away from home where their sense of belonging faded. In exile, you didn’t belong, you were a minority and an oppressed and sick minority. There was no greatness about your nation or prestige, you were scum and had no privileges. Fourth, the exile played a profound role in the history of the nation as many of their great prophets arose during these times. For example, and of course, Daniel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah (including the book of Lamentations) and Habakkuk. 3. What Were God’s Purposes in Exile? These are in no particular order but first, God’s purpose in exile is to, by contrast of the nation whose control they have come under to show them the superiority and goodness of His control. In an emphatic and rightly stated way, not overstated, God says, “Here’s the difference between their rule and mine.” It’s the difference between freedom and slavery and the contrast is made clear when you’re looking at freedom from inside of slavery. Isn’t that how we are though. We take everything for granted until everything is taken from us. We don’t enjoy summer until it’s winter and we don’t enjoy winter until it’s summer. Or we don’t long for fellowship until we haven’t had fellowship in a while. We take everything for granted and in the same way the nation of Israel had taken God’s rule and His blessing for granted, refused to give thanks, and found that rule and blessing removed. Now in exile they would see the massive difference. A second purpose of exile was that in exile He had the attention of His people. No longer would comfort and security dull them to the voice of God, but now in exile they would have to listen to God to live. The reason they went into exile, we remember is that they didn’t listen to or obey the voice of God but now they would do it. Now they would be in a position that they would have to depend upon the prophets of God for life. A third purpose of the exile, was that of discipline. Exile was like one long, awful timeout and during this exile God would discipline His people that they might share in His holiness. In Jeremiah 30:11 we read, “For I am with you to save you, declares the Lord; I will make a full end of all the nations among whom I scattered you, but of you I will not make a full end. I will discipline you in just measure, and I will by no means leave you unpunished.” And then in Isaiah 48:10-11 the Lord says, “Behold, I have refined you, I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For My own sake, for My own sake, I do it, for how should My name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.” The result of the exile would be a renewed commitment to holiness and law-keeping. (A negative effect this would bring would be the result of the strictness of the Pharisees and Sadduccees. The pendulum swung the other way from extreme law-breaking to extreme law-keeping and God was missed again on the back swing.) A fourth purpose of the exile was that of punishment and justice upon the wickedness of the kings who were leading Judah and upon Babylon itself. Now this is where we see the astounding wisdom of God whose ways are not our own. Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah all did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and Babylon all had a role in punishing them, but it was according to the anger of the Lord (2 Kings 24:20) because he could not have them in His presence. In Isaiah 47 and Habakkuk 2 and other passages the prophets pronounce woes and curses upon Babylon for the evil they have done to the people of God in Israel and so they will be judged according to the perfect justice of God so that none may have an excuse. God removed His restraining hand from Babylon and allowed them to attack and kill but because of this they will be judged for their sin and God will not be blamed! [Jeremiah 25:8-14 speaks about how God will punish Israel and then turn and punish Babylon] God is sovereign and true! And as God raised Pharaoh for his purposes to show God’s power and that His name might be proclaimed in all the earth, so He raised up Babylon. “So then He has mercy on whomever He wills and hardens whomever He wills.” (Romans 9:17-18) A fifth purpose of the exile was to fulfill God’s global-gospel purposes. The nation of Israel if they were true to their calling should have been to Babylon, calling them to repentance and faith in the God of Israel, the Lord Most High. Instead of Israel’s heart turning to the god’s around them, they should have been turning the hearts of those around them to God. However, even in their disobedience to the Lord, the Lord would orchestrate a plan that would send His gospel into Babylon and there, no doubt, He would purchase His chosen sheep even in the ranks of this wicked nation. I say this because of how God brought Daniel from Jerusalem to Babylon and blessed him and used him and raised him up in the kingdom so that Daniel had a direct influence on king Nebuchadnezzar which would eventually lead to Nebuchadnezzar’s statement in Daniel 4:37 “Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all His works are right and His ways are just; and those who walk in pride He is able to humble.” Praise God! It reminds me of what Jesus said in Luke 15:4-7 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” Nebuchadnezzar was a lost sheep, a sheep that heard the voice of God, a sheep that was lost and is now found, a sheep that heaven rejoices over and one of which Christ will carry on His shoulders into the Home of Heaven! So this exile was all part of God’s plan to save! A sixth purpose of the exile was that in exile God would reveal His glory in profound ways. It was in exile that many of the prophets saw the glory of the Lord (think Ezekiel’s vision in Ezekiel 1), and through their records we too see a glorious God who is high and lofty and rules over the nations. This then helps us in our own exile, as those away from Home, apart from our full-family in Christ, and who long to be with our Risen Lord as He rules in His Kingdom. 4. How Did Babylon Seek to Influence The Nation? In the book of Daniel we see that Babylon sought to influence the exiles through their wealth, prosperity, and prestige, which aimed for transformation on the cultural level. For example, Daniel and his friends come in and in order to change them into men who can stand in the king’s court (be acceptable Babylonians) they are to study their literature, learn the language, eat and drink Babylonian food, stay in fancy quarters, and they even change their names. What I find astonishing is that Babylon didn’t necessarily aim to oppress the kingdoms they conquered, they aimed to suppress them culturally, which on the culture level is how any people or nation thrives. Inside of Babylon, when the people were there in exile that’s how they sought to change them, and that’s why they brought many of the people from Judah to Babylon because in Babylon they wouldn’t revolt because the cultural climate would be to thick and in Babylon they would start to by into their cultural system. Babylon after all had everything they wanted in a fleshly sense. So what is so astonishing about Daniel and the other guys is how they resisted at the cultural and comfort level. They weren’t blinded by the wealth, prosperity and prestige and they could do this, not because they longed for Jerusalem so bad, but in the words of the author of Hebrews “as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. “ And they saw themselves not only as exiles in Babylon but exiles on earth apart from their true homeland. 5. How Is Babylon Referenced In the Rest of Scripture? As we’ve seen with all the prophets who prophesied about and in Babylon, the Babylonian exile left and indelible mark on the mind of the nation of Israel. In fact, Babylon has left it’s mark on the entire world and even influenced a few Bob Marley songs such as “By The Rivers of Babylon” and “Chant Down Babylon.” In this what we’re seeing is that Babylon is not just a historical place, it symbolizes a greater reality which D.A. Carson calls, “Every center of god-denying culture.” We know this by how Babylon is referenced in the book of Revelation in chapters 17-18 where it seems to take on more than a historical location. It speaks about their sexual immorality, material wealth, luxurious living, their political power and the summary truth that they are filled with all the earth’s abominations. For the believers who were receiving the book of Revelation they would have immediately considered Babylon to be Rome, since Babylon itself was completely destroyed and desolate according to the promise of God. The sin of Babylon is that of replacing the True God and making itself god, which became their own religion. Babylon is Godless, ungodly, and self-exalting. Here’s how we know this: the history of Babylon traces back to Babel in Genesis 11:1-9 where the people of the world got together since they were all speaking the same language and said, “Come let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” So their sin here was that of making a name for themselves and exalting themselves upon the earth. In Isaiah 47 we hear more about the sin of Babylon. In verse 8 says they are lovers of pleasure who sit securely, and God makes verbal what they say in their heart “I am, and there is no other besides me.” The Lord says they sit securely and they believe that no one sees them, so they are completely individualistic and have no accountability to anyone greater than themselves. They are puffed up in knowledge and wisdom that leads them astray and trust in their charm to solve their problems. So Babylon in all it represented came to take on a greater meaning, a symbolic meaning for all that was godless, which leads us to the last question… 6. Why Do We Need To Understand Babylon and Exile? The obvious answer to this question is because we’re in it! Much of what we’ve seen about Babylon can be directly applied to our present context and a thousand other contexts throughout the world and we need to know how to live in Babylon and Daniel’s book is a heaven-sent manual on how to practically do this. And we need to understand the exile because we’re in exile…we are not Home, and I pray that you will understand this is in the most radical way possible and that with Moses you will consider the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, by looking to the reward. We are surely not Home! To use Pastor Nick’s title for the series in 1 Peter, we are “Pursuing Christ in a Pagan Nation” and we’re studying Daniel as a narrative of what Peter is saying in his letter, so in that, I hope that our study as a church in 1 Peter will make our study in Daniel clearer and vice versa. I want to close, however, with the voice from heaven in Revelation 18:4-5 which says, “Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues; for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and god has remembered her iniquities.” We are in Babylon, but we must come out and my prayer is that as we study Daniel we will we see this for all that it means. May Christ lead the way, who was in this world, but was profoundly out of this world! ]]> Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:07:50 -0800 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/text/6318682 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/status/6235938 Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:02:05 -0800 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/status/6235938 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/text/6210560 Pray: that Jesus be exalted as we see the plan of God fulfilled and unfolded in the salvation of sinners through Jesus Christ where ordinary men and women are used to play key roles in this Story [Luke 1:5-25] “In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years. Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense. And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.” And Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” And the angel answered him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.” And the people were waiting for Zechariah, and they were wondering at his delay in the temple. And when he came out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple. And he kept making signs to them and remained mute. And when his time of service was ended, he went to his home. After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept herself hidden, saying, “Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when He looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.” The Importance of Story Now, here, when Luke starts his letter to Theophilus, do you notice that he doesn’t just list a bunch of facts about John the Baptist and Jesus? He’s not just giving a sequence of theological truths, well, in some way he is, but not like we expect: there is no point one, and then, point two and point three. He doesn’t do that. Luke begins by telling a story, a true story, but a story nonetheless. We have to ask why? Why does he tell a story to Theophilus? The answer is that it is through story that profound truths of God will be ingrained in Theophilus’ heart. And that’s true for everyone. Luke wants Theophilus to see God at work in history, and moving history at His will and breaking natural laws to accomplish His own saving purposes. So sometimes the best way to teach theology is through story, and that’s what Luke does. Luke wants Theophilus to see that this is real, not just abstract truths about a distant God. He wants him to see that this God is active and near! Think about this for a moment? Is it not amazing to you that the Holy Spirit gives us the knowledge of Jesus through story? Don’t look at this story and say, “Well, there’s not a whole lot here. It’s just a story of something that happened.” That is the tempting thing to do when we read the narrative portions of the Bible, but we need to move beyond the surface of the story, and see behind it the God who is authoring the story, developing the story, choosing the cast and working in the characters lives to accomplish and finish all His purposes. If we do this, if we get into the story, and get behind it and see God, what we will find is the Holy Spirit through Luke is teaching Theophilus and us some profound truths about God! So as we look at this account, I want you to get behind the story and see God, and at the end, if you haven’t seen Him, I’ll give you 8 things that the Holy Spirit reveals about God through this story that will blow you away! The Two-Fold Work of the Holy Spirit: Fulfilling the Word/Exalting Jesus But before we dive into the text and break it down, I want us to take a big picture look and see something that I believe the Holy Spirit wants us to see about His own work here. In this passage what we have is the foretelling of John the Baptist’s birth, and after that, we’ll have the foretelling of Jesus’ birth, and we’re supposed to see comparisons and contrast between the boys, the mothers, their fathers, and their responses. So first we have the Baptist’s birth, and by the way, this is not his last name, it’s just a way in which we identify him. No other Gospel, records this pre-birth account of John the Baptist. This story is unique to Luke, and so from the outset, a wise question we have to ask is: Why did Luke consider this to be so important? Or rather, what does the Holy Spirit want us to see here about Jesus and the Scriptures? I say ‘what does the Holy Spirit want us to see about Jesus’ because the Holy Spirit’s role is to magnify Jesus, and being that the Holy Spirit is over the inspiration of Scripture, it then follows that He wants us to see something about Jesus, which will also reveal something about the Word of God which we’ll strengthen our faith. First, let’s look at what the Holy Spirit wants us to see about the Word of God, and then second, we’ll see what He wants us to see about Jesus, and both go together… 1. John the Baptist Birth is a Fulfillment of Prophecy//The Word is Being Fulfilled John the Baptist coming on the scene of human history was not a new idea; it was the fulfillment of an old word, in fact a 400-year-old promise. I want you to turn with me to the last book of the Old Testament and the last 2 verses of Malachi, Malachi 4:5-6 which says, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.” And it was with those words that the people of God, were left with for 400 years. There would be no prophet, no word from God…just waiting and waiting and hoping for this “prophet” to come and to go before the Messiah, and for this promise to be fulfilled…and Luke opens up his gospel and says, “Hey! Look! Right here the Word of God is fulfilled! God has made good on His promise! He’s come through! Here’s the prophet! He’s the One! Theophilus, world, God keeps His word!” That’s what the Spirit is saying through the pen of Luke! 400 years before the event even happened God promised a prophet would come. So have certainty that God keeps His promises, knows the future, and orchestrates everything according to His plan! You can trust the Scriptures! If you’re one of the ones that needs certainty, well, here it is. So that’s the first thing the Spirit does here…He shows that His word can be trusted and is always fulfilled. And second, He exalts Jesus because… 2. John the Baptist is the Forerunner for Messiah//The Son is Being Exalted First of all, let me explain the word “forerunner.” It’s not the SUV that Toyota makes. It speaks to John’s purpose in preparing the way for Jesus. In verse 17 the angel says to Zechariah, “he will go before Him….” there it is, that’s what a forerunner does, a forerunner goes before something or someone. John the Baptist’s role was to go before Jesus and pronounce His coming, to herald His coming, like a crier who goes before a King and rallies up the people to get ready for the King’s coming; this is what John did for Jesus. John was all about Jesus, even from the womb! His whole life was bound up in magnifying Jesus! He was set apart for this kind of ministry and when John’s ministry started, salvation in Jesus was John’s message. If you turn over to Luke 3:15-17 we see John’s Christ-centered and Christ-exalting message. “As the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ (he had the opportunity here to be a glory stealer…he did), John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but He who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in His hand, to clear the threshing floor and to gather the wheat into His barn, but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.” You see that? Jesus is mightier, John is unworthy, Jesus baptism is with the Holy Spirit and fire, John’s is just water, and Jesus will be the ultimate determiner of salvation: the wheat will be in His barn, the chaff will burn in His fire! John the Baptist is getting people ready for Jesus! So here’s the big picture contrast: The first child, John, comes before the second child, but the second child will be first in importance in the universe. The first child, the angel says, “will be great before the Lord” the second child, the angel says, “will be great.” John’s role is to just go before Jesus and prepare the people for the coming of the Great One. And so what the Holy Spirit is doing here, is showing us someone who is great before the Lord, John, and then pointing us upward to the One who is truly great: Jesus! If you want to show the Supremacy of Jesus, this is how you do it: you show one who is great and then you compare one who is great to the One who is Super-Great and Jesus is seen as supreme even above the greatest born to woman! So this is why, the Holy Spirit, through Luke put this account in Scripture…the Spirit wants to show you that the Scriptures can be trusted, and that the point of these trusted Scriptures is to magnify Jesus! That’s His work, and that’s what He’s doing and He’s doing it that we may know Jesus with certainty! All right, so now that you have a big picture view of what’s going on here and you know what to look for in the story, let’s dive in and go deep to understand what’s unfolding here and then I’ll show you those 8 awesome things we see about God behind the story and then I’ll close with one application to our lives and we’ll get into groups and talk about it… The Forerunner Foretold The Setting: The Days of Herod in Judea “In the days of Herod, king of Judea…” Luke starts off setting this in an historical time period, under a certain ruler, who was a pretty incredible guy…and not in the good the way. Herod, was better known as Herod the Great, which is interesting considering, this is never mentioned in the text. Herod’s greatness is bypassed and looked over and true greatness is acknowledged in John the Baptist and in Jesus. Herod, however, played a massive role in history, and for people who foolishly think the Bible is made up you can go to Jerusalem and still see ruins from his building projects even after 2,000 years. One of the things you will see is one of Herod’s summer houses along the ocean, and with it you’ll see the remains of a fresh water pool he had carved out on the beach, because below was a fresh water spring. Pretty nice….not really, what happened at this pool was the awful thing. Herod had some serious enemies and he always suspected people were out to get him, so if he suspected you were out to get him, he would be nice, invite you to his summer home, throw a party for you, take you to the pool for a swim, and you would never come back. Herod drowned countless people at his home, and he also killed some of his sons and even his wife! His wife! The guy was nuts! So it makes sense that when Herod, hears about a baby who is prophesied to be King of the Jews, which he was at the time, he created a law that would kill all the first-born sons born in that day. So this is the environment, that John the Baptist and Jesus would be born in. The first miracle about these children, was just the fact that they ever became children! It was in the days of Herod, the story unfolds…and this opening scene is in the temple. The Characters: Zechariah and Elizabeth “…there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.” The two characters introduced here are not great, they are not well known, they are just a simple faithful couple under the Kingship of God, who have exchanged their unrighteousness for His righteousness and live out the word practically. Zechariah is a small-town priest, 1 of 18,000 and his wife who comes from a priestly family. They are simple lovers of God, and are a great example of what biblical manhood and womanhood look like. However, they are childless and they have been for some time. We imagine they are probably in their 60’s and so would have been childless for at least 40 plus years, yet even without the blessing of a child, they have remained faithful to God. It will be with this simple couple that God will make His first announcement in 400 years, and He will do this in the temple…. The Scene Inside the Temple “Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense. And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him.” Twice a year each division of priests would serve in the temple, and only once in a lifetime would a priest have the opportunity of offering the incense. It would be on this occasion that Zechariah would get as close as he would ever get to the Holy of Holies, the Presence of God. It was a big deal! One commentator noted that after one offered the incense they were considered wealthy and holy. This was a big day in the life of Zechariah, and by lot, by a rolling of the dice, he was chosen for this task under the guiding hand of the Sovereign God. So here we have Zechariah in the temple and he goes and prays inside the Holy Place as the multitude of Israel is on their knees in the court, and he prays probably two prayers that God answered in one child: One, that the Lord would save Israel and Two, that the Lord would bless them, if possible with a child. And immediately after Zechariah has prayed, an angel shows up with an answer… The Dialogue Between the Angel and Zechariah But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.” We know what Zechariah prayed based on the angel’s response: you’re prayer has been heard, you will have a child, he will be great before the Lord and will turn the hearts of the people of Israel to the Lord. Here we see John’s mission and purpose. It is the role of forerunner, of herald of the Messiah. But this is a little too much for Zechariah… And Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” Zechariah is not just curious, he doesn’t believe what the angel is saying and so by asking “How shall I know this?” he’s asking for more proof; he wants a sign. In other words, “This word isn’t good enough, I need a sign, because I just don’t believe God can do this based on our circumstances of being old and unable to have children.” The angel sees things differently… And the angel answered him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.” There are two angels mentioned in Scripture: Michael and Gabriel. When Michael shows up, you know something is going to go down, a battle is about to be one and someone is going to get destroyed. When Gabriel shows up, there is a profound universe-altering message that is about to be delivered. So Gabriel responds with, “Don’t you know who I am!” He’s blown away by this unbelief! He’s been in the presence of God and knows enough to know that whatever God says will be done and so he sentences Zechariah with a judgment of silence (deafness and muteness) yet even in this judgment mercy emerges in that the word will still be accomplished and fulfilled. And then the scene jumps outside… The Scene Outside the Temple “And the people were waiting for Zechariah, and they were wondering at his delay in the temple. And when he came out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple. And he kept making signs to them and remained mute. And when his time of service was ended, he went to his home.” The people were rightly worried. If the priest didn’t come out quick enough it was usually a sign that something bad was happening. The point was to get in and get out safely. Not everyone however, made it so safely. Nadab and Abihu offered a strange fire and fire came out from the Holy of Holies and incinerated them. So the people are worried and waiting for their blessing and finally after a long delay Zechariah emerges, trying out sign-language for the first time and looking for motions to explain what happened. They suspected he had seen a vision, and boy did he. What an awful judgment for preacher huh? You can’t talk about the good news you have heard and you cannot hear. This is awful! So there is Zechariah, unable to speak and unable to hear, holding in his mind the best news the world has ever heard…the Messiah is on His way. The story then ends fairly quickly and without much fanfare… Elizabeth Conceives and The Lord Provides After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept herself hidden, saying, “Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when He looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.” It ends with a happy mother, who has received favor from the Lord, the Lord who has answered her prayer and the Lord who has taken away her reproach. Transition: All right, do you remember from earlier, I said I would give you 8 truths that the Holy Spirit through Luke’s story is teaching Theophilus and us? Well, here they are… 8 Truths About the God Behind the Story 1) God Speaks and it is So: The Word of God is always accomplished or fulfilled to use Luke’s word. He wants Theophilus’ to have absolute certainty in God’s Word and in His sovereign authority to bring it to pass and He does this here. There are a few ways He does it: The first is by fulfilling the 400-year-old prophecy! 400 years they waited on the Lord, and it happened, exactly as He said it would. Do you need anymore certainty? God called said that He would send a prophet 400 years before He sent the prophet. His Word never returns void! So it’s been 2,000 years since Jesus said He would come back…just because it may take a while for the promise to be fulfilled doesn’t mean it won’t be fulfilled! You better get ready, He speaks and it’s so. A second way we see that God’s speaks and it is so is when God sends the angel Gabriel to relay the message that Zechariah and Elizabeth are going to have a son, and did you notice that Gabriel does it with absolute confidence in God? It’s a stark contrast between Gabriel and Zechariah: Zechariah is saying, “I’m not sure God can do this. Seriously, it’s physically impossible at our age to have children. So I’m going need more proof that this will happen.” Gabriel says, “I don’t see how God cannot do this. He said it! Zechariah do you understand that He has spoken! I heard Him myself as I was in His presence, and it will come to pass!” Gabriel, being in the presence of God, didn’t look to circumstances like Zechariah did, He just looked to God and heard Him and that was enough…it was going down! We need to be more like Gabriel don’t we? God says it, we believe it, and trust in it completely! Sure it may sound impossible, but we serve the Lord who does all that He pleases! So Luke’s saying, “Theophilus, listen to Him and trust Him, whatever this Jesus, who is God says, believe it!” 2) God is the Lord of Hosts: He wants Theophilus and us to see a God who has a created heavenly, angelic army that will move at His very word should He send them out. If Theophilus was part of the Roman Government, he knew what it was like to have a powerful army. He knew how powerful the Caesar appeared when he rode into the city before a massive and conquering army, and Luke wants Theophilus to see that God is the Ruler over a greater army, an angelic one that cannot be conquered! In Daniel 7:9-10 Daniel sees in a vision the Lord of Hosts and he writes, “As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took His seat; His clothing was white as snow, and the hair of His head like pure wool; His throne was fiery flames; its wheels were burning fire. A stream of fire issued and came out from before Him; a thousand thousands served Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him…” Those are the angels. They serve God and they move at His bidding, and here’s where it’s going to blow you away…they move at His bidding to serve us! Hebrews 1:14 says, “Are they not all (angels) ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?” 3) God is Miracle-Working God: In this account and in the account we’ll see next week about Jesus, Luke is pointing out that God is a miracle-working God who looks into the face of seeming impossibility and sees possibility. There is nothing that God cannot do. Sure, it is a natural law that people who are old and can’t have kids shouldn’t be able to have kids…but the Supernatural is not bound by the natural. God never meets impossibility, yet He blows our minds with confidence in Him, by putting us before something impossible and then performing and accomplishing what we never thought possible! Luke’s showing us something from the outset here…you better get ready to the Supernatural and things that cannot be explained because when God in the Flesh shows up miracles happen: the lame walk, the blind see, the storms hush, the demons flee, and the dead are raised! God is a miracle-working God and miracles are just one small evidence that He is who He says He is! And miracles aren’t there so that we oooh and aaah over the miracles, they are there so we stand in awe of God! 4) God Hears Our Prayers: Luke wants us to see that God is a God who hears our prayers. Who is not deaf and whose ear is turned toward us. But He doesn’t just hear, He answers, and when He answers He will answer in His own way and on His own time. There’s no doubt, that Zechariah and Elizabeth probably prayed for decades to have a child, and now in their old age, what they thought was an impossibility was simply God working on His own schedule. 5) God is Involved in the Details Of People’s Lives: Luke wants Theophilus to see that God is not a distant God, unaware of His children’s needs and desires, but the God who is near, the God who sees, and the God who answers. He wants Elizabeth’s words to ring in his ears: “He looked on me.” Do we really understand this? Do we really believe that God is involved in the details of our life, and that He is really working everything for our good, and at the perfect time? Do you trust that God knows what we need most, when we need it most? Do we believe that? Do we believe and trust that God will answer our prayers in a way that brings most honor and praise to Him? Believer, there is nothing in your life that God is not aware of and that He is not providing for! Nothing! Do you see this God here? 6) God Sovereignly Chooses People for His Own Purposes: Zechariah and Elizabeth weren’t sitting around saying to themselves, “You know God, we would be a great couple to have the forerunner for the Messiah.” They were virtually nobodies. Zechariah and Elizabeth were not a big deal. He wasn’t a great, well-known priest, who spoke at conferences or wrote books or even had a big church. Elizabeth wasn’t like a Beth Moore or even a well-respected Lady. People talked about her, and her husband because they couldn’t have kids. She was probably despised everywhere she went. Maybe even a little depressed and frustrated that she couldn’t have children, yet God sovereignly chose them to perform a miracle for them, to bless them beyond their wildest imagination, to work in their lives and to let them be parents of a child who would have the Holy Spirit in the womb and of whom Jesus said, “Is the greatest to be born among women.” Wow! They didn’t sign up for this: God chose this foolish, weak, lowly, and nobody couple for His purposes! That’s how God works! Paul brings this out in 1 Corinthians 1:26-29 when he writes, “For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” This is how God works! He chooses the most unlikely, the lowest, the foolish, the nothings and He makes them His and He becomes Everything to them! 7) God’s Grace Takes Away Reproach: This point comes from what Elizabeth says in verse 25, “Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when He looked on me, to take away my reproach among the people.” And how God took away the reproach. God took away the reproach Elizabeth suffered from by providing John for her, whose name means, “God is gracious.” The shame and guilt we have before God and we carry from others, their sneers and jeers at our lives, God’s grace takes away. What is neat to see, is that it is God’s grace also, that looses the tongue of Zechariah to praise in Luke 1:63-64. Zechariah tells the people that the child’s name is God is gracious and then immediately the judgment is taken away from his unbelief. Mark it closely, grace takes away reproach, it takes away judgment. The Lord wants us to know this and trust in and receive His grace! 8) All of the Old Testament Will Be Fulfilled in Jesus: This is the underlying big truth here and we saw it earlier in the coming of the prophet of Elijah. Everything prophesied and promised will be fulfilled in Jesus! Even in this passage Jesus is central and He’s not even mentioned! So we’ve seen the Sovereign God in this story. We’ve seen how He works and how He moves and we should rejoice and have certainty concerning this God, but specifically, what application is coming clear by looking at Zechariah’s response to the Word of God. I think there is something specific that Luke is saying to Theophilus and us tonight and it is a mix of encouragement and warning, and it is this… One Specific Application 1. Believe in God’s Word! Believe It, Because Unbelief is Costly. Zechariah was a believer and God graciously disciplined him and eventually restored him from his sin of unbelief and it was costly for him. How much more costly will it be for those of you who have heard the good news of Jesus and do not believe? Zechariah suffered a temporary punishment, yours will be eternal! Oh believe this word, believe in this Christ, because unbelief is infinitely costly! ]]> Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:27:35 -0800 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/text/6210560 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/status/6184857 Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:05:21 -0800 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/status/6184857 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/status/6112029 Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:20:01 -0800 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/status/6112029 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/text/6035572 Pray: that Jesus be exalted and that we would have certainty concerning the truths about Jesus and that this certainty would lead a bold and loyal allegiance to Jesus Christ [Luke 1:1-4] “Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.” Tonight, is the beginning of a massive study of the longest Gospel in the Bible, Luke’s Gospel, and if we take Luke and Acts together as two-parts of a single book, what we have is the largest amount of material in the New Testament by any one author. Can you believe that? Paul has written more books of the New Testament but not more words, that alone goes to Luke, Luke and Acts make up 1/3 of the New Testament, and I say all this to say that Luke’s Gospel is vitally important to study and that it will take some time to complete this study. Most people would probably say that this is not a very smart strategy to grow a large youth group, “they’ll get bored” “it’s too much” “it’s too long” “they need practical help, etc.” well, they’re probably right that this will not grow a large youth group, but I don’t care about that! My desire is to have a deep youth group! I’ll take 1 or 2 true lovers of Jesus who will turn the world upside down, lit on fire by the truth of God and have a passion for His name to be magnified among every people group on the planet, than a thousand lovers of entertainment, experiences and social satisfaction! What a disservice it would be to you all, if I just went shallow, if we just kept serving up spiritual juice and cookies! I want you to feast on the meat of the Word and drink pure spiritual milk so that you may be wise and mature and deeply rooted and passionate disciples of Jesus. And studying through a Gospel like this, with the power of the Spirit infusing these words, will do just that. I. Why This Series On Luke? 1) That We May Know Him: In Philippians 3:8 Paul says, “…I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” So for Paul, knowing this Christ was worth the loss of all earthly status and gain. Knowing Jesus was for him everything, surpassing worth, and it was his aim that he would know Jesus even more. You could say his soul longed for knowledge of Jesus, but where do we get this? Where do we get this kind of Pauline longing for the knowing Jesus? It comes from seeing Jesus, and the way we see Jesus is through the revelation of Himself in the Scriptures. So the aim of Luke’s gospel, you could say, is that we may know Jesus! Jesus is the theme of Luke’s Gospel, and it is Luke’s aim that Jesus be the theme of our lives. So this is the chief reason for this study…I want us to know Jesus! Now we could have picked any of the Gospels to do this, but Luke is the easiest Gospel to understand for those who have no prior knowledge of Jesus, it was written to a Gentile audience. Matthew’s Gospel was written to a primarily Jewish audience, so if we studied Matthew’s Gospel we would have to have a deep Jewish background. Mark’s Gospel is an easy Gospel and was probably written to a Roman audience, which would be easy to relate to, but Mark’s Gospel is bare bones and doesn’t give the detail we have in Luke, and Luke covers almost all of Mark, upwards of 98%, so if you read Luke, you knock out Mark too. Now John’s Gospel is not one of the Synoptic Gospels because John’s material doesn’t overlap any of the material in the other Gospels. John’s Gospel is a defense of Jesus deity and carries much of Jesus’ longer sermons and teachings, which carry many difficult concepts that would need a lot of explanation. So Luke’s gospel is a simple gospel that gets us straight to the Jesus we need to know, while taking us deep. So that’s the main reason. 2) That We May Have Certainty: The purpose of Luke’s letter, we’ll see, in a few minutes is so that Theophilus may have certainty; he wants Theophilus to be absolutely sure of the things concerning Jesus. So he writes that we may be convinced of the absolute nature of the truth of Jesus Christ. He doesn’t want there to be any doubting or wavering concerning the person and work of Jesus Christ, whether you’re a Christian or you’re just considering the truth claims of Christianity. At the end of this letter you should walk away knowing all you need to know to place your faith in Jesus and surrender your life to Him, swearing allegiance to Him and Him alone. As Christians you should walk away from this letter more convinced of who Jesus was and what He said and did and be able to spot false teachings about Jesus. 3) That We May Mature As Disciples of Jesus: The Great Commission says that we are to teach others to observe all that Jesus has commanded, and if we’re to learn what Jesus has commanded then we need to listen to Him, and the best way to listen to Him is to study one of the Gospels, and Luke is a great Gospel for this because 50% of Luke is Jesus’ sayings, and there is an overwhelming amount of material that the other Gospels do not contain. For example: there are 35 specific miracles recorded in the Gospels, 20 of them are in Luke and 7 are only in Luke. There are also 50 parables that Jesus taught, 35 of which are in Luke and 19 parables that are only in Luke. And on top of that there are 30 events in the life of Jesus that Luke records that no other Gospel does, so without Luke we miss 7 miracles, 19 parables and 30 events in the life of Jesus! That’s a lot! And by seeing this miracle working Christ, listening to His teachings, and observing these unique events we will inevitably, with the Spirit’s help, be mature disciples of Jesus Christ. So in the Gospel of Luke we will see our Master first hand and by reading this Gospel we will get as close to walking and talking with Jesus as we possibly can in this life, and there is one incredible section in Luke, 10 chapters (Luke 9:51-19:44), where we will walk behind Jesus on His way to the cross that awaits Him in Jerusalem. It is an amazing section and in it we will learn what it means to follow Jesus and the cost involved in this. So there is much to look forward to in this Gospel, much as Christians that we all long for: a deeper knowledge of Him, a greater certainty in the truths of the Lord, and a maturing in our walk and obedience as disciples of Jesus. What about you specifically? Out of those three aims in this series, which one do you most need in your life? Do you simply need to know Him? Do you desire Him and Him alone? Do you want a deeper communion with Jesus? Or do you need certainty? Are you struggling with doubts and the truths of Scripture? Do you just not know enough? Are you confident in the face of objections and questions concerning Jesus? Maybe you need certainty. Or do you want to be more radical in your obedience and following of Jesus? Do you want to walk as He walked and live as He lived? Do you want to be more like those men who gave up their lives for the message of the cross than all the kids you know who are giving up their lives for a few cheap pleasures in high school? Maybe this is you, maybe you want to be a mature disciple. Wherever you’re at…this Gospel will meet you there, and I can guarantee that because these Words are inspired by the Spirit of God and testify to Jesus Christ. So this is they why behind this series….and now let’s get into this book specifically…and we’ll answer 4 questions tonight from the Luke’s prologue: 1) Who is Luke? 2) How Did Luke Write His Letter? 3) Who is Luke Writing To? And 4) Why is Luke Writing This Letter? II. Who Is Luke? Luke’s not the kind of guy whose going to write a lot about himself and who tries to help us get to know him…remember Luke’s aim is that we know Jesus Christ and the events surrounding His life with certainty, so don’t expect little windows into Luke’s personal life. What we know about Luke comes from other sources in the New Testament and from ancient sources. First, let’s look at what we see from the New Testament sources… Philemon 23-24 Paul writes, “Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends greetings to you, and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke my fellow workers.” Here we see that Luke was a fellow worker with Paul, accompanying him in his journeys and working together with him to promote the glory of Jesus Christ throughout the world. Colossians 4:14 Paul writes, “Luke the beloved physician greets you, as does Demas.” Here we see something of Paul’s affections for Luke and also Luke’s job. Paul calls Luke “beloved” and tells us that Luke is very dear to Paul. 2 Timothy 4:9-11 Paul writes to Timothy, “Do your best to come to me soon. For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Luke alone is with me.” Here Paul is writing in prison at the end of his life, we believe that 2 Timothy was Paul’s last letter and so at the end of Paul’s life when he has been deserted by Demas and everyone has left and moved on, right by his side is his fellow worker, and dear and loyal friend. This says a lot about what kind of guy Luke is, doesn’t it? Next, some ancient sources give us a further picture of Luke… We have to rely on these ancient sources because it is they that give us the assurance that Luke wrote this letter. Nowhere in the New Testament does it specifically say that Luke wrote this letter, probably because they didn’t think it was important, knowing that everyone in that day would have known who wrote it anyways, but later on, as the years went on they saw fit to make sure Luke was credited with authorship. The first and earliest evidence comes from around AD 125 when the four Gospels were assembled into a collection for the use of local churches, and they gave the title of the third Gospel “According to Luke.” The second evidence we have comes from the Muratorian Fragment written in 180 AD which listed books that belonged in the New Testament and in it this fragment affirms Luke as being the author and says, “The third book of the Gospel, according to Luke, Luke that physician, who after the ascension of Christ, when Paul had taken him with him as a companion on his journey, composed in his own name on the basis of report.” Another early source coming from the Anit-Marcionite Prologue (160-180AD), gives us a deeper insight to Luke’s character and says, “Indeed Luke was an Antiochian of Syria, a physician by profession, was a disciple of the apostles. At a later date he accompanied Paul, until the latter’s martyrdom. He served the Lord blamelessly. Having neither wife nor children, at the age of eighty-four he fell asleep in Boeotia, full of the Holy Spirit.” So this is Luke, the physician. He was a humble man. A man full of the Holy Spirit and dedicated to the spread of the gospel and the chronicling of the plan of God being worked out in history. He was a fellow laborer of Paul and a loyal friend. He also fell under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and through the investigation of eyewitnesses to Jesus’ life and death wrote an infallible Gospel and what happened as a result of that Gospel in the book of Acts. III. How Did Luke Write His Letter? “Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished (fulfilled) among us, just as those who from the beginning (That’s why Luke begins with the birth narratives) were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered (orally and written) them to us, it seemed good to me also (not that the others were bad), having followed (investigated) all things closely (precisely) for some time past, to write an orderly (somewhat chronological, but always logical) account…” The first thing we see from these verses is that Luke wasn’t charting new territory here with this letter. This obviously is not the first Gospel written. “Many have undertaken to compile a narrative…” so Luke is adding to the narrative compilation genre, which could by why his Gospel is much longer. He said that it seemed good to him also, since he had followed or investigated all things for some time past to write his Gospel. The second thing we see is where Luke was getting his information. He describes the people he received his information from as eyewitnesses and ministers of the word. The people he got his content from were there when Jesus was teaching and performing miracles and being crucified and rising from the dead. They saw and heard all the events and teachings of Jesus. So not only is this a narrative of events, this is a historically verifiable narrative of events. Luke wasn’t sitting in the woods someday and an angel came and gave him golden tablets…no Luke checked all the statements out. He interviewed sources, checked records, talked to people who saw Jesus first hand, and then after following things closely for some time wrote his Gospel under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And I don’t know about you, but this gives me great confidence in the Scriptures and if you’re in here tonight questioning the reliability and authority of the Bible, I want you to think about who is writing this letter. Luke is a doctor. Not like “Trust me, I’m a doctor.” From the Dr. Pepper commercials, but a real doctor, a scientist, a studied man, who probably at one time was skeptical as well. Luke’s no idiot, so don’t expect him to just make something up out of the blue or put together something he doesn’t believe in or hasn’t researched. Luke has devoted his life to caring for people and in his profession he must have exact and perfect knowledge of a disease in order to properly treat it, and we can expect Luke to take the same care in his Gospel in order to treat the greatest sickness of all: a sin-darkened soul. Another thing that gives us confidence is in this letter is that the person Luke was writing to was no idiot himself. This man wouldn’t have bought anything thrown at him. We need to learn about this man…number 4… IV. Who Is Luke Writing To? “…for you, most excellent Theophilus…” Luke’s letter, as well as Acts, is addressed to the same individual named Theophilus, whose name means “Lover of God.” Kind of weird, but would be great for a name! Some commentators think that the name Theophilus is a name that refers to a group of people, those loved by God, and so the letter is written to a large community of Christians, but the evidence is against this view, and so we believe it was a certain individual and the reason being is the modifying words that come before the name: “most excellent.” 9 times out of 10 when you’re talking to your friends or a teacher or your parents you don’t call them “most excellent” even though I expect you to do that for me…just kidding…the point is that, in that day this was an uncommon greeting for ordinary friends and family, this was addressed to a important individual, such as a government official. For example, in Acts there are two times that this modifier is given and both are in relation to government officials such as Felix and Festus who were both governors. Therefore we can conclude Theophilus was someone in the government, most likely wealthy, and of an important status in society. I want you to think about something for a moment, and I want you to see something about Luke…Luke is writing this letter and Acts to one person! Now we know that it was obviously God’s plan that this letter be read by many, but for Luke, he wrote this letter to an individual either for the strengthening of his faith of that he may come to know Jesus in a saving way. Let me ask you a question: when was the last time you wrote something like this for one of your friends? What kind of friend are you? Are you willing to risk time, for Luke, it is believed to be two years, he spent investigating and interviewing people for this Gospel, for the sake of your friends soul? Luke was! He thought it every bit worth the effort for sake of Theophilus eternity, and may God give us the same kind of heart for our friends. So we’ve found out what kind of man Luke was, and how he wrote his letter and who he was writing to, and lastly, we come to the most important question of why? Number 5… V. Why Is Luke Writing This Letter? “…that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.” So here we see that the reason why Luke is writing to Theophilus is so that Theophilus may have certainty concerning all the things he has been taught about Jesus Christ. Now I don’t know if you noticed, but this word “certainty” is a bold truth claim is it not? Luke’s not writing a Gospel in hopes that he might philosophically or argumentatively win Theophilus to the Christian camp…he’s giving him facts “exact” information; truths about events that took really took place, and it is the telling of these truths that will give Theophilus absolute certainty concerning the truth of Jesus Christ. Now we don’t know if Theophilus was already a Christian and was struggling with false teaching and Luke wanted to make sure Theophilus knew the whole truth or if Theophilus was seriously considering the Christian faith and needed to be sure of the message and then paid for Luke to go and investigate this matter for him. Either way, whether Theophilus was a Christian or considering becoming one, Luke wrote that Theophilus and anyone else for that matter may have absolute certainty concerning the Christian message of the good news of Jesus’ life and death. But there’s a certain kind of certainty that Luke is aiming for in his letter…it’s the kind of certainty that filled his own life, it’s the kind of certainty that made Luke give up a safe career in a safe medical practice making lots of money and living comfortably. It’s the kind of certainty that made Luke not want to marry or have children so that he could devote the whole of his life to the understanding and spread of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the kind of certainty that makes a man forget about making a name for himself when the opportunity arose. He saw Jesus and that was the end of the matter for Luke. He was certain of this Christ and wanted Him alone to be magnified and exalted, and Luke was happy just being a fellow laborer of Paul in the background of perhaps some of the most excited days on earth. Luke wants us to have the kind of certainty that compels you to write letters to people with doubts and people young in the faith, and know that even if it’s not graded or no one sees it, it is worth a friend’s eternity to do so. It’s the kind of certainty that when everyone else deserts the mission for the love of this present world, you stay put and stay focused for sake of Jesus’ name! It’s the kind of certainty, that makes you stick beside your brother in Christ in prison and through all kinds of physical dangers because you’re committed to the mission, and because you are enamored by the Christ whose aim in coming to this world was to seek and to save the lost! Is this the kind of certainty you have? If not, this is the kind of certainty studying this Gospel will give. May God bless our time here looking to His Son. ]]> Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:38:44 -0800 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/text/6035572 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/text/5887191 Pray: that Jesus be exalted and that we would be filled with great joy before the marvelous things that He has done [Psalm 98] Oh sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things! His right hand and His holy arm have worked salvation for Him. The Lord has made known His salvation; He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations. He has remembered His steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises! Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre, with the lyre and the sound of melody! With trumpets and the sound of the horn make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord! Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; the world and those who dwell in it! Let the rivers clap their hands; let the hills sing for joy together before the Lord, for He comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity. Tonight we’re bringing our “Sing to the Lord” series to a close as we look at Psalm 98. If I were to give you a short summary of these three Psalms I would say that in Psalm 96 we see the urgent and happy response before Christ’s coming, and in Psalm 97 we see the seriousness and power of Jesus over all enemies, creation, and religious systems in His coming, and then in Psalm 98 we see absolute gladness filling the world because He has come, and rules over the world. To summarize it in musical instruments I would say Psalm 96 is like a trumpet as it’s call goes throughout the world, Psalm 97 is like a tuba thundering low before the coming Storm of Jesus, and Psalm 98 is like a flute that is free and happy and almost playful in tone. There are songs of joy, seriousness, and pure gladness surrounding the scene of Christ’s return, and it is this kind of joy and seriousness that I’ve been praying the Holy Spirit would form in you through these passages because we’re not just simply to be observing these affections; the aim is that we would share in these affections. And I just want to spend a few minutes before we dive in to tonight’s text talking about these affections… When we opened the series I led off with these words from C.S. Lewis, “There is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious.” Would you not agree that to some degree you know what he’s talking about as we’ve studied these Psalms? Or if you haven’t experienced this, you can at least see where he’s coming from right? Now I think that this kind of happiness and wonder that makes one serious is the result of being a Christian, and it is something that we are to grow in. Christianity shapes and transforms every part one’s being. It is inevitable! As we walk with Christ we not only go where He goes, but we start to mimic His stride, copy His words, share His joy, feel His heart and live in a serious way. This means that the more we look to Jesus, the more we will have the emotional make-up of Jesus…and this is something we need. Now you may wonder why a serious happiness is something that is needed as Christians, or the result of being a Christian. Well, I would say that a serious happiness is needed because Jesus demands that we worship Him in “spirit and truth” which basically means we are to worship Him in a head-strong, heart-felt kind of way, and if we’re to do this then we need a different kind of happiness, one that keeps emotion and reality in check. It’s easy to have emotions that run away from truth and become light and meaningless, and it’s easy to have knowledge of the truth in our heads and no heart-felt joy in that truth. So, in order to worship Jesus in the way He demands, we need to be happy and we need to be serious. We need a happiness that makes us serious and we need a seriousness that aims for exclusive happiness in Jesus. So this serious happiness is the result of being made into the image of Christ, which means that Jesus is both serious and happy perfectly. You see, I don’t just want us to be serious and happy so that we’re different from the world, I want us to grow in this so that we’re more like Jesus and therefore more human in the process. To see this glory of Jesus’ happiness and seriousness we need to see Him in the most serious moment in the history of the universe, the cross, and we need to see that in this moment He was set on joy. Hebrews 12:3 says, “…for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” It was joy that led Him there, the joy of glorifying the Father in the salvation of sinners, and it was joy that kept Him there in the midst of awful shame, the joy of destroying the curse, and sin and Satan. You see, Jesus’ happiness made Him serious, and He was serious about happiness and I don’t know about you, but this kind of emotional make-up is exceedingly attractive. I want this! I want to be have such a joy and happiness in Jesus that it makes me blood-earnest in all I do and I want to be serious about happiness in Him, not settling for cheap and passing pleasure and not letting you all settle either. So by seeing Jesus both happy and serious, what God is doing is revealing the excellencies of His own nature, and through that, is attracting us to Him and transforming us to be like Him. I don’t know if you all know this, but seeing the glory of the Lord, is what changes us into the image of Jesus. That’s why it’s so important we gaze at His glory. 2 Corinthians 3:18 says, “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” The promise is this: if we at the serious and happy glory of Christ we’ll have it! We will have it! So when Lewis says, “There is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious.” He’s saying, “The kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious is seen in Christ and if you look to Him you’ll have it.” And that is why David was the kind of worshipper he was, that’s why he sang and danced unashamedly…he was consumed with the glory of God and was transformed. In everything, his one desire was to behold Him in His glory and as a result David worshipped God head-strong and heart-felt. We need to nail this down so let’s expand on this, follow closely here or you’ll get lost…Let’s look to God... God is Serious and Happy You don’t get a singing and joyful universe without a God who is both serious and happy. Psalm 98 doesn’t happen if God is not both serious and happy and as a result serious about happiness. Let me show you how this works… First, everything is serious to God. Everything. And it is His seriousness that protects our happiness and works for it. For example, because God is serious about death and the removal of sin that ensures the greatest happiness imaginable will be realized. Where there is no sin there is pure happiness (which means God is the most happy being in the universe), which if you turn to Revelation 21:4 you’ll see how God’s seriousness ensures our happiness. John writes, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Do you see it? All the barriers to happiness are removed: death, mourning, crying, and pain. The former things pass away that the new may be ushered in and remain forever. So everything being serious to God means that He deals with things with the right force and perfect precision so that happiness in Him is secured. Second, the happiness of God is forever. Now this is something we don’t understand very well because when we think of being with God forever we actually never get out of the initial arrival stage. Think about it: when we think of eternity with Christ we think of sin’s removal, death’s defeat, songs of joy, global worship, transformation into the image of Jesus, sensory overload, and in truth, that’s only as far as Scripture takes us so we don’t go any further. The Bible in many ways is simply an introduction filled with glimpses into the real Story that will last forever. So grasping this kind of forever happiness is hard, and we struggle with this kind of happiness because much of our kind of happiness is so short-lived. It is constantly being interrupted, to use our earlier term, by “former things” which unfortunately are now, present things. It always seems like we are planes who can never quite take off…the moment we’re ready to fly something breaks or a storm comes and so our happiness never reaches it’s glorious end or actually beginning, however you look at it. So to understand what it will be like in flight with Christ is something that we just don’t have the capacity for, but that doesn’t mean we settle for light happiness. We should seek a heavy, God-like happiness and we should seek it in Him! Therefore We Must Take Happiness Seriously Let me ask you a question: when was the last time that God Himself made you glad or just made you smile? When the joy you found in Him made you think that your face would be stuck in a permanent grin? When was the last time you read the Scriptures and laughed in the wonder of Christ? If these moments are few and far between it is not the Truth that is failing to make you happy, the issue is that you don’t trust the Truth to make you exclusively happy. And as a result of not trusting the truth of Jesus for lasting happiness you search out happiness in places and in things that will only satisfy for a few moments, and you’re never happy. So the issue for us in that condition is that we’re not taking happiness seriously. We have ignored the commands in Scripture to be glad and rejoice in God and we have as a result grieved the Holy Spirit. You see, a failure to be happy in God and to take happiness in Him seriously is sin. Now you might have never thought about this, the truth that God commands you to be happy, and to be happy in Him! He has exclusive rights to your joy. And amazingly and graciously He directs us to Himself where and only where we have true joy. Jesus is the source and end of all joy and to find it anywhere else (which you can’t) is sin and death. Let me show you something in Deuteronomy 28...I want you to see that God promised punishment for Israel’s failure to be glad in Him. Pick up in Deuteronomy 28:45-48 “All these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you till you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and statutes that He commanded you. They shall be a sign and a wonder against you and your offspring forever. Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of things, therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything.” You see that? Joyfulness and gladness of heart matter greatly to God, so to ignore your emotions and your affections for Christ and to not seek a serious happiness in God is great and grievous sin. Now, knowing that, don’t you think we should take happiness seriously? I do. And to cultivate this kind of happiness, won’t come by trying to work it up through sad stories, repetitious music, or any other way of working up our emotions…it will come as we meditate and learn the truth of our great Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and with that let’s get into Psalm 98 where we see the result of ecstatic joy and worship before the truth of the reigning King! The Future Setting of This Song Now as we’ve done in the other Psalms, I’ve sought to give you a future setting of when these songs will be employed by connecting some of the images to future events and here I want to do the same. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t sing these songs now, but that we should sing them in view of the future reality and when that future reality comes then we will understand our songs more fully. The future setting of this Psalm seems to be somewhere after the last battle with the kings of the earth, after the defeat of Satan, after the judgments, and before the new heavens and new earth is completely established. It’s almost as if this song is sung as the city of God comes down out of heaven, which is the picture at the beginning of Revelation 21 when we read, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared, (This a fulfillment of the promise of Jesus in John 14:2-3 when he says, “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And If I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” Well, this is Jesus coming good on His promise!) as a bride adorned for her husband.” So this seems to be an appropriate scene for Psalm 98 and the reason why I say that, is the past-tense nature of the first 3 verses in this Psalm, the world-wide seeing of the salvation of God, the absence of idolatry like are present in the other 2 Psalms, the praise party of verses 4-6 and because of the joy of the created order in the last 3 verses, almost as if the world is again becoming what it once was, but now better because the curse of sin is being lifted, and Jesus is coming to rule over His people with righteousness and equity. So here is the happy scene of this Psalm…I want you to picture yourself there in that moment and O how I pray you will be there with Jesus in joy and not in Hell weeping and gnashing your teeth looking to escape eternally from the fire but finding no relief. I pray there will be singing for you and not screaming! And so that means that this moment, this time, and what you do with Jesus now matters infinitely! And if you have Christ…this Psalm will be your song. Let’s look at it in three parts: 1) The Theme of Our Song 2) The Expression of Our Song 3) The Theater of Our Song 1. The Theme of Our Song (v.1-3) Oh sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things! His right hand and His holy arm have worked salvation for Him. The Lord has made known His salvation; He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations. He has remembered His steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. The reason why we’re singing is that He has done marvelous things. These are wonderful, astonishing, and extraordinary things. What He has done has no parallel, it is unprecedented. So what are these marvelous and wonderful things that have become the theme of our song? Let me ask you another question, what word is used the most in these three lines? It is the word “salvation.” Salvation is the marvelous thing and all that is included in it. Now the word here for “salvation” carries the idea of “victory” and this is significant for understanding what we’re singing about here because now we are singing about a completed victory. The Lord has won the battle! The sword that has come from His mouth and struck down the nations and all His enemies, has now been put in its sheath! The white horse that He rode upon with blood to its bridle has now been cleaned and put in the stall! The triumph over Satan and his hosts has been complete and now they are left only to grovel in defeat in the torment of hell forever and ever! But that is not all that is included in this salvation. No, the cross has not just secured the overthrow of Satan in the end, but it has also secured the complete overthrow of sin. We talk about our deliverance from sin in 3 stages: 1) Deliverance From Sin’s Penalty: This victory has already been accomplished on the cross when Jesus became sin and a curse for us, the penalty of sin is death and Jesus died our death that we might live forever. We still die, but death is transformed for us is now as Paul says, “Gain!” 2) Deliverance From Sin’s Power: This victory has taken place and is continually taking place in us. The power of sin over us has been broken. We are no longer under it’s mastery, we have a new Master, and we have the power to say no to sin and yes to righteousness. 3) Deliverance From Sin’s Presence: Now in some degree we are now being freed by sin’s presence in our lives through a process called sanctification, but there is no way in this life that sin’s presence will be destroyed, we need resurrection, we need to see Christ, we need glorification, and that’s what is coming and that will be the last victory…the last victory is the victory over sin’s presence when it will be completely eradicated from our bodies, our minds, our words, our thoughts and our hearts! And this is marvelous isn’t it? And this will be the theme of our worship! We will forever sing about the Lamb slain who has conquered through the shedding of His blood upon the cross! This theme will never wear out and we will never tire of singing of it! So salvation and the marvelous things of God is the theme of our song, and next in verses 4-6 we see… 2. The Expression of Our Song (v.4-6) Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises! Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre, with the lyre and the sound of melody! With trumpets and the sound of the horn make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord! A) Our Song is Joyful: Our worship on that day will be pure joy. There will be a happiness there that we can scarcely imagine here. Joy is the expression of those who have seen a great salvation and it will be the forever expression of the people of God in Zion. In our Master’s joy there will be joy and it will be uncontainable. B) Our Song is Loud: So not only will our songs be joyful but they will be loud! It is a joyful noise we will give with our lips and with instruments! It will be a noise unlike anything you can imagine! God is not a God who likes it quiet, there is always a noise around Him, whether it is the thunder of His voice or the unceasing worship of the angelic hosts, but here there will be a noise sounding out from all of the redeemed, as every tongue sings His praises with all that is in them! C) Our Song is Beautiful: Our song there will be beautiful as well, melody and music will fill the earth. Can you imagine what the heavenly orchestra or band and choir will sound like? It will be beautiful! That is the only way to describe what will be there! The best song we have ever sung here will sound nothing like what we will give there. And the reason why it will be so different is this… D) It is Before the King: There will be no distractions, there will be no pressing into His presence, we will live in His presence and we will be like David, before the King, the Lord! Now we’re scarcely ever exclusively before the Audience of One, we’re so distracted, but there distraction will be impossible, and even if it were possible we would only be distracted by other manifestations of His glory! So salvation is the theme of our joyful, loud, and beautiful song, and now let’s look at, number 3… 3. The Theater of Our Song (v.7-9) Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; the world and those who dwell in it! Let the rivers clap their hands; let the hills sing for joy together before the Lord, for He comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity. The reason why I’m using the term “theater” is because it is the way that John Calvin would refer to the universe in the Institutes. He would say that it is the theater of the glory of God, because if you wanted to see the glory of God and be entertained by it then to do so you would need to go to the theater, which is the universe. Here in the last stanza of this song we see a joyful universe a universe breaking out in song with the world and all those who dwell in it! There is music and joy from the Pacific to the Atlantic, from South Asia to Northern Russia, to the South Pole and to the North Pole, on the tops of every mountain to the bottom of every valley, across every plain and in every river. There is nowhere that you can turn and not hear the voice of praise and singing to the Lord! We will see His glory and it will not be mistaken! The curse of sin will be completely reversed! So here we see a sea that is roaring, but not with disaster. There are no Tsunamis, and storms and tidal waves that wipe out homes, and swallow ships and drown little children. The fallen sea that is frightening is no more…this sea roars with praise to God and makes its own music with the children of God before the Lord. Next we see rivers that are no longer flooding their banks and flooding homes and killing crops and wiping out bridges, these rivers are not out of control like a runaway train but these rivers travel their course and when their waves splash along the banks or upon the rocks, they clap in beat to the majesty of Jesus! They move in response to the Lord! Next we see the hills, and these are not mountains and hills that break in landslides or mudslides or send rocks hurling down their faces like awful tears, but these mountains are moving and swaying and singing with joy together before the Lord! It is if they are rising and falling like a great choir in song! This is a picture that we can faintly see and comprehend! It is of a new world where righteousness dwells and where there is peace and where the glory of the Lord covers the earth as water covers the sea! In every direction the world is responding to the Lord, and with the joy of the children of God! I had read somewhere, I think by Spurgeon, that when we are happy everything else seems to be happy as well. The hills seem to be alive and we see everything with joy and nothing annoys us. When we’re happy we don’t run out of the rain, but sing in the rain and when the wind blows through the trees we hear music and are not scared and when we see grass blowing over we see it as if it is bending over and grabbing its belly in laughter. Well, when the reign of sin has been overthrown completely and the Righteous King is reigning in righteousness this is how we will see the world, and it won’t be in a passing way! Everything will be alive with joy and it won’t just seem that way…it will actually be that way! The prophet Isaiah gives us a glimpse into this theater of our song, when Christ reigns in righteousness, when he writes in Isaiah 11:5-9 “Righteousness shall be the belt of His waist, and faithfulness the belt of His loins. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” Do you notice something here? Do you notice the innocence of the created world? There is no memory of fallenness here. The wolf and the lamb don’t know they are enemies, but they dwell with one another. The wolf’s mouth doesn’t salivate at the sight of the lamb and the lamb doesn’t run at the sight of the wolf…they just dwell with one another. The same goes with the leopard and goat, and the cow and bear and we see that the lion isn’t eating meat, but eating straw side by side the ox. Also notice that the infant is playing over the hole of the cobra without fear, and without the child’s mother grabbing the child for it’s own safety, neither the mother nor the child have any fear of any animal. Mankind once again has dominion over all the animals of the earth. The world has been transformed…everything is new, there is not even a hint of the curse and our memory of the fallen world has been erased as we experience the Master’s joy and what’s the difference? The earth is full of the knowledge of the Lord! All of creation now lives and breathes the breath of God and walks in the light of the Lamb and knows nothing but the glory of God and all is right and all are joyful! Most of you are familiar with Isaac Watts hymn “Joy to the World” but what you probably didn’t know is that it wasn’t written in view of Christmas, it was written out of Psalm 98 and I want to close with verse 3, and it says this… “No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow Far as the curse is found, Far as the curse is found, Far as, far as the curse is found.” ]]> Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:13:58 -0800 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/text/5887191 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/text/5759928 Pray: that Jesus be exalted and that we see and love His reign and as a result hate evil I want you to know that I’ve wrestled over preaching this message, because I almost preached a different one after this morning on Ephesians 6, but instead of preaching that, and expounding on those verses, let me just read them and let this morning’s service be the exposition…Ephesians 6:1-3 says, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother (this is the first commandment with a promise), that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Obey your parents, submit to them in the Lord, honor them, do as they say, pray for them, and ask and beg for their care of your soul in accountability and discipline. If they are not leading you to the cross, ask them to do so. Do not rail against their God appointed authority over you. Parents were God’s idea and so is their discipline of you and you should love the means through which God’s guards your soul from Hell! This is right! In a thousand ways it is right. So that’s the message in short, but I believe Psalm 97 was planned for a reason and the reason is that while many of us are shaken and unsure right now it is good in this state to look to a Sovereign God and our text directs our attention to Him. So turn with me to Psalm 97… [Psalm 97] “The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice, let the coastlands be glad! Clouds and thick darkness are all around Him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne. Fire goes before Him and burns up His adversaries all around. His lightnings light up the world; the earth sees and trembles. The mountains melt like wax before the Lord, before the Lord of all the earth. The heavens proclaim His righteousness, and all the peoples see His glory. The worshipers of images are put to shame, who make their boast in worthless idols; worship Him, all you gods! Zion hears and is glad, and the daughters of Judah rejoice, because of Your judgments, O Lord. For you, O Lord, are most high over all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods. O you who love the Lord, hate evil! He preserves the lives of His saints; He delivers them from the hand of the wicked. Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart. Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous, and give thanks to His holy name!” The Present Context and Future Fulfillment Any time you begin studying a passage of Scripture one of the first things you need to know in order to understand the passage and the perspective of the passage and the why behind it, is the background. So in order to understand this Psalm we need to know the occasion for which it was written…unfortunately, the occasion for which Psalm 97 was written is not very clear. However, there are some things that we can assume from the passage and it is this: 1) A Great Victory Has Taken Place (v.1-7) 2) There is Great Rejoicing in Zion (v.8) 3) There is a Great Response and Great Joy in and to the Lord’s Promises (v.10-12) That’s what we know from the context and there is much to apply to our own lives from the vision of God laid out here and the joyful response of the people, but in the Psalms, if you remember, there is that prophetic piece that looks forward or foretells a future event. So while there is a present fulfillment here there also can be a future fulfillment. This is what theologians call “double-fulfillment.” However, in this case there could potentially be a “triple-fulfillment.” And this why applying this passage is so difficult and where it gets tricky to understand. Let me explain: Fulfillment 1: The Great Victory Over a Present Enemy Fulfillment 2: The First Coming of Christ and The Advancement of the Kingdom of God in the Kingdom of this World Fulfillment 3: The Second Coming of Christ When He Will Reign Over All the Earth So with those 3 fulfillments on the table, I believe, that the one that is most clear, for our instruction and edification is fulfillment 3, in that, this Psalm is looking forward to the Second Coming of Christ when He will have full reign over all the earth and every enemy will be fully and finally destroyed in the heat of His wrath, and there will be great rejoicing on every coastland. We’ll dive into this Psalm in 4 parts, let’s look at verse 1 and see point 1 which is… I. The Lord Reigns, Rejoice! (v.1) This verse sets the tone for the whole Psalm and is a summary statement of what is to follow. It’s kind of like a “tweet” on the Psalm. The truth is this: the Lord reigns, rejoice! And what this is teaching us is that the Lord’s reign is to be something that fills us all peoples with joy. It is something we should look forward to and bank on…He will reign fully over all sin and creation and peoples and He will reign on the earth because He does reign! The specific attribute this verse is highlighting is God’s sovereignty, and God’s sovereignty in short means that God does all that He pleases for His eternal pleasure and purposes. This means as Sovereign He governs and controls every single action and cause and effect in the universe. In other words, He micromanages everything from the flight of a wasp through the sky, to the dance of dust particles in a sunbeam. Over everything God is King and at this we should rejoice! We should contend for this truth and sing of this truth! He reigns supreme and this should be our great delight, as it was for Jonathan Edwards who said, “Absolute sovereignty is what I love to ascribe to God.” And why should one be so enthusiastic about the Lord’s reign over all things? Because of the great contrast of the Governing of God compared to all other earthly rule. Let me just give you six contrasts of Christ’s reign to all other reigns… His Reign is one of… A) Freedom not Oppression: King Jesus said in Luke 4:18-19, “The Father has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of the sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And that’s what He did. He freed people from oppression to sin, especially the sin of self-love, and from the oppressive service of serving Satan rather than God. If you are in Christ, the kingdom of God and the reign of Christ has broken in on your life freeing you from oppression! B) Righteousness not Wickedness: In Hebrews 1:8-9 we read, “But of the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.” C) Justice not Injustice: In the book of the prophet Isaiah in chapter 11 he says of Christ, “And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what His eyes see, or decide disputes by what His ears hear, but with righteousness He shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He shall kill the wicked.” D) Delight not Drudgery: Those who are under the reign of Christ experience delight not drudgery and this sets apart false professors from the true. All enter the kingdom of God with joy. Matthew 13:44 says, “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy (note the word, he’s not upset about giving all he has up) he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” E) Singing not Sorrow: Of the coming kingdom Isaiah 35:10 prophecies, “And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” And we’re not the only ones singing…Isaiah 62:5 says, “…as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.” F) Life not Death: In Revelation 21:3-4 in view of the new heavens and new earth a loud voice from the throne says, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall their be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” This is what is and what will be! The kingdom has broken out upon the earth and is even now in our midst and one day it will be the only kingdom there is, and it will be a kingdom marked by freedom, truth, righteousness, justice, delight, singing and life! And as you hear this, you might be saying, “Wow! That is awesome, but can I really trust that it will be accomplished. Is He really able to pull this off even in the face of what seems to be great enemies and worldwide religious indifference and even hatred to the truth of God? Can He do this?” The overwhelming answer is yes…and He won’t be stopped from establishing His rule. The cross of Jesus Christ has set it into motion and it will not be undone…“It is Finished!” Jesus said, and He will come back to make it final! Look and see in verse 2-7… II. The Unstoppable Sovereign (v.2-7) The point of these verses is that we see the Sovereign, Unstoppable Christ who dwells in the storm and rides in the storm. First, we see Him on His throne and we see Him surrounded by clouds and thick darkness. All throughout Scripture when there is a vision of God this is how He is revealed…from Sinai to the throne in heaven in Revelation, He is God in the storm! Second, the throne is mentioned as having a foundation that is righteousness and justice. It is a good and great and immovable throne. But there’s movement in this Psalm from the throne that we’re supposed to see and be stunned by. We see Him on His throne and then rising from His throne and on the move with unstoppable power: a power that is over all enemies and all creation and a power that is over all idolatry and religious systems. What we see is that nothing can stand before Him or can contend with Him! The first thing we see is that… His Enemies Cannot Stop Him (v.3) “Fire goes before Him and burns up His adversaries all around.” The most foolish and pointless thing sinful men and women have ever done and are doing on this earth is seeking to live under their own rule. It is vain task that will not amount to anything! Listen to me, you may think you are doing whatever you want, you may think you are living independently and that your actions are being overlooked by God, but let me tell you on the authority of the Spirit-breathed Scriptures, you are deceived! No one! No one, lives independently or outside of the reign of Christ and no one will be able to escape His judgments! His fire will burn up all those who have sought to establish their own rule in whatever capacity that may be. His consuming fire will burn up all those who have rejected Him by open hatred or passive indifference! His fire will burn up every enemy who has chosen earthly pleasure and temporal joy of Eternal Treasure and Forever Joy! His consuming fire will sniff out and scorch all those who will seek to hide from Him on the day of His return! He will have ultimate victory over every single one of us and He will do this in one of two ways: He will either do this by saving you or He will do this by destroying you! He rules and you cannot stop Him, none can stop Him! But not only will He have victory over all the enemies of humanity, but He will have ultimate victory over all Satanic and demonic forces of evil. The great powers of Satan that we cannot see that deceive and destroy and ruin and kill will one day all be burned up by Jesus! Many people tend to think that Satan will still have power forever in Hell, as if he is not affected by the flames and torment of Hell, but is more ruler over it. Well, that is a false picture that has been made in the mind of man, because in the mind of God revealed to us through the Scriptures we see Christ as the Ruler over Hell and Satan and his demons suffering at His hand. There is a reason why when a demon saw Jesus in the flesh on earth 2,000 years ago he said, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” He rules over demons, you need to see this. In Revelation 20:10 we read, “…and the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be (look) tormented (consciously) day and night forever and ever.” You see that, Satan will be tormented as well and all those whom Christ does not own will be with him, and that’s what we see in verses 11-15 where we read, “Then I saw a great white throne and Him who was seated on it. (Compare the imagery here with our Psalm) From His presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were throne into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” No enemy will escape Jesus or prevail against Him. And this power over earth and sky that flees at His presence is what we see in the next block of verses in our Psalm… His Creation Cannot Stop Him (v.4-6) “His lightnings light up the world; the earth sees and trembles. The mountains melt like wax before the Lord, before the Lord of all the earth. The heavens proclaim His righteousness, and all the peoples see His glory.” When Christ comes in His glory creation will clear the way before Him and announce His coming. It’s almost as if David is composing a song for Matthew 24:27-31 when Jesus says, “For as lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man…Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send out His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” All of creation responds to Him and nothing can stop Him from coming. He is over creation not subject to it; it is subject to Him! It will not stop Him! Religious Systems Cannot Stop Him (v.7,9) Lastly, what we see is that when Jesus comes in His power from His throne all those who have sworn allegiance to any god, but Christ will be put to shame. They will be shocked, stunned, embarrassed and shamed that they ever worshipped anyone but Him, and all the world will give Him the worship He is due! Every knee in heaven and on earth will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father! He will have His glory over all religious systems! All the millions who have spent their lives worshiping themselves, their own wealth, beauty, popularity, position, and possessions will be put to shame when the Treasure of the Universe shows up! The millions of Hindu worshipers who bow to countless idols will bow down before the feet of Jesus in shame and in terror that they ever worshiped anyone but Him! The millions of Muslims who bow down and pray five times a day will not bow down to Allah on that great day, but they will bow down to Yahweh! And let this be a warning, all those who have believed in a Christ of their own making will be ashamed at the “Christ” they created. And you better be sure you are truly His because there are some who will stand before Jesus and will confidently claim that they were His saying, “Lord! Lord! Didn’t we prophesy in your name and in your name cast out demons and in your name perform many miracles” and He will say to them, “Depart from Me! I never knew you!” They will find out they had the wrong Christ! And if you don’t repent and forsake the ‘god’ of your own making that day will be a great shock to you as well! You cannot settle for the fact that you almost had it right, you almost repented, you almost believed, you almost surrendered your life…No 'almost Christian' will inherit the kingdom of heaven! Only those who have lost everything and died to themselves will live to God! He will not be stopped! Now I want you to see something here…You remember that at first, we said this Psalm was pointing forward to the day of Christ’s second coming where He will reign over the earth? I want you to know that I didn’t make that up, because what we’re seeing in Psalm 97 is exactly what John saw in Revelation 6 when the last seal of judgment was opened… Revelation 6:12-17 “When He (Jesus) opened (and only He can open because He has conquered Rev. 5:5), I looked and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” And that is the question isn’t it: “Who can stand?” From the perspective of those defeated, none can stand before the wrath of the Lamb, and it is true, but there are some who will stand on that day…and they stand because on the day Jesus was crucified, the storm clouds of darkness gathered above the head of the Son of God and there the Precious Lamb was treated as the Father’s enemy and the fire of His wrath consumed Him! That is the only reason that they stand and it is the only reason that anyone of us will stand in this room…we must place our trust in Him, surrender to His reign, and confess our sins in repentance for ever seeking to assert our own independence! Oh, let me ask you again, “Will you stand in that Day?” Will you stand when the Storm of the Lamb comes? Will you be found safe in the Son or exposed and seeking to hide in death but not being able to die? We will all face Him! We will all find Him in one of two storms…which will it be? I pray you meet Him at Calvary, find Him there, even now. ]]> Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:05:30 -0700 http://virb.com/brettwilliams/posts/text/5759928