Integrity Versus Situational-Ethics

We are going to pause our march through the book of Daniel and consider Integrity and Situational-Ethics. They are, by definition, antithetical to each other, because Integrity requires that we do the right thing all the time, while situational-ethics allows for doing what is expedient in each situation. Situational-ethics doesn’t acknowledge any higher-authority, so our question is “Are they mutually-exclusive?“

The core tenet of Integrity is that there IS a higher-authority, and that there ARE rules we are required to follow. There are safety-rules at a shooting range for a reason – to keep everyone safe, and if a person doesn’t follow them, they will be evicted from the range.

“Integrity, a standard of personal morality and ethics, is not relative to the situation you happen to find yourself in and doesn’t sell out to expediency. Its short supply is getting shorter – but without it, leadership is a facade.” — Denis Waitley

The core tenet of situational-ethics is that there is NOT a higher-authority, that YOU are the captain of your own ship, that YOU are the master of your own fate, and “if it feels good, do it“. That autonomy has been tantalizing humanity since the Garden of Eden. The serpent tempted Eve in Genesis 3:4 with “You will be like God, knowing good and evil“. We know how that turned out, because we have been living with the fallout ever since.

We find this commentary on the moral conditions in Israel during the time of the Judges; “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 21:25) If that isn’t a recipe for anarchy, I don’t know what is.

Situational Ethics: When you decide the moral goodness or evilness of something based on the situation.

Theologians and philosophers have been debating this topic for centuries, but being neither a theologian nor a philosopher, we are going to look at it from a Biblical perspective. Two particular questions come to my mind; 1) Is it ever okay to lie?, and 2) Is it ever okay to break the rules?

Is it ever okay to lie?
The root of the question goes back to the ninth Commandment, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” The short version is “Tell the truth.” I can already hear the cogs whirring with the question “What if telling the truth jeopardizes the life or well-being of another person?” “Would be okay to lie to save another person?“

To answer that question, we are going to go back into the Old Testament to Joshua 2:1-7;
2 Now Joshua the son of Nun sent out two men from Acacia Grove to spy secretly, saying, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.”

So they went, and came to the house of a harlot named Rahab, and lodged there. 2 And it was told the king of Jericho, saying, “Behold, men have come here tonight from the children of Israel to search out the country.”

3 So the king of Jericho sent to Rahab, saying, “Bring out the men who have come to you, who have entered your house, for they have come to search out all the country.”

4 Then the woman took the two men and hid them. So she said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. 5 And it happened as the gate was being shut, when it was dark, that the men went out. Where the men went I do not know; pursue them quickly, for you may overtake them.” 6 (But she had brought them up to the roof and hidden them with the stalks of flax, which she had laid in order on the roof.) 7 Then the men pursued them by the road to the Jordan, to the fords. And as soon as those who pursued them had gone out, they shut the gate. (Joshua 2:1-7)

The first thing we should notice is that Rahab told a WHOPPER of a lie, not some “little-white-lie“. If that lie isn’t a violation of the 9th Commandment, I don’t know what is, but what is said later in the Bible about this event, and about her?

Because of her actions, Rahab and her family were saved when the Jews conquered Jericho. She married into a Jewish family;
22 But Joshua had said to the two men who had spied out the country, “Go into the harlot’s house, and from there bring out the woman and all that she has, as you swore to her.” 23 And the young men who had been spies went in and brought out Rahab, her father, her mother, her brothers, and all that she had. So they brought out all her relatives and left them outside the camp of Israel. 24 But they burned the city and all that was in it with fire. Only the silver and gold, and the vessels of bronze and iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the Lord. 25 And Joshua spared Rahab the harlot, her father’s household, and all that she had. So she dwells in Israel to this day, because she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho. (Joshua 6:22-25)

Her son was Boaz. Boaz’ son was Obed. Obed’s son was Jesse, and Jesse’s son was David. (Ruth 4:18-22)

She became an ancestor of Jesus Christ: 5 Salmon begot Boaz by Rahab, Boaz begot Obed by Ruth, Obed begot Jesse, 6 and Jesse begot David the king. (Matthew 1:5-6)

She was inducted into the “Faith Hall-of-Fame“: 30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were encircled for seven days. 31 By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when she had received the spies with peace. (Hebrews 11:30-31)

She was highlighted as an example of faith in action: Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? (James 2:25)

One question that has intrigued me for years is “Was Rahab an innkeeper who supplemented her income in the bedroom, or did she operate a whore-house and also have rooms for rent?” The ethics and morality of the spies is never questioned even though they sought shelter in her home, and while she is often referred to as “Rahab the harlot“, she is never characterized as an “immoral–woman“. It’s almost as if her line of work didn’t really matter, because her actions spoke for her true character.

From a historical perspective, young girls were trained to be housewives, to cook, clean, please their man, and raise children, NOT to work outside their home, and they usually married when they were young teens. A widow, who was too old to remarry and didn’t have any children to support her, was often forced to become a prostitute just to put food on the table. Did Rahab find herself in that situation due to no fault of her own? Her future daughter-in-law, Ruth, was a young widow.

A much more recent example of people lying to save other people is the heroic people who hid Jews from the Nazis during the Holocaust. Integrity, or situational-ethics?

Is it ever okay to break the rules?
Think for a moment… Have you ever been told to do something that you knew was wrong, when disobedience might have serious consequences? Did you obey and do what you knew was wrong, and regret it later, or did you do what was right, knowing that you could live with yourself regardless of the consequences?

We noted two incidents in our previous session of Warriors for Life, one from Daniel 3, and the other from Acts 4, where men refused to obey a “lawful-order“, and in both cases, they were prepared to accept the temporal-consequences of their actions:

16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. 17 If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. 18 But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.” (Daniel 3:16-18)

We find a striking-parallel to Daniel 3:16-18 in Acts 4:19-20. Peter and John had been arrested by the Jewish authorities after healing a lame man, and they were ordered not to preach anymore… 19 But Peter and John answered and said to them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. 20 For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:19-20)

They owed their allegiance to a higher-authority – God, and while they were living under the authority of a temporal ruler, that ruler wasn’t their ultimate-authority.

WWJD – What Would Jesus Do?
We are going to venture into Matthew 12:1-8 to see what Jesus did when He was confronted about His refusal to “conform“.

12 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. And His disciples were hungry, and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. 2 And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!”

3 But He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: 4 how he entered the house of God and ate the showbread which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? 5 Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless? 6 Yet I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple. 7 But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. 8 For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

The incident that Jesus referred to is recounted in 1 Samuel 21:1-6.

We need to note that, while Jesus wasn’t questioning the Sabbath as it had been established by God, He was redirecting their focus back to why God instituted the Sabbath and questioning all their additional regulations. Where they thought that God hadn’t given enough regulations in His law, the Jewish religious leaders piled more on. They would be great bureaucrats in our government today, and if you think the CFR is bad now, just let them get their hands on it.

Imagine taking your kids to a playground and finding that there were fences around every piece of apparatus with a set of rules for each. Rather than just frolicking and playing, they would be constrained at every turn. I wouldn’t blame them for never wanting to go back to THAT non-play-ground.

The Old Testament does not prohibit plucking grain on the Sabbath in order to eat – the disciples were not farmers engaged in the work of harvesting, and it couldn’t even been considered gleaning, let alone reaping. They weren’t “working” by any definition. Jesus not only exonerated His disciples, He also claimed to be the Higher Authority.

We are going to rejoin Jesus in Matthew 12:9-14, when He healed a man on the Sabbath. Talk about stirring the pot, He kicked it into high-gear.

Healing on the Sabbath
9 Now when He had departed from there, He went into their synagogue. 10 And behold, there was a man who had a withered hand. And they asked Him, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”—that they might accuse Him.

11 Then He said to them, “What man is there among you who has one sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out? 12 Of how much more value then is a man than a sheep? Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” 13 Then He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and it was restored as whole as the other. 14 Then the Pharisees went out and plotted against Him, how they might destroy Him.

This was only one a many times Jesus healed people and did other mighty works on the Sabbath, and in most cases, He double-dog-dared the religious establishment to do something about it, but all they could do was huddle in their enclaves and plot how to get rid of Him.

How are WE going to do?
The ONLY person who never got it wrong was Jesus. Every other person has blown-it, myself included, and I have blown-it many times. We have ALL blown-it, and may blow-it many more times before we take our last breath, but another essential part of Integrity is admitting it when we blow-it. We can all learn from David’s example in 2 Samuel 12. After David knocked-up Bathsheba, the wife of one of his generals, and had her husband murdered, God sent Nathan the Prophet to confront him. We see a fuller-picture of David’s repentance in Psalm 51.

Our society is coming dangerously-close to being as described in Judges 21:25, and if we don’t want that to be our epitaph too, we must be people of, and with integrity. It may be flawed and stuttering, but if our society is to survive, let alone thrive, we are going to have to be the people who hold it together. To do less is to deny that we have anything left worth saving.

Sola Deo Gloria!

Facing Who We Really Are

WARNING: Sometimes TRUTH is UGLY, and if you can’t handle the truth in all of its raw-ugliness, you may not want to read past this point. Nothing is candy-coated or censored. You may wonder “Why am I writing this way?” These are things I can’t deny, and writing them out makes them visible. Plus, I can’t weasel my way out of it.

An integral part to our healing is facing who we really are, because until we face and acknowledge who we REALLY are, we can’t grow past those chains that are holding us back. Why? Do you have, or have you had, broken-relationships? I have had my “fair-share” and then some. Losing my middle daughter to cancer past year was a grim-reminder that I have been leaving carnage in my wake for over forty-years.

I thought I was “a pretty good guy“, but if you believe that lie, maybe you would like some real-estate I have for sale, which is as worthless as what I thought about myself. In reality, I have been a pretty self-centered-asshole for most of my adult life.

God, much to my chagrin, is answering my prayer for Him to clean-out those dark-recesses in my heart that aren’t pleasing to Him, and I don’t like what I am seeing. God has been opening doors to chambers that have been collecting-dust for over forty-years, chambers, chapters in my life, that I would rather forget. Be careful what you ask for, because you may not like what you get…

What if something I said to Connie shortly after we got married plagued her til the day she died and may have contributed to her demise? I had told her that “she couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket“. Did what I said make her feel “unworthy“, “less-than-adequate“? Connie has been gone since October 22, 1997, so I can’t turn-back the calendar and take-back those words. Yes, I was an arrogant-asshole. What if I really DO have blood on my hands, Connie’s blood? Words can kill…

What happens when a “virtue” becomes a “vice“? I grew-up poor, so taking good care of what was MINE, was a “celebrated-virtue“, but there are times when clinging to tightly to what is MINE is SELFISH. We really wouldn’t NEED that riding-lawnmower when we moved, but we took it anyway because my wife had bought and paid for it. Add SELFISH to my growing rogues-gallery. That is another dusty-chamber that hasn’t seen the light of day for almost forty-years. Been there, done that, and not proud of it.

Another one that hit me like a freight-train several years later was PRIDE. Aren’t Christians immune to pride? Doesn’t the indwelling of the Holy Spirit make self-obsession impossible? I wish the answer was “YES“, but sadly the true answer is a resounding “NO“. We aren’t immune to pride. In a previous piece, “Who Is YOUR “god”?, I mentioned a couple of things from my own life…times when I was self-obsessed…times when I was PROUD. My life would have been so much easier if God had decisively struck pride from my life, but He hasn’t.

“I wasn’t consciously proud. Maybe most proud people aren’t conscious of how proud they really are. But I felt that I had arrived. In ways that now shock and embarrass me, I thought of myself as a grace graduate. I didn’t minister out of my own need… In ways that are hard for me to imagine now, I thought I had spiritually arrived. I had a scary self-assurance.” (Paul Tripp, Dangerous Calling)

I remember an event from 1997 which shows just how deep my pride problem is. As I was leaving a 12-step meeting, a friend, who had been in many meetings with me, turned to me and said “Steve, you are the proudest person I have ever met.” Had he not inserted the “Steve“, I might have been able to wonder who he was talking to, but he left no doubt. Why was I PROUD? What did I have to be PROUD of? Was it because I was an ordained Elder in a conservative Presbyterian church? I was in a 12-step group…for sexual addiction. I had fallen to the lowest of the low…sexual addiction, and I was a porn addict on top of it. That wasn’t anything to be PROUD of, but PRIDE had obviously come through loud and clear from what I said in those meetings. I was stunned. I was a PROUD sinner.

What if the root-cause behind arrogance, pride, selfishness and self-centeredness is IDOLATRY? We are created to worship, and the problem is WHAT we worship. There is no such thing as an “atheist“, because even though atheists don’t acknowledge that there is a God, they have set themselves up as the “supreme-being” in place of God, so their “god” is themselves. I mentioned that pride is in direct opposition to God. Why? Because, when we are proud, we are telling God that we are more important than Him. If we are more important than God, we are placing ourselves in His place, and we are demoting the very God of the universe. We are making ourselves “god“. It is that plain and simple. God and pride don’t mix.

If you are beginning to wonder “Is this what it will be like to face God on the judgment-day?”, this is barely scratching the surface. God knows ALL the thoughts and attitudes BEHIND our words and actions, all those deep, dark, nooks and crannies that nobody else sees. In reality, we are far more polluted, far more sinful, than we have the capacity to realize. When Isaiah the prophet saw God in all His glory, he could only cry out:

“Woe is me, for I am undone!
Because I am a man of unclean lips,
And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips;
For my eyes have seen the King,
The LORD of hosts.” (Isaiah 6:5)

Who we are isn’t just about what we say and do, but it is also about who we are on the inside, our thoughts and attitudes, because our words and actions arise from our thoughts and attitudes. I was just reminded – again – that I have no room to judge anyone else. I received a call recently from a friend who told me something I was a bit surprised by, but shouldn’t be, because I have done the same thing. Why should I expect her to be any “better” than me? Just because her boyfriend got in her panties doesn’t mean that I never wanted to when she was my neighbor. I would be lying if I said that getting in her panties never crossed my mind, because it did, more than once. She’s a pretty cute gal. After all, I AM a man, and I am not dead yet, but she was more like my little-sister than someone I could be involved with romantically or sexually.

If you are thinking that this all sounds pretty harsh, you may need to be reminded of what Jeremiah 17:9 says; “The hearts is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?”(NKJV)

Is a rapist, pedophile, murder or abortionist really more “corrupt” than people who don’t do those things, or is that level of corruption ingrained in all of us? The verdict from Jeremiah 17:9 is that we are totally-corrupt. The ONLY difference is God’s restraining-grace.

Sin is a disease, and like its physical-disease analogues, it can’t be treated until it is diagnosed. Sin is soul-cancer, and like other forms of cancer, it may reappear at other times and in other places. I have a history of skin-cancer, and even though I haven’t had a skin-cancer in over five years, I can’t let my guard down. I HAVE to get checked every year, just in case, and those check-ups have to be thorough and all-inclusive. If it can’t be seen, it can’t be checked, so I can’t be bashful around my dermatologist. Yes, even “those” places need to be checked, because skin-cancer has the nasty-habit of showing-up in the most “unlikely” places. God is our soul-doctor and He sees EVERYTHING, whether we like it or not, but we have to be open to Him revealing what He sees. We can’t work with Him on what we don’t know about.

Circling back to the beginning: An integral part to our healing is facing who we really are, because until we face and acknowledge who we REALLY are, we can’t grow past those chains that are holding us back. Our healing from the cancer of sin is a life-long process, known as “sanctification”. In God’s redemption-economy, we are “justified”, made right with God, when we come to faith in Christ, but that doesn’t mean that we instantly sin-free, because we aren’t. “Positional-righteousness” is instantaneous, but “personal-righteousness”, becoming more and more like Christ, is a life-long process which won’t be complete until we take our last breath.

“This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” (1 Timothy 1:15) These words, written towards the end of Paul’s Apostolic ministry, were not reflecting back on his life before his conversion, but were based on his growing awareness of his own sinfulness. Paul, though an Apostle, had not “arrived”. As I look back on my own life, Paul was a “rank-amateur” by comparison. If he was “chief”, I am “pro-grade”, but with the “bad-news”, Paul gives us the GOOD NEWS, the GOSPEL; “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”, which means that He came to save me, and to save you.

How serious are you about becoming more like Christ?

Are you willing to embark on what may become an uncomfortable-journey?

Sola Deo Gloria!

Too Good To Be True?

Have you ever received news that was so incredible that it sounded “too good to be true“? Have you had times in your lives when it seemed that all you EVER got was bad-news, when you felt like the next “shoe” was going to drop at any minute? I certainly have, and after losing five people, including three family-members, in the last two years, frankly I was, and am dreading what this year will bring, particularly after finding out a few days ago that a dear friend has terminal-cancer. What next?

The children of Israel had had hundreds of years of bad-news. They had been treated decently in Egypt, as long as Joseph was alive, but once he was gone, all hell broke loose. They had become slaves, slaves of a long line of narcissistic Pharaohs who built their empires on the backs of slave-laborers. Then, Moses came along…

2 God spoke further to Moses and said to him, “I am the Lord; 3 and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name, Lord, I did not make Myself known to them. 4 I also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they sojourned. 5 Furthermore I have heard the groaning of the sons of Israel, because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant. 6 Say, therefore, to the sons of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage. I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. 7 Then I will take you for My people, and I will be your God; and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. 8 I will bring you to the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession; I am the Lord.’” 9 So Moses spoke thus to the sons of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses on account of their despondency and cruel bondage. (Exodus 6:2-9)

What should have been music to their ears was ignored, because it sounded “too good to be true“. After all, the last time that trouble-maker came to town, rather than liberating them from Egypt, Moses had provoked Pharaoh to make their work even harder. Now, they even had to gather their own straw, rather than having it given to them to make bricks with. Their slave-drivers got even meaner and more cruel than ever before. Maybe it was time to run him out of town on a rail.

Now, it wasn’t that God didn’t intend to liberate the children of Israel from their bondage, that these were empty-promises, He didn’t intend to liberate them – YET. They did have to undergo more pain and suffering before God DID liberate them from bondage, but He eventually did.

We need to make note of the last phrase in the passage, “on account of their despondency and cruel bondage.” There are times when we should be skeptical of seeming “good-news“, and it’s not wrong to question whether it is legitimate or not. People over-promise and under-deliver all the time, which may have been where the phrases “Talk is cheap” and “Put you money where your mouth is” came from. I’m sure there have been plenty of times when I over-promised and under-delivered, but not God. He ALWAYS fulfills His promises, even if it isn’t when we want Him to.

God NEVER forgets a promise He made. Several thousand years elapsed between God’s first promise of a Redeemer in Genesis 3:15 and its fulfillment on Calvary’s hill, but it came “when the fullness of time had come” (Galatians 4:4-5), and many more promises followed that one, but nobody to whom a promise was given lived to see that promise fulfilled. God keeps a different “schedule” than we do, and it can be hard on us.

It is also hard believing the promise of Romans 8:28 when things are going from BAD to WORSE, but a promise is a promise, and if God makes it, it WILL come true. As I noted in “Romans 8:28 – What It DOESN’T Say”, we aren’t promised that the “good” will come in this life. It also doesn’t tell us what the “good” will be, just that “good” will come from even our worst experiences. God determines the “what” and “when”.

Final thoughts…
You may have heard “If it sounds “too good to be true”, it probably is”, because we have all seen things that claim to be “free”, but the “shipping and handling” are more than the item is worth, so it behooves us to be wary of the “fine-print”. Sometimes “no-news is good-news”, or, “a silent-phone is a happy-phone”, because we can’t get “bad-news” if we don’t get any news at all. I don’t mind at all when my phone is silent for a whole weeks.

There is ONE piece of good-news that really is GOOD-NEWS, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came to save sinners, of which I am “pro-grade”, so if God can save me, He can save anyone. That is one piece of good-news that “you can take it to the bank”.

Sola Deo Gloria!

Steve

Confronting Our Own Delusions

If you are anything like me, you wear a “mask“, 24/7/365, not only to hide you from others, but to hide the REAL “you” from yourself. Nobody is truly WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). We are master-illusionists, which is built around the delusion that we are “better” than we actually are. We don’t WANT others to see and know us as we are. We only want them to see the “mask“.

Building a delusion…
Building a delusion is ridiculously-easy, but dismantling that delusion is painfully-difficult. To build a delusion, all you have to do is find someone who you think is “worse” than you, and suddenly, you have “bragging-rights“. If you are “better” at something, you must be a “better” person, or not…

So you think that you are a “model–employee“? You are ALWAYS on-time, or better, early, to work. You NEVER take more than your allotted-time for breaks and lunch, and you NEVER go home early. The “proof of the pudding” is your time-sheet. Check it out! But, what about that “slacker“, who is ALWAYS late to work, frequently takes more time for breaks and lunch than allowed, and frequently goes home early? You wonder why the boss puts up with a “slacker“? That is, until you find out that the “slacker” produces more “widgets” than you do, and theirs always passes inspection, and yours…you struggle to produce the ones you do make, and you often have to rework many of them for them to pass inspection. The boss is more concerned about how many shippable “widgets” there are, than how long it took to make them. Sorry, but you lose! Who REALLY is the “model-employee“? That person consistently gets top-dollar on their raises, but you haven’t had a raise in over a year. Who will get the pink-slip first? Ruh-roh…

So you think that you are a “good” driver, because you haven’t had an accident in five years? What about the truck-driver who has 2.5 million accident-free-miles under his belt? You haven’t driven 2.5 million miles, let alone 2.5 million accident-free-miles. Tell me, who is the REAL “pro“?

It is easy to build delusions around virtually any pursuit in life, because we can ALWAYS find someone “worse” to compare ourselves to. But, are we REALLY any better than them?

Confronting and dismantling our delusions…
The first step in confronting and dismantling our delusions is realizing that we have them, and that what we believe about ourselves is a lie, a carefully-fabricated cover-up. Oh, we can still hold on to our delusions, but to confront and dismantle them requires that we OWN them, that we acknowledge them, that we come to a deep realization that they ARE a lie.

The great “delusion-buster” is the fact that there is ALWAYS a “higher-standard“, but most of us don’t want that “standard” to confront and dismantle our delusions. Sometimes we are FORCED to confront and dismantle them, which is a good thing, even if it is hard and painful. God is the great “confronter“, and He uses various means to open our eyes to our delusions. One of God’s most severe, and painful mercies is forcing us to see ourselves as He sees us, not as we would like to see ourselves. Yes, He meets us where and as we are, but He doesn’t leave us where and as we were. He always has a higher-plan for our lives.

“Like Father – Like Son“, was my first confrontation with the lies I had believed about myself, that I was a “better” man than my dad. I wasn’t! I don’t remember what triggered that confrontation, but it had come, and it hit me like a freight-train. My second confrontation came when I discovered that I had lost my middle daughter to cancer – eight months later, and that nobody had bothered to let me know about it. It was a huge slap in my face to see that her family had even scrubbed my name from her obituary, as if I had never existed. That wasn’t the first time they had tried to paint me out of the picture. Her mother’s original death certificate had stated that she was divorced…NOT. I had to ask myself “What is wrong with this picture?”

I started reading “Tender Warrior“, by Stu Weber, shortly after I discovered that I had lost my daughter. While I will never hold up Stu as the perfect-example of a husband and father, and neither would he, with God’s help, he has opened my eyes to who I truly was as a husband and father. Again, I had been comparing myself to my dad, and I always came out on top. Yes, in many ways, I had done a better job of being a husband and father than my dad had, but I fell far-short of who I should have been. Was I as bad as my kids thought I was? No, I may even been worse than they realized.

David and Bathsheba…
After David had sex with Bathsheba and got her pregnant, he had her husband, Uriah, murdered. God sent Nathan the Prophet to David to confront him with what he had done. Nathan told him a story about two men, one rich, and the other, quite poor. Not wanting to kill one of his own lambs to feed a guest, the rich man stole the poor man’s lamb, killed it and fed it to his guest. After David pronounced a scathing-judgment on the rich man, Nathan said “You are that man”. (2 Samuel 11-12:23)

Imagine those four words, “You are that man”, echoing throughout the palace, and in David’s mind for weeks, maybe even months. He couldn’t just “forget it and move on”. Ongoing events were constant-reminders of one of the darkest periods in his life. Five minutes of pleasure brought a lifetime of pain.

When I ask “What is wrong with this picture?”, I have to admit that I am part of what is wrong with that picture. My own actions contributed to the reasons my kids don’t want anything to do with me. That doesn’t negate the actions of others that contributed to our estrangement, but I have to “own” my part.

David didn’t get off Scott-free after his confession. His baby died shortly thereafter, and that was only the beginning of his troubles. His son, Absalom, tried to usurp the throne, and while David was on the run, he raped his father’s concubines – in public. (2 Samuel 15-18)

I haven’t gotten off Scott-free either. I haven’t seen my kids in over twenty-one years, and I still carry the pictures they gave me just before Christmas 1997 in my wallet. I don’t have any newer pictures, other than the ones I have found online. It is too late to make amends to Carrie, my middle daughter, because she passed away in April 2018.

Some people have suggested that I put my past in the past and move-on, but God hasn’t seen fit to allow me to do that. Instead, He still sends periodic-reminders of my past, as if to say “You haven’t dealt with this yet.”

While God doesn’t send Prophets to confront us any more, He has a myriad of other ways to get our attention. I wouldn’t even put it past Him to erect a billboard, but He usually uses less-dramatic means, like hitting us up-side the head with a 2X4, or with a freight-train.

Solomon hit the nail on the head three-thousand years ago, when he said:
“All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the hearts.” (Proverbs 16:2)

Reasons to lose our delusions…
This is NOT to say that confronting, owning and dismantling our delusions is ever easy, because it isn’t. We have built-in defense-mechanisms that jealously guard our delusions, and if we have had them for quite a while, they have become a subconscious part of who we are.

The work necessary to lose our delusions may even be painfully-difficult. Mine has been, and is. Oh, how I would LOVE to go back to being the “good-guy” I thought I was, but I can’t, because those “masks” have already been ripped-off. So, I have to face the cold, hard, truth that I failed as a man, as a Christian, as a husband, and as a father. I was NOT the husband and father my wife and kids needed and deserved.

Living with a “mask” on is hard work, because we have to make sure our “mask” is “just-right” all the time. We can’t live authentic-lives while we are wearing a “mask”. We are always “putting on a show”, so when we finally lose our “mask”, we don’t have to pretend that we are “better” than we are. We can relax and be ourselves.

God always sees through our “mask”. He knows who we truly are, and for our own good, He wants us to know who we truly are. One of our most pervasive delusions is that we can “save” ourselves, that we can actually make ourselves right before God by our own efforts. Earlier, I mentioned that there is ALWAYS a higher-standard, and that is the Law of God, as revealed in Scripture. That higher-standard applies to all parts of our lives. If we think we can keep God’s Law perfectly, we need only answer one question: “Do I love God with my whole being, 24/7/365?” I dare say that we can’t love God with our whole being for one nanosecond, let alone 24/7/365.

Only one person has ever kept the Law of God perfectly, Jesus Christ, and He kept it perfectly for His entire life.

The Good News…
Amidst all the gloom and doom, there IS GOOD NEWS. While we can’t make ourselves right before God, we can BE made-right before God. We can’t do it ourselves, but Jesus Christ can do it for us. See, not only did Jesus Christ perfectly live the life we cannot live, He died the death that we deserve, and His perfect life and death were validated by His miraculous resurrection from the dead.

When we abandon our delusion of “self-salvation”, confess to God that we CAN’T save ourselves, and humbly ask Jesus Christ to BE our Savior, we are given what we could never earn, a right-standing before God. Then, we can quit pretending.

Will YOU believe and embrace the GOOD NEWS?

Sola Deo Gloria!

 

Down To Earth

From his lofty cosmic-view in John 1:1-5, the Apostle John brings his Christology down to earth, that the eternal Word, very-God of very-God, the Creator and Sustainer of all there is, took upon Himself not only our human-flesh, but our very humanity. He became one of us. He is, at the same time, BOTH God and Man, and while each nature remains distinct from the other, they are perfectly-united in one Person, Jesus Christ. Jesus’ humanity did not reduce His deity, nor did His deity reduce His humanity. He was 100% God and 100% Man.

The Word Made Flesh
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 John testified about Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’” 16 For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. 17 For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him. (John 1:14-18)

Up to this point, we know that the Word was with God and that the Word was God; the “Word-God” We have also seen John refer to this Word-God as “He”. Now, for the first time, John identifies “him” as the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Yes, for it was none other than Jesus who became flesh and made His dwelling among us at the incarnation, it is of Jesus that the Hebrews author asserts, “and through whom also he made the universe” (Hebrews 1:2) which is parallel to John 1:3; there can be no doubt about whom it is that John is referring to here. It is Jesus who is the Son, having come to us from the Father.

Now that we are certain of just who John has been talking about, we can look at the attributes John mentions about Him, He was full of “grace and truth.” Notice the balance between those two; how many of us maintain that kind of balance between grace and truth when we are interacting with others? Some of us have a great deal of grace, so much so in fact, that we can overlook almost anything; we might even make the truth hard to find. Others are so strong on truth that we find ourselves pointing fingers at those around us, seldom displaying love or compassion or understanding.

The core of the Apostle John’s Christology is that Jesus Christ is both the Eternal Word, who he affirms as being our Creator, and a man, displaying all the hallmarks of being human. No one was closer to Jesus than John. John had spent over three years with Jesus. They were cousins, and Mary lived with John and his family after the crucifixion. While none of the stories of Jesus’ childhood made it into the Gospels, nobody knew more about Him, in His humanity, than His mother, Mary. John will go on to defend Jesus’ humanity against the heresies that were already raising their ugly-heads in the church by the time he wrote his first Epistle, 1st John. Notice his wording in 1st John 1:1-3:

What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life— 2 and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us— 3 what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.

Heard”, “seen”, “touched”, the three pillars of evidence which would have been decisive in a Court of Law. The Old Testament required that there be three witness in order to convict a person of murder. If John were testifying today of the humanity of Jesus, he would bring pictures, audio-recordings, and even video taken during His earthly ministry.

What is the significance of the Word becoming flesh?

What does it mean by “dwelt among us“? Why is this important?

How did Jesus reveal God’s glory?

Did grace exist before the Incarnation? Did truth exist before the Incarnation?

How could John the Baptist say “He existed before me” when he was older than Jesus?

How did Jesus model grace? How can we model grace?

What does “only begotten” mean?

“Only begotten” is one of the great mysteries in the Bible, because it would imply, to us, that the Word had a beginning, however He could not have been Eternal if He had a beginning. It is our language and word-usage which trips us up, because, while the Old Testament is chock-full on genealogies, and Matthew’s Gospel begins with Jesus’ human genealogy, that cannot be the sense of how “begotten” is used in this passage. It would make more sense to us if “only begotten” had been rendered “unique“, because Jesus IS “unique“. Nobody before or since has had His “uniqueness“.

How did Jesus reveal God in His person and work?

How could John the Baptist say “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’”?

Let’s not forget that John the Baptist was of the priestly-line of Aaron, so he was very-well versed in the Old Testament, and particularly in the prophesies concerning the coming Messiah. We see that in John 1:23, where he said “I am a voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as Isaiah the prophet said.” (from Isaiah 40:3) God had also revealed to him that he was the “prophet who was to come”, the forerunner of the Messiah, as revealed in Malachi 4:5-6.

John’s text continues as he mentions that John the Baptist testified concerning Jesus in verse 15, and then in 16-18 gives his own testimony about Him.

Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known. (John 1:16-18)

John’s first statement is about the abundance of grace that we have received through relationship with Christ. Then, John expands on his statement, pointing out that while the Law was “given” grace and truth “came.” I think that’s worthy of a little thought, for as John has structured this, the Law is a rather top-down thing. The Law was handed down by God to Moses, and then from Moses to the people; the people could take it or leave it. They took it, and then for the most part, they left it; there was no relationship with Law, for Law just is. The result was that that very Law became their condemnation, not their salvation.

The author then contrasts Law and Grace by contrasting its authors. Moses was the great law-giver, but keeping the law never brought-about a righteous life. We have all experienced religious-legalism, and the Scribes, Pharisees and teachers of the law had raised religious-legalism to a fine art. The problem was that even if a person kept 99% of the law perfectly, they were still condemned by that 1% they didn’t get quite right. Another problem was that the law only exacted penalties for failure to keep it but it didn’t have any rewards for compliance. A person may have a perfect driving-record for twenty years, but when they finally get a speeding-ticket, their otherwise-perfect driving-record doesn’t diminish the penalties for that ticket. Even though my only speeding-ticket was over thirty years ago, that ticket, and that I paid it, is still on record somewhere in Illinois. I would never get inducted into the “Safe-driver Hall of Fame” because I don’t have a perfect driving-record.

That is where Grace comes in. God gives us what we don’t deserve, a right-relationship with Him, rather than what we DO deserve, eternal-punishment. Christ has the perfect record we could never attain, and through His perfect life, shed-blood and finished-work, God gives us what He earned for us. Grace goes far-beyond just keeping us out of Hell. Grace also gives us a place in God’s eternal kingdom, with all the rewards that go with that blessed state. I would get inducted into the “Safe-drive Hall of Fame” based on His perfect-record, not kept out based on my flawed-record.

And then, grace and truth came to them…

Grace and truth came to them in a person; they could talk and laugh and cry and walk together; there is relationship with grace and truth, for grace and truth become a part of who we are as human beings; there is no fear in grace and truth.

In the remainder of this text, John reveals to us that through Jesus, God can be known to Man, for Jesus is Himself God. Through Jesus, therefore, we can have relationship with God, the Creator of everything: Grace and Truth.

Would you like to know God?

Get to know Jesus. Would you like to know Jesus?

Get to know the Word who “became flesh and dwelt among us“.

You may wonder why I am relentless in my emphasis on Jesus’ humanity, which wasn’t doubted during His sojourn on earth. If fact, it wasn’t His humanity that was challenged, it was His claim to deity. He was crucified because He, obviously a man, claimed to be God. It wasn’t until after His ascension that the first challenges of His humanity came along. Greek Docetic and Gnostic philosophy, which demeaned the body and emphasized the spirit or soul, began to infiltrate the church. Debunking that heresy was the purpose of the opening verses of 1st John, which we looked at earlier. Even the church today is infested with “Docetism-lite”.

Why does it matter?
The penalty for rebellion against God was death (Genesis 2:17), so while Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God didn’t bring immediate physical-death, it DID bring spiritual-death, and physical-death would become a part of the human-experience. The only atonement for sin was a blood-sacrifice, death, so it took a perfect human-being’s death to atone for the sins of His people. It took a perfect “seed of the woman” to “crush the serpent’s head” (Genesis 3:15). That perfect “seed of the woman” was Jesus.

That is why it matters that Jesus is fully-human, and why I have written and taught about it so much. His humanity is the basis for our salvation.

Beloved, this is really too simple for us to miss! Out of all of the knowledge that has come to humanity over the ages, this is all we need to know to receive forgiveness and eternal life; grab onto it and hold on tight, never let it go…

Sola Deo Gloria!

Last-Call

“Last-Call” is one of the most heart-wrenching parts of a funeral for a Firefighter, Police Officer or EMT that I have ever witnessed, because it drives-home the fact that we have lost a Brother or Sister who will never respond with us again. They have answered the “final-call“, the “call” to eternity.

When the departed was a Firefighter, they will take their “last-ride“, not IN an engine, but on top, on top of the hose-bed. Before our Brother or Sister is laid to rest, we memorialize them off with a solemn-ceremony…

The radio-call from dispatch; Silence; A second call; Silence; The final call; Silence… The final-announcement by dispatch that our departed Brother or Sister has answered their final-call. Sometimes “the tolling-of-the-bell“, with its rich, historic-symbology, is added to this solemn-occasion. After all is silent, a Bagpiper finishes the ceremony with Amazing Grace, sometimes in a distance. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. I have witnessed too many “Last-Calls“…

Regardless of whether they died in the line-of-duty, or otherwise, we have lost someone who was “part of the family“. Our family will never be the same again. A part of us is gone…

Have you ever witnessed the finale of a Service-Member or Veteran’s funeral; The folding of the Flag, carefully, precisely, and presenting it to the family of the departed? The firing of the gun-salute? TAPS? Only the most-callous person won’t get choked-up over that. I have witnessed this ceremony too many times, and it always chokes me up. Last October, we lost a Brother (Veteran) to suicide. That was a tough service.

Regardless of whether they died in the line-of-duty, or otherwise, we have lost someone who was “part of the family“. Our family will never be the same again. A part of us is gone…

For those who have worn the uniform of our Public Services, or while serving our country in the Military with honor and distinction, our final “Good-byes” are shrouded in solemn-ceremony, fitting-tributes to those we loved and lost. They may be gone, but they will NEVER be forgotten.

Whether we realize it or not, every passing leaves a hole in our collective human-family. We each bring our own unique additions to the mix. Some “family-groups” just memorialize their losses more than others, and I have been privileged to be part of two of those “family-groups” which do memorialize our losses. I am a Veteran and a retired Firefighter.

One day, we will all answer our “last-call“, as this life gives-way to eternity. Are YOU prepared to meet your Maker in peace when it is time for YOU to heed your “last-call“? I pray that you are.

As we, as Americans, celebrate Independence Day, may we remember those who paid the ultimate-price for our independence, and honor those who are serving to maintain our independence. Freedom is never “free“. It always comes at an enormous-cost, but it is well-worth the price. Just ask Jesus Christ…

Sola Deo Gloria!

 

Romans 8:28 – What It DOESN’T Say

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28)

Romans 8:28 may be the most popular verse for Christians to quote when “everything that could go wrong – does“, but it may be little help to someone who is going through some kind of struggle. Rather than helping, it may be like “pouring salt on the wound“, because while what it says is true, what it DOESN’T say is equally-true. SO – what DOESN’T it say?

We are “planners“, and so is God, except that God’s plans always trump our plans, whether we like it or not. When I planned my month-long trip last year, I calculated the mileage of each leg of the trip to within less than five miles. That gave me a good idea of when I would need to refuel my truck and how long the drive would be, except that I couldn’t control the weather. A tropical storm “happened” to park itself off the Gulf coast, so I drove through torrential rain for much of the second leg of the trip. That increased my drive-time and reduced the fuel-economy of my truck, so I had to refuel sooner than expected. Did it REALLY matter? No, except that as I refueling my truck, I was able to talk with an Alabama State Trooper who gave me exact directions to my motel and told me what kinds of restaurants were in that town. No, there wasn’t a Chick-Fil-A. Shucks! God knew what I would need, so He “arranged” that meeting, “courtesy” of the weather. The Trooper pulled into that fuel island less than thirty-seconds after I did. How’s that for coordination? Things don’t always turn out that neat-and-tidy.

The first thing we need to notice is that God is the “active-agent” – “God causes…“. God didn’t consult us when He laid out the plans for our lives, because, according to the Psalmist (Psalm 139:13-16), God’s plans were made before we were even born. I would have had some serious qualms about God’s plans for my life, but He didn’t ask me first. Does He take our “preferences” into account when He makes our plans? Maybe, maybe not…

The next word that hits us between the eyes is “all“. We might be okay with “some“, but we have serious reservations about “all” – ALL! Sure, some things are “okay‘, but some of them really stink, such as an unexpected-death or unwanted-divorce. I have experienced both, and then some…

How about “good“? Romans 8:28 doesn’t even give us the right to define “good“. God wasn’t, and still isn’t hiring consultants to help Him define “good“. Defining “good” is His sole prerogative. His definition of “good” is final. Yes, even death and divorce. Because God sees, knows and ordains the outcomes, sometimes the “good” is the GOOD of someone else whose life we will be able to impact, even though OUR perceived outcome was less than “good“. I have experienced an extended-period of intense-struggle during which I was given the opportunity to do a lot of “good” for another person. While I struggled, I was able to help another person through their struggles. That must have been part of the plan…

Also conspicuously-missing is any form of “time-line“, so we don’t even get to pick WHEN the “good” will happen. It may happen in this life, but there are no guarantees, written, expressed or implied. God is, once-again, the sole-arbiter of that “time-line“. It has taken over twenty years of “train-wrecks” to get me to where I am now. Twenty years, and some of the messes are still not “cleaned-up“. Some of them may not be “cleaned-up” in this lifetime. Twenty-plus years of debris…

“to those who love God”: How well do we show our love for God? If you are anything like me, my love for God waxes and wanes. We are called to humbly trust God, as we progress towards loving Him with all of our being. Only Jesus accomplished that daunting-task perfectly.

“to those who are called according to His purpose.“: Also conspicuously-missing is any say on our part in defining God’s purposes. As mentioned previously, God laid out the plans for our lives long before we were even a gleam in our parent’s eyes. God’s purposes are eternal.

Final thoughts…
Romans 8:28 is NOT a “feel-good-pill“, and it may be “cold-comfort” to someone who has or is going through some kind of traumatic-event.

Romans 8:28 doesn’t say that “God is going to make it all better“, because in many cases He doesn’t.

Seeing the “good” may have to wait for Heaven.

Don’t throw Romans 8:28 out there when it may cause more harm than good. It is far-better to simply love the person during and through their hard-times.

If you preach it to yourself, as I have many times, keep in mind that it doesn’t always explain the unexplainable. I still have many unanswered “Why?” questions, and you may too.

God ordained the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the most evil, vile act in human history, for OUR “good“, that we may be saved.

God is at work accomplishing His plans and His purposes, and He may use us to accomplish His desired-ends, but He doesn’t have to ask our permission first.

Sola Deo Gloria!

The Word Became Flesh – Take Two

The Word Made Flesh
14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 John testified about Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’” 16 For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. 17 For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him. (John 1:14-18)

The Incarnation…
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

How could God reveal His glory to mankind? Only by taking upon Himself our humanity, becoming “God with us“, as was foretold by Isaiah and revealed to Joseph by the angel.

Try wrapping your mind around that incredible event…

22 So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: 23 “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.” (Matthew 1:22-23, Isaiah 7:14)

Up to this point, we know that the Word was with God and that the Word was God; the “Word-God.” We have also seen John refer to this Word-God as “He”. Now, for the first time, John identifies “Him” as the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Yes, for it was none other than Jesus who became flesh and made His dwelling among us at the incarnation, it is of Jesus that the Hebrews author asserts, “and through whom also he made the universe” (Hebrews 1:2) which is parallel to John 1:3; there can be no doubt about whom it is that John is referring to here. It is Jesus who is the Son, having come to us from the Father.

Dwelt among us…
Throughout the history of the children of Israel, God’s “Presence“, His Glory, dwelt periodically in the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle or Temple, but it was not a “touchable“, physical presence, and only the High Priest could enter that sacred space, only once a year, and only with the blood of a sacrifice. When Moses asked God “Please, show me your glory” (Exodus 33:18), God hid Moses in a cleft in the rock so that Moses could only see His back. No man could see God and live (Exodus 33:20). A huge change in God’s “Presence” occurred when the Word became flesh, because God became visible and touchable. It also wasn’t just an “appearance“, because God, in the person of Jesus Christ, walked this earth for over thirty-three years. The Infinite became touchable and the Almighty became breakable when the Promise of Genesis 3:15 became reality. (Galations 4:4-5)

And we saw His glory…
Jesus revealed God’s glory when He raised Lazarus from the dead in John 11. Revealing God’s glory is the reason Jesus gave in John 11:4 for not returning to Bethany immediately.

John, along with Peter and James, were the disciples Jesus chose to witness His transfiguration, so when Johns speaks of seeing His glory, it was in a very real sense. They saw His glory with their own two eyes. We will get more into that event when we inject the account of that event from Matthew 17 at the appropriate place in His ministry.

Glory as of the only begotten from the Father…
This phrase should impress upon us the absolute-uniqueness of Jesus Christ. Unlike children who adopted into a family, as we are into God’s family, “natural-born” children bear their parent’s genetic-imprint, while the adopted children do not. That is the best way I can explain that phrase.

Full of grace and truth…
Now that we are certain of just who John has been talking about, we can look at the attributes John mentions about Him, He was full of “grace and truth.” Notice the balance between those two; how many of us maintain that kind of balance between grace and truth when we are interacting with others? Some of us have a great deal of grace, so much so in fact, that we can overlook almost anything; we might even make the truth hard to find. Others are so strong on truth that we find ourselves pointing fingers at those around us, seldom displaying love, compassion or understanding (grace).

I used to give my students a little chart containing two axes, the north-south axis was labeled “justice” at the top and “mercy” at the bottom, and the east-west was labeled “truth” on the west and “grace” on the east. Then I would ask them to rate themselves by making a little “X” where they think they fall on the chart as I asked them four or five simple questions. After that, I would ask the questions again and have them rate me…

Almost without exception, the students rated themselves right in the middle of the chart, and almost without exception they rated me in the upper left hand quadrant: they were all full of grace and truth, while I was cold, aloof and correct.

I always got a kick out of that and joked that they should just remember who was the one who was correct in the room. Then, springing the trap, I would congratulate them, for they had each placed themselves on a par with none other than Jesus Christ Himself, a position much loftier than anything the Apostle Paul would ever dare to claim!

The preacher who pounds his pulpit while heaping condemnation on the sinners around the room thinks he’s being just like Jesus, but where is the grace? The preacher who is willing to tolerate virtually any behavior also thinks he’s being just like Jesus, but where’s the truth? Oh yes, beloved, it is so very hard for us to see ourselves the way that others do, and even harder to see ourselves as God sees us, but since being like Christ is our goal, we need to try.

It might just be that you, me and everyone else should seek His guidance in this through fervent and regular prayer that He, through His Spirit would guide our every action, that all around us would see His love at work in each of us. (DM)

Would You Like to Know God?
John’s text continues as he mentions that John the Baptist testified concerning Jesus in verse 15, and then in 16-18 gives his own testimony about Him.

16 For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. 17 For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him. (John 1:16-18)

John’s first statement is about the abundance of grace that we have received through relationship with Christ. Then, John expands on his statement, pointing out that while the Law was “given”, grace and truth “came” through a person – Jesus Christ. I think that’s worthy of a little thought, for as John has structured this, the Law is a rather top-down thing. The Law was handed down by God to Moses, and then from Moses to the people; the people could take it or leave it. They took it, and then for the most part, they left it; there was no relationship with Law, for Law just is. The result was that that very Law became their condemnation, not their salvation.

And then, grace and truth came to them…

Grace and truth came to them in a person; they could talk and laugh and cry and walk together; there is relationship with grace and truth, for grace and truth become a part of who we are as human beings; there is no fear in grace and truth.

In the remainder of this text, John reveals to us that through Jesus, God can be known to Man, for Jesus is Himself God. Through Jesus, therefore, we can have relationship with God, the Creator of everything: Grace and Truth.

Would you like to know God?

Get to know Jesus.

Would you like to know Jesus?

Get to know the Word who became flesh and made His dwelling among us.

Beloved, this is really too simple for us to miss! Out of all of the knowledge that has come to humanity over the ages, this is all we need to know to receive forgiveness and eternal life; grab onto it and hold on tight, never let it go…

We wish to see Jesus…
20 Now there were some Greeks among those who were going up to worship at the feast; 21 these then came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and began to ask him, saying, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” 22 Philip came and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip came and told Jesus. (John 12:20-22)

Have you “seen” Jesus?
While it is not possible for us to “see” Jesus physically, we CAN “see” Jesus, and the Father, through His word. That is one of the purposes for studying the Bible, to “see” God as He has revealed Himself through the Bible.

Many people today think that it would be easier to believe in Jesus if they could see Him with their own eyes, hear Him with their own ears, witness His miracles, and even eat the food that He provided, but thousands of people were able to do all of those things, and STILL didn’t believe in Him. Are we really any different than they were? We have the advantage of having ALL of the Scripture, the Old Testament before He came, and the New Testament which all testifies of Him. We have a much fuller “picture” of our Savior than they did, and yet, many people STILL don’t believe.

The Incarnation has enabled us unprecedented-access to what the Jews had only dreamed about, God. I believe that the Incarnation is the hinge-pin of redemption-history, and since we are coming into the Advent season, I think that it is appropriate to pause our forward-march through John’s Gospel and spend some time contemplating the Incarnation and all it means to us.

The Promise…
God could have “rebooted” His “human-project” after Adam and Eve sinned by simply annihilating them and starting over, but He didn’t. Instead, in His grace and mercy, He promised them a Redeemer.

14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
“Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” (Genesis 3:14-15)

Contrary to what some people believe, God’s promise of a Redeemer was NOT some “Plan-B“. God didn’t simply “react” to what Adam and Eve did, because, in His infinite foreknowledge and wisdom, He knew exactly what would happen on the fateful day before He breathed life into them. When He asked Adam “Where are you?“, that question was for Adam and Eve’s benefit, not His. God wanted Adam and Eve to realize that they still mattered to Him, and that even though they had broken their intimate relationship with Him, He would do what it would take to restore that relationship.

The Prophesies…
Throughout the rest of the Old Testament, God gave periodic word through His prophets about the coming Redeemer. All of those prophesies looked forward to the day when they would be fulfilled and the Redeemer would come to make things right again.

The Fulfillment…
4  But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, 5  so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. (Galatians 4:4-5)

In the coming weeks leading up to Christmas, we will look at some of the Messianic prophesies which were fulfilled when “The Word became flesh…”, and right before Christmas, we will read about the birth of Christ from the Gospels.

In Christ,
Steve

Preparing The Way – Take Two

In the beginning…
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. 5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

The Witness of John
6 There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light.

9 There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:1-13)

The Deity of Jesus Christ
The author starts by affirming both the deity of Jesus Christ and His role in creation. As we saw in “In The Beginning“, Jesus Christ, the eternal Word, was the principal agent of creation, and as such, defines who “God” is in: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1.) The Word was eternally-pre-existant with God and part of the Godhead.

Life and Light
4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. 5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

We see in verse 4, that Jesus Christ, the Word, was both Life and Light. We often think of Light as a person’s presence, and may say “The lights are on but nobody is at home” when a person seems to be alive but is totally-unresponsive. When a person dies, we think of their “light” having gone out.

“Light” is also about spiritual-illumination. As fallen humans, we are in spiritual-darkness because there is no “Light” in us. The Word, Jesus Christ, came to shine His Light into our spiritual-darkness.

Verse 5 begins the next little section of John’s text, a section that continues through verse 13. The theme is that of the manifestation of the Word in this dark world, and in this it is interesting to note the transition from the Word, to God and then of Word-God into “light’. We can easily see through this device that the three terms, Word, God and light are being used interchangeably to describe attributes of God, thus they are One in their reference to Christ, who is as yet unnamed in the text.

The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not comprehend it. (John 1:5)

Once again, John has put into one simple statement a fact that theologians have struggled with for centuries; the world around us just doesn’t “get it”. OK, those poor souls who live in the darkness of this world don’t understand the light; why does this surprise us? At the same time as we are surprised that this world struggles with the message of Christ, some of us are surprised that we should be called to reach out to the world around us to deliver the message of light to them and help them to see it for what it is; grace and truth. Why should we be surprised to be called to help others understand it? Why should we resist this calling?

Sent by God
6 There came a man sent from God, whose name was John.

John came as a forerunner of Jesus Christ to bear witness of His coming. He announced the coming of Jesus Christ much as a herald would announce the imminent arrival of a king. He was foretold by Isaiah and Malachi.

The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord;
Make straight in the desert
A highway for our God. (Isaiah 40:3)

“Behold, I send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me.
And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple,
Even the Messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight.
Behold, He is coming,” Says the Lord of hosts. (Malachi 3:1)

There was a guy who did not resist the calling, and his name was John. This John is not the same guy who wrote the gospel, yet both of them were only too happy to share the light with a dark world. Verses 5-9 set up what follows by pointing out that this John (the Baptist) was sent to prepare the way for the Messiah who was about to burst upon the scene in the person of Jesus. John was not the light, just as you and I are not the light, yet he was sent to prepare the people to hear the message that would come in Christ.

Witness to the Light
7 He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light.

John was NOT that Light, but he came to bear witness to that Light, and to begin shining Light into dark hearts and souls. He was not pointing to himself as a a source of Light, but to the coming Messiah, as the one true Light. Once Jesus Christ came upon the scene, John always pointed people to Him.

The True Light
9 There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.

Jesus Christ, the Messiah who was to come, would be the true source of Light. When we see the Moon, it appears to be a source of light, however it is only reflecting light from the real source, the Sun. In much the same way, John reflected God’s Light to those around him until the real source of Light, Jesus Christ came and began His ministry. As the Sun gives light to all of us on Earth, Jesus Christ brought Light into our darkened world.

In our time, the light has already come, and we have received it and received grace as a result. We are sent to share that light, and to help those around us to comprehend it that some should receive it also and share in its blessing. When you think about it, this is an awesome calling.

How did they miss Him???
10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.

The Jews had been set-apart by God as His chosen-people, and when Jesus Christ appeared on the scene, they should have worshiped and adored Him as their Creator and Lord, but the majority of people rejected Him. His own testimony, supported by His many miracles, should have been all they needed to follow Him wholesale, but most who followed Him did so only to see His miracles.

After all, there were dozens of promises and prophesies of the coming Redeemer, beginning all the way back in Genesis 3:15. They were told that He would be the Son of David, that He would be born of a virgin, even that He would be born in Bethlehem. How did they miss all those clues? We will be studying these promises and prophesies more in detail as we approach the Christmas season.

How could they be SO blind? In truth, as we will see later on, they were looking for a different “kind” of Messiah. They were looking for a Messiah who would come in riding a white horse and leading a mighty army. The “Messiah” they envisioned, would drive the Romans out of Israel, set-up an earthly-kingdom and restore the “glory” to Israel. They were also looking in all the wrong places, not really understanding the entirety of the Old Testament Messianic prophesies. That He would be the “Suffering-Servant” (Isaiah 53) wasn’t on their “radar“.

One of the most important “His own” groups of His day was the religious-leadership, the Scribes, Pharisees and Teachers of the Law, and they rejected Him because they couldn’t control Him. As we will see later in John’s Gospel, Jesus Christ had many run-ins with them.

Children of God
He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. (John 1:10-13)

Yet again, simple John took a major theological concept and boiled it down to a few simple sentences that anyone should be able to understand; it is clear and simple. This “light” who is also the Word–God, came into this world of darkness, and even though He made the world, the world simply didn’t recognize Him for who He really was. He even came and lived among his own covenant people, the ones who had received the message of the prophets concerning Him and His coming, yet they for the most part, didn’t recognize Him any more than they recognized the prophets when they came. Many of them thought, as we will see later, that their ethnic-heritage, as “children of Abraham“, meant that they had it made. Yet, for those who did see Him for who He was, He made it possible for them to be reborn as children of God.

Wow! What could be simpler?

Salvation is of God
12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

As hard as people try to make themselves right before God, it is impossible. We can’t DO enough good things to merit His favor, nor can we NOT DO enough wrong things to avoid His wrath. That was what the religious leaders were trying to do, and as “good” as they thought they were, their “good” was never GOOD ENOUGH.

The ONLY way we can gain salvation is to accept that we CAN’T do it on our own and accept and receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Only then will God make us His children, with all the rights and responsibilities which go with that high-status.

In Christ,
Steve

 

What Is Our Only Hope? – Why Jesus’ Humanity Matters…

What is our only hope?

We are faced with a crisis of hope in America today. Fewer people have true hope than at any time in the past. Two or three people have committed suicide since this service began, and before it ends, several more will have committed suicide. Someone commits suicide every fifteen minutes, twenty-fours a day, seven days a week, and one out of five is a Veteran. Suicide is the ultimate expression of hopelessness. Why are so many people living without hope?

We see hopelessness in divorce courts. Over fifty percent of the people who say “I do” will say “I don’t” sometime in the future. Those marriages may last for many years before they dissolve or just a few days as my most recent one did. Why do people say “I do” and then say “I don’t”? Why was there so much hope when they said “I do” and yet they are hopelessly broken when they say “I don’t“. “Til death do us part” has become “Til death or disconvenience do us part“. Why this epidemic of hopelessness? What has caused all this hopelessness?

Could it be that throwing God out of America has real consequences?

Could it be that when people say “I don’t want anything to do with God“, He gives them their wish and turns them over to the worst to torture themselves for all eternity.

The Bible will provide the answers people need, but only if they are willing to get acquainted with its Author. Are you living without hope? If so, I hope that you will stay tuned as we look at “What is our only hope? Why Jesus’ humanity matters“.

We are broken people, living in a broken world, and if we are truly honest with ourselves, there is far more brokenness in us than we would like to admit, which is why we act like we are “okay” even when we aren’t. We have learned to put on a “happy-face” even when we are crying inside because we don’t want those around us to know how broken we are. Only God can heal our brokenness and make us whole again, but we have to trust Him to do what we can’t do for ourselves. God, in the person of Jesus Christ, became a man so that He could bring us back into a right-relationship with God and with one another. He IS our ONLY hope.

We often ask “Where was God when…?“, and we can list a thousand-and-one events when God was seemingly-absent, but was He? If we don’t really know who Jesus is, we would be tempted to think of God merely as a detached observer, but we couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Four major traumatic events are etched deeply into my memory, and beg the question “Where was God when…?“

Where was God when the Space Shuttle Challenger became a ball of fire?

Where was God when the Murrah Federal Building was bombed?

Where was God when the Twin Towers fell?

Where was God during the Pulse Nightclub massacre?

While I was somewhat “detached” from those events, every one of them left grieving family and friends behind, and I was deeply-shocked by them. The Pulse Nightclub massacre struck way too close to home, since I live fairly close to Orlando. Where was God when those events took place?

Getting more personal…

Where was God when my wife committed suicide?

Where was God when my brother Darrell died of cancer?

Where was God when my mom died?

Whether it is a major-event or a personal-tragedy, our deepest desire is to know that God cares, that He understands our pain and suffering. While we might think that God was “detached” from those events, as we will see from John 11, God was very-much present during and after those events. This should give us hope, both for the present, AND for the future.

The Death and Resurrection of Lazarus
11 Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 It was the Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. 3 So the sisters sent word to Him, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.” 4 But when Jesus heard this, He said, “This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So when He heard that he was sick, He then stayed two days longer in the place where He was. 7 Then after this He said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” 8 The disciples said to Him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone You, and are You going there again?” 9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10 But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” 11 This He said, and after that He said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I go, so that I may awaken him out of sleep.” 12 The disciples then said to Him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” 13 Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that He was speaking of literal sleep. 14 So Jesus then said to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, 15 and I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe; but let us go to him.” 16 Therefore Thomas, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, so that we may die with Him.”

17 So when Jesus came, He found that he had already been in the tomb four days. 18 Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off; 19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary, to console them concerning their brother. 20 Martha therefore, when she heard that Jesus was coming, went to meet Him, but Mary stayed at the house. 21 Martha then said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 Even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She said to Him, “Yes, Lord; I have believed that You are the Christ, the Son of God, even He who comes into the world.”

28 When she had said this, she went away and called Mary her sister, saying secretly, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” 29 And when she heard it, she got up quickly and was coming to Him.

30 Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha met Him. 31 Then the Jews who were with her in the house, and consoling her, when they saw that Mary got up quickly and went out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32 Therefore, when Mary came where Jesus was, she saw Him, and fell at His feet, saying to Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled, 34 and said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to Him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus wept. 36 So the Jews were saying, “See how He loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind man, have kept this man also from dying?”

38 So Jesus, again being deeply moved within, came to the tomb. Now it was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 Jesus said, “Remove the stone.” Martha, the sister of the deceased, said to Him, “Lord, by this time there will be a stench, for he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” 41 So they removed the stone. Then Jesus raised His eyes, and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. 42 I knew that You always hear Me; but because of the people standing around I said it, so that they may believe that You sent Me.” 43 When He had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth.” 44 The man who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.” (John 11:1-44)

In our era of instant-communications, we barely remember when all news from friends and loved-ones came by “snail-mail“, so it is hard for us to fathom that it could have taken several days for Jesus and His disciples to have found out about Lazarus’ sickness, but it did. At the end of John 10, Jesus had escaped Jerusalem with a price on His head and headed East to beyond the Jordan River where it was a bit “safer“. Jesus and His disciples were there when they heard the news that Lazarus was sick. “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.”

Jesus was deeply-relational. Mary, Martha and Lazarus weren’t merely “friends“; they were virtually “family“. Jesus’ love for them transcended “friendship“; it was a deep, intimate love, which was reserved for those who were closest to Him, such as John.

I have no biological siblings, but I have a few dear friends who have become “family” to me. We care about each other on a far-deeper level than mere “friendship“. Maybe you have some of those too.

Mary and Martha had sent for Jesus, but He didn’t respond immediately. He stayed where He was for two more days. Oh, He could have spoken the word and Lazarus would have been healed immediately, but He didn’t. He waited until after the funeral. Jesus tells us why He waited in verse 4, But when Jesus heard this, He said, “This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it.”

17 So when Jesus came, He found that he had already been in the tomb four days. 18 Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off; 19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary, to console them concerning their brother. 20 Martha therefore, when she heard that Jesus was coming, went to meet Him, but Mary stayed at the house. 21 Martha then said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 Even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She said to Him, “Yes, Lord; I have believed that You are the Christ, the Son of God, even He who comes into the world.”

Lazarus being in the tomb for four days was proof-positive that he was actually DEAD. He also wasn’t in a coma or merely sleeping. He was stone-cold DEAD. Bethany was close enough to Jerusalem for her to have friends there, and many of them had come to console Mary and Martha, and while funerals happened very quickly, public-mourning continued for quite a while.

Martha was reeling from the death of her brother, but Jesus could have prevented his death. She expresses a curios mix of scolding and confidence. Martha then said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 Even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.”

Jesus begins to show her that, while He was too late to prevent Lazarus’ death, it WASN’T too late for Him to do something about it. Jesus wanted her, and us, to realize that God doesn’t operate on our time-schedule. 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”

Martha, unlike the Sadducees who didn’t believe in a resurrection, DID believe that Lazarus would be raised when the final-curtain was dropped on this phase of our human existence. However, she still didn’t have any confidence that Lazarus would rejoin their family. It seemed that death had still gotten the last word…

This is where Jesus begins turning the tide. 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; Standing before her was the very Creator, the ultimate Author of life. He had breathed life into a pile of dust and given Adam life. He was also the ultimate Authority on resurrection, because if He could breathe life into mankind, He could also breathe new life into a man. He was also making an explicit-claim to Deity because only God could raise the dead.

His next claim either confirms His place in the looney-bin or completely-separates Him from the rest of humanity. “He who believes in Me will live even if he dies, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.” He is either who He says He is, the Incarnate Son of God, or the biggest fraud that ever walked the earth, because He is claiming that those who truly believe in Him WILL have eternal life.

“Do you believe this?” This is the reality-check. Does Martha believe in Him? Her answer shows that she was willing to risk believing His claims and lay skepticism aside. She knew that, standing before her, was the ONLY person who could alter the course of history, who could make their family whole again. 27 She said to Him, “Yes, Lord; I have believed that You are the Christ, the Son of God, even He who comes into the world.” She affirms that she believes that He is the long-awaited Messiah.

28 When she had said this, she went away and called Mary her sister, saying secretly, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” 29 And when she heard it, she got up quickly and was coming to Him. Mary didn’t waste any time going back with Martha to where Jesus was.

30 Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha met Him. 31 Then the Jews who were with her in the house, and consoling her, when they saw that Mary got up quickly and went out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32 Therefore, when Mary came where Jesus was, she saw Him, and fell at His feet, saying to Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled, 34 and said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to Him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus wept. 36 So the Jews were saying, “See how He loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind man, have kept this man also from dying?”

Two sisters, same exact statement to Jesus, but He gave two very-different responses. Why? Both sisters expressed confidence that Jesus could have prevented Lazarus from dying if He had been there. How could He confront Martha one moment and bawl like a baby with Mary the next? He was strong one moment and vulnerable the next. He was either a deluded, wacko nut-case, or He was who He said He was, the Incarnate Son of God. He revealed both His true Deity and His true Humanity by His responses to Martha and Mary. He is both fully God and fully human, the perfect God-Man. His favorite title for Himself was “Son of Man“.

When we look at Martha, she is almost angry at Jesus because He allowed Lazarus to die. Had He gotten there sooner, He could have healed Lazarus, rather than allowing him to die. Mary approached Jesus with pleading-humility, falling at His feet. Why did Jesus answer Martha rather harshly, while He entered Mary’s grief and broke out in tears?
Jesus demonstrated both “sides” of His personhood, that He is fully-God, and at the same time, fully-human. His deity allows Him to claim, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.” , while His humanity allows Him to enter into our pain and grief.

33 When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled, 34 and said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to Him, “Lord, come and see.” We may be wondering why Jesus didn’t know where Lazarus was buried, but that may have been in deference to His friends.

35 Jesus wept. This is the shortest verse in the Bible, and it should cause us to pause and rethink our doctrine of Christ. He was God, enshrouded in human-flesh.

38 So Jesus, again being deeply moved within, came to the tomb. Now it was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 Jesus said “Remove the stone.” Martha, the sister of the deceased, said to Him, “Lord, by this time there will be a stench, for he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” 41 So they removed the stone. Then Jesus raised His eyes, and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. 42 I knew that You always hear Me; but because of the people standing around I said it, so that they may believe that You sent Me.” 43 When He had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth.” 44 The man who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Jesus hurt with Mary, Martha and their friends as they came to Lazarus’ tomb, which was simply a cave with a stone rolled in front of the entrance. It was, in most cases, reusable, because in that desert climate, bodies dried out very quickly, leaving nothing but bones, allowing other family members to be buried in it also. Joseph was buried in Egypt, but he bound his family with an oath that they would take his bones with them when God liberated them from Egyptian domination. (Genesis 50:24-26). He didn’t want to be interred permanently in Egypt.

39 Jesus said “Remove the stone.” Martha, the sister of the deceased, said to Him, “Lord, by this time there will be a stench, for he has been dead four days.” Only dead bodies decay, proof that Lazarus was really DEAD. The stench of death was going to be replaced with the joy of resurrection.

40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” 41 So they removed the stone. Jesus, speaking as God Incarnate, was going to reveal the glory of God in a dramatic way.

Then Jesus raised His eyes, and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. 42 I knew that You always hear Me; but because of the people standing around I said it, so that they may believe that You sent Me.” Jesus’ prayer may sound strange to us a first-glance, but it reveals something very profound about who He is, His intimate connection with His Father. He wasn’t just a man with an elevated “God-consciousness“; He was the Incarnate Son of God. He was God in human-flesh. He had a perfect “hotline” with His Father far beyond our wildest imaginations.

When Jesus walked up to the tomb, He didn’t have a look of glee on His face. No, He had tears in His eyes, and righteous-indignation in His heart, because Sin, the Fall, and the Curse had robbed Him of one of His dearest friends. As Creator-God, He never intended for Lazarus’ story, or anyone else’s story to end this way, in death. We are created to live, not to die.

Was He already starting to feel the icy-jaws of death close around Him? He knew that in order to raise Lazarus from the dead, He would have to die for the sins of His people. In order to interrupt Lazarus’ funeral, He would have to be buried too, and only by His own glorious resurrection would He be able to secure Lazarus’ resurrection. He was only a few days away from the cross…

We can almost hear the anger in His voice and see His rage as He bellowed-out “Lazarus, come forth.” Death was not supposed to claim the lives of those we love, but it had claimed the life of one of His dearest friends, Lazarus. They were virtually family. He was staring in the face of the vilest result of our fall into sin, death. Death wasn’t part of God’s original plan. Death came as the ultimate curse of the Fall. It wasn’t “natural“, it wasn’t “normal“, even though we have come to think of Death as being both “natural” and “normal“.

How many people have you known who have slipped the bonds of this life and entered into the next life without dying first? If you are like me, you have attended far too many funerals as you have lost far too many friends and loved-ones to death. I lost my “twin” brother in 2011. That was a tough memorial service, but I couldn’t have NOT been there. My dad died in 2013. My friend Liz lost her mother in 2015 and her father this year as well as her best friend. I lost my mother in April.

He, who was the Creator of Heaven and Earth, invaded the Dragon’s lair, bound the Dragon, grabbed the keys and released one of its captives. He, who had breathed life into the first man, breathed new life in Lazarus. The Dragon would not be finally slain until Jesus strode from His own tomb after His crucifixion.

Lazarus didn’t come out of his grave as a zombie; rather he came out of his grave struggling with his grave-clothes. Lazarus was, after he was relieved of his grave-clothes, buck-naked. When someone died, those who were close to them washed their body, and if spices were available, packed spices around the body as they wrapped it almost “mummy-style“. Since clothing was handmade and costly, there was no reason to bury them in their clothes.

We can imagine the jubilation of his friends and family when Lazarus walked out of the grave – ALIVE. That would have been an event to celebrate in style. Their family was whole again!

45 Therefore many of the Jews who came to Mary, and saw what He had done, believed in Him. (John 11:1-45)

Why does Jesus’ humanity matter? Only by becoming human, one of us, was He able to live the life we cannot live, die the death that we deserve in our place, and be resurrected that we may be resurrected. God had to become a man, so that man could be brought back into fellowship with God.

A prominent theologian, who is the son of a prominent theologian, recently had to resign all of his positions in disgrace because he was caught driving under the influence of alcohol, AND, he had a minor child with him. The arresting-officer wasn’t swayed by who he is and what he has done prior to that time, because in the eyes of the law, he had violated the law. The judge might be lenient on him, but he won’t get off Scott-free. Thus it is when we stand before God. Regardless of how “good” we may have been, we were born sinners, and regardless of how “minor” our sins may have been, we are guilty before God, and there is NOT any “plea-bargaining“. There is ONLY on plea that holds up in God’s court and prevails, and that is the blood and righteousness of Christ on our behalf. Had God not become human in the person of Jesus Christ, there would NOT be any acceptable plea. We would ALL be guilty before God.

That was the way it was with the Apostle Paul. Paul, then known as Saul, was a Pharisee who was zealous for the Law of God, yet he rejected the very Messiah he had longed for all his life. He also rejected and persecuted the very faith that had grown up around Christ and His teachings. When the risen Christ confronted him on the road to Damascus, He didn’t confront him about the “good” that he had done, but about the EVIL he was doing. Paul was guilty before God, and he needed a new heart and a new life-direction. Acts 9:1-7 recounts his conversion.

His humanity also matters because He experienced everything that we experience, pain, sorrow, loss and grief, so that when we experience those things, He can share in them with us. When I lost my mom, as painful as it was, my supreme-comfort was that she is in the presence of God, and that Jesus shares in my pain, sorrow, loss and grief. I don’t travel this road alone. Jesus is with me every step of the way.

The Apostle Paul gives us even deeper reason to believe in Jesus’ true humanity:
12 Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. 15 Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; 17 and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. (1 Corinthians 15:12-19)

If Jesus had not truly become a man, He could not have died on the Cross, and He couldn’t have been raised from the dead. All of these events are absolutely-vital to our salvation. Paul ends with these words; “we are of all men most to be pitied.”

The Heidelberg Catechism opens with these beautiful words:
Q. 1 What is your only comfort in life and in death?
A. That I am not my own, but belong — body and soul,
in life and in death — to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood,
and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil.

He also watches over me in such a way
that not a hair can fall from my head
without the will of my Father in heaven;
in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.

Because I belong to him,
Christ, by his Holy Spirit,
assures me of eternal life
and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready
from now on to live for him.

For those who are in Christ, we are kept by the Lord and Creator of the cosmos. Jesus didn’t abandon His earthly-body when He ascended back into Heaven. He is living at the right hand of God the Father as the eternal God-Man, as fully-human as we are.

Is Jesus your Savior and Lord? I pray that He is, but if He isn’t your Savior and Lord, tomorrow is not guaranteed, nor are you even guaranteed your next breathe. We all have an appointment with death, but we don’t know when that will be. As I was working on this message, one of my elderly neighbors took her last breathe. I had seen her outside that morning. Only God knows her eternal-destiny. The only way for you to be certain that, when you die, that you will meet your Creator in peace, is by humbly acknowledging your need for a Savior and committing your life to Christ. He died that you might live, and He lives that you might live with Him forever. May this be your day of salvation. Jesus is waiting for you…

In Christ,
Steve