This week in Sunday School we discussed Romans 11:33-36. The more I dwell on this passage the more amazed I am at the God that we serve. This expression of praise begins with the acknowledgment of how much God knows and the wisdom He exudes with this knowledge. I had asked the class for things that the Scriptures say that God knows. I am sharing part of this list and I hope that it encourage you today to realize that God has it all under control.
God knows me. (Psalm 139:1)
- he knows when I sit and rise
- he knows my thoughts
- he knew all of my days before I was formed
- he knows our anxious thoughts
God knows the names of the stars. (Psalm 147:4)
God knows when a sparrow falls to the ground. (Matthew 10:29)
God knows our names and we are His. (Is. 43:1)
God knows past, present and future. (Revelation 22:13)
God knows the numbers of hair on your head. (Luke 12:7)
And the list goes on and on. The point is that a God who is all knowing certainly sees what you are going through and better yet knows the end of it and how He is going to use that event to bring about His glory! Let us praise God together for how powerful His knowledge truly is!
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
Tuesday, March 21, 2017
The Light of the World
As a pastor there are usually only a few Sundays per year that I get to hear a sermon. I love it when on one of those rare occasions, the sermon you hear is a good one! This week we had our missionary Tim Blazer give the message and he called our attention to Matthew 5:14-16 and reminded us that we are the light of the world.
One of the things I appreciated most about the sermon was the point about us being illuminated bodies. He pointed out that we are not luminescent bodies - we do not shine on our own. Christ was this. He was the Light of the World. He shone in darkness and darkness did not comprehend it. We instead, are like the moon. We have no light on our own. We shine a reflected light. What a glorious truth. It is so important that we do not draw attention to ourselves, but instead choose to shine the light of Jesus and allow Him to do the glowing through us!
When you think about your shine, are you shining the light of Jesus or some other light? It is tempting to shine our own lights. To make our lives about ourselves. To make the world see us. This is a wrong course of action for the Christian. However, there are other ways we can fail to shine properly. When we draw more attention to our church than to Christ, we have failed in our role as illuminated bodies. When we draw more attention to our denomination than to Christ we have failed in our role as illuminated bodies. In fact, if anything is the center of our lives other than Christ Jesus, than we have failed to shine His light and are shining a non-light. This is perhaps why we have lost our impact, because we are shining the wrong light!
When we sing, "This little light of mine, I am going to let it shine. . . " we are in fact teaching bad theology. First of all the light is not mine, it is the light of Christ shining through me. And secondly, the light is not in any way little. It is the light of Christ, the light that in the end will eliminate the need for sun or moon or stars. This light is a powerful light. It is true however that we have to make the choice to let it shine. We have to dim and hide all the other things in our lives that would obscure the true light and let Christ shine through us.
One of the things I appreciated most about the sermon was the point about us being illuminated bodies. He pointed out that we are not luminescent bodies - we do not shine on our own. Christ was this. He was the Light of the World. He shone in darkness and darkness did not comprehend it. We instead, are like the moon. We have no light on our own. We shine a reflected light. What a glorious truth. It is so important that we do not draw attention to ourselves, but instead choose to shine the light of Jesus and allow Him to do the glowing through us!
When you think about your shine, are you shining the light of Jesus or some other light? It is tempting to shine our own lights. To make our lives about ourselves. To make the world see us. This is a wrong course of action for the Christian. However, there are other ways we can fail to shine properly. When we draw more attention to our church than to Christ, we have failed in our role as illuminated bodies. When we draw more attention to our denomination than to Christ we have failed in our role as illuminated bodies. In fact, if anything is the center of our lives other than Christ Jesus, than we have failed to shine His light and are shining a non-light. This is perhaps why we have lost our impact, because we are shining the wrong light!
When we sing, "This little light of mine, I am going to let it shine. . . " we are in fact teaching bad theology. First of all the light is not mine, it is the light of Christ shining through me. And secondly, the light is not in any way little. It is the light of Christ, the light that in the end will eliminate the need for sun or moon or stars. This light is a powerful light. It is true however that we have to make the choice to let it shine. We have to dim and hide all the other things in our lives that would obscure the true light and let Christ shine through us.
Tuesday, March 14, 2017
Being One Heart
Acts 4:32 reminds us that the believers that were forming the church were of one heart and soul. I find it interesting that we tend to use the heart to describe romantic love so often in our culture that this sounds almost weird. We think of being soulmates with the person we are romantically involved with. We have completely and totally surrendered the concept of love to romantic love. In doing so, we have hindered our ability to understand and appreciate the ways that we are to love people that our outside of our romantic life. We have allowed the culture to define love and we fail to understand how we are to love people outside of our conceptualization of romantic love.
I believe that we need to go back to a biblical understanding of love and allow it to define all other dimensions of love for us. Love, biblically, begins with God. "We love Him because He first loved us." This is more than just a verse to memorize, it is a foundation upon which we build our loves. Love is defined and explained in God himself. Without going into too much detail (I would encourage you to study this on your own) love begins with the love that the Trinity has within God himself. God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit love one another with a self-sacrificial, obedient, all consuming love. When we think of what God has done for us, love is patient as God is patient. Love is kind as God is kind. Love keeps no record of wrongs because God has forgiven our sins. All that love is should be and is defined in the character of God.
Romantic love is a misnomer. In fact, in the culture of the ancient near east, romanticism was secondary to family. Family chose your spouse for you for the benefit of the family. In a different culture we need to recognize that romantic love is still secondary to familial love. Love is to be expressed in family in different ways. Children are to express their love for parents through obedience. Parents are to express their love for one another in service and mutual submission. Both are to express their love for parents or children as a reflection of their love for God.
In the church then we should think of love in this familial sense. We are to submit to one another to point to a God who is greater. We are to serve one another because of our God who served us. We are to sacrifice for one another because of the sacrifice of our Lord and Savior. This is easy to understand. And when it comes time to consider starting a family of your own I would encourage you not to think of love in the romantic sense, but in this same familial sense in which your job is to seek someone who can serve God with you.
When we are able to do this people will come to know the God we serve. They will know we are Christians by our love for one another after all!
I believe that we need to go back to a biblical understanding of love and allow it to define all other dimensions of love for us. Love, biblically, begins with God. "We love Him because He first loved us." This is more than just a verse to memorize, it is a foundation upon which we build our loves. Love is defined and explained in God himself. Without going into too much detail (I would encourage you to study this on your own) love begins with the love that the Trinity has within God himself. God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit love one another with a self-sacrificial, obedient, all consuming love. When we think of what God has done for us, love is patient as God is patient. Love is kind as God is kind. Love keeps no record of wrongs because God has forgiven our sins. All that love is should be and is defined in the character of God.
Romantic love is a misnomer. In fact, in the culture of the ancient near east, romanticism was secondary to family. Family chose your spouse for you for the benefit of the family. In a different culture we need to recognize that romantic love is still secondary to familial love. Love is to be expressed in family in different ways. Children are to express their love for parents through obedience. Parents are to express their love for one another in service and mutual submission. Both are to express their love for parents or children as a reflection of their love for God.
In the church then we should think of love in this familial sense. We are to submit to one another to point to a God who is greater. We are to serve one another because of our God who served us. We are to sacrifice for one another because of the sacrifice of our Lord and Savior. This is easy to understand. And when it comes time to consider starting a family of your own I would encourage you not to think of love in the romantic sense, but in this same familial sense in which your job is to seek someone who can serve God with you.
When we are able to do this people will come to know the God we serve. They will know we are Christians by our love for one another after all!
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
Worry
"So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:34 (NASB)
I am not sure upon initially reading this verse that it is that much of an encouragement. After all it ends with a reminder of the trouble that we will have in each day. Don't worry about tomorrow because there is enough to worry about today does not sound all that uplifting! And yet when we understand the context, we see the great encouragement.
You see, Matthew has just recorded the words of Jesus that says that God will care for our daily needs. He has stated it in the prayer that Jesus teaches the disciples in verse 11. He has stated it in verse 30 when He reminded us that God cares for us. So we can know with confidence that God is going to care for our daily needs, and that is where we really find the encouragement. We don't need to worry about tomorrow because we don't need to worry about today because both are in the hands of our Sovereign God.
But this is only good news for us if we use this knowledge to do what God has called us to do. You see, worrying about tomorrow or today is set in contrast to something in the passage. We are also told that this type of anxiety is common to mankind and that we as believers should do something different with our anxiety. We seek something other than freedom from worry. This is interesting because most of us probably have some anxiety, and most of us wish we did not have anxiety. But fixing anxiety is not as simple as doing better. It is not about practice, it is about refocussing. It is about reminding ourselves that God is great. And, the secret to freedom from anxiety is given to us by Jesus himself in the book of Matthew in verse 33 of this same chapter.
"But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." Matthew 6:33 (NASB)
The secret to anxiety free living is simply to change what you seek. If you seek freedom from anxiety, you will not find it. But if you seek the Kingdom of God and the righteousness of God you will find freedom from anxiety as well as being able to better see the care of God for you. So today make a commitment to yourself to seek God first. And when you do, believe that the freedom from anxiety will be a natural result of your commitment to God first.
I am not sure upon initially reading this verse that it is that much of an encouragement. After all it ends with a reminder of the trouble that we will have in each day. Don't worry about tomorrow because there is enough to worry about today does not sound all that uplifting! And yet when we understand the context, we see the great encouragement.
You see, Matthew has just recorded the words of Jesus that says that God will care for our daily needs. He has stated it in the prayer that Jesus teaches the disciples in verse 11. He has stated it in verse 30 when He reminded us that God cares for us. So we can know with confidence that God is going to care for our daily needs, and that is where we really find the encouragement. We don't need to worry about tomorrow because we don't need to worry about today because both are in the hands of our Sovereign God.
But this is only good news for us if we use this knowledge to do what God has called us to do. You see, worrying about tomorrow or today is set in contrast to something in the passage. We are also told that this type of anxiety is common to mankind and that we as believers should do something different with our anxiety. We seek something other than freedom from worry. This is interesting because most of us probably have some anxiety, and most of us wish we did not have anxiety. But fixing anxiety is not as simple as doing better. It is not about practice, it is about refocussing. It is about reminding ourselves that God is great. And, the secret to freedom from anxiety is given to us by Jesus himself in the book of Matthew in verse 33 of this same chapter.
"But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." Matthew 6:33 (NASB)
The secret to anxiety free living is simply to change what you seek. If you seek freedom from anxiety, you will not find it. But if you seek the Kingdom of God and the righteousness of God you will find freedom from anxiety as well as being able to better see the care of God for you. So today make a commitment to yourself to seek God first. And when you do, believe that the freedom from anxiety will be a natural result of your commitment to God first.
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