Following Jesus Son of God …

Ugly is easy.

Attractiveness is hard.

Alistair Begg, Truth for Life Radio Broadcast, May 18 2009

1 John 4.16-18

And so we know the love that God has for us, and we trust that love. God is love. Those who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.¹⁷ This is how love is made perfect in us: that we can be without fear on the day God judges us, because in this world we are like him.¹⁸ Where God’s love is, there is no fear, because God’s perfect love drives out fear. It is punishment that makes a person fear, so love is not made perfect in the person who fears.

How many times do we allow the evening news or the morning newspaper to contextualize our perspective of the day?

We allow the media, the very same media whom we accuse of such liberal bias and hostility to our beliefs, to shape our approach to our day, to our world.  Funny as in ironic, don’t you think?

Once in a grad school class, the professor said that if some major happening was reported in the news and that wasn’t in our Sunday sermon, then we were dropping the ball.

Really?  I mean, do I forget Psalm 46 or run scared and preach fear like the doubters in Psalm 11?

(Psalms 46:2-3 MSG)  We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom, courageous in seastorm and earthquake,
(3)  Before the rush and roar of oceans, the tremors that shift mountains. Jacob-wrestling God fights for us, GOD of angel armies protects us.

God tells me that even if the mountains fall into the sea I don’t have to fear.

Do bad things happen?  Yes.  Should we at times address these issues?  Yes.  Should we allow the evening news to dictate our preaching schedule?  I think not.

Read the paper, listen to or watch the news on radio or television.  What is the dominant emotion that is stirred?  FEAR!

And I just believe that we, as children of God, shouldn’t be so afraid.  And I believe God agrees with me.  Chuckle.  Maybe it’s me agreeing with God.

Connected with God through our love for him and our love for others, our perspective of this world will take a very different shape.  We see people less as enemies, less as competitors, less threatening, and, yes, we see them more as our God sees them.

How disheartening it can be to listen to the radio and hear Christians bemoan the state of this world.  Our problem is really that our “worlds” may be falling apart, but God’s world will never be shaken.  Our agendas of morality, justice and the American way may be endangered but not God’s plan.

Nope, not one itty bitty part is changed by all the bad stuff we report.

We haven’t forgotten who rules after all, have we?

So maybe our fear needs dealt with through a life of love?  It seems that is what God is saying.

I like that idea!

I would like to revise some comments from the last post concerning Steve Brown.  I meant much more than I wrote in that brief post.  I just wanted to draw attention to his ministry through the web site and the free podcasts.  If anyone listens to Steve Brown for any length of time, he realizes that SB is much more than humor.  I didn’t mean to leave a wrong impression that I listen only for the jokes.  He does have some dandies however.

I sincerely appreciate his poking and prodding, his personal transparency in the context of God’s amazing words and solid, biblical theology.  In other words he is deep, and, no, I don’t mean in that way.  🙂   Well, come to think of it I do check to see if my boots are laced up at times.

Listen!  I think I can hear him chuckle.

He talks and “those people” to whom he is always prodding somehow becomes this person listening.  Hey! How’d he do that?

“The Ten Stupid Things Christians Do to Mess Up Their Lives” series has been GREAT!!!

CHECK IT OUT, HERE’S THE LINK:       http://www.keylife.org/podcasts/

I almost always enjoy listening to Steve Brown on Key Life, sometimes more for the humor, often just appreciate his candor.

It seems he is always pretty transparent but lately it seems even more so, and the things he has been sharing have been just great.

Here’s the link:       http://www.keylife.org/

His podcasts are free.

2 Peter 3.18
But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.

Growing in grace and knowledge is more, so much more, than expanding your biblical knowledge database.

Part of what puts us on this “knowledge detour” is the fact that God’s words are so powerful that even tapping this tremendous resource at only the information level can be pretty exciting.  Think about it, after all these are God’s eternal words.

But to follow Christ, to grow in his grace and knowledge, we must take the interactive approach.

God’s words are to live more than just in our minds.  Intellectual fancy and obsession with truth, even God’s truth, can be nothing more than our confused pursuit of goodness apart from God.

“It’s alive!  It’s alive!” (per the Capital One commercial per  the 1931 classic, Frankenstein)

God’s words are alive and are meant to live in us. To grow in grace and knowledge, we must follow Jesus Christ on the path.  We must live the words.

Just as God tells us.

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4.4 NIV).

So I will say it out loud.  Bible study can be deceptive and dangerous if we wrongly handle the “God words.”

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth (2 Timothy 2.15 NIV).

Can we see that correctly handling, or “rightly dividing” the word of truth involves our entire approach to the words of God?  We must take nothing for granted, pushing our assumptions aside, trembling before his words, and asking him how and where to start and continue the journey.

Jeremiah 5.22, 24a ESV

Do you not fear me? declares the Lord.

Do you not tremble before me?

I placed the sand as the boundary for the sea, a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass; though the waves toss, they cannot prevail; though they roar, they cannot pass over it.

They do not say in their hearts, “Let us fear the Lord our God. . .

So what are we really saying in our hearts when we approach God through his words?

I asked “Do we believe in a gospel that allows us to face the worst about ourselves, our past and our future?”

But what about now?

Many of us struggle with now, so, yes, we also need a gospel that allows us to face ourselves now.  We need to realize God’s sufficiency in the shed blood of Jesus Christ, and we need to realize God’s joy and very solid intent that we will be what he has determined we will be.

The craftsman paid an extreme price to redeem us from the garbage heap.  He saw little specks and reflections of his image, his handiwork and he bought what was already his so he could restore it better than before.

If you have trusted in Christ for the forgiveness of sins and received his gift of eternal life, then this is what is going on in your life, right now, at this moment.  The Master Craftsman, Creator and Redeemer, is restoring you to himself.

We have all admired someone’s excellent work and were so impressed – Wow!  Well, friend, God is doing “Wow!” work in your life right now, today, at this moment.  Yes, even in your dark moments the Master is at work.  He says it to be so.

Romans 8.26-39 (MSG)

^26-28Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

^29-30God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.

^31-39So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:

They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.’

None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

. . .the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

WOW!

Ran across this a little while ago on an archived page on one of my sites.

“You wonder if sometimes we should be more concerned about gossip in the Church than liberalism in the media.”

Jeremiah 9.12-14

12  I asked, “Is there anyone around bright enough to tell us what’s
going on here? Anyone who has the inside story from GOD and
can let us in on it?
“Why is the country wasted?
“Why no travelers in this desert?”

13  GOD’s answer: “Because they abandoned my plain teaching.
They wouldn’t listen to anything I said, refused to live the way I
told them to.

14  Instead they lived any way they wanted and took  up with the
Baal gods, who they thought would give them what they
wanted–following the example of their parents.”

I asked, “Do we believe in a gospel that allows us to believe the worst about ourselves?” Do we believe in a gospel that allows us to confidently face the past and the future?  That is the gospel offered through Jesus Christ.  That is the promise of God through his Son, the power and right to become children of God.

What I thought I needed to add this morning is this:  We need to believe in a gospel that allows us to believe the worst about ourselves and that God is going to do something good beyond our imagination with the “mess.”

John 1.6-13 (New Living Translation)

⁶ God sent a man, John the Baptist,⁷ to tell about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony. ⁸ John himself was not the light; he was simply a witness to tell about the light. ⁹ The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

¹⁰ He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him. ¹¹ He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. ¹² But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. ¹³ They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.

So I ask, “The gospel you believe in, is it the one that God offers through his Holy Book the Bible?”

Does your gospel properly deal with the bogeyman?  Can you let your feet dangle over the edge of your bed?  Do you have “no worries” if someone opens the closet looking for embarrassing skeletons from your past?  When Satan accuses you and dredges up your past and present struggles, do you have God’s answer firmly embedded in your heart?  Forgiven, forever, righteousness and beautiful in the eyes of God, not because of what I have accomplished or who I am but because of what Jesus Son of God has accomplished on my behalf and on account of who he is.

Because of Jesus I stand forever in the good grace of God.

Jesus paid it all, fellow traveler, and the good God promises to do with his Son’s sacrifice is beyond our dreams.

Ephesians 3.14-21

^14-19My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.

^20-21God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.

Glory to God in the church!
Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus!
Glory down all the generations!
Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!

So stand, Friend, stand firm in the grace of God!

Alistair Begg reminded me, rebuked me, invigorated me concerning the opportunity and privilege of intercessory prayer earlier this week.

The “miracle” of radio came through again.  Isn’t it amazing.  This man can speak into a microphone, and I can be cruising around in my loader and I can hear what God has spoken into his heart.

And a few days ago that subject was intercessory prayer.  And he basically said that we have to believe that God is moved when we pray, something happens, we can’t really explain all the interconnections with sovereignty and providence, etc. but God tells us to pray.

We should pray as though it means something because it does.

And we have the fantastic opportunity to stand in the gap, to be the ambassador for other earth dwellers, some of whom couldn’t care less about God at the moment.

But we can stand between God and man and intercede.  A clay pot, an earthy vessel, just me, just you, believers in Jesus Christ implementing part of the “package” of Christianity that Christ paid for, the ability and opportunity to be an intercessor.

This morning I pictured myself in just this way, in between heaven and earth so to speak, bringing my prayers before God for my children, friends, coworkers, church family, my whole “list” before God, knowing heaven listened.

So thanks, Alistair.  I knew this stuff, but I needed my focus sharpened, my vision of prayer invigorated with the words of truth from a sovereign God through his human instrument.  The Holy Wind through a human heart, spoken into a microphone and broadcast for millions to hear.

Is that groovy or what?

And thank you, Almighty God, King of heaven and earth, Lord God of all, for blessing us with such a gift as radio and such a gift as your Church as we use this mighty instrument in behalf of your kingdom.

Your will be done, Father.

Philippians 4.4-9 (The Message)

^4-5Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in him! Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you’re on their side, working with them and not against them. Help them see that the Master is about to arrive. He could show up any minute!

^6-7Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.

^8-9Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.