The good news of Christ
O Lord, the world rushes on in its small affairs, people with no time for you or for others, no patience to hear the word of truth because they are living a lie.
Keep me from going that way. Make me a crier of good news. Praise to you for showing me eternal glory. Your mercy and sovereignty have brought this gift.
Thank you for the peace of great hope, for living in the moment because we have heaven, for joy in the power of the Scriptures to save.
Heavenly Father, from you comes life and peace and freedom.
Because you love, we breathe and move and exist.
Make life more precious to me every day.
May that preciousness be extended to others who walk in spiritual death.
Holy God, where impurity hides in me, purify and cleanse me.
Where fears lurk to hold me back from trusting in you, make faith to overcome.
When temptation appears at my weakest moment, put your Word in my mouth.
At times of sadness, when the heart breaks, cheer my soul in your goodness.
Touch me with your presence in the silence of loneliness.
When satisfaction in life is missing, fill my heart with your Spirit.
At every sign of vanity and uselessness of this earthly life, put the hope of eternity before me.
Let Jesus be to me my all.
The cross is the dividing line in history. If the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed, then the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. So, how did we get the 27 books that fill the ‘canon’ or ‘rule of faith’?
I. 2 Peter 3:15-16. God inspired and preserved the New Testament. The new covenant was prophesied in Jeremiah 31:31-34 and spoken about by Jesus in Luke 22:20, but what a confusing time the 1st Century must have been for Christians wondering who and what to believe as God’s Word came first orally through various gifts of the Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 2:13) to its written form (1 Corinthians 14:37). Peter calls Paul’s letters ‘Scripture’ along with other books at that time.
II. Matthew 13:24-25. The enemy has always operated by sowing weeds, and so the time of confusion during the 1st Century was no different. While Christians wondered what was from God and what was not, the enemy sowed perversions (gnosticism), false teachings (Acts 15:1), and heretics like Marcion who declared just the writings of Paul and Luke’s gospel as authoritative. This, though, caused the church to re-evaluate what books they already considered authoritative and used in their worship services. The declaration of later church councils on the 27 books we have in the New Testament today did not “give us the Bible” but rather confirmed what Christians had already been using for centuries.
III. 2 Timothy 3:16-17. We have all we need from that which we know to be ‘Scripture’ as it thoroughly equips us. God’s divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness “through our knowledge ….”
This means we can study and obey the New Testament. Let us not be ignorant or unstable, twisting them to our destruction. Rather, let us let God speak to us about His Son on the cross who rose from the dead.
We do not know the evil we do
With one complaint,
The slightest murmur upon the lips
Of God’s own saint.
Forgive, O Lord, our lack of thanks
For gifts of joy;
By shrunken hearts prevent that we
Your grace destroy.
O those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer …
I come from a long line of work-aholics … therefore, I’ve always struggled in this area. Work first, play later–but later there’s always more work to do! Because I’ve always filled every moment of every day with tasks to accomplish, I’ve never really learned to relax or develop hobbies. Industriousness, after all, is praised in the Bible:
“Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise …. A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest — and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man” Proverbs 6:6-11.
But so is rest! “There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest …” Leviticus 23:3. I know, I know, that’s Old Testament Law and meant for the Israelites, but does that mean that we in the New Testament age should never rest?
I suppose that many in my position as an evangelist of a small church in a remote area of the U.S. surrounded by all of the cultural opulence and abundance of the 21st Century might go the opposite direction and be lazy in leisure and luxury. I cheer inwardly when I read the many proverbs against this, like … “The sluggard buries his hand in the dish; he is too lazy to bring it back to his mouth” Proverbs 26:15.
But maybe it’s because that’s someone else’s problem, not mine! We had a cat who would eat lying down with her head in her dish, munching every once in a while when she was not napping there. We mocked her for it, but she didn’t care–she was a cat!
It’s easier to point out the sins of others than deal with our own weaknesses. Isn’t that what the self-righteous Pharisee said about the humble tax-collector too ashamed to lift his eyes? “God, I thank you that I am not like other men–robbers, evildoers, adulterers–or even like this tax collector” (Luke 18:11).
Maybe that’s the point. In this polarized age of immersing ourselves in what we agree with, we cannot do that with God’s Word. We have to let the double-edge of the Sword come back on us (Hebrews 4:12-13) and let ourselves be taught, corrected, rebuked, and trained (2 Timothy 3:16-17) by the passages that make us squirm the most.
So, I think I might go read a book … right after I mow the lawn.
The man in the WWII hat shuffled towards the door of the bank I was exiting, and even though I was in a hurry, I waited and held the heavy door open for him. Surely my general courtesy could extend so far. Then, he stopped in the doorway, thanked me, and asked if I knew of a Volkswagon dealership in the area. I didn’t and it would have been so easy to politely tell him that so I could get to my errands, but instead I took out my smartphone and googled the information for him right there.
I. Philippians 2:1-8. So often we tell ourselves that we love others and, of course, love God when we really are just looking out for our own interests. God says that if we love others, we first love Him by making His joy complete by being like-minded and one, focused as one on the goal of heaven.
II. 1 John 3:16-18. We need to love others like Jesus did us: dying for our sins and rising for our redemption. This means action and sacrifice! We understand this as parents, but we must extend this to others, some who have done nothing for us or may even be enemies (Romans 5:6-8).
III. 1 John 2:3-6. When Jesus took on flesh, He did not take a vacation among His creation. He emptied Himself of His Godness and became like us in every way, so that He could suffer, die, and rise from the dead–for us! We are to have that same attitude; we must obey to walk as Jesus did.
This time the sacrifice of my time took about half a minute, and I was able to tell this elderly veteran what he needed to know. Referring to my phone, he said he might have to get himself one of those “frizzly-frazzly” things. Though it may cost, how do you look out for the interests of others?