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Not Against Us is For Us

The Titanic sank over a century ago.  The 20 lifeboats, capable of saving only 1178 of the 2208 on board pushed away half-full, saving only 705.  Why didn’t those on them save more?  Perhaps it was fear or lack of preparation in the panic of the survival situation?  Perhaps in their selfishness they judged those not on the lifeboats as either not worthy of saving or that their addition would swamp their vessel of salvation?

Like the ship, this world is sinking to its final destruction.  Each local body of the Lord’s church is a lifeboat that is only partially filled.  Rather than do the Lord’s job of judgment about who can climb in or is excluded, we need to be about ours of encouraging and teaching the way of God more accurately to those who don’t yet know it (Mark 9:38-41).

I.  Matthew 7:13-14.  A spokesman for the disciples posed the situation of a man doing good works in Jesus’ name as a problem because he was not following “us.”  After all, Jesus himself had earlier spoken of the few who were on the narrow path that led to eternal life while the many were heading to destruction.  That is not what Jesus understood was happening.  Where the followers saw this as a situation of division (1 Corinthians 1:10), God in the flesh saw one who was perhaps not yet His follower (2 Peter 3:9).

II.  Acts 19:1-7.  When we see people in other lifeboats or in areas where several local bodies of the Lord’s church meet, those who have gone from our lifeboat to another, we pray that their vessel is sound enough to save them.  But what about those treading the icy water or are just clinging to debris?  When Paul encountered “disciples” who hadn’t heard of the Holy Spirit and knew only John’s baptism, he sought to fill his lifeboat by preaching the gospel.  While maintaining the distinction between “us” and “him,” Jesus told his followers not to stop the man doing good works in His name “for the one who is not against us is for us.”

III.  Acts 18:24-26.  As a Jew, Apollos was not part of the new covenant in Christ, although God had given him many skills and he taught about Jesus as accurately as he knew.  He would be one today that many in their partially-filled lifeboat would uncaringly watch float by while he clung well to a piece of the wreckage.  Not Priscilla and Aquila.  They “took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.”  While we dismiss many Apollos-es as not doing the will of the Father, Jesus reminds us that judgment and the giving of rewards is His job (Matthew 7:21-23) while ours is to fill the lifeboat (Matthew 20:18-20).

The way of salvation is indeed narrow and few find it, but it is not up to us to designate who those few are.  Rather, understanding that those who are not against us are for us, are you filling your lifeboat?

 

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Walk as Jesus Did

As the Christian walk has been described as being on the narrow road that few find and leads to eternal life (Matthew 7:13-14), it’s easy to picture him struggling to keep his balance on a tightrope while the will within and the winds without work to knock him off.  In Philippians 3:17-21, Paul gives us three ways to persevere to the safety at the other end of the narrow line.

I. 2 Timothy 1:5-7. We must keep our eyes on those who walk according to the example. Paul ventured to tell others to follow him as he followed Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1), and then the Hebrew writer tells of the great cloud of witnesses who had walked this walk before us (Hebrews 12:1-3).  Because that walk was difficult for them (Hebrews 11:33-38), we should learn from their example, just as Timothy did from the godly women that had walked the tightrope before him.

II. Judges 2:2-10. Beware of the many who walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Colossians 3:1-4 gives us the motivation to keep our balance on the tightrope: we died with Christ and so will be raised with Him.  Sometimes that which makes us fall are of our earthly nature and our selfish will that we haven’t yet put to death (Colossians 3:5-10), and sometimes the enemies are winds of the immoral culture or circumstances beyond our control. Our example to others watching how we walk is at stake.

III. Ephesians 4:11-16. Because our citizenship is in heaven and not of this world, we must walk in obedience as Jesus did (1 John 2:3-6). He left us an example that we might follow in His steps (1 Peter 2:21-23), so we can fix our eyes on Him to persevere to the end of the tightrope.  He has given us in His church everything we need to attain unity and mature into the fullness of Him. He has given Himself and His Word as poles for balance as the whole body in fellowship helps each other reach the end.

Some on the tightrope are so concerned about their own balance that they’ve stopped helping others to step out onto it or their fellow walkers to keep their balance.  Working together using what Jesus has equipped us with, we can all reach the end safely.

 

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I Want to Be a Worker

From the shade with a cold drink in one hand and a fan in the other, many who were once workers for the Lord now watch the dwindling few still sweating in the harvest field.  We come up with a variety of excuses as to why we’re on our extended break: we’re too … old, tired, busy, or sore!  Or, the work is too difficult or dangerous … people just aren’t receptive enough anymore to the gospel … or the world doesn’t allow us to reach out like we did years ago.

I. Luke 10:1.  To be  a worker for the Lord, you must want to love and trust His holy Word, just as the song says:

I want to be a worker for the Lord; I want to love and trust His holy word; I want to sing and pray, and be busy ev’ry day, In the vineyard of the Lord.

Just before Jesus sends out 72 disciples ahead of Him, He tells several that following Him requires diligent and often difficult hard work (Luke 9:57-62).  The well-known servant to the poor, Mother Teresa, died at 87 still working with her last strength.  can we argue that love and trust for Jesus’ Word isn’t connected to faithful action (James 1:22) when His Word tells us that if we love Him, we will obey His commands (John 14:15)?  Are we not told to serve one another through love (Galatians 5:13)?  And to love and forgive one another as Jesus did (John 15:13; Colossians 3:13)?

II. Luke 10:2-3a.  To be a worker for the Lord, you must want to lead the erring in the way, again as the song says:

I want to be a worker every day; I want to lead the erring in the way That leads to heav’n above, where all is peace and love, In the kingdom of the Lord.

Because we’ve used Luke 10:2 to promote the need for evangelism but disconnected it from our personal responsibility, we pray often that God will send workers to His harvest field.  If He hasn’t and the attendance in our assemblies shrinks, we shrug because God is in charge of the increase after all (1 Corinthians 3:6).  Peering into the brightness at the shady edge of the harvest field, we lament how few are laboring in the hot sun to fill the Master’s barn with sheaves.  Yet, just as the 72 were sent, so are we (Matthew 28:18-20) and also to our erring, fellow workers (Galatians 6:1-2; Matthew 18:15-17).

III. Luke 10:3.  To be a worker for the Lord, you must want to trust in Jesus’ power to save, as the song tells us:

I want to be a worker strong and brave; I want to trust in Jesus’ pow’r to save; All who will truly come shall find a happy home, In the kingdom of the Lord.

He sent them out like lambs among wolves!  Why would Jesus do that? It’s because we partaking in our own adventure is that important to Him.  God is wild at heart and wants those made in His image to step out of our comfort zones to do the work He’s prepared for us.  Out of fear we make excuses and justify why we can’t do that work, placing our limitations on the God for whom nothing is impossible.  But, obedience is required from faith (Romans 1:4-5; James 2:14-17), and God, who promises to be with us, lets us wield His divine power to demolish strongholds (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).

Wanting to be a worker for the Lord begins with obedience to the gospel.  You’ve got to don our work clothes (Galatians 3:26-27) and then head out into the field.  If the song has changed for you, a longtime resident of the shade, to “I want to sit in pews for the Lord …” then perhaps it’s time to step out onto the soil and become a worker once more.  Do you want to be a worker for the Lord?

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You Go, and Do Likewise

We often think that Jesus using a Samaritan, whom the Jews despised, to show kindness to a Jewish man was just to answer the question, “And who is my neighbor?” but the ‘And’ indicates that this parable goes much deeper.  There was a previous question posed by the lawyer: “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

I. Luke 10:25-28.  Since we discover later that the lawyer was seeking to justify himself, his use of ‘Teacher’ was perhaps a bit smug.  He believed he knew it all, but Jesus, who knew all men’s hearts, answered both questions posed to Him in this passage as a great teacher would–with questions of His own.  The puffed-up lawyer answered correctly, but Jesus said he did not fully understand the implications of what it meant to love God with ALL of his heart, soul, mind, and strength nor his neighbor as himself (Matthew 5:43-48).  Love as Jesus loves, and he will live (John 15:12-13 and Romans 5:6-8).

II. Luke 10:29-35.  Speaking to Jews, Jesus first tells of two among them–a priest and a Levite–who ought to treat well a fellow Jew who has been beaten and robbed.  They don’t, however, as they pass by the poor man without taking any loving action to ease his distress.  It is a Samaritan, one who was not in the covenant with God and lived in the land that was once part of Israel, who had compassion instead.  More than just broadening their concept of who was their neighbor, Jesus challenged them on how love was defined.  An enemy of the Jews took sacrificial actions to care for and serve one of their nation (James 2:14-17).  Would they have done the same in return?

III. Luke 10:36-37.  Then turning the lawyer’s question back to him, the Teacher makes his student apply the head knowledge of the Law, “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor …?”  Perhaps not able to say the name of his enemy’s race, the lawyer answers in honesty, “The one who showed him mercy.”  Jesus’ command, then, to what the lawyer must do to inherit eternal life is a command to us as well, “You go, and do likewise.”  Having found freedom in Christ, how should we use that freedom, then?  Not to indulge in sin but rather to serve one another in love (Galatians 5:13-15).

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The Lord Will Prosper Me

Little Jack Horner

Sat in a corner

Eating a Christmas pie;

He stuck in his thumb

And pulled out a plumb, 

And said, “What a good boy am I.”

Why did Jack isolate himself to the corner?  Was it to eat a pie he had stolen?  Or so he didn’t need to share it with anyone?  The lack of utensils would point to this.  And, is just declaring himself ‘good’ mean that he is now indeed good despite his behavior?

That’s how sinners and others who stray from God’s Word would like to have it, especially in this politically correct culture in which each person develops his own standard of conduct and declares it ‘good.’  But, God has a standard recorded in the pages of Scripture that He tells us to follow.

I.  Judges 17:1-13.  Five wrongs don’t make a right.  Micah steals from his mother, but to his credit returns the silver.  His mother then has it made into an idol, which Micah puts into his home, makes a shine, other gods, and articles of worship for it, and installs his sons as priests to it.  The writer interjects an explanation here that everyone at this time did what was right in his own eyes (Matthew 7:6-13).  Then, Micah gets a Levite to be a priest to the idol and declares that God will now prosper him because he has made a sad attempt at restoring his actions to God’s Word.

II.  2 Chronicles 34:15-21.  But, is ‘good enough’ good enough for God?  We can fool ourselves, but God knows our true motives (Proverbs 16:1-3).  James 1:5-8 tells us that He’ll help us with wisdom, and James 4:3-4 reminds us that we can’t compromise with the world.  While the world tells us that truth is whatever we make it, God says that’s not so (Proverbs 30:20).  Instead, we need to repent and return to God’s Word like Josiah or like the church at Ephesus was encouraged to do (Revelation 2:4-6).

III.  2 Corinthians 5:6-10.  Cain was told that if he did what was right, he would be accepted (Genesis 4:6-7).  The prodigal son needed to come to his senses and get up and return to his father (Luke 15:17-20) to be pleasing.  So, we must repent and submit to God’s will (James 4:7-10) if we are to please God.  We can’t just declare ourselves pleasing to God with the plumb from the stolen pie on our thumb and expect Him to say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Perhaps we should rewrite the nursery tale:

Little Jack Horner

Got up from the corner

Returning his Christmas pie;

He repented of sin

Was restored from within, 

And said, “What a good boy am I.”

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The Father is Seeking Such People

The Japanese art of kintsugi or ‘golden repair’ mends broken pottery with gold, silver, or platinum, and in the end, makes the piece worth more than it originally did.  While all we see are the ways in which we have been broken by sin, God, who loves us unconditionally, sees our great value to Him.  We are to return that love in kind through true worship.

I.  Romans 8:28-39.  The body is loved by the Bridegroom.  Academically, we don’t doubt His love for us (Romans 5:6-8), we claim.  We just doubt our worth.  But, many know that a parent’s love for a child doesn’t make the value of that child go up or down depending on the child’s behavior.  So, God loves us greatly and assigns us infinite value–so much that He gave us His Son.

II.  John 4:23-26.  The Bridegroom is seeking true worshipers.  When two single people are attracted to one another, they seek each other with a desperation, hoping that he or she is the one to marry.  So, even though God loves all He has made, He is seeking ‘true worshipers,’ those who will be part of His bride, the church, and will love Him back (in spirit and truth).  That manifests itself in repentance (Luke 15:4-21) as He mends us back together in kintsugi-like fashion to make us more valuable to Him than we were before.

III.  Revelation 19:7-9.  The bride makes herself ready, her fine linen the righteous acts of the saints.  This is the true worship she engages in–that which is in spirit and truth.  So many today have the zeal for God without right doctrine.  They are like blindfolded dart players, rarely hitting the target.  Like the five virgins who had forgotten to buy oil for their lamps, they eagerly await the Bridegroom in vain (Matthew 25:1-13).  We must return His seeking of us with true worship that combines both.

Any relationship is two-sided.  We deceive ourselves if we believe God will seek us if we aren’t seeking Him in return.  We must return His love with true worship.

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Pull off all the knobs!

A man bought a new radio, took it home, and placed it on the refrigerator. He plugged it in, tuned to WSM in Nashville (home of the Grand Ole Opry) and proceeded to do the most unusual thing. He pulled all the knobs off!

He had already tuned in all he ever wanted or expected to hear, so he chose to limit his radio reception to one station.

Perhaps if more people would do this with the word of God we would have a lot less religious confusion in the world. Too many are turning to every “channel” of doctrine. Paul warns,

“Be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive” (Eph. 4:14).

We must tune only into God’s channel — His holy word — for our direction. This is why Jeremiah declared,

“O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps” (Jer. 10:23).

—Tom Moore, revised, taken from “The Sower“

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And They Devoted Themselves

A wedding is an event; the marriage is an endurance race.  As parts of the bride of Christ, we should plan ahead for the time beyond the “I do” of baptism to the daily walk with our Bridegroom.  A glimpse into the lives of the 1st Century Christians can help us in the 21st Century.

I.  Acts 2:42-47.  How long would a marriage last if after the honeymoon, the bride returned to her single life and only spent an hour with her husband once a week?  There’s much we can learn from the early church’s devotion to their new life.  In western culture, we are in the habit of scheduling time with Jesus along with the other things that we do.  But, a marriage is not something we can schedule.  It is through our relationship with Christ that we live our lives.

II.  1 Timothy 2:1-6.  Just as newly married soldiers in Israel were to stay home to work on the devotion to their wives (Deuteronomy 24:5), new Christians especially need to work on their relationship with Christ through their devotion to learning from God’s Word, serving with fellow Christians, remembering Jesus’ sacrifice and resurrection through the Lord’s Supper, and praying as Christ desires all to come to salvation (Acts 2:42).

III.   Ephesians 5:31-33.  And, of course, as the years go by, all couples need to maintain their marriages through such things as retreats, date nights, and good communication.  These keep their oneness from splitting back into two individuals again.  The formula that Christ and His bride use is sacrificial love and obedient respect.  This takes work as well as devotion in our spiritual walk to do the things that benefit ‘we’ and not just ‘me’ (Acts 2:43-47).

Rather than treating our Christianity as a checklist, we should seek to do those things that a good friend or spouse would do with our Bridegroom to have a loving and lasting relationship.

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Lessons in the Storm

A huge winter storm, dumping 18+ inches of snow on the North Country, is expected to continue through today, so we’ve cancelling our classes and worship service out of safety concerns.
My observations: shoveling snow during a storm with strong winds blowing is a great illustration of our Christian walks in the midst of a sinful world.
1. We must first prepare to begin the task by bundling up. No Christian should face the day without the armor of God!
 
2. It will be difficult and leave us exhausted. We must brace ourselves for the task, filling up with good spiritual food and trusting in God’s strength, mercy, and grace to get us through.
 
3. There often won’t be a great return for our labor. The snow may blow in the trough behind you and make you question the effort you’re putting in, but our labor for the Lord is never in vain.
 
4. God gives us fellow workers along the way. A good friend with a plow on the front of his truck, who had been plowing since 4 a.m., took a few passes on my driveway and encouraged me immensely!
 
5. Warm rest is waiting when the labor’s done! Just the thought of a cup of hot coffee by the wood stove was enough to keep me going. Heaven awaits God’s faithful servants!
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My Food is …

Many of our New Year’s resolutions have to do with food: the quantity, the quality, or the management of it in the form of exercise.  Many make resolutions as well about our spiritual food.

After all, we are what we eat, so be careful what you ingest!

I.  John 4:6-38.  Jesus starts speaking with the woman at the well in Samaria about physical water and ends up revealing to her that He is the Messiah.  As she goes away to tell her friends and neighbors, Jesus’ disciples return with food, only to find that He claims to have food that they know nothing about.  That food: doing God’s work and will!

II.  John 6:22-69.  The crowd that Jesus had fed wanted more physical food so badly they crossed the sea by boat to find Him.  Jesus calls them out on their limited diet, challenging them to seek Him the true bread from heaven.  He tells them that whoever comes to Him and believes in Him will never hunger or thirst spiritually.  Like the mother who whisks away the plate of cookies for veggies, Jesus offends many who just wanted more loaves and fishes.

III.  1 Peter 2:1-5.  In the same way that we are careful about what we take in physically, counting calories and watching sugars and carbs, we must beware of what we’re ingesting spiritually.  The internet, tabloids, and even good meaning family members and friends offer to fill our plates with junk food, but only the Lord is good.  We begin as infants on milk but must soon grow up into our salvation eating solid food.

What does your spiritual diet consist of?  Even in adulthood, I may not like the vegetables served at dinner, but I’ve come to know that they are for my good to eat them.