How to Get an Appointment with God

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How to Get an Appointment with God

Matthew 27.51-54

Dr. Jim Denison

A few years ago our family went to Washington, D.C. on summer vacation. The highlight of the trip for me, I was sure, was going to be our visit to the White House. I’ve long been fascinated with presidential history, and have read with interest the stories of many of our presidents and the remarkable House they occupy. Now, at long last, I would see its storied rooms and historic halls for myself.

Not really, as it turned out. After waiting in the rain an hour the night before to buy tickets, and two hours the day of our tour, finally we entered the most visited site in America. And left nearly as quickly. Four rooms, and a souvenir shop at the end. That’s all the White House tour sees.

So we cannot see the office of our president—perhaps we can call him. Again, not really. The White House switchboard answers over 5,000 calls every day, and this number doubles in times of crisis. Not to mention the thousands of letters which are delivered each day, and the hundreds of people who try to get a personal appointment with the president. Of all these requests, the president personally sees only a small number, and of these he actually deals with only a few.

By comparison, our Father in heaven receives multiplied millions of prayers daily, millions at this very moment, in hundreds of languages. And yet he is able to hear and answer every one of them. Why? And why does this fact matter to your soul and mine?

In our series titled “These Things We Believe,” we’ve talked together about Bible freedom and church freedom. Today we’ll explore soul freedom and its enormous implications for every one of us.

How you became a priest

Our text describes the actual moment of Jesus’ death in remarkable detail. These few words are worthy of an entire series of study in themselves.

He “cried out again in a loud voice.” John tells us that his last word from the cross was “Tetelestai!” which means, “It is finished!” or “The victory is won!” The strength to make this “loud” cry (“mega” in the Greek) shows that Jesus still had energy and life at his command.

And so he “gave up his spirit.” This was his voluntary choice. Augustine said it well: “He gave up his life because he willed it, when he willed it, and as he willed it.”Where? Into his Father’s hands (Luke 23:46), into Paradise with the thief on the cross (Luke 23:43), into the glory the Son had from eternity (John 17:5).

Now comes the miracle which is our focus today: “At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom” (v. 51). I’ve never preached a message specifically on that event before today, and was fascinated with what I learned about it this week.

This curtain was the great veil which separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Jewish temple. A little background is essential here.

Abraham offered Isaac on the top of Mt. Moriah eighteen centuries earlier, making that rock a holy spot to the Jewish people. And so when Solomon built the first Jewish Temple in 1004 B.C., he located the Holy of Holies at the same spot.

This was a small room, thirty feet square, within the larger Temple. Here the Ark of the Covenant containing the Ten Commandments was placed. Here the High Priest would come one day a year, on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), to offer sacrifice for the sins of the people. In the Jewish mind, the Shekinah glory and presence of Jehovah God dwelt here as in no other room on earth.

And this Holy of Holies was separated from the rest of the Temple, and the rest of humanity, by a magnificent veil. Sixty feet high, thirty feet wide, as thick as a man’s hand, the veil was so heavy the Jewish Talmud says 300 men were required to move it.

Josephus, the ancient Jewish historian, describes it as “embroidered with blue, and fine linen, and scarlet, and purple, and of a contexture that was truly wonderful” (Wars 5.5.4).

Now, in the moment of Jesus’ death at 3 o’clock that afternoon, as the priests were gathering in the Temple for the customary evening sacrifices, “the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.”

This was in every way a miracle. An earthquake would have shredded the veil, not torn it. Even if men could have torn the thick, heavy veil, they would have done so from bottom to top, not top to bottom,

This is a fact of history, not religious myth. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record it, writing at a time when the eyewitnesses to the torn curtain were still living and could easily have refuted them if they were wrong. And Tacitus the Roman historian, Josephus, and the Jewish Talmud all refer in various ways to the event as well.

Why did God do this? I admire Lenski’s comment: “Jesus is dead, his lips are silent; now God speaks in a language of his own.”Just as the Jewish people tore their garments in times of grief, so God the Father tears this, the “garment” veiling his Most Holy Place, in grief as well.

But there’s more. By tearing aside the veil separating humanity from the Holy of Holies, God gave access to his inner sanctuary to all of mankind. Now, for the first time in Jewish history, anyone could come to God. Anyone could see into his presence. Anyone could speak to him. Anyone.

Now for the first time, women could come into his presence. For the first time, Gentiles. For the first time, men besides the one High Priest chosen for each generation. For the first time, you and me.

Today the veil is gone, the Holy of Holies is gone, the very Temple itself is gone. Their purpose is done, their work completed. Now God’s word declares, “You yourselves are God’s Temple and God’s Spirit lives in you…. God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple” (1 Corinthians 3:16, 17).

The Jews and the Muslims will continue to fight over the rock where the Holy of Holies used to be. But that’s all it is now—a rock. For you and I are the Temple of God. The veil is gone. We can come to God. Every one of us.

Now, why does this fact matter so much to your soul and mine today?

How to enter the presence of God

The tearing of the veil separating mankind from God means this for you and me: we are each priests before God.

We are each responsible for our own personal relationship with the God of the universe. God has no grandchildren. We each must be his child, his priest.

Baptists call this doctrine “the priesthood of the believer.” This is the idea of soul freedom—the theological conviction that you have the right and responsibility to interpret Scripture for yourself; to confess your sins to God; to give your needs to God; to offer your worship to God.

The veil is gone. Now you can come to God. Now you must.

What steps can you take to come into his presence every day? To be right with the God of the universe, right now? Let’s use the Jewish Temple as our model. If you had been a priest in Jesus’ day, able to come before God as they did, you would have taken these steps, literally.

First, you would go to the “Sea,” a bronze basin filled with water, so large that twelve priests could wash at one time. Here you would wash your hands, ceremonially cleansing yourself spiritually for the service you are about to render.

To be a priest before God today, start with confession. Be specific and honest. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you your sins, and admit them to God. And claim his promise: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

Next, you would come to the great altar of sacrifice, 48 feet square and 15 feet high. A ramp, 48 feet long and 24 feet wide, led up to the altar. Here you would place the sacrificial animals as required—the lamb, the bull, the dove.

At Calvary, Jesus became the final sacrifice for you and me. He is “the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). He died in your place and mine, to pay for our sins and bear our punishment, to purchase our salvation.

So, after you confess your sins to Christ, thank Christ for his death and love. Thank him for his grace and mercy. Worship him in thanksgiving.

And submit your life to him in gratitude. To be a priest before God, lay your life on the altar before him. Obey the command of Scripture: “offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship” (Romans 12:1).

Come to the altar in thanksgiving and submission.

Now the priest would come into the Holy Place, the court outside the Holy of Holies, 60 feet long, 20 feet wide, and 30 feet high. Here he would burn incense in worship and offer prayers of intercession.

To be a priest before God, “enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise” (Psalm 100:4). Speak the Psalms in praise; sing hymns and choruses in praise; offer him your gratitude for his attributes, his glory, his goodness to you. Worship him in thanksgiving and praise.

And give him your needs in intercession and faith. Be specific and honest. Ask his best for you and those you bring to him.

Finally, on the Day of Atonement, the High Priest would come into the Holy of Holies itself. He would tie a rope around his foot, trailing outside the veil, so that if he died in the awesome presence of God and the bells on the hem of his robe stopped ringing, the priests outside could drag his dead body out. He came before God in reverence and humility. Here he knew he entered the presence of Jehovah, the God of the universe.

Do the same as the priest of God today. You have confessed your sins and claimed God’s forgiveness; you have thanked him for Jesus and submitted your life to his lordship; you have given him your praise and made your requests. Now sit in stillness before God. Listen to him. Feel him. Be with him.

An elderly man came every morning to his church and sat quietly in the sanctuary for hours. One day his pastor asked him what he did during those long hours of silence. He said, “I look at God and he looks at me, and we tell each other that we love each other.”

How long has it been since you listened to your Father?

Conclusion

Today we celebrate the fact that Jesus has torn the veil separating us from God, and now every one of us has the right—and the responsibility—of personal access to the Creator of the universe. Each of us is our own priest before God.

If you knew that the next president of the United States wanted you to come to his Inauguration and meet with him in the Oval Office, you’d accept. And you’d begin preparations right now for such an honor.

My friend, the God of the universe wants you to meet with him in his Holy of Holies, today. He wants to hear your confession, your thanksgiving, your submission, your praise, your requests. And he wants to speak to your heart and soul. He is ready. Are you?

Make an hour today to take each of these steps to God as his priest, and then to meet with him in silence. To speak to him, and then to listen to him. Especially to listen.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta authored one of the most profound statements I’ve ever read on our subject. Hear these words reverently:

We need to find God, and He cannot be found in noise and restlessness.

God is a friend of silence. See how nature—trees, flowers, grass—grow in silence. See the stars, the moon, the sun, how they move in silence….

The more we receive in silent prayer, the more we can give in our active life. We need silence to be able to touch souls.

The essential thing is not what we say, but what God says to us and through us.

All our words will be useless unless they come from within. Words which do not give the Light of Christ increase the darkness.

Will your life and your soul give the Light of Christ today?

How to Handle Anger

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Topical Scripture: Matthew 5:38-42

Natural disasters have dominated the headlines this week.

Wildfires are burning in California. Power has been cut to as many as three million customers as officials try to prevent further incidents that would make the fires even worse.

A tornado roared through Dallas last Sunday, causing $2 billion in losses. And a lightning strike in the Harbor destroyed an entire condo unit.

Other tragedies are manmade. A shooting Saturday night at a Texas A&M Commerce homecoming party killed two and left fourteen injured. And Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the infamous leader of ISIS, is in the news with reports that he was killed in a raid Saturday night.

As we continue our conversation with the Sermon on the Mount, we come today to Jesus’ teachings about enemies, those who choose to hurt us. We all have them. Perhaps not on the scope and scale of those who attacked the homecoming party, or perpetrate horrific violence in the name of their religion, but they are nonetheless real and painful to us.

When I ask you to name the person who hurt you most recently or most deeply, what name comes to mind? Let’s ask Jesus how we should relate to that person today, to God’s glory and our good.

The law of retribution

Jesus begins: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth'” (v. 38). And it was.

This statute, known to history as the Lex Talionis, is the oldest law in the world. It first appeared in the Code of Hammurabi, the man who ruled Babylon (ancient Iraq, ironically) from 2285 to 2242 BC. Exodus 21:24–25 states it clearly: “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”

Note that the law was intended not to justify conflict but to limit it. Without it, if you scraped my car, I could wreck yours. If you injured my son, I could kill all your children. This law limited revenge.

It also took vengeance out of individual hands and put it into the courts. The judges of ancient Israel determined what constituted proper restitution for injury and levied monetary fines as a result. They developed elaborate ways to ensure the rights of all citizens.

The law of grace

Now Jesus adds: “But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person” (v. 39b). Even though you have the right, don’t insist on your rights. Then he gives us four examples of this principle in action.

The first regards our honor: “If someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also” (v. 39b).

The right hand was almost always the one used in public. So, to slap your right cheek with my right hand is an insult. This was not a threat to life and limb, but an insult to character and reputation. It was a sign of great contempt and abuse, so that the rabbinic fines for such an action were twice those of other physical injuries.

Jesus says: Do not retaliate. Do not slap back, though this would be within your rights. Do not prosecute for financial gain, though this also would be within your rights. Turn the other cheek instead. Do not insist on your rights.

Next Jesus speaks to our possessions: “If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well” (v. 40).

Shirt was the inner garment, an undershirt with sleeves. It could be taken in a lawsuit. But the coat could not—it was the outer garment which protected a poor person from the elements and served as his bed at night. And so, Exodus 22 forbids keeping the coat.

But not Jesus: “hand over your coat as well.” Even though it is your right to keep it, and he has no right to take it. Do not insist on your rights.

Now Jesus comes to an issue of great urgency for us today: our time. He says, “If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles” (v. 41).

Here Jesus refers to a custom known and despised by every person who heard his sermon. A Roman soldier could require any Jew to carry his military pack for the distance of one mile. No matter where you were going or what you were doing, the soldier could “force” you to do this.

But none could force you to carry his pack for two miles. Jesus says to do it anyway. Sacrifice the time. Even though it is your right not to. Do not insist on your rights.

Finally he deals with our money: “Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you” (v. 42). Give when you are asked to give and lend when you are asked to lend.

As St. Augustine commented, we are not told to give everything that is asked for, but to give to every person who asks. Even though you don’t owe this person anything. Even though it is your right not to. Do not insist on your rights.

Instead, return hate with love, harm with kindness, evil with good. Do not lower yourself to the one who has taken from you. Simply refuse.

Choosing grace

West Texans taught me a crude but appropriate statement: The dog looks at the skunk and says, “I can beat you, but it’s not worth it.”

You can choose not to insult those who insult you, not to hurt those who hurt you. When your honor or possessions or time or money are taken, do not take back. Take the high road. Show the high character. Be the presence of Christ.

You say, “I can’t do it. I don’t want to do it.” Of course, you don’t. No human wants to be hurt, to give up his right to revenge or justice. But do it anyway. And as you act in love, your feelings will follow.

And ask the Spirit to help you. We cannot fulfill the word of God without the Spirit of God. The same Spirit who empowered Jesus will empower us. The same Spirit who inspired the word of God will empower the people of God.

Name the person with whom you are in conflict. Ask the Spirit to help you be the presence of Christ. And trust that he will as you take your next step in grace.

C. S. Lewis: “The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less. . . . The difference between a Christian and a worldly man is not that the worldly man has only affections or ‘likings’ and the Christian has only ‘charity.’ The worldly man treats certain people kindly because he ‘likes’ them: the Christian, trying to treat everyone kindly, finds himself liking more and more people as he goes on—including people he could not even have imagined himself liking at the beginning” (Mere Christianity 116, 117).

Conclusion

Jesus’ teaching is clear: We are to return hate with love, harm with kindness, evil with good. When your honor or possessions or time or money are taken, do not take back. Take the high road. Show the high character. Be the presence of Christ.

Heed his example: “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23).

He was insulted for us and suffered for us. He wore our sins on his body, our failures on his soul. He had the right to call ten thousand angels to his side, to end his crucifixion before it began, to condemn all of humanity to a hell we deserve. But he did not claim his rights.

Now he invites us to faith in him, to experience his forgiveness for our sins and the eternal life he died to give. Do you have his eternal life today?

If so, where will you share it with someone else? What personal conflict is troubling you most this morning? Will you show the selfless love of Jesus Christ to that person this week?

During the horrific Thirty Years War (1618–1648), a German Lutheran theologian named Rupertus Meldenius offered this maxim: “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”

Let’s choose all three, to the glory of God.

How to Handle Doubts

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How to Handle Doubts

John 20:24-31

Dr. Jim Denison

Thesis: Jesus will give every doubter who asks the miraculous gift of his presence

One of my favorite stories concerns a Baptist young man who went away to college and made himself obnoxious to his friends by bragging constantly about his Baptist heritage. According to him, everything about Baptists was right, and everyone else was wrong. That might have been tolerated at a Baptist college, but this wasn’t and most of his friends weren’t. They finally devised a plan to get even.

One Friday night they slipped some sleeping powder into their Baptist friend’s coffee. When he passed out, they loaded him into a car and drove him out of the city to a remote graveyard. They’d already done their work well. They had a large coffin there, with its lid open. They put their friend in the coffin and hid behind a nearby tombstone to see what would happen when he woke up.

For a long while, nothing happened. Night passed; dawn came. The sun began to rise and its long rays cast shadows through the mist collecting on the ground. And they were hiding and chuckling, “It won’t be long now.”

A moment later they heard a noise in the casket. Then they saw an arm come up and stretch itself. Then another arm. And then their Baptist friend sat up and looked around. And they were saying, “This is it. He’s going to look around, see where he is, scream and jump up and run out of the graveyard, and we’re going to laugh about it for the rest of our lives.”

Instead, the young Baptist looked around at the other grave plots and shouted, “Hallelujah! It’s the resurrection morning, and the Baptists are the first ones up!”

Easter is the highest and greatest day of the entire year. But a lot of people miss the celebration. In a recent survey, 46% of non-Christians said they didn’t even know why Christians observe Easter. This study will help.

On this Sunday after Easter, let’s meet a man for whom the resurrection occurred a week late. Thomas proves that it’s not too late for anyone to meet the risen Christ, no matter their doubts or fears. We know people who are struggling with their faith. And we know how doubts feel. What Jesus did for Thomas, he’s waiting this week to do for us.

Expect doubts (v. 24a)

Jesus made five appearances on the first Easter Sunday: to Mary Magdalene, to the other women, to the two on the road to Emmaus, to Peter, and then to the other Ten. He would make five other post-resurrection appearances over the next 40 days. But none was more significant than the event we’ll study this week.

Our story begins with the fact of spiritual doubt. The disciples had met on the first Easter “with the doors locked for fear of the Jews” (John 20.19). Now , a week later, their doors were still locked (v. 26). Their fear of the authorities was still very real. The same people who executed Jesus might be looking for them. The most dangerous place in Jerusalem was with these followers of the convicted and crucified carpenter. But Thomas joined them anyway. If a man of such courage could experience doubt, so will we.

Here is a person so committed to Jesus that he exhorted the other disciples to join him in following their Lord to Jerusalem, that they might die with him (John 11.16). He was the one disciple willing to admit his questions so that he might follow Jesus more fully (John 14.5). He was still “one of the Twelve” (v. 24), the term used for Jesus’ closest followers even after Judas’s death (cf. 1 Corinthians 15.5, Revelatiom 21.14). Doubts are not just for the weak.

In fact, they affect everyone. The Bible is filled with Doubting Thomases. Think of Adam and Even in the Garden of Eden, doubting God’s commandment regarding the forbidden fruit; Cain doubting God and slaying Abel; Abraham doubting God, and Sarah laughing at her Lord; Jacob wrestling with him all night; Moses doubting him at the burning bush; the children of Israel doubting him and wandering for a generation in the wilderness; Peter doubting Jesus and denying him three times.

Thomas was not the first to have spiritual doubts, or the last. Even after they met the risen Lord, “the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted” (Matthew 28.16-17). Every one of us has been a Doubting Thomas at some point in our spiritual lives. Some of us are standing at his side today.

Frederick Buechner is right: “Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don’t have any doubts you are either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.” We all have doubts. To doubt that statement is to have a doubt about doubts. Such questions are part of every human experience.

Questions about the faith are not confined to those who claim such faith. According to George Hunter, the most important issue keeping secular people from Christian faith is doubt. Secular people doubt the claims of God’s word, partly because of the plural truth claims confronting people today. They also doubt the intelligence, relevance, and credibility of the church and its leaders.

Historian Will Durant speaks for millions: “God, who was once the consolation of our brief life and our refuge in bereavement and suffering, has apparently vanished from the scene; no telescope, no microscope discovers Him. Nothing is certain in life except defeat and death, a sleep from which there is no awakening. Faith and hope disappear. Doubt and despair are the order of the day.”

F. W. Robertson was widely hailed as one of England’s greatest preachers. One of his church members said, “I cannot describe the strange sensation during his sermon of union with him and communion with one another which filled us as he spoke. Nor can I describe the sense we had of a higher Presence with us as he spoke—the sacred awe which filled our hearts—the hushed stillness in which the smallest sound was startling—the calm eagerness of men who listened as if waiting for a word of revelation to resolve the doubt or to heal the sorrow of a life.”

But that young preacher saw his life and work very differently. He once wrote, “I wish I did not hate preaching so much, but the degradation of being a preacher is almost intolerable. The pulpit has lost its place.”

To be sure, there are those whose faith never seems to waiver. I still remember my awe at reading about an episode in the life of George Muller, the famous preacher and orphanage founder. On one occasion Muller was crossing the Atlantic by ship, when the vessel ran into a fog. Mr. Muller informed the captain that he was required in Quebec on Saturday afternoon.

“Impossible,” said the captain. “Very well,” replied Muller, “if your ship cannot take me, God will find some other means. I have never broken an engagement in fifty-seven years.” “I would willingly help you,” said the captain, “but there’s nothing anyone can do.”

“Let us go to the chartroom and pray,” said Muller. “Do you know how dense the fog is?” asked the captain. “No,” was Muller’s answer. “My eye is not on the density of the fog but on the living God who controls every circumstance of my life.”

Together they went to the chartroom and Muller prayed, “O God, if it is consistent with Thy will, please remove the fog in five minutes. You know the engagement you made for me in Quebec on Saturday. I believe it is Your will that I make that appointment.” The captain was about to pray next, but Muller touched him on the shoulder and asked that he not. “First,” he said, “you do not believe He will; and second, I believe He has, so there is no need for you to pray about it.”

The captain looked amazed, so Muller continued, “Captain, I have known my Lord for fifty-seven years, and there has never been a single day that I have failed to gain an audience with Him. Get up and open the door. You will find the fog gone.” The captain opened the door. The fog had disappeared.

Some believers have faith which never seems to waiver. But most of us agree with Steve Brown: “If you’ve never had a question about your faith, then you probably don’t have much faith.”

Tennyson was right:

There lives more faith in honest doubt,

Believe me, than in half the creeds.

Why are doubts so common to Christian faith? Because Christianity is relationship, and no relationship can be proven. Jesus said we are to love the Lord our God, and our neighbor as ourselves. It’s all relationship. And every relationship is founded on trust, on faith, never on sight. Seeing is never believing.

Prove that your wife or husband loves you. Prove that your friends care about you, that they’re not just using you. Prove that your parents loved you. All relationship, whether with God or anyone else, stands on trust. Seeing is not believing.

Tennyson was again perceptive on our subject:

Nothing worthy proving can be proven,

Nor yet disproven; wherefore be thou wise,

Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt.

So what do we do when we doubt our relationship with God? Not if, but when?

Get with God’s people (v. 24b)

Thomas wasn’t with the rest of the Twelve when the risen Lord first appeared to them. He missed the first Easter evening. My home church pastor once used that fact to point out the peril of missing church—you never know when Jesus will show up.

But to his credit, Thomas rejoined them soon after. And he was still with them the next Sunday evening when the resurrected Christ appeared to them again. To meet Jesus, he had to get with his people. We still do.

The church is quite literally the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12.12), his physical presence on earth today. We are his hands, his feet. But to be healthy, each part of the body must function well. The foot needs the hand, and the eyes the ears (1 Corinthians 12.14-20). Every image for the church in the New Testament is a collective metaphor—a body with many parts, a vine with many branches (John 15.1-8). Christianity was never meant to be sung as a solo. We cannot play football alone. Nor can we follow Jesus by ourselves. We need each other.

And so the first step to dealing with doubts about the Lord is to get with his people. When we forsake the family, we forsake the Father. But when we get with his family, we draw closer to him. It was with the other disciples that Thomas met his Lord. It is the same for us.

I once read of a church member who dropped out of worship attendance. After several weeks, his pastor paid him a visit. The evening was cold. The pastor found the man at home, sitting before a blazing fire. Guessing the reason for his pastor’s visit, the man welcomed him inside, led him to a big chair near the fireplace, and waited.

The pastor sat down but said nothing. In silence he contemplated the play of the flames around the burning logs. After many minutes had passed, the pastor took the fire tongs, carefully picked up a brightly burning coal, and placed it to one side of the fireplace all alone. He sat back in his chair, still silent.

His host watched all this in quiet fascination. As the one lone coal’s flame diminished, there was a momentary glow and then its fire was no more. Soon it was cold and dead.

Not a word had been spoken since their initial greeting. Just before the pastor got ready to leave, he picked up the cold, dead ember and placed it back in the middle of the fire, where it immediately burst to life with the fire of the burning coals around it. As the pastor reached the door, the man said, “Thank you so much for your visit and especially for the fiery sermon. I shall be back in church next Sunday.”

A coal goes out alone; it stays aflame together with the other coals. So do we all.

The huge redwood trees of California are the largest living things on earth. Some are 300 feet tall and more than 2,500 years old. We would think such gigantic trees have a tremendous root system reaching hundreds of feet into the ground, but it’s not so. Their roots are very shallow. When our family visited the redwood forests two summers ago, I was amazed at how many of the roots run even along the ground surface.

Their secret is simple: redwood trees intertwine their roots with each other. They are locked together. Then when storms come, winds blow and lightning flashes, they stand together. They support and protect one another. One cannot fall, for the others hold it up. In the church it must be the same. We must hold each other up. Then when one struggles with faith, the others support and encourage. And we stand together.

Note that the disciples were as willing to stay with Thomas as he was willing to stay with them. They did not judge him for his doubts and skepticism. They did not reject him in his faith struggle. Nor does our Lord. In fact, he invites us: “‘Come now, let us reason together,’ says the Lord” (Isaiah 1.18). “Reason together” translates the Hebrew for “argue it out.” God wants us to be honest about our doubts, to admit them to the family and our Father. He welcomes our genuine issues, always.

It’s been said that the church is the only army which buries its wounded. It ought not be so. Most of those who are public skeptics today were initially private doubters. But they felt rejected by the faithful, their questions unwelcome, their issues unwanted.

When we have doubts about our Lord, we must go to his people. We will find his help in theirs, his love in their compassion. When members of our class or congregation struggle spiritually, we must go to them. We must initiate compassion and acceptance. They will wonder if we care about them. We must prove that we do, lest their coal go out and our fire diminish.

So expect to have doubts. Get with the family of faith as you seek the Father.

Be honest about your questions (v. 25)

It has been well said: “Most of us believe our doubts and doubt our beliefs. It is better to doubt our doubts and believe our beliefs.” But we must first know what our doubts are. We must get them out, express them in words, and be honest about them.

Verse 25 begins, “The other disciples told him.…” The Greek literally says, “The other disciples kept telling him” (Tenney 195). They repeated their experience for their doubting friend: “We have seen the Lord!” Note that they used the very language in the plural which Mary Magdalene had earlier used in the singular: “I have seen the Lord!” (John 20.18). But these men had refused to believe her then (Robertson 315), just as Thomas didn’t believe them now.

He was blunt: “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my fingers where the nails were, and put my hands into his side, I will not believe it” (v. 25b). Thomas knew the details of our Lord’s death. Perhaps he witnessed the crucifixion itself, or heard the details from John or another eyewitness. But it is as likely that he heard the other disciples’ report of their earlier encounter with the risen Christ (20.20), or was simply familiar with the process of crucifixion.

And so Thomas wanted nothing more than that which the other disciples had already witnessed: : “On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord” (John 20.19-20). He was no more a “doubting Thomas” than they were when they heard Mary’s witness. And she in turn doubted Jesus at first, thinking him to be the gardener (20.15). We all have our doubts.

This man wanted only to have first-hand experience with the risen Christ, the same encounter which had changed the lives of his friends. He was right—we must never accept second-hand faith. Because faith is relationship, it must be personal. Belief without experience is shallow and inadequate. We must each seek what Thomas wanted for himself.

Paul upbraided the immature Corinthian believers on this score. The apostle could only give them “milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it” (1 Corinthians 3.2). What is milk but digested food? The cow eats and digests what she eats so her calf can take the results. So many believers are living on digested spiritual food—God’s word through the pastor, the Sunday school teacher, or a commentary such as this one. Our souls need the food itself, the word of God from its Author. We need what Thomas wanted—first-hand experience and encounter with the risen Christ.

The believers in Berea are my favorite church in the book of Acts: “the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts 17.11). With this result: “Many of the Jews believed, as did a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men” (v. 12).

James Sullivan is right: “We must admire Thomas for his honesty. He would not claim that he believed so long as there were lingering doubts” (Sullivan 132). Neither should we. Our Lord wants us to be honest with him about our doubts and issues. The only wrong doubt is the one we don’t admit.

One side note: Thomas’s incredulity is proof that the resurrection was no illusion created by wish-fulfillment (Tenney 195). Skeptics have often suggested that the disciples wanted Jesus to rise from the dead so much that they imagined it so. Thomas’ doubts lay their doubts to rest.

Encounter Jesus personally (vs. 26-29)

“A week later the disciples were in the house again” (v. 26a). The Greek says, “after eight days,” a Jewish idiom meaning Sunday to Sunday inclusive (Hovey 406), specifically the next Sunday evening (Robertson 315). The disciples had waited a week with Thomas. Remember that Jesus had instructed them to leave Jerusalem after his resurrection as soon as possible to meet him in Galilee (Matthew 28.7, 10; Mark 16.7). Why their wait? Perhaps so Thomas could come to faith as they had come to faith (Hovey 407). They would leave no person behind. Neither should we.

Now they were in the same house, behind the same locked doors as on Easter evening. But no man-made door can bar the One who is the way, truth, and life (John 14.6). The only lock which can prevent his entrance is on the human heart. And theirs were unlocked.

So “Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!'” (v. 26b). He had promised them such peace: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14.27). He gave such peace the week earlier to those gathered together (John 20.19, 20). Now he came again, specifically to bring his peace to a single doubt-torn heart.

Jesus said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side” (v. 27a). Think how it must have startled Thomas to hear his very words repeated to him (Tenney 195). But Jesus knew his doubts, as he knows ours. Milne is right: “The ‘other world’ of the Spirit is not beyond earshot” (303), a fact which should give us pause with every word we speak.

Several years ago, Janet and I spent part of a vacation in Hawaii snorkeling. I was astounded by the dazzling beauty of the world just below the surface of the water. Fish of spectacular color and coral reefs forming all manner of unique shapes lived in a world of water only two feet from my world of air. The fish had no idea that our world even exists, much less that we can see theirs from ours. But we can.

Thomas needed physical evidence for the resurrection, so Jesus offered it: “Put your finger here.” His post-resurrection body was very real. The King James Version mistranslates John 20.17 to quote Jesus, “Touch me not.” The NIV is correct: “Do not hold onto me.” Jesus could walk through locked doors, a miracle impossible for normal physical bodies. And yet he could meet physical needs with his physical presence when necessary.

We must not criticize Thomas for needing such evidence, for the other disciples required it earlier: “‘Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.’ When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he said to them, ‘Do you have anything here to eat?’ They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence” (Luke 24.38-43).

Such physical reality sustained the faith of Jesus’ first followers, and became part of their enduring witness: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us” (1 John 1.1-2). Twenty centuries of faith has stood on the physical fact of Jesus’ resurrection, an event without which there is no faith to hold. In fact, without Easter “we are to be pitied more than all men” (1 Corinthians 15.19).

On the factual basis of his resurrection our Lord could now say to his struggling disciple, “Stop doubting and believe.” The Greek is much more informative than the English: “stop becoming an unbeliever and become a believer” (Tenney 195; cf. Robertson 316). There is a word play in Jesus’ statement: stop “apistos” (“one without faith”) and “pistos” (“be one who believes”). This is the only time “apistos” and “pistos” appear in John’s Gospel (Carson 657), but not the only time they have lived in the same soul.

This man had been willing to die with Jesus before (John 11.16). He had been a believer. But Jesus’ death had started him on the road to unbelief. Most who walk away from God do so in stages. Pentecost had not yet come; the Spirit had not yet made any human into the permanent child of God (cf. Romans 8.9). So “Jesus halted Thomas on the road to a despairing unbelief and offered him the positive evidence he could build an enduring faith on” (Tenney 195).

With this result: “Thomas said to him, ‘My Lord and my God!'” (v. 28). “Said” shows that these words were not the vocative, so that the NIV is wrong with its exclamation mark. Rather, they were a simple and profound statement of faith: “You are my Lord and my God” (Beasley-Murray 385).

Note the personal commitment. Thomas did not call Jesus “the” Lord and God or even “our” Lord and God, but “my” Lord and “my” God. His words are literally, “The Lord of me and the God of me.” Martin Luther taught that the most important word of the 23rd Psalm is the little word, “The Lord is my shepherd.”

Thomas’s faith declaration was blasphemy for a Jew. He made Jesus not just the Messiah, or even the Son of God, but God himself (Tenney 195). In uttering these words, the doubting disciple made “the most powerful and complete confession of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel” (O’Day 850). The eminent Johannine scholar Raymond Brown calls this statement “the supreme christological pronouncement of the Fourth Gospel” (1047).

This is the only time in the Bible that we find this exact statement of faith; the closest is Psalm 35.23, “My God and my Lord” (Brown 1047). What is more, Thomas is the only person in all the gospel of John to call Jesus by the title “God” (Hobbs, Study Guide 93). As we will see, most scholars believe that John originally intended to end his gospel with the 20th chapter, so that Thomas’s words would have been the last words spoken by a disciple to Jesus in this gospel, and the highest faith statement in the entire book.

The great English preacher F. B. Meyer gave Thomas his due: “Ah, Thomas, in that glad outburst of thine, thou reached a higher level than all the rest; and thou art not the last man, who has seemed a hopeless and helpless wreck, unable to exercise the faith that seemed so natural to others; but who, after a time, under the teaching of Jesus, has been enabled to assume a position to which none of his associates could aspire!” (391).

Thomas’s declaration became basic to the first Christians’ faith commitment. Pliny the Younger, the Roman governor of the province of Bithynia for two or three years around A.D. 110, wrote several letters reporting his decisions to the emperor Trajan in Rome. In one of these letters he described what he had learned about the “Christians”:

“They were in the habit of meeting before dawn on a fixed day, when they would recite in turn a hymn to Christ as to a god, and would bind themselves by oath, not for any criminal act but rather that they would not commit any theft, robbery or adultery, nor betray any trust nor refuse to restore a deposit on demand. This done, they would disperse, and then they would meet again later to eat together (but the food was quite ordinary and harmless).”

Thomas was not the last to call Jesus his “God.” But he may have been the first.

When the inevitable doubts come, we must expect and admit them. We take them to our fellow believers, seeking the Father in his family. We pray, search the Scriptures, and search for the Lord. And he finds us.

What Jesus did for Thomas, he now waits to do for us: “Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed'” (v. 29). “You have believed” is in the perfect tense, showing an action which has begun and now continues (Hovey 408). Thomas now has the same present-tense faith we all need.

And the same faith we can each have. Those who “have not seen” can still believe. We can stand on the witness of those who saw and touched the Lord, and know that he will see and touch us. John wrote these words to include an entire generation which came to life after Jesus’ return to glory, including them in its promise.

Now we say with Paul, “We live by faith, not sight” (2 Corinthians 5.6-7). Peter could encourage his readers: “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1.8-9).

When we trust Christ by faith we are “blessed.” This promise is the last beatitude to be found in the gospels (Howard 799), and one of only two in John’s gospel (cf. John 13.16-17; Carson 659). It promises joy which transcends all circumstances, for all who make Thomas’s “Lord and God” their own.

This man who sought the same first-hand experience we all need would spend the rest of his life giving it to us. He was with the disciples at Pentecost (Acts 1.13). After the Spirit filled his life and soul he became a missionary for his Lord. Reliable tradition teaches that Thomas eventually made his way to India, where he is still considered that church’s patron saint. St. Thomas Mount is named for him there. Legend suggests that Thomas worked as a carpenter for King Gundaphorus, where he built a “palace” for the king, not with wood but words. When the king wanted to see his mansion, Thomas assured him he would see it when he departed this life (Barclay 278).

One day “Doubting Thomas” would see his own: “The walls of the city had twelve foundations, and on them twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb” (Revelation 21.14). Of these Thomas was one. His name is on the foundation of the City of God today.

As it was for him, so it can be for any of us. Robert Robinson was an English clergyman of two centuries ago. In addition to his gifts as pastor and preacher, he was a wonderful poet and hymn writer. But after many years in the ministry, his faith and life began to drift. He left the ministry and traveled to France, where he sank further into sin and lost his assurance.

One night he was riding in a carriage with a Parisian socialite who had recently become a believer. She was reading some poetry to him and asked, “And what do you think of this one?” Then she read,

Come thou Fount of every blessing,

Tune my heart to sing thy grace.

Streams of mercy never ceasing

Call for hymns of loudest praise.

When she looked at him, she saw that he was crying. “What do I think of it?” he asked in a broken voice. “I wrote it; but now I’ve drifted away from him and can’t find my way back.” “But don’t you see?” said the woman, “the way back is written right here in the third line of your poem: ‘Streams of mercy never ceasing.’ Those streams are flowing even here in Paris tonight.”

Robinson recommitted his life to Christ and regained his assurance of faith. Those streams of mercy now flow to you and to your class, this very week.

Share what you find (vs. 30-31)

The epilogue to our story is also epilogue to our study of miracles. It seems likely that John at first intended to close his gospel with these words, but then added the 21st chapter. We know John 21 to be written in the same style as the previous 20 chapters; no manuscript of John’s gospel exists without it (Bruce 867; Robertson 317). But John 21 builds on John 20, which ends with the apostle’s own enduring statement of faith and purpose.

John documented that “Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book” (v. 30). Later he added, “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written” (John 21.25). But these “miraculous signs” were recorded for a purpose: “these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (v. 31).

“You may believe” is best translated “you may keep on believing” (Robertson 317). John’s readers were most likely already believers living in Asia Minor, so that this book was written to encourage and spread their faith (Hovey 409; Carson admits that most scholars agree, though he argues that the book was more intentionally evangelistic, 661).

When John’s readers continue to believe, they “continue to have life” (Robertson 317). We have our eternal life “in his name,” drawing on his account, claiming his merit and mercy. And all who ask, receive.

John’s purpose statement applies to each of the miracles we have studied across this series.

•Our Lord turned water into wine, proving that he always meets the needs we trust to his care.

•He healed a nobleman’s son, as he heals our hurts today.

•He cured the paralytic, as he cures our bodies and souls.

•He calmed the seas and the souls of his followers, as he still does.

•He opened a blind man’s eyes, as he opens our hearts.

•He raised Lazarus to life, as his Easter resurrection gives life to us all.

Each miracle was documented by John, Jesus’ best friend, to encourage us to be his friends and followers as well. None fulfills its purpose until we meet the One who works miracles still.

Now you and I stand before people in need of a miracle. They need to be healed physically, emotionally, or spiritually. They need to be loved and to love. They need to know that God cares when the world does not. In the hardest places of life, they need the miraculous presence only Jesus can give. He walked through locked doors to say to his frightened followers, “Peace be with you.” Now he waits to walk through the door of your heart to your class, to speak his peace to and through you this week.

This is the promise, and the miracle, of God.

How to Hear From God

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How to Hear From God

Matthew 2:19-23

Dr. Jim Denison

A friend recently sent me some questions I couldn’t answer: Why do we wash bath towels? Aren’t we clean when we use them? If not, what was the purpose of the bath? What is the point of brick wallpaper? Is there ever a day when mattresses are not on sale? Is it true that the only difference between a yard sale and a trash pickup is how close to the road the stuff is placed?

Other questions are more practical. Business Week began the new year with articles abounding in investment advice for 2005. It identifies such economic “wild cards” as fluctuating oil prices, inflation, the housing market, global growth, and of course terrorism. But the magazine doesn’t tell us what will happen, because it doesn’t know.

Closer to home, where do you most need advice for the year ahead? What decision is weighing on your mind and soul today? Where would you most like to hear from God? He guided Joseph in the clearest terms–will he guide us as well? Will he speak to us as fully as he spoke to Abraham, Moses, and Paul? If so, how can we hear from him this morning and this year?

Understand your place in God’s purpose

Before we get specific and practical, we need to remember some general facts about the will of God. The first is that God has a universal purpose for us all, to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19). God will measure our success this year by how many people we helped follow Jesus. Our jobs, possessions, school experiences, and relationships are a means to this end. This is his purpose for every one of us.

Second, God has a unique purpose for your life: “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me” (Matthew 11:29). Jesus has a “yoke” for you, a will for your life as you help people follow Jesus.

Third, it is critical that we know and live out this unique purpose each day of our lives.

Annie Dillard is right: how we spend our days is how we spend our lives.

Your 85 or so years on this planet are just a dot compared to the line of eternity. Consider life as a fraction. Put the 85 years of your lifespan in the top, the numerator. Now put eternity in the bottom, the denominator. 85 over infinity is the very small fraction of your existence which you will spend in this world. It only makes sense that you should live your brief life in the numerator, for the sake of the denominator.

Fourth, God has given us three keys to unlocking his unique purpose for our daily lives: the pragmatic, the intuitive, and the rational. I know those terms are not familiar to most of us, and strange language for a sermon. But stay with me–they are the most important and practical advice I have ever encountered for knowing and doing the will of God. I want to show you how they worked in Joseph’s life, and how they work in ours.

Look for God’s open doors

God’s will has led Joseph to marry the pregnant Mary, to adopt her son as his own, and then to flee his homeland with his family for Egypt. Now, after Herod died, an angel of the Lord led Joseph to return from Egypt to Israel, “for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead” (v. 20). But when Joseph returned and found that “Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there” (v. 22). And so he and the family ended up in Nazareth, a village which became Jesus’ hometown.

There are pragmatic, practical factors all through this story. Herod was a vile ruler who slaughtered anyone he considered a threat to his throne, a kind of Saddam Hussein or Adolf Hitler. If someone tells Herod that your adopted son is the King of the Jews, it makes good practical sense to take your child out of his jurisdiction until he dies.

Archelaus wasn’t much of an improvement. Immediately upon assuming power, he put down unrest in Jerusalem by slaughtering 3,000 Jews at the Temple during the Passover. He ruled only ten years before Emperor Augustus removed him for incompetence. Like his father, he might consider Jesus a threat to his power. If you’re a Christian exiled from Cuba by Castro, and you learn that he has died but his brother Raul rules in his place, you’re not sure whether you should return or not. Joseph was being pragmatic and wise.

So he took his family to Nazareth, the town he and Mary had left before Jesus’ birth. Why there? For several practical reasons. Sepphoris was nearby, a cosmopolitan city with excellent educational resources. Jesus could climb the hills of his valley, look west, and see the blue Mediterranean and ships going out to the ends of the earth. The great trade route from Damascus to Egypt and from Rome to the eastern borders of the Empire circled his town. Nazareth was a perfect place for the Savior of mankind to study and prepare to reach the world he was called to save.

God reveals his unique purpose and plan for our lives in pragmatic, practical ways–open and closed doors; circumstances and events; opportunities and disappointments. As you wrestle with something about God’s will you need to know today, ask him to guide you practically. Pay attention to your gifts and abilities, your passions and opportunities.

Frederick Buechner says, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

William Barclay got a call one day from a friend who served on the publishing committee of the Church of Scotland. He said, “Willie, do a commentary in a hurry on one of the books of the Bible. This will give us time to look around for someone really good.” Barclay quickly wrote a commentary on Acts. It was an immediate success, and Barclay was asked to write another volume. His Daily Study Bible became the most popular in Christian history. I read from it each week.

God speaks to us pragmatically, through our gifts, circumstances, and opportunities. Ask him to guide you in this way, and he will.

Listen for his intuitive voice

In our study of Matthew thus far, we have encountered five dreams given to Joseph. Here he is told to return to Israel, then “warned in a dream’ to withdraw to Galilee (v. 22). God speaks to us practically, in our circumstances and opportunities; but also intuitively, in our inner spirit and soul.

God spoke to the first biblical Joseph in dreams. He spoke to the prophet Elijah in a “gentle whisper” (1 Kings 19:13-18). He spoke to Paul through the vision of a man of Macedonia (Acts 16:6-10). Listen for his intuitive voice, for it is as real today as then.

How can you hear his Spirit speak to your spirit? Make sure you are close enough to God to hear what he wants to say. Guidance is first a relationship with the Guide. Radio and television waves fill this room, but we don’t hear their sounds or see their images because we don’t have a receiver present. The church marquee asked a good question: If you don’t feel close to God, guess who moved. Sin blocks the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and keeps us from hearing what God is saying.

Stay close to God, and stay surrendered to what he says. He will not reveal his will as an option to consider, but an order to obey. Decide beforehand that you will do what he asks, that you will follow where he leads. Janet and I had no peace about coming to Dallas, until we surrendered our lives to whatever God wanted. I still remember the public library a few blocks north of our church in Atlanta where I went one Monday afternoon to wrestle with God. He won. So did I.

When you are in his will, you have his “peace that passes understanding” (Philippians 4:7), a peace which understanding cannot produce, the intuitive calm and inner joy of the Spirit. Stay close and surrendered, and God will guide you through his intuitive voice.

Seek his rational word

Last, seek his rational word. God speaks to us practically in our circumstances, intuitively in our spirits, and rationally in our minds. He does this most fully through Scripture.

Joseph chose Nazareth for Jesus’ hometown. No intuitive dreams this time, or pragmatic circumstances–Joseph made this decision “so that was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: ‘He will be called a Nazarene'” (v. 23). “So that,” for the purpose that the word of God might be fulfilled.

There is no specific Old Testament prophecy with these words. But Joseph knew that the Scriptures foretold a suffering Servant (Isaiah 53; Psalm 22:6; Psalm 69:11-12, 19). He knew that Nazareth was a humble place, despised by other Jews.

And he knew the Messianic prediction of Isaiah 11:1, “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.” The Hebrew for “Branch” and “Nazareth” is the same root. He knew rationally that Nazareth would fulfill the word of God regarding the Son of God. And he was right.

Such obedience is the key to the blessing of God. No good father will bless the disobedience of his child, knowing that its results are dangerous and damaging. God can bless most fully those who are most fully obedient to his word.

So as you seek his will, consult his word. Be sure your life is consistent with Scripture. Look for texts which speak to your situation or decision. As you “love God with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37) through his word, he will guide your life.

Conclusion

This week we focus on the second Covenant of Grace value, “commit daily.” Surrender each day to the will of God for your life. Know that he has a unique purpose for your life as you help people follow Jesus. He will guide you through pragmatic circumstances, an intuitive sense and peace, and rational obedience to his word. Use each to test the other. If you have a sense of something you should do, check pragmatic factors and the word of God. If a door is opening or closing, seek the peace and word of God. If a decision makes sense rationally, test it pragmatically and intuitively.

And know that God’s will is ultimately an issue not of knowledge but obedience. He wants us to know the next step to take, more than we want to know it. Choose now the will to obey, and you will know what to obey. Missionary Finlay Graham lived by this motto: “God’s will: nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.” Do you agree?

It is vital that we begin this new year by committing to God’s will for today, because none of us knows if there will be a tomorrow. Last Sunday, the Rev. Jack Arnold was preaching at the Covenant Presbyterian Church in a suburb of Orlando, Florida. He quoted John Wesley, “Until my work on this earth is done, I am immortal. But when my work for Christ is done, I go to be with Jesus.” He then said, “And when I go to heaven…” In mid-sentence, standing behind the pulpit, he collapsed and died of an apparent heart attack. His work for Christ was done.

If this Sunday were that day for you as you sit in this service, would you be ready?

How to Kill a Lion

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Topical Scripture: Acts 5:1–11

These are actual label instructions on consumer goods:

  • On a Sears hair dryer: Do not use while sleeping.
  • On a bag of Fritos: You could be a winner! No purchase necessary. Details inside.
  • On some Swanson frozen dinners: Serving suggestion: defrost.
  • On Marks & Spencer Bread Pudding: Product will be hot after heating.
  • On the package of a Rowenta iron: Do not iron clothes on body.
  • On a Korean kitchen knife: Warning, keep out of children.
  • On an American Airlines package of nuts: Instructions: Open packet, eat nuts.
  • On a Swedish chain saw: Do not attempt to stop the chain with your hands.

Good advice, all.

There should be a warning over the doors of the church as well: “Warning: Christians attacked here.” That’s odd, isn’t it? But the Bible says as much: “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

In our series on lessons from Peter’s life and ministry, we come today to one of the most unusual stories in the Bible. From it we learn the answer to the questions, How do we detect Satan’s attacks? What do we do when we do?

What did they do wrong?

“Ananias” means “one to whom Jehovah has been gracious.” “Sapphira” means “beautiful.” Both names proved to be ironic.

Verse one tells us that they “sold a piece of property.” Others have done this to help the poor and been applauded for their generosity. Now these two want that stage for themselves.

However, Ananias, with Sapphira’s full cooperation, “kept back part of the money for himself.” “Kept back” translates a word which means “to embezzle, to defraud”; sometimes in the New Testament it means simply “to steal” (Titus 2:10 NIV). He brings the rest of the proceeds and lays the money at Peter’s feet in a legal act of transfer.

The sin is not in the amount. As Peter makes clear, Ananias could sell anything he liked and give whatever he wished. The sin is in the intent to deceive: to make the church think he has sacrificially given the entire amount when in fact he has not.

But God doesn’t allow the attack to succeed. He always knows our attitudes as well as our actions. He reveals this deception to Peter, who calls Ananias to account for his sin. And in the instant that he hears his deception exposed, Ananias dies.

Then, three hours later, Sapphira comes in. Peter points to the money still at his feet and asks her, “Is this the amount you got for your land?” Her answer in the Greek is emphatic. She, too, lies deliberately; and the moment her sin is exposed she dies as well.

I know this text is harsh. The same God of grace whose power heals the sick and even the demon-possessed in the verses following, here allows or perhaps even causes, the death of these two church members. Perhaps they died of shock; perhaps God caused their deaths directly.

Most of us would see this crime as fairly benign. Those who would stone Stephen to death in two chapters were not punished as severely as this husband and wife. Saul of Tarsus participated in the persecution of multitudes of Christians and was never punished by God.

Why did they die?

Why so severe a penalty for these? If this was the proper consequence of their sin, why is it not the result of such deception today?

Ananias and Sapphira were punished for their deception with death, for one reason above all others: theirs was a cancer which would have crippled or destroyed the Christian movement. Their deception would not have stayed secret for long. Those who bought their land would likely make the sale price public or available, and the sale itself was a matter of public record. The church would eventually know that two of its honored donors had lied about their gift and motives.

As a result, the public witness of the church would have been impugned in the larger community. The credibility and integrity of the apostles and their leadership in this process of benevolence would have been undermined or destroyed. And such deception, left unpunished, would have encouraged the same sin in the hearts of others.

If they could deceive the Spirit, he is not truly Lord. Soon reverence for God and trust within the family of faith would be lost, and their community would be fractured.

The sin of Ananias and Sapphira was nothing less than a ploy of Satan to attack the unity and heart of the church (v. 3). Left unchecked, this cancer would have spread throughout the body of Christ. As it was, the punishment Ananias and Sapphira faced led to the opposite result from that intended by the enemy: “Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events” (v. 11).

How did Peter know?

One other question is common with regard to this story: how did Peter know of their sin? It is of course possible that he had access to the public records regarding their sale, though nothing about such knowledge is suggested in the text. The answer is found in one of the most significant statements about the Holy Spirit to be found in all the Scriptures.

In speaking to Ananias, Peter exposed the plot of Satan as a lie “to the Holy Spirit” (v. 3). Then he concluded, “You have not lied to men but to God” (v. 4). Later he asked Sapphira, “How could you agree to test the Spirit of the Lord?” (v. 9). When we deceive the Holy Spirit, we deceive God, for he is the “Spirit of the Lord.” Here is proof of the absolute divinity of the Holy Spirit. He is God the Spirit, equal part of the Triune Lord.

And it seems clear from the text that this Holy Spirit revealed the sin of Ananias and Sapphira to Peter. He made the apostle a spiritual oncologist, revealing to him the cancer before it could spread further. In so doing, he made clear to all that he sees every heart and motive and will stop at nothing to keep God’s people pure. The “great fear” which seized the whole church was not a fear of Peter’s omniscience, but of God’s.

What does this story mean to us?

Let’s consider four life lessons from this significant story.

One: We should expect temptation.

Ananias and Sapphira have become leaders in the church. As such, they have even larger targets on their back. Satan wants to destroy the witness of every follower of Jesus, including every one of us today.

If Ananias and Sapphira had refused the temptation of the enemy, their story would have been very different. Scripture teaches: “Submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). Submit, then you can resist and you will win.

Satan will not leave us alone. He will attack us until he wins or we win. The time to turn to God is now.

Two: Sin kills.

Every sin grieves the Lord and leads eventually to death (Romans 6:23). God’s warning to Eve in the Garden (Genesis 2:17) still applies to every sin and transgression.

Sometimes the consequences of our sin are less obvious at first than they were for Ananias and Sapphira, but they are no less real. The truism is nonetheless true: sin will always take is further than we wanted to go, keep us longer than we wanted to stay, and cost us more than we wanted to pay.

Three: Every sin is known to God.

Our omniscient Father knows every motive, every thought, every word of gossip or slander uttered in confidence, every transgression. We must “keep short accounts” with God, spending time often in confession and cleansing. The Holy Spirit can use us to the degree that we are holy. Then he will work through us as he did through the Jerusalem church, to the glory of God.

Four: The time to repent is now.

Peter gave Ananias and Sapphira opportunity to confess their sin, but each refused. They did not understand the urgency of the moment and the priority of repentance.

Their story teaches us to respond very differently. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you anything in your life that displeases him and confess all that comes to your thoughts. Now claim his forgiving grace and step forward in his peace.

Conclusion

Travis Kauffman was jogging in Colorado recently when he was attacked by a mountain lion. At that point, according to experts, he did everything right.

He did not try to run away. That triggers the animal’s predatory instinct. Instead, when the animal pounced on him and grabbed his wrist in its jaws, he fought back.

He hit it in the head with a rock, then managed to get his foot on the mountain lion’s neck. He held it there until the animal suffocated. At that point, he ran three miles for help. Someone gave him a ride to the hospital, where he received twenty-eight stitches to his cheek, nose, and wrist.

As we noted earlier, Satan is a “roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). Here’s what to do: “Resist him, standing firm in the faith” (v. 9).

What lion is attacking you today?

How to Know God’s Will

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How to Know God’s Will

Romans 12:1-8

Dr. Jim Denison

My first Bible was given to me by the Gideons on March 27, 1969, as I left my fifth grade class at Bonham Elementary in Houston. When I became a Christian four years later, I carried this Bible in the hip pocket of my jeans, which is why it is so tattered and torn today. But it is precious to me.

That Gideon had no idea his ministry would so influence my life, or that I would preach from this Bible today. He did God’s will for his life that day, and I will forever be grateful.

We are in the midst of our Heritage Month, celebrating God’s providence across our church’s history and finding ways to trust his plan for our personal lives. Last week we agreed that God has a plan for us, a plan better than any we could make or know.

Now we ask the second question: how do we know God’s plan, God’s will for us? I want to give you some brief convictions about the will of God, then we’ll explore our text together.

These are foundational principles:

God has a plan for your life, and it is good.

God wants you to know his will for your life; in fact, more than you do.

God’s word is his will. He will never act contrary to it.

God’s will is for today. No one in the Bible knows where he or she will be next year, but he or she always knows what he or she should do this day. God’s will is first and foremost for now.

Have you transferred ownership of your life to God?

Now, with this foundation in place, let’s decide if we are in the will of God, and if not, how to be. In Paul’s day, people used animals to worship God, to sacrifice to him, to be right with him. Today we don’t think in agricultural, but financial, terms. So let’s change the analogy to our culture.

To know if you’re in God’s will, here’s the first question to ask: have you transferred ownership of your life to God?

Our text begins: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship” (v. 1).

“In view of God’s mercy”—Paul said it well two verses earlier: “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?” (11:35). God has given us life, and life eternal, this day, and every possession and ability which is ours. Remember his mercy.

Now, yield your life to him in gratitude. “Offer” is a technical term for making a sacrifice at the Temple.

How do we do this?

Make a total commitment. “Your bodies”—to the Hebrew, this meant all of life. They did not separate body and spirit the way the Greeks did. To them, the body stood for everything. Not just Sunday, but your time all week; not just a tenth or less of your money, but all of it, obedient to God; not just your ethics at church, but at work or school. Everything.

Make a daily commitment—”living sacrifices” means that we do this constantly. Not just when you became a Christian, or made a significant decision to follow God a few years ago, but today. In Luke 9:23, Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” When did you last yield your life and will consciously to God?

Make a sacrificial commitment—”sacrifices” is just as true for us as for them. In Acts 14.22, Paul said, “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.” It will always cost you to follow Jesus.

This is our “spiritual worship.” This is how God evaluates our worship this morning. Not by the fact that we came to church, sang the hymns, prayed the prayers, gave some money, and listened to the sermon, but by whether or not we transferred ownership of our lives again to God today.

This is counter-cultural, in the extreme. We’re told to be self-sufficient and self-centered. Looking Out for Number 1, Pulling Your Own Strings, Winning Through Intimidation, and Unlimited Power are just some of the recent bestsellers which describe the current culture. But God’s word stands opposed to this culture. It says, if you want to be in the will of God, first you must yield your will and life to him.

Quite simply, God will not reveal his will to you as an option for you to consider. Only when you’re willing to follow God’s will can you be in that will, or know it for your future. Oswald Chambers was right: we only understand that part of God’s will that we obey.

So if you want to be in God’s will, transfer ownership of your life unconditionally to God. For the first time, or again today. This is the indispensable commitment God is calling you to make today.

Withdraw from the world’s account

The second principle for knowing God’s will is the mirror of the first: withdraw from the world’s account: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world” (v. 2a).

You cannot be right with God and right with your culture at the same time. Jesus said, “No man can serve two masters; either he will hate the first and love the second, or be devoted to the first and despise the second” (Matthew 6:24). You must choose.

So, what is the “pattern of this world”? It boils down to three basic principles:

Possessions over people. One T-shirt slogan says, “The one who dies with the most toys wins.” Our culture judges the worth of people by their possessions and appearance. Money, possessions, what you drive, where you live, what you wear. American Protestants give to foreign missions exactly what Americans spend on Nintendo games.

Popularity over principle. If “everybody’s doing it,” it must be okay. The popular culture says that premarital and extramarital sex are expected and normal, that alcohol and illegal drugs are safe and exciting, that families and marriage are outdated. What’s popular is what’s right, in the pattern of the world.

The present over the eternal. “Just do it.” “If it feels good, do it”—these are the slogans of our day. Live for today; the eternal is irrelevant. We’re all God’s children anyway; only 4% of us are afraid we might go to hell. The different religions are just roads up the same mountain. Eternity’s secure, so live for today.

“Do not conform any longer” indicates that these Roman Christians are already conforming to the world’s pattern. Apparently, so are most American Christians. On every ethical standard, those who say they attend church regularly are not statistically different from the rest of the population. Divorce, abortion, and substance abuse rates are all the same. Issues like sexuality, basic integrity, and values don’t appear to be different inside the church.

What about you? Does the world know you’re a Christian? Can they tell you’re different by your life? Or are you conformed to their mold? In the words of the old question, if you were tried for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence from your lifestyle to convict you?

I found a quote the other day that I put where I could see it: “The great challenge of life is to decide what’s important and to ignore everything else.”

Only when you withdraw from the world’s account can you transfer ownership to God. The two go together. Where are your deposits today?

Are you investing daily in your relationship with God?

The third question: are you investing daily in your relationship with God? The only way to stay out of the world’s mold and surrendered to God is to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (v. 2b). How do you do this?

“Transformed” refers to your inner nature. It’s the same Greek word used for Jesus’ transformation at the Mount of Transfiguration, where he was completely changed. So are we to be completely changed into his image.

This happens when we “renew our minds”—the phrase refers to our thoughts, attitudes, and basic character. When we immerse ourselves in the word of God, think its thoughts, and ask before every decision, What does Scripture say? When we pray regularly with God, talk with him through the day, and listen to him. When we worship God on Sunday and on Monday, publicly and privately. The closer we are to God, the better we sense his Spirit, hear his voice, and can know his will.

This is a daily, lifestyle commitment.

Here was Paul’s experience: “We do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16).

Is this your experience? When did you last spend the day with God? Are your thoughts and attitudes being transformed into the image of Jesus? This is his will for you.

Conclusion

If you have transferred ownership of your life to God, withdrawn from the world’s account, and are investing daily in your relationship with Jesus, you are in the will of God. Then “you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

And then you will find and fulfil your life calling and ministry. You will know and use your spiritual gifts, whether preaching, serving, teaching, encouraging, giving, leading, showing mercy (6-8). If your present is in his will, your future will be also.

The history of our church proves that it so. Due to the brevity of time, here are just a few examples.

Dr. Reed and Dr. Howard both left large, multi-staff, thriving congregations to pastor what was then a church with no permanent campus.

In 1940 Morris Shubinski, Jr. became the first Park Cities member to surrender to God’s call to ministry, in his case medical missions. E. O. Scoggin, Jr. answered God’s call to preach the next week, and was ordained by Park Cities. He later became the only member of our church to be killed in action during World War II.

In 1948 Charles Barnett took an entire year from his building contractor business to volunteer as the contractor for the building project which became this campus.

In 1954 Frank Durham and Dr. Howard organized the Andrew Club to visit newcomers to the area each month, with great success.

In 1977 Jim Pleitz arrived in Dallas and immediately began to air his “Thought for the Day” messages, catching the attention of the entire city. He kept Kip’s Restaurant open with his frequent breakfasts with prospects. And 284 people joined the church or were baptized in the first five months of his ministry here.

Do you think they found and followed God’s will? Will you?

My pastor in Houston had on his pulpit a plaque with these words from the Greeks’ question to Philip in John 12:21: “Sir, we would see Jesus.” I’ve had these words inscribed on this pulpit this week, where I can see them each Sunday. God’s will for my life and yours is that we help people follow Jesus.

Sixty years from today, who will be grateful that we did?

How to Leave a Legacy

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How to Leave a Legacy

Ruth 4:13-17

Dr. Jim Denison

Alfred Nobel’s brother died, but the press got confused and ran his obituary instead. It was titled, “The Dynamite King,” since he invented the explosive, and described the mass destruction dynamite had caused. Nobel was horrified. Then and there he determined to change things. In his last will and testament, he deeded his great fortune to establishing an award honoring those who work for peace and harmony in the world. The Nobel Peace Prize was the result.

We all want to leave a legacy. We carve names into granite or marble tombstones, and in tree trunks and wet concrete. We want to outlive ourselves, to be remembered well.

But there are better ways. We can determine today what our legacy will be. In fact, we must.

Start now

Ruth was a Gentile, thus hated by the Jews. And worse, she was from Moab, and they hated the Moabites most of all.

Moab was the son of Lot and one of his daughters; the name Moab means “from father,” a permanent reminder of his incestuous beginnings.

When the Jews came through on their way to the Promised Land, Moabite women seduced them into immorality and idolatry. 24,000 Jews died in the judgment of God which resulted. They never forgave Moab.

The Law commanded that no Moabite would ever enter the worship of God (Deuteronomy 23:3), and that the Jews would be perpetually at war with Moab (Deuteronomy 23:6).

And Ruth was from Moab.

She was not the last person to feel excluded from the people and plan of God, was she?

Maybe you feel on the outside of life, looking in. Maybe you’re new to our city, or your circumstances. Perhaps you have problems no one knows about, and it seems no one cares. There are many ways to be Moabites today.

No one would have thought Ruth could leave a legacy of eternal significance, would they? But she did. So can you. So can I.

Believe that God believes in you. You cannot alter your past, but you can bring your past to the altar. Today.

God wants to use your life, right now. Become intentional about your life, your future, your contribution to God’s kingdom and world. If he could use Ruth, he can use you. If you would leave a legacy that matters, start now.

Experts agree: the best way to predict the future is to create it. It has been truly said, Where there’s no gardener, there’s no garden.

At Yale University in 1953, the graduates were asked how many had clear, written, substantive goals for their lives. Only 3% did. Twenty years later it was discovered that this 3% had accomplished more than the other 97% combined.

Begin writing your obituary, determining your legacy, right now.

Invest with God

Where do you begin? With God. Remember Ruth’s statement of faith, in the famous KJV rendering: “Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God” (1:16).

Ruth is turning from her pagan, Gentile gods to the true God of Israel. And she is definite about it. The Hebrew literally says, “Your people my people; your God my God.” No questions or reservations—absolute, unconditional commitment to the God of Israel. And only now, her life began to build an eternal legacy.

God promises the same to us: “Seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and everything else will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33).

And our eternal God can make your life to have eternal significance, no matter your circumstances today.

John the Beloved Disciple was Jesus’ last living apostle, sent to the penal island of Patmos to isolate him and silence his witness. It didn’t work.

As John was sailing to the Alcatraz of the ancient world, he won those on the boat to Christ. Then the soldiers assigned to him. Then the other prisoners. He started a church which has met on Patmos for twenty centuries. When I visited there on a Sunday morning, we saw that church still worshipping in the cave where John lived.

God can give our lives eternal significance. Only he can.

So, how fully are you investing in your relationship with him today? When did you last spend an hour listening to him? Walking with him? Worshipping him? Are you asking him to make your life significant? To use you for his purposes? To establish an eternal legacy through you?

To leave a legacy that lasts, first invest in your relationship with God.

Invest in people

And then invest in people. Souls are the only eternal reality in our world. People are all that matters forever. Charles Spurgeon’s advice is still sound: “Those who loved you, and were helped by you, will remember you when flowers are withered. Carve your name on hearts, and not on marble.”

See Ruth’s example: “Where you go I will go, and where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God my God” (1:16). She will invest in God, and then in the people of God. And she did.

And so Ruth gave up her homeland, her security, her safety. As a despised Moabitess, she traveled to the land of her nation’s worst enemies. Why? Because her first commitment was to Naomi. Not to her society, or culture, but to this suffering person before her.

She chose to put people first. And the results have been eternal.

What people? Start with your family. They are your highest and first commitment under God, your first and most significant legacy.

1 Timothy 5:8: “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” This is true financially, but spiritually as well.

Every parent’s first legacy is our children. And those without children can extend their legacy through people as well. Through spouses, nieces, nephews, friends, co-workers, extended family, fellow students.

When our work is done, our businesses gone or run by others, our possessions and achievements forgotten, who will outlive us? Who will continue our legacy? People, with our families first.

Whose lives are you intentionally influencing right now? Who is on your list of legacy-builders? Do you have such a list? When will you make one? Ruth chose Naomi. In whose life are you investing today, for eternity’s sake?

You need a strategy for leaving a legacy. We all do.

Bob Buford’s story is well-known to many of us. A Tyler cable executive, he determined that he wanted his life to be not only successful but also significant. And so he made a “half time” career change, investing the majority of his time and resources in the creation of a network to bring ministry leaders together from around the globe. Leadership Network is today the largest and most effective such ministry in the world.

I want you to read the book he wrote about all this. Half Time: Changing Your Game Plan from Success to Significance is a practical guide for creating your legacy, determining your lasting significance in life.

You can start right now. Ask God for the next step in his strategy for your legacy. How will you invest more fully in your relationship with him? With your family? With other people and their eternal souls? What is your plan? What will you do now?

Conclusion

Here’s the result of Ruth’s faithfulness to God and people: Ruth had a son named Obed, and “He was the father of Jesse, the father of David” (Ruth 4:17). God made this Moabite woman the great-grandmother of the greatest King in Israel’s history.

And in Matthew’s genealogy of the Messiah we read in 1:5, “Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth.” Ruth became an ancestor of the Lord Jesus himself.

Now Jesus invites us to remember his legacy, and to continue it. To come to the Table which reminds us of his death for us, and to carry the news of his love to people across our community this week. To love God in gratitude with our heart, soul, and mind; to love our neighbor as ourselves. To continue his legacy by building our own.

When worship is done today, where will you begin?

How To Live A Legacy

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How to Live a Legacy

Matthew 5:21-24

Dr. Jim Denison

By now you’ve heard about the most sensational archaeological find in decades: the burial box of James, the brother of Jesus Christ.

The ossuary, a limestone burial box, is inscribed in the Aramaic language with the words “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” It dates to A.D. 63. Naming the brother was very unusual and almost never occurred, unless that brother was someone of very great significance.

One scholar has called this discovery “the most important find in the history of New Testament archaeology.” It is the earliest proof yet discovered for the historical life and importance of our Lord Jesus. And just one more way the greatest legacy of all time continues.

Beyond a tombstone, how will your legacy continue? We all want to leave one. In fact, if our survival and health are secure, legacy becomes our most important need.

According to recent surveys, the most important drives people feel today are to find a life purpose and mission, and to share this purpose and mission with others. In other words, we are looking for a life that matters, that leaves a legacy.

I am. My greatest fear is that I might stand before God one day and be told that I missed his purpose for my life. Do you share my fear? Do you want to outlive yourself, to know that your life will matter when it is done, to be sure that you don’t waste these years God has given to you?

Are you confident that people will remember you, be grateful for you, thank God for you? What will your legacy be? Will it be significant?

We’ll discover this morning that there’s only one way to leave a legacy, and that is to live a legacy. But such a legacy comes at a cost. Jesus will show us how to pay it, and why it’s the best investment we can make.

Refuse to hate or hurt (vs. 21-22)

Jesus continues his Sermon: “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment'” (Matthew 5:21).

They “heard” this because the rabbis read the law to them in the synagogue each Sabbath, including this Sixth Commandment (Exodus 20:13).

A murderer was “subject to judgment,” the local tribunal composed of seven persons. These tribunals inflicted punishment with the sword for capital crimes.

Now we find Jesus’ commentary: “But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment” (v. 22a).

Jesus is not dealing here with the simple emotion of anger. This is an inevitable human reaction to hurt or harm. And it was an emotion Jesus felt himself. In Mark 3:5 Jesus “looked around at them in anger” for their unbelief; in John 2:15 he drove the moneychangers out of the Temple. Ephesians 4:26 tells us, “In your anger do not sin.” The emotion of anger is not a sin.

He is dealing with a different thing here. In the Greek language, thumos describes the spontaneous and unavoidable emotion of anger; it is not the word here. Orge is this word; it means anger which is long-lived, cherished in the heart, nursed and kept alive. The deliberate choice to continue holding onto your anger. Absolute unwillingness to pardon and move on.

Such cherished anger makes us “liable to judgment.” In other words, hating my brother is as wrong as the murder which hate spawns.

“Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin” (v. 22b).

“Raca” was an Aramaic term of contempt which literally meant “empty-headed” or stupid. In ancient Judaism names were much more significant than they are for us. A name denoted a person’s character, and a word took on its own life and power.

So expressing your cherished anger by a term of contempt made you answerable not to the local tribunal but to the Sanhedrin, the Supreme Court of ancient Israel. They typically required reparations in money for such an insult to a person’s reputation and status.

“But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell” (v. 22c).

“Fool” was the worst, most slanderous term you could use against a person in ancient Israel. It comes from the Greek word for “moron,” and meant a person who is morally deficient, corrupted, immoral, a person with no character or value whatsoever.

This level of anger deserves “the fire of hell.” The Greek says, “the gehenna of fire.” The Valley of Gehenna stood to the south of Jerusalem. During the reigns of wicked kings Ahaz and Manasseh, children were sacrificed to idols there. King Josiah stamped out such heinous sin, and made the valley a trash dump. Fires were kept burning there constantly to consume the trash; worms lived there which lived off the refuse.

Jesus would later make Gehenna a metaphor for hell “where the fire never goes out … their worm does not die” (Matthew 9:43,48).

What is Jesus teaching us? Refuse to hate or hurt your brother. No matter what he may have done to you. In a moment Jesus will teach us how to reconcile with him. For now, how do we handle the anger our pain has caused?

Act on your anger immediately, before it takes root in your soul: “Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold” (Ephesians 4.26-27). Deal with this infection before it spreads. Admit it, and give it to God.

Guard your tongue, especially while you are angry: “If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless” (James 1:26). What we say shows who we are.

Choose to pardon, for your sake and his. Tim Stafford: “I would rather be cheated a hundred times than develop a heart of stone.” A wise old saint added, “I will never allow another person to ruin my life by making me hate him.”

The Didache is the oldest theological document outside the New Testament. It gives us good advice: “Love those that hate you, and you will have no enemy” (1:3). Ask God’s help, and it will be yours.

Who has made you angry this week?

Make things right today (vs. 23-24)

Now, how do we reconcile your relationship with this person? Jesus will tell us: “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23-24).

“Offering your gift at the altar” describes the holiest moment a Galilean peasant might ever experience. Very rarely were non-priests allowed before the altar at the Temple in Jerusalem, and only when they were bringing animal sacrifice for a very special occasion. Some would prepare for years or all their lives for this moment. This is something akin to baptism for us.

There you “remember that your brother has something against you”—not just that you have something against him. “Something” is anything. There is no distinction here as to whether this is just or not, whether you are wrong or wronged. If anyone has anything against you today, you qualify.

Leave your gift. Don’t give it to the priest, but leave it where it is. Despite the holiness and significance of this moment. The person comes first: “go and be reconciled.” Take the initiative to make things right. Only then can you give your gift to God. You cannot be right with me if you are wrong with one of my children. Our heavenly Father feels the same way.

How do we attempt this reconciliation? I recently read an article in Psychology Today entitled “Making Amends.” It suggests that a meaningful apology requires three steps:

Regret: recognize that your action or inaction hurt this person, whether you intended such pain or not. Empathize with the pain they feel.

Responsibility: accept total responsibility for your actions or inactions.

Remedy: offer restitution or a promise to take action so that you do not repeat this behavior. Find a way to resolve the situation and restore the relationship.

Take the initiative to reconcile with your brother.

Go to the person directly: “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over” (Matthew 18:15). Don’t talk about the person, but to him. Do it now.

The poet Edwin Markham lost everything when an unscrupulous banker betrayed his business confidence. He hated that man. And he could not write poetry, but doodled circles on paper for hours. Finally he realized he must forgive the man or die. He said aloud, “I forgive him.” For the first time in months, words began to flow. Looking at the circles on his paper, he wrote:

He drew a circle that shut me out,

Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.

But love and I had the wit to win.

We drew a circle that took him in.

Start your circle today.

Conclusion

Refuse to hate and hurt. Initiate reconciliation with your brother. Not easy words to hear or easy things to do. So why pay this price? Because our relationships are our legacy. Not our possessions, achievements, or status. One day all that will be gone. Our belongings will belong to someone else. The cheers will die out, the crowds will disperse, life will go on without us. And the marks which will last eternally will be those we made on the eternal souls of the people we know today.

Whose life has made the greatest mark on you? Billy Graham finished the Metroplex Mission last Sunday evening by speaking to the largest crowd he has ever addressed in North America, and received the largest single collection in his ministry’s history. But his legacy will be the souls changed by God through his words. When Texas Stadium is gone and his ministry just a memory in history books, those souls’ eternities will have just begun.

Like him, you and I exist to help people follow Jesus. To love Jesus, and love our neighbor to Jesus. But we cannot be right with our Father unless we are right with his children.

Many stories have been told about the painting of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper. One of my favorites is that da Vinci made the face of Judas similar in appearance to a personal enemy. As the artist thought of how much he disliked this man, it was easy to paint him as the traitor of our Lord. However, when he turned to paint the face of Jesus, he could not. His eyes wandered to the face of his enemy, creating thoughts within his heart which made it impossible to concentrate on the beauty and purity of Jesus. He painted the face of Christ only after he painted out the face of Judas and reconciled himself with his enemy.

To paint the face of Christ tomorrow, whose face must you change today?

How to Live for a Legacy

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Topical Scripture: Genesis 12:1-9

The Winter Olympics end today. By its conclusion, there will have been 105 events in fifteen sports, the first Winter Olympics to surpass one hundred medal events. Nearly 3,000 athletes from 92 countries have been competing.

Through it all, the one common denominator for American television viewers has been Mike Tirico, NBC’s primetime host. He also became the main studio host for NBC’s coverage of the NFL last year. In both roles, he replaced veteran sportscaster Bob Costas, who hosted eleven Summer and Winter Olympic Games.

Here’s what makes their connection so unusual: Tirico was the first student to receive the Bob Costas Scholarship at Syracuse University, Costas’s alma mater, back in 1987. Costas could have had no idea 31 years ago that a student who went to school because of his scholarship would one day succeed him on arguably the largest sports television stage in the world.

You cannot know the future, but you can prepare for it. You cannot define your legacy, but you can live in such a way that those who do are marked by the Christ who lives in you.

You can be faithful to God today and trust him to use your faithfulness tomorrow. As we continue walking through the Book of Genesis, this week we come to one of the greatest role models of faith in all of human history. Let’s learn from Abram how to trust and serve the God of Abram.

As we do, we’ll learn this fact: you cannot measure the eternal significance of present faithfulness.

Why Abram?

“The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you” (v. 1).

There is absolutely no indication that this future father to more than half of the world’s religious population did anything to earn this call on his life. He didn’t graduate from Harvard Law on his way to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, or Yale Law, and years of political achievement on the way to becoming president. He didn’t win two Super Bowls on the way to being the Dallas Cowboys’ head coach, or rise to become the best assistant in the league before being named the Dallas Mavericks’ head coach.

He has no resume, no list of achievements, no merit with God. Neither do we. Our lofty achievements can no more impress the omnipotent God of the universe than my singing voice will make me the next American Idol.

This man was in no sense perfect. Sometimes he lived up to his calling, as when he interceded for Sodom and Gomorrah and offered Isaac to God. Sometimes he failed miserably, as when he tried to pass off his wife as his sister, or fathered children with her servant girl.

His is the pattern of Scripture. Noah saved the human race, then planted a vineyard and got drunk; Moses ran from Egyptian authorities for forty years before returning to free his people from them; Bathsheba overshadows Goliath on David’s resume; Peter denied Christ before he preached his gospel; Saul murdered Christians before he ministered to them.

I did absolutely nothing to warrant hearing the gospel when the bus ministry of College Park Baptist Church in Houston knocked at my door. I won no competitions for their attention, had no status in the community which would cause them to seek me out. I simply opened the door when they knocked on it.

What did you do to earn the right to be born in America and not Ethiopia? To have parents who loved you rather than abusing you? Were you any more moral than those who died on 9/11 or at Stoneman Douglas High School? I’ve flown on airplanes around the world and spoken at high schools around the country; the fact that I’ve never been harmed in one has absolutely nothing to do with me.

If God could call Abram, what’s to keep him from calling you?

How to be Abram

Why Abram? What did he bring to the table? Just this: when God said, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you” (v. 1), “Abram left, as the Lord had told him” (v. 4). As Hebrews 11:8 says, “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.” As the King James puts it, “he went out, not knowing whither he went.”

Why is such blind obedience essential to the blessing of God? Is it that this kind of unconditional faith earns God’s favor? No: “it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God–not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9). We do nothing to earn God’s call.

Why then? Because God honors the freedom he gave us and will not lead us where we will not go.

He will not make any of us leave Haran for a Promised Land. He won’t make you trust him with your dating relationship, or marriage, or money, or time. His will for your life is “good, pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12:2); he has “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11).

What he said to Abram he says to you today: “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing” (v. 2); “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (v. 3b).

A single day lived completely in the will of God bears eternal harvest.

When we give his word to our world, that word “will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11). When you teach his word in a Bible study class, or speak it to a friend, or obey it in your personal life, it cannot fail to change the world.

When we perform an act of kindness in his name, we will one day hear Jesus say, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. . . . I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:34–36, 40).

These promises have no conditions. They do not depend on the money you make, or the home you own, or the status you’ve achieved.

The wealthiest man in your city is no more important to God than his gardener. Name the last five Nobel Peace Prize winners, or the Super Bowl champions of two years ago, or the World Series champions last year, or the monarch of Great Britain before Queen Elizabeth II.

If you think that your value on earth or in heaven is tied to the world’s assessment, you’re mistaken. No human can bless “all peoples on earth” or make a significant difference in time and eternity. Only God working through us can do that.

Every one of us can change the world. But only if we seek his will and surrender to his voice. Only if we go out not knowing.

But he cannot lead you if you won’t follow. If you’re building towers to glorify yourself instead of altars to glorify God, he’ll tear them down. He will not share his glory, because that would be idolatry, the worst cancer of our souls. He loves us too much to let us trust and serve anyone but the one true God and Lord.

Conclusion

Where do we begin? Where Abram began. When last did you tell God you would “go out not knowing”?

I will be on an airplane again this weekend and have been thinking about that familiar experience as a metaphor for today’s message. You and I are on an airplane that’s ready for takeoff today. Who’s behind the controls? You are unless you’ve consciously turned them over to the true Pilot of the universe. Unless you’ve decided to let him fly the airplane anywhere he wants.

How can you turn the plane over to him?

First, meet the Pilot personally. He cannot fly the plane unless he’s on board. Ask him to forgive your sins and failures and invite him into your life as your Lord. You must know him before you can follow him.

Now, let go of the controls yourself. He won’t fight you for them. Admit the areas of your life which you’ve not surrendered to him—your time, ambitions, relationships, money, sins.

Give him the wheel at the start of every flight. Never take off at the beginning of a day without first giving that day’s flight to his control. Begin every morning by yielding that day to his Spirit. Ask him to “fill” and control you, to be in charge. When you push him out of the cockpit, admit your rebellion immediately and invite him back.

Living in the Lordship of Jesus is so simple that all of us can do it. And so important that all of us must.

Who is flying the airplane of your life and legacy today?

How To Live In The Now

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How to Live in the Now

Matthew 6.28-34

Dr. Jim Denison

A friend sent me some interesting facts about the class which recently graduated from high school in America. They have no recollection of the Reagan era. There has been only one Pope in their lifetime. They were five when the Soviet Union broke apart and do not remember the Cold War. Tianamen Square means nothing to them. Atari predates them, as do vinyl albums. They have never heard of an 8-track. The Compact Disc was introduced before they were born. They have always had cable and VCRs. Popcorn has always been cooked in the microwave. They have no idea that Americans were ever held hostage in Iran. Kansas, Chicago, Boston, America, and Alabama are places, not bands. They don’t have a clue how to use a typewriter. And Jay Leno has always been on the Tonight Show.

Speaking of Mr. Leno, I once heard him say that his father complained about walking five miles through the snow to school. “What will we complain about to our kids?” he asked. “We had to get up to change the channel.”

Tomorrow comes so quickly that we worry about it today. But Jesus says that we should not: “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (v. 34). How do we do this? A psychologist once said that 90% of his patients live in fear of the future or guilt over the past. Wouldn’t you like to refuse both? How do we live in the now?

Choose to live in the now

“Do not worry,” our text begins, translating a present tense imperative. Literally rendered, Jesus said, “Stop worrying, every time worry starts again in your life.”

“About tomorrow”—specifically, about anything having to do with the future. No exceptions, no qualifications, no loopholes.

Why? “Tomorrow will worry about itself”—it will take care of itself. You cannot. You can’t do anything about tomorrow, today.

Instead, focus on now, for “Each day has enough trouble of its own.” The word describes damage done to a crop by hail, the normal problems of living in this fallen world. You have enough to think about for today without borrowing from tomorrow.

The upshot: live in the now. Stay in the present. But that’s hard.

So why live in the present? For three reasons. First, worry over the future is pointless. A survey regarding worries revealed these facts:

40% of things most people worry about never happen.

30% of what we worry about has already happened and cannot be changed.

22% of what we worry about regards problems which are beyond our control.

Only 8% of what we worry about involves situations over which we have any influence.

Mickey Rivers, former New York Yankees outfielder, was right: “Ain’t no sense worry about things you got control over, ’cause if you got control over them, ain’t no sense worrying. And there ain’t no sense worrying about things you got no control over, ’cause if you got no control over them, ain’t no sense worrying about them.” Any questions?

A wise man once said, “The biggest troubles you have got to face are those that never come.”

It has been observed that the bridges we cross before we come to them are almost always over rivers that aren’t there.

Winston Churchill once quoted a man on his deathbed who said that he had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which never happened. Don’t live in tomorrow, for such anxiety is pointless.

Second, refuse to worry about the future, because tomorrow doesn’t exist.

The Greeks pictured history as a line, and made five-year plans. The Jews knew better. They saw time as a dot, the here and now. “Yesterday” is gone, and “tomorrow” doesn’t exist. It’s just a word with no substance. We live in the past and the future; they lived in the present.

Take Paul’s experience on his second missionary journey. He thought he was to turn back East when God called him West. The result was his ministry in Macedonia and Europe, and the movement of the gospel to the Western Hemisphere. The apostle had no idea this was his future; he was simply staying faithful in the present.

Third, choose to live in the now, because it’s the only way to know God. All of God there is, is in this moment. He is the great I Am, not the I Was or the I Will Be. He cannot help you with the future, for it doesn’t exist. If you want to know God, you must live in today.

Jim Carrey’s comedy Bruce Almighty has caused significant problems for Dawn Jenkins, and she isn’t even in it. The character of God leaves his phone number on Carrey’s pager. But instead of the usual 555 prefix used by most television shows and films, God’s number is a common exchange—it’s Dawn’s cell phone number. She’s been getting about 20 calls per hour, with callers asking for God before hanging up.

The only way God can answer your call is when you make it about the present. He’s already forgiven every sin you’ve confessed to him from your past; he will guide every step you’ll trust to his will. So live in this moment, and you’ll find God there.

Learn to live in the now

So we choose to live in the present, in this moment, in the now. How do we do this? I have been helped much this week by rereading Thomas Kelly’s classic A Testament of Devotion. This Quaker missionary was a scholar in philosophy of religion, but even more a student of the soul. He suggests these principles, which I endorse to you.

First, invite Christ to dwell in your soul. Make him your Savior and Lord.

When you do, your body becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19) and Jesus himself comes to live in your heart.

As a result, “Deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Divine Center, a speaking Voice, to which we may continually return. Eternity is at our hearts, pressing upon our time-worn lives, warming us with intimations of an astounding destiny, calling us home unto Itself” (p. 9).

It is this Christ within you who has called you to his worship today, and to hear this message. You are here by his initiative and invitation. He wants you to know the peace that passes understanding which will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7). So make him your Lord, and you will find in him your peace.

Next, learn to practice his presence through each day.

“There is a way of ordering our mental life on more than one level at once. On one level we may be thinking, discussing, seeing, calculating, meeting all the demands of external affairs. But deep within, behind the scenes, at a profounder level, we may also be in prayer and adoration, song and worship and a gentle receptiveness to divine breathings…It is at this deep level that the real business of life is determined” (p. 12-13).

How do we live on this deeper level? “By quiet, persistent practice in turning of all our being, day and night, in prayer and inward worship and surrender, toward Him who calls in the deeps of our souls” (p. 15).

We turn our thoughts to God constantly. We pray to him with brief phrases all through the day. We seek his word in our minds and hearts. As we walk in his presence, we find that he prays for us and through us. We find ourselves carried along by his Spirit. We sense ourselves in his peace.

Third, disown yourself.

“It is just this astonishing life that is willing…sincerely to disown itself, this life that intends complete obedience, without any reservations, that I would propose to you in all humility, in all boldness, in all seriousness. I mean this literally, utterly, completely, and I mean it for you and for me—commit your lives in unreserved obedience to Him” (pp. 24-25, italics his).

How? Begin where you are. Obey what you know to obey from God today. Surrender what you know to surrender. Confess what you know to confess. As best you can today, give up rights to your own ambitions, dreams, hopes. Put them into God’s hands. Trust that the One whose Son died for you, the One who knows the future you cannot see, will guide your life better than you can.

Ask him to guide your next step, to reveal your next decision, to use your life for his purposes. When you sense yourself taking your life back, give it again. When you take it back, give it again. Time after time after time. Disown yourself.

And here’s what you’ll experience: “self-renunciation means God-possession, the being possessed by God” (p. 31). Here is the key to the power of God. It is the key to the peace and presence of God. It is the key to the life you seek this morning.

The bottom line: choose to dwell in the presence of Christ in each moment.

You will experience “a deeper, internal simplification of the whole of one’s personality, stilled, tranquil, in child-like trust listening ever to Eternity’s whisper” (p. 37).

This is “the life beyond fevered strain. We are called beyond strain, to peace and power and joy and love and thorough abandonment of self. We are called to put our hands trustingly in His hand and walk the holy way, in no anxiety assuredly resting in Him” (p. 38, italics his).

This is to live in the Spirit, displaying the fruit of the Spirit. To what degree are you this morning experiencing love? Joy? Peace? Patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control? You can. If you will live in the presence of Christ, in the eternal now.

Richard Foster says, “The Christian life comes not by gritting our teeth but by falling in love.” When you dwell in Jesus’ love each moment, you have his peace.

Thomas Kelly concludes: “I think it is clear that I am talking about a revolutionary way of living. Religion isn’t something to be added to all our other duties and thus make our lives yet more complex. The life with God is the center of life, and all else is remodeled and integrated by it. It gives the singleness of eye…There is a way of life so hid with Christ in God that in the midst of the day’s business one is inwardly lifting brief prayers, short ejaculations of praise, subdued whispers of adoration and of tender love to the Beyond that is within. No one need know about it…One can live in a well-nigh continuous state of unworded prayer, directed toward God, directed toward people and enterprises we have on our heart. There is no hurry about it all; it is a life unspeakable and full of glory, an inner world of splendor within which we, unworthy, may live” (p. 76).

Conclusion

So live in the presence of God, and give your fear about the future to him every time it occurs. You may need to give that fear to him a hundred times this hour; do it every time. Eventually fear will subside and faith will take its place.

Plan for the future, but don’t live there. Pay your bills. Make preparations. Much of our fear about tomorrow comes from feeling that we’re not prepared for what it might bring. Be as ready as you can be. Then leave the results with God.

And choose to live in the now by walking in the presence of Jesus. Begin where you are. Give all you know of yourself to all you know of him. Stay in prayer and worship. Live in the world and in the Spirit. And find in the Eternal Now the peace your heart longs to know.

Elizabeth Cheney’s poem is still worth hearing:

Said the Robin to the Sparrow, “I should really like to know

Why these anxious human beings rush around and worry so.”

Said the Sparrow to the Robin, “Friend, I think that it must be

That they have no heavenly Father such as cares for you and me.”

Well?