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Honor People- Or Dishonor God

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Honor People—Or Dishonor God

The life and legacy of Moses

Dr. Jim Denison

Exodus 20:12-14

Do you remember the game show Family Feud? 100 people were surveyed on a subject. Then two families, five members each, tried to guess the most popular answers on these surveys. Richard Dawson’s “Survey says…” was the “Is that your final answer?” of the day. The game show aired from 1976 to 1985, was revived again in 1988 for one season, and aired again briefly several years ago. But the title describes our culture even more fully today than it did 25 years ago.

Our relationships need help. Fortunately, God cares. That’s why he gave us the last six commandments. Today we’ll survey more material than one lesson can use, as you select those relational truths which your class most needs to hear.

Honor your parents (Exodus 20:12)

“Honor,” the commandment begins. The word means to respect or venerate. “Your father and mother,” God continues. In a world which relegated women to inferior status, this inclusion is significant. And note that Leviticus 19:3 restates it this way: “Each of you must respect his mother and father.” Here the mother is even listed first.

So that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you,” the commandment concludes. The first meaning of this promise is that the nation of Israel would be secure in her society and land if she kept this commandment. But there are other meanings as well, as we will see in a moment.

Why honor our parents? Note that God’s word makes the fifth commandment binding for all time. Leviticus 19:3 says, “Each of you must respect his mother and father.” None of us are excluded, no matter the circumstances of our situation. We’ll say more about this in a moment. The book of Proverbs adds, “If a man curses his father or mother, his lamp will be snuffed out in pitch darkness” (20:20); and also this gruesome hyperbole, “The eye that mocks a father, that scorns obedience to a mother, will be pecked out by the ravens of the valley, will be eaten by the vultures” (31:17).

The New Testament is clear as well. Jesus renewed this commandment when he told the Rich Young Ruler, “honor your father and mother” (Matthew 19:19), and he severely criticized the religious leaders of his day for not honoring and supporting their parents (Mark 7:9-13). The epistles are clear: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord. Honor your father and mother” (Ephesians 6:1-2); “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord” (Colossians 3:20).

We need to keep this commandment for the sake of our souls, our families, and our future. This is indeed how to “live long” on the earth. Perhaps this brief tale from the Brothers Grimm will make the point. Once upon a time there was a little old man. His eyes blinked and his hands trembled; when he ate he clattered the silverware, missed his mouth with the spoon as often as not, and dribbled a bit of his food on the tablecloth. He lived with his married son, and this son and his wife soon decided that they could not have such a distraction at their table.

So they led the little old man gently but firmly by the arm to the corner of the kitchen. There they set him on a stool and gave him his food in a bowl. But one day his hands trembled even more than usual, and the bowl fell and broke. His son and daughter-in-law, in anger and distress, then made a little wooden trough and fed him out of that. It was terrible to see him eating as would an animal, but that’s the way things were.

One day the couple’s four-year-old son was playing intently with some bits of wood, so they asked him what he was doing. “I’m making a trough,” he said, smiling at them for approval, “to feed you and Mamma out of when I get big.”

The man and his wife looked at each other for a while, then they cried a little, then they took the little old man by the arm and led him back to the table. They sat him in a comfortable chair and gave him his food on a plate, and from then on nobody ever scolded when he clattered or spilled or broke things.

We need the fifth commandment, for our lives, our families, and our future.

What about dishonorable parents? But before we find practical ways to honor our parents, we need briefly to ask a hard question: what if our parents are not honorable? What if they try to keep us from following Christ or otherwise doing what is right? What then?

Sometimes we must choose which commandment to break. When Corrie ten Boom’s family was harboring Jews, one day the Nazis banged on their door and asked if they had Jews in their house. Which commandment will they break—the sixth commandment, not to murder, or the ninth commandment, not to lie?

Jesus made it clear that following him would sometimes cause conflict with our family. His own family misunderstood him early in his ministry. And he specifically told his followers, “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Mt 10:37).

This tragedy happened often to early Christians who had to refuse their father’s order to reject Christ, even to the point of death. In Jewish society as well, when a son turned from his father’s faith he became dead unto him. I had a student at Southwestern Seminary whose Orthodox Jewish family held a burial service for him when he came to Christ. There is a tombstone in New York with his name on it today.

Ephesians 6:1 is clear: “Obey your parents in the Lord.” Martin Luther had to refuse his father’s wishes that he become a lawyer, to become a minister. Thomas Aquinas’s family locked him in the family castle for a year in their attempt to prevent his entering the ministry. Francis Schaeffer’s father forbade his starting L’Abri.

Unfortunately, we must sometimes choose between our earthly father and our heavenly Father. In these situations the first commandment is clear: we can have no god but God. Not even our parents. But, these situations occur far less often today than they did in Jesus’ day. I’ve seen only a handful of circumstances in my years in ministry where a child really had no choice except to disobey his parents in order to obey God.

If this is the situation for some in your class, invite them to ask God to show them what to do. And to be patient. Perhaps their parents will change over time. It is always too soon to give up on them. We are to honor our parents in every way we can, so long as we honor our Father. I liked what one Christian said. His father was a drunkard, and so he said, “I always want to honor the man I want my father to be.”

Insofar as we can honor our parents without dishonoring God, we must do so. This is the clear teaching of his word.

How do we keep the fifth commandment today?

We are clearly to honor our parents—to prize them, respect them, find ways to value them today. How?

Act. Note that the commandment does not say, “Love your parents.” God’s word tells us to love God, the stranger, and our neighbor, but nowhere are we told specifically to love our parents. Why not? Because the best way to show love for our parents is to honor and obey them. This matters far more than any words or material gifts we might give to them.

We act into feeling, we don’t feel into acting. Don’t wait until you feel love for your mother or father—find a loving thing to do. Find a way to honor him or her. When we honor our parents, we find that we feel a new level of appreciation for them. So, find a way to honor them today.

Thank them. Thank your parents for the life they have given to you, and for the ways they provide for you still. Current estimates are that it costs the average parent nearly $300,000 to raise one child from infancy to age 18; that doesn’t count the costs of college, which often exceed $300,000. Take the initiative. When parents have to ask their children to say thanks, it doesn’t mean nearly as much. Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are good, but not enough.

Bill Hybels tells about cleaning out his father’s desk after he died. He and his brother found note pads, files, stacks of legal documents attesting to the scope of his business responsibilities. But in the top drawer on the right-hand side, he found a collection of letters which seemed to occupy a position of honor. There, neatly grouped in rubber bands, were all the letters he, his brother and sisters had ever written to him. What would you find in your parents’ home today?

Obey them in the Lord. As we have seen, the Scriptures are clear here.

Support them when you can. As the population lives longer than ever before, more and more children are parenting their parents. This is often hard, but always right. God’s word is clear: “Give proper recognition to those widows who are really in need. But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God” (1 Timothy 5:3-4); “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” (v. 8).

Last, remember them when they’re gone. We continue to wear their name, and to reflect on them with our lives. We will bring honor or dishonor to our parents, as long as we live. I really like something my wife tells our boys: we belong to everyone who loves us. This fact should affect our decision, as long as we live. For our parents’ sake, and for our own as well.

Honor life (Exodus 20:13)

The national prison and jail population in 1980 was 501,900. For last year, the Bureau of Justice Statistics projects it to be 2,014,000. Recent demographics in North Dallas list crime as the greatest single fear we feel. A few weeks ago, my neighbor’s car was vandalized; recently one of our members had her purse stolen from her house; since the Wedgwood Baptist Church shooting, we know that even churches are not guaranteed safety.

The problem is not just with our society, but with our personal lives and relationships. Mother Teresa said that the greatest epidemic in America is not AIDS or cancer but loneliness. Isolated, hurting people, in strained marriages and families and relationships, are all around us. Even this morning.

Where are you at odds with someone today? When I ask you about the problem people in your life, what person comes to mind first? God wants to help you with that person, and to help us as a society. That’s why he gave us the sixth commandment.

What not to do

Our text today is very simple. The sixth, seventh, and eighth commandments are each expressed in only two Hebrew words: “No murder, no adultery, no stealing.” “You” is plural, including us all. “Shall not” is a present-tense command. Not a suggestion or principle but a law. In the present tense, thus applying today, and tomorrow, and for all time.

“Murder” is the key word in the sixth commandment. What does it mean? This is not the typical Hebrew word for “kill.” This word, ratzah, appears forty-seven times in the Old Testament, each time with reference to premeditated and intentional murder. This word and commandment does not prohibit defending ourselves (Exodus 22:2), accidental killings (Deuteronomy 19:5), involvement in war (Deuteronomy 13:15), or capital punishment (Genesis 9:6). But it prohibits us from all other killing, for any other reason.

However, most of us have never killed anyone and certainly don’t intend to. So why waste time dealing with this issue? Why not move on? Before we decide we’re free to bypass the sixth commandment, perhaps we should remember what Jesus said about it. If we are “angry” with our brother we are subject to the same judgment as if we murder him (Matthew5:22). If we call him “Raca,” an Aramaic term of contempt, something like “Good for nothing!” we must answer to judgment. If we call him “fool,” the worst form of contempt in the ancient world, a term which means that he is immoral and corrupt in the extreme, we deserve the same penalty as Jeffrey Dahmer or Adolf Hitler.

Is anyone you know angry with someone? Calling them names? Branding them immoral failures? Apparently there are many ways to “murder.” Why are they wrong?

Scripture gives us at least three reasons.

First, we are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). And so, to hurt a person is to hurt God. This is like attacking your child or spouse. To hurt my wife or sons is to attack me. And 1 Corinthians 3:17 says that we are the “temple” of God. If I attack your house I attack you. If I attack you I attack the God who dwells in you. If we don’t want to hurt God, we’ll keep the sixth commandment.

A second reason harming others is prohibited is that we are to treat others the way we want to be treated. This is the famous Golden Rule (Matthew 7:12), and it’s still the best way to live. The German Protestant pastor Martin Neimoeller said, “The Nazis came for the Communists, but I wasn’t a Communist so I didn’t object. They came for Socialists, but I wasn’t a Socialist so I didn’t object. They came for trade union leaders, but I wasn’t a union leader so I didn’t object. They came for the Jews, but I wasn’t a Jew, so I didn’t object. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to object.”

If we want to treat others as we want to be treated, we’ll keep the sixth commandment.

A third reason hurting others is prohibited is this: how we treat the person we hold in lowest esteem is how we treat Jesus. In Matthew 25 Jesus spoke of the hungry which weren’t fed, the thirsty not given a drink, the stranger not invited in, the naked not clothed, the prisoner not visited, and said, “Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me” (Matthew 25:45). If we want to treat others as we would Jesus, we’ll keep the sixth commandment.

What to do with problem people

We all know someone we could call a “problem person.” Jesus’ commentary on the sixth commandment gives us the help we need in seeking health and healing with them.

First, release your anger (Matthew 5:22). When Jesus tells us not to be “angry” with our brother, he uses a very specific Greek word, orgizesthai, which means long-lived, cherished, nursed wrath and anger. This is not thumos, the word for short-lived angry emotions, but the word for anger we choose to hold onto and feed.

Jesus does not tell us not to feel angry, but not to hold onto that anger. We cannot help our feelings, but we can manage them. Luther said we cannot keep the birds from flying over our heads, but we can keep them from nesting in our hair. So, refuse to hold onto your anger. Ask God to help you let it go today.

Take the initiative to heal (Matthew 5:23-24). To put Jesus’ words in our context, if you are on your way into the sanctuary for worship and you remember that your brother has something against you, leave church, drive to his house, and make things right. Only then should you come in here to worship God. Not if you have something against him—if he has something against you. Take the initiative to heal the relationship.

Do it now (Matthew5:25-26). Again in our terms, if someone is suing you and you’re in the wrong, settle before you get to court. It will cost you far less now than then. It will never be easier to make things right than it is today.

Choose to pardon (Matthew5:38-42). Jesus’ words relate to an insult, as when someone slaps you on the right cheek with the back of his hand or a Roman soldier makes you carry his pack for him. You can retaliate, but you only hurt yourself. To forgive is to pardon. It is not to pretend you’re not hurt, or excuse the hurt, but choose not to punish the one who hurt you. Ask God to help you choose to pardon, for his sake and for yours.

Last, pray for the person (Matthew 5:43-44). This is sometimes the only thing you can do, but it is always the best thing you can do. And it is hard, perhaps impossible, to hurt those we are praying for. Pray for the problem person in your life, today.

Honor marriage (Exodus 20:14)

There are half as many divorces granted in a given year in America as marriages performed. One fourth of our adult population has been divorced. 53% of Americans said on a recent anonymous survey that they would have an affair if given the chance. 92% of sexually active people say they have had ten or more partners in their lives.

Marriage today is a game, played for our amusement, and many of us think we can change the channel whenever we want. God knows better. He wants us to be pure and holy. He has given us all we need to defeat the temptations of our culture, and offers us hope even when we fail. Let’s see what he says.

What is adultery? Martin Luther had picturesque ways of putting things. As relates to our topic today, for instance, he once said, “If your head is made of butter, don’t sit by the fire.” On another occasion he declared, “You cannot prevent the devil from shooting arrows of evil thoughts into your heart; but take care that you do not let such arrows stick and grow there.”

We’re going to use his metaphor for our study. So, our first question: what is adultery? What is this “arrow” the enemy fires at us? Jewish law defined adultery as voluntary sexual relations between a married person and someone other than the lawful spouse. That much is clear. But there’s more.

Adultery is not the only kind of sexual sin forbidden by God’s word:

Colossians 3:5: “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry.”

1 Corinthians 5:9,11: “I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. . . . but now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.”

1 Corinthians 6:9-10: “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” Satan has many such arrows.

And Jesus condemns them even further. In the Sermon on the Mount, he articulates the purest standard to be found in all of literature: “I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Jesus forbids immoral action, and even immoral thoughts, as arrows from Satan. Why?

Why is adultery wrong? There are three basic answers to our question.

First, sexual immorality destroys the family. Dr. Frank Pittman, an internationally renowned expert on sexuality and marriage, reported recently in the New York Times that in thirty-seven years of practice as a therapist, he has encountered only two cases of first marriages ending in divorce where adultery was not involved.

Of those who break up their marriages to marry someone else, 80% are sorry later. Only 10% actually marry the person with whom they had an affair. 70% of those who do later get another divorce. Sexual immorality is an arrow to the heart of your family and home.

Second, sexual impurity destroys our witness. The only credibility for a Christian is his or her character. If that is ruined, our witness and ministry is ruined. And Satan knows this—he is a great economist. If we can get me or you to sin sexually, even one time, he knows that our witness and ministry will be ruined, perhaps forever.

Do you think it’s a coincidence that the great failures among prominent ministers in recent years have been sexual in nature? Aren’t these Satan’s arrows, fired at us all?

Third, sexual impurity destroys our spiritual lives, our souls. Listen to these profound words from Proverbs: “Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned? Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched? So is he who sleeps with another man’s wife; no one who touches her will go unpunished” (Proverbs 6:27-29). This is an arrow to the soul.

How do we defeat this temptation?

God has given us some shields to use when we’re being attacked.

First, agree with God that sexual immorality is wrong. Refuse to accept the culture of our day, the “sexual revolution” characterized by the slogans, “Just do it” and “If it feels good, do it.” Hollywood is wrong. The advertisers who simply want to make money off us are wrong. Sexual immorality is wrong.

The Cherokee Indians, in their marriage ceremony, would join hands across a running stream to signify that their lives would flow together forever. And “white men” called them primitive! Agree with God that all sexual immorality is wrong.

Second, guard your heart. This is Satan’s target. Jesus warned us not to “look at a woman lustfully” (Matthew 5:28). The Greek here does not refer to natural, normal human instincts, but to the man who looks at a woman with the deliberate intention of lusting after her. This is not about the first look, but the second.

We are to do whatever it takes to keep this sin from growing in our hearts and souls. In the next verses (Matthew 5:29,30) Jesus says, “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away….And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.” This is rabbinic hyperbole, overstatement to make this point: we must do whatever it takes to keep from sinning.

Turn off the television set. Walk out of the movie. Cancel the magazine subscription. Block immoral internet sites. Change your friends. Change your job. Do whatever it takes to remove this cancer before it kills your soul. Say “no” to sin, now.

Third, get help. I believe every Christian needs an accountability relationship with someone. We need to empower someone to ask us the hard questions, to tell us when they see us going down the wrong road, to support and strengthen us with total confidence. Start with someone you already trust; covenant to make a time to be together this week; begin by sharing something with each other you’d not share with others. Ask God to help you help each other. And if you’re in trouble here already, get help.

Here’s the bottom line: run. 1 Corinthians 6:18 says, “Flee from sexual immorality.” If you think you’re the one person in all of human history who can get away with this, know that you’re being deceived. My college professor was right: if we say “maybe” to sin, eventually we’ll say “yes” to it. If we turn down the lights, our eyes adjust to the dark. As do our souls. Stop now. Run, now.

What if you’ve sinned? What if it’s too late? What if you’ve already fallen here, if the arrow has already pierced your heart and home? God’s word gives us the help and hope we need. His Spirit can pull out the arrows of the enemy, and heal their wounds.

The first thing to do is to turn to God. You may think your failure has forever ended God’s love and care for you. Nothing could be further from the truth. Read this verse of Scripture: after citing the “sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes and homosexual offenders,” Paul says to the Corinthians: “And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11). It’s never too late to turn to God. He can pull out arrows we cannot.

Next, with God’s help, you must make right what is wrong. Get out of the relationship, now. The arrow will never be easier to remove than it is today.

Third, ask God to help you make things right with others. Who else has been hurt by your arrows? We need forgiveness from all those we have harmed, unless asking for that forgiveness would hurt them further.

Gordon MacDonald is an example for us. This well-known pastor committed the tragic sin of adultery. Immediately he confessed this single act to his wife, then to his entire congregation. He resigned his pulpit, and entered into years of counseling and accountability. Over time another church called him as their pastor; then several years later, his original church invited him back as their pastor again. He serves there today, and has a national ministry to hurting souls and broken lives.

God can redeem anything, given the chance. But we must be willing to make things right with all those we have wronged. Luther was right—the arrows of the enemy don’t have to kill us. God stands ready to help. But we must choose to let him, now.

Hope for Hurting Hearts

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Topical Scripture: Matthew 5:31-32

Today we return to the Sermon on the Mount and find ourselves standing before one of the most difficult subjects in all of Scripture and life today: divorce. Every one of us has experienced divorce or known someone affected directly by it.

Let’s ask the Lord our most common questions about this painful subject and listen to him together as he offers us hope for hurting hearts.

What does Jesus teach?

Let’s ask first, what does Jesus teach? His answer begins: “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce'” (v. 31). “Whoever divorces his wife” points to an extremely common practice in Jesus’ day.

The Jews typically allowed divorce for any reason whatsoever. A man could divorce his wife if she spoiled his dinner by putting too much salt in his food; if she went into public with her head uncovered; if she talked with men in the streets; if she burned the toast. Rabbi Akiba said that a man could divorce his wife if he found someone more attractive.

Divorce was so common in Jesus’ day that many women refused to get married.

To divorce his wife, the husband presented her with a “certificate of divorcement.” The most common form: “Let this be from me your writ of divorce and letter of dismissal and deed of liberation, that you may marry whatever man you will.” If he handed this document to his wife in the presence of two witnesses, she stood divorced, with no legal proceedings or protection whatsoever.

So Jesus speaks to an extremely common situation, in which the structure of family life is collapsing and national morals are disintegrating. His words are significant and radical: “everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever who marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (v. 32).

“Sexual immorality” means sexual relations between a wife and a person not her husband. Such an act breaks the marriage union, rendering it null and void. Divorce otherwise causes her to become an adulteress, since she will have to remarry to support herself but is still bound to her first husband in the eyes of God. Anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery as well.

Jesus repeats the very same words in Matthew 19:9. Divorce except for adultery is outside the word and will of God. This is the clear teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ.

What constitutes a biblical divorce?

Here’s our second question: what constitutes a biblical divorce? In addition to Jesus’ clear teaching, the Bible also says, “If the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace” (1 Corinthians 7:15 NIV). If a believer is married to a non-Christian, and the unbeliever deserts the marriage, the believer is innocent.

Abandonment by a believer must be considered as well. What if your spouse is a Christian but refuses to stay in your marriage? What if you want to work, to seek help and restoration, but he or she will not? This person has misused the freedom of will given by God. The Bible forbids this divorce, but the laws of our land do not. And the Bible clearly teaches that we are not responsible for the sins of others, but only our own.

Abuse is a third area we must discuss. Physical, emotional, verbal, or substance abuse are epidemic in marriages today. While the Bible nowhere addresses abuse specifically with regard to divorce, we can draw two conclusions from biblical truth.

First, abuse is always wrong: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). And wives are to just as loving, supportive, and sacrificial with their husbands.

Second, life must be protected: “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13). You must protect yourself and your children from abuse.

So biblical counselors recommend that an abused person separate from the spouse immediately. Get yourself and your children to safety. Seek intensive counseling. But don’t give up—as I’ll say again this morning, God can heal any marriage if both partners will surrender fully to him. I’ve seen abusers repent and be restored. Consider divorce only as the lesser of two evils, in order to protect the abused, and only if there are no other options.

As I understand Scripture, these are the conditions under which divorce is permissible biblically: adultery, abandonment, and abuse. Note that the Bible does not prescribe divorce even in these painful circumstances, but only permits it.

If you’re considering divorce

Now we come to the hope God offers hurting hearts today. Hope for those who are considering divorce, and for those who have experienced one. We’ll find both this morning.

First, if you’re considering a divorce this morning, please know that God can heal any marriage whose partners are fully yielded to him. He doesn’t want you to have a better marriage, but a new marriage.

I know of pastors and staff members who have committed the horrible sin of adultery, but through their repentance and God’s grace their marriage is restored and renewed today. I have seen abuse healed, and abandoners return. God is still the Great Physician of bodies, souls, and homes as well.

And he wants to heal every marriage, to prevent the tragic consequences which so often accompany divorce.

Divorce seldom solves the problem it was meant to solve. And financial pressures are enormous: the woman’s standard of living drops 73 percent in the first year, while men who remarry find themselves supporting two families on the same income. And while you can divorce your spouse, you cannot divorce your child’s parent.

If your marriage is struggling:

  • Remember God’s plan: one man and one woman joined for life (Genesis 2:24). He wants to help and heal your home.
  • Seek help. If you’ve gone to biblical counseling without success, try someone else. Try again. If your spouse won’t go, go alone. To work on your marriage, work on yourself.
  • Don’t wait for your spouse to make you happy—find ways to make yourself happier. Seek new activities, work, ministries, friendships.
  • And seek God together. It is a fact that couples who attend worship together have the lowest risk of divorce. Those who are in church regularly are 2.5 times less likely to have been divorced than those who do not attend. Seek God’s strength and help. Ask his family to help you, to pray for you. Ask him to guide you to those who can help you most.

Your Father wants to give you a new life together. There is wonderful hope for you today.

If you’ve been divorced

What if you’ve already experienced divorce, as a result of adultery, abandonment, or abuse? You are the innocent party. You will need counseling, healing, and help. But you must reject the guilt you may feel and move forward into God’s grace and hope.

What if your divorce was not for biblical reasons? Here I must speak very carefully. I want to do nothing which will encourage someone considering a divorce to do so. The consequences of divorce are very real, and those of you who have experienced them know their pain better than anyone else.

But at the same time, know that divorce is not the “unpardonable sin.” God can forgive any person who repents and returns to his word and will. Scripture is clear: “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9 NIV). “All” includes divorce.

God wants to help you and heal you. He plans to prosper you and not harm you, to give you hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11). The Bible is clear: “The Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion” (Isaiah 30:18 NIV). God grieves with you, cries with you, walks with you, and accepts and loves you, just as you are, right now.

As I understand Scripture, remarriage is a biblical option for you. With counsel and help, restoration and healing, I believe God can lead you into another marriage.

Billy Graham: “I am opposed to divorce and regard the increase in divorces today as one of the most alarming problems in society. However, I know that the Lord can forgive and heal.” He is right.

Conclusion

We’ve discussed a very large and very hard subject this morning. To summarize:

  • Biblical conditions for divorce would include adultery, abandonment, and abuse.
  • God does not want any couple to divorce. He stands ready to give hope, help, and healing.
  • God loves those who have experienced the pain of divorce. He still has a wonderful plan and purpose for their lives and ministries. Would any good father still love a child who experiences the pain of divorce? Your perfect Father in heaven does.

The Apostle Paul is proof. He was a Pharisee (Philippians 3:5), thus required to be married. By the time he wrote 1 Corinthians he was no longer married (1 Corinthians 7:8), so that he was either a widower or a divorcee. He states in Philippians 3:8 that he lost all things when he gave his life to Christ; most scholars believe that he lost his wife when he became a Christian.

In Paul’s day, a Jew who converted to Christianity was considered dead by his family and wife. She was a widow, free to marry another Jew. We would say she divorced him. And he wrote half of the New Testament.

What will God do with your life?

Hope For Hurting Hearts

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Hope for Hurting Hearts

Matthew 5:31-32

Dr. Jim Denison

Today we return to the Sermon on the Mount, and find ourselves standing before one of the most difficult subjects in all of Scripture and life today: divorce. America has 5% of the world’s population, but 50% of its divorces. Web sites, magazines, and support groups on the subject of divorce abound.

In all the cacophony of voices speaking to this issue, it’s vital that we hear God’s. That’s my only job today—to give you what the word of God says, and what it means for us. Every one of us has either experienced divorce or know someone affected directly by it. Let’s ask the Lord our most common questions about this painful subject, and listen to him together as he offers us hope for hurting hearts.

What does Jesus teach?

Let’s ask first, what does Jesus teach? His answer begins: “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce'” (v. 31). “Anyone who divorces his wife” points to an extremely common practice in Jesus’ day.

The Jews typically allowed divorce for any reason whatsoever. A man could divorce his wife if she spoiled his dinner by putting too much salt in his food; if she went into public with her head uncovered; if she talked with men in the streets; if she burned the toast. Rabbi Akiba said that a man could divorce his wife if he found someone more attractive.

Divorce was so common in Jesus’ day that many women refused to get married.

To divorce his wife, the husband presented her with a “certificate of divorcement.” The most common form: “Let this be from me your writ of divorce and letter of dismissal and deed of liberation, that you may marry whatever man you will.” If he handed this document to his wife in the presence of two witnesses, she stood divorced, with no legal proceedings or protection whatsoever.

So Jesus speaks to an extremely common situation, in which the structure of family life is collapsing and national morals are disintegrating. His words are significant and radical: “Anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery” (v. 32).

“Marital unfaithfulness” means adultery, sexual relations between a wife and a person not her husband.

Such an act breaks the marriage union, rendering it null and void. Divorce otherwise “causes her to become an adulteress,” since she will have to remarry to support herself but is still bound to her first husband in the eyes of God.

“Anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery” as well.

Jesus repeats the very same words in Matthew 19:9. Divorce except for adultery is outside the word and will of God. This is the clear teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ.

What constitutes a biblical divorce?

A second question: what constitutes a biblical divorce? In addition to Jesus’ clear teaching, the Bible also says, “If the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace” (1 Corinthians 7:15). If a believer is married to a non-Christian, and the unbeliever deserts the marriage, the believer is innocent.

Abandonment by a believer must be considered as well. What if your spouse is a Christian but refuses to stay in your marriage? What if you want to work, to seek help and restoration, but he or she will not? This person has misused the freedom of will given by God. The Bible forbids this divorce, but the laws of our land do not. And the Bible clearly teaches that we are not responsible for the sins of others, but only our own.

Abuse is a third area we must discuss. Physical, emotional, verbal, and substance abuse are epidemic in marriages today. Last week a dear friend in our church came to me heartbroken over this issue in their marriage. While the Bible nowhere addresses abuse specifically with regard to divorce, we can draw two conclusions from biblical truth.

First, abuse is always wrong: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5.25). And wives are to be just as loving, supportive, and sacrificial with their husbands.

Second, life must be protected: “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13). You must protect yourself and your children from abuse.

So, biblical counselors recommend that an abused person separate from the spouse immediately. Get yourself and your children to safety. Seek intensive counseling. But don’t give up—as I’ll say again this morning, God can heal any marriage if both partners will surrender fully to him. I’ve seen abusers repent and be restored. Consider divorce only as the lesser of two evils, in order to protect the abused, and only if there are no other options.

As I understand Scripture, these are the conditions under which divorce is permissible biblically: adultery, abandonment, and abuse. Note that the Bible does not prescribe divorce even in these painful circumstances, but only permits it.

If you’re considering divorce

Now we come to the hope God offers hurting hearts today. Hope for those who are considering divorce, and for those who have experienced one. We’ll find both this morning.

First, if you’re considering a divorce this morning, please know that God can heal any marriage whose partners are fully yielded to him. He doesn’t want you to have a better marriage, but a new marriage.

I know of pastors and staff members who have committed the horrible sin of adultery, but through their repentance and God’s grace, their marriage is restored and renewed today. I have seen abuse healed, and abandoners return. God is still the Great Physician of bodies, souls, and homes as well.

And he wants to heal every marriage, to prevent the tragic consequences which so often accompany divorce.

Divorce seldom solves the problem it was meant to solve. And financial pressures are enormous: the woman’s standard of living drops 73% in the first year, while men who remarry find themselves supporting two families on the same income.

And while you can divorce your spouse, you cannot divorce your child’s parent.

There is great hope today, for divorce is never inevitable. We hear constantly that half of all marriages end in divorce. That’s simply not true. Pollster Louis Harris explains: the Census Bureau noted that during that particular year, there were 2.4 million marriages performed and 1.2 million divorces granted. Someone did the math without considering the 54 million marriages already in existence, and announced that half of all marriages divorce. The fact is, only one out of eight marriages will ever end in divorce. Any given year, only 2% of existing marriages will break up.

If your marriage is struggling: Remember God’s plan: one man and one woman joined for life (Genesis 2:24). He wants to help and heal your home.

Seek help. If you’ve gone to biblical counseling without success, try someone else. Try again. If your spouse won’t go, go alone. To work on your marriage, work on yourself.

Don’t wait for your spouse to make you happy—find ways to make yourself happier. Seek new activities, work, ministries, friendships.

And seek God together. It is a fact that couples who attend worship together have the lowest risk of divorce. Those who are in church regularly are 2.5 times less likely to have been divorced than those who do not attend. Seek God’s strength and help. Ask his family to help you, to pray for you. Ask him to guide you to those who can help you most. Your Father wants to give you a new life together. There is wonderful hope for you today.

If you’ve been divorced

What if you’ve already experienced divorce, as a result of adultery, abandonment, or abuse? You are the innocent party. You will need counseling, healing, and help. But you must reject the guilt you may feel, and move forward into God’s grace and hope.

What if your divorce was not for biblical reasons? Here I must speak very carefully. I want to do nothing which will encourage someone considering a divorce to do so. The consequences of divorce are very real, and those of you who have experienced them know their pain better than anyone else.

But at the same time, know that divorce is not the “unpardonable sin.” God can forgive any person who repents and returns to his word and will. Scripture is clear: “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). “All” includes divorce.

God wants to help you and heal you.

He plans to prosper you and not harm you, to give you hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11). The Bible is clear: “The Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion” (Isaiah 30:18). God grieves with you, cries with you, walks with you, and accepts and loves you, just as you are, right now.

As I understand Scripture, remarriage is a biblical option for you. With counsel and help, restoration and healing, I believe God can lead you into another marriage. And I am so grateful that every ministry in this church is open to you as well. There are those among our ministry staff, our deacons, our Sunday school teachers and choir members who have experienced the pain of divorce. And God is using them in wonderful ways.

Billy Graham: “I am opposed to divorce and regard the increase in divorces today as one of the most alarming problems in society. However, I know that the Lord can forgive and heal.” He is right.

Conclusion

We’ve discussed a very large and very hard subject this morning. To summarize:

Biblical conditions for divorce would include adultery, abandonment, and abuse.

God does not want any couple to divorce. He stands ready to give hope, help, and healing.

God loves those who have experienced the pain of divorce. He still has a wonderful plan and purpose for their lives and ministries. Would any good father still love a child who experiences the pain of divorce? Your perfect Father in heaven does.

The Apostle Paul is proof. He was a Pharisee (Philippians 3:5), thus required to be married. By the time he wrote 1 Corinthians he was no longer married (1 Corinthians 7:8), so that he was either a widower or a divorcee. He states in Philippians 3:8 that he “lost all things” when he gave his life to Christ; most scholars believe that he lost his wife when he became a Christian. In Paul’s day, a Jew who converted to Christianity was considered dead by his family and wife. She was a widow, free to marry another Jew. We would say she divorced him. And he wrote half of the New Testament.

What will God do with your life?

Hope In Hard Places

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Hope in Hard Places

Isaiah 40:1-5

Dr. Jim Denison

The Presbyterian lay minister Fred Rogers (“Mr. Rogers” to us) once quoted an anonymous scrawling on the bulletin board of the great Notre Dame cathedral in Paris: “The world tomorrow will belong to those who brought it the greatest hope.”

Counselors and psychologists have long known the truth of those words.

Viktor Frankl, the Austrian psychologist and concentration camp survivor, documented the fact that those prisoners who believed in tomorrow best survived the horrors of today.

Survivors of POW camps in Vietnam reported that a compelling hope for the future was the primary force that kept many of them alive.

A mouse dropped in water will give up and drown in minutes. But if it is rescued, it will tread water for more than 20 hours the next time.

Austin pastor Gerald Mann saw his church grow from 60 to 4,000 in 14 years. His explanation: “I know three things people want when they come to church: they want help, they want home, and they want hope.”

Where do you have hope? It’s not a rhetorical question. What causes you to feel that your life has a future, a purpose, a reason to be? Do you have such a reason for hope? If you do, is it the right reason?

Avoid the dead ends of hope

I reread this week C. S. Lewis’s essay on “hope” in Mere Christianity, and it changed my sermon completely. Listen to this paragraph: “Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. I am not now speaking of what would be ordinarily called unsuccessful marriages, or holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best possible ones. There was something we grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality. I think everyone knows what I mean. The wife may be a good wife, and the hotels and scenery may have been excellent, and chemistry may be a very interesting job: but something has evaded us…” (Mere Christianity 119).

We know there’s “something more” which has evaded us. What do we do about it?

Some of us live for tomorrow. We hope that the next job, the next girlfriend or boyfriend or spouse, or car or clothes or city will fill what is lacking. We put our hope in tomorrow, believing that it will somehow be better than today. But it never is.

So some of us settle for today. We give up our dreams of a better future, and settle into the present as we find it. We call ourselves “realists.” We decide that there is no such thing as real love, or purpose, or meaning in life. We’ll settle for what we can get with what we have.

And some of us escape the present. Medieval monastics retreated from the physical to concentrate on the spiritual. Simon Stylites lived nearly 40 years on the top of a pillar, 60 feet above the ground, refusing to come down. His example was widely applauded.

Others escape the present in less spiritual ways. Drug or alcohol abuse, sexual addictions, fixation on cults or the occult—anything to lessen the pain, the grief, the disappointment of hope abandoned.

In Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, Fantine is a young single mother without a job, a place to stay, or a way to support her child. If you’ve seen the musical, you’ll remember her haunting song, titled “I Dreamed a Dream:”

I had a dream in time gone by

When hope was high

And life worth living

I dreamed that love would never die

I dreamed that God would be forgiving.

But her love has died, and she believes that her God is not forgiving. And so she ends,

I had a dream my life would be

So different from this hell I’m living

So different now from what it seemed

Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

Make earth like heaven

Perhaps not. Perhaps there’s a fourth option: “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God” (v. 1). “Comfort” means to give hope and courage in the midst of despair. He repeats it twice for emphasis. Comfort “my people,” God’s creation made in his image, the Father’s children. “Says your God,” not a man but the King of the Kingdom.

Why? Because “her hard service has been completed.” “Hard service” refers to the punishment of imprisonment. The sins which led Judah into Babylonian captivity have now been punished, and she is released from slavery to return to her Promised Land. “Her sin has been paid for,” as has ours.

How? “A voice of one calling: ‘In the desert prepare the way for the Lord” (v. 3).

The one calling is the messenger sent to precede the king. In the ancient world, the visit of the Sovereign would require that all roads be improved, valleys filled in, mountains leveled, terrain cleared. “The red carpet” was rolled out. Then “the glory of the Lord” would be revealed.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke all found this promise fulfilled when John the Baptizer announced the beginning of the public work of Jesus of Nazareth. And John even quoted the Baptist: “I am the voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord'” (John 1:23).

“Advent” is from the Latin for “to come.” At Jesus’ first “advent,” he kept God’s promise. His suffering death completed our hard service and paid for our sin. He brought us hope that our past could be forgotten and our future secured, that our lives could have meaning and joy again.

He brought us hope that our valleys of despair and discouragement will be raised up and leveled, that our mountains and hills of problems and pain will be made low, that our rough ground of hopelessness and loneliness will become level.

Because his name is Immanuel, “God with us,” there is hope in our hardest places, because there God is with us. He hurts with us, cries with us, comforts us, guides us, brings us through. In his will and word and worship, in his presence through prayer, in his Spirit’s power and encouragement, we find hope.

When will this hope be made complete? When “the glory of the Lord will be revealed” (v. 5). When Jesus returns. When the Second Advent comes. When life becomes life eternal, when earth becomes heaven, with night turns to day. When “there shall be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4). We have hope now, in the midst of our valleys and mountains, for God is with us. And we have hope for eternity, because one day time will be no more, and all will be glory.

In the meanwhile, as we wait between his first coming and his second, it is our work to live for heaven on earth. Listen to Lewis one last time: “…the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next…It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven, and you will get earth ‘thrown in’; aim at earth and you will get neither” (Mere Christianity 118).

Live for God’s glory on earth, and you will have all the help of heaven. Choose to meet the needs you find in God’s name and love, and you will have more opportunities than you can imagine. Turn your vocation, school, neighborhood, and family into your mission field where you will help people follow Jesus, and you will have more joy and satisfaction than earth can offer. Seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness, and everything will be added to you (Matthew 6:33). This is the promise of God.

Conclusion

Don’t search for hope where it does not live. It is not in your next job or purchase or relationship. Don’t give up on hope for today, or seek to escape the present. Find your hope in the fact that the Child of Christmas never left the race he entered. His Spirit lives in you today. He will redeem every problem and pain you trust to him, level every valley and mountain you face, and guide you safely home. If your hope is in him.

Meanwhile, redeem this Advent season by living it for his Kingdom in heaven. Seek ways to share his hope, his joy, his help with the hurting and lonely hearts you meet. Ask God each day to make you his instrument of life-giving hope. Be John the Baptizer to your Jerusalem. Announce the coming of the Lord, until he returns. You will find no greater significance or joy than in giving the gift of Jesus, in this the season of his birth.

The Imitation of Christ, probably the most widely-read book in Christian history next to the Scriptures, was written by an unknown monk named Thomas from the town of Kempen, some seven centuries ago. His record of God’s word to him brings God’s word to us today:

“Do not be worn out by the labors which you have undertaken for My sake, and do not let tribulations ever cast you down. Instead, let My promise strengthen and comfort you under every circumstance. I am well able to reward you above all measure and degree. You shall not toil here long nor always be oppressed with griefs. A time will come when all labor and trouble will cease. Labor faithfully in My vineyard; I will be thy recompense. Life everlasting is worth all these conflicts, and greater than these….

“Lift your face therefore to heaven; behold I and all My saints with me—who in this world had great conflicts—are now comforted, now rejoicing, now secure, now at rest, and shall remain with Me everlastingly in the kingdom of My Father.”

As will we. This is the hope, and the promise, of God.

Hope Is Born This Day

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Hope Is Born This Day

Luke 2:1-7

Dr. Jim Denison

This week I’ve been saving a few headlines from various newspapers. Here are some I’ve collected:

“Debt woes nearing record: filings for bankruptcy protection on the rise” (USA Today 11-26-02 B1).

“‘Draconian’ budget cuts loom, governors group says” (USA Today 11-26-02 A1).

“Female HIV cases on rise” (Dallas Morning News, 11-26-02 1A).

“Identity theft case called a sign of crimes to come” (Dallas Morning News, 11-26-02 1A).

We’re talking about hope today. Some people have lost it.

Woody Allen’s speech to graduates begins, “More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.”

Robert Ingersoll was America’s best-known atheist in the 19th century. At his funeral, his brother said: “Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of a wailing cry.”

Others know how much we need it.

Gabriel Marcel: “Hope is for the soul what breathing is for the living organism.”

G. K. Chesterton: “There is one thing which gives radiance to everything. It is the idea of something around the corner.”

Samuel Johnson: “The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.”

Langston Hughes:

Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow.

How are your dreams today? Do you have hope for your future? Do you believe that tomorrow will be good, even better than today? That our world is going somewhere that matters? That your life is accomplishing something significant? Do you have hope? In whom do you have hope?

Misplaced hope

Our text is among the most familiar in all the Scriptures. I’ve preached eight sermons from it over the years, and read it every Christmas season. But this week, as I studied it again, I was drawn to names I’ve never considered before. “Caesar Augustus,” who “issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.” “Quirinius,” the “governor of Syria.” And Herod the Great, the “King Herod” included in Matthew’s version of the Christmas story. I wanted to know more about them. And I was fascinated by what I discovered.

Caesar Augustus was born Gaius Octavius on September 23, 63 B.C. His mother, Atia, was the daughter of Julia, the younger sister of Julius Caesar. And so Caesar was his great-uncle. Octavius was 19 when Caesar was assassinated on March 15, 44 B.C.

Caesar named him his chief heir. And so the next year he was named Caesar’s adopted son, under the name Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus. On January 1, 43 B.C., Rome recognized Caesar as a god, and Octavian became known as divi filius, the “son of god.”

On November 27, 43 B.C., Octavian became ruler of the Roman world with Mark Anthony and M. Lepidus. By 29 B.C. Octavian had become the sole ruler of the Roman Empire, and was given the title Imperator. He declined the title “king” or “dictator,” considering them too insignificant for his greatness. So in 27 B.C., the Roman Senate bestowed on him the title of Augustus. The name means “one consecrated and honored by religion.” Our month “August” is named for him.

Caesar Augustus ruled the Roman Empire to his death on August 19, A.D. 14. It has been said of him that he found Rome brick and left it marble. He built roads which would cross the world, and a universal peace known as the Pax Augusta. The Senate built an altar to Pax Augusta which still stands in Rome today.

He was the single most powerful human being the world had ever seen; some consider him the most powerful person in all of human history. Across the empire he was hailed as “savior” and “god.” His birthday was celebrated as the birthday of god. His is the story of power—extreme, ultimate, unrivalled power.

“Quirinius” is not nearly as famous a figure, but he was no less important to the first Christmas.

Publius Sulpicius Quirinius was born in 51 B.C. in the Roman municipality of Lanuvium. He became a soldier, and fought especially well in the war in North Africa. In 12 B.C. he became a consul in Rome and very ambitious politician.

In 7 B.C. he came to Syria, the Roman area which included Galilee and Nazareth. While Varus was governor, Quirinius controlled the armies and directed all foreign policy. Thus he supervised the enrollment which moved Joseph and Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem.

This was a periodic census for later purposes of taxation. The Jews kept their family records in the family’s hometown. Thus Joseph had to go to Bethlehem to register, much as we go to our home district to vote in elections.

From Syria, Quirinius moved to Asia as proconsul in 3 B.C. and continue his political ambitions. Six years later he divorced his first wife so he could marry Lepida, the woman who would have married the heir-apparent to the Roman throne had her fiancé not died suddenly. In 6 A.D. he returned to Syria as governor; in 9 A.D. he returned to Rome, where he remained to his death in A.D. 21.

Shortly before his death, Quirinius instituted legal proceedings against Lepida for attempted murder by poison and adultery, but she was acquitted. The Roman historian Tacitus spoke of “the combination of meanness with exorbitant power which had marked his later days.” His is a story of political ambitions unfulfilled.

Matthew 2:1 says, “Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod.” Herod was the third leading public figure of the first Christmas.

Herod was born in 72 B.C. At the age of 25 he was appointed by his father to be governor of Galilee. In 40 B.C. he was appointed King of Judea by Octavius; in 37 B.C. he captured Jerusalem. From 37 to 4 B.C., Herod was “king of the Jews.”

He immediately executed 45 of the Sadducees for opposing his rule. He drowned the high priest Aristobulus when his popularity threatened Herod’s position. He executed his uncle under suspicion of an affair with his wife Mariamne, and later executed Mariamne and his mother-in-law, Alexandra, also.

By his old age, domestic problems were rampant. Herod had ten wives, each of whom wanted her son to inherit the throne. He lost favor with Caesar Augustus. He strangled two sons when they rivaled his own power. Thus when the Magi came with news of a new “king of the Jews,” it was nothing to Herod to kill all the male children in Bethlehem who were two years old and younger (Matthew 2:1-16).

When he realized his own death was near, he executed his son Antipater, who displeased him. He ordered notable Jews from all parts of the nation to come to him in Jericho, where he locked them in the stadium and ordered that they be executed when he died. Thus he would ensure a national mourning rather than a festival. (At his death, they were freed.)

Herod’s lasting legacy was his building programs. He constructed theatres, amphitheaters, and hippodromes. He rebuilt many fortresses and temples. He built for himself a royal palace in Jerusalem, and a beautiful temple for Augustus, later called Caesarea Philippi. His greatest work was the Temple, which he began in 20 B.C. (it was completed in A.D. 63, long after his death). The rabbis said, “He who has not seen the temple of Herod has never seen a beautiful building.”

Herod the Great, history ironically calls him. His is the story of possessions—buildings with which he thought he would build his eternal legacy.

Find hope in Christ

Caesar Augustus, Quirinius, King Herod—the trinity of power, political position, and possessions in the world of the first Christmas. In them, and men like them, the world placed its hope, and places it still. If we can achieve enough power, win enough position, or own enough possession, our lives will have hope, meaning, and significance. Or so the world thought. But who of you knew much of what I have told you today? Who of us remembers Augustus, or Quirinius, or Herod? Who of us cares?

Meanwhile, a baby boy born under their authority, unnoticed by their regimes, has changed the world.

Unlike Augustus, this baby was and is the true “Son of God.” He brings true peace to the world. He is the true Savior and God of all mankind. One day Augustus will bow before his throne.

Unlike Quirinius, this baby was and is the true governor of humanity. His position is so high that one day, at the sound of his name “every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2:10-11). One day Quirinius will bow before his position.

Unlike Herod, this baby was and is the true possessor of the universe. The Temple he is building will stand for all of eternity. He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. One day Herod will bow before his true King.

Would you find your hope in him, and in him alone?

After World War II, the Allied armies gathered up thousands of hungry, homeless children. They were sheltered and fed. But they were afraid to go to sleep. Then they were given a slice of bread, not to eat but to hold. And they slept well, for they knew they would have food for tomorrow.

Do you need such hope? Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35). Put your hope in him.

A writer asked the staff of the Menninger Clinic to pinpoint the single most important ingredient in emotional healing. Their answer: hope that you are not a prisoner of your track record, that you don’t have to be what you have always been, that you can be forgiven.

Do you need such hope? Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). When you trust in him, he forgives your sins and brings you to God. Put your hope in him.

Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychologist who survived the death camps of the Holocaust, studied those who survived as he did. He concluded that the single most significant factor was a sense of future vision—the impelling conviction that they had a mission to perform, some important work left to do, a significant purpose for their lives.

Do you need such hope, such purpose? Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). Find your hope in him.

Conclusion

Where do you most need hope today? You can look to the power, position, or possessions of this day and time. Or you can look to the baby whose birth we celebrate again in this Advent season. Christmas can be about Augustus, and Quirinius, and Herod. Or it can be about him. The choice is yours.

Abraham Lincoln was born near Hodgenville, Kentucky. On a plaque marking the spot, this conversation is recorded: “‘Any news down at the village, Ezzy?’ ‘Well, Squire McLain’s gone to Washington to see Madison swore in, and ol’ Spellman tells me this Bonaparte fella has captured most of Spain. What’s new out here, neighbor?’ ‘Nuthin’, nuthin’ a’tall, ‘cept for a new baby born to Tom Lincoln. Nothin’ ever happens out here.'”

Let us pray.

How Can I Know That I Am A Christian?

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How Can I Know That I Am A Christian?

Dr. Jim Denison

The most common question I have been asked in 20 years of pastoral ministry is, “How can I know that I am a Christian?” I struggled with assurance of salvation for more than a year after my own conversion. How can you know that you know? How can you help those who have doubts? As we focus this fall on the most urgent and significant question in life, let’s consider two biblical principles.

Don’t trust in religion

First, don’t trust in religion. Such advice sounds strange, coming from a pastor. But it’s exactly the warning Jesus gives us, in the most somber sentence in the Bible: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 7:21). These are the right words. “Jesus is Lord” is the first and central affirmation of the Christian faith. We find it written in Greek on catacomb walls in ancient Rome. Those who are baptized in our church say first, “Jesus is my Lord.”

We can say the right words and do the right works, and still hear the most terrible statement in all of eternity: “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!” (v. 23). “Knew” means personal, intimate knowledge, a personal relationship, not just a performed religion.

Trust in relationship

How can you be absolutely assured that you will “enter the kingdom of heaven?” Only in one way: “only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). So it is imperative that we ask, What is this will?

“My Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:40).

“The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent” (John 6:29).

“This is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us” (1 John 3:23).

Then our words and works will reflect our personal relationship with Jesus Christ. We will bear the “fruit of the Spirit” as a natural result of branches connected with the vine (John 15:1-17). We will walk on the road to abundant life (John 10:10), and our words and actions will witness to that life. We will serve Jesus with sacrificial commitment, repentant hearts, and transformed souls. And one day, instead of hearing “I never knew you,” we will hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” (Matthew 25:21), the most blessed words in all of eternity.

Knowing Jesus intimately

So let us be sure that we know Jesus in this intimate, personal way. For many years I wasn’t sure. I thought God had a scale, with the good at one end and the bad at the other. I hoped I was good enough for the scale to tip in my favor. Millions of Americans still think the same way: I’m good and believe in God, so hopefully that will be enough.

So what are we to do? Nothing. Our salvation depends not on what we can do, but on what God has done. His perfect Son came to earth and died in our place. His death did not pay off the debt of his own sin, for he was sinless. Rather, it paid off the debt you owed this perfect God. Now when you ask God to forgive your sins, he can. He can place you at the “totally good” end of the line. You can be in his perfect paradise. When you ask Jesus to forgive your failures, repent of them, and ask him to be your Lord, he answers your prayer. And he “knows” you, personally and eternally.

You can be absolutely sure

When he “knows” you, he will never forget you. You can be absolutely certain of your salvation. Not because of your words or works, but because of his. You have his word on it:

“Whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). From the moment you “believed in him,” you received eternal life.

“Whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:26). You have eternal life, right now. You will never perish. When you breathe your last here, you breathe your first in heaven.

“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:27-28). You are not holding onto him—he’s holding onto you.

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). You are a new creation, the child of God. It is not possible for you to return to where you were before you met Christ.

You are his child, and will always be his child, just as my sons will always be my sons. No matter how they feel, or what they say or do, they cannot go back and not be my sons, because they were born as my sons. You were “born again” as the child of God, and will be his child forever.

Believe your beliefs and doubt your doubts: common doubts

Asking Jesus into our lives as Savior and Lord is the essential step to eternal salvation. But many people have questions about this fact, and about their experience with faith.I don’t feel close to God:

The most common doubt I’ve heard is this: I don’t feel like I’m a Christian. I don’t feel like going to worship, or reading the Bible, or praying. I don’t feel what I used to feel about the Lord. Or, when I prayed a salvation prayer I didn’t feel anything. And so I’m not sure my experience was real. (This is what happened to me.)

The Bible replies: nowhere does God’s word say how it feels to be a Christian. Our feelings depend on the pizza we had for dinner last night, or any of a thousand other circumstances. When I became a Christian but had no emotional reaction, I immediately began wondering what was wrong with me. I heard wonderful stories about burdens lifted, great joy flooding hearts, but none of that happened for me. It was a great relief to discover that it didn’t have to. Feelings are the caboose, at the end of faith—not its engine.What about free will?

A second common question concerns our God-given free will. The Lord created us to worship him, and worship requires a free choice. And so he made us with free will, and will not violate this freedom. This is why some people never trust Christ, no matter how many times they hear the gospel, no matter how many believers are praying for them. We may be sure that the Lord is doing all he can to bring them to faith, but he will not violate their freedom.

And so some people wonder: if I choose to trust Christ, can I later choose not to? Can I be saved, then choose to lose my salvation? No more than a child can later choose not to be born. If a person claims he once knew Christ but now rejects him, I would say he never knew him. And I would do all I could to help him meet Jesus personally.What about sin?

Here’s a third reason some people doubt their salvation: they still sin. We fail the Lord. We fall so short of the person he wants us to be. The Bible replies: so did Paul. So did Peter, who denied Christ three times. So did the other apostles, who fled at the cross. So have I. So have we all.

If your assurance were based on religious performance, you’d be in trouble. Praise God, our assurance is not based on our words or works, but his. He says we are his children. His Son died to pay off our spiritual debt so we could join his eternal family. This is the word of the Lord.

How Did “Sons of God” Marry “Daughters of Men”?

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How Did “Sons of God” Marry “Daughters of Men”?

Genesis 6:1-8

Dr. Jim Denison

Mark Twain was a man of sage and incisive wisdom.

For instance, he counseled parents of teenagers, “When your child reaches thirteen, put him in a barrel and feed him through the hole. When he turns sixteen, plug the hole.”

He advised us, “Do good when you can, and charge when you think they will stand it.”

He was right to observe: “Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

And his take on Scripture was equally wry: “It’s not the parts of the Bible I don’t understand which bother me—it’s the parts I do understand.”

Today I want to build a bridge from the former to the latter—from a part of the Bible which is very confusing to a part which is very clear. We’ll tackle one of the most perplexing texts in Scripture, and see that it is actually one of the most urgent, practical, and relevant passages in God’s word.

Our text applies to every human being on the planet, and in this worship service. My job today is simply to show you how it’s so.

From confusion . . .

Our Scripture today begins with one of the most confusing sentences in all the Bible: “When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose” (vs. 1-2).

I have never heard a sermon on this text—have you? I’ve never preached one, either. In fact, I’ve never studied this passage in any detail before this week. So I started as you do, wondering what on earth is going on here.

I’ve discovered several options as suggested by scholars.

Some say that these “sons of God” are angels, since Job 1:6 and Psalm 29:1 uses this title for them. But Jesus tells us that angels “neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Mark 12:25).

Some say these are kings, as people in the ancient Near East often associated their royal figures with divinity. But the Bible never does.

An interesting approach suggests that the “sons of God” are descendants of Seth, the godly child of Adam and Eve, and the “daughters of men” are descendants of the evil Cain. In this view, what is happening here is intermarriage across tribal and spiritual lines. But the author of Genesis could easily have made this clear, and didn’t.

I think the clues we need are found in the text immediately surrounding our passage. Scripture intends to be clear, and was very clear to its original audience. So we must ask ourselves, what did they understand these words to mean?

Genesis 2:7 says, “the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”

Later God made woman from man’s rib, and he says of her, “She shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man” (2:23).

So calling men the “sons of God” and women the “daughters of men” was simply repeating what the readers of Genesis already knew, and what the rest of the Bible teaches as well. I found nine places where the Bible refers to men as “sons of God” (cf. Deuteronomy 14:1, 32:5, Psalm 73:15, Isaiah 43:6-7, Hosea 1:10, 11:1, Luke 3:38, 1 John 3:1-2, 10). The text here seems simply to refer to men and women.

And nothing in these verses ties these “sons of God and daughters of men” specifically to the flood which follows. They are simply populating the earth as God had commanded them to (1:28).

Now we come to another confusing reference: “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown” (v. 4).

Their name means “to fall.” Some see them as evil figures and interpret their name as “fallen ones.” Others see them as heroic warriors and see their name as “falling on” others in strength and victory.

They are among the children produced by the “sons of God and daughters of men,” but nothing in the text ties them specifically to the coming Flood, either.

They are simply figures in history, of importance to the readers of Genesis but only interesting to us.

So we have “sons of God and daughters of men,” probably men and women who are marrying and having children. Among them are mighty warriors and heroes in the ancient Near East. And you’re wondering how any of this could be as urgent, practical, and relevant as I promised this passage would be, how it could apply to every human being on the planet and in this service.

Let’s read on.

… to clarity …

As our text proceeds, we move quickly from confusion to clarity, from ancient history to life experience today. Verse 5 comes home: “The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.”

God reads our minds and knows our thoughts. He knows how sinful they can be. He knows that we don’t put our thoughts into action because of legal restraints and fear of being caught. But he knows what we would do if we could.

Think about your thoughts for a moment, and you’ll see what God sees every moment of every day.

Such sin “grieves” the Lord and fills his heart with pain (v. 6).

He is holy and cannot countenance or condone our sin. He must bring it to judgment, as he did with the Flood.

We’ll explore his justice and judgment much more fully in the message two weeks from today. For this morning, see how God sees our sins and is grieved by them.

But now the good news dawns on the black horizon: “Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord” (v. 8).

He “found” it—he didn’t earn it. He found “favor”—the Hebrew word means “to bend or stoop,” and describes the condescending and unmerited favor of a superior for an inferior. This is the Old Testament’s primary word for grace, and it is first found here in all of the Scriptures.

I remember the story of a cave-in in New Mexico. As the story goes, a group was exploring a series of underground caves when the roof collapsed, trapping them. All but one began digging at the walls, pulling at the rocks, doing all they could to escape. That one happened to notice a pin-prick of light in the distance, and climbed to it. He found it to be an opening, a way out. He returned to the others with his news, but they wouldn’t listen to him. They kept digging at the walls, and died. He went to the opening and was saved. He wasn’t any better than the others—he simply “found” the grace available to them all.

Through Noah, God extended this favor to the rest of mankind.

He warned this sinful humanity that their days “will be a hundred and twenty years” (v. 3). Then would come his judgment and justice.

He called Noah to build the Ark which would preserve life on earth. 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, 45 feet high, with a displacement of 14,000 tons and a carrying capacity of 522 standard railroad cars. Room for 45,000 animals from 17,600 species.

Noah spent 100 years building this Ark. What was he doing during this time? 2 Peter 5:2 tells us: he was a “preacher of righteousness.” For one hundred years Noah preached to the people, warning them of the judgment to come, imploring them to repent and turn to God, inviting them to join him on the Ark and in salvation.

Finally, God had to send his Flood, after mankind refused his grace and salvation. Only after he had given them every chance to be saved.

Now, why does this passage and event apply so completely to us? Because what God did through Noah and the Flood, he is doing today through his word and Jesus’ return to our planet.

2 Peter 3 is the New Testament’s commentary on this Old Testament text. Here Peter reminds his readers of the Flood, how “the world of that time was deluged and destroyed” (v. 6).

Then he warns us: “By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men” (v. 7).

Why hasn’t that day of judgment come already? Peter has our answer: “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (v. 9).

But one day in the future, “the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare” (v. 10). Everything, including you and me.

Conclusion

Now you and I are in this story. We are the “sons of God and daughters of men.” Our hearts are inclined to evil, just as theirs were. Now we must respond to God. How? Know these facts.

One: God’s grace can transform your life.

Lee Atwater was the most notorious political figure of the 1980’s. As chairman of the Republican National Committee, he did and would do anything in his power to elect his candidates to office. He was feared by his side and hated by his opponents. But when he came to faith in Christ, everything changed. Shortly after his conversion he discovered he had terminal brain cancer. He spent his last months apologizing to his opponents, mending relationships with his friends, and witnessing to his faith. God’s grace transformed his life.

Manuel Noriega was “public enemy number one” during the time leading up to the U.S. invasion of Panama in December of 1989. Jailed on drug and money laundering charges, he was visited in his Miami prison cell by evangelists Clift Brannon and Rudy Hernandez. On January 16, 1990, at 11 o’clock in the morning, he made Christ his Lord. He has since written to former political and criminal associates, inviting them to receive Jesus as well. God’s grace transformed his life.

In the early 1970s, Charles W. Colson was known as the White House “hatchet man.” This aide to President Nixon was “incapable of humanitarian thought,” according to the media of the day. When he came to Christ in 1973, the Boston Globe reported, “If Mr. Colson can repent of his sins, there just has to be hope for everybody.” He later founded Prison Fellowship Ministries, the world’s largest outreach to prisoners, ex-prisoners, crime victims, and their families. God’s grace transformed his life.

It can yours and mine as well.

Two: You must receive this gift. Every gift must be opened.

Ask Jesus to forgive your sins and mistakes, and ask him to take charge of your life.

If you have, spend time in spiritual inventory. Ask the Spirit to show you anything in your heart which is wrong toward God. Write it down. Confess it specifically to God. Ask his forgiveness and cleansing.

Make yourself ready to stand before God.

Last: you are guaranteed only this day. God has given you one more day.

John F. Kennedy didn’t know when he left his airplane in Dallas on November 22, 1963 to travel to a lunch meeting at Market Hall on Stemmons, that this would be his last day. If a president doesn’t know, do we?

Payne Stewart didn’t know as he boarded a Learjet bound for Dallas from Orlando on October 25, 1999, that this would be his last day. If a millionaire sports hero doesn’t know, do we?

God has given you one more day. This day.

What will you do with yours?

How Do We Explain The Trinity?

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How do we explain the Trinity?

Dr. Jim Denison

Every parent dreads the question: “What is the Trinity?” How do we explain the fact that our God is three and yet one? The concept violates logic. This issue is especially relevant in these days of interaction with the Muslim world. Islamic faith is insistent on the unity and singularity of God. The central affirmation of Islam is this statement: there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet. To this way of thinking, Christians are tri-theists and thus idolaters.

How can we explain our trinitarian theology to Muslims, or even to ourselves? And why does it all matter to our lives today?

What is the “Trinity”?

It has been said that if the mind were simple enough for us to understand it, we would be too simple to understand it. Likewise, if God were simple enough for my finite, fallen mind to understand him, he would not be God. How does a mother explain marriage to her five year old daughter? How does a mathematician explain calculus to his third grade son?

Yet we try. We sing as though we understood the words, “Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty…God in three Persons, blessed Trinity.” I speak the same words over new believers which were recited over me in the baptismal waters, and over other Christians for twenty centuries: “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Why? What is the Trinity? And why is understanding it so essential?

A brief history of God

The first biblical reference to God starts the mystery: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). The Hebrew term here translated “God” is Elohim. The “im” is how the Hebrew language makes a word plural, like putting “s” on the end of a word in English. Thus one could translate the word “Gods” (though some Hebrew scholars believe that the plurality points more to God’s majesty than his number).

However, the following Hebrew verb “created” requires a singular noun, indicating that its subject is one rather than many. In English we would say “they create” but “he creates”; the latter is the idea of Genesis 1:1. So, in “God created” we have our start into the mystery that is the nature of God.

From earliest times, the Jewish tradition has affirmed that “the Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4, the “Shema” which is recited in daily Jewish spirituality). Such monotheism was a radical departure from the polytheism of ancient cultures. But the experience of the first Christians made simple monotheism problematic, for they knew Jesus Christ to be Lord and God (cf. John 1:1; 20:28; Romans 9:5; Titus 2:13). They also experienced the Holy Spirit as divine (Gen. 1:2; cf. Acts 5:2-4; 2 Corinthians 3:17-18). But these three were independent (at Jesus’ baptism the Father spoke and the Spirit descended; Matthew 3:16-17).

There is no indication that apostolic Christians struggled with the logic of their experience of God. Paul could pray for the Corinthians, “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all” (2 Corinthians 13:14). They knew God to be one, but they experienced him as three persons. This logical contradiction did not trouble them, for they were more pragmatic than speculative. They needed no words such as “Trinity” or theological formulations to explain their faith. But matters would quickly change.

The problem of God

As Christianity spread beyond its Jewish roots, it encountered a world view steeped in logic and rationalism. Aristotle had taught the Western world that non-contradiction is the test for all truth. Something cannot be one and three at the same time. So how can the Christian doctrine of God be reasonable?

The earliest answers to the question resolved the logical tension, but created problems greater than the one they “solved.” Some made the Son and the Spirit less divine than the Father, an approach known as subordinationism.” By this formulation, Jesus is not Lord and the Holy Spirit who makes us Christians (cf. Romans 8:9) is not fully God. Others taught that God shifts from being Father (Old Testament) to Son (Gospels) to Spirit (Acts to Revelation), an approach known as “modalism.” This strategy cannot explain the baptism of Jesus, the work of the Son (John 1:3-4) and the Spirit (Genesis 1:2) in creation, or the presence of the Spirit throughout the Old Testament (cf. Psalm 51:11). “Dynamic monarchians” taught that divine power descended upon Jesus, so that he was not himself divine.

At the Councils of Nicaea (AD 325) and Constantinople (AD 381), the orthodox Church declared all such formulations to be heretical, and affirmed that the Son and Spirit are of the same “essence” as the Father. “God in three Persons” catches the sense of their approach.

From then to now, believers have sought to understand better this paradox. Some suggest that God is like water, capable of being solid ice, liquid, or steam (but not at the same time). Perhaps he is like a three-sided pyramid seen from above (but the three sides do not work independently as did the Trinity at Jesus’ baptism). Maybe he is like an egg: yoke, sac, shell (but the three do not retain the same essence). Perhaps he is like a woman who is mother to her children, wife to her husband, and daughter to her parents (but she cannot act in three independent ways at the same time). All analogies eventually break down, as they should. As we noted earlier, if we can understand fully the essence of God, he would not be God.

Commitment to a God whose essence transcends our logical comprehension is a problem for some in our rationalistic culture. We like our faith to make sense. We may not understand why a ship floats or an airplane stays in the air, but we know that someone does. We’d have a hard time taking medicine no one understands, expecting effects no one can explain.

But we’d best get used to it. The more we learn about the universe, the more incomprehensible it becomes. Physicians do not understand how the mind works, or even if there is such a thing as the “mind.” We assume the category of time, but none of us can define it without contradiction.

So it is with the major doctrines of Christian faith. Is God three or one? Is Jesus fully God or fully human? Does God know the future or do we have freedom? Is the Bible divinely inspired or humanly written? The answer to each question is the same: yes.

The divinity of Jesus

Muslims, Jews, and Christians hold in common our belief that there is a God of the universe. When we speak of the “Father,” we are on familiar footing with other monotheistic faiths. But when we elevate the Son and the Spirit to divine status, we create the kind of tension which leads to confusion and rejection. So let’s take a moment to examine the divinity of the Second and Third members of the Godhead.

“Jesus is Lord” is the central affirmation of the Christian faith. Its Greek original is found scrawled on walls in the Roman catacombs and at the heart of the most ancient formulations of faith. When the Empire forced Christians to say “Caesar is Lord” or die, believers by the multiplied thousands chose to die. If presented the same option, we should make the same choice. Why?

Did Jesus claim to be God?

In recent years it has become popular to claim that Jesus of Nazareth saw himself only as a religious teacher, and that the Church deified him over the centuries. Not according to the eyewitnesses. When Jesus stood on trial for his life, the high priest challenged him: “I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God” (Matthew 26:63). His answer sealed his fate: “Yes, it is as you say” (v. 64). Earlier he told his opponents, “Before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58). He clearly claimed to be God.

And his first followers accepted his claim to be true. Peter and the other apostles refused to stop preaching that Jesus is Lord, even when threatened with their lives (cf. Acts 5:29-32). Each but John was martyred for his faith in Christ, and John was exiled to the prison island of Patmos for preaching the Lordship of Jesus. Billions of people across twenty centuries have accepted their truth claims and followed their Lord as God.

How do we know he was right?

Here is the rope from which Christianity swings: “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead” (1 Corinthians 15:13-15). Before Easter, the disciples assumed their leader was dead and gone. After that day, they were transfused with divine courage and set about winning the world to Jesus. The resurrection was the basis for their commitment to Christ as Lord. It is ours as well.

We know Jesus existed, and was crucified at the hands of Pontius Pilate. We know that the first Christians believed him to be raised from the dead (cf. the letter of Pliny the Younger, the descriptions of Josephus). But believing doesn’t make it so. Is there objective evidence for their faith in a risen Savior?

David Hume was an 18th-century Scottish philosopher, known today as the “Father of Skepticism.” He made it his life’s work to debunk assumptions which he considered to be unprovable, among them the veracity of miracles. He argued for six criteria by which we should judge those who claim to have witnessed a miracle: they should be numerous, intelligent, educated, of unquestioned integrity, willing to undergo severe loss if proven wrong, and their claims should be capable of easy validation (David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 2d ed. [LaSalle, Illinois: Open Court, 1966] 128-9). Each is appropriate for determining the truthfulness of a witness. How do the eyewitnesses of the risen Christ fare by such standards?

They were numerous: over 500 saw the resurrected Lord (1 Cor. 15:6). They were intelligent and well-educated, as the literature they produced makes clear (the Acts 4:13 claim that they were “unschooled, ordinary men” meant only that they had not attended rabbinic schools). Paul was in fact trained by Gamaliel, the finest scholar in Judaism (Acts 22:3). They were men and women of unquestioned integrity, clearly willing to undergo severe loss, as proven by their martyrdoms. And their claims were easily validated, as witnessed by the empty tomb (cf. Acts 26:26, “this thing was not done in a corner”).

So the witnesses were credible. What of the objective evidence for their claims? It is a fact of history that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified and buried, and that on the third day his tomb was found empty. Skeptics have struggled to explain the empty tomb ever since.

Three strategies center on theft. The first was to claim that while the guards slept, the disciples stole the body (Matthew 28:11-15). How would sleeping guards know the identity of such thieves? How could the disciples convince 500 people that the corpse was alive? And why would these disciples then die for what they knew to be a lie?

A second approach claims that the women stole the body. How would they overpower the guards? How would they make a corpse look alive? Why would they suffer and die for such fabrication? A third explanation is that the authorities stole the body. When the misguided disciples found an empty tomb, they announced a risen Lord. But why would the authorities steal the body they had positioned guards to watch? And when the Christians began preaching the resurrection, wouldn’t they quickly produce the corpse?

A fourth approach is the wrong tomb theory—the grief-stricken women and apostles went to the wrong tomb, found it empty, and began announcing Easter. But the women saw where he was buried (Mt. 27:61); Joseph of Arimathea would have corrected the error (Mt. 27:57-61); and the authorities would have gone to the correct tomb and produced the corpse.

A fifth strategy is the “swoon theory”—Jesus did not actually die on the cross. He or his followers bribed the medical examiner to pronounce him dead, then he revived in the tomb and appeared to be resurrected. But how could he survive burial clothes which cut off all air? How could he shove aside the stone and overpower the guards? How could he appear through walls (John 20:19, 26) and ascend to heaven (Acts 1:9)?

There is only one reasonable explanation for the empty tomb, the changed lives of the disciples, and the overnight explosion of the Christian movement upon the world stage: Jesus Christ rose from the dead. He is therefore the person he claimed to be: our Lord and God. Trusting him is not a leap into the dark, but into the light. When you jump, crucified hands will catch you and never let you go (Jn. 10:28).

The divinity of the Holy Spirit

One of my pet peeves in Dallas is the fact that turn signals are apparently signs of weakness. I sometimes think I’m the only person in Dallas County who signals when shifting lanes; people stare at me as though I’m from another planet, while wondering what that blinking light at the back of my car is about.

One of my theological pet peeves is the fact that so many Christians refer to the Holy Spirit as “it.” He is the third member of the Trinity, as fully divine as the Father and the Son. He is a person, deserving of our respect and gratitude. He is no more an “it” than you are.

The Holy Spirit has all the distinctive characteristics of personality: knowledge (1 Corinthians 2:10-11), will (1 Cor. 12:11), and feeling or emotion (Romans 15:30). He performs acts which only a person can perform: he searches (1 Cor. 2:10), speaks (Revelation 2:7), cries (Galatians 4:6), prays (Ro. 8:26), testifies (John 15:26), teaches (John 14:26), leads (Ro. 8:14), and commands (Acts 16:6, 7). He is treated as only a person can be treated: he is grieved and rebelled against (Isaiah 63:10; Ephesians 4:30), insulted (Hebrews 10:29), and blasphemed (Matthew 12:31, 32).

The Holy Spirit is given each of the four distinctly divine attributes: eternity (Heb. 9:14), omnipresence (Psalm 139:7-10), omniscience (1 Cor. 2:10, 11), and omnipotence (Luke1:35). He performs each of the three distinctly divine works: creation (Job 33:4; Ps. 104:30; Genesis 1:1-3), impartation of life (John 6:63; Gen. 2:7), and authorship of prophecy (2 Peter 1:21).

Exodus 16:7 says that the people “grumbled” against God; Hebrews 3:7-11 quotes the Holy Spirit’s statement that such complains were made against him. The name of the Holy Spirit is coupled with that of God (1 Corinthians 12:4-6; Matthew 28:19-20; 2 Cor. 13:14). The Holy Spirit is called God (Acts 5:3, 4).

And yet the Holy Spirit is distinct from the Father and the Son (Luke 3:21-22; Mt. 28:19; John 16:7). He is sent by the Father in the name of the Son (Jn 14:26; 15:26), speaks only what he hears from the Father (Jn 16:13), and seeks only to glorify God (Jn 16:14).

In every sense, the Holy Spirit is God. We can “solve” the problem of the Trinity by devaluing the Son and the Spirit, but we lose far more than we gain. We forfeit the divine Savior whose death paid for our sins, and the divine Person who brings salvation to our souls. I would rather live with the mystery of God’s nature than give up the relationship with him which that nature makes possible.

The ministry of the Holy Spirit

Now let’s move more specifically to the question of sanctification, the work of spiritual growth which the Holy Spirit authors in our lives. The Spirit shows us our guilt as sinners, convicting us of righteousness and judgment (John 16:10). He imparts spiritual life to those who are spiritually dead (Ephesians 2:1-2; Titus 3:5; John 3:3-5). Now he indwells the believer (1 Corinthians 6:19, 20) and sets us free for God (Romans 8:2). He forms Christ within us (Eph. 3:14-19), bringing forth the Christ-like graces of character (Galatians 5:22-23). He guides us into the life of God’s children (Ro. 8:14) and bears witness to our status with our Father (Ro. 8:15, 16).

The Spirit teaches us (Jn. 14:26), reveals the deep things of God to us (1 Cor. 2:9-13), interprets his own revelation (1 Cor. 2:14), and enables us to communicate truth to others (1 Cor. 2:1-5).

The Spirit guides us in prayer (Jude 20; Ephesians 6:18), inspires and guides our thanksgiving (Eph. 5:18-20), and inspires our worship (Philippians 3:3). He infills the believer (Eph. 5:18), sends us into definite vocations (Acts 13:2-4), and guides us in daily life (Acts 8:27-29; 16:6, 7).

From this brief survey, is it clear that we cannot progress in the spiritual life without the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the member of the Trinity who dwells in all believers, and empowers our growth and maturity in the faith. We must be yielded to his leading and empowering every day, or we cannot grow closer to our Lord. Time spent each morning in prayer and Bible study is crucial; time through the day to connect with God in prayer is vital.

We each need a spiritual inventory every week, whereby we ask the Spirit to show us anything wrong between us and our Father—we write down what comes to mind, confess it, and throw the paper away. In the words of evangelist Gypsy Smith, we draw a circle around ourselves and pray until everything inside that circle is right with God.

We need periodic times of solitude, where we listen to the Spirit’s voice. Find a place where you can be alone and undistracted. Meditate on a single verse or passage of Scripture, placing yourself in the text. Feel, smell. hear and taste the story. Ask the Spirit to show you the truth from that passage which you most need to hear, and he will.

Meditate on God’s creation. The hour I spent with a leaf was memorable to my soul. I had just begun my ministry in Midland, and had no idea how to move forward in God’s plan. Examining a leaf in my hand, I became impressed with its intricate design. The more I studied, the more amazed I became. Then the Spirit spoke to my spirit: “If I can design a leaf, I can design your life and work.” And he did.

Meditate on a current or global event. Pray about it, asking God to reveal his truth through this matter to you. Trust him to use his world and his word in your life. Listen until you have heard him speak. And you will.

Doc Severinson was the trumpet player and band leader for Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. As a trumpet player myself, I followed Severinson’s career with interest. Once I was privileged to attend a workshop and concert he staged. During the conversation following the performance, someone asked him about his practice habits. Severinson replied, “If I don’t practice one day, I know it. Two days, my band knows it. Three days, the world knows it.” The same is true of my soul, and perhaps yours as well.

Conclusion

We’ve discussed briefly the trinitarian nature of God, the divinity of the Son and the Spirit, and the work of the Spirit in our lives. The practical outcome of such a hurried survey is simply this: we are each to give ourselves every day to the Spirit. We are to yield the morning as it begins and the day before it starts. We are to seek his wisdom and direction for every step and every decision. We are to be led by his grace in every moment. And as we practice his presence in our lives, we experience the abundant life which Jesus came to give us all (John 10:10).

One of my favorite stories concerns a father who arrived home after work and was greeted by his two small daughters. The older girl got to him just as he stepped onto the sidewalk leading from the driveway, with a hedge on either side. She threw her arms around her father’s legs. The younger sister then arrived. Her older sister was in front of her, hedges on both sides, and she couldn’t get to her father. Her big sister taunted her, “Ha, ha, ha, I’ve got all of Daddy there is.”

The wise father then reached over his older daughter, picked up the younger sister, and held her in his arms. The younger girl then said to the older, “Ha, ha, ha, Daddy’s got all of me there is.”

You have all of the Father there is. Does he have all of you today?

How I Perfected Humility

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Topical Scripture: Genesis 11:1-9

A major in the military was promoted to colonel and received a fancy new office. As he entered it for the first time, sitting in the nice new chair, a knock came at the door. He said “Come in,” then quickly picked up the telephone as a corporal walked in.

“Just a minute,” the colonel said to the corporal. “I have to finish this telephone call.” Then the colonel began speaking into the mouthpiece: “Sorry about the interruption, General. Yes, sir, I will take care of that. Yes, I’ll call the President after I finish talking with you, General.”

The colonel ceremoniously put the telephone down, turned to the corporal, and said, “What can I do for you?” The corporal replied, “Well, Colonel, I just came in to connect your telephone.”

Pride is the genesis of all our sins. Unfortunately for those of us who attend worship services on Sundays, we learn how to mask our pride before others. How I Perfected Humility is the title of our next book.

But beware: “You will be as God” is the first temptation in human history (Genesis 3:5) and the heart of all the others. We build our Towers of Babel that we might “make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:4).

But the opposite results. Pride turned Adam and Eve against each other. Cain felt himself inferior to his brother, so he murdered him. Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery for the same reason. The religious and secular authorities crucified Jesus out of jealousy for their own power and status. Whenever we try to supplant God, we end up scattering ourselves over the earth.

What was your last problem with someone? Was pride in the middle of it? In what way do you feel isolated, alienated, “scattered” from those you care about? Mother Teresa said the greatest epidemic of our Western culture is not AIDS or leprosy, but loneliness. As we continue our walk through Genesis, today we’ll find its cure.

Diagnose the problem

First, we must be clear about the problem theologically. The Scriptures use several words for “pride.” At their heart, they all mean “to be lifted up.” Pride is good when it lifts up God, when we glorify him and tell him that we are proud to be his children. Pride is good when it lifts up others, when we tell our children that we are proud of them.

Pride is sin when it lifts us up, when we exalt ourselves over God and others. When we put our personal agendas ahead of loving God and our neighbor, when we live to impress people with ourselves more than with God, when we define success by popularity and possessions more than by obedience to God and service to others, we build our own Tower today. If I am teaching this message to impress you with myself, I’m laying bricks for my own Babel.

Why is such self-exaltation and self-promotion such a sin?

  • It supplants God: “Pharaoh said, ‘Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go” (Exodus 5:2).
  • It causes us to hurt others, to make them a means to our end: “In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak, who are caught in the schemes he devises” (Psalm 10:2); “Pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence” (Psalm 73:6). When we come first, everyone else comes second and is a means to our end.
  • It hurts us: “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom” (Proverbs 11:2); “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18). Self-reliance always leads to failure, for we are failed human beings.
  • And so it leads to the judgment of God, at Babel and where you live: “Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, are sin!” (Proverbs 21:4).
  • Why do we put ourselves before God and others?

The “will to power” is the basic drive in human nature. We all want to be God, to be “president of the universe,” as John Claypool admitted.

In addition, pride and power are the expectations of our culture. How does our society define success? Performance, achievement, drive, initiative. The “self-made man.” When last was a truly humble person elevated as a role model for our youth? We are to be driven, perfectionistic, prideful, or we are not a success.

Most of all, pride covers our perceived inadequacies. We know our failures and weaknesses. Rather than admit them, we compensate for them. We act in prideful ways, to convince others that we are what we pretend to be.

Who is susceptible?

  • Religious leaders: “The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers–or even like this tax collector'” (Luke 18:11).
  • Religious people: Job is described at the beginning of the story as “blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil” (Job 1:1). Yet he later claimed, “I am pure and without sin; I am clean and free from guilt” (Job 33:9). If it happened to Job, it can happen to us.
  • Followers of Jesus: Paul chastised the Corinthian Christians, “Some of you have become arrogant, as if I were not coming to you” (1 Corinthians 4:18).
  • Churches: “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked” (Revelation 3:17).
  • Anyone who believes that he or she is not.

Study the disease

Next, we come at the issue biblically. What do we do with this alienating, isolating impulse which has created an epidemic of loneliness in our world? Let’s walk through our story together.

Our text begins, “Now the whole world had one language and a common speech” (v. 1a). We are now six generations from Noah; as many as 30,000 people are alive on the earth. They have “one lip” and “one speech” so far, as we might expect.

“As men moved eastward,” out into the uninhabited world, “they found a plain in Shinar and settled there” (v. 2). This is the flatlands between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, in the heart of modern-day Iraq. The area was especially fertile in those days, so that grain harvests typically yielded 200 to 300-fold, and palm trees grew all over the land. They had no enemies as yet, and so did not need to settle in mountains where they could protect themselves. So this was a perfect location.

“They said to each other” (v. 3a), no exceptions or dissenters. “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly” (v. 3b), literally “burn them to a burning,” making them stronger than sun-baked bricks. They used “tar for mortar” (v. 3c), a kind of bitumen found throughout the region which literally glued the bricks together. Millions of these ancient bricks have been found; they are typically a foot square and two to three inches thick and are perfect for building tall structures.

They had this purpose in mind: “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves” (v. 4a). Today we still use their phrase “make a name for ourselves.” We already “have” a name, given by our parents. We “make” a name by our own efforts and success. In this way we seek to leave a legacy, a permanent mark on this world, lest we be “scattered over the face of the whole earth” (v. 4b).

Remains of their tower still exist. It was designed to be approximately 300 feet square at the base, with seven levels of decreasing size, and was intended to reach 290 to 300 feet in height. Think of a football field cubed, and you’ll have the idea. It was by far the largest building in the ancient world for generations.

But compared to the greatness of God it was so tiny that he had to “come down” to look at it (v. 5).

He knew that such pride would lead only to further rebellion and destruction, so he chose to “confuse their language” and defeat their plans (v. 7). And then he “scattered them from there over all the earth” (v. 8), the very thing they tried to prevent by their own egotistical actions. He could have crushed them, destroyed them with fire, or devastated them with disease. This was an act of grace, to keep us from hurting ourselves further.

As a result, the place is called “Babel” (from which we get “Babylon”), an ironic word play. The Assyrians used the word for “gate of god”; the Hebrews used it for “confusion.” Whenever we try to build the former, the latter results.

Accept the cure

Finally, we consider the issue practically. How does our story help us with our problem? It suggests these clear steps.

First, refuse self-exaltation:

  • “Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil” (Proverbs 3:7).
  • “Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him” (Proverbs 26:12).
  • “Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight” (Isaiah 5:21).
  • “The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know” (1 Corinthians 8:2).

Know that everything which tempts you to self-exaltation is the sin of pride. As Oswald Chambers says, “Beware of anything that puts you in the superior person’s place.” You’re only building a Tower of Babel, and your plans will be defeated.

Second, see yourself as the valuable child of God: “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. . . . If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:26, 29). When you know your worth before God, you won’t be so motivated to seek it from us.

Bill Glass, the former NFL star and now prison ministry leader, says that the most common denominator behind bars is the absence of a father. We each need to know that our father loves us, that he likes us, and that he wants us. Your Father loves you, likes you, and wants you. Don’t measure yourself by the size of the towers you’re building, but the God who loves you.

Third, seek to glorify God in all you do. When we seek his glory, we cannot seek our own at the same time. J. I. Packer was right: it is impossible at the same time to convince you that I am a great preacher and that Jesus is a great Savior. Measure your success today by the degree to which other people think more of God because of you. Ask how you can glorify him with your abilities, gifts, resources, and accomplishments. How can you turn someone toward him this week?

Last, value humility as the path to God. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who know their need of God, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs” (Matthew 5:3; cf. NEB). Martin Luther was right: “God creates out of nothing. Therefore, until a man is nothing, God can make nothing out of him.” Ask God to help you stay humble before him, surrendered to his will, seeking his glory alone. Every day of his life, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones prayed the same prayer, “Lord, keep me from pride.” When last did you make this your prayer?

Conclusion

We’ve considered our subject theologically, biblically, and practically. Let’s close not with our heads but our hearts. In various trips to England I have been given the opportunity to stand in a number of elevated pulpits, as is the style on the Continent. They remind me of a young preacher just out of seminary, climbing the steps to the pulpit for his first Sunday in his first church.

Head held high, notes and Bible in hand, he was proud and dignified. But he tripped on the last step, Bible and notes flying. He tried to shuffle them back into order, but he was too embarrassed to think. He tried to preach his sermon but stammered and stuttered. Finally he quit, shoved his disheveled notes into his Bible, and descended the steps, head down.

An elderly woman on the first pew said to him, “Young man, if you’d gone up the steps the way you came down, you’d have gone down the way you went up.”

C. S. Lewis, as usual, says it better than I can: “Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call ‘humble’ nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling that, of course, he is nobody. Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. If you do dislike him it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.

“If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. The first step is to realize that one is proud. And a biggish step, too. At least, nothing whatever can be done before it. If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed” (Mere Christianity).

Do you think you are humble today?

How Jesus Spent “Labor Day”

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Topical Scripture: Mark 1:21-39

As you know, Monday is Labor Day. Where did the holiday come from? I did some checking and was surprised by what I discovered.

The first Labor Day in America was celebrated on this day in 1882 in New York City, but this did not become a national holiday until 12 years later, in response to a national crisis.

A railroad workers strike in 1894 shut down the railroads. President Grover Cleveland sent 12,000 Army troops to break the strike; 13 railroad workers were killed, 57 were wounded, and 6,000 rail workers did nearly $9 million in damages (in today’s dollars). Fearing further conflict, legislation was rushed through Congress six days later to make Labor Day a national holiday.

This week I’ve been wondering what Jesus did when he had a day off. He feed 5,000 families with a boy’s lunch, walked on water, turned water into wine, healed the sick and raised the dead. He was constantly with his disciples meeting needs around him. Now, let’s look at what he did on the day after such a time of miraculous work. How did Jesus spend his “Labor Day” holiday? What does his example say to our souls today?

The text

Our text describes Jesus’ first day of public ministry in his home region of Galilee. On the Sabbath, their day of worship, he preached the sermon in the synagogue in Capernaum. A demon-possessed man stood up in the middle of his message to disrupt him, but Jesus threw the demon out of him. The people were “amazed,” and spread the news about him around the area.

He went to Peter’s home, his adopted base for ministry, for lunch. There he found Peter’s mother-in-law sick with a fever. He touched her and healed her. After the Sabbath ended and work could begin again, “the whole town” gathered at his door; remember that Capernaum was the largest city in that part of the world. Jesus healed the sick and drove out demons. Not a bad way to begin a ministry, but an exhausting day, to be sure.

What would Jesus do the next day, on our Monday? Take the day off? Go to the golf course? Read a novel?

“And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed” (v. 35). Why?

He needed to know what to do next. Should he stay here in Capernaum and build a mega church? Should he go on the road as a missionary? Should he be a preacher or a healer? What is he to do in this ministry to which he has been called by his Father?

Peter can’t believe it—the crowds have gathered but the preacher didn’t show. Jesus replied, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that [emphatic] is why I came out” (v. 38).

And they did. “He went throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons” (v. 39).

This would be the pattern for the rest of his ministry. He would go to the people, not waiting for them to come to him. He would not build a church and hope the people would find him—he would go to the people, where they were, with their needs. Taking grace to those who need it most.

This is the essential difference between Christianity and the world’s religions.

Religion is our attempt to climb up to God. Buddhists keep the four noble truths and the eight-fold noble path, seeking Nirvana and enlightenment. Hindus believe they will pass through multiple reincarnations as they learn the disciplines which will lead to Moksha, salvation. Muslims follow their five pillars, hoping to be accepted by Allah into his heaven. Orthodox Jews live by the Torah, hoping to please Yahweh.

Religion climbs up to God—in Christianity, God climbs down to us. He came to us because we could not come to him. Because none of us could be good enough to earn entrance into his perfect paradise. The Bible says that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,” and that the “wages” or results of sin is death (Romans 3:23; 6:23). So Jesus came to us, died on our cross, bore our sin, went to our grave, so we could receive the eternal life his grace came to give.

And the pattern for all of that was set on this day, as Jesus went to his Father to learn how he should serve him as his Messiah.

Make God your King

What does Jesus’ Labor Day example say to us? It reminds us that God has a will for every part of our lives—for Monday, not just for Sunday. For what Jesus would do during the week, not just in the Sabbath synagogue service. For what you and I do tomorrow, not just today.

You see, the God we worship this morning is a King. Not a hobby, a part of our lives, but the King of our world.

  • From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17).
  • As you go, proclaim this message: “The kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 10:7)
  • “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33).
  • “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).

If he is your King, you’re sitting in his chair, breathing his air, wearing his clothes. He is King of Monday, not just Sunday. Of what we keep, not just what we give.

In our culture, of course, God is a hobby. Christianity is for church, religion for Sunday. We separate the soul from the body, the spiritual from the secular, and leave God in our chapels and churches.

But he can lead only those who will follow and bless only those who will receive his gifts. He has a good, pleasing and perfect will for us. He has a plan to prosper us and not harm us, to give us hope and a future. But only when he is our King can he do for us and with us and through us all he wants to do.

Conclusion

When last did you make him your King?

The question is simple: will you belong fully and completely to Jesus?

John D. Rockefeller, Sr. became a millionaire by the age of 23. He formed Standard Oil Company in 1870; by 1879, it controlled 90% of oil refining in the United States and about 70% of refined oil exports. By the age of 50 he was the world’s only billionaire, the richest man on earth. His net worth would be $323.4 billion today; some consider him the wealthiest person who has ever lived.

In 1891, at 53 years of age, Rockefeller fell gravely ill. The hair on his head, eyebrows, and eyelashes dropped off. He could digest only milk and crackers, and could not sleep. Doctors predicted that he would die within a year.

Rockefeller was a committed Christian, the son of a devout Baptist mother, but his business ambitions had dominated his life. One night, as he struggled to sleep, he came to realize that he could take nothing with him into the next world. The next day he changed the course of his life.

He established the Rockefeller Foundation, which channeled his fortune into mission work, medical research and hospitals. His contributions led to the discovery of penicillin, and to cures for diphtheria, hookworm, malaria, tuberculosis, and yellow fever.

John D. Rockefeller, Sr.’s life was transformed as a result of his benevolence, and he lived to the age of 98.

God gives the best to those who leave the choice with him. Always.