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The Man Who Prepared for War

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Topical Scripture: Judges 3:12-30

October 10, 2011 was Les and Karen Ferguson’s twenty-fourth wedding anniversary. Les was at a preacher’s meeting when his wife and their twenty-one-year-old son, Cole, were shot to death in their home.

The apparent killer had attended their church until being charged with sexually assaulting Cole, who had cerebral palsy. The day Karen and Cole were killed, the man was later found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

We cannot imagine the grief that Les and the rest of his family endured. The minister’s grief overwhelmed him as he withdrew from everyone except his remaining family and a few friends. He later launched an online journal called “Desperately Wanting to Believe Again.” And he has.

Les has returned to pastoral ministry and written a transparent book on his faith journey. If he can serve a God whose ways he will never fully understand, can’t we?

This week we will meet a man who became an unlikely judge and rescued his people from horrific oppression. And we will learn that the God who used Ehud will use anyone who is willing to be used. There are no exceptions.

Refuse sin before judgment comes (vv. 12–14)

Thirteen centuries before Christ, the twelve Jewish tribes were living in their Promised Land. However, they were still surrounded by external enemies that imperiled their future. And their internal sin was a greater threat than any external nation.

Last week we discussed the pattern of Judges:

  • The people reject God
  • God responds with divine retribution
  • The people repent
  • God raises up a judge as their deliverer.

This pattern begins in our text: “And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord” (Judges 3:12a). “Evil” translates the Hebrew word ra, meaning that which is wicked, contemptible, noxious, hurtful.

The text is not more specific. We’re not told if their evil had to do with idolatry, sexual immorality, theft, or any other sins. I believe there are two reasons for the ambiguity of the text.

One reason is that any sin is sin before the Lord. Our righteous, holy Father must view all sins as evil. We rank sins as less or greater in significance, but any sin breaks our fellowship with our perfect Lord.

A second reason is that our text can now apply to any reader. The Bible states, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Any sin you have committed today makes this text relevant to you.

God must punish sin. But he often chooses unusual ways to express his judgment. In this case, he “strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel” (v. 12b). The Moabites lived on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea (in modern-day Saudi Arabia, just south of Jordan), directly east of the tribe of Judah. They were Israel’s relatives, descendants of Abraham’s nephew Lot (Genesis 19:36–37).

The Lord had earlier forbidden the Jews from taking the Moabites’ land. As the Jews were on their way to the Promised Land, Moses testified: “We turned and went in the direction of the wilderness of Moab. And the Lord said to me, ‘Do not harass Moab or contend with them in battle, for I will not give you any of their land for a possession, because I have given Ar to the people of Lot for a possession'” (Deuteronomy 2:8–9).

Now the Lord raised up the Moabites to punish Israel. Eglon, their king, made an alliance with the Ammonites (to the north of Moab) and the Amelekites (to the south of Israel). With their help, Eglon was able to defeat Israel and take possession of “the city of palms,” Jericho (v. 13). As a result, “the people of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years” (v. 14).

One of Satan’s most effective strategies is to tempt us to believe that we can sin without consequences. He said to Eve in the Garden, “You will not surely die” (Genesis 3:4). He says to us that we can get away with this. No one will be hurt; no one will know. We can always repent later.

The reality is that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Thomas Watson warned us: “Sin has the devil for its father, shame for its companion, and death for its wages.” Every time.

What “evil” are you being tempted to commit today?

Prepare to be used by God (vv. 15–23)

True to form, “the people of Israel cried out to the Lord, and the Lord raised up for them a deliverer” (v. 15a). It is never too late to repent. The nation would not get back the eighteen years it spent enslaved to Moab, but its past did not need to become its future.

In this case, their deliverer was “Ehud, the son of Gera, the Benjamite, a left-handed man” (v. 15b). Every word of the Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit and included in Scripture for a reason. In this case, we learn two important facts about the judge named Ehud.

One: he was a “Benjamite.” This was the smallest of the twelve tribes but one of the most capable. Among them were “700 chosen men who were left-handed; every one could sling a stone at a hair and not miss” (Judges 20:16). Ehud grew up among warriors and was clearly prepared to be one himself.

Two: he was “a left-handed man” himself. Since only about ten percent of the population is left-handed, soldiers typically learned to fight right-handed. Ehud was therefore likely ambidextrous, an even more capable fighter. This fact would serve him well.

When the people sent tribute to Eglon by Ehud, he “made for himself a sword with two edges, a cubit in length” (v. 16a), eighteen inches long. It was so short that he could hide it “on his right thigh under his clothes” (v. 16b). This is not where the king’s guards would think to look for it, since a right-handed man would hide his weapon on the left side of his body.

When he was alone with the king, Ehud “reached with his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly” (v. 21), killing the Moabite king. Ehud was then able to escape with his life.

However, there is no way he could have known that he would be alone with Eglon. I think he was willing to pay for his faithfulness with his life. As it was, he lived on to complete the overthrow of the Moabites, as we will see shortly.

Of all we could say about Ehud, I would emphasize the fact that he prepared to be used by God.

We live and work in a divine-human partnership. Noah built the ark, and God closed its door. Moses held out his staff, and God parted the Red Sea. David was willing to fight Goliath, and God helped him succeed. Peter preached at Pentecost, and the Spirit led three thousand souls to Jesus.

Here we see Ehud preparing along with his fellow Benjamites for battle. Depending on his age, he might have never known a time when the Moabites were not oppressing his people. He worked and waited until his moment came. When it did, he was ready.

It’s been said that God seeks not ability but availability. It’s actually both. He gives us abilities and spiritual gifts he expects us to nurture and develop. Then he uses us in ways we might never imagine.

Many years ago, a wise mentor said to me, “The Holy Spirit has a strange affinity for the trained mind.” Are you preparing to be used by your Lord?

Seek to change the world (vv. 24–30)

After Ehud executed Eglon and escaped, “he sounded the trumpet in the hill country of Ephraim” and became the leader of the nation (v. 27). Under his leadership, the people “killed at that time about 10,000 of the Moabites, all strong, able-bodied men; not a man escaped” (v. 29). Our enemies may be strong, but our God is always stronger.

As a result, “Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the land had rest for eighty years” (v. 30), twice as long as under any other judge.

God wants to use us to change the world. Anything less is less than his purpose for our lives. If Ehud could show us how to join God in his transforming mission, he would call us to three imperatives.

Choose holiness now. Sin is spiritual cancer. It always grows. It always affects more people than the sinner. It drives a wedge between us and our Father. It leads to his justice and judgment. Ask the Lord if there is “evil” in your life, and repent if there is.

Prepare to be used by God. In what ways are you “left-handed”? What are your abilities? Your spiritual gifts? Your resources and opportunities? With whom do you have influence? All of this is God’s gift to you, to be developed with excellence for his glory and our good.

We tend to focus on our weaknesses, trying to make them better. But experts say that the wisest strategy is to focus on our strengths, trying to make them excellent. How are you doing this?

Oswald Chambers’ motto should be ours: “My utmost for his highest.”

Pay the price of courage. As I noted, there was no guarantee Ehud would survive his attack on Israel’s oppressor. Nor was there any guarantee that those he led would defeat the “strong, able-bodied men” of Moab with whom they fought.

When we see evil, we must respond. When we see a need, we must meet it. Dietrich Bonhoeffer testified: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil; God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” He paid for these words with his life, but his life will continue to change the world until Jesus returns.

Conclusion

Does the world need another Ehud?

Jesus called capable men who had built a very successful fishing enterprise, but then he said, “I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19). If they would do what they could do, he would do what they could not.

He called a brilliant scholar of the Pharisees to become his “apostle to the Gentiles” (Romans 11:13). If Paul would dedicate his mind and skills to Jesus, the Lord would use him to write half of the New Testament.

What is he calling you to do?

I cannot leave Ehud without calling to mind some of the most famous words on our subject ever spoken. They come from a speech made by Theodore Roosevelt in 1910:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Will you go into “the arena” today?

The Market Value of Clay

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The Market Value of Clay

Genesis 40-41

Dr. Jim Denison

There are more than 75 million single adults in our country this weekend. Half of the adults in America are single. In our community, 19% is widowed or divorced, and 32% has never married. In other words, 51% of our total population is composed of single adults.

Yet, despite their overwhelming importance to us, the church typically does not address single adults adequately. We have always struggled to know how best to serve singles through our ministries. I think the root of the problem is simply that the church today doesn’t view single adults properly.

To be completely honest, the common view of relationships within the church is that marriage is best. It’s the highest form of relationship. To be married is to be complete. The counter side is that to be single is to be incomplete, unfinished, less than whole. We may not have said that, but we have certainly implied it.

When we meet an adult we want to know, “Are you married?” If you’re not, we married adults all too easily assume there’s some reason.

Family members can be tough on single adults. Parents want to know when you’re going to get married. Siblings pressure subtly. And your church family can pressure you as well. Books and sermons are written from the perspective which says, “If you will commit your life to Christ, God will give you a marriage partner.” But Jesus never said that. He said, If you will commit your life to me I will fill it with meaning and purpose. He never promised marriage, or required it, or experienced it himself.

Today I want us to learn to see singles the way God does. The results will have tremendous relevance for every one of us.

Can a single adult save the world?

God’s ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8). If we had been writing the script for Joseph, molding the clay of his life, we would never have included thirteen years of slavery and prison. But God did.

Remember briefly the story of this single adult’s life.

Joseph is put in the prison where the “king’s prisoners” are held (Genesis 39:20). Soon he meets one of them.

The “cupbearer” was one of the most important people in an ancient kingdom. He would taste everything put before Pharoah to eat, to ensure that it had not been poisoned. We don’t know what he did to be in jail, but here he is.

The “chief baker” was likewise a man of great importance in the ancient world. His job was to oversee all the baking which took place for Pharoah. Ancient documents list 38 varieties of cake and 57 of bread used by the Egyptians. Again, we don’t know why he’s in jail, but he is.

Note that the “captain of the guard” assigns each of them to Joseph (v. 4). This captain is none other than Potiphar, further evidence of the trust Joseph earned in his eyes by his years of moral character and integrity.

Each of them has a dream, but neither can decipher its meaning. Joseph can, however, with the help of God. Here is a clear indication of the superiority of his God over the Egyptians deities: “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams” (Genesis 40:8).

The cupbearer tells his dream; Joseph tells him it means that he will be restored to his position. The baker tells him his dream; Joseph is honest enough to tell him it means that he will be executed. In both cases, Joseph is right.

Now, finally, Joseph will be recognized for the divine call God has on his life, we think. But no. Two more years pass.

Then Pharoah has a dream of his own—seven fat cows, eaten by seven starving cows; seven healthy heads of grain, swallowed by seven thin heads of grain. No one, not the wisest men or the greatest magicians of the land, can tell Pharoah what this means.

Only then does the cupbearer remember Joseph. Pharoah summons him from the prison, and asks his help. Hear Joseph’s humble and honest reply: “I cannot do it, but God will give Pharoah the answer he desires” (Genesis 41:16). Pharoah tells Joseph his dreams, and Joseph gives him the word of God: there will be seven years of plenty, followed by seven years of famine.

Next Joseph tells Pharoah what he should do about these events: “And now let Pharoah look for a discerning and wise man and put him in charge of the land of Egypt” (Genesis 41:33). Under his leadership commissioners would take a fifth of the harvest during the seven years of plenty, and use it to feed the people during the seven years of famine.

Here’s the result: “The plan seemed good to Pharoah and to all his officials. So Pharoah asked them, ‘Can we find anyone like this man, one in whom is the spirit of God?'” (Genesis 41:37).

And so Pharoah elevates Joseph to the two highest offices of state: director of the palace (and thus charge of Pharoah’s finances) and grand vizier (the authorized representative of the Pharoah himself). If the president were to elevate an imprisoned felon to the status of Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary of State combined, we would not be more astonished.

Joseph wears Pharoah’s own ring of authority, and the great chain of state. He is preceded in Pharoah’s chariot by a guard who calls everyone to “make way” or “bow the knee.” This was something like being given the presidential motorcade and Air Force One.

And he is given “robes of fine linen” to replace the “coat of many colors stolen thirteen years earlier. Thus Pharoah “put him in charge of the whole land of Egypt” (Genesis 41:43). From this position he will act to save Egypt from starvation, and his own Hebrew people as well.

And this elevation and transformation all started while Joseph was a single adult, 30 years of age. What does his story say to our church, our culture, about the way God sees single adults, and the rest of us as well?

Can God use more Josephs?

Can God still use men and women like Joseph, adults who have not been married?

Corrie ten Boom’s family harbored Jews in Amsterdam. For this her family was killed in concentration camps, and she was subjected to unspeakable horrors. Her book about her experience and faith, The Hiding Place, sold over two million copies; fifteen million saw the movie. She changed her world. And she never married.

Can unmarried adults serve God? I think of Luther Rice, missionary to India; Mother Teresa, in India and the world; Bishop Asbury, father of American Methodism.

I remind you of James Buchanan and Grover Cleveland, presidents of the United States; of George Frederick Handel and Isaac Watts; of Horatio Alger, Lewis Carroll, Steven F. Austin, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Think of Judge Baylor, the founder of Baylor University; of Wilbur and Orville Wright; of Florence Nightingale. Martin Luther was single when he began the Protestant Reformation; John Calvin, its greatest scholar, never married. John R. W. Stott may be the world’s greatest living evangelical preacher. Can God still use single adults? You decide.

Can God use divorced adults? In most churches divorce is the unpardonable sin, it seems. Someone said that the church is the only army which buries its wounded, and it feels that way to some of you. Can God use those who have experienced the tragic pain of divorce?

I agree with the many scholars who believe Paul was divorced—that when he came to faith in Christ, his wife considered him dead to her and left the marriage.

What of Keith Miller, whose books have touched millions? Harold Ivan Smith, whose books and conferences have liberated thousands of divorcees? Adlai Stevenson, governor of Illinois and twice candidate for President? Ronald Reagan?

Some of my most outstanding professors in college and seminary had known the pain of divorce in their lives. Some of the ministry staff and deacons in our congregation have been divorced. And God is still using them in our lives, and in mine.

I’m grateful that in our church no door is shut to those who have known the heartache of a divorce. God loves; God heals; God restores. If God could use Paul, can’t he use you?

Can God use the bereaved, those who have lost their husband or wife to death? So often you feel outside of life. Your friends go on with their marriages and families, while you’re different now. And the loneliness of this pain is very hard. Can God still use you?

What of Abraham and Jacob in the Bible? Didn’t they serve the Lord years after their wives died?

What of Sarah Hale, the young widow with five children who founded Thanksgiving Day? Corazon Aquino in the Philippines and Golda Meir in Israel, widows who forever shaped their world? C. S. Lewis, the widower whose Christian books shaped my life and millions of others?

What is necessary for you to be used as Joseph was used by God?

First, find your strength and identity in God, not your culture or circumstances.

Joseph said to the cupbearer and baker, “Do not interpretations belong to God?” (Genesis 40:8). Later he said to Pharoah, “I cannot do it, but God will give Pharoah the answer he desires” (Genesis 41:16). Still later he told his brothers, “It was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharoah, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt” (Genesis 45:8). Find the power and purpose for your life in God, and no one else.

Our identity is not found in our marital status, in our appearance or income, or in any other circumstance. Our identity is found in the fact that we are the children of God. Joseph knew this. Do you?

Second, trust God to redeem every circumstance for his glory.

Some of you have experienced significant family trauma. So did Joseph. Unless your siblings have tried to kill you and then sold you into slavery, and unless you have spent thirteen years in slavery and prison, you’ve not seen harder times than Joseph did.

And yet, listen to his words at the end of Genesis: “Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (50:19-20).

Trust God to redeem your life and circumstances, whatever they might be.

In short, believe in the God who believes in you. Accept no limits placed on you by your culture, or by your church. Wherever you are, know that God will use you there, if you will let him. What he did with Joseph, he wants to do with you. And with the rest of us as well.

Conclusion

So, be sure that you have made Jesus Christ the Lord of your life. Jesus the single adult, the Son of God, stands ready to give you new life and purpose. Settle your eternal soul’s relationship with him, today.

Then ask God today to use you as he used Joseph. Our community and nation need more Josephs, and so does our church. Ask him to mold the clay of your life and heart for his glory and your good.

Emily Dickinson, America’s greatest female poet and a single adult, once wrote these lines:

If I can stop one heart from breakingI shall not live in vainIf I can ease one life the achingor cool one painOr help one fainting robinUnto his nest againI shall not live in vain.We never know how high we areTill we are called to riseAnd then if we are true to planOur statures touch the skies.

My friend, whatever your circumstances in life today, you are “called to rise.” Say “yes” as Jesus calls you to serve him, and your stature will indeed “touch the skies.” This is the promise of God.

The Misplaced Comma

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The Misplaced Comma

Ephesians 4.11-16

Dr. Jim Denison

Have you heard of the Wicked Bible? This was an edition of the King James Version published in London in 1631. The word “not” was accidentally left out of the seventh commandment. As a result, Exodus 20:14 commanded, “Thou shalt commit adultery.” For this, the translation was appropriately called the “Wicked” Bible. William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, ordered the printers to pay a fine of 300 pounds.

In 1716, thousands of copies of another Bible edition were printed before someone noticed that the command of John 8, “Go and sin no more” had been printed, “Go and sin on more.” And a mix-up in gender in a 1923 version produced this command: “A man may not marry his grandmother’s wife,” a difficult task anyway.

Some translation mistakes are humorous and harmless enough. However, there is another mistake in a biblical translation which is not so funny today. For centuries it has had a devastating effect on the church, and still hurts us. It’s not a sentence or even a word, but a comma. Just one little comma. But it’s been disastrous.

This morning I need to show you why this is so, and the enormous and crucial significance this comma holds for your life and soul today, and for eternity.

The worst typo in history

The worst typo in history is found in the King James Version of the Bible. Now, I have a high regard for the KJV; it was the translation preached when I came to Christ, and is still the most popular version in English today. I don’t want you to worry if you read the KJV.

But there’s a major problem with this passage: “And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:11-12).

What’s wrong here? We’ve discussed this text before, but never as a morning sermon. The issue is so important, I want us to revisit it and give it our full attention today.

Verse 11 is fine. God did indeed call some leaders to be apostles, others prophets or evangelists, still others to be pastor-teachers. The problem is with verse 12, which describes the work of these leaders. According to the KJV, my first job is the “perfecting of the saints.” This means to mature the saints, to train or “feed” God’s people. This is my first responsibility.

My second job is to do “the work of the ministry.” I am to witness, to visit, to counsel, to comfort, to serve. And my third job is “the edifying of the body of Christ.” I am to build the church. Now, isn’t this how the typical church member evaluates the pastor? Did he “feed” me? Did he do the ministry? Did he grow the church?

But as you may remember, the first comma of verse 12 was a mistake. It simply didn’t exist in the Greek original. It was inserted by Anglican translators, men who wanted to preserve the power of church officials.

And so they reinforced the greatest single mistake in church history: the “clergy.” A class of “ministers,” separate from the members. A disaster. And they gave us three jobs: equip the Christians, do the ministry, grow the church.

But take out the first comma, and what do you have? The job of the pastor or any church leader is the “perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry.” Or as the NIV puts it, “to prepare God’s people for works of service.” And that’s a completely different thing.

This comma has given birth to an entire mindset in the Christian church which is wrong. Simply put, it is the idea that effective personal ministry and witnessing, passionate commitment to Jesus, and sacrificial stewardship are wonderful, but optional. Once you’re saved, you’re fine. Everything else is extra credit, reserved for the super-Christians who are called by God for “special service.”

For the sake of our church, and our souls, I must show you how wrong that is.

Two jobs, one vocation

God’s strategy for a healthy church and soul is really very simple: leaders who are equippers, and members who are ministers. Two jobs, one vocation, to help people follow Jesus.

First, let’s look at the job of leaders. If you are a leader in this church, here’s your job description: to “prepare God’s people for works of service.” “Prepare” translates a medical term, which means to “set a bone” or heal something broken. It describes a trainer who wraps the ankle of a football player so he can send him back into the game. Someone who gets others ready to play.

This is how God will evaluate our performance one day. Not by how well we do the ministry, but by how well our people do. The coach is not judged by his own ability, but by that of his team. Pastors and leaders will not be evaluated by how many people we won to Christ, but by how many people our people won; not by how well we pray, but by how well our people pray; not by how much Scripture we know and practice, but by how much our people do.

This week I found an odd military term: “attack oilers.” The USS Savannah is one of these, for instance. She provides fuel, ammunition, missiles, and other essentials to the fighting ships. Without her, they cannot win the battle.In the same way, we in leadership are “oilers”—we exist to help you find and fulfil your ministry calling. As we will see in a moment, God will hold us accountable for this, his purpose for our lives and work.

So God needs leaders who are equippers, and members who are ministers.

Every Christian has at least one spiritual gift (v. 7). You have a calling from God, a specific ministry you are to perform to help people follow Jesus. You need to be equipped for this ministry. You need to be reading Scripture daily, praying as a lifestyle, worshiping God across the week. You need to practice the various spiritual disciplines. Scripture is clear: “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18).

Then you can perform what our text calls “works of service” (v. 12). Winning the lost, teaching the saved, comforting the hurting, helping the troubled, guiding the confused, helping lead God’s family. Regardless of your age or past, you have a ministry. And you’re not finished until “we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (v. 13). Christians are never done, we never retire, until we all become like Jesus.

This text is the reason we have made ministry training one of our three key purposes as a church, and have set four values by which we will do it. We will accomplish ministry training which is:

Biblical, equipping believers for discipleship and personal ministry.

Intentional, addressing ministry opportunities, spiritual gifts, and current issues. We will not train our people in abstract ways, but for specific ministries as God is calling them.

Innovative, employing multiple technologies and methods to equip our members and the larger Christian community. For instance, we plan to offer our first LIFEtime course on the Internet this fall.

Comprehensive, networking with other organizations for resources and leadership. We will work with any Christians who want to be part of this ministry.

Why sign up?

Now, why does this call to ministry training matter to you? You’re trying to keep your marriage together and raise your kids, to get ahead at work, to deal with the daily crises of life. Why should you care about any of this?

Your soul needs to grow (vs. 14-15). You need to take responsibility for your personal spiritual growth, the sake of your own soul. A youth minister once asked our youth group a challenging question: “If I were to snap my fingers and you would become as old physically as you are spiritually, what would happen?” What would happen? Is your soul an “infant, tossed back and forth by the waves” (v. 14)? Or do you “speak the truth in love, in all things growing up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ” (v. 15)?

Do you have a personal discipleship plan? A personal discipline in prayer, Scripture, and worship? Have you used the other disciplines of fasting, solitude, silence, accountability, meditation? You likely have a plan for your finances, your family, your physical health. What about your soul?

Your church needs to grow (v. 16). Only when every member is a minister can the church grow effectively. Church health leads to church growth. If you don’t do your part, we cannot be as healthy as we need to be. A person can get along without an arm, but it’s hard.

The bottom line is simple: the “clergy” can never replace the “laity” or do the work of the church. Imagine a baseball team where only Johnny Oates touched a baseball, a Microsoft where only Bill Gates touched a computer, a Baylor Hospital where only Boone Powell touched a patient. You need to take responsibility for your spiritual growth, for our sake.

Would you rather have one million dollars today, or a penny doubled every day for a month? Take the penny—in thirty days you’ll have $10,737,418.24. The church grows by multiplication. Are you a multiplier?

There will be a test. Remember the billboards which attracted so much attention earlier this year? “Loved the wedding—invite me to the marriage.” “What part of “Thou shalt not” didn’t you understand?” Here was my favorite: “Have you read my book? There will be a test.” Hebrews 9:27 states it bluntly, “man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.”

Listen to 1 Corinthians 3:11-15: “No one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.”

Scripture could not be plainer: “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5:10).

Conclusion

We exist to help people follow Jesus. We do this first by following him ourselves. Then others see in us something they want in their lives. I will always be grateful to God for leading me to a church filled with youth who were growing spiritually, committed to personal discipleship, being equipped for their personal ministries. Because they were, I am here today.

Who will come to Christ because they see Christ in you?

Billy Graham said it well: “The early church didn’t have printing presses, radio or television, or fast planes to take them from city to city—and yet they touched the world. I think the main thing people are looking for is what a man told me years ago. He said, ‘I would become a Christian if I could see one,’ and he was looking right at me. That is one of the greatest sermons I’ve ever heard preached. People want to see a Christian. It’s not just accepting Christ, but being a Christian every day—all the time, constantly—that makes a difference.”

Will the people you know see a Christian this week?

The Most Important Questions on Earth

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The Most Important Question on Earth

Revelation 21:1-5

Dr. Jim Denison

A dear friend sent me this story. A man says, “I’ve been married 25 years. I took a look at my wife one day and said, ‘Honey, 25 years ago we had a cheap apartment, a cheap car, slept on a sofa bed and watched a 10-inch black and white TV, but I got to live with a hot 25 year old blonde. Now we have a nice house, nice car, big bed and plasma screen TV, but I’m living with a 50 year old woman. It seems to me that you are not holding up your side of things.’

“My wife is a very reasonable woman. She told me to go out and find a hot 25 year old blonde, and she would make sure that I would once again be living in a cheap apartment.”

Some discussions are just not worth having. We should declare victory and go home, because we’re going to lose, anyway. Other discussions are crucial to our lives, families, and future.

We learned this week that North Korea is close to testing a long-range ballistic missile launch. South Dakota voters this fall will decide the fate of a law which would ban most abortions in the state; other states will be watching closely. Iran is being urged to suspend its uranium enrichment program. We could go on.

But none of these issues, as vital as they are, is as significant as the discussion we need to have this morning. We’re going to talk today about the most important question on earth. I need to ask it with you, and show you why it is so vital to your life today.

What is heaven like?

Let’s set out the context and parameters for our discussion. Our text talks about heaven. We’ve been watching Jesus reveal himself to us through the Revelation, not as The DaVinci Code’s human prophet but as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Today he wants to show us his home.

First, his word says that heaven is a real place. John said, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1). He didn’t feel it, or dream of it, or hear about it. He saw it, and we only see things which are. Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you” (John 14.2).

Heaven is a real place.

Second, heaven is a blessed place (v. 4). Because God is there, all that is perfect is there as well. There will be no death in heaven, thus no mourning or crying or pain. Our greatest enemy will trouble us no more. You’ll be glad you’re there.

Third, heaven is a place of great reward. Jesus told us to “store up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (Matthew 6:20). The psalmist testified, “You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand” (Psalm 16:11). Our reward is forever, “an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade–kept in heaven for you” (1 Peter 1:4).

Is heaven real?

Now, let’s see if we believe everything we’ve learned thus far. Raise your hand if you believe in heaven. But I’m afraid there’s a “but.” In the back of your mind, is there ever a glimmer of doubt that maybe it’s not really true? That those you love who have died are really just dead? That this is all there is, and heaven is what we hope for but aren’t sure really exists?

I was in Houston a few months ago, and stopped at my father’s grave. The greatest tragedy of my life is that my father never met my sons. My spiritual side is sure he’s in heaven. My human side hopes so. I want there to be more than this. I want to see him again. I want him to meet my sons one day. I hope it’s true.

I’ve spoken with several people in recent weeks who tell me that they do not believe in an afterlife. Most of us are sophisticated, scientific people. It’s hard for many of us to believe what we cannot understand or verify through our experience, science, or logic. It’s hard to believe what we cannot prove.

Freud said that God is a projection of our need for an ideal father. By extension, heaven is a projection of our need to live forever. We conjure up the concept to make ourselves feel better about our finite time on earth.

Marx called religion the “opiate of the people.” Unfortunately, he’s sometimes right. During the horrific days of slavery, a slaveowner was happy for his slaves to believe that they would be rewarded in heaven if they were obedient on earth.

When I’ve thought about this issue in the past, it’s always comforted me to remember that every culture known to history has a sense of something beyond this world.

It’s impossible to find a civilization which doesn’t believe in life beyond this life. Pascal said that there’s a “God-shaped emptiness” inside us all; Augustine observed that our hearts are restless until they rest in him.

But what if that’s because we all share the same need to believe that there’s something more, the same horror at the idea that this is all there is? When we stand at the grave of someone we love, our hearts break at the thought that we’ll never see them again. So we believe in heaven because we need to believe in heaven, the same way we believe in peace even though our world is always at war. What if that’s all it is–a belief?

We can say that even if heaven isn’t real, believing in it is a good thing. It gives us hope, something to look forward to, a way to be comforted. The people I know who don’t believe in heaven don’t mind if I do. “Whatever gets you through the day.” Believe what you need to believe. So let’s move on, hoping that heaven is real. If we’re right, we’ll rejoice forever. If we’re wrong, we’ll never know it. What have we got to lose?

Here’s the problem: if heaven isn’t real, Jesus was wrong. His word was wrong. Heaven isn’t a peripheral subject in Scripture. The NIV uses the word “heaven” 427 times. If it isn’t real, God’s word isn’t true. And everything I believe based on his word is in doubt this morning.

How do we know?

I gave myself permission to wrestle with this issue in preparing for this message, and go wherever it takes me. I’ve landed on two reasons to believe that heaven is real, two reasons to have absolute assurance that heaven is a real, blessed place of reward. And one reason why this fact matters so much today, why the question of heaven is the most important question on earth.

Why do I believe in heaven this morning? First, because Jesus believed in heaven, and I believe in him.

I know from the ancient historian Thallus the Samaritan that Jesus existed, from Tacitus that he was crucified by Pontius Pilate, from Josephus that his followers thought him raised from the dead, and from Pliny the Younger that they worshiped him as God.

I know that his followers would not steal the body and then die for a lie. They didn’t go to the wrong tomb, for the authorities were guarding the right tomb. Jesus didn’t swoon on the cross, then convince 500 people he had heavenly powers and ascend back into heaven. I know from first-century records that opponents of the resurrection had no answer to the claim that he was risen from the grave.

If he is resurrected, he is God. If he is God, his word is true. And his word says that “he who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:26). He promised us, “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:2-3).

I cannot go to heaven, and cannot meet those who have. By definition it is a realm which transcends my earthly ability to verify its existence. But Jesus came from there, and returned there. I know that he walked my planet, breathed my air, faced my sin, died on my cross, rose from my grave. I believe in heaven because Jesus believed in heaven. And because I believe in him.

Second, I believe in heaven because I’ve learned to trust what I cannot prove. Of course I cannot prove that heaven exists. By definition, the “supernatural” transcends the “natural.” Heaven transcends earth. I cannot use earthly experience to verify its existence. But I believe much which I cannot verify empirically. So do you.

Is there more beyond this present world of our senses and experience? Of course there is. Solipsism is the philosophical belief that reality exists only when you experience it. This sanctuary exists only when you enter it. You exist only when I preach to you.

It’s an appealing thought. The NBA Finals didn’t exist, because I refuse to think about them. I don’t have to pay for Ryan’s tuition at Baylor because Baylor doesn’t exist while I’m in Dallas. I bet they’ll find a way to change my mind.

The problem with the philosophy is that it doesn’t work. Start a fire in your fireplace, then leave the room for several hours. You’ll return to discover that the logs burned down. How is that possible? We all know that solipsism is silly. Of course things exist beyond our experience of them. Of course television and radio waves exist in this room, whether we can see them or not. I assume the choir is still behind me, that they didn’t sneak out during the sermon. And that my car’s still in the garage where I left it. And that someone is cooking lunch at the restaurant we’ll choose after church.

Just because we cannot see heaven makes it no less real. I cannot see the walls behind me, but I assume they’re still there. I cannot see into the next room, but that makes the people there no less present. If I could use earthly experience to verify heaven, by definition it wouldn’t really be heaven. If I could use physical methods to measure the God who is Spirit (John 4:24), by definition he wouldn’t be God.

So I’m going to believe in what I cannot prove, because nothing worth proving can be proven. I cannot prove that my family loves me. I cannot prove that the Bible is true, or that God is love, or that I will go to heaven when I die. I cannot prove that they are not, either.

All relationships transcend the evidence and are self-validating. If I were to wait until I could prove I could be a good pastor, I would never have become a pastor. If I were to wait until I could prove that I would be a good husband and father, I’d still be single. You could not prove the validity of a single relationship in your life to me. You may say that your spouse loves you, or your friends appreciate you, or your employees are loyal to you, but they may be lying or you may be deceived. I couldn’t know that you were right unless I experienced what you have experienced.

So we examine the evidence: Jesus is real and he said heaven is real. Then we take a step into relationship with him. And that relationship becomes self-validating. I’m willing to stake my eternity on him, not on me. On his truth, not my doubts. On his power, not my limitations. Because I believe in Jesus, I believe in heaven. I invite you to join me.

Conclusion

Let’s close with this question: why does any of this matter to your soul today? What about the problems and fears you’re facing this morning? What about the North Korean missile launch test, or the battle over abortion, or the Iranian nuclear program? What about the economy, and the time and money pressures you’re facing? What about your guilt over the past and fear over the future? One day there will be a new heaven and a new earth; but what about the earth you inhabit this morning? Why is heaven the only question which matters on earth?

Let’s think about that question for a moment. It’s a fact that future reward makes present obedience worthwhile. You go to class, or the office, or whatever you’ll do this week, because you believe the future reward is worth the present cost.

It’s the same way in living passionately and fully for Jesus, in seeking first the Kingdom of God, in being crucified with Christ, in presenting our bodies a living sacrifice, in selling out for God. I read a quote this week which stopped me in my tracks: “Your job is the passionate pursuit of who God made you to be. Anything else is sin.” My problem is the “anything else.” It’s hard for me to obey God beyond what this world rewards now.

We live in the Bible belt, where church attendance is socially accepted and often rewarded. We live in a culture which rewards those who are faithful to their spouses and love their children, those who live with a basically accepted morality.

But why go beyond that standard? Why refuse sexual immorality on a date when your culture affirms it? Why refuse personal, private sins no one knows about? Secret anger and bitterness toward those who have hurt you, online pornography, private alcohol abuse, personal agendas and pride you hide from the rest of us?

Why serve God beyond the socially acceptable? Why share your faith at the risk of offending others? Why give more than you can spare of your money and time? Why seek the “passionate pursuit of who God made you to be,” whatever it costs?

Because heaven guarantees that earthly obedience is the best investment of your life.

Long after this planet is gone and those who made fun of your faith and misunderstood your sacrifice don’t matter, your reward in paradise is sure. God never wastes a hurt.

Everything you do for him during these few years on earth is noted in heaven and will be rewarded forever. It’s the best investment you’ll ever make.

And because living for heaven is the best way to live on earth. The future rewards only that which is best in the present. Being godly with your secret thoughts is the healthiest way to live now, for your happiness depends on the quality of your thoughts. What you think is what you become. Being sacrificial with your witness, time and money is the most satisfying, significant, joyful way to live today.

Living for heaven is the best way to live on earth.

So I’m going to live for heaven from now on. I’m going to care more for people’s eternal souls than their temporal approval. I’m going to use my gifts and resources to build God’s Kingdom more than my own. I’m going to ask God to use my suffering more than solve it. I’m going to remember that this life is the car and not the house, the road and not the destination. I’m going to make sure every day that I’m ready to die, because one day I will. I’m going to live for heaven while I’m on earth. I invite you to do the same.

The payoff is for now. A life well lived is its own reward. But the payoff is also for eternity. On the day when I take the Lord’s Supper from nail-scarred hands, and step into the heaven of the One I love and serve on earth, whatever it costs me today to live for heaven will be worth it forever. I want that for my soul and for yours. So let’s live for heaven together. Will you join me?

The Most Important Things In Life Are Not Things

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The Most Important Things in Life Are Not Things

Proverbs 3:5-10

Dr. Jim Denison

Here are some of the least-important facts I know:

– Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.

– There are more chickens than people in the world.

– Two-thirds of the world’s eggplant is grown in New Jersey.

– An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.

– A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.

– It’s impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

Here is the most important statement I know: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37, 39-40). As does your soul’s summer.

Last week we investigated the first great commandment, finding ways to draw close to God, to love him each day.

Today, we’ll explore the second great commandment. How will you love your neighbor as yourself this summer, thus proving that you love God? What will be your strategy for changing someone’s life, for living with significance and purpose, for making a difference that matters? How will you redeem this summer for God?

May I give you a proverb for these months, three words live by all summer long?

Learn God’s word (5-8)

When I was a high school senior, a dear friend gave me a topical Bible in which she inscribed two verses. They became the first biblical verses I ever learned: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6, KJV). Let’s pitch our tents here and explore for a while.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart”:

“Trust” means to rely upon in total dependence. The Hebrew originally meant to lie helplessly face down, with no way to get up or save yourself. Not just believe intellectually, but trust personally. You do not “trust” the airplane pilot until you get on his airplane.

“In the Lord”—we all trust in something or someone to give us meaning and purpose. Some trust in the stock market, others in their job, others in their ability, health, parents, spouse, or children. The proverb says to put your trust in the Lord, to depend upon him for your life, meaning and future.

“With all your heart”—the “heart” is not just your emotions but your will and intellect. This is a command to trust in God with your decisions, plans, future; to trust him with your life, ambitions, and direction. With “all” your heart means that you trust completely and only in God to be your guide, source and strength.

“And lean not on your own understanding”—This is Hebrew parallelism, where the second line comments on the first. In this case, the second line restates negatively what has just been said positively.

“Lean” means to depend fully, to support yourself in the sense of leaning on a wall or a railing. When you have surgery you “lean” on the doctor to wake you up—you put your life in his hands.

“Not on your own understanding” is in the present tense; it actually says, “stop trusting in your own understanding.” To trust in the Lord with all your heart means that you don’t trust in yourself. You don’t trust your abilities, education, experience or circumstances to give your life meaning, purpose and direction. If you’re doing that, stop it now.

“In all your ways acknowledge him”—”All your ways” means every step, every action, every decision. Everywhere you go, everything you do.

There is no sacred/secular dichotomy here, no Sunday/Monday split. In every part of your life—your finances and friends and family and future.

“Acknowledge him” means literally to “know him” personally, intimately. Walk with God in everything you do, everywhere you go. God is not one of the electives in the school of life—make every choice with his will in mind. And take every step only after you ask him what to do. With this result: “and he will make your paths straight.”

The Hebrew means, “He will direct your paths” or “He will set you on the straight and narrow.” He will manage your life, guide your steps, take you where you need to go.

God wants to do this for us. He is waiting to “make your paths straight,” right now. But you must ask him to; you must follow his leadership. His will is your Global Positioning Satellite system, but it is no good unless you look at it and do what it says. It will not drive your car for you.

Bear in mind that walking down his paths will cost you something: “Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops” (v. 9).

The “firstfruits” were the farmer’s first and best harvest. The ancient Israelites lived by the crops they produced, but the Law required that their first harvest be brought to God as a sacrifice.

Your “firstfruits” are your best resources. The first hour of the day given to God in prayer, Bible study and worship. Your best preparations for the class you teach or the ministry you lead. Your sacrifice to help a hurting neighbor, to reach out to a lost friend, to care about a lonely soul. Your best service to God, whatever the cost. When God directs your path, you walk down it whatever its price.

But then you position yourself to receive the blessing God so wants to give: “then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine” (v. 10). Then God can meet your needs and make your life abundant and significant. Then you can make a difference that matters. And only then.

Ask God first

So the proverb for the summer is these three words: Ask God first. Before you make your plans. Before you plan your vacation, your job, your activities, your days, your life. Lean upon his word and not your wisdom. Ask him to direct your paths, and believe that he will use your life. Depend on him. Ask God first.

What a counter-cultural decision to make. William Ernest Henley’s Invictus speaks for our self-reliant souls:

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance,

I have not winced nor cried aloud;

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

Only if you want to ruin it.

But most of us don’t really know that. We think that God helps those who help themselves. The Christian faith exists to help us live our lives better. To be a resource for us as we seek happiness and fulfillment, a means to our end. But it’s up to us. And when life is done we’ll sing, “I did it my way.”

Think about the popular movies of recent years. “Gladiator” is the story of a Roman general who became a slave, defied an emperor, and changed the world. “A Beautiful Mind” portrays a brilliant mathematician afflicted with paranoid schizophrenia who learns to conquer his illness by sheer will power. “The Sum of All Fears” shows us Tom Clancy’s young Jack Ryan, saving the world from nuclear war single-handedly. No one needs God. Why are these characters so popular? Because they’re the captains of their souls.

Think about the popular dramas on television. “CSI” shows us brilliant forensic pathologists, solving crimes each week by their intellect and investigative skills. “Jag” pits military lawyers against forces of evil each week, and of course the lawyers win. “ER” portrays doctors fighting death and tragedy; even when they lose, they lose with dignity. Why are these characters so popular? Because they’re the captains of their souls.

Who is the captain of yours?

Have you given your summer to God? Have you asked him to make straight your paths, to use your life, to redeem your days? To fill your barns to overflowing with significant service and meaningful living? Or are you the GPS of your summer, the map of your life, the captain of your soul?

When last did you ask God first with decisions of your business? Your marriage? Your family life? When last did you surrender your will, your ambitions into his hands? Intentionally? Consciously?

How does God want you to love your neighbor this summer? What ministry strategy might he have in mind for your life? Is there a family member to whom he wants you to draw closer? A strained relationship he wants to heal? A neighbor he wants to reach? A hurting soul he wants to help?

It’s now the “firstfruits” of the summer, the first of the season. Now’s the time to give it to your Lord. Ask him to make straight your paths, use your days, redeem your time. Ask him to change someone’s life and eternity through you. Ask him to help you love your neighbor as yourself. And he will. Ask God first.

Ask God now

Ask God first. A simple proverb for life, to be sure. But let me ask: are you living this way? Does your summer belong to God? Your Sunday? Your soul? Can he do with you anything he wishes? Lead you anywhere he wants you to go? Are you leaning on him today?

You can trust his will to be your best. Would he create your life and then lead you into ruin? Would he send his Son to die for your sins and then misguide your soul? Would he promise to meet all your needs according to his riches in glory and then refuse?

It’s just that I get busy. I get in a hurry. I have problems to solve. Tasks to complete. Work to do. It’s not that I intentionally, maliciously choose self-sufficiency over Christ dependency. It just happens.

God is waiting to listen to you today. And then to speak to you, if you ask him first. He will direct your paths, if you ask him first. He will fill your barns if you ask him first. He will help you love your neighbor as yourself, changing the lives you touch with his love and care. He will make this your soul’s best summer, if you ask him first.

Conclusion

Ask him to forgive your sins, to save your soul, to give you new and eternal life. Then ask him to guide your life today to help your neighbor know his love through yours. And ask him first again, tomorrow.

We focused in recent months on changed lives—Christ living his life through us. Jesus wisdom. Jesus character. Jesus personality. Jesus power. Working through us. Not us for him, but him through us. It can’t happen unless you ask God first. But it will if you do.

There was a man who was born into the kind of privilege the rest of us spend our lives trying to achieve and seldom do. But he nearly lost it all. Took it for granted. Abused it. Neglected it.

As an adult he had a chance conversation with Billy Graham at a family gathering, and that conversation turned him to Christ as Lord and Savior. And he began to learn to ask God first.

He asked God first when experts said Ann Richards could not be defeated and he had no chance to be governor of Texas. He asked God first when the critics said he had no experience to be president of the United States. He learned to ask God first on September 11th, and three days later at the National Cathedral, he spoke some of the most significant words in American history. He discovered God always gives the best to those who leave the choice to him.

Would you like to make the same decision?

The Mustard Seed Movement

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Topical Scripture: Matthew 13:31-32

Roman Trofimov is a traveler from Estonia who landed in Manila last March but was not allowed to leave the departures area due to coronavirus restrictions. He spent 110 days at the airport before he was finally able to return home.

His experience is a metaphor for how we feel in these days. We cannot fly back to the “normal” we knew before the pandemic, but we cannot leave this airport for the “normal” after the pandemic, whatever that is.

But we have a choice: we can be passive victims stuck in the present, or we can be proactive victors who focus on redemptive ways to change the future.

Some dear friends of mine lost their house to a fire a few years ago. They spent a year in an apartment while their home was being rebuilt.

They could have resented their apartment and longed for the home they lost, but they chose to make the most of where they were. They built relationships with neighbors they would not otherwise have known and redeemed that year for God’s glory.

This summer, we’re in a series titled “Hope for Hard Times.” We’re looking at Jesus’ lesser-known parables, finding truth that speaks to our challenges in these challenging days.

Today, let’s focus on ways to use this difficult moment for God’s glory and our great good. How could God redeem this “airport” time?

From tiny seeds come giant trees. That’s the point of this week’s parable.

Let’s ask three questions: what is a mustard seed? What is the kingdom of heaven? And how do we join the mustard seed movement today?

What is a mustard seed?

Jesus’ story begins: “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field” (v. 31). There were two kinds of mustard seeds in Jesus’ day; Sinapis nigra was the garden variety, producing a shrub, while Salvadora persica produced the mustard tree.

His story continues: “It is the smallest of all seeds” (v. 32a). There has been much discussion of that statement over the years.

The cypress tree or wild orchid actually produce smaller seeds. But Jesus was talking about “garden plants.” “Seed” in the New Testament always refers to agricultural plants, those grown for food.

And the mustard seed is by far the smallest of these, so much so that it served as a proverb in the day. The rabbis could speak of a drop of blood or a transgression against the law as being the size of a mustard seed. Roman writers used the same proverb.

Jesus’ point was made by contrast: “but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree” (v. 32b). The mustard seed could grow into a ten-foot-tall plant in a single season and could reach heights of fifteen feet around the Sea of Galilee. Jesus might have been pointing to just such a tree when he said these words.

Then “the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches” (v. 32c). Birds love the tiny black seeds produced by the mustard tree, and flock to it from all over. They dwell there, living in the tree for a period of time. The point is clear: no one would look at a tiny mustard seed and imagine that it would produce such a tall and vibrant tree, filled with birds from all over Galilee.

So it is with the Kingdom of God, all across the word of God.

A lonely, ridiculed man building a boat saves the human race. A childless Bedouin named Abram becomes the father of three faiths. A renegade shepherd named Moses faces down the most powerful man on earth and brings his band of slaves to freedom and destiny. Another shepherd boy kills the mightiest warrior in the land and leads his people to their greatest days of glory. His son, the product of an adulterous relationship, becomes the wisest man in human history. All grew from mustard seeds to men of eternal renown.

Then the day would come when a baby was born in a cow stall and placed in a feed trough. He grew up in a town so insignificant it is mentioned not a single time in the Old Testament and was the butt of jokes in the New. None of his disciples came from the leadership of the nation. They grew to one hundred and twenty people by the time of Pentecost, a small church by any standards today. Mustard seeds, all, but the birds of the air flock in their branches today, more than two billion strong.

Who would have seen this itinerant Galilean carpenter teaching his band of peasant followers and imagined that we would be studying his words twenty centuries later? That this mustard-seed movement would one day topple the mighty Roman Empire and spread the Kingdom of God to the four corners of the earth? That it would become the largest, most significant spiritual movement in human history?

What is the kingdom of heaven?

Jesus stated that the mustard seed that becomes a giant tree is a metaphor for the “kingdom of heaven.” What is this?

Jesus began his preaching ministry by announcing, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). He taught us to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). When he returns, his name will be “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Revelation 19:16).

In the Model Prayer he taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). God’s kingdom comes wherever his will is done. It comes whenever we make him our king.

As we have noted before, our culture separates Sunday from Monday and religion from the real world. We compartmentalize God into our religious activities. But let me ask you: how healthy would your marriage be if you only saw your spouse at chapel? How strong would your finances be if you worked only as long as you were in church on Sunday? How healthy would your body be if you ate only as long as you did religious things?

To make God your King is to make him the master and Lord of every dimension of your life. When you do this, your life becomes a mustard seed that he uses to grow a tree that will change the world.

To continue the metaphor, Alfred North Whitehead noted that great people plant trees they’ll never sit under. That’s precisely what Jesus promised to do with us.

How do we join the mustard seed movement?

So, what is our role? How do we join the mustard seed movement of Jesus?

First, die. The seed must be buried in the ground before it can grow and bear fruit. So with us.

The Scriptures say we are “buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). When we make Christ our Savior and Lord, we die to our old lives. In that moment, we become a “new creation” with this result: “The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

But this is not just a decision we made at our salvation. It is a decision we must make every day.

Paul testified, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). John the Baptist said of Jesus, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).

God cannot do with us what we try to do with ourselves. A mechanic cannot repair a car I insist on repairing myself. The Lord can lead only those who will follow.

To make the most of your life, surrender your life every day to Jesus. Put him in charge of your life in these days of quarantine and challenges. Ask him to redeem them. Submit them to your Lord.

Second, grow. The mustard seed is planted, then it must grow. It cannot stay where it is. It must be watered, fertilized, and tended. Over time it becomes what it is intended to become.

In the same way, we are intended to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). We do this by reading his word, praying, and worshiping every day. We do this by keeping other spiritual disciplines as well—solitude, meditation, fasting, and confession.

My youth minister once asked us, “If I could snap my fingers and you became as mature physically as you are spiritually, how old would you be?”

Use these days of quarantine to grow closer to your Lord. Make time to be with him. Resolve to redeem time alone by being alone with Jesus. Use this time to grow in Christ.

Third, serve. The mustard seed becomes a mustard tree in which “the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” It gives away its seeds to them. And they, in turn, carry the seeds other places and start the process all over again.

God’s word is clear: “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Peter 4:10).

Find ways to serve people during his pandemic. What can you do today that you could not do six months ago? What can you do today that you will be grateful in six months you did? Who can you serve? What needs can you meet? How can you show someone the love of God in your compassion?

Conclusion

Do you think the coronavirus pandemic surprised God, or do you think he has been preparing you for this season of life? Did he know before you got on the airplane that you’d be in the airport? Did he know before you built the house that you’d spent a year in an apartment? Do you think he can now use your life in more ways than you can?

Martin Luther said, “It is the duty of every Christian to be Christ to his neighbor.”

If you will decide every day to die, grow, and serve, you will join Jesus’ mustard seed movement. You will be Christ to your neighbor.

Is there a greater privilege?

The Need for Speed

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The Need for Speed

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

James C. Denison

BlackBerries and other personal digital assistants are so much a fact of life that Hyatt hotels now offer a special hand, arm, and thumb massage called “BlackBerry Balm.” Google considered changing its search engine to show 30 results rather than 10, but people didn’t want to wait the extra half-second. Ninety one percent of us watch TV while we eat; 26 percent admit they “often eat while driving,” and 35 percent of us eat lunch at our desks while working. A “Labor Day” to rest from labor has never been a better idea.

Since 1955, our average income after inflation has tripled, while life expectancy has increased roughly 10 percent. So we have more to spend and do, but not more time to do it. The result is a world obsessed with speed, and filled with stress as a result.

Our problem began when we shifted from agriculture to industry. We migrated from the farm, where our work and our lives were intermingled, for the factory. We left home for work, and left work for home. But now technology follows us everywhere we go. And we feel incredibly stressed by the fact that we can never quit (The Age of Speed: Learning to thrive in a more-faster-now world).

The answer is not to work less, or work faster and harder. The answer is to work on purpose. It is to find a life purpose which gives you significance, direction, and joy. Then make everything you do serve that purpose, “work” and the rest of your day–when you’re at school, in the office, sitting at home. We will resolve our need for speed, our stress and struggle to survive in a breakneck world, when we have a simple, single purpose and align our lives with it.

Easy enough. What should that purpose be? Your Maker has an answer for that question.

Be reconciled to God

“Reconciliation,” the concept of restoring the relationship between God and humanity, was unknown to the Greco-Roman world before Christ. No Greek writer ever used the word in this way, for none had ever considered the possibility that we would want a personal relationship with the gods. You wanted to stay as far from Zeus and his thunderbolts as possible. A man on a sinking ship cried out to the gods for help, when a fellow sailor said, “Quiet! Better not to let them know where we are!”

But our King and Lord wants precisely this with us. He took the initiative. He made us right with himself “through Christ Jesus,” through his death on the cross. He paid our debt; he took our punishment; he died in our place. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (v. 21).

Then he “gave us the ministry of reconciliation.”

“Gave” means to bestow favor and privilege. It is the greatest possible privilege to be used in reconciling the human race to God. You and I did not earn or deserve this honor. We are no better than those we are sent to reach. Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven. We are beggars telling other beggars where we found bread.

Ours is the “ministry” or “service” of reconciliation. This is a service we perform, a ministry we provide. We are not pushing our beliefs on others. One of the reasons evangelism is hard for so many of us is that we don’t want to offend people. But the doctor isn’t being offensive when she prescribes the medicine you need; the pharmacist isn’t being offensive when he gives it to you. The coach who helps you play better golf; the mechanic who makes your car run; the IT person who fixes your computer are all performing a service. They’re not judging you–they’re helping you.

Our message is clear and simple. “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.” The “world,” for “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son” (John 3:16); God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9); God wants all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4).

God is doing this. You and I cannot convict a single person of a single sin, or save a single soul. We cannot get people from hell into heaven. This is not our job. Our job is to deliver the message, and trust God to use his word by the power of his Spirit.

God has “committed to us the message of reconciliation.” He has “committed” it to us–the word means to give over, to lay aside for another. God has given this message to us and to no other. We are the world’s only hope.

Invite the world to God

With this result: “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God” (v. 20).

If you were to be America’s ambassador to another country, which would you choose? I’d choose England hands down. If there were two of me, one would live in Dallas and one would live in London. Our Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Robert Holmes Tuttle, has my dream job. Let’s use him as an analogy for God’s call to us.

Ambassadors belong to the country they serve. Ambassador Tuttle serves at the sole discretion and pleasure of President Bush. He does not serve America and England, the president and the prime minister. He is an American citizen, living in American property. He retains his American citizenship all the time he lives in London.

In the same way, you and I are “Christ’s ambassadors”–the original is a genitive of possession, signifying that we belong to him and to no other. We do not serve Christ and our job, Christ and our school, Christ and our friends, Christ and our ambitions. We serve only Christ. We belong only to Christ. We live in his property, our lives at his disposal. We are his alone.

Ambassadors are told what to say. Ambassador Tuttle has no independent message to deliver. He does not negotiate with England of his own volition. He has no ability to sign a treaty in his name. He is the president’s spokesman, his instrument for conveying his message.

In the same way, we have been given our message “as though God were making his appeal through us.” When we speak the gospel, God speaks through us. When we share God’s word, God’s Spirit works with and through us. He communicates his truth. He convicts of sin and converts souls. He changes lives, heals marriages, shapes lives. He does his work by his word through us. As we work, God works.

We have but one message: “We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.” Accept his forgiveness and favor. Ask for the gift of eternal life. Ask him to reconcile you to himself, to return you to the relationship you had before sin destroyed everything. Ask to be restored, and you will be. The slate wiped clean, your past forgiven, your present in his hands, your future assured. This is our message. We have no other.

Serve your Lord

The only thing an ambassador can do wrong is refuse to submit to the authority of the president. So long as he goes where he is sent, says what he is told to say, and does what he is told to do, he will serve effectively and well. So with us. It’s not about us.

The problem is, this is not the version of Christianity you’ve heard most of your life. For more than century, popular Christianity has been made a self-help guide to happier living. Confess your sins so you can be forgiven and go to heaven–who wouldn’t want that? Come to church so we can help you with your marriage and money–who wouldn’t want that? Come for what you can get. If you don’t get what you want, go somewhere else. If we focused only on helping you find success without stress, our culture would like nothing more.

Is this the invitation of Jesus Christ? His message in a sentence was “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 4:17). He warned his followers, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). This is why Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

God has led me often in recent months to remind you that Christianity was never meant to be a Sunday morning, check-the-box religion, a bank where you go to get what you need for the week. No other religion works that way. Muslims pray five times a day, every day; Buddhists and Hindus live every moment by their religions; Orthodox Jews govern every detail of their lives by the Law.

But in the West we have divided Sunday from Monday, religion from the real world. This is the great heresy, the great lie–to believe we can serve God and ourselves, God and our plans, God and our friends or clients or colleagues, God and the world. Jesus was blunt: “you cannot serve God and wealth” (Matthew 6:23, NRSV).

So there must come the time when we make our choice. We belong to God. We are his children. He has sent us as his ambassadors to the foreign country of Dallas, to deliver his message of reconciliation in everything we do. This is the purpose with which our lives must be aligned. This is why we work at our jobs, and go to our schools, and live our lives. All to be the ambassador of Christ, bringing his love and grace to everyone we can influence. Everything is a means to this end.

But we can choose to abandon our Lord and calling. We can choose to serve England instead of America, to care more what our friends think than our Father wants, to live more for this place where we are temporarily assigned than for the eternal home to which we will one day go.

We can make prayer and Bible study one more task of the day, ministry one more responsibility we must fulfill. And we will go through life without direction, significance, or joy. When it is over, we will have missed it. Our lives will matter not at all.

The choice is ours.

Conclusion

Those used greatly by God have all come to this place of surrender, of aligning their lives with the one purpose of serving Jesus Christ every moment, in every way. The Chinese theologian Watchman Nee said it well:

“A day must come in our lives, as definite as the day of our conversion, when we give up all right to ourselves and submit to the absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ…there must be a day when, without reservation, we surrender everything to Him–ourselves, our families, our possessions, our business and our time. All we are and have becomes His, to be held henceforth entirely at His disposal.

“From that day we are no longer our own masters, but only stewards. Not until the Lordship of Jesus Christ is a settled thing in our hearts can the Holy Spirit really operate effectively in us. He cannot direct our lives effectively until all control of them is committed to Him. If we do not give Him absolute authority in our lives, He can be present, but He cannot be powerful. The power of the Spirit is stayed” (The Normal Christian Life 134-5).

Are you experiencing the power of the Spirit in your life? Power over temptation? Power to stand for Christ? To serve Christ? To share Christ? If not, is this the reason?

Andrew Murray said, “God is ready to assume full responsibility for the life wholly yielded to him.” Will yours be that life today?

The Normal Christian Life

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The Normal Christian Life

2 Corinthians 5:17

James C. Denison

A friend recently sent me some facts about small boys. Now that both of our sons have graduated from high school, I hope not to need this information. But many of you still may.

A king size waterbed holds enough water to fill a 2,000 sq. ft. house four inches deep.

If you hook a dog leash over a ceiling fan, the motor is not strong enough to rotate a 42 pound boy wearing Batman underwear and a Superman cape. It is strong enough, however, if tied to a paint can, to spread paint on all four walls of a 20×20 room.

When you hear the toilet flush and the words “uh oh,” it’s already too late.

Certain Legos will pass through the digestive tract of a four-year-old boy.

Super Glue is forever.

Always look in the oven before you turn it on, as plastic toys do not like ovens. The fire department in Austin, Texas has a five-minute response time.

The spin cycle on the washing machine does not make earthworms dizzy. It will, however, make cats dizzy. Cats throw up twice their body weight when dizzy.

However old we are, however old our children or grandchildren may be, we’re still the children of God if Jesus is our Lord. In our series on the church, the world’s only hope, we’ve learned that the Church belongs to Christ, her founder. It is made up of saints, people who belong to God.

Now we’ll learn in more detail how to become what we already are, how to defeat the tests and temptations which come at us every day and live in the victory Jesus died to give us. What worry or fear is keeping you from the joy of Jesus this morning? What temptation or sin is preventing your peace? How do we refuse the detours so we can arrive at the destination of God’s perfect purpose for us? Where do you need the victory of God in your life this morning?

Know your identity in Jesus

Paul claims for the Corinthians and us all: “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (v. 17). How is this possible? We still look the same as before we trusted in Jesus, and unfortunately many of us still act in the same ways. How can trusting in Christ make us a “new creation”?

The key is the first phrase: “If anyone is in Christ.” To be “in” Christ is to trust him as our Lord, to ask his forgiveness for our sins and invite him to make us God’s children. This is a prayer he always answers.

But how does this forgiveness make us a “new creation”? What of our sin nature? Think about the last sin you committed. Why did you commit it? Why do God’s people still disobey God’s word and will? What changes sin nature into God’s new creation?

Here’s the mystery, the fact most Christians never discover. One of the most important verses in all God’s word is Romans 6.6: “our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.”

If you have asked Jesus Christ to be your Savior and Lord, in that decision God identified you with his Son. He put the person you were before Christ on the cross with him. If I put a piece of paper in my Bible, it is included with it. It goes wherever my Bible goes. When I typed my sermon into my laptop computer, it became part of the laptop. It goes with the laptop.

When you asked Christ into your life, Christ actually brought you into his life. He made you part of himself. The person you were before that decision “died,” and you were “born again” as one with him.

This is why Paul testifies, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2.20).

In God’s eyes, the person you were before you trusted Christ no longer exists. Your sins have been forgiven because Jesus’ blood covered them. Your sin nature has been replaced with his divine nature. And so you and I are “a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.” We are God’s children, with his genetics, his character, his nature as ours. This is our identity in Christ. The first step to God’s victory over the detours and defeats of life is understanding that fact.

Choose the life of Christ

But we still sin, don’t we? Lies white and black, failures small and large, sins private and public. Why? Because we don’t choose the Christ life.

Let me explain.

Earlier this week a friend called me about the 1965 Mustang convertible his grandfather had given him. It was having a problem, and since he knew that I’ve owned two old Mustangs and still love them, he wondered if I might know something that would help. We spent an hour on the phone getting nowhere. My advice didn’t get him one step closer to solving the issue. I was simply keeping him from calling a mechanic who could actually fix what was wrong.

Not long ago my laptop needed some work, but our church technician couldn’t fix it until I gave it to him. My efforts weren’t solving the problem, and they were only hindering him.

A lifeguard cannot save a drowning man so long as the drowning man tries to save himself. He’ll pull them both under. The lifeguard can only safely save a drowning man when the man has completely exhausted himself and has no strength left.

This is hard for us. We are self-sufficient people, used to fixing things ourselves. But this is one problem we cannot solve. So long as we are trying to please God in our own ability, to resist sin in our own strength, to grow in faith and serve God in ministry with our own gifts and hard work, we actually prevent his doing his work in and through us.

Instead, we must choose the Christ life. Listen to two crucial sentences: “count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires” (Romans 6.11-12).

“Count yourselves” means “to reckon, to choose to believe” that it is true. Choose to believe that you are dead to sin, that your sin nature died on the cross with Jesus. Choose to believe that his Spirit now lives in you, his character, his purity, his power. And by faith it will be so.

My Bible is black, whether I can see it or not. My sight makes the color real for me; it does not create the color itself. With faith I simply choose to make real in my life what was already real before I believed it.

So choose to believe that your sin nature died on the cross, and it will be true for you. When you do this, you can fulfill the second sentence: “do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.” When you choose the Christ life, Christ defeats sin for you.

You’re not trying harder to be pure–you have his purity. You’re not working harder to be godly–you have his godliness. You’re not striving to control your mind–you have his mind. You’re not struggling to speak holy words–you have his words.

If you are a believer, you have within you all you need to live victoriously and abundantly, to defeat sin, to fulfill God’s purpose, to find true satisfaction and significance. Because you have the Christ life in you.

Live in the power of Christ

Know that you are God’s new creation, with the Christ nature living in you. Choose that nature when you are tempted by sin and self-sufficiency. But what does this choice mean practically? How does this work in our lives daily?

To experience the life of Christ, we need the power of Christ. Here’s how we live in that power every day.

First, stay surrendered to Jesus. Romans 12:1 commands that we “present our bodies as a living sacrifice” to God. Our Lord will only give us his power to fulfill his purpose. When our boys were small, we wouldn’t let them play where we knew they’d get hurt. Every day, surrender that day to Jesus. Your ambitions, desires, decisions, problems. Ephesians 5:18 instructs that we be yielded to the Spirit daily. Do this first thing every morning.

And second, stay close to Jesus. Stay connected to him, as a plug to its socket. He taught us, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). The character of the branch is determined by the vine. The vine produces the fruit through the branch. So the branch must stay close to the vine.

Meet him in his word and your personal worship every morning. Consult him in prayer all through the day. And you’ll live in the power he can only give when you are close to him.

This is the price we must pay to live the Christ life in the Spirit’s power. But the rewards so far outweigh their cost: living above the sin nature, experiencing the purpose and power of the Lord of the universe. We give up nothing of value, to gain everything that matters.

Conclusion

Whenever I have tried to find my destination and direction in life through my work, I have failed. There has been no peace. Whenever I have tried to find fulfillment and significance through hard work for God, I have failed. There has been no joy. The reason is simple: I am not what I do. I am not a pastor, or preacher, or teacher, or evangelist. I am the child of God. Preaching, teaching, evangelizing, writing–these are just ways to serve him as he leads me.

The same is true for you. You are not a lawyer, or teacher, or student. You are God’s child. What you do is just the place he has called you to serve him. When last did you throw everything over to him, yield it all, and ask his Spirit to work through you?

There is enormous peace in letting God have my life, to do with as he will. I cannot make it significant–only he can. All I can do is pray, abide in him, and serve him as he leads me. Then he will bear fruit through me. As only he can.

It all starts with a day when we decide. We know that we are God’s children, with his nature living in us. We choose to live in that nature. We choose to abide in him through prayer, worship, and obedience. We believe that his Spirit’s power will work through our lives. And so we give ourselves completely over to him. We are his, and his alone.

Watchman Nee, in the classic spiritual work, The Normal Christian Life, wrote: “A day must come in our lives, as definite as the day of our conversion, when we give up all right to ourselves and submit to the absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ…there must be a day when, without reservation, we surrender everything to Him–ourselves, our families, our possessions, our business and our time. All we are and have becomes His, to be held henceforth entirely at His disposal. From that day we are no longer our own masters, but only stewards. Not until the Lordship of Jesus Christ is a settled thing in our hearts can the Holy Spirit really operate effectively in us. He cannot direct our lives effectively until all control of them is committed to Him. If we do not give Him absolute authority in our lives, He can be present, but He cannot be powerful. The power of the Spirit is stayed.

“Are you living for the Lord or for yourself? Perhaps that is too general a question, so let me be more specific. Is there anything God is asking of you that you are withholding from Him? Is there any point of contention between you and Him? Not till every controversy is settled and the Holy Spirit is given full sway can He reproduce the life of Christ in the heart of any believer” (pp. 134-5).

Is today that day for you? Is this the day that you choose the normal Christian life? Let me close with the strongest call to such commitment I have ever found. Once a year or so, it seems the Lord calls me to share my favorite declaration of faith with you again. If you’ve heard me quote these words before, make them your own again today. If they are new, make them your own for the first time today. They come from a young African pastor martyred for his commitment to Christ. In his journal was found this statement of faith:

I am part of the “Fellowship of the Unashamed.” I have Holy Spirit power. The die has been cast. I’ve stepped over the line. The decision has been made. I am a disciple of His. I won’t look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still. My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, and my future is secure. I am finished and done with low living, sight walking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tame visions, mundane talking, chintzy giving, and dwarfed goals.

I no longer need pre-eminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits, or popularity. I don’t have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded, or rewarded. I now live by his presence, lean by faith, love by patience, live by prayer, and labor by power.

My face is set, my gait is fast, my goal is heaven, my road is narrow, my way is rough, my companions few, my guide reliable, my mission clear. I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, diluted, or delayed. I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of adversity, negotiate at the table of the enemy, ponder at the pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of mediocrity.

I won’t give up, shut up, let up, or slow up ’til I’ve preached up, prayed up, paid up, stored up, and stayed up for the cause of Christ.

I am a disciple of Jesus. I must go ’til He comes, give ’til I drop, preach ’til all know, and work ’til He stops.

And when He comes to get His own, He’ll have no problems recognizing me—my colors will be clear.

Amen?

The One Key to Every Door

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The One Key to Every Door

Colossians 1:9-14

Dr. Jim Denison

The recent Business Week cover caught my eye: “Dream Machines–The future of cars: smart tech, sizzling design, more choices.”

I’ve been fascinated with cars since my father and I built my first Pinewood Derby Cub Scout racer–which still sits on my shelf at home, by the way. My first car was a 1966 Dodge Dart, which wasn’t. You’d hit the gas and it would laugh. It featured manual steering, brakes, windows and locks; vinyl seats which became a summer-time furnace in Houston; a push-button AM radio; and an under-dash air conditioner which dripped ice cold condensation on the floor.

According to the article, the newest cars have a few innovations my Dart did not. Sensors which warn the driver when the car veers out of its lane or heads for a possible accident. Plasma-based technology which releases charged ions into the air conditioner to filter out mold and bacteria. Navigation systems which will soon tell us where the traffic jams and accidents are. Radios which connect to an iPod or memory card. But none of these are the innovation I need most.

Remote door locks have been commonplace for years. But car makers have yet to make one I cannot foul up. I’m constantly pushing the trunk release button when I mean to unlock the doors. I’ve hit the panic button more times than I wish to remember.

Last Thursday morning was the worst yet. I left the 6 a.m. prayer meeting to get my briefcase from my car, walked up to my car, and pushed the remote. I heard the door beep, pulled on the handle, but the door stayed locked. I tried several times. Then I realized I was standing at Bill Rudderow’s car, which is the exact car, make, model, year, and color as mine. My car was eight feet away, beeping at me. My friend Dave Noble walked up, saw me apparently trying to steal a car, and said, “Baylor’s really expensive, isn’t it?”

The day they make a key which unlocks every door I need to open will be a great day in my life.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if one decision could solve all your problems? Help you with your financial worries, your health issues, your family’s struggles? Guide you at school and work? Give you the wisdom you need for every issue you face? If one key could open every door in your life?

Live in the will of God

Paul has already expressed gratitude for the Colossian Christians–their faith practiced in the presence of Christ and love for all God’s people, motivated by their decision to live for heaven rather than earth. As C. S. Lewis reminds us, when we aim at heaven we get earth thrown in. But even such mature Christians have not yet arrived at their spiritual destination. Paul still intercedes constantly for them: “we have not stopped praying for you” (v. 9a).

Here’s what he prays: “asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will” (v. 9b). “Knowledge” translates the Greek word for “full knowledge which grasps and penetrates into the object.” He prays that they might know fully the will of God for their lives. How will they know it? “Through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.”

Wisdom is the ability to understand God’s will in all life situations; understanding is the ability to relate truths to each other and construct a coherent world view.

He prays that they understand what God wants them to do in every situation, and how that situation relates to his overall purpose for their lives and world. He wants them to know what to do next, and why. What steps to take, and what ultimate destination to seek. How to live each day, and the purpose for which to live their lives.

Why is understanding God’s practical will and ultimate purpose so important? It is the key which unlocks the following doors:

Then we “may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way” (v. 10a). Living in his will is the only way to please God.

“Bearing fruit in every good work”–then we reproduce spiritually, helping others follow Jesus.

“Growing in the knowledge of God”–then we grow spiritually, becoming more and more like Jesus.

“Being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience”–then we live with his power, enduring all problems and trusting God in all situations.

“Joyfully giving thanks to the Father”–then we live in joyful gratitude every day to the God who has rescued us from the darkness of sin and hell and transferred us into his kingdom, redeeming and forgiving our souls.

Do you want to please God? To help others follow him? To grow spiritually? To live with his power? To live with overflowing joy? Then you must understand and practice God’s practical will and ultimate purpose for your life. If you are, your life will manifest these results. If you are not, you won’t.

Live for the glory of God

So far, so good. But what is the will of God for our lives? What is the overarching purpose for which he intends us, the north on the compass, the destination to which every step should take us?

Colossians was written by Paul to be read out loud, from a scroll, in a single setting. Teachers like me divide it up into sections, but it is best understood as a whole. If we keep reading, we’ll discover the answer.

Paul next offers what I consider the most profound single theological description of Jesus to be found anywhere in Scripture. We’ll study it in detail next week. Here he tells us: What Jesus is: “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation” (v. 15). What he has done: “by him all things were created” (v. 16). Who he is now: “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead” (vs. 17-18a).

Why? Why did Jesus make all things? Why is he head of the church now? “So that in everything he might have the supremacy” (v. 18b). “In everything” he is to have first place. In everything he is to be glorified. He does all things so that he might be glorified in all things. Glorifying God is the purpose of God, and of his creation. Glorifying God is his will for us. Living for the glory of God is the key which unlocks every door, the answer to every question, the destination for every decision.

God says he created us “for my glory” (Is 43:7). He warns us, “I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another” (Is 42:8). He tells us, “For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this. How can I let myself be defamed? I will not yield my glory to another” (Is 48:11).

Think about it–for God to glorify anyone above himself would be idolatry. For us to glorify anyone above the all-perfect, omniscient, omnipotent, eternal God would be foolishness. For us to live for anyone or anything but God is to live for that which is finite and fallen. Every person you know will sin. Every possession you acquire will decay. Your body will die and it will all be gone. Living for God’s glory is what is best for us. It is the way to the fulfillment and joy God created us to experience. So the Bible commands, “whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Right now God is working to glorify himself. He is using and blessing those of us who will live for his glory. And he is using those of us who will not, in spite of ourselves. Moses took God’s glory for himself, so God raised up Joshua to conquer the Promised Land. The authorities stoned Stephen to death, so God used his martyrdom to convert Saul into Paul. Rome exiled John to Patmos, so God gave him the Revelation. The enemy crucified Jesus, so God raised him from the dead.

In this new year, God will use you, or God will bless you. The choice is yours.

Conclusion

How do we live in God’s will, making every decision in light of his ultimate purpose for our lives? Living in ways which please God, lead others to him, grow to be like him, experience his awesome power and live in gratitude and joy? By choosing to live for the glory of God.

How do we do this?

First, obviously, refuse all that dishonors God. We know when we sin and come short of the glory of God (Ro 3:23). We know when our thoughts, words, and actions break his will and heart. Take a spiritual inventory. Ask the Spirit to reveal to you anything which displeases God. Write it down, confess it, and throw it away. Come clean with God.

Second, decide to do good things for God’s glory. Here the enemy is especially deceptive. If he cannot get us to do wrong things, he’ll get us to do good things for the wrong reason. For instance, worship for God’s glory. Miller Cunningham will lead us into God’s presence each week, but we must want to go there. Worship is about God, not us. It’s about his glory, not my desires. It is for him alone, the audience of One. It’s a good thing to come to church for worship. It’s a God thing to do it for his glory. Decide that you will do good things for his glory alone.

Third, examine your motives all through your day. Right now, am I teaching to impress you or God? Are you in worship to impress us or him? Ask before your next expenditure, or decision, or action–why am I doing this? For most of us, the glory of God is more about why we do things than what we do.

Last, trust God to help you. He wants to use and bless your life for his glory, even more than you do. Ask him to show you how, and he will. Ask his Spirit to keep you from wrong things, or from good things which are not God things. Ask his Spirit to show you how to glorify him with your life and work, your friendships and relationships, every moment and every day. And he will.

Living for God’s glory is the key which opens every door in life. I can tell you it’s so, because I’ve tried most of the others.

I’ve told you that my greatest personal fear is that I will misuse my life, that when I stand before God he will tell me that I missed his purpose for my existence. All of my adolescent and adult life I’ve wanted to know what God wanted me to do with my time and opportunities.

Knowing that I am to be a pastor isn’t specific enough. How am I to spend my time? Visiting the sick? Counseling the hurting? Evangelizing the lost? Preparing to teach, preach, and write? Leading the church?

As I told you last week, the Lord has recently called me back to his first purpose for my work: to be a “theological middleman” who translates scholarship into practice, who uses academic resources to build the church and Kingdom. But even that isn’t enough. Even that purpose is missing something, a sense of fulfillment and significance and joy. Even in that I don’t feel that I’m pleasing God, reproducing myself, growing in Christ, living in joy as I should.

Here’s the reason: my ultimate purpose is to glorify God. To glorify God by using theology to build the Kingdom. To glorify God by doing the work he has given me to do. To do this not for your sake or our church’s sake or my sake, but for his. That’s the key that opens every door, that fits every lock. Will you use it for yours?

The One Thing You Need to Know

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The One Thing You Need to Know

Colossians 1:1-8

Dr. Jim Denison

2006 is off to an unsettling beginning.

Athletic success is uncertain. Vince Young led the University of Texas to its first national title since 1970. Meanwhile, Maurice Clarett, the freshman who did the same for Ohio State a few years back, is under arrest for robbing two people of their cell phones.

Economic success is uncertain. Alan Greenspan will end 17 years at the Federal Reserve this month; Ben Bernanke will then take over, and no one is sure what he’ll do with interest rates and the economy.

We’re not safe at school. This week’s Dallas Morning News described the growing problem Parent-Teacher Associations are facing with theft and embezzlement. One official recently stole more than $50,000 from the organization. Another stole $140,000.

We’re not safe at home. Last Sunday morning, a three-year-old boy asleep in his bed was seriously injured by a drive-by shooting in Oak Cliff.

We’re not even safe in church. Last Sunday night, a gunman broke into a church service in Maryland, and made off with an undetermined amount of cash and valuables.

With the future so unpredictable, how will you measure success this year?

Time magazine named Bill and Melinda Gates, and the rock star Bono, their People of the Year. Bono played a significant role in persuading the world’s richest countries to forgive $40 billion in debt owed by the poorest countries. Meanwhile, the Gates have created the largest charity in history, with a $29 billion endowment. However, they and every person they help will still step into eternity. When that happens, financial success won’t matter much.

We can measure success by possessions, job advancement, grades, points scored, friends impressed. Recently my brother and I went through four boxes of family memorabilia, much of it a century old. Report cards, pictures of houses and cars and vacations. Now just forgotten snapshots, relegated to the attic.

There’s another way to measure success in 2006. Let’s discover it together.

Serve God alone

Colossians sets out the preeminence of Jesus Christ more fully than any other book of the Bible. Back in AD 60, no one would have expected such. Colossae was the only church addressed by Paul which he never visited, and the smallest church to receive a letter in all the New Testament. Located 100 miles east of Ephesus in modern-day Turkey, it had been a thriving town before its neighboring cities of Laodicea and Hieropolis passed it by. Think of Big Spring in relation to Midland or Ennis in relation to Dallas, and you’d have the idea.

The church had been founded five to seven years earlier by a man named Epaphras. He was from the city (Colossians 4:12), and had now brought news to Paul in Rome that the three most important Christian virtues were thriving in Colossae.

Paul has heard of “your faith in Christ Jesus” (v. 4a). The phrase means their faith exercised in his presence, walking always in communion with him. They are practicing the presence of Jesus. Would those who know you make the same report to Paul about you?

He has heard of “the love that you have for all the saints” (v. 4b). In the New Testament, the “saints” are those made holy by Jesus, synonymous with the Church. Because they walk with Jesus, they love his family as their own. “All”–without discrimination or contradiction. Would everyone you know tell Paul the same of you?

And he knows that their faith and love come from “the hope laid up for you in heaven” (v. 5). This hope is the source, the motive behind their continual practice of Jesus’ presence and love for his people.

They walk with him and love each other because they know that they will receive eternal reward for their faithfulness. They are living for that reward, not for anything the world can offer them.

They are obeying Jesus’ command to “lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal” (Matthew 6:20).

They know that this reward is “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you” (1 Peter 1:4).

They heard about this hope, this purpose for living, in “the word of the truth, the gospel.” It changed their lives, and is changing their world.

Everywhere it goes it is “bearing fruit”–the analogy refers to spiritual reproduction. Christians who live for God alone and his heavenly reward lead others to follow Jesus as well, multiplying themselves.

And it is “growing”–the word points to their internal spiritual transformation. By living for God and his heaven they are growing to be more like Jesus every day.

By choosing to serve God alone and live for his reward alone, the Colossian Christians have joined their founder and their apostle.

Paul is “an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.” “Apostle” means “one sent by the authority of another.” As such, he gave up all rights to himself–to where he would go, what he would do, what he would say. His only definition of success is obedience to the One he serves.

Epaphras is “our beloved fellow servant” (v. 7); the Greek calls him Paul’s “fellow bondslave.” We know from Philemon 23 that he had been imprisoned with Paul, perhaps in Ephesus or Rome. He gave up his plans and ambitions to serve Jesus and his Kingdom alone.

And now their work has helped spread the good news of God’s transforming love “in the whole world.” 20 centuries later, we are still following their Lord and moved by their example. 20 centuries from now, who will remember this year’s Rose Bowl football game?

So here’s the sermon in a sentence: find out what God will reward in heaven, and do it on earth. God wants us to serve him alone, for he alone can make our lives significant–now and forever.

He wants us to be his “slave,” as Paul often called himself, his “prisoner,” as the apostle often described himself. To measure success only by faithful obedience to him. To live for his heavenly reward rather than temporal success. To turn loose of every other definition of success, of every other ambition and agenda. Then he can reward us, now and forever.

To decide that popularity, position, and possessions are not as important as faithfulness to Jesus. To surrender our lives in unconditional devotion to him, living only for his heavenly and eternal reward. That’s success to Paul. Is it to us?

Why to serve God alone

Why should it be? Why does God require such unconditional discipleship and devotion? Our culture certainly doesn’t see him this way. If conventional wisdom is right, God is our “Higher Power” who helps us when we have a problem, who inspires us to be the best we can be, who cheers us on from the sidelines, a kindly grandfather watching his children play in the park. Paul makes him sound like a Stalinistic dictator or power-driven CEO. How can the Bible claim that “God is love” (1 John 4:8) and yet tell us that we must surrender to him as though we were his servant or slave?

Fact number one: our lives must focus on one purpose to be significant. A laser cuts more steel than a light bulb. You’ve heard me quote Abraham Maslow: “An artist must paint, a poet must write, a musician must make music to be ultimately at peace with himself.” Churchill told the House of Commons in June of 1941, “I have but one purpose, the destruction of Hitler, and my life is much simplified thereby.” Last Sunday you heard Chris Elkins remind us that Paul had “one thing” (Philemon 4:13). So must we.

Fact number two: only God knows what our “one thing” should be. Only he sees tomorrow from today. He made us and knows the purpose for which we are created, the purpose for which we are suited, the purpose which makes us happy and significant. He is perfect, omniscient and omnipotent. He sent his Son to die for us, that we might be forgiven and made his children. His will is our best, always.

Fact number three: even God can lead only those who will follow him. He is sovereign, but he has chosen to limit himself at the point of human freedom (cf. 2 Peter 3:9, 1 Timothy 2:4). He will not do for us what we try to do for ourselves. Self-sufficiency is spiritual suicide.

When the body will not obey the mind, we call it diseased. When a soldier will not obey the general we call it treason. When a sailor will not obey the captain we call it mutiny. When an employee will not obey the CEO we call it insubordination. When a Christian will not obey Christ we call it “self-reliance.”

Conclusion

So, how do we join the Colossians and their apostle and founder? How do we begin this year in surrender and submission to our Father and Lord, choosing to live for his heaven as his servants and children?

Expect to be tempted by self-reliance, every day. Satan still whispers in our ears, “You will be as gods.” The will to power is still the basic drive in human nature. Know that you will decide between your will and God’s, all day and all year long.

Begin the day in surrender. Before it starts, give it to God. Make it your habit to spend a moment first thing in the morning, praying through your day and placing it in his hands.

Pray first as decisions come your way. Develop the reflex of going to God first. Before you take the phone call, answer the email, or step into the meeting. Before you go on the date, or to the concert. Before you make your next parenting decision.

Evaluate today by eternity. How will this glorify God? How will this demonstrate faith in Christ, love for all the saints, hope in heaven?

And expect God to redeem your faithful obedience. Expect this to be the best, most fulfilling, most significant year you have yet experienced. Expect him to guide you, use you, and bless you. Expect your life to bear fruit until Jesus returns. Expect joy.

I stole my title for this message from Marcus Buckingham’s latest business bestseller: The One Thing You Need to Know . . . About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success.

What is the “one thing you need to know”? In a sentence: find out what you don’t like doing, and stop doing it. Then you’ll maximize your strengths and engage others to handle your weaknesses, and all will be well.

Paul would say it differently: find what you don’t do for Jesus and stop it. Find out what he’ll reward in heaven, and do it on earth. Start now.

Here’s how the sermon applies to my life. In 1978, I was in my first church, serving as youth minister at Temple Oaks Baptist Church in Houston, Texas. In April of that year I left Temple Oaks to return to my home church as their youth minister. At my going-away reception on April 9, the Temple Oaks people gave me a set of Barclay’s commentaries; I still use them each week.

Everyone had left. I was walking to my car under the glare of the one streetlamp in the church parking lot. I read Barclay’s introductory paragraph, where he called himself a “theological middleman.” That was my Damascus Road. Lights flashed, bells clanged. I somehow knew that I was to spend my life making theology relevant to life, using academic resources to help people follow Jesus and build the Kingdom.

This week, preparing this message, the Holy Spirit took me back to that evening and that call. He led me to renew my commitment to it, as the servant of Jesus Christ alone. To answer to him only, to please him only, to live for his reward only. It has been one of the most joyful, freeing, encouraging weeks I can remember.

Find out what God will reward in heaven, and do it on earth. All year long. Starting now. This is the invitation, and the call, of God.