Even Creation Knows Him – 11/5/2017

WARNING PREACHY…

 

Matthew 16:15

¹⁵ “But what about you?” he [Jesus] asked. “Who do you say I am?”

This is the question of questions and it would appear that even creation knows the answer.

Man?  Not so much. 

We humans not only doubt the existence of God himself, but we question if the world we know was even created.  (Just ask Stephen Hawkings[1])  However, say authors Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola, the creation is completely occupied with Christ[2] and they point out how in some detail.  The following is not an exact quote but it is largely their work that I write here[3].

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When God spoke existence into being, He wove Jesus Christ into the very fabric of it.

Colossians 1:15-16

¹⁶ For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. ¹⁷ He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

God created light and He said “Let there be light.”

John 8:12

¹² When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

God created water and He said “Let the water be gathered to one place.”

John 4:10

¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

God created life and He said “Let the land produce living creatures”

John 14:6

⁶ Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Jesus refers to himself in many ways with created things…

He is the “true vine” – John 15:1

He is the “bread of life” – John 6:35

He is the “sun” – Malachi 4:2

He is the “morning star” – 2 Peter 1:19

He is the “true lamb” – John 1:29

He is the “model man” – Romans 5:14

And He is the “real Sabbath” – Colossians 2:16-17

When I first came to faith I remember that it seemed I saw the world with new eyes.  I realized that everything physical that I looked at had significant spiritual implications.  The clouds that floated past had purpose and were not just mere cosmic accident and the hustling-bustling people in our world were no longer just cosmic accidental pieces of advanced star-matter[4], everything had reason and no longer could I shrug off the atrocities to the countless suffering humans around me.

“The Lord Jesus is [truly] written in the bloodstream of the universe.”[5]

Take a few moments today and consider how you might answer our Lord’s question yourself.

Matthew 16:15

“What about you?” he [Jesus] asked. “Who do you say I am?”

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking

[2] Sweet, Leaonard & Viola, Frank, Jesus Manifesto: Restoring the Supremacy and Sonvereignty of Jesus Christ (Nashville: Thomas Neslson, 2010) 5

[3] http://amzn.to/2ipCCeB - I highly suggest getting and reading the book, if you this URL I’ll get a couple pennies.

[4] http://bit.ly/1n81Qi2 - Carl Sagan’s explanation of how everything came to be.

[5] Sweet, Leaonard & Viola, Frank, Jesus Manifesto: Restoring the Supremacy and Sonvereignty of Jesus Christ (Nashville: Thomas Neslson, 2010) 6

Who Are You? – 10/15/2017

WARNING PREACHY…

Often, when I look at my children, I am overwhelmingly amazed at the reality that they are the products of me and my wife; literally everything from each of our individual histories make our children a unique individual in their own right.

From very early in Christian history, theologians and philosophers have been trying to look at Jesus and pick out which part is from the humanity of Mary and which is the deity of God. The effort is called Christology and there are a variety of reasons for doing this, but I believe that it is ultimately a futile effort which distorts the uniqueness of our Redeemer.

When scientists separate hydrogen molecules from water, they are left with oxygen, and what they began with is no longer water. I realize that to take out from my children what is there mother, leaves, well, it would leave just me.  In the same way, I believe, the effort to separate the humanity of Jesus from the deity of Christ would leave something other than the individual Jesus Christ who walked this world who is the way, the truth, and the life. (John 14:6)

Luke 1:30-35

³⁰ The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God. ³¹ And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. ³² He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; ³³ and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.” ³⁴ Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” ³⁵ The angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.

Colossians 1:15-18

¹⁵ He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. ¹⁶ For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. ¹⁷ He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. ¹⁸ He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.
 
I often feel that my life is a big adventure, something akin to Indiana Jones’ adventures; my purpose is to discover God in all the nooks and crannies of this life and to always be exploring who He is.  In the person of Jesus Christ I have discovered a mother load and I suspect that it will take all of eternity to explore all that He has to show us.

Ephesians 3:8-10

⁸ To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, ⁹ and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things; ¹⁰ so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.

Who are You?

I ask this question because it makes personal my Christian life that I can often subjugate to a corporate and democratic mindset of managing.  As I remember that my Christian life is supposed to be a great adventure of discovering God, then I realize that I am less inclined to be distracted by the business of the faith.

When was the last time you went on a grand adventure that promised not to reveal the labyrinth of the halls of discovery until you were in the thick of it?  It definitely takes courage to go this way but if you want, you can come with me.  

Think it over. I’ll be here when you want to come with.

He is Up-Side-Down… – 10/8/2017

WARNING PREACHY…

Matthew 5:17

¹⁷ “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”

Jesus is the Antithesis to Life.

Each of us think that life should be (or is) a certain way: we each have been raised to understand the world in a certain way from our variety of experiences.  Our parents, our teachers, our churches, our culture, our media, our education, and everything else make us believe what we presently believe and think about the world around us.  When Jesus walks into our lives he flips all that we know upside down.

Matthew 5:2-11

² And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
³ “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
⁴ “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
⁵ “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
⁶ “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
⁷ “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
⁸ “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
⁹ “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
¹⁰ “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
¹¹ “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

Jesus began his Sermon on the Mount with nine concepts of life that were radical to the mind of the Jew in his day; that would have been gospel (good news) to the people on the outside of the inner circle of the Jewish religious system.

“Blessed are those who Mourn, for they shall be Comforted.”

In light of this last week’s shooting in Las Vegas, I think it appropriate to focus in on this verse.  How are the thousands of lives that are affected by this event to be understood?  In fact, how are we to understand the devastation of this event along with the destruction of hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria?

In each of these devastations; the loss of life and property, the suffering and pain that people have experienced, and will experience for many years to come, and quite likely for the rest of their lives, will be felt.  How can people be comforted by Jesus?

John 14:6

“I am the way and the truth and the life.”

In the light of devastations, all sufferings, and all that we’ve been told and believe to be true about the world, Jesus stands counter to them all. 

The world would have us believe that it is the proper way to understanding the reality of this world we live in.  But Jesus says that He is the way, not this world.  The Bible states in Ephesians 2 that outside of Jesus we are subject to the way of the Ruler of the Air (the devil).  However, Jesus said that He was the way if only we would accept it.

The world would have us believe that it is the truth, its variety of systems; rules and laws.  But Jesus claims that He is the only truth.

John 18:37

³⁷ “You are a king, then!” said Pilate.  Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

It is very hard to believe that Jesus rises above the pain and confusion that we feel in the midst of devastation.  When my father died of natural causes, I was terribly devastated inside and I was angry that God allowed it to happen.  But as I mourned my loss I slowly realized that it wasn’t God that killed my dad, it was the ruler of this world of sin and death that did it.  Did this realization take away my pain?  Certainly not, but it helped me to categorize it in my brain and place the blame squarely where it belonged.

John 8:32

³² Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

When devastation comes, everything seems to revolve around death in our world.  The world is full of wars, genocides, cancer, acts of terror with its bombs and mass shootings, overdoses, suicides, and the list continues, but in light of it all stands One who claims to be life.  Jesus, is the antithesis to the fake way of this world and its false truths.  The death and devastations that affect us all every day, that want to drown us in sorrow and despair are contrasted by the Word that became Flesh who is named Immanuel – God with us  (Matthew 1:23).  Against all that the world would have us believe, the poison cool-aid it offers us to drink, Jesus stands offering us water that refreshes and heals.

John 7:37-38

“If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. ³⁸ Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”

Simple Faith - 08/28/2016

WARNING PREACHY…

As I was praying this morning (8/26/16) I was impressed with the thought that we humans really are too smart for our own good – especially we modern day Americans.  I was made aware of how many times my response to statements of faith is; “Yeah but”.  I’m not alone in this because I first started thinking about it when I heard you say it to me.  Then, as I considered the repercussions of such a statement, I recognized its attitude in myself.  As part of my prayer time, I read something that fit, that sharpened the reality of what was pressing on my soul.

A man named Dallas Willard wrote[1] that there is a very real power of God transmitted in the laying on of hands by the redeemed.  He writes that even though the Holy Scripture points to such a reality in the early church,“We have so little experience of or so little teaching about such things.  And in a world of naturalistic outlook, where secularism takes many guises and even penetrates deeply into the substance of the “church visible,” some will go to great lengths to explain away such manifestations—or at least to explain why they have nothing to do with us.”   In other words, he says that we have this way of responding to the words of faith with a “Yeah but”.

This response is across the board too: Christians and non-Christians alike.   

Non-Christians are often "too smart" to accept the faith of the resurrected Jesus while the modern American Christian very often will accept the faith, but live out a faith with a complex parenthetical statement.  

I’m often guilty of the “Yeah but” response to discussions of faith.  I believe that my education in the scriptures has hurt me because, after I learned how to translate and dissect them in order to find the exegetical and hermeneutical interpretations, I lost the ability to simply accept my lord’s instruction to “Love thy neighbor as thy self.”  I think maybe that is why the Sunday sermon has so often become a 50 minute college lecture rather than a simple encouragement to "go and do likewise".

So, when you hear the words of faith, how do you respond?  With the response of pure faith or with a “Yeah but”?

John 14:6 -- Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Mark 11:24-25 -- Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.  25 And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”

Now, by the power of the Holy Spirit and the faith of Christ I bid you to, go and do likewise…

 

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[1] The Spirit of the Disciplines – Understanding How God Changes Lives (Harper One, 1991: Pg. 123)