WARNING PREACHY…
There
is a mystery of God that people cannot comprehend, in fact, the robot on Lost
in Space would say, “It does not compute.”
And because much of God doesn’t make sense to us, we men are prone to
boil the sum of God down to a bunch of moral laws and regulations. So long as we follow the 10 Commandments, go
to church each week, give our weekly offering of cash, and jump through all the
ritualistic hoops that our doctrines demand, we will go to heaven when we die.
Matthew 7:21-23
21“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’
will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my
Father who is in heaven. 22Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your
name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’
23Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you
evildoers!’
In
doing this, we Christians can often appear to the rest of the world as a stuffy
people who don’t have any fun, who want non-Christians to become stuffy and
religious like us, and when people do respond to our evangelical efforts we
bring them into our churches and teach them a bunch of doctrines, often making
them more contemptible to God then ourselves.
Matthew 23:15
15 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and
Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert,
and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you
are.
But where’s the
Mystery?
Paul
said that there was a Mystery of God, but I have never had a class on it in any
fellowship I have attended. I think this
is because I have always been given manuals that explain every detail of God
(backed up by many bible passages) and thus not leaving any room for any true
mystery. But God is bigger than the majority
of doctrines, creeds, confessions, and commentaries that men can create, and if
God has done anything miraculous then we humans should be left in utter awe of
the vastness of His doing so.
1 Corinthians
1:23-25
23but we preach
Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24but
to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and
the wisdom of God. 25For the foolishness of God is wiser than human
wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
And so as I write about the incomprehensibility of God, I do understand the irony of what I am about to do, I want to take a stab of writing about the Mystery of God. To do this, I take Paul’s words from the letter to the Colossian church.
Colossians 1:27
…to whom God
willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the
Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Christ In You…
Are you saved?
When were you saved?
Are
you born again?
Have you ever received Jesus?
The
questions go on and are often meaningless to people who do not live by faith. I suspect that what most people hear in these
questions is simply “Do you want to give up your partying, your smoking, your
drinking, your sexual escapades, and your fun to come to my church and give
them your money?” Maybe not, but that’s
what I used to hear.
But
then I realized my own mortality and cried out to the creator of our world to
show me the truth. And I didn’t care
what the truth was, I just wanted to know what it was. And within a few weeks I was presented with
the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
1 Corinthians
15:20
20 But Christ has indeed been raised from
the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
This
was a mystery to me. A man who was dead
actually raised back to life?
Seriously? Who claims this kind
of stuff? How does a religion even get
started with such a ludicrous claim? In
my experience of the world, 1 out of every 1 person who dies stays dead. But the claim was so preposterous that I had
to investigate it. And over time God
revealed to my mind the reality of this human mystery of the resurrection of
Jesus from the dead.
But
now, there is a greater mystery that I still have not gotten my head around,
and that is the Mystery that the Apostle Paul wrote above in Colossians 1:27: which is Christ in You!
The
idea that Christ dwells in me causes me much internal struggle. I’ve been wrestling with the reality that
Jesus literally bonded with my soul and is one with me. It’s one thing for me to read about the
Virgin Mary being overshadowed by the Spirit of God melding with her physical
body in order to produce the God/Man Jesus.
I can study it and roll it over in my mind but do I really get it? Do I really get that just as God melded with
the Virgin so also the Holy Spirit melds with me to create a new creation in
this world? The thought is boggling to
me and shrouds me in wonder and awe at the very idea…
When
I talk with people about the faith, I have gotten some flack from my fellow
Christians because I don’t claim to know it all, and I don’t try to make people
accept any certain denominational point of view.
I simply invite them to explore the greatness of a mystery that leaves
my jaw hanging and seek truth no matter where that truth should lead them. I am confident that people who seriously seek
God will have their eyes and ears opened so that they too will see a terribly
awesome Jesus who died for them, and invites them to be in fellowship with Himself and the Father.
A Final Thought…
I
don’t particularly like the questions that ask a person if they have been
saved, or when were they saved, because it muddles the Gospel in my
estimation. The Gospel message is not a
question at all; it’s a statement of fact.
YOU HAVE ALREADY
BEEN SAVED!
The
very moment that Jesus died on the cross your sins were paid for. Every vile thing that is hiding in your
closet has been forgiven. Not because
you are anything special but because Jesus is.
And that is the gist of the Good News of Jesus Christ. A person may not believe it, may not accept it,
may not like it, but the reality is that it has been done by Jesus and we men
have been once-and-for-all been redeemed from our world of sin and death.
Ephesian 2:1-9
1As for you, you were dead in your
transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live
when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the
air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among
them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh
and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature
deserving of wrath. 4 But
because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ
even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
6 And God raised us up
with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,
7 in order that in the
coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in
his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through
faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one
can boast.
And
while this is indeed Good News, there is still the reality of the wrath of God
to come. And the wrath is not as much about
sin as it is with not accepting the Son whom God sacrificed on the Cross in
order to redeem us. For in Jude 1:5 is a little focused on verse
about the Israelites who were all redeemed from their slavery in Egypt, but some
would not believe or accept that God did this for them.
Jude 1:5
5 Though
you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord
at one time delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those
who did not believe.
And so I invite you today, if you have never explored the Mysteries of God in Christ, determine to do so for God has shed the blood of His son so that you might have abundant life.
Interested? Leave a comment and we can talk.
And so I invite you today, if you have never explored the Mysteries of God in Christ, determine to do so for God has shed the blood of His son so that you might have abundant life.
Interested? Leave a comment and we can talk.
