It is Finished

After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. – John 19:28-30

In 1862, French poet, playwright, and novelist Victor Hugo released his magnum opus Les Miserables, considered one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century. In 1998, Hugo’s masterpiece found its cinematic zenith in the Bille August-directed film by the same name. In both works, one scene stands out above the rest.

At the beginning of the narrative, we meet ex-convict Jean Valjean who has just been released from a nineteen year prison sentence for stealing a loaf of bread. Trying to get on his feet, Valjean attempts to find a place to live but no one would take him in except for one—Bishop Myriel.

It doesn’t take long for Valjean’s old temptation to rear its ugly head. When everyone is asleep one night, Valjean goes to the cupboard and pilfers some of the bishop's silver. He makes a run for it but is eventually caught red-handed. The police bring him before the bishop.

Valjean stands before the bishop, being held by the police. Bishop Myriel looks at the police and proclaims something extraordinary. He says that he gave the silver to Valjean as a gift. If that wasn't enough, the bishop goes over to the mantelpiece, takes two silver candlesticks, and says that actually more silver had been forgotten by Valjean. He places the candlesticks in Valjean’s hands. The police have no choice but to let Valjean go free. But the story doesn’t end there.

After the authorities leave, the bishop looks at Valjean and says this to him, “Now, go in peace. By the way, my friend, when you come again, you needn't come through the garden. You can always come and go by the front door. It is only closed with a latch, day or night.”

The bishop not only gives him mercy by forgetting the original crime and letting him keep the silver he stole, he gives him more mercy by giving him more silver. And then, he gives him even more mercy by giving him the best gift of all: his trust. The bishop does something so radically counter-intuitive to us. Something that feels so unnatural to us. He gives him unconditional grace.

Quid Pro Quo

We live in a society based on conditions. When you look at the world around us, everything in our culture demands a trade of some kind. “You do this for me; I’ll do this for you.” “You scratch my back; I’ll scratch yours.” But unconditional grace? We just can’t seem to wrap our feeble minds around that. It doesn’t’ make any sense to us. We are so acclimated to a culture of quid pro quo that we believe everything must have a catch.

We impose this idea upon God as well. We think that in order for God to truly extend his mercy to us, we must give him back something in return. We feel like we owe him something. So we resort to a spiritual checklists because they feel much safer. We like conditions because they keep us in “control.” If we can complete our spiritual “to do” list, it gives us the illusion that things are good between God and us because we have played a part in it. Gerhard Forde, a Lutheran theologian, can help here:

The gospel … is such a shocker … because it is an absolutely unconditional promise. It is not an “if-then” kind of statement, but a “because-therefore” pronouncement: because Jesus died and rose, your sins are forgiven and you are righteous in the sight of god! It bursts in upon our little world all shut up and barricaded behind our accustomed conditional thinking as some strange comet from goodness-knows-where.

God’s grace isn’t conditional. It’s unreserved. It’s not a back-and-forth, two-way love. God’s grace always moves in one direction. And that is why it disturbs us. Forde continues:

How can it be entirely unconditional? Isn’t it terribly dangerous? How can anyone say flat out, “you are righteous for Jesus’ sake?” Is there not some price to be paid, something (however minuscule) to be done? After all, there can’t be such thing as a free lunch, can there?

That’s exactly what we do with God’s grace. We put conditions on it. We take a “yes grace but …” position. We think there is something that must be done on our end. There can’t just be free grace for the taking, can there?

The Beauty of Grace

The last words that Jesus spoke before he gave up his spirit on the cross were three words we need to massage into our hearts. “It is finished.” Grace announces that Jesus met all of God’s conditions on our behalf so that God’s mercy towards us could be unreserved. That’s the beauty of grace. It requires no work on our part. The work of redemption is complete in Jesus. In Christ, we are completely accepted. We are completely loved. In full. The work is done. It is finished.

This rightly rages against our insatiable need to work for our salvation. When we look to the cross and see the Savior of the world proclaim that the work is finished, it disorients us because we are a “conditional” people. Work, not rest, is our modus operandi. But that is exactly why Jesus breathed out those three words. God knew we would need to hear over and over, “Your effort is not needed. It is finished,” because to rest feels like a waste of time.

But deep gospel rest is exactly what we can find in the finished work of Jesus. Our hearts can truly engage with the words from Hebrews, “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his” (Heb. 4:9-10). Entering spiritual rest means that we are resting in Christ’s finished work on our behalf—not our work or our reputation or our accomplishments. It means we are swapping effort for rest. It’s at the heart of what Jesus achieved on Calvary’s cross.

As we hear again the crucified Jesus’ final words this Holy Week, hope is uncovered. We are saved solely by grace through Christ’s work. In Jesus, we can be forgiven. We can be made clean. We don’t earn it. We simply receive grace because that’s the only way grace is received. Grace isn’t grace unless it’s unconditional. It looks as if there is such a thing as a free lunch after all.

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Brad Andrews is a husband of one, a father of seven, and an advocate for grace. He serves as pastor for preaching, vision, and leadership at Mercyview in Tulsa, OK. He blogs at graceuntamed.com and his articles can also be found on Gospel-Centered Discipleship, For the Church, and Grace For Sinners. He served as a religion columnist for the former Urban Tulsa Weekly and was also one of the ten framers of The Missional Manifesto.

Today you will be with me in Paradise

One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” – Luke 23:39-43

On the cross, Jesus reveals a huge truth when he invites the criminal hanging next to him into Paradise.“And [the thief] said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ And [Jesus] said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise’” (v. 43). This man didn’t know religious jargon, but his confession is raw and authentic. He speaks in defense of Jesus, saying that he is innocent of the punishment he and the other criminal deserve. Yet, Jesus still hangs in the same place they do. This confession is a beautiful presentation of the gospel. Spoken by a man unworthy of the inheritance of Christ. His offense had to be among the worst if his punishment was death on a cross. The severe contrast of the two criminals is nothing but a posture of heart and the grace of God. Their reputation, infliction, and condemnation is the same, but Christ changed one man’s eternity.

Have you ever prayed for terrorists? Do you know drug addicts? Have you watched cyclic homelessness? What about pimps and prostitutes? A subtle lie has infected evangelicalism. It’s that someone can be too far gone to be saved. I realized this when I had a friend pray for a family member of mine. I sat in awe as she passionately pleaded for God’s mercy to be lavished upon my loved one. Her faith invigorated my own, even though at the time my hope for my family member’s salvation was extinguished. Honestly, I had stopped praying for them altogether. The infection of this lie dulls our hearts and minds. We choose to reside in the welfare of apathy rather than the dangerousness of compassion. The root is nothing more than hope deferred and rotted.

I grew up hearing that sin can’t be ranked because God sees it all as rebellion. It seemed simple. But a murderer can not simply be equated with a liar. It doesn’t seem natural, right, or moral to equate all injustice. However, no matter our sin when God considers those who believe in Jesus, the Father see us as the blameless Jesus. That truth that defeats the lie. If everyone who believes is seen in Christ, then we should boldly pray for the worst sinners. Because if they believe, they too will be justified by the blood of Jesus and seen as righteous in him. There is no boundary of too far and no unforgivable sin. We are blameless because of the Son before the Father. This justification is our victory and invites us into the very presence of God. We bear no weight of sin. Victory is ours and it’s for all. We can pray for the biggest sinner hoping to hear, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

Nothing Outweighs Grace

Christ resurrects hope when we least expect it, when we least deserve it, and even when we seem to be out of time. Every story of the gospel’s work in the life of a sinner may not be told through a lifetime. It may be told in a short few minutes, or even seconds. The thief on the cross is delivered within moments of his death. He confessed with his mouth and believed in his heart (Rom 10:9). Therefore, he was justified and saved. But Jesus etched his story forever in the Gospels. This man may have wasted away his life. He may have killed and stolen and abused people. At the end of the day, he was rescued from the captivity of his sin. And in the last seconds of their lives, Jesus resurrected hope for this hope and so for all sinners. If God can save this man, then none of us are beyond hope. This man may not have had a lifetime to share the Good News of Christ, but his testimony lives.

When my friend prayed for the salvation and sanctification of my family member, it felt as though she showed me an empty well within my heart, but as she prayed, she began pouring water into the well until it was overflowing. Her prayer filled me with a hope that I had lost, but even more, she led me to the throne so that I could pray myself. God rescues us when we admit our insufficiency, just like the criminal hanging next to Jesus. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” (Rom. 15:13). The simple part of salvation is that we don’t do it. God alone through Christ alone uses the Holy Spirit alone to change the hearts of people. No sin outweighs the grace of God. My advice is this, don’t be afraid to ask for prayer. Even more, ask someone to pray over you and let the hope in their voice and the power of the Spirit remind you of the truth. Also, if you know someone who is lost or hurting, approach them and offer a prayer. The timing of God is not accidental, but absolutely providential. Trust and believe that Christ’s gift of salvation can be offered to anyone.

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Chelsea Vaughn (@chelsea725) has served a ministry she helped start in the DFW Metroplex since she graduated from college. She received her undergraduate degree at Dallas Baptist University in Communication Theory. She does freelance writing, editing, and speaking for various organizations and non-profits. She hopes to spend her life using her gift for communication to reach culture and communities with the love of Jesus.

Father, Forgive Them

Under the scorching heat of the desert, Jesus uttered the first words past his dry, cracked, and bleeding lips, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Lk. 23:34). That must have puzzled those standing at the foot of the cross. His body had writhed in agony after being beaten throughout the night, only to be nailed to a rugged, splintered, and wooden cross the next morning. What Father could have stood idly by while his perfect and innocent Son was being crucified alongside criminals? Who is this Son, who cries out to such a Father? Who is this Man who in the midst of being crucified pleads for the forgiveness of his torturers? His cry from the cross is as much a conviction as it is a comfort.

The Conviction

There is no indemnity for us from the crimes committed against Jesus at the cross. We are all complicit. Scripture says that we have all sinned and that our sins must be punished. It is our hands driving in the nails and our fingers pressing down the thorns into his brow. We have unjustly tried, convicted and sentenced him to death. We are spitting upon, mocking and reviling him. When he’d made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem days ago, we cheered, “Hail! Hail!” (Lk.19:37-38) Today we shout, “Nail! Nail!” Humanity proved its total depravity at that cross. Filled with self-righteous bloodlust, we were thrilled to kill the man who had healed our sick, raised our dead, fed our multitudes, and forgave our sins. Yet he pled for our forgiveness. “Father, forgive them” (Lk. 23:34).

But Jesus does not only die by our hands, he also died for us. “He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed,” (Is. 53:5). Jesus was not the only victim on that cross. Those who put faith in him become victims because his death was vicarious. He died instead of us. He wasn’t just taking our punches at the cross; he was also taking our sins and bearing the punishment due us. As we murdered him, we witnessed our desperate need of his sacrifice. We didn’t know that we were crying out for blood at that cross because we needed it for our salvation—“for they know not what they do” (Lk. 23:34).

The Comfort

Death, hell, and the devil all surrounded the Lord Jesus Christ at the cross. The powers of darkness reveled as, “He breathed his last,” (Lk. 23:46b). They had won. Humanity and all of creation would forever remain under their dominion.

But Jesus was not only victim, but willing sacrifice—working out the eternal plan of the Trinity (Eph 1:1-10). The first word he’d cried out was, “Father” (v. 34) and he had said earlier, “My Father is working until now, and I [too] am working” (Jn. 5:17). Jesus was triumphing through the cross the whole time! It looked like the devil was winning, but God was working. “He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets,” (Col. 2:15, MSG). What a fool's parade God made of death, hell, and the grave at Calvary. If they had only known, they wouldn’t have showed up for work that day!

The wickedness of man had peaked at the cross—“but where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more” (Rom. 5:20). We bristle against this sharp rebuke, “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:23). The wickedness of lawless men paved a path of redemption for those who would repent and believe this scandalous gospel. Paul describes this truth as “a secret and hidden wisdom of God” that if the rulers of his age had understood it “they would not have crucified the Lord of glory,” (1 Cor. 2:7-8). We didn’t know that we were killing God and that through our wickedness God had planned to secure our redemption! But God offers comfort at the cross! Jesus proclaimed a cure as surely as he pronounced conviction.

The Collide

Conviction and comfort both collide in joy as I marvel at Christ’s words. Psalm 85:10 says, “Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other.”

We didn’t know that God had set the scene for the most cosmic kiss of the ages: justice and mercy! The force of this kiss shook the gates of hell and rang all of heaven’s bells. Angels longed to look into these things. How could God the Father be completely just to his own character while completely merciful towards rebellious sinners? He did it by the same means the devil used Judas to betray Jesus, the Son—with a kiss (Mk. 14:44).

The righteous requirement of death for our sins by God was met by the merciful provision of God’s own Son as a sacrifice in our place. Justice and mercy kissed at Calvary. Our ignorance of our sinfulness was no excuse. But our ignorance of God’s plan was our rescue! Who would have ever have imagined such a harmonious union? They converged to adorn God’s divine wisdom for rebels who “know not what they do” (Lk. 23:34). “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” (Lk. 23:34). But you knew, O God. You knew.

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” – Romans 11:33

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Kileeo Rashad is based in Philadelphia, PA, where he serves his local church in many capacities; speaker, preacher, deacon, and hospitality director. He is currently working on a debut writing project which will address breaking silence on sexual brokenness within the church. Kileeo is also the founder of Restoring the Breaches, a ministry that aims to help churches and individuals facilitate gospel-centered conversations around sexuality.

Into Your Hands I Commit My Spirit

 “Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last.” – Luke 23:46

“Do you trust me?” As my children were first being introduced to the pleasure of swimming it took some effort to get them to jump from the ledge into my arms. Standing there ready to receive them as they shook in fear at jumping into the unknown watery world I would ask, “Do you trust me?” In the same way I had to confront my own fears as I waded through the darkness of my own life in 2014. In the midst of a soul-crushing employer, the devastation of my wife’s health, and the overwhelming anguish of my mother’s battle with Ebola, I had to look passages like Romans 8:28 straight in the eye and listen to the voice of God asking me, “do you trust me?”

In the storyline of the Bible, this question pierces to the heart. Will you trust God? In some ways, this question is the very essence of true discipleship. Jesus calls each of us to turn from our former lives of death and sin and turn to a life of following him. That is predicated on this very question: do you trust God? And while the question may be something we want to answer quickly, we should consider Jesus’ life so that we answer it wisely.

Adam and Eve didn’t trust God, so they took and ate the fruit. Abraham failed to trust God and trusted his own cleverness to produce the offspring God was promising. Rebecca and Jacob didn’t trust God’s plan and stole the birthright and blessing of his older brother Esau. Moses didn’t trust God and struck the rock failing to enter the promised land. The Israelites after the Exodus didn’t trust God as they listened to the spies’ report and determined God couldn’t handle a few tall men. Israel continued a pattern of mistrust through the entire time of Judges and instead did everything that was right in their own eyes. David, in stubborn weakness, failed to trust God’s provision for him and seized what was not his then murdered to cover his tracks. His son Solomon failed to trust God’s gift of wisdom and instead lusted after the gods of the nations. The kingdom fell and the track record continues on to this day in all of us: We all fail to trust God.

Yet for Jesus the question of trust was raised before the foundation of the world. Did he trust the Father in his “definite plan and foreknowledge” to send the Son as a human (Acts 2:23)? Did he trust the Father as he submitted himself to baptism? As he was sent to the wilderness in temptation? As he endured hostility from his family and neighbors? As he was criticized by the religious leaders? As he was attacked by demon-possessed accusers? As he was denied by a close friend? As he was betrayed for thirty silver peices by someone in his inner circle? As he was handed over to an unjust court? As he was passed over for a crooked murderer? As he was beaten by a foreign army? As he laughed at by his own people? As he was abandoned by his followers? As he was humiliated to carry the instrument of his death? As he was mocked and jeered at by the entire world? And as his Father turned his back on him and Jesus took the sins of his people? The contrast with the other characters in Scripture couldn’t be clearer.

In every way, we are living failures. We don’t trust God or his word. He had laid out the promises, the covenant, the goal, and the glory for us. And we continually, like our fathers and mothers before us, fail to trust God. Perhaps it the hardships that we must endure that keep us away from embracing the promises. Perhaps its the seduction of this world that beckons us away from the goodness of God. It’s quite possible we’re too ambitious or too lazy to trust God and prefer our own way.

Yet as Jesus hung on the cross he says, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” At his death, he demonstrates the heart of true discipleship. He with his last breath could have said, “NO! Enough!” and vindicated his name in his own power and for his own glory. He could have cursed all humanity with his last words and obliterated the entire race. But as he hung without strength and without hope of rescue coming, with no better tomorrow in view, and feeling his communion with the Father break, he portrayed perfect trust in the Father for all of us to see and hear. He trusted God in the midst of his suffering and with his last breath.

When we consider what it means to be a disciple, we must ask: Do we trust God? In the midst of the loss of family for the sake of his name, do we trust God? In the heartbreak of a cancer diagnosis, do we trust God? When we’re unjustly accused and mistreated, do we trust God? When we lose it all because the economy tanks and jobs are gone, do we trust God? When the seduction of the world calls and offers us an easier path, do we trust God? When the pleasures of this world are put before us and beckons us to give into temptation, do we trust God? When the dark night of our soul brings us to depression and anxiety, do we trust God? In every high place, in every difficult choice, and in every valley of despair, do I trust God? Our maturation into the image of Jesus Christ rests on the answer to this question.

Jesus trusted God through his entire life. Through every action and thought, Jesus looked to his Father and trusted him. And at the end, as death’s curtain fell over his eyes, he gazed up to his Father and answered fully and finally “I TRUST YOU!”

So the question stands for us. Do we trust him enough to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and go and follow him? He trusted his Father and was rewarded (Heb 12:1-2). If so, then everything about us will change. We will turn and look to his good, perfect, and pleasing ways and follow him to every pleasant pasture and through every valley of the shadow of death. We will say with the Psalmist “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not lack anything.”

As Jesus hung on the cross and cried out with his last breath “Father, I entrust myself to you,” he purchased for us the power to cry out with our every breath, “Jesus, I entrust myself to you.”

As disciples we must answer this question and follow Jesus in answering that we entrust ourselves to the Father.

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Jeremy Writebol (@jwritebol) has been training leaders in the church for over fourteen years. He is the author of everPresent: How the Gospel Relocates Us in the Present (GCD Books, 2014) and writes at jwritebol.net. He is the pastor of Woodside Bible Church’s Plymouth, MI campus.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

For centuries Psalm 22:1-2 has shaped the grief and bewilderment God’s people have felt in their darkest hour. The Psalmist expresses anguish only known to the innocent sufferer who feels abandoned by everyone including God:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.

I’ve choked out these words during seasons of suffering. Having battled chronic health difficulties and episodes of clinical depression, I know what it’s like to feel God-forsaken, what it’s like to cry out by day but not hear an answer or by night and find no rest for my anxious soul. The sense of desolation that accompanies depression is terrifying. It feels like you’ve been plunged into a black abyss. You can’t help but wonder if God is displeased with you, if your suffering is a sign of his judgment.

That kind of suffering crushes, confuses, and leads to overwhelming feelings of abandonment, even by God. These feelings are genuine and should not be minimized. But the question that I’ve had to resolve in the face of such suffering is: Does God ever truly abandon those who are in Christ? Will God ever abandon me?

The Cry of Dereliction

We’re not the only ones who have cried out the words of Psalm 22 in our agony. We find these very words on the lips of Jesus as he, the innocent sufferer par excellence, prepares to die for the sins of the world. Understanding Jesus’ cry of abandonment is the key to dealing with our feelings of abandonment.

Matthew 27:45-47 (also Mark 15:33-34) says:

Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Matthew describes a thick, unnatural darkness covering the land for three hours. In Scripture, darkness is a visible sign of God’s judgment and displeasure. It’s symbolic of separation from the very One who is light. This same “felt” darkness covered Egypt in Exodus 10:21-22 as a means of God judging the Egyptians separating them from Israel. So the darkness that fell upon Jesus should be understood as something more than a purely natural phenomenon; it’s a sign of God’s judgment and displeasure.

Jesus certainly understands the darkness this way. He suffers beneath the weight of it for three hours and around the ninth hour (3 PM) he emerges out of the darkness and breaks the silence, crying out in anguished desolation, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Psalm 22:1 pours forth from the sinless Son of God as he faces abandonment from everyone, including his Father.

Did God Really Abandon Jesus?

Jesus’ cry of dereliction is difficult to understand. Was Jesus truly God-forsaken or did he merely feel God-forsaken? Some understand his cry of dereliction to be a cry of loneliness. Others see it as a cry of triumph (e.g., the end of this psalm ends on triumphant note). But we must take Jesus’ cry at face value—as a genuine cry of abandonment. R.T. France notes, “The words Jesus chose to utter are those of unqualified desolation, and Matthew and Mark give no hint that he did not mean exactly what he said.”[1]

This Scripture expresses the depth and horror of what Jesus was suffering. In that moment, Jesus was plunged into outer darkness away from the Father’s presence to bear the sins of the world. France again says, “In giving his life as a ransom for many for the forgiveness of sins he must, for the moment, be separated from his Father.”[2] Having experienced unbroken communion with the Father from eternity past, Jesus now enveloped in darkness felt the full weight of separation from God that our sin demanded and for the first time he was truly alone, utterly God-forsaken.

As we digest this difficult truth, remember two things. First, this was not divine child abuse/divine child neglect. The Father and the Son willingly chose to carry out this plan of redemption and both the Father and the Son were in agony during Jesus’ crucifixion. To obtain our salvation the Father painstakingly separated himself from the Son but only temporarily. Second, the unity of the Trinity was not broken. The Father, Son, and Spirit exist eternally in perfect, unbroken fellowship. We aren’t privy to the details of the “psychology of the Son of God” in this moment.[3] We affirm that Jesus experienced a real abandonment by the Father while simultaneously affirming the unity of the Triune God.

Will God Ever Abandon Us?

So will God ever truly abandon those who are in Christ? If Jesus’ cry of dereliction was the result of temporary abandonment by the Father, does that mean we could be abandoned by the Father also? When we crumble to the floor and cry out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” does this express our feelings or represent our reality

The good news we celebrate during Easter (and always!) is that God will never abandon those who are in Christ.Jesus’ cry of dereliction helps us understand this—he was abandoned momentarily so that we can live with assurance eternally. The innocent sufferer was God-forsaken so that we would never be. That’s startling.

Even when we suffer innocently, we are still sinful. And it is this sin that separates us from God. On our best day, we don’t love God with everything we are, treasure him as our greatest good, or love our brothers as ourselves. Thus, we deserve to be plunged into outer darkness and separated from the presence of God. God could justly desert us and leave us to die in our sins.

Yet, Jesus on his worst day loved God with everything he was and treasured him as the greatest good and loved his brothers as himself. Jesus then chose to be separated from the Father that we might be reunited to God through him. Jesus was forsaken by God so that we might be forgiven. Nothing can change that! Not your circumstances. Not your suffering. And not your sin.

This is the good news I preach to myself again and again in my pain and depression. Were it not for the light of the gospel, the darkness would crush me. But Jesus was crushed on my behalf, so I have hope. I constantly remind myself, “There is always hope in Jesus!”

Suffering saint, I want you to know that there is always hope in Jesus. Whatever you are walking through this Easter season, remember that God will not abandon you because you are in Christ. It may feel like you have been abandoned. The darkness may feel as though it’s going to crush you. But the unshakeable truth that you stand on in the midst of your suffering is that Jesus was temporarily abandoned on your behalf, so you will never be truly abandoned.

[1] France, R.T. The Gospel of Matthew. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2007. Print. [2] ibid. [3] ibid.

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Whitney Woollard is passionate about equipping others to read and study God’s Word well resulting maturing affection for Christ and his glorious gospel message. She holds a Bachelors of Science in Biblical Studies from Moody Bible Institute and a Masters of Arts in Biblical and Theological Studies from Western Seminary. Whitney and her husband Neal currently live in Portland, OR where they call Hinson Baptist Church home. Visit her writing homepage whitneywoollard.com.

I Thirst

At the cross-roads of history, Jesus hung nailed to a cross. The loss of blood from the beating alone would have killed most men, but this was no ordinary man. This was the Son of God and his death was ordained in covenant with his Father. The crowds gathered around the Place of the Skull to see their King lifted high. Above our Lord was a sign that read, “King of the Jews.” Pilate unknowingly proclaimed the greatest truth to a watching world. The Messiah was raised up like the bronze serpent in the wilderness and though it did not look like it Jesus was being prepared to sit on the Father’s heavenly throne. The Gospel of John records the scene,

Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved [John] standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill Scripture), “I thirst.” A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. – John 19:25-30 (italics mine)

SUBVERSIVE PARALLELS

“I thirst” subverts. For instance, the man who said, “I thirst,” is the same man who said to the Samaritan woman, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirst again. The water that I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (Jn. 4:13-14). How can the same man who offered living water to the Samaritan now be dehydrated? Jesus offered the “gift of God” (v. 10, “living water”), which quenches all thirst to sinners, but he hung on the cross thirsty.

Jesus quenched the thirst of weary souls by thirsting himself. When Hebrews points out that we do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize with sinners, part of the sympathy is tasting our spiritual drought. In order to provide spiritual relief, Jesus Christ thirsted. The Bread of Life took on our affliction of spiritual dehydration so that in him, we might hunger and thirst for righteousness—and find it.

After Jesus says that he thirsts, a soldier dips a sponge on a hyssop branch and into a jar of sour wine and gives it to Jesus. Sour wine is the cheap stuff, the dollar-store watered down wine that doesn’t taste great. Jesus drank the sour wine while serving the best wine to sinners (Jn. 2:1-12). He thirsts for the thirsty and drinks sour wine for us providing the best wine in return. What a Savior he is!

INEXAUSTIBLE GRACE

Jesus didn’t fancy himself a man of luxury. We don’t have a Savior who was too preoccupied with himself to care much for the people around him. Jesus was a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. To be acquainted means to taste and see. Jesus wasn’t flashy or a show off. He understood what it was like to be an ordinary man because he was man. God-in-flesh dwelt among thirsty sinners, so he understood human plight. All of the Kingdom talk had pointed to the cross—the moment of Christ’s substitutionary suffering.

As I hear Jesus say that he thirst, I wonder: Has the fountain of living water run dry? Has the good wine run out forever? Has the Messiah’s message of triumph that resonated with Israel for three short years been squelched? Have the powers and principalities won the war? The cross subverts the disciples’ expectations, which caused their confusion. This is why they couldn’t piece it together. Their Teacher had run out of words, had no more commands, and could not console them any longer. Their Savior could not be saved from the wrath of God.

In order for the unending supply of God’s grace to burst forth from heaven, Jesus had to come to the place of desperation, death, sorrow, and thirst—a place common to man. John notes that there is still one more piece of ancient Scripture left for Jesus to fulfill. In Psalm 69:21, Scripture says, “They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.”

If the true and better wine was to be given and the abundant living water was to flow, Jesus needed to thirst. The Messiah needed to get to the place where all men find themselves. For God’s inexhaustible grace to flow like the Niagara falls, Jesus had to endure the most bitter of trials. Every moment on the cross mattered.

As you prepare your hearts for Resurrection Sunday, remember the infinite depth Christ was plunged to rescue you. Never forget the exhaustion he endured so that you could never thirst. As we approach Easter, remind yourself that Jesus’ thirsting then dying wasn’t his final scene, he was buried, rose again, and now sits on the throne of heaven. Although no words in the English could describe the immensity of what Christ accomplished on the cross, the two words “I thirst” remind us in tangible, earthy ways what he endured for us.

—

Rev. Jason M. Garwood (M.Div., Th.D.) serves as Lead Pastor of Colwood Church in Caro, MI and author of Be Holy and The Fight for Joy. Jason and his wife Mary have three children, Elijah, Avery and Nathan. He blogs at www.jasongarwood.com. Connect with him on Twitter: @jasongarwood.

Tasting What’s Good

When spring rolled around, color splashed on our front lawn. Snapdragons, impatience, and geraniums, all in their black plastic containers, were waiting to colonize our garden. My mother issued the invitation to join her in beautifying our lawn. But first, we had to pull the weeds. We kneeled down and dug into East Texas clay to pull up what threatened growth. Only then would our plants be safe. Only then would their beauty last. We are created to bloom in holiness and love. But to do so, we have to kneel down and pull the weeds.

Pulling Evil

Saint Peter puts it this way, “So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander” (1 Pt 2:1). To “put away” means disrobe or change clothes. He’s telling Christians to take off malice like a dirty garment and throw it to the ground. But what is malice? In verse 16, the same word is translated “evil.” We rarely think of ourselves as possessing evil. It’s usually something “out there,” like ISIS or serial killers, but as David Brooks notes, the moral realist is humble enough to acknowledge inner evil. In the words of philosopher Immanuel Kant, we’re all made from “crooked timber.”

If we are to straighten out, if we’re to bloom in holiness and love, we have to admit our evil. But it’s not enough to admit inner evil; we have to see the evil and come face to face with it, before we can pull it out. One weed we rarely consider is envy. Envy opposes love by hoping for others downfall, instead of desiring their best. Envy seeks personal advance over the joy of others. Instead of being happy for someone’s new home or car, we silently discredit them, telling ourselves that we deserve a bigger house or nicer car.

Envy isn’t restricted to materialism; it trespasses all territory. We envy good things. People who struggle to conceive may begin to despise other parents instead of taking joy in their children. Singles without a spouse may grate against the joy of married couples instead of taking pleasure in it. And married couples can envy the freedom of singles.

Envy gets tinier. It desires, not the house, but the ability to decorate the house. Not the car, but the features of the car. Not the children, but judges how poorly or how well the children behave, while secretly praising or condemning the self. Not the married or single but their companionship or freedom. Envy destroys community by creating invisible walls of distrust, hatred, and meanness.

Don’t Struggle with Sin

What are we to do? Pull the weeds! Peter says that we must get them out! All of them. All malice, all envy, and all slander. “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul” (1 Pt. 2:11). He tightens the language. It’s not enough to put evil off; we must abstain from it. Abstain means to create distance by getting away. Modern Christians aren’t known for putting distance between themselves and sin. We use the language of “struggles,” so it’s popular to say, “I’m really struggling X” (drinking too much, lusting, or envying), but what that often means is “I’m putting this sin on, I’m close to it, and I really kind of like it. I know I shouldn’t, so I’m going to confess that I’m struggling with sin.” Peter says, “Run, your passions are waging war against your soul!”

Recently, a drug deal went down close to my kids’ school. A shot was fired. An armed criminal fled to the school campus. Two things happened: The school went into immediate lock down and a couple courageous men tackled the perpetrator. When evil comes knocking, we don’t “struggle” with evil. We fight or we flee! It’s not enough to admit evil, or even see evil; we have to flee evil. As John Owen famously said, “Be killing sin, lest it be killing you.” This is not an exaggeration. Think about how envy plays out. Envy leads to debt, divorce, divided relationships, and distance from Christ. For the love of God, pull the weeds.

Babies or Engines?

That’s the dirty work, but growing together also includes lovely work: absorbing what makes us grow. “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good” (2:2-3). In order to grow into our new selves, we have to long. The word is hyper-desire. In true religion, desires are not evil and God is not a killjoy. He insists on our joy by insisting our desires go in the right direction.

Babies long for milk and engines run on gas, but the modern dilemma is that we don’t know the baby from the engine. We don’t know what to run on. So we try a little of everything: career, friends, diets, exercise, breweries, books, films, music, but it all comes up short. In Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Anna is a person with all the wealth, all the comforts, all the power she could ever dream. She’s even enjoyed an illicit affair but confesses: “I don’t know myself; I only know my appetites.”

Do we only know our appetites? What are we running on? Social connection, productivity, fun? A text, a tweet, a status—compelled by envy we scramble to stay up with a culture that is in overdrive. Where should our desires turn? We have to know who we are—a newborn infant, a new creation, born again to a living hope through the resurrection—only then can we direct our appetites to a place of satisfaction.

When Peter says we’re like babies, he’s not speaking down to us. He’s trying to show us that we live by craving milk. Pure spiritual milk grows us. Pure means a hundred proof. What’s in it? Spiritual milk. Now this word “spiritual” is a little tricky. It’s not the typical word for spiritual (used later). In fact, the word has more in common with reason. It’s the word logikos, from which we get logos or logic. So how do we grow? Well it depends how we read this word.

Some will say, the way we grow is to think better, to have the right beliefs, and to read our Bible. They take a more rational approach. Others say, no it’s more mystical than that, which may be why its translated spiritual. What we need to grow is an experience in prayer, worship, and blessing. And so we’ve got the Bible people and the Prayer people, the rational and the spiritual. The people who take theology classes and the people who join the prayer team. So who’s right?

Tasting What’s Good

Neither or both, kinda. It’s not the person who reads or the person who prays, but the person who tastes. Peter says, “Long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good” (2:2-3). The spiritual milk that causes us to grow requires tasting the goodness of the Lord. How can we taste the milk of God’s presence? Consider three things.

1. Tasting takes time

First, we have to take time. When I used to wash windows with my grandfather in the summers, we would take a break and have lunch together. Famished, I would inhale my food. Poppa would say to me, “Johnny, did you taste it?” He knew something I didn’t. He knew how to taste, how to linger, how to enjoy, not just God’s gifts but God’s presence. We can read the Bible and miss his presence; we can pray and not taste his goodness. Are we tasting or just reading or just praying? Tasting takes time and meditation. “On your law I meditate day and night” (Ps. 1:2). How do we do it? We take a piece of truth and mull it over, sit with it, chew on it, and converse with God about it. Ask him for understanding: what it means, how to experience it, how it applies (rejoice, repent, obey), and for desire and ability to respond. This takes time, but not a ton of it. We have to chew slowly and, when we do, we taste the goodness of the Lord.

2. Ask for Hunger

Second, we have to be hungry. If we’re not hungry, we have to figure out why. Hunger begins by taking the position of a baby—crying out (not assuming) for God to satisfy us. “Satisfy me in the morning with your lovingkindness, O Lord” (Ps. 90:14). Ask for hunger. We may need to confess misdirected appetites, which have dulled us to the goodness of God. On Monday, I woke up and checked my phone. I saw a message that sent my heart and mind reeling. I stood in the shower and worked it over and over. And when I sat down to commune with God, it was very hard to meditate, to taste him because I was hungry for something else, resolution. I’ve resolved to not make checking my phone my first act of devotion.

3. Find Silence

Third, we have to find a place of silence. German theologian Josef Pieper said, “Only the one who is silent can hear.” To taste God, we have to turn off all other appetites. Tune out the things that clamor for our attention: phones, screens, sleep, work, play. We have to find a place of silence—in a corner, outside, by the bed, early/late, on a walk, wherever we can be still and know he is God.

A hundred proof spiritual milk comes, not through Bible study (rational), not through prayer (mystical), but when they overlap and we taste the goodness of the Lord (personal). Are we cultivating a garden where people pull the weeds and taste what’s good? If we do, we’ll blossom in holiness and love. Let’s pull the weeds, taste what’s good, and bend towards the light.

—

Jonathan K. Dodson (MDiv; ThM) serves as a pastor of City Life Church in Austin, Texas. He is the author of Gospel-Centered Discipleship, Unbelievable Gospel, and Raised? He has discipled men and women abroad and at home for almost two decades, taking great delight in communicating the gospel and seeing Christ formed in others. Twitter: @Jonathan_Dodson

The Secret Ingredient

Social media and news headlines bombard us with the truth that we already know: we live in a fallen world. While the culture at large resists using the label “sin” to describe all that is broke around us, the concept is unavoidable. Sin is a reality in this age, as it is in every age. But Jesus Christ entered real time and space to offer a foretaste of a future age that will no longer be tainted by the presence of sin. John writes the following of that entrance: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn. 1:14).

Grace and Truth

Jesus embodied truth. He did not claim to know the truth, or the way to the truth, but to actually be the truth (Jn. 14:6). And he tells us the truth about ourselves.

After instructing his disciples how to pray by modeling what is now called the Lord’s Prayer, he says the following:

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Lk. 11:13, emphasis mine)

We can almost become numb to the sting of the words. He doesn’t offer the issue up for debate but matter of factly tells those in his presence they are evil. To be sure even an evil person does some things that aren’t bad—like buy his son an xBox—but that doesn’t make him good in the eyes of God. He reminds his audience of their inherent sinfulness in matter of fact style.

Another encounter highlights Jesus’ radical commitment to the truth: his interaction with the woman at the well. The dialogue recorded by John (4:1-30) contains some seemingly stinging remarks by Jesus. He brings up her colorful love life (vv. 17-18), her improper worship (v. 22), and even confesses to her that he is the Messiah (v. 26).

Yet, even while broaching taboo topics even for today, Jesus never does so flippantly. While being full of truth, he is also full of grace. Jesus did not come to condemn the world, but to save it (Jn. 3:17). As such, while never compromising truth, his demeanor was always full of compassion. We see this in his contribution to the “trial” of the woman caught in adultery (Jn. 8:1-11). While he was the only one fit to condemn her, he instead sends her on her way with the single charge to repent of her sins (Jn. 8:11). We see his grace at the restoration of Peter who had denied him three times (Jn. 21:15-19). Even those who abandon Jesus are welcomed back to the fold in Jesus’ economy of grace.

While we as humans oscillate imperfectly between these two characteristics—and often even view them in opposition to one another—Jesus displayed them perfectly at all times in his life. Grace and truth are not mutually exclusive, despite our failings to get the recipe right. However, Jesus’ embodiment of these characteristics has one more important quality that we do well to take note of. Jesus was present among them.

His Presence

It’s possible to exhibit the qualities of grace and truth in our human attempts to follow Jesus and yet still be ineffective in our ministry. This possibility exists when we neglect a meaningful presence with those we are ministering to. Presence is the platform from which grace and truth are to be proclaimed.

Jesus’ presence changes everything about his mission. As the creator of the world he is the author of truth. From a distance, he could call out from the heavens commands for obedience and consequences for disobedience, yet he gets his hands dirty. A king doesn't need to "earn" a platform with his subjects to issue a decree. Yet, Jesus, as king of the universe, chooses to enter into loving relationship with his subjects when he speaks truth into their lives. While no platform has to be “earned” for the one in authority to dictate decrees, Jesus condescends to enter into relationship with us. Our God is a good God and a relational one. In him we see the wisdom of Solomon who wrote: “Faithful are the wounds of a friend” (Pr. 27:6).

How stinging Jesus’ wounds must have been for the woman at the well, for Peter when hearing he would deny Jesus, and for the disciples being told they were evil. Yet, Jesus was not malicious when speaking these truths. He loved them enough to share with them who they really were. He revealed the things that enslaved them, as painful as they were and gave them himself. He called them to follow him, the only master who would liberate them and truly fulfill them, and he would be faithful to go to the cross for them.

God’s primary motive for dwelling among us in the person of Jesus Christ was to save us from sin and its consequences. The means of rescuing us that were chosen by the all-powerful creator were personal in nature. He dwelt among us. He is calling us to dwell among sinners as well.

The Formula for His Bride

God bought his church with his own blood (Acts 20:28). It was no small sacrifice on his part. His bride does well to follow him in this incarnational and costly ministry.Visit a few churches to see the various ways Christians get the trifecta of presence, grace, and truth wrong. If we put only two of the three into practice a lopsided church body emerges.

Take truth and grace divorced from presence and a bombastic fundamentalism emerges. In this formula the gospel is proclaimed, but only to those who already believe it. The surrounding culture is rejected wholesale instead of being engaged with discerningly. If an outsider were to stumble into this kind of church service, she’d be a fish out of water as the church attempts to “contextualize” the gospel to look more Leave it to Beaver than Modern Family. This brand of Christianity is content with a holy huddle inside a church as bomb shelter. Its members only occasionally emerge to throw “grace” grenades at unsuspecting strangers before quickly ducking back into safety. The approach to discipleship of those outside the walls is essentially the equivalent of evangelical “stranger danger” and as such less than effective.

On the other end of the spectrum, some have embraced a model of ministry in which grace and presence are married while being devoid of truth. This marriage seems appealing on the surface as there is little within it to offend the surrounding culture. However, as many of the mainline protestant denominations have found, this is no surefire way to growth. When the truth and offense (1 Pt. 2:8) of the gospel are removed in an attempt to “love” everyone the church has little to offer those outside of its walls. In fact, it becomes indistinguishable from the culture at large and has nothing to offer it that the culture can’t already provide itself (and usually at a better quality level).

Jesus calls his bride to a better way. He said the gates of Hell would not withstand his church (Mt. 16:18). Our call is not to remain stationary and hope the lost world will come to us, but to charge into the dark with the light of Christ. While it is not the easiest way, it is the way he embodied. Again, Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn. 14:6).

He didn’t claim to know the way, but to be the way. His way was marked by grace and truth and fueled by his presence. He went where sinners were.

Are you a part of his bride, the Church? Do you desire to obey his commission to make disciples? Do you, being evil, know how to give your children good gifts? Pray to your heavenly Father who is perfect that his Holy Spirit would spur you on to walk in his ways. Pray God would give you the gifts of presence, grace, and truth that you would gain a platform of presence in the lives of unbelievers and would be used to make disciples among them, that you would be bold in speaking truth to them and that they would mature, and that God’s grace would be displayed through you and be multiplied.

—

Sean Nolan (B.S. and M.A., Summit University) is the Family Life Pastor at Christ Fellowship Church in Fallston, MD. Prior to that he served at a church plant in Troy, NY for seven years and taught Hermeneutics to ninth and tenth graders. He is married to Hannah and is father to Knox and Hazel. He blogs at Hardcore Grace and the recently started Family Life Pastor.

Leading Like the Good Shepherd

The stream of Christian social media outlets teemed with the news of the comeback of this former mega-pastor. For a time, he had been the brightest star in modern evangelicalism. He’d led a rock-star crusade through culture by preaching solid biblical truth and bringing out followers in droves. With prophetic precision, his preaching made what God said way-back-when so relevant for right now. In my eyes, the man was a prophet! I adored him. I looked up to him the way teenagers look up to the posters of their favorite celebrities on their bedroom walls. I was younger then and had not yet stood like Jesus. “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Mt. 9:36). I hadn’t yet experienced the wreckage of a church when its shepherd is struck by accusations, slander, and gossip and the flock is scattered in confusion and uncertainty. I hadn’t yet been one of those sheep so distracted by the pandemonium in the fold, that I blindly wandered off until I was alone, defenseless, and in the company of a ravenous wolf. I had not yet suffered the pain of a church split or the moral failure of a spiritual leader. Until then, I did not know that a good shepherd dies for the cause when the Father has made the sheep the cause.

JESUS IS THE GOOD SHEPHERD

In the Gospel of John, Jesus boldly demonstrates his power (e.g., the seven “I AM” statements) and uses everyday images to to explain spiritual truths about his identity. My favorite everyday image used by Jesus is, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (Jn. 10:11). He is speaking to the Pharisees. They should have easily understood his analogy. First, Israel was a Bedouin people, nomadic people of the desert, usually sheepherders; Second, the Pharisees were the current shepherds of Israel, responsible for leading the people into true worship and observance of Yahweh. But they’re not being very good ones.

Their shepherding is characterized by showing off in the synagogues and in the streets with charming eloquence in their preaching, memorizing and quoting the Law by rote, and lording their public demonstrations of piety over those under their care for admiration and accolades. Jesus goes straight for the jugular by showing them that the validation of their ministry is not in the praise they get from men but by the sacrifice they are compelled to make by God, for men.

Jesus is that kind of shepherd. He prophetically throws down the Calvary card on the table and says, “Boom! You’re taking, but I’m giving. You’re fleecing, but I’m feeding. You’re skating, but I’m staying.” Jesus makes the pinnacle proof of his ministry as a shepherd, not that he lived well off the sheep, but that he died willingly for the sheep. The good shepherd has the Father’s best intention at heart for the sheep and will give his life to secure it. “Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep” (10:15). The small word “for” (Gk. huper, “in behalf of” or “instead of”) contrasts Jesus with these other cast members in regards to the way they shepherd the sheep. Jesus, the good shepherd, guards, guides, protects, and preserves God’s flock by dying “in behalf of” and “instead of” the sheep to give them abundant life. Leading well, for this shepherd, looks like dying (1 Pt. 5:1-4).

CONSIDER THE CAST

The good shepherd does not leave his sheep or under-shepherds ignorant. One shepherd wrote to his mentee, “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers,” (1 Tim. 4:16). Good shepherds can fall into these categories below, by neglecting that charge from the Apostle Paul. A good shepherd must persist in this: he must believe and continually return to the gospel that saved him. A good shepherd always acknowledges need of the gospel for himself. This rebuke to the Pharisees warns the sheep what to beware. Let’s consider that cast:

• Thieves (10:1,8): Both the thief and robber refuse to enter by the door, both abuse, use, misuse the sheep, but the thief is more covert, steals by fraud and in secret, operates by unethical means, with a motive to kill and destroy.
• Robbers (10:1,8): Robbers differ slightly by immorally depriving one of his possession openly and by violence. They can also boldly be on a self-righteous, renegade campaign, or under the guise of a false crusade.
• Wolf (10:12): Wild, hungry, cruel, rapacious, ravenous, destructive and greedy. Will upset the whole flock in order to murder by isolation. One agenda, to satisfy hunger. One agenda, to satisfy hunger.
• Strangers (10:5): Ones who have no intimacy with the sheep and doesn’t even know their names, but will attempt to call them out and summon them as their own.
• Hireling: He is the most dangerous character of all. Get this scene in your mind and it is most certainly not PG-13. A wolf descends upon the flock from a distance. Jesus said the hireling “sees the wolf coming.” (10:12), but does he pray, plan, rally the troops, or load his weapons? Jesus says, “[he] leaves the sheep … because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep” (10:12b,14). The wolf tears into the sheep—bleating and bleeding, carnage and chaos. The hireling watches from a secure vantage point. Though he is responsible for the rampage, he has calculated the cost and the sheep aren’t worth it. The wolf then turns on him with glowering, steel eyes and a mouth rimmed red with blood, unmasking his location. In fear, the hireling thinks, “There could be others out there!” So “He flees” (10:14). He sacrifices the sheep for his own safety.

The hireling says, “bye!”

The sheep says, “baa-aah!”

The wolf says, “dinner!”

But Jesus said, “You’ve got to go through me.”

THE GOOD SHEPHERD’S EXAMPLE

There was no price too high and no length too far. Jesus set an example of what to expect from the ministry of shepherding and of the minister as shepherd. It’s big, up front and in bold: Are you prepared to die?

We live in a culture of sore losers. Church leadership is being populated by hired hands; people who would quit to save face before falling on the sword of their own failure and assuming responsibility. We want the honor from God of presiding over his people—but not the responsibility of protecting them at all costs. I’ve heard it said that we have ministers today, who love the crowds, but hate the people. That’s the hireling. He loves the benefit of their following, their likes on his statuses, and the adoration in their eyes-but he doesn’t even know their names and wouldn’t die for these people.

There is a difference between a leader falling and a leader taking the fall. I am terribly afraid that there’s a spirit at work in the Church which is seducing us into celebrating failure so much so that our leaders are excused from accountability and lauded for a so-called resiliency, expressed by packing up and moving on to another ministry. And the sheep are left holding the bag of confusion, bewilderment, loss, mistrust and abandonment. To see fatherlessness and abdication of responsibility in the world is expected. But not in God’s church! We are fathering a generation of pastors, leaders, and laypersons who cannot do hard things, be accountable, submit to spiritual authority, suffer well, or hold a long onto obedience.

But what if the legacy of some of our greatest leaders is to be their repentance? I believe that God positions great leaders to make great impact—even when they fail. Hello, King David! Rosaria Champagne Butterfield says, “Repentance is the only no shame solution to a renewed Christian conscience, because it only proves the obvious: God was right all along.” How about we prove that and model that to a generation. Wouldn’t that give glory to God! Look at what Joshua says to Achan when he urges him to confess and stop the plague of judgment against the nation of Israel, “My son, give glory to the LORD God of Israel and give praise to Him. And tell me now what you have done; do not hide it from me.” (Josh 7:19).

Confession is not only good for the individual soul, but also for the corporate body. When leaders repent, we discern for ourselves whether we are hirelings or good shepherds. Our sheep are able to discern whether they are being sacrificed on the altar of the hireling’s lust or preserved by the sacrifice of the shepherd. We also inspire repentance in our congregations instead of inciting a culture of disobedience. I’ve sat in the midst of sheep who were in emotional turmoil and shepherds, so blinded by their own sin and the sins they believed others had perpetrated against them and I’ve thought: This whole storm could be over if this person just died; died to their want to justify themselves, died to their want to be right, died to their want to have control and died to their lack of trusting in God’s sovereignty and goodness as the true Lord of their circumstances.

Especially, since that’s what Jesus told us we were signing up for.

THE GREAT REWARD

Because of Jesus’ example, we should be encouraged as shepherds. The writer of Hebrews says, “Consider Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2). If we follow Jesus’ lead as the good shepherd, we are promised great reward! “And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory” (1 Pt. 5:4). Jesus “will provide a crown of glory to those who serve in his own pattern of selfless leadership for his flock. Herein lies the [your] power to obey: looking back to Jesus’ sacrifice that justifies us and looking forward to Jesus’ return that will glorify us.”

Oh, brother shepherd, Peter was not a perfect shepherd, but God made him a good one. Now he is “a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed,” (1 Pt. 5:1b). And he is calling you to come up where he and Jesus are. But you must shepherd well by fixing your eyes on Jesus as he fixed his eyes on his future glory. No cross, no crown. Christ is glad to share his glory with those who share his cross. Let God take the opposition of death and turn it into an opportunity to manifest his glory in you and you will share the great reward of the good Shepherd forever. “Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you” (5:6).

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Kileeo Rashad is based in Philadelphia, PA, where he serves his local church in many capacities; speaker, preacher, deacon, and hospitality director. He is currently working on a debut writing project which will address breaking silence on sexual brokenness within the church. Kileeo is also the founder of Restoring the Breaches, a ministry that aims to help churches and individuals facilitate gospel-centered conversations around sexuality. 

Woman, Behold, Your Son!

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier; also his tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom, so they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.” This was to fulfill the Scripture which says,

“They divided my garments among them,

and for my clothing they cast lots.”

So the soldiers did these things, but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.

 — John 19:23-26

Woman, Behold, Your Son!

The crowd gathered and looked up at Jesus and the words inscribed above him: “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” But no throne was in sight, just the rugged, wooden cross. Scarlet did not represent royalty, but death. Blood alone adorned his body. He writhed, life draining out of him.

Mary was reeling. In horror, she had watched her son disfigured on the cross and his words jarred her. It was not the first time she received news of an unasked for son. Her mind flashed back to an event that had shaped her more than any other. When she was a young girl an angel had appeared to her and said:

“behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” – Luke 1:31-33

Mary had treasured this news and it was now at the forefront of her mind. She looked at John, the new son she did not ask for. Then back at Jesus, naked now, as he was when he entered the world in that dirty stable some thirty years prior. His cries of agony reminded her of his cries as a child. She remembered those protective feelings so new to her as a young mother. She would’ve done anything to prevent him from experiencing pain. She wept, helpless to save him from his current agony.

She looked back at John. She was now unexpectedly asked to mother once again. This son too, she accepted, despite the host of questions swirling in her mind. While Jesus was going through his final hours alone, Mary was comforted by her new son despite the sword-like pain piercing her soul (Lk. 2:35) as she witnessed her firstborn’s final moments.

John was bewildered and overwhelmed as he heard Jesus’ words. Maybe John thought: What does he mean? How can I stand in the place of him? Perhaps He has become delusional from the loss of blood. Does he not remember the bold request of my own mother? She had asked “[Can] these two sons of mine … sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom” (Lk. 20:21).

Surely Jesus did remember. His response to John’s mother now made sense, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink” (Lk. 20:22)?

John dropped his head in shame, remembering how he naively thought he could drink that cup. How foolish. He had no idea what he had been asking.

He looked to Jesus, then to the criminals on the left and the right. If Jesus had granted his mother’s request, would he and James, his brother, be in the position of those criminals?

Jesus had done nothing to merit this brutality. John wept. He could not shake the thought that he and his brother did deserve to be in Jesus’ place.

Instead Jesus had just tasked him with the care of Mary. He was unworthy and no substitute for Jesus. How could God allow the perfect one to die, while he allowed John, blemished by sin, to take his place as the caregiver for Mary?

Then he thought that it was even more shocking that God could allow Jesus to die this death, the death that John and his brother deserved. He wished he had never arrogantly assumed he could drink the cup that Jesus was now drinking.

Uniting Through Death

While Jesus was alone and abandoned by most of his closest disciples, he would not leave John or Mary aloneAnd Mary at John. While they were pained from watching Jesus die, they didn’t feel it the way he did—isolated—because they had each other. Mary had a new son. John a new mother. But Jesus was separated and being tormented, not only from them but also from the Father. Scripture reads, “Cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree” (Deut. 21:23; Gal. 3:13;). Jesus would finish his mission alone. Most of His disciples had deserted him, but he would establish through his death a new family. He unites others in a community of life and love, even while being subject to death and hatred.

Many onlookers in the crowd continued to scoff and ridicule, but some noticed, “Who is this man Jesus, Who even while facing a cruel and unjust death treats others with such selfless love and compassion?” His disciples would suffer for their trust in him, but never alone.

He had given his body up for them, but they now would become his body, the Church. He would call his people to join together. They would bear one another’s burdens in response to Jesus bearing their burdens on the cross.

The purpose and depth of that community would not be fully comprehended at that moment, but Jesus’ words, “Woman, behold your son!” harkened back to God’s words to Adam in the Garden, “It is not good for man to be alone.”

Christ’s body had been given to establish a new, interdependent body. A family united not through the blood of shared ancestry, but through the blood of Christ. As a family they would rely on one another in times of rejoicing as well as suffering.

Alone he builds community; empty handed he gives gifts.

Woman, behold, your son.

—

Sean Nolan (B.S. and M.A., Summit University) is the Family Life Pastor at Christ Fellowship Church in Fallston, MD. Prior to that he served at a church plant in Troy, NY for seven years and taught Hermeneutics to ninth and tenth graders. He is married to Hannah and is father to Knox and Hazel. He blogs at Hardcore Grace and the recently started Family Life Pastor.

Answering Life’s 8 Ultimate Questions

Whenever I talk about gospel-centered counseling, I discuss what I call 8 ultimate life questions. From time to time, I’m asked, “Why don’t you call them 8 ultimate life answers”? Michael Horton answers this question, in his fine work, The Gospel-Driven Life, by noting: We typically introduce the Bible as the “answer to life’s questions.” This is where the Bible becomes relevant to people “where they are” in their experience. Accordingly, it is often said that we must apply the Scriptures to daily living. But this is to invoke the Bible too late, as if we already knew what “life” or “daily living” meant. The problem is not merely that we lack the right answers, but that we don’t even have the right questions until God introduces us to His interpretation of reality.

Exactly!

So let’s compare the world’s 8 ultimate life questions to the Bible’s 8 ultimate life questions—to see that the world doesn’t even get the questions right!

Ultimate Life Question # 1

The World’s Question: “What is truth?”

The Word’s Question: “Where do we find wisdom for life in a broken world?”

Do you see how rich and robust the Word’s question is? And how real, raw, and relevant the Word’s question is? The world asks about truth in the abstract—philosophical truth. The Word asks about and provides the ultimate source of wisdom for living—how broken people live wisely in a broken world.

Ultimate Life Question # 2

The World’s Question: “Why is there something rather than nothing?”

The Word’s Question: “Who Is God?” “What comes into our mind when we think about God?” “Whose view of God will we believe—Satan’s or Christ’s?”

When Shirley and I recently visited the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, we read displays that constantly pondered why there was something instead of nothing. They not only failed to provide an answer, they were asking a shallow and foolish question.

See again the richness of the Word’s question: “Whose view of God will we believe—Satan’s or Christ’s?” We all have a view of God. We are all worshipping beings. And we all follow someone’s portrait of God—either an evil portrait painted by Satan or the beautiful portrait painted by Christ—in His blood.

Ultimate Life Question # 3

The World’s Question: “Who am I?”

The Word’s Question: “Whose are we?” “In what story do we find ourselves?”

Wow! Just add those two letters—s and e—and what a world of difference we find between the world’s question and the Word’s question.

“Who am I” is such a tiny, puny, and self-centered question. It is a question that pictures the world revolving around me. “Who am I?” is a question that can only be answered by self-sufficiency and self-reference—I am who I see and make myself to be.

“Whose are we?” is such a gigantic, even infinite, question. It is a question that pictures the universe revolving around God. “Whose am I?” is a question that can only be answered in-reference-to our Creator—coram Deo. The story of our life is not an auto-biography. The story of our life is a God-biography—we are each an epic poem (Eph. 2:10) written by God as pages in chapters in God’s book of eternal life.

Paul answers this ultimate life question in Romans 1:7: “Beloved by the Father and called to be saints.” We are loved sons/daughters and cleansed saints—that’s who we are because of Whose we are!

Ultimate Life Question # 4

The World’s Question: “Why do we do the things we do?”

The Word’s Question: “What went wrong?” “What’s the root source of our problem?”

The world answers its wrong question with a wrong answer. “I do the things I do because of others—it’s my spouse’s fault, my boss’ fault, my parents’ fault.” Or, “I do the things I do because of my feelings—they are out of control, beyond my control.” Or, “I do the things I do because of my body—I need better medication because my physical brain is the ultimate source of my soulful problems.”

The Word gets to the heart of our heart problem. Yes, our life situation influences our actions. Yes, our emotions are tricky and complex. Yes, our bodies are frail and fallen jars of clay. However, the root of our problem is spiritual—it is a worship disorder. It is a loss-of-awe disorder. We are all spiritual adulterers and heart idolaters—that’s the root of our problem.

Recognition of that root compels us to cry out in God-sufficiency for an Answer—a Person—who has paid the price for adultery and idolatry.

Ultimate Life Question # 5

The World’s Question: “How do people change?”

The Word’s Question: “How does Christ change people?” “How does Christ bring us peace with God?”

The world’s question focuses on human self-effort—which is the very definition of secular thinking. It’s all about me and my self-sufficient efforts to be a “better me” in my power for my good.

The Word’s question focuses on Christ-sufficiency—it’s all about Him, His power, for His glory—and becoming more like Christ, not simply a “better me.” Yes, there is a role that we play—but that role is a grace-empowered role. Already changed by Christ, we now put off the vestiges of the old us and put on the new person we already are in Christ—through the Spirit’s empowerment. Christ not only changes our inner person, but also changes our relationship with the Father from enemy to family, from alienation to peace.

Ultimate Life Question # 6

The World’s Question: “Where can we find help?”

The Word’s Question: “Where can we find a place to believe, belong, and to become—like Christ?”

The world says, “It takes a village.”

The Word says, “It takes a church.” Sanctification is a community journey with our brothers and sisters in Christ. As Ephesians 3:14-21 reminds us, it is together with all the saints that we grasp grace and grow in grace to glorify our gracious God.

Ultimate Life Question # 7 

The World’s Question: “Where are we headed?”

The Word’s Question: “How does our future destiny impact our lives today?”

We all want to know, “What’s the point?” “What’s our purpose?” The world asks these questions in a vacuum.

The Word asks the destiny question knowing the answer and relevantly tying our future to our present. As Christians, our future destiny is in eternity with God on a new heaven and a new earth where we have intimacy with God, purity in our hearts, and victory in our lives. Since this is true, the Bible urges us to live today in light of eternity. As saints who struggle against suffering and sin—our future makes all the difference in our lives now.

Ultimate Life Question # 8

The World’s Question: “Why are we here?”

The Word’s Question: “What’s our calling/purpose?” “How do we become like Christ”?

The world’s take on the question of ultimate meaning begins with a shallow question and responds with an even more superficial answer: “To be a better me.”

The Word sees our purpose as a calling in relationship to God and others. And the Word focuses our answer on Christlikeness. We are here to glorify the Father the way the Son glorified the Father. We are here to increasingly reflect Jesus. Each of us will do so in unique, idiosyncratic ways because we are each fearfully and wonderfully made to reflect Christ in a billion different ways.

The Right Questions and the Right Answers

Here’s my tweet-size summary of the implication of getting both the questions and the answers correct: To offer wise & loving biblical counsel, we must ask & answer gospel-centered biblical questions. [Add tweet link]

The world not only gets the answers wrong, the world’s questions are impoverished. The Word not only gets the answers right, the Word’s questions are rich, robust, and relevant. Is it a new thought for you that the world not only has foolish answers, but also shallow questions? If so, what impact might this realization have on your life and ministry?

How are you biblically answering life’s 8 ultimate questions?

—

Dr. Robert W. Kellemen: Bob is the Vice President for Institutional Development and Chair of the Biblical Counseling Department at Crossroads Bible College, the Founder and CEO of RPM Ministries, and served for five years as the founding Executive Director of the Biblical Counseling Coalition. For seventeen years Bob served as the founding Chairman of and Professor in the MA in Christian Counseling and Discipleship department at Capital Bible Seminary. Bob pastored for 15 years and has trained pastors and counselors for three decades. Bob earned his BA in Pastoral Ministry from Baptist Bible College (PA), his Th.M. in Theology and Biblical Counseling from Grace Theological Seminary, and his Ph.D. in Counselor Education from Kent State University. Bob and his wife, Shirley, have been married for thirty-five years; they have two adult children, Josh and Marie, one daughter-in-law, Andi, and three granddaughters: Naomi, Penelope, and Phoebe. Dr. Kellemen is the author of thirteen books including Gospel-Centered Counseling and Gospel Conversations.

Adapted with permission from RPM Ministries (here & here)

5 Effortless Ways to Be Formed by God’s Word

Five years ago if you would have told me I would be susceptible to the black hole of social media and Netflix, I would have laughed. But these days I find myself increasingly formed by hours of screen time rather than God’s Word. I might spend ten minutes on Facebook or USA Today before I get out of bed to read my Bible. Or watch Netflix at the end of a long day in the place of meditating on Scripture. Or scan fitness blogs instead talking about God’s Word with my spouse. It feels harmless, yet these voices unconsciously shape me. More than any other time in history, God’s people are distracted by endless cultural noise in our limited 24 hour days. When we give thoughtless hours to these distractions, something will inevitably get crowded out. God’s Word is often the first thing pushed aside. Entertainment isn’t evil in and of itself; rather it’s a gift from God if enjoyed in a way that leads to worship. However, if we don’t intentionally prioritize biblical formation above other formation, these outside voices will unconsciously shape us more than God.

How Can We Recover Biblical Formation?

The Bible always has been and always will be formational for the church. God gave it to us that we might orient our lives, identities, and practices around the God who has spoken. Over and above every other word in our lives, God’s authoritative Word must form our lives, our families, and our missional communities. We must commit ourselves to not only hearing God’s voice but also submitting ourselves to obeying that voice. In a culture of endless voices ready to shape us in their image, we must fight to recover biblical formation.

1. Meditate on a passage for five minutes in the morning and night

Psalm 1:1-2 depicts a man who delights in the law so intensely that he pores over God’s words morning and night. This practice shapes him in such a way that he becomes like a deeply rooted tree which yields fruit in due season. Every single one of us (regardless of busy schedules) could set apart five minutes in the morning and evening to reflect on God’s Word. What would it look like for you to build this into your daily routine? What changes need to be made to reserve ten minutes for biblical meditation?

For me it’s easier to read the Word in the morning and then zone out to TV/phone at night. I’ve set a cut-off time for all screens and put my Bible next to my bed as the only thing within my reach. I’m not suggesting this as a “legalistic” boundary, but I am sharing what’s helped create an atmosphere that enables me to prioritize the word of God over other distractions. Examine your routine, decide where you could prioritize God’s Word, pick a passage, and ask the Spirit to shape your heart and mind through the Word every morning and night.

2. Talk about God’s Word with those around you

Deuteronomy 6:6-7 explains how God’s Word shapes his people as they talk about it with their children, as they walk along the roads, as they lie down, and as they get up. This wasn’t formal “theological training,” it was biblical formation as they went about their daily routines. God’s people today must learn to weave his Word into the fabric of our lives in this same manner.

This can be implemented in endless ways! Talk to your children about Jesus in the small tasks throughout the day, tell your family what God is teaching you through his Word, talk to your friends about what you’re wrestling through in the Scriptures, tell co-workers (even unbelievers) what verse you’re pondering that day. I find that people don’t naturally talk about God’s Word in informal settings. This isn’t a scripted gospel-presentation, rather it’s talking about God’s Word as you might your favorite TV show the night after an explosive episode. Perhaps, this would be the most formative change you could make.

3. Listen to the Bible during “empty” periods

Throughout history God’s people primarily heard his Word. As a matter of fact, many ancient texts were written to be heard rather than read. This should not replace Bible reading and study (praise God we now have access to many translations of the Bible!), but it’s helpful to hear God’s Word as its original hearers did.

Download an audio Bible translation and listen to it during “empty” periods in your day, times when you have tasks to complete that take little to no brainpower. These are the moments we are most tempted to turn on a sports broadcast, the TV, or listen to our own self-talk. Instead, listen to the Bible when you do laundry, exercise, mow the lawn, fix the car, drive to work, clean the house, or cook or bake. Don’t obsess about giving the audio 100% of your focus; just throw it on in the background. You will be shaped by it more than you think. This has been one of my favorite habits I’ve recently implemented!

4. Gather to hear God’s Word corporately

There’s a powerful story in Nehemiah 8:1-8 in which God’s people gathered to hear the Law read and interpreted. It changed them as they corporately heard and responded to the Scriptures. The practice of gathering to hear and respond to God’s Word has been an integral part of his people throughout redemptive history.

Today, we must be committed to gathering each week to hear God’s Word preached. This actually takes a small amount of effort (outside of getting ready and driving to church). Simply attend your local church gathering and actively listen to biblical exposition. A steady diet of the preached Word week in and week out has power to form you. Of course, there are times you just can’t get there but the norm should be gathering with God’s people on a set apart day to hear God’s Word.

5. Meet for regular Bible study

Colossians 3:16 exhorts believers to “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom.” Meeting weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly with other people to study the Scriptures is a formative practice. Many of my most fruitful relationships have been borne out of faithful Bible study.

Don’t overcomplicate this. Set a regular time and place to meet. Do it in a convenient place such as your home, a park, or your office. Build it naturally into your schedule—meet forty-five minutes before work with co-workers or during your child’s play date with another mom or thirty minutes before class with a fellow student. Pick a short book (e.g., 1 John) and commit to read through it separately then meet to discuss. Talk about points of conviction and how you will respond.¹

These simple practices are the regular ploughing of our heart with God's word. You will be more apt to think God’s thoughts, challenge cultural norms, spot your own blindspots, feel spiritually nourished, and grow in godliness. As your appetite for and commitment to God’s Word grows, it will drown out the cultural noise all around you. Also, the recovered art of biblical formation in your life will produce marked transformation in the life of your community as you seek to make, mature, and multiply disciples.

1. For in-depth Bible study, download this easy-to-use guide will provide a solid launching pad (right-click here).

—

Whitney Woollard is passionate about equipping others to read and study God’s Word well resulting maturing affection for Christ and his glorious gospel message. She holds a Bachelors of Science in Biblical Studies from Moody Bible Institute and a Masters of Arts in Biblical and Theological Studies from Western Seminary. Whitney and her husband Neal currently live in Portland, OR where they call Hinson Baptist Church home. Visit her writing homepage whitneywoollard.com.

Biblical Meditation As Experiential Reading

Perhaps one of the greatest ironies should be assigned to our current situation: we have more access to Scripture and its rich historical truths than ever before and yet we have in our churches an ever-increasing lethargy when it comes to the exploration of said truths. In other words, we have the Bible in our pockets with information at our fingertips and yet we lack a desire to experience the Word afresh. Maybe instead of calling it an irony we could call it a tragedy. The truth is, we have Study Bibles, Bible software, Bible studies, Bible apps, Bible commentaries, Bible dictionaries, Bible lexicons, and voluminous works after voluminous works of history’s finest theologians—and we’re not any smarter, any more holy, or any more passionate about God and his Word. What’s the problem?

Biblical Meditation

In our drive-through Christianity in America, we value our time and our dollars, which means we don’t have the time or the capital to slow down and digest Scripture. Either we’re not hungry because we’re not walking with Christ, or we are hungry but we prefer the dollar menu rather than the fine dining banquet. We lack time and we lack passion.

Consequently, Biblical meditation requires us to swim upstream from our culture. When the Apostle Paul challenged Timothy to “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15, KJV), I can’t believe for one second that he meant it should be easy.

Biblical meditation is when the Spirit-filled reader ruminates on the word of God and is shaped by the Spirit to its message. When a person desires to meditate on the Word as we are told to do often in Scripture (e.g., Josh. 1:8; Ps. 1:2, 19:14, 119:97-99, 143:5; Eph. 4:17-18), she reads the words on the page, brings its truth to mind, ponders it in light of what it says about God and herself, and seeks to apply it to every aspect of her being. While many various eastern religions emphasize the “emptying” of one’s mind, Christian meditation emphasizes the filling of one’s mind so as to align with the Triune God.

Experiential Meditation

It is my contention that in order to have a healthy spiritual life built on sound, fervent, and frequent meditation on Scripture, we must do so experientially. This is by no means a new concept, for the Puritans built their ministries on this concept. What does it mean to mediate on the Bible experientially? Simply put, we are to “love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deut. 6:5).

Experiential Bible meditation is different from what’s practiced by many Christians today. Typically the Bible is read in a superficial way. The words are read in our minds or even aloud, and instead of getting out the exegetical shovel and doing the hard labor, we move on to the next thing. (Hence the appeal to short devotional readings—we don’t have time to spend processing and pondering a passage, so we need someone to help us get a little nugget and get it quickly).

In our 140-character world, it’s no wonder we can’t dig deep and do honest experiential Bible meditation. We’re trained to consume short amounts of information, oftentimes sharing an article on Facebook, for example, because of the headline instead of actually reading the entire article.

Inevitably, this type of consumption of content breeds spiritual lethargy. Therefore, we must slow down and return to experiential meditation—the process whereby we take a verse, or a set of verses and we spend time allowing our hearts, minds, souls, and hands to be shaped by the Spirit through the Word. It’s not enough to just read the Bible; the Bible must read us. Meditation is the key to experiential Bible reading. Instead of just reading words and passively processing them, true experiential meditation ought to stir the heart and motivate the hands. To read the Bible is to simply hold up a mirror. To read the Bible experientially is to gaze upon the mirror with inquisitive wonder.

Experiential Christian Living

So how does this work? What does it practically look like? To meditate biblically is to read the Bible through the power and promises of God in Christ. Bible reading ought to point us to Christ and the implications of his Kingdom in the world. Not only do we mediate on the Word for knowledge and understanding, we meditate on the Word for practice and piety. Orthodoxy leads to orthopraxy. The Christian life consists of theology going in and doxology going out; doctrine in the heart and mind, worship with our lives. We dare not only hear the word; we must do the word, too (Jas. 1:22).

Biblical, experiential meditation means that we focus in on what the Holy Spirit inspired so we align our heads, hearts, and hands with what God intends to impress upon the soul. The head, heart, and hands paradigm coincides with repentance, faith, and mission.

• Repentance (Head) – When reading Scripture, we should, like King David, weep. “I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping” (Ps. 6:6). The reason many people fail to exhibit righteous behavior and the fruit of the Spirit is because in our efforts to follow Jesus, we’ve forgotten about repentance. The Christian life is a life of ongoing repentance. If we wish to follow Jesus into the world, we must follow him with repentant hearts. The reason this must start in the head? “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Rom. 12:2). When our minds are renewed and refreshed, our hearts follow along. Instead of being deceived by our hearts (Jer. 17:9), we can be guided by the truth—the Word of God. Biblical, experiential meditation on Scripture aims to answer the question: “What sin have I let run amuck in my heart?” This type of meditation requires a true examination of self before God in his presence in front of his Word.

• Faith (Heart) – The charge of experiential meditation focuses on the gospel of King Jesus which corresponds with the Apostle Paul’s words: “[A] love…from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith” (1 Tim. 1:5). Because the mind is prone to wander, the heart is not far behind. Instead of shrinking back into a lethargically obtuse spirituality, experiential meditation ought to push us to “draw near [to God] with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Heb. 10:22). We read the Bible to know not just about God, but to know God. When the Spirit works in us, he works via the means of his inspired Word. The Bible ought to be stuffed deep in the soul so our hearts are set on fire with a passion for the glory of God. It does no good to read the words of Scripture at the surface—we must plunge ourselves by faith into the Word of God so the Spirit can change us. It takes time, energy, focus, and affection. The Lord is near to the broken-hearted, so step one is to acknowledge our brokenness. We can then rely on the promises that he is near us, challenging us to grow with a heart full of child-like faith.

• Mission (Hands) – It’s not experiential if it doesn’t lead us to act. The Spirit works in the life of Christians who make it their practice to meditate on Scripture producing heads full of repentance, hearts full of faith, and hands toiling for the Lord (1 Cor. 15:58). Part of the reason the American church has been lazy in mission is because we’ve been lazy to pursue a heart of faith and repentance. It does no good to talk about disciple making if we can’t get the full-orbed Christian life straightened out. The mission of disciple making and maturing cannot flourish if the mind and heart is not full of the gospel. Biblical, experiential meditation fuels mission. When we are saturated in the Word of God because we’ve gazed into the mirror of God’s Word, love in action for our homes, church, neighborhoods, and cities is the result. We want experiential disciples who make disciples who make more disciples. We can’t do this without loving others and we can’t love others when we do not love the Lord.

Experiential meditation on the Word of God isn’t an end to itself; it begins as a life transformed from the inside out. It is the duty of God’s people to shape their minds through godly repentance, aligning their affections with hearts full of faith in a very big God, while cultivating a life of obedience to what God has tasked us with: discipling all nations.

Ultimately, experiential meditation does not make us more righteous. Reading the Bible doesn’t some how magically transform your standing before the Throne of God. The righteousness you need is in Christ and you have every last ounce of it. Experiential meditation helps us live in light of the righteous standing you have before God and leads us to a vibrant, difficult, real, sorrowful, joyful, and holistic walk with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You have been justified by his grace through faith, so now you can go in that same inebriating, experiential grace and live an abundant life for his glory.

—

Rev. Jason M. Garwood (M.Div., Th.D.) serves as Lead Pastor of Colwood Church in Caro, MI and author of Be Holy and The Fight for Joy. Jason and his wife Mary have three children, Elijah, Avery and Nathan. He blogs at www.jasongarwood.com. Connect with him on Twitter: @jasongarwood.

Devoted to King Jesus

Early in my campus ministry, I found myself in a relational, spiritual, and emotional crisis, which forced me to examine my past’s influence upon my life. Interspersed between painful memories, I questioned the nature of God and how he works in our lives: Is God in control of history and time? And more importantly, if he is, are his actions and heart good? To be honest, navigating these deep questions from the land mines of my anger and confusion seemed like an impossible journey; especially since I was targeting my rage at God. Even so, the mercy and patience of the Lord held me up while he slowly massaged my grieving heart and revealed his good and perfect will for my life. One of the means used to do both was many of the stories told in the gospel narratives especially Luke 2.

The Birth of a King

The story of Jesus’ birth is so familiar that it’s hard to appreciate its historical and spiritual nuances. I read over these familiar text like someone in a food coma after a huge Thanksgiving meal. However, as I read this text, the Holy Spirit provided fresh insight into the otherwise familiar story and shed light on its unexamined contours and applied it to my own heart.

In Luke 1 leading up to chapter 2 reveals how the sovereignty of God “drags humanity around” for his purposes. The major characters of this narrative, both those against and for his glory, are having their lives invaded in major ways. For example,

Zechariah and Elizabeth are forced to enter into the much wanted, but exhausting terrain of parenthood at an inconceivable old age; voices and bodies are compelled towards that end.

Mary and Joseph’s minds are entirely warped by God invading their life through Gabriel’s stark news, the overly intimate hovering of the Holy Spirit, and the awkward thought of parenting a child who has divinely conceived.

And to make matters worse, Joseph and Mary are inconveniently reminded by the edict of Rome’s Caesar Augustus to register in your hometown that in a very real world way they were not in control of their lives.

I can’t imagine how confusing and frustrating this all must have felt. Two worldview agendas at odds, the Kingdom of God and Rome, with two families caught in the middle of this metaphysical tussle. Both kings, one legitimate and the other illegitimate, are moving in time and space to establish their thrones in the hearts of humanity; both are calling these two families to be “counted” in their respective census. Can you imagine being pulled around like this in such a deep existential way? Commanded to submit one’s heart to one or the other?

Register Your Devotion

And then it hit me. We all are being pulled in this way to pick a side. We must register our devotion to either the things of this world or God’s King. We have been wrestling with this choice since our first family’s betrayal in the Garden of Eden. And considering our long history, we have landed on the wrong side more times than not. In fact, the chances of humanity being able to overcome the influence of the coup de taux of heaven are next to impossible.

Humanity’s hope? God crashes the “time and space” party of history. It starts with dabbling with various relationships and their reproductive capacities. He begins with a geriatric couple who have been barren their entire marriage; God pays them an angelic visit, and baboom, they are pregnant. Then, he proceeds to a nearby village and performs a procreation miracle, via the Holy Spirit, on behalf of an engaged virgin and her stunned fiancé. Through it all, the Lord of the universe creates life where life has never been before, the wombs of a barren senior citizen and a very young virgin. These crazy visitations point to the means by which God the Father will graciously save the world; in particular, that the life of God will come into the soul of man, to overthrow the oppressive tyrant of our souls and of the world.

The birth of Jesus manifests this plan, while pointing to the means by which he will secure his kingdom for the people. Notice, all of the power and glory of the Father residing in a fragile and innocent infant; not striking a pose of judgment and intimidation, but a spirit of gentle, beautiful, and healing communion with humanity. Unlike Caesar Augustus, or the likes of Herod in the Gospel of Matthew, the wise men, angels, and the shepherds are given a sliver of glory as the King of Kings is made manifest to them in the safest form one can imagine: An infant! This occurrence points to the very heart of the gospel—that God is making himself known in a gracious, merciful, and forgiving way to humanity. Amazingly, this revelation of God’s grace works a spirit of devotion, in which the humble of the world commit their hearts to the King gratefully and willing, unlike the brutality of the kings of the world who demand loyalty with the point of a sword. Over time, as the Holy Spirit tenderly worked in my mind and soul via the Word of God and the mentorship of many believers, I saw that my journey and the subsequent scar tissue was the work of a mighty and wise King, who was working through our lives to bring about his redemptive purposes. The pain finally had a rightful place in my story, which allowed me to once again bow the knee to his infinite goodness.

—

Tolivar Wills, and his lovely wife Sam, hail from the great state of Ohio. Following 11 great years of ministry with Campus Crusade at Miami of Ohio University, the Lord led them to pursue theological studies at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. They have 3 beautiful children, ranging from 20 to 12 years old. His primary focus since graduating from seminary in 2005 has been serving as an assistant pastor, an affiliate staff at Yale with Athletes in Action, a church planter of Christ Presbyterian Church in the Hill, and now the senior pastor of St. Paul’s Presbyterian church in Atlanta, Georgia. They love college football, the Ohio State Buckeyes, reading and learning, and spending time with friends and family.

3 Lies That Hinder Our Mission According to John Calvin

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution? -Romans 8:35

I've often heard that "self, society, and Satan" are the three sources of lies. My flesh (like so many other's) often fights against these pithy sayings, but so far as I can tell all lies ultimately come from one of these three sources.

However, all of these "sin sources" are biblical (Eph. 2:2-3). I was reading Calvin's commentary on Romans the other day and came across his remarks on Romans 8:35. He writes:

Tribulation includes every kind of trouble or evil; distress is an inward feeling, when difficulties reduce us to such an extremity, so that we know not what course to pursue. . . . Persecution properly denotes the tyrannical violence by which the children of God were undeservedly harassed by the ungodly.

It struck me how closely his definitions of these three words lined up with the "self, society, and Satan" line of thought. Let's deal with them in turn:

Self

Calvin refers to the word translated "distress" in Romans 8 as "an inward feeling." In other words, we come under distress when we stop trusting in God and His sovereignty and start looking at our own circumstances and allow our own thoughts and feelings to get carried away with worry. Surely someone like Moses could have had this happen to him when he was chased to the edge of the Red Sea with the Egyptians hot on his tail. But instead of "leaning on his own understanding" (Prov. 3:5-6) he trusted the Lord. It just so happens that God can make ways of escape for his people that humans can't do or understand on their own (in this case, parting the Sea!).

Experientially I confess that often I am the cause of lies I believe. I resonate with the theologians rock band Lit who said, "It's no surprise to me I am my own worst enemy."

I can also cry out with Paul who in Romans 7:24-25 wrote:

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Thankfully, Jesus sets us free from ourselves. Through him I can be liberated from my ability to deceive myself.

Society

Society tells me t hat certain kinds of clothes, food, jewelry, car, house, neighborhood, weight, size, shape, skin color, teeth, school, or work determine my self-worth. While these things have varying degrees of importance, God tells me that my identity is drawn from Jesus and to seek him above all these things. If I'm honest, at times I'm too quick to believe the lies society bombards me with rather than what I confess to true from Scripture.

Calvin's comments (v. 8:35)  focus specifically on what the people of God suffer at the hands of those who are opposed to God. While most people in the US have not experienced physical acts of violence as a result of their faith, some are concerned that this sort of persecution is on the horizon. In the meantime, it is far more likely that society will woo us to conform to its image through its clever marketing and that we will adopt their markers of success.

Churches are truly tempted to make budgets, baptisms, and “butts in seats” synonymous with success. These are all good and important things, but don’t necessarily equate to faithfulness to Christ. God desires above all that his Church seek him and make disciples that obey the teachings of Christ (Matt. 28). Yet, it’s not hard to find churches that have abandoned this distinctive for societal marks of success and brought the Church’s mission into subordination to the American Dream.

Just as Jesus gives us the power to overcome our own self-deception, He's given us the power to overcome society's lies. In Galatians 1:3-4 we read: “The Lord Jesus Christ . . . gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.”

Satan

Finally, we come to Satan, our adversary and "the father of lies" (Jn. 8:44). If not for him, no sin or lies would exist within humanity. He is the source of all tribulation that’s not tied to the first two sources. Satan filled the heart of Judas on the night he betrayed Jesus. There’s an evil lie that tells us money is better than God and this lie shaped Judas in his betrayal (Matt. 26:15; 1 Tim. 6:10).

While Satan should be feared and we should not underestimate his ability to deceive us, we can take comfort knowing that God is sovereign and Satan can only do what God permits him to do (see Job 1 for this). While he prowls around like a roaring lion seeking to devour us (1 Pet. 5:8), we need only resist him and he will flee (Jas. 4:7).

Not surprisingly, Jesus has given us the power to overcome Satan as well:

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. (Heb. 2:14-15)

Finding Our Way Back To The Truth

While all of us will give in to believing lies from time to time, thankfully Jesus has overcome these things and has imparted His victory to us by our faith in Him. We have God's inerrant truth in the Bible and can always turn there to help us in fighting off these lies. We also have prayer so we can trust in God with all our heart instead of leaning on our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5). What is prayer if not a vocal reliance upon our sovereign God?

Thankfully, despite this "unholy trinity" working against us, nothing can separate us from God's love that was made available to us through Jesus. In fact, Paul goes on to say that we are "more than conquerors" (Rom. 8:37). What does it mean to be more than a conqueror? Well it's possible for an army to conquer a competing army in battle yet suffer many casualties. But we are more than conquerors, so even if everything in creation was against us (even ourselves at times!) since God is for us we will not suffer casualties. We may be martyred for our faith, but we will live again and have life abundantly.

As we seek to make, mature, and multiply disciples, we must beware of the lies that threaten to hinder our mission.

—

Sean Nolan (B.S. and M.A., Summit University) is the Family Life Pastor at Christ Fellowship Church in Fallston, MD. Prior to that he served at a church plant in Troy, NY for seven years and taught Hermeneutics to ninth and tenth graders. He is married to Hannah and is father to Knox and Hazel. He blogs at Hardcore Grace and the recently started Family Life Pastor.

Moving Forward on Mission Together

Every community and mission is unique. The cookie cutter doesn’t exist. However, the best place to start is to listen to the people you are sent to and reflect on how their lives might intersect the gospel and community.

Understand the Mission

Here are five sets of questions to help you move forward in discipling others as a community with the gospel.

1. People: Who are the people is God sending us to? Where do they live and hang out? What are their stories? What are their names? What are the avenues to engage and build relationship?

2. Language: What “language” do they speak? Are these people young families, business professionals, working class, etc?

3. Value: What is most important to them? Success, money, relationships, independence, survival, comfort, escape, etc? Who speaks into their worldview?

4. Gospel: What false gospel do they believe in? In other words, what do they hope for? What is the “problem” in their eyes? What is the solution? How is the gospel good news to them? How does it address their values? How is the gospel better than what they value most right now?

5. Needs: What are their needs? How does Jesus meet those needs? How can we be part of meeting their needs in a way that “shows” the gospel?

Know What You Have to Offer

What are the gifts, resources, and passions of the community? Who is in your group? What has God given you as a people—not simply possessions, but talents, abilities, hobbies? What is it that you have to offer these people as a community? Likewise, how will your community begin to rely on and expect relationship from those you are sent to?

As you create this list, you will quickly realize you do not have enough. Your community doesn’t have what it takes, you don’t have the resources to solve homelessness in your city. This is the right place to be. It will push you to pray and push you to faithfully and humbly take steps. Don’t be proud of what you have to give, come to mission dependent. Don’t come defeated. Come with the confidence that Jesus is enough.

Lead Into the What

1. Commit to a new pattern of life. You are going to have to change the way you live to engage in relational ministry with the marginalized. Things will change.

2. Create a plan of patiently speaking and demonstrating the gospel. Planning requires putting things on the calendar and in the budget. Make a plan together that allows you to be on mission together. If you don’t plan it, it probably won’t happen.

3. Once you’ve planned it, show up. This takes resolve. The planning part of our brain is rational and taps into the deep longings of our souls. The in-the-moment-decision-making part of our brain taps into our primal desires for comfort and pleasure. Making a plan is huge but overcoming the urge to call it off or call in sick is also huge.

4. Once you show up, evaluate how it went as a community. Ask questions like: How did it feel? What fears did doing this bring up? Who wanted to show up? What was it that got exposed in your own heart as you served. Also, evaluate the mission: what do we need to grow in to be better missionaries? How do our hearts need to change? What did we learn about their true needs? What was encouraging? Do we need to change our plan and do we need to change our prayers? Finally, what did we learn about Jesus?

—

Brad Watson (@bradawatson) serves as a pastor of Bread&Wine Communities where he develops and teaches leaders how to form communities that love God and serve the city. Brad is the author of Raised?, Called Together: A Guide to Forming Missional Communities, and Sent Together: How the Gospel Sends Leaders to Start Missional Communities. He lives in southeast Portland with his wife and their two daughters. You can read more from Brad at www.bradawatson.com.

Leadership in John 21

For leaders, one of the strongest tensions we face is understanding where we are. Not in a location or geography sense. I mean that in a sense of time. Leadership today is often described as the ability to be a “futurist” or “visionier.” Our culture cries out for leaders who can see down the road a couple of decades and pull out a greater and more glorious reality of what is to come for their followers. We want our leaders to live in tomorrowland and motivate us toward it. Certainly there is a rightness to this for a ministry leader. We want our people to reach the “prize of the upward call of God in Christ” (Phil. 3:15). Hopefully our ambition in ministry is to “present everyone mature in Christ” (Col. 1:28). Discipleship, after all, is about becoming more and more like Christ in all things. This is what Jesus had in mind when he told us to “make disciples of all nations … teaching them to obey all I have commanded (Matt. 28:19). Leaders in the church must envision what maturity in Christ looks like for their people.

Often, however, we are stuck envisioning a future for our local church that is more about the church growing in size and influence in the culture instead of seeing the people, who are the church, growing in christlikeness. Discipleship becomes a system of techniques, classes, and processes to move the organization into the future instead of the development of a person growing in their union with Christ. Like our industrialized society, discipleship is often reduced to an assembly-line manufacturing system that inputs a sinner and outputs a saint. I don’t mean for this post to exhaust what discipleship could and should look like for those leading in the local church but to simply call us to one specific act of leadership that requires a shift in our perspective from future-thinking to our present-placement. I have heard it said frequently from many places, “shepherd the church you have, not the one you hope to have.” I’m calling leaders to return from their time-travel to the present.

Jesus as the Present Leader

The example of Christ in John 21 is helpful to me in understanding this. The chapter sits as a epilogue to the whole book and ties together a few strings that we have remaining after Jesus’ resurrection, specifically the failure of Peter. Jesus finds his disciples in Galilee back in their boats doing what they do best, fishing. Before Jesus is able to cast a vision for the mission and catalyze a movement with these disciples he must shepherd them in the present context of their life. John’s account shows us how Jesus leads in such a way that he enables their future growth and maturity but is within the context of their present reality. Two specific examples demonstrate this:

1. Jesus Provides For Them

Understand that the disciples here are professional fishermen by trade. These guys earned a living scooping fish out in loads. One night’s worth of work with no result is an abject failure and frustration. More often than we would choose to think this is the world that we exist in. No matter how gifted, talented, resourceful, or dynamic we are most of our efforts are wrought with frustration and often failure. Yet Jesus steps into that moment of failure and provides for those disciples in deep care and love. The way in which he provides is an act of revelation of himself and blessing to his disciples.

We probably won’t be able to miraculously provide physically for those we are leading, but we must work at providing something for them. Certainly the provision of our time, our attention and our presence is help to those who are seeking to grow in Christ. A good question to ask is, “are you resourcing yourself to the people you are leading?” Do they have time with you? Do they have your attention? Do have have your wisdom and counsel? Leaders will often use their time as a carrot to dangle it in front of people who we want to accomplish something for us. When was the last time you resourced your people with unhurried time with yourself? When was the last time you sat down with your team, without an agenda on the table or a list to be accomplished, and gave yourself to them?

2. Jesus Restores Them

The people that we lead are far more wounded and broken then we will often care to admit. This is frustrating for most leaders because we want whole, dynamic, healthy people behind us because it makes the growth all the more palpable and expansive. The reality is that our sin invades every area of our lives, and the ways we are sinned against makes us far more fragile that we want to believe. It makes our people more delicate that we often care to give time to.

So it was with Peter. He was the type-A, dynamic, catalytic, entrepreneurial leader that was going to be a great success. Except at the crisis moment he was no better than Judas. His failure was just as deep. Do not discount the fact that your failures, and the failures of your people are paramount to the failures of Peter. We are all in need of restoration. And this is what Jesus does.

He lovingly reverses and undoes the triple betrayal of Peter. He replaces that betrayal with love. Jesus’ questions of “do you love me” aren’t questions to shame and guilt Peter. They are are questions to restore him.

Living presently as a leader requires restorative words and works of grace to those we live with. Certain leadership styles are infamous for discarding failed disciples as “bodies under the bus” and continuing to move on “for the sake of the mission.” The problem with that view of leadership is that the mission isn’t to have a big church. The mission is to be proclaim Christ and display Christ by restoring and healing broken people.

Present In Time and Space

Leadership is about the future. We must show and call people to a life in Christ that is full of his glory and our transformation to his image. We can not fail to show this vision to our people again and again. But we must not sacrifice the present for the hope of a future that we’ve envisioned outside of Christ’s view of it. I believe it is the work of Biblical leadership to bring people to Jesus’ vision of a new humanity. We can, in some ways, discard our own projects for notoriety and success and focus on Jesus’ vision. If we do that it will enable us to live and focus on the lives of the people we lead in the present.

If you are a leader in ministry I would challenge you to ask how your ministry goals line up with the future vision of Christ for his church. Paul speaks Jesus’ work as presenting his bride, the church, as one who is “cleansed … by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:26-27). Is the goal you are working for? Or are you working for a number to post on a scoreboard of how many came to your worship service this last week?

Jeremy Writebol (@jwritebol) has been training leaders in the church for over fourteen years. He is the author of everPresent: How the Gospel Relocates Us in the Present (GCD Books, 2014) and writes at jwritebol.net. He is the pastor of Woodside Bible Church’s Plymouth, MI campus. 

They Know My Voice

Ours is a noisy world. An endless cacophony of voices clamors for our attention every day. The incessant ping of our cell phones reminds us that we are always on call. Some of these voices overtly seek to lure our hearts away from God, toward the wicked desires of our hearts. More often, these voices are seemingly mundane and sterile, like the viral video of a fight between a porcupine and a hippo (or something equally mind-numbing). Our social media accounts, blogs, radios, and TVs are vying for our attention and trying to influence our actions. The subtle danger of the unrelenting noise in our lives is that we may miss the voice of God. In John’s gospel, Jesus equates his care for God’s people to that of a shepherd and the sheep entrusted to his care. Like a good shepherd, Jesus leads his sheep to safety (v. 9), suffers to ensure their care (v. 11), protects them from harm (v. 12), and has thorough knowledge of their needs (v. 14). His shepherding stands in stark contrast to thieves and robbers who come only to steal, kill, and destroy (v. 10). Those who are truly God’s sheep know the difference between the two. John writes,

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. (Jn. 10:1-4)

The sheep know the voice of the Shepherd. They hear him call and follow where he leads, because they know his voice.

I’ve Heard That Before

The image of a sheep and a shepherd is indicative of the way God desires to speak to his people. The spoken word is one of the most powerful tools for the work of a shepherd. With his voice, he warns his sheep of danger and calls them towards fertile pastures. Great danger awaits a sheep that foolishly follows his own desires or the voice of an imposter. Only his shepherd knows how best to lead his sheep. In time, sheep are trained to know and recognize the voice of their shepherd. They know that it is in their best interest to listen to that one voice.

We see the same process happen in the life of infants who quickly learn to recognize the voice of their mothers. Regardless of who else is in the room, when mom speaks, the child listens and responds. The reason is clear—the child has learned to associate that voice with food, comfort, and love. The mom’s voice stands out, it captures their attention, and it clams their heart.

God’s children are meant to recognize his voice as well. Before conversion, their sin-darkened hearts make them tone deaf to the voice of God. They have ears, yet cannot hear (Mk. 8:18). But God, in his kindness, speaks words of life to the hearts of his children by the power of his Spirit. He opens their hearts and they hear his invitation to salvation. At first, this voice is new, distinct, and compelling, yet different from the voices they’ve listened to all their life.

Time and again, God speaks. And, as he does, his children learn to recognize his voice. Like little sheep, God’s people discover that they should listen to God’s voice because he knows what is best. God’s sheep hear his voice above the noise of a fallen world.

The Ever-Present Voice of the Shepherd

God is a speaking God who is intent on leading his people. The voice of the Good Shepherd is an ever-present reality in the life of God’s children. Here the image of a shepherd leading his sheep is helpful. No shepherd worth the title would simply get up each morning and say to his sheep, “Alright boys and girls, today is going to be a big day. We’re going to head out toward the west. At some point, some mangy wolves are going to attack, and when they do…well…I’ll figure something out. And somewhere between mile-marker 11 and 14, you’ll need to turn toward a luscious pasture. I hope things work out for you and I’ll talk to you tonight.”

This is not the way shepherds work. They lead by speaking throughout the day. They constantly monitor the sheep and, with their voice, guide each movement, each change of direction, and each defense against an enemy’s advance.

God’s voice works the same way. Many have rightly been told that spiritual formation hinges on meeting with God through prayer and Bible study on a regular basis. There God graciously speaks to us through his Word, exposes our sin, calls us to repentance, and reminds us of the steadfast nature of his love. But, God does not stop speaking when we put down the cup of coffee and head off into the daily grind. He goes with us and continues to seek to lead us by his Word. He knows our hopes and dreams, our deepest needs, and our propensity to sin. Because he is a sovereign, the speaking God is an ever-present voice that guides his children, if we listen.

The Hearing Aid of Action

So, how do you and I train our ears to recognize the voice of God throughout the day? Certainly, we should give thought to the noise we willingly invite into our lives. Many of the voices we hear on a daily basis are there by our own choosing, such as social media, TV, blogs, or text messaging. One way God’s people learn to hear the voice of God is by actively and intentionally turning down the voices of the world. Rest, solitude, and silence position the human heart to hear the still, small voice by which God is continually speaking to his people.

But, James presents another way of training our hearts to hear the voice of God when he writes,

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at this natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing (Jms. 2:22–25).

Action is the hearing aid of the Christian life. James contrasts the hearer and the doer—both receiving the gift of God’s voice, but only one finding the blessing of God. The one who acts not only is “blessed in his doing,” but his action also heightens his awareness of the voice of God the next time he speaks.

Let’s imagine that a husband hears God through the Word, which challenges the husband’s neglect of his family and confronts his passivity in his discipleship of his children. The man quickly rationalizes his actions, protesting that his 80-hour work week is a testament to his love for his family and is necessary for his kids to go to college and succeed in life. As a result, he doesn’t obey the voice of God, and, through his inactivity, he turns down the voice of God and cranks up the voice of the enemy. The next time God speaks, the voice of God will likely be harder to hear because this man has trained his ears to listen to the wrong voice.

Another man may hear the same voice. However, this man listens. Convicted of his sin, this man asks his family for forgiveness and commits to reducing his workload in order to spend more time at home. He trusts God to meet the needs of his family and rests secure in God’s faithful care. This man finds blessing in his action. He learns that God will, in fact, provide and discovers that his family is a source of great joy. Through his action, he turns up the volume of the voice of God—not only in this instance, but also in the future when God speaks to him. He recognizes God’s voice as the one who exposed his sin and led him to blessing. Each time this man hears and acts, the voice of God gets louder and louder, eventually drowning out the competing voices of the world.

This doesn’t happen overnight. In fact, each day, in thousands of ways, we are training our ears to hear. Every time we hear God speak, each seemingly mundane decision he asks us to make, or every time he graciously points out sin in our lives and the countless steps of faith he puts before us are unique opportunities to learn to recognize the voice of the Shepherd.

—

Matt Rogers is the pastor of The Church at Cherrydale in Greenville, South Carolina. He and his wife, Sarah, have three daughters, Corrie, Avery, and Willa and a son, Hudson. Matt holds a Master of Arts in counseling from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary as well as a Master of Divinity and a PhD  from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Matt writes and speaks for throughout the United States on discipleship, church planting, and missions. Find Matt online at www.mattrogers.bio or follow him on Twitter @mattrogers_

Know God Intimately by Knowing the Word

Lisa Bevere, author and speaker, writes, “Rules will never set us free, just as fear and control will never keep us safe . . .The Law demands and dominates, but love leads and gives.” I’m captivated by her use of this revelation to teach women how rules alone will not keep them sexually pure. She argues that true sexual purity for God’s daughters is the product of a real and vibrant intimacy between them and their heavenly Father. She prescribes nothing short of a fairytale, sparing none of the fantastical ingredients of our most dearly beloved ones; princes and princesses, a castle and far off lands, danger and rescue. And as she weaves this story, she proves how laws can never legislate love, but that true obedience is fashioned out of deep and abiding intimacy. What has that got to do with Scripture memorization?

We have overlooked intimacy as an ingredient of this long underrated discipline in modern discipleship. These days, I wonder just where has the challenge to memorize Scripture gone? We live in a time where parishioners can quote more Jerry Seinfeld than they can Jesus Christ. And so, what is the solution? Is it to legislate more laws of Scripture memory from our pulpits or is it to pray that God would make us people of his Word? Is it such a big deal at all? Technically, there’s no verse that commands us to memorize Scripture, right?

But what if that’s not the point? What if Scripture memory is actually a passionate response to the love and grace of the God who extended both to us? What if Scripture memorization invites us to better know the one who loves us most?

Motivated by Passion

When I think about Scripture memorization, the usual passage comes to mind, “Thy word have I hid in my heart; that I might not sin against you.” (Ps. 119:11). Immediately, we draw upon the necessity of the verse, the why (i.e., “that I might not sin”), but we rarely reflect upon the nature of the man or the who that wrote it. This man was very real and raw; a man of war and of passion. Of David, it is written that he was a man after God’s own heart. Though he could beat a lion and a bear with his bare hands he could also unashamedly burst into tears of praise or anguish before his God and his people. He was indeed full of passion. This man wrote that verse. David teaches us that God is not only concerned with us doing what we are told, but also with the direction in which our hearts are led. “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” (Rom. 8:14).

Though it was no law in his Torah, it was a value in his heart. David’s passion led him to realize as Dr. John Piper says, “You cannot hide what you have not memorized.” And the promise of its necessity, though not fulfilled in David’s life, is come to fruition in the life of his Greater Descendant—Jesus. See Jesus in the wilderness (as recorded in the Gospels) being tempted by the devil. How does he win this match with almost all natural odds stacked against him? By his memory. By what he has hidden in his heart that he might be an obedient Son, not believe the devils’ lie and sin against his Father. And we know that Jesus too was a man of even greater passion—one in total intimacy with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Passion is Built on What We Prize

Memorizing Scripture helps us to prize God’s voice above others because our passions are built on what we prize. As a culture heavily dieted on media and entertainment, I’ve noticed how even Christians boast more fluency of popular TV sitcoms than of the Bible. Do we identify with a cast on TV or a sports team roster more than with our ancestors in God’s story? If so, this evidences how we are prizing other voices over God’s in the Scriptures. Yet that‘s the voice we are commanded to meditate on both day and night. Rosaria Champagne Butterfield says, “When we cross reference our lives with Scripture, we insert ourselves into God’s story.” This process is significantly aided through committing God’s Word to memory. Instead of pouring our passions into scripts and filtering them through the psychology of modern television we can instead sift our hearts by the greatest story of all.

Scripture memorization brings a primacy of God’s point of view to our minds. It makes Christ more real and more beautiful to us as it keeps his reality close to our hearts and makes them inseparable. A long distance lover who receives a letter from their sweetheart feels immediately and undeniably connected from the moment their fingers touch the letter or their nostrils inhale the scent of its pages. Every aspect of the experience is savored because the beloved is prized.

This is important because merely quoting Scripture is not the same as prizing God’s voice. For the gospel to work in the heat of temptation, it requires an intimate affiliation with it. One that prizes it over and above the bait that is being dangled before us.

The End of Intimacy is Knowing

Picture a woman’s fingers gently tracing the face of her lover. What is she doing, but becoming intimately acquainted with every feature of the one she loves. She will know each contour, curve, and line of her beloved’s face. Her passion for him fascinates her. He will be no stranger to her in the dark. These acts of intimacy familiarize her with her lover. Committing God’s word to memory does this for us as well. Memorizing Scripture familiarizes us with the various contours, curves, and lines of Jesus’ character. His nature and ways are no stranger to me for I am my beloved’s and He is mine (Song of Songs 6:3). This familiarity, this knowing is the end of intimacy. In Genesis 4:1, it says, “And Adam knew Eve, his wife . . .”

The culmination of intimacy is knowing one another completely. Our intimacy with God through the memorization of his Word will lead to us knowing him. The end of Scripture memorization is not a boastful spirit (which is what the law produces), but Christ-the living Word. We will recognize Jesus.

Jesus sharply rebuked the Pharisees in his day saying, “Verily, you search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life—but these are they which testify of me!” The Pharisees missed the point of memorization, Christ. Their memorization should have led them to immediately recognize the Savior when he came—but they did not. For they never learned to prize the voice of God, so that they recognized him when he spoke. Their motivation was not passion, but performance. They were more in love with their present political arrangement of compromise than they were with the God in whom they should have put their hope. And so when God spoke to them by Christ, it was the voice of a stranger and they would not follow.

They did not know God. And because true intimacy always leads to knowing, their empty adherence to the laws resulted in what the law always ends in apart from faith-futility (i.e., attempting to be justified by keeping the Law instead of turning to Jesus in faith and thus results in futility—relying on anything outside of faith in Jesus to justify). They did not proceed from passion so they did not end in intimacy. As a child knows its mother’s voice because it has been whispered over them while in the womb, in the light of day with gentle caresses, and in the night soothing after terrifying dreams—so does Scripture memorization train us to recognize a God who has spoken and is still speaking to us through that same living and active Word. Let us remember that we know God and also know God intimately by remembering his Word.

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Kileeo Rashad is based in Philadelphia, PA, where he serves his local church in many capacities; speaker, preacher, deacon, and hospitality director. He is currently working on a debut writing project which will address breaking silence on sexual brokenness within the church. Kileeo is also the founder of Restoring the Breaches, a ministry that aims to help churches and individuals facilitate gospel-centered conversations around sexuality. 

3 Ways To Repent of Our Apathy Towards Evil

Last week America celebrated the 43^rd anniversary of the Roe versus Wade, the landmark decision that legalized abortion nationwide.^[1] In an official statement released by the White House, President Obama reinforced the prevailing sentiment that the American dream can and should be pursued at any cost, even if that cost is the lives of almost 58 million innocent unborn baby girls and baby boys made in God’s image. He declared, “In America, every single one of us deserves the rights, freedoms, and opportunities to fulfill our dreams.” The multiple layers of distortion and demonic deception in that sentence are astonishing. It sickens me. Yet, it was my own sin of apathy on Thursday, January 22^nd, 2016 that grieves me more deeply. I didn’t think about the aborted that day. Not even once. It’s one thing for an unbeliever blinded by the god of this world to release that statement. It’s another thing for a believer to become so calloused to the cry of the oppressed that she would forget to pray for justice on their behalf. Honestly, I’ve heard so many voices surrounding the issue of abortion that it (unconsciously) became white noise to me, slowly lulling my conscience to sleep.

Awakening My Deadened Conscience

This past Sunday as I gathered with my church family, through the preaching of God’s Word, my conscience was awakened to the cries of the oppressed. The Spirit jarred me as I felt the weight of the 58 million abortions since Roe v. Wade ruling. It was like “I knew,” but I didn’t really know.

In his sermon on Psalm 69, pastor Geoff Chang preached on the imprecatory prayer (vv. 22-28). He helped the congregation think well on these difficult prayers laced throughout the Psalms. He also challenged us to appropriately pray imprecatory prayers in light of the rampant injustice in our country. Geoff boldly proclaimed God’s Word in a way that I felt compelled to share. The following section is taken directly from his manuscript and published with permission.^[2]

My Pastor’s Exposition of Psalm 69:22-28

The psalmist’s prayer for help takes a turn here, praying not only for salvation, but for the judgment of his enemies. Here we see images piled up again, giving us a glimpse of what God’s judgment is like. Where everything good in life is taken away and it’s replaced only with God’s burning wrath, as punishment for their evil. It ends with this dreadful prayer: “May they be blotted out of the book of life, and not be listed with the righteous.” This is a prayer for an ultimate judgment, an ultimate death, even hell.

In our modern 21^st century sensibilities, this is hard for us to grasp. Should we pray like this? Should Christians pray for God to judge and destroy our enemies? How are we to make sense of this?

1. Notice that the psalmist prays to God to accomplish his justice, but the psalmist never takes justice into his own hands. There is nothing here in the prayer that would justify violence in the name of God.
2. Notice that the psalmist is ultimately not out for personal vengeance, but his zeal is for God’s house and for God’s glory. They hate him because they hate God. And so this prayer for judgment is not about personal revenge. Rather it’s a prayer that God’s justice and glory would be upheld and evil would be defeated.
3. Could it be the reason why a passage like this seems so strange to us is simply because we’re just not that passionate about righteousness and truth and justice? We care about ourselves a lot. But we actually care very little for God and His holiness…This past week was the 43^rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade. And the recorded number of legal abortions since that decision: 57,762,169.

That’s 57,762,169 of innocent baby boys and girls made in the image of God put to death for the demonic idols of sex and career and convenience, not in some barbaric land, but right here in our country.

At what point is your conscience so grieved by the enormity of that evil that you would say it’s okay to pray an imprecatory prayer against all those who work so hard to continue this holocaust, to deceive the minds and hearts of hurting women, and to continue profiting from it? Are 57 million deaths enough? 

Could it be that God’s conscience is a bit more sensitive to evil than ours?

Jim Hamilton in his commentary on Revelation writes this:

If you have ever wondered whether you should pray the imprecatory prayers of the Psalms, let me encourage you to look again at the way the martyrs pray for God to “avenge” their blood in Revelation 6. You bet you should pray those imprecatory prayers. Pray that God would either save His enemies, those who oppose the gospel and the people of God, that He would bring them to repentance, or if He is not going to do that, that He would thwart all their efforts to keep people from worshiping God by faith in Christ. Pray that God would either save those who destroy families and hurt little children or thwart all their efforts and keep them from doing further harm. Those prayers will be heard. Pray that God would either redeem people who are right now identifying with the seed of the serpent, or if he is not going to redeem them, that he would crush them and all their evil designs. God will answer those prayers.

Friends, this imprecatory prayer of judgment is not some embarrassing part of Scripture for us to hide away. No, rather, this is the only appropriate response to evil coming from a conscience that is properly attuned to God’s holiness.

Repenting of My Own Apathy 

On Sunday I repented of my apathetic, cold heart. I cried over the fact that I haven’t cried over the oppressed in a long time. I was reminded that we live in a broken world—unborn babies are murdered by their parents, refugees suffer and die at the hands of unjust governments, little girls are raped by their daddies, and innocent lives are taken in acts of terrorism. Evil is real and it necessitates a response from believers. 

There are a variety of responses and measures that need to be taken by God’s people in the face of evil. In the way of personal repentance, I would like to share the convictions I had stemming from Sunday’s sermon:

1. We must be angry

Christians, of all people, should be the most sensitive to evil because it is a direct affront to our God’s righteousness, justice, and holiness. When God’s image-bearers are oppressed by evildoers, it’s ultimately an attack on him and his character. The lackadaisical attitude towards evil that often characterizes the Christian is out of place and unacceptable. We must never allow ourselves to grow apathetic towards the plight of the oppressed. This begs the question, how sensitive is your conscience to evil? How quick are you to become outraged at the unjust practices and moral laxity of our culture? When was the last time you wept over the oppressed?

2. We must pray for justice

The atrocities committed by those who oppose God and his kingdom of light drive us to the just King of the universe. Pray that God would attune your conscience to his holiness and you would take up the cause of the helpless. Cry out to God and ask him to bring justice to the oppressed and to deal with the oppressor. Pray that the wicked would turn towards God in repentance and enjoy the marriage supper of the Lamb in Revelation 19:6-9 or, if they don’t, that they would be judged and suffer punishment at the great supper of God in Revelation 19:17-21. Appropriately pray imprecatory prayers against those whose hearts are bent on crushing the vulnerable in rebellion towards God.

3. Pastors must preach God’s Word boldly

Man of God, don’t apologize for or be embarrassed by God’s Word. Eternal judgment is not the great evil of Scripture that you need to dance around. Hell is the final answer to all evil and injustice. In a culture filling our minds with unbiblical worldviews, your congregation needs to be confronted with God’s truth, even the reality of final judgment. One day God will right all wrongs and judge all injustices and this is good news for God’s people. If you’ve been silent on issues that Scripture speak to, repent of your fear or apathy and boldly proclaim God’s Word. I needed to hear a hard word from my pastor this week and I praise God for how that word led me to repentance.

^[1] This article is not intended to heap additional hurt upon hurting women. My heart hurts with them and I’ve cried alongside many women who are broken over their choices. In this particular article I’m speaking to the greater issues of injustice against the oppressed in our country, not the restoration that God can bring to women who have had abortions.

^[2] This is one portion of a full gospel-centered exposition of Psalm 69. Listen to the entire sermon “Praise the Lord…In Suffering (Psalm 69).” I inserted italics font in specific places where I experienced exceptional conviction. Also, the original manuscript was lightly edited to take it from spoken to written form.

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Whitney Woollard is passionate about equipping others to read and study God’s Word well resulting maturing affection for Christ and his glorious gospel message. She holds a Bachelors of Science in Biblical Studies from Moody Bible Institute and a Masters of Arts in Biblical and Theological Studies from Western Seminary. Whitney and her husband Neal currently live in Portland, OR where they call Hinson Baptist Church home. Visit her writing homepage whitneywoollard.com.

Geoff Chang was born in Brazil, but grew up in the great state of Texas. He did his undergraduate studies at the University of Texas at Austin, TX and his post-graduate work at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY. He currently serves as associate pastor at Hinson Baptist Church in Portland, OR, where he lives with his wife Stephanie and their young children.