3 Ways Jesus’s Priestly Work Destroys Soul-Fatigue

A pastor once told me that in his twenties he couldn’t fathom how his friends fell into moral failure or quit vocational ministry. But now, in his fifties, he understands the plausibility of both. I didn’t understand him then. I do now. Pressing forward in faith when you’re getting slammed with trial or temptation is exhausting. The truth is, life is exhausting. We’re bombarded with needs from the minute we awake to a screaming baby to the last text we send to someone we’re discipling. Over time those day-to-day pressures fatigue us. We push and press until one day we’re too tired to go on.

It’s possible to continue the outward mechanics of life, but inwardly check out. Or worse still, give yourself over to soul-numbing sin. Both are common responses to what I call “soul-fatigue.” Soul-fatigue isn’t “I need another cup of coffee” fatigue. It’s “I don’t see a way forward” fatigue. And, eventually, we all experience it.

So how do we persevere when everything inside of us wants to check out of life or find relief in sin?

Ask Your High Priest for Help

It might seem basic, but what you need most when you’re soul-fatigued is Jesus’s help. Whether your need stems from life’s external blows or your own internal temptation, Jesus’s priestly work draws you near to the throne of grace to help you persevere in your time of need.

Hebrews 4:14-16 says,

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

These verses are tucked within the larger context of Hebrews where the author is repeatedly calling his readers to persevere in the Christian faith despite persecution, temptation, and trial. They were growing weary in the faith and were tempted to give up and go back to their old way of life. They were ready to check out.

But the author urges his readers to press on in the midst of trials and temptations because Christ is superior to the angels, to Moses, to the former priests, and to the old covenant sacrificial system. Believers must not turn away. Rather, he admonishes them to look to Jesus, their great high priest. In him, they would find true rest for their souls and courage to persevere until he returns.

This truth is as true for you today as it was for them—Jesus’s priestly work draws you near to the throne of grace to help you persevere in your time of need. So, you need to ask him for help and allow him to minister to you.

3 Ways Jesus’s Priestly Work Destroys Soul-Fatigue

The ways in which Jesus’s priestly work helps you persevere through soul-fatigue are many. Here are three that stand out to me from Hebrews 4:14-16.

– Jesus prays for you. 

Have you ever wondered what Jesus is doing in heaven until he returns at his second coming? He’s praying for you! Hebrews 4:14 says that he ascended into heaven and he now sits at the Father’s right hand (Col. 2:20) and intercedes for us (Rom. 8:34). He is exalted in this intercessory role.

Imagine the scene in the heavenly throne room. Jesus sits beside God and asks him to work on your behalf. “Father, [fill in your name] needs your help today. Increase her faith. Enable her to keep going. Send her encouragement for the moment.” Jesus prays for you, even on days you feel too weak to pray for yourself.

Meditating on this truth is one way to persevere in the faith: When you’re tempted to check out, remember that Jesus is praying for you. When you want to give up on that draining discipleship relationship, Jesus is praying for you. When you don’t know how you’re going to make your marriage work, Jesus is praying for you. When you can’t get out of bed, Jesus is praying for you.

– Jesus “gets” you. 

Not only is Jesus praying for you, Hebrews 4:15 says he’s doing so as one who “gets it.” You have a high priest who empathizes with you in all of your weaknesses. He understands the limitations of a fallen body, the sting of injustice, the loss of loved ones, the frustrations of discipleship, the abandonment and betrayal by friends, the fatigue of ministry, and the full weight of temptation (though he never succumbed and sinned). He partook of everything you endure so that he could be your sympathetic priest.

It’s easy to think that “nobody understands” your struggles. How often have you dismissively said to someone, “You wouldn’t understand”? When we grow fatigued with the life or work God assigned us, it’s tempting to feel like we’re the only ones who has ever felt this frustration. But the truth is, Jesus understands exactly what you’re going through.

Reminding yourself that Jesus took on the full weight of humanity so he could be an empathetic high priest is another way you persevere in the faith. You’re not alone! The Son of God intimately understands your struggles and lives to help you in them. That’s the third point.

– Jesus helps you.

Hebrews 4:16 tells you that you can draw near to the throne of grace to get mercy to help in your hour of need. This is only because of Jesus’ priestly work. His sacrificial work on your behalf cleanses you of sin and enables you to approach God with boldness.

If you’ve put your faith in Jesus, you can go to God and pour out your honest thoughts, requests, and needs. You don’t have to be afraid that you will be punished. And you don’t have to be ashamed to ask God for help. It doesn’t matter how embarrassing your temptation is, Jesus stands ready to pour out grace to empower you to overcome sin. He wants to help you say “no” to temptation.

He also offers grace to you when you don’t say “no” to sin. Unlike Jesus, there will be times when you give into sin. You’ll bark at your spouse because you’re frustrated with yourself. You’ll binge eat after an emotional fight with your teenager. You’ll look at a website because you want immediate relief. You will fail. And when you do Jesus is right there ready to forgive you and lift you up out of that sin. He will do so again and again until the final day when you will perfectly submit to the Father just as Jesus did.

Run to Jesus

That pastor was right. There’s a kind of soberness that accompanies aging. As time goes by, you see and experience things that weary you. You get tired. You go through seasons where you sit behind the steering wheel of your car and dream of driving far, far away in a one-way direction. Checking out or giving in seem like the only plausible options. (Yes, even Christians experience this.)

But they’re not. There’s an alternative—You can run to Jesus. Or, maybe limp to Jesus. The point is, go to Jesus!

You have a high priest who is dripping with compassion. He’s not waiting to shame you for being weak or weary. He wants to sit with you; to listen to you and pray for you. He’s eager to give you the ministry of his presence and to bind your wounds with his healing grace. He’s there to strengthen you and help you persevere in your time of need. It’s only when you run to him that you’ll experience the rest and relief you need in your soul-fatigue.

---

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.

3 Ways Sin Attacks

It was hard for me growing up to get at the root of my sin.  Where was it coming from?  It was hard to figure out how to fight sin, and I felt like I was constantly failing.  The tradition I grew up in taught that sin primarily was “in the world.” So if I could keep myself unstained from the world, I would sin less.  I tried to do this, but I didn’t sin any less.  I grew frustrated and tired of trying to live the Christian life.  Part of it had to do with me fighting in my own power, but another part of it had to do with my focus on where sin was attack me.

Depending on what tradition you grew up in, you most likely have a certain view of how sin attacks us. There seems to be three categories of how sin attacks us: Satan, the World, or the Flesh. As I have reflected more on these categories it got my wheels turning with two questions emerged:

• What are the flaws in each category as it relates to how or why we sin?
• Is one of these three categories more helpful than another in fighting sin?

Three Ways Sin Attacks

If you grew up in a more charismatic tradition, it probably was all about Satan and his demons. If your car broke down, it was the car demon. If you sinned, the devil tempted you to do it almost bordering on “the devil made me do it.” Therefore, the focus on fighting sin became to have enough faith and will power to withstand the devil and his attacks.

Maybe you grew up in a more conservative evangelical tradition, it probably was all about “the world.” We had to learn to be in the world, but not of the world. Sounds good, even biblical. But it became about hiding out from the world so we would not be tainted by “the sin out there.” We chucked the idea of being in the world because there was just too much sin out there. Then we huddled up together thinking we would not sin, while not engaging the world at all.

Perhaps you grew up in a more reformed tradition, it probably was all about “the flesh.” In this tradition, sin attacks us from within, while not paying much attention to the enemy or the world. This tradition sees us as totally depraved and corrupted the whole man. It is all about my sinful heart, and how I can’t do the things God is calling me to do.

All three of these are true. Satan schemes against us, the world is broken and filled with sin, and we are broken and corrupted by sin. Can it be dangerous to give one category of how sin attacks us more focus than another?

Flaws in All Three Categories 

First, let’s look at the more charismatic tradition and the over focus on Satan. There is a real enemy seeking to destroy us like a roaring lion seeking to devour us (1 Pt. 5:8). He is a very real enemy who is looking to tempt us and entangle us once again in sin. We need to take our enemy seriously.

But the first part of 1 Peter 5:8, tells us to be sober minded and watchful. The devil can’t make us sin. Our sin isn’t ultimately the enemy’s fault. The Bible says,

“No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” – 1 Corinthians 10:13.

God will give us a way out, or a way to endure the temptation of the enemy. We don’t need to focus so much on the enemy and who is against us that we forget who is in us and fights for us. We are called to submit ourselves to God so we can resist the devil, and he will flee us (Jas. 4:7). It is not about mustering up enough faith, or conjuring up enough will power to resist the devil. It is about the object of our faith that is Jesus, and the power of the Holy Spirit in us.

Second, from the conservative evangelical focus on the sin “in the world,” we must not be of the world (Rom. 12:1-2, Jas. 4:4). There are things in the world that are not good for us to engage. But when we huddled up, we realize the fact that sin exists in us as well. It was not just about the “sin out there,” but the sin we could not escape.

Not only that, but God has kept us in the world that we might display his love and grace. We can’t do that if we don’t engage the world we are in because we are huddled up waiting for the rapture. God calls us to engage people who will be worldly that we might show them otherworldly love.

Maybe some of the problem is more our reputation, our self-righteousness, and the appearance of good. We abstain from the world because we don’t want to look like we are friends with it.

“For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.” – Matthew 11:18-19

Maybe we should worry less about our reputation, because people are going to say what they want no matter what we do. Being in Christ, frees us from what others think about us (we don’t need others approval). Being in Christ, frees us to not care what others think of us (meaning they don’t define or justify us). If we believed this, maybe it would free us to go places, without being “of those places,” because we are going to reach the people Jesus wants us to reach. Maybe it would free us to have “those kinds” of people over to our home, or go to their party for the purpose of loving them like Jesus.

Third, from the more reformed tradition of the sin of “the flesh, in some views of total depravity, we are “so bad” and “so sinful” why should we even try to fight sin? Then it can swing from “I so bad” to “I am so free” that I can do and indulge in anything. While it is true we are free in Christ, this freedom isn’t a license to sin which Paul warns us against (Gal. 5:13). Paul goes on to tell us that we are freed from sin so we could love our neighbor not ourselves. We have the Holy Spirit in us that gives us new affections and desires that we might not sin.

Is One Category More Helpful Than Another? 

The reformed tradition helps us identify the root of sin better. Sin resides in us.

“But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” – James 1:14-15

While the world and the lies of the enemy can influence us, entice us, and deceive us, we chose to sin. We sin because we want to sin. We sin because sin is still in us. We can’t escape sin, but we can learn how to identify and fight our sin.

We must identify our sin. We need to see sins effects on those around us as well as ourselves. We need to know how we are being tempted, but when we stare too much at our sin we will find ourselves sinking deeper in it. The only way to find freedom from sin is in Christ Jesus. It is about remembering who it is that saves us, and what he has done for us. The key is to focus less on our sin, and more on our Savior and what he has done to free us from sin. We do this by looking to Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith.

We need to look at Jesus and see it is finished. When we remember our salvation accomplished by Jesus, God looks at us and doesn’t see our sin but Jesus’s righteousness, then we can look at our sin to address it. The way you deal with sin’s attack, whether it is the enemy’s deceitful voice or the influence of the world that lures and entices our desires, is to remember who’s we are, and what he has done to make us his own.

We need to remember who we are in Christ, and what he did to make us his (Eph. 1:3-14, 2:1-10). We need to listen to the Holy Spirit guiding us. The Spirit is applying all Christ has done for us, and testifies to our spirit that we are children of the living God (Rom. 8:15-16, Gal. 4:1-7).

When we see who we are in Christ, remembering what he has done for us by his perfect life, sacrificial atoning death, glorious resurrection, and that he is currently ruling and reigning over the universe, we can say no to sin and yes to his grace. His kindness leads us to repentance (Rom. 2:4). We can turn from our sin, and turn to our Savior. He stands to receive us, give us his grace, and empower us by the Spirit to seek new obedience in light of his gospel.

As pastors or small group leaders, let’s give people the gospel that transforms us from the inside out.  As we point people back to Christ and all he has done, his grace transforms us and enables us to fight sin.  With people being aware of their own sin and the one who has done something about it, our people are better equipped to withstand and fight the attacks of Satan and the attacks of the world.

Now, we can be better equipped to fight sin as it comes at from the other two categories of Satan and the world. We can tell the enemy he is a liar and needs to shut up. We can engage the world with love, grace, and truth without being of it. We can see the sin that remains in us, but not be lured and enticed by it because it doesn’t define us or have a hold on us any longer. We are God’s and he is ours. As the old hymn says,

Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in his wonderful face, And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, In the light of his glory and grace.

---

Clay Adkisson is the Pastor of Discipleship at Double Oak Community Church in Birmingham, AL. He has a B.B.S. in Speech Communication from Hardin Simmons University, and a M.A. in Religion from Redeemer Seminary in Dallas, TX. He has worked in ministry for 13 years with youth, college, young adults, men’s ministry, small groups, as well as being on preaching and teaching teams. He has had the privilege of working in many different kinds of churches from church plants to mega churches. Clay’s passion is to see people find freedom in the gospel by seeing it transform their everyday lives.

God Saves Sinners

“God saves sinners.” That’s the truest sentence I know. I believe it’s the truest sentence in all the world. And that’s really, really good news for a sinner like me.

Someone recently asked what I thought I’d be doing now, at thirty, if Jesus hadn’t saved me. That’s easy, whatever (old Whitney would add “the hell”) I wanted. Even if it meant my own destruction.

You see, before Christ, I was your classic “sinner” type. I was young, wild, and worldly in every sense of the term. I lived for myself and for the moment. Everything I did served those two ends. By seventh grade, I was getting drunk in the backyard on cheap vodka and Kool-Aid. By eighth, I was messing around with guys in the back seat of their cars. By ninth, well, I was just getting started. As each year passed I threw off more and more inhibitions to discover new paths of pleasure.

In theological terms, I was a sinner. Of course, mentored by MTV’s The Real World and the magazine Cosmopolitan, I didn’t know that. But it was true. I was dead in my sins, I was following the course of the world, I was living in the passions of my flesh, and I was carrying out the desires of my body and mind (Eph. 2:1-3). What I thought was the path of life (i.e., living for myself) was actually the road to death. I was on a fast track to destroying my life and didn’t even know it.

But then the wildest thing happened, God saved me—MTV-watching, mini-skirt wearing, boy-crazed, foul-mouthed me. To this day, I’m shocked as I think back on my salvation experience.

The Scope of His Salvation

One day my cousin, a youth pastor at the time, showed up on my doorstep as if out of thin air. He inserted himself into my life, relentlessly telling me about how God saves sinners through Jesus. He picked me up for church on Wednesday’s and Sunday’s and talked to me about Jesus as we listened to Relient K.

At the same time, what I valued most was stripped from me. I made a mess of my relationships through lots of sin. I became disenchanted with the perpetual pursuit of beauty. My hedonistic activities stopped delivering on their promises. I felt empty. Bottomlessly empty. When I sinned to get that quick pleasure, I actually felt worse. It was miserable! For the first time in my life, I wasn’t enjoying sin.

Not only was I not enjoying my sin as I had before, I started to realize that I was a sinner, both by nature and by choice. And it bothered me. I felt guilty. The gospel messages I heard at the time told me that apart from Jesus’s work I was condemned before God. My inner conscious confirmed that this was true. It’s like I saw this big gap between me, the shallow, self-absorbed sinner and God, the perfect, righteous Judge of all the earth. There was nothing I could do to bridge the gap and I knew it. I was definitely a sinner and my sin separated me from God.

But 1 Timothy 1:15 says, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” Oh, how those words pierced my soul. Indeed, I was a sinner, but it turns out that Jesus Christ came to save people just like me—sinners. He saves whores and addicts, he saves old people and young people, he saves black people and white people, he saves broken people and abused people, he saves shallow people and prideful people, and he saves rich people and poor people.

But how could this be true?!

The Power of Jesus’s Blood

It’s true because Jesus came and lived the perfect life that sinners couldn’t live then died the death that sinners deserved to die. On the cross, he substituted himself in the place of sinners and poured out his blood as an atoning sacrifice for sin. God accepted this payment for sin and raised Jesus to life on the third day proving that his work was sufficient. When sinners look to Jesus and his work, they are forgiven. His precious blood has the power to cleanse them from all sin and shame.

That summer I learned that there was power in the blood of Jesus. Power to save me from Satan, sin, and death. Power even to save me from myself! The words of the apostle John, “the blood of Jesus his [God’s] Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 Jn. 1:7) seemed too good to be true. And yet, it was true. Not because I deserved to be saved, but because the merciful, gracious God delights to save sinners through the blood of Jesus.

This lavish grace overwhelmed me. I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to give into the powerful conviction of God’s Spirit. It didn’t matter if I had to change my life or leave my sin. I had to be close to Jesus! I responded to the gospel in faith and repentance. I turned away from my sin and self and turned to God by trusting in Jesus’ work and was baptized in my local church.

There were a lot of up’s and down’s but, somewhere along the way, God saved me that summer. He gave me a new heart and a new life and a new story. And now I know…that I know…that I know God saves sinners. It’s the truest truth in all the world.

The Truest Truth 

What’s the truest sentence you believe, the one you think to be true? The one that undergirds and defines your life? Take a few minutes and think through your story. How would you sum up what you believe most in one sentence?

I have to ask, do you know it to be true? Are you 100 percent positive that it is the truest truth in all the world?

It’s quite unfashionable today for anyone to act as though they have the market on truth, but much like my cousin inserting himself into my life to share God’s truth with me, I’m going to (with much humility and trepidation!) insert myself into yours and offer you the truest truth— “God saves sinners.” He really does. Through Jesus, God can save the dirtiest of sinners.

That’s why I shared my story. If he can save me, he can save anyone. I don’t enjoy airing before the world the embarrassing, shameful things I did, but I do enjoy sharing Jesus and his salvation. Christ Jesus really did “come into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1 Tim. 1:15). The sentence, “God saves sinners” is as real and true to me as the air I breathe. I know it to be true because it is God’s truth, the final and authoritative truth.

And I want you to know it too. If you are staring at that monstrous gap like I was, wondering how in the world you could ever make your way to God because of your sin, you need to know that God has made a way for you through Jesus. The apostle Paul declares that, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).

Oh, how I want you to know that! To know that there is power in the blood of Jesus to save you and cleanse you from all of your sin and shame. There is power to give you a new heart, a new life, and a new start. All who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved. And isn’t that really good news for sinners like you and me?

The Way Forward  

If you have never looked to Jesus in repentance and faith, I pray that you will consider the sentence, “God saves sinners.” Think on it. Ask friends or family about it. Find a local church and listen to what they have to say about it. Read more articles about it. Better yet, open up the Gospel of John in the Bible and read all about it. Pray and ask God to reveal the truth to you. If this is true, then ask him to help you believe it.

If you are a Christian, I pray that you will continue to share the gospel with people who don’t know it. I often think about how my cousin was loving enough to confront me with the truth. Let’s be loving enough to share God’s truth with others. Be bold knowing that God’s Spirit is at work in people’s lives, just like he was mine, preparing them to receive the word of truth. It is his work that brings them to saving faith. You just get to share the good news, so share it boldly!

If you don’t know where to start, share your story with them. Tell people how Jesus saved you. Talk about how loving and merciful God is. You could even send this article and ask to talk about it afterwards. Ask what they think about the sentence, “God saves sinners” and dialogue about it. Most of all, always share that there is hope for all who will repent of sin and look to Jesus because God saves sinners.

—

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.

Praying in the Midst of Pain

Ishinomaki City is a world-renowned fishing port of about 250,000 people. Local pastors tell me there are only about 30-40 Christians in the entire city. Ishinomaki lies on the East Coast of Japan and is nestled up against the Pacific Ocean. In March 2011, a 9.0 earthquake struck near Tokyo pulsing a massive tidal wave through the region. Abe San, a local pastor, guides me through the wreckage. We explore a middle school about a mile away from the coast. This site was the city’s safe zone where people were encouraged to take refuge in the event of a tsunami. But the wave reached this building too. Every floor is completely blown out and destroyed. Hundreds died here. Thousands died throughout the city.

As I choke on tears, I ask Abe, “When people ask you, ‘Where was God in the tsunami?’ what do you tell them?” I tell them, “He was with them. He is with them now.”

An hour later, we find ourselves at a new building that has risen from the rubble. A church. There are some Japanese characters on the wall and for some reason I can’t stop staring. “Abe San, what does this say?” He tells me it reads: “Jesus wept.”

Does Jesus still weep? I’m convinced he does. Our individual presuppositions about how God relates to us in the midst of pain carry immense weight when as we consider how to pray, how to counsel, and how to preach.

Pondering Prayer

When a prayer slips out of your mouth, where does it go? And when it arrives at its destination, what effect does it have?

At the risk of speaking rather mechanically, we might describe prayer as the interplay between two wills: our will and God’s will. Only one of the wills in this dialogue is flawless. Thus, prayer is, in large part, an exercise in aligning our hearts with the heart of God.

This was true in Jesus’ life. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed, “Not my will but yours be done.” Did Jesus will something other than God willed? Yes and no. Jesus was anxious about the physical torture and moment of spiritual death that loomed over him. He hoped there might be another way. But what Jesus desired more than escaping the suffering was the will of the Father. He was willing to bend his will to God’s will.

Prayer is bending our will to God’s will. But it is also more than that. Sometimes, when it does not conflict with his ultimate purposes, God bends his will to our will. This is nothing less than staggering.

Consider the story of Moses’ intercession (Exod 32). God is burning with fury against Israel. He tells Moses, “Leave me alone so that I can kill these guys. Then I will rebuild a nation that follows me out of you” (v.10). But Moses intercedes and prays, “You’ve done the work to rescue them. That’s clear. So what will the surrounding nations think of you if you kill them? Fulfill your promise to Abraham.” Then the Lord “relented” (v.14). The same word is used several other places in Scripture to describe God’s attitude towards actions he has taken or was planning to take.

What should we make of this? Is God confused? Short sighted? Blinded by rage? No. When we consider the scope of Scripture, the best way to summarize the interplay of God’s will and human will is to say: God does not change in his plans and purposes for humanity, but he does change in regard to his attitudes, emotions, actions, and responses. He is both impassible and impassioned.

By definition, a real relationship experiences progress. As intimacy grows it manifests externally. In our relationship with God the flow is simple: God reveals his goodness, we respond by treasuring him more deeply, surrendering more fully, and expressing our true selves in prayer.

But this flow is not one way. When we treasure him, surrender to him, and express our true heart in prayer, God is pleased. He is more pleased than he would be if we were cheating on him with false lovers, withholding parts of our life from his rule, or ignoring him. In other words, God responds to our response to his revelation.

So how does this understanding impact personal prayer and discipleship efforts? It means that every discipleship conversation and every prayer is a life or death conversation. God is inviting me to find life and significance through belonging to him in Christ while my flesh, the broken stories of culture, and demonic forces are inviting me down the trail of death. God’s deepest agenda—and his greatest glory—are when I embrace life under his rule.

Praying in the Middle of Complex Pain

How about suffering in the life of a disciple? What is the cause and purpose behind it?

• Sometimes God ordains suffering in our lives in order to accomplish his greater purposes. Joseph and Jesus are clear examples of God purposing evil for his own glory. In our own life, he may orchestrate tests or trials that put us back on the path of life (Rev 3:19).
• Sometimes God allows us to suffer by living out our union with Jesus and identifying in his suffering (Col 1:24, 1 Pt 2:21, 3:14). While he wills our obedience, he does not will the evil done to us by persecutors. For example, Jesus is pleased with the faithfulness of the Philadelphian believers, but he is angry with their persecutors (Rev 3:8-9). Similarly, Jesus was angry with Saul for killing Christians and asked him to stop (Acts 9).
• Sometimes God permits us to suffer at the hands of our own foolishness or the sin of others (1 Pt 3:17, 4:15). The sluggard in Proverbs is a prime example of both self-harm and harm to others.
• Sometimes suffering is orchestrated by Satan and his forces although this cannot occur without God’s permission. Job is the best example.
• Sometimes suffering occurs randomly through the outworking of existing natural laws within a cursed creation.

When discipling another, we must take into account a variety of causes for suffering. God is not the lone cause. Neither is Satan the lone cause. Personal sin is not the sole cause. Neither is the sin of others the sole cause. Often the suffering may involve multiple, complex factors which are impossible to dissect. So how are we to respond in the face of suffering?

Whatever the cause, God’s will in the midst of all our suffering is that we would allow the Holy Spirit to draw our hearts to the beauty of Jesus. God wills to free us from the need to find an explanation for our suffering. Jesus is our answer. Our attempts to categorize, moralize, or interpret our pain only negate our ability to experience the presence of God in the midst of our suffering.

Prayer then ought to be our biblically informed, imaginative exploration of how to best receive the life and character of God in the midst of present circumstances. Prayer also includes the responsiveness of God to these requests. As we draw near to God, he draws near to us and infuses our life with his life. This is his ultimate desire whether we find ourselves in the bitter winter of suffering or the warmth of blessing.

We are Real Cause and Effect Beings

An indispensable part of what it means to be a rational, moral being is that our actions have real cause and effect. God is the ultimate cause. But he is not the only cause. God created other cause and effect beings. Our choices mean something because they either contribute to or oppose God’s good purposes for this world. That is what it means to have free will.

So is God responsible for evil and suffering? On a few occasions in the biblical text, he has claimed to be, but it is antithetical to the message of Scripture to teach that God universally wills, causes, or desires evil in our world.

God hates evil and evildoers. He weeps with those who weep and mourns with those who mourn. He is near to the brokenhearted. He is angry with the pain and injustice of our world. That is precisely why the Father, the Son, and the Spirit partnered together to relocate the Son into our neighborhood. The Son is now a past and present co-sufferer with us (Heb 2:18, Acts 9, Col 1:24). The Son comforts us in our affliction. He does not afflict us and then comfort us. Only a being with multiple personality disorder could do so.

Some might level the objection that if God is truly all-wise, all-powerful, and all-loving, he will prevent certain heinous actions. The flaw in this logic is that God is not God in a vacuum. God is God in the universe he has created. And in this universe he has voluntarily limited himself in order to open up the possibility of authentic relationship with humans.

What does that mean for you and me? It means that somehow our prayers matter to him. When I respond to his self-revelation and open up a conversation, an infinite being actually changes the level and nature of his interactivity with both the world and me.

Jesus urges us to seek the Father by saying, “Knock and the door will be opened to you.” The clear picture is that the sound of my knock brings the Father to the door and he answers. If I don’t knock he won’t answer. If I don’t knock he will just keep doing what he is doing in the kitchen or in the living room.

James’ letter is chalk full of the astounding cause and effect our prayers have upon God’s attitudes and actions. In chapter 4, James rebukes the believers for their evil desires. They are fighting with each other and their prayers are prayers for God to satisfy their evil desires. The clear implication (which is a statement of fact by Jesus in John 15:7), is that when we pray in alignment with God’s will and purposes, he is delighted to respond.

United with the Suffering Servant and the King of Shalom

Whether you find yourself in times of darkness or times of blessing, God’s invitation is the same. Let go of “Why?” questions, and instead fixate on the central issue of “Who?”

For the Christian, our lives have been united with the Suffering Servant who loved us and gave himself for us. Through union with Jesus, you have been invited into the joyful life of the Trinity. And our hope is found in the comfort of God’s life-giving presence and in the shalom-filled future he has promised for us and our world.

—

Dr. Sean Post leads a one-year discipleship experience for young adults called Adelphia. He has authored three books. His great joys in life are spending time with his wife and three kids, eating great food, and CrossFit.

God’s Kingdom Come

In ahe heightened success of enlightenment thinking, individualism has ruled the day. This has expressed itself in renewed expressions of individualistic ethics, politics, and religion. Hedonism rules the day of ethics. Libertarian politics is the increasing majority opinion of young voters. Self-centered deism has become the political drug of western culture. This has become true of not only liberal Christianity but also its more conservative branches. In a biblical scope, generations are important. In fact, family is crucial since God establishes his redemptive relationship via families. The God of the Scriptures is the most precious family traditions:

“I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you” – Genesis 17:7-8

We can thus draw mildly from human experience. Family heirlooms are a treasure. In my family, the gift of music is important. Nothing works into our veins like a good melody or rhythm. My children have learned this naturally. They dance in circles at the oddest hours. From the oldest to the youngest, music and movement boils in their blood. It is a family tradition. In a much greater and spiritually-grounded sense, the covenant kingdom of Jesus Christ is a long-standing family tradition.

In fact, all of God’s covenants are family traditions. For instance, the kingdom of David, via Judah, can be traced all the way to the concluding life of Jacob in Egypt (Gen. 49:8-11). It finds itself reiterated by even the pagan prophet Balak (Num. 24:17-19). In this instance, long before God’s promise to David (2 Sam. 7), God had prepared an everlasting kingdom as part of the covenant fulfillment to Abraham and Jacob.

Back to my personal example, this would not be unlike one of my grandchildren becoming a significant country musician because God has promised it to my grandfather. In my example, the promise of God himself is missing, but the genes and heritage have been in the works since my grandfather. In the covenants, God attaches his promises to offspring—even the new covenant,

“And as for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the Lord: “My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children's offspring,” says the Lord, “from this time forth and forevermore.” – Isaiah 59:21

So when Jesus Christ appears on the scene, he is the fulfillment of two millenniums and promises (Matt. 1; Rom. 1:3). He fulfills the promises to Abraham and David in a tied knot that is the New Covenant. Our God is fundamentally a cross-generational covenantal God. He chooses to work within families via his covenants. He binds himself to promises. He alone ensures those promises are fulfilled. He is not the abstract deistic god. He forever remains active in history. He manifests his kingdom in miraculous ways.

As C.S. Lewis alluded to, our God is no tame lion, but he is always good and faithful. His kingdom is a covenantal kingdom promised and decreed by the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Yet, it is also fulfilled in the birth and crucifixion of Christ. It is a tumultuous, not tame, history, yet the end is good. This is the covenant history, redemptive-historical, perspective of the Reformed tradition that the Lord’s Prayer alludes to in each of its petitions.

It should not surprise us that this covenant kingdom and promise were deeply ingrained in the conscience of Israel. It was these promises that were sung by Israel in their worship (Ps. 2:7-12). The whole identity of their culture and people were focused on these promises. When their covenant redemption was fulfilled in Christ’s baptism (Matt 3:17) and transfiguration (Matt 17:5), history was shaken. But their history does not stop that.

That this very covenant kingdom is passed on throughout the church is also a miracle – this is the primary emphasis of the book of Acts. Not only does the kingdom pass to the Gentiles, but it still remains passed to their children. The promised kingdom, as the prophet Isaiah foretold, is passed to our children’s children. They all become the covenant community under King Jesus. This is both refreshing and challenging. Our children do not become Christ’s possession at a time of confession; they belong to the Covenant Savior from the beginning.

In Proverbs, Solomon says, “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children” (Prov. 13:22). Would it not be foolish and shortsighted to exclude their spiritual, covenantal inheritance? Our Heavenly Father’s inheritance is very good. And the covenantal history of the Scriptures challenges us at every step to leave a great spiritual inheritance for our children.

This petition “Thy kingdom come” of the Lord’s Prayer reminds us that our God has established his covenant kingdom from the foundation of the earth. Not merely over geography, but also over all of time and space. It stretches across nations. It also stretches across time within households. Our God will not be denied despite our unfaithfulness (Rom. 3:4; 9:6). God’s promises and election founded in Jesus Christ will be true. The gospel is not found in a nefarious god—who demands good works—but a covenantal Father who bestows out of his abundant blessings. This kingdom has come, and we pray it come in greater glory. A gospel that points to Christ’s kingdom glorifies God by acknowledging his promises to generation after generation. We pray for this kingdom to bring glory to God the Father. The fulfilled will of God is crucial to this kingdom.

—

Joshua Torrey is a New Mexico boy in an Austin, TX world. He is husband to Alaina and father to Kenzie & Judah and spends his free time studying for the edification of his household. These studies include the intricacies of hockey, football, curling, beer, and theology. You can follow him @benNuwn and read his theological musings and running commentary of the Scriptures at The Torrey Gazette.

The Beauty of the Lord

A couple of years ago, I was preparing for a mission trip to the Cherokee Reservation in North Carolina, and it came time to head up for the trip orientation. With it being my first time, I did not want to go alone, so I convinced a good friend of mine to head up to the reservation with me.s Well, we decided it would be fun to take a little detour and go through Clemson, catch some lunch with a couple of our students, then we could shoot to Cherokee using the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The time to go came, we jump in the car, the conversation is going on, and we make it to Clemson. We go to lunch, jump back in the car, and head to the mountains. It wasn't long until we hit the Parkway, and almost immediately conversation stops, and we begin to look upon the beauty of the mountains.

You know what I'm talking about. The trees, the streams running down, every once and a while an animal, and it even seems like the winding roads have a beauty about them up in the mountains.

It was truly gazing upon the beauty of the Blue Ridge Parkway. We can all think of something in our mind that we thought was beautiful, so we just sat there and gazed. However, have we ever been like David, in Psalm 27, where we just sit and gaze upon the beauty of the Lord? Let's look at what David says,

One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple. – Psalm 27:4

David says he has one thing that he asks one thing, the only thing he wants to do is to sit and gaze upon the beauty of the Lord in the house of the Lord. So, we have to ask the question. How is the Lord beautiful? How does his house, the one that David desires to dwell in, show us the beauty of the Lord?

1. We See the Beauty of the Lord as He Dwells With His People

First, he sees the beauty of the Lord in his dwelling. See the Lord dwelt in the temple, in his house. This temple, during the time of David, was not very elaborate. In fact, it was just a tent.

We see this tent elsewhere in the Bible, specifically; one occurrence is the Exodus narrative. We all probably know the story pretty well, but if you do not let me give you the run-down.

You can split Exodus into three major sections: chapters 1-18, 19-24, and 25-40. Three four-letter words can summarize these sections: bush, hill, and tent. In vs. 1-18, the Lord is the God of the bush, where he promises to deliver his people. In vs. 19-24, the Lord is the God of the hill, where he speaks from the smoking mountain and tells his people how to live. Finally, in vs. 25-40, the Lord is the God of the tent where he dwells with his people.

God says in Exodus 25, "And they shall make for me a sanctuary and I shall dwell in their midst." The climax of the entire Exodus narrative is that the Lord dwells with his people. He cannot get close enough to them; he has to be among them! It is easy to stop and say that the crossing of the Red Sea is the climax, or maybe even the rock spewing water, but the real climax, the most important thing to the Lord, is God being in the midst of his people.

In Exodus 25, the Lord comes down and makes himself known to his people. God desires to be close to them. He must be among them. This is flushed out even more for us in the New Testament. In John 1, the apostle says, "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God . . . and the word became flesh and dwelt among us."

To draw more emphasis, he goes on, "And the word became flesh and pitched his tent among us." This becomes even more personal for the believer as Jesus speaks in John 23, "And if anyone loves me, we will come to him, and we will make our home with him." We see the beauty of the Lord in his dwelling with his people.

And our God, he is just not the God of the flaming bush or the smoking mountain. He is the God of the tent who wants nothing more than to dwell in the midst of his people. He can't get close enough. He must be with them.

And this means something to us because we know he is near. Because he dwells with his people, we can know for certain that no matter the situation, he is with us. Even when it seems like he is absent, he is there, and he is not silent. As believers, our God makes his home with us, and that is beautiful.

2. We See the Beauty of the Lord as He Reveals Himself to His People

We have to place ourselves in the shoes of David for a minute, and we have to look around the temple of God, the house of God. We have to remember what is present in that tent.

In the house of God, we find two tablets, and on those two tablets, we see God's commanding word, his covenant will for his people. God has revealed his will to his people. He has shown us, and told us; his covenant law tells us how to live. See there is something beautiful about God, YHVH, revealing his will to his people.

When we look at the Exodus narrative, we see the ten commandments, where God establishes them for his people. He says, "I have delivered you, I have made you my people, and now this is how I want you to live." We know it! There is no confusion. God reveals himself and his call to obedience.

That does not happen in other religions, but we have a God who beautifully reveals himself and his will to us. Even if sometimes we do not like it. There is something to be said about knowing exactly where you stand. There is something beautiful about knowing the truth and knowing exactly what we are supposed to do and be.

This is the beauty of God's revelation. He is our God, a God who speaks to us. And he does so clearly. Many times we fail, and many times we do not like it, but it is all for our good. It is all to mold us and make us more like Christ, and it is beautiful.

3. We See the Beauty of the Lord as He Nourishes His People

Looking into the temple, we see a table and on the table, we see the show-bread. This bread is not there for God to eat, but it is there to show us something about God. It is there to remind his people that the Lord sustains his people.

In Exodus 17, we see God providing and sustaining his people as he drops manna from Heaven. David dwells on this, and he remembers the beauty of the Lord is unlike anything that he has ever seen before. God in his nourishment, his sustaining his people, is unlike anything that any unbeliever around him, and around us, has ever witnessed.

Moreover, I think this is what is on David's mind as he writes, "And you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies." (Ps. 23:5)

This is not God grabbing a Big Mac in the drive-thru at McDonald's. This is God preparing a table, a feast, before us. Therefore, we can sit and eat. We can enjoy the meal, and we can do this even in the presence of our enemies. We learn something from this, if the Lord can sustain us there, is there anywhere that he can't nourish and sustain you?

Believer, you do not have to hold up or carry the Lord; he holds you up and carries you. The Lord is beautiful in his nourishment.

4. We See the Beauty of the Lord as He Provides Atonement for His People

In the temple, there was a bronze altar as soon as you walk in, and this was the altar that the priest would spread the blood of the sacrifices—which was the Old Testament sacrifice system, but this was not a system set up for God's people to bribe their way to forgiveness. No, the sacrifices we see in the Old Testament are an act of faith, using the gifts of God's provision.

Looking at Leviticus helps. God says, about sacrifices, "I have given it to you, to place on the altar to make an atonement for souls." Here God is proclaiming that this is a gift for you, a gift of grace, to have fellowship with the Lord.

What is beautiful about this? Well, it shows us that God is the one that deals with our guilt. God is the one that deals with my sins. My life is paid for with the life of a substitute.

This brings Jesus quickly to our minds. He is our substitute. We are forgiven, proclaimed not guilty in the sight of God because our life has been paid with another. God is the only Judge who took his judgment upon himself.

When something is so familiar to our mind, we quickly pass it over, but we must be like David. We must dwell on the atoning work of Christ because God has dealt with our sins. We have an advocate, a substitute, taking our place so that we can have fellowship with our beautiful Lord.

This is a part of the beauty of the Lord, in his atonement. He takes us filthy sinners and makes us clean.

I love the old hymn, “There is a Fountain Filled with Blood,” as it beautifully sings about the forgiveness of sins,

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins; And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains. Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains; And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day; And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away. Washed all my sins away, washed all my sins away; And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.

The mountains and the winding roads of the Blue Ridge Parkway are breathtaking. It is impossible to make that drive and not gaze upon the beauty of creation. But the Lord is more beautiful than we could ever imagine, and we should be like David, longing to gaze upon him for all eternity.

May God open our eyes even more to his beauty, as he dwells with us, reveals himself to us, nourishes and sustains us, and deals with our sin and guilt.

—

Matthew D. Adams is the Director of Youth and Family Ministries at First Presbyterian Church, PCA in Dillon, SC. He is currently a Master’s of Divinity student at Erskine Theological Seminary in Columbia, SC. He lives in a small town by the name of Hamer, SC and is married to Beth. Follow him on twitter @Matt_Adams90.

Article used with permission. Originally appeared at Servants of Grace, "The Beauty of the Lord"

God Is Holding Out On Me

Right now I’m tempted to believe that God is holding out on me. There. I said it.

I planned to postpone writing this until I could speak about my unbelief in the past tense. Like most of you I’m more comfortable sharing my struggles when I can see them in the rearview mirror (with a lesson in my back pocket of course!). It feels godlier to say, “Six months ago I was tempted to look at porn or binge shop or cheat on that exam. But now I’m trusting in Christ’s work.”

I can’t help but think that this subtly undermines the gospel. Christ isn’t only sufficient for us when we’re past our temptations. He’s more than sufficient in the midst of them. Thus, Christians are free to share present tense struggles that elevate a high view of Christ even as we walk through real doubt and unbelief.

Present Tense Kind of Doubts

Lately, it seems like nothing falls into place. Nothing comes easily to me. I wrestle. I strive. I fight. And . . . nothing. There’s a little voice within that enjoys pointing out that if God were really in control of the whole universe, then it would be easy for him to change my circumstances. It would take him no effort whatsoever to make a tweak here and there and poof! my life would be fixed. That voice takes my good theology—a high view of God’s meticulous rule—and comes to poor conclusions that God is withholding something good from me.

You understand this feeling, don’t you? Even as you read about my doubts, you’re internalizing your own. Perhaps it looks like one of the following equations:

• God is the Creator of life + You are barren = He is withholding good from you
• God is the Author of marriage + You are single = He is withholding good from you
• God is Owner of universe + You are broke = He is withholding good from you

Scenarios such as these tempt us to disbelieve and distort God’s character. We feel that God’s holding out on us—that he's stingy. We conclude that we’ll just have to make things happen for ourselves. Like Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness (Matt. 4:1-11), we’re presented with an opportunity to believe the lies and to try and secure our desires apart from God’s provision and perfect timing.

For the most part, we know that these thoughts aren’t rational. God is sovereign, and God is good. There’s nothing in our experience that can change that. Then again, doubt and unbelief are rarely rational. But they sure are powerful! The more we focus on the lies and feed the doubts the more powerful that unbelief becomes. And the more powerful the unbelief becomes, the more convinced we get that we need to go out and make something happen for ourselves.

Choosing to Form Habits of Belief

It’s at this very moment, the present moment when unbelief rears its ugly head, that you and I have a choice to make. We can preach God’s truth to ourselves and allow it to strengthen our belief or listen to the lies and allow it to strengthen our unbelief. Either way, something will grow stronger. There’s no neutral ground. It’s not like we can just wait it out and see what happens. The path of passivity (“maybe tomorrow I will feel like God is good and gracious”) will only deepen unbelief. If we wait until tomorrow to believe God is good, upon waking up, we’ll discover that the unbelief has spread throughout our soul like terminal cancer.

But, if you are in Christ, the temptation to unbelief is not the final word. We can choose a different path! We have One who walked before us and was tempted as we are yet remained sinless (Heb. 4:15), so that he might offer himself as a sinless substitute in the place of unrighteous sinners (2 Cor. 5:21). Through our union with Jesus we can “receive mercy and find grace to help in our time of need” (Heb. 4:16). Moreover, Christ serves as an example of what it looks like to perfectly trust the Father in the face of temptation by speaking out truth and resisting the Devil in the power of the Spirit (Matt. 4:4,7,10).

As we’re progressively conformed to Jesus’ image, we can choose the path he chose. We’ve been set free from sin so we can pursue righteousness. We are not enslaved to unbelief anymore. You don’t have to keep doing what you’ve always done.

You can form new habits of belief that builds your confidence in God on a daily basis:

You can verbally refute lies (whether personal, demonic, or worldly) the minute they pop into your head.

You can cry out to the Spirit to help you when you feel weak and overwhelmed with unbelief.

You can read, meditate on, and memorize Scripture to renew your mind.

You can confess your doubts to a friend and ask them to pray for you.

You can meet with God’s people on a Sunday or mid-week gathering to hear the truth and worship God.

The point is we have a choice. Jesus’ work on our behalf breaks the fatalistic patterns of sin in our lives and gives us supernatural power to battle unbelief. We don’t have to be resigned to our unbelief. We can be different. We can be like Jesus!

An Exercise In Trust

Today, in my present struggle, I’m going to choose to follow Jesus by refuting the enemy’s lies and speaking God’s truth out loud. Sure, nothing’s coming easily to me. Life feels hard. But I refuse to believe God’s being stingy. I know he’s not stingy because of the gospel:

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things. – Romans 8:32

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. – Ephesians 1:3

Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. – James 1:16-17

When I meditate on these truths, my doubts are obliterated. Our God is a good God who gives us good gifts. There’s no way he could be stingy towards me—he’s given me his very own Son! Any feelings regarding my current circumstances simply cannot hold up in the face of the cross. I’m choosing to exercise trust in God because he is 100 percent trustworthy.

What about you? As you stand at the intersection of belief or doubt, what choice are you going to make to feed your faith in God? What Scriptures are you going to use to refute the lies of the enemy? Who are you doing life with that can help you fight the fight of faith? How will you exercise trust in God during moments of unbelief?

—

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.

Tragedy, Violence, and Human Dignity

Over the last several weeks news headlines have carried pronouncements of unspeakable tragedy and carnage. Well-known singer Christina Grimmie was senselessly murdered in Orlando. Then, just a day later, the world awoke to news of the worst mass shooting in American history. France witnessed another terror attack, the brutal and intimate murder of a police officer and his girlfriend in front of their son. A member of Britain’s parliament was murdered. Each story elicited a similar sadness, outrage, and empathy.

Animals cause tragedy, nature is unpredictable, and humans commit unthinkable acts of cruelty because we’re not home yet

Interspersed among these headlines were two incidents with related plots. In Cincinnati, a 4-year old boy was nearly killed when he climbed into a zoo’s gorilla enclosure. Then in Orlando, a 2-year old boy was attacked and killed by an alligator in Orlando. Responses across the media and in the general public were more diverse than following the human-precipitated tragedies, which surprised some.

When deplorable acts of violence occur through human agency, blame is ultimately laid at the feet of the perpetrator. Certainly social structures and institutional realities come into consideration, but an individual person is finally deemed responsible.

It is much more difficult, however, to determine a path of agency and justice in the wake of animal perpetrated violence. Some cast aspersions on the mother of the 4-year old boy who fell in the gorilla enclosure: Why wasn’t she paying attention? How could she let her child wander? A petition was even begun, asking police to investigate the mother for neglect. A few blamed the zoo for improper procedures. Many were outraged over the subsequent killing of Harambe, the gorilla who resided in the enclosure. Similarly, in Orlando some were asking why parents would allow their 2-year old to play near a lagoon in Florida when “No Swimming” signs were clearly posted.

These incidents provide a window into our society and, despite the unthinkable and horrific nature of their tragedy, provide opportunities for reflection.

For much of society, worship of God has been replaced by worship of the created order. Paul pointed out this sociocultural shift in Romans 1:23, “…and [they] exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal men and birds and animals and creeping things.”

Stephen Webb argues environmentalism is a type of broadly acceptable and palatable civil religion; he says it is good politics and tolerable religion to worship nature. We saw this briefly last year when a Minnesota dentist was barraged with death threats over the killing of a “beloved” lion in Africa (this incident in particular showed the inadequacy of prevailing American cultural narratives). While the veneration of Harambe and hypothetical purported willingness to choose his life over the 4-year old boy is clear evidence of that, I do not think such a simple analysis sufficiently bears forth the intricate thoughts and emotions at play.

James K. A. Smith says a hallmark of our secular age is the possibility of belief. For 1,000 years Christianity served as the dominant worldview for much of the Western world, rendering unbelief almost entirely unheard of. Today the inverse is true: Where belief in a transcendent God is considered untenable for vast stretches of society, the possibility of belief—and subsequent poorly suppressed yearning for it—appears to lurk in the most unanticipated spaces. Frankly, we should not be surprised when so-called “ecosexuals” facilitate ceremonies in which humans are encouraged to marry the ocean, and then consummate said marriage.

Christians recognize it is precisely the distortion of orthodox Christianity that permits—and even supports—a misguided and disproportionate love of nature. Cognizant of how idolatry warps worship of the one true God and of the increasing secular pressure exerted on America, it is no wonder the imago dei has taken a backseat to animal activism and environmental worship. When nature is an object of worship, humans are subservient to its capricious and merciless whims. The created order is due sovereign respect, and we humans have no recourse save to spew vitriol at those poor parents who dared allow their children to interfere with its matchless wisdom and authority.

Stephen Webb, however, also argued since the decline and distortion of Christianity gave birth to the pathology of environmental worship, it is a pathology for which only Christianity holds the cure. How, then, does the church embody that cure?

First, we must never hesitate to remind a weary world of the dignity of life and the beauty of humanity. The world is fallen and humans bear the indelible marks of total depravity, but that doesn’t change the reality that all humans bear the imago dei and are worthy of charitable and generous love. Our world is losing sight of the preciousness of humanity—its loveliness and redeemability. In a society where the lines between human and animal are blurring, we must resolutely proclaim the beauty and uniqueness of humanity—rejoicing in our embodied reality.

In light of the Orlando nightclub shooting Scott Sauls challenged the church to embody the gospel’s humanitarian pulse and ethic. We value human life because it is created in the image of God; we value human life because God sent Jesus Christ to redeem it. This is the church must not tire of championing. Certainly, we mourn the loss of Harambe, but far greater would have been the death of that 4-year old boy. And most tragically do we look on the death of a 2-year old in Orlando. The more we talk about the value of human life, the more opportunities we have to remind people that Jesus valued humanity so much He was willing to sacrifice Himself on its behalf.

Second, we must remind the world there is a larger frame from which to view these tragedies. In Genesis 1 and 2 God made mankind steward over the animals and creation, but in Genesis 3 that stewardship was rendered much more difficult. The fall introduced enmity and strife into the world, and as a result we cannot expect congenial interactions with wild animals, even animals residing in a zoo or a theme park.

What we can expect, however, is the glorious hope of a new heaven and a new earth. In that soon-coming reality, we will never again know the pain of a dead 2-year old or 49-murdered souls. We will not fear animals because we are promised the wolf and lamb shall graze together, the lion shall eat straw like an ox, and dust shall be the serpent’s food; truly in that day animals will neither hurt nor destroy (Isaiah 65:25).

Animals cause tragedy, nature is unpredictable, and humans commit unthinkable acts of cruelty because we’re not home yet. There is a day to come, however, when Jesus will illuminate heaven by His very presence and wipe away every tear. Let us speak generously of the inherent value of all human life, the unimaginable glory of a new heaven and new earth, and of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross to ensure that men could dwell in that new creation of fellowship with God, with one another, and with the animals for all eternity.

—

Chris is husband to Liz and Daddy to Aletheia and Judah. Chris lives in South Carolina where he is a pastor of hospitality, new members, and discipleship. Chris has an MA in religion from Reformed Theological Seminary and is a PhD candidate in organizational leadership at Johnson University. In his spare time Chris enjoys…wait…what is spare time?

Originally appeared at Canon and Culture. Used with permission.

Deliver Us From Evil

The prayer of our Lord contains the profound words, “deliver us from evil.” For these four words contain, in a simple package, implications for prayer and discipleship that could be contemplated at length. The central theme of this statement is that of “deliverance.” Deliverance is a frequent theme in the Old Testament. Depending on the context, deliverance could be a good or a bad thing; either being delivered over to an oppressor or being delivered from an oppressor were very real experiences of the people of Israel during the span of the Old Testament. The Jewish disciples who witnessed Jesus’ model prayer would undoubtedly have had the Roman authorities in mind as an oppressor from which they would like deliverance.

More important than this, though, is the evil Jesus had in mind when he modeled this prayer to his followers. Let’s unpack the timeless evil from which we should petition our Father to deliver us and explore the ways this impacts our discipleship.

The Evil One

Most of the older versions of the Lord’s Prayer worded it “deliver us from the evil one,” to closely follow the Greek text. With this in mind, it is likely that Jesus was referring to the Devil. This petition was not the only time he prayed for his followers to be protected from the evil one (for example, see John 17:15). But who is this mysterious figure?

Several misconceptions float around about who the Devil is and what he is capable of

Speak of the Devil, regardless of the company present, and you’re almost guaranteed to raise eyebrows. Even among Evangelicals, you are likely to induce suspicion and a good deal of miscommunication. Several misconceptions float around about who the Devil is and what he is capable of, and maturing disciples would do well to be aware of them.

On one hand, some all but deny the existence of demons. These aren’t atheists and agnostics who don’t believe in the spiritual realm, but instead, these are Christians who, for varying reasons, function as if the Devil no longer operates in this world. When Jesus pleads with the Father that his followers be delivered from the evil one, we should pause and acknowledge that he wasn’t wasting words. That prowling lion, the Devil, finds an easy meal amongst those Christians who have so minimized his influence that they are no longer aware they need deliverance from it. If we are going to mature as disciples, we must be as wise as the serpent, while not partaking in his evil (Matt 10:16).

On the other hand, some people view the demonic realm as all encompassing. Their error is giving the Devil too much credit. We must be cautious about labeling our own sin as the Devil’s doing. While it is true that Satan is pleased when we sin, that does not absolve us of our own responsibility. The Christian who is stuck in a continual rut of sin who throws up his hands and says, “the Devil made me do it,” has too big a view of Satan and entirely too small a view of God. When we ask our Father to deliver us from this evil one, we must believe God is big enough and powerful enough to succeed in this task. While Jesus’ words sober us into acknowledging the reality of evil forces seeking to do us harm, we must remember that even the Devil cannot operate outside God’s will (Job 1). Satan is a created being and, as such, is not all-present or all-knowing (Eph 3:9), and he is also a liar (John 8:44). Additionally, humanity has made its own contribution to evil and shouldn’t shift their blame to Satan. Which brings me to my next point.

The Evil Ones

The contrast between good and evil is one that the best writers and filmmakers use as a surefire way to sell a work of art. In part, they may be to blame for the erroneous views of the Devil described above. Evil strikes a chord within us all. Most people tend to think of themselves as “good,” and they feel that “evil” is something “out there.” Stripped of the backdrop of Hollywood, the contrast is much less clear-cut. Hitler is an easy face to overlay our idea of evil and make it recognizable. But my gossip about a coworker to my boss? I tell myself, “well that’s just a slight bending of the moral code, not evil.” This sort of proud thinking gets us in trouble. If one facet of being delivered from evil is external, another aspect is internal. Here is how the Westminster Shorter Catechism explains it:

In the sixth petition, which is, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” we pray that God would either keep us from being tempted to sin, or support and deliver us when we are tempted.

The catechism personalizes evil, makes it not something “out there,” but something within us. It acknowledges the truth that all men are fallen and sinful, with a proclivity to commit evil acts. Jesus makes the case well when he uses the word “evil” to describe a father who loves his children:

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! – Matthew 7:11

Doing good to those whom we love is no virtue, for even terrorists give their children gifts, and even God’s people commit evil acts. The fundamental bent of humanity is away from God and toward self-serving evil (this idea underlies the claim of the Reformers, that “all of the Christian life is repentance”). Maturing in our discipleship—stumbling toward Christ—is a continual confession that our hearts are evil (Gen 6:5) and a continual pleading with our Father who gives good gifts that he would deliver us from that evil.

Elsewhere, Jesus tells us that God alone is good (Matt 10:18), which, by contrast, levels the playing field among humans: we are all evil. While becoming a disciple of Christ is certainly more than confessing that we are evil and that God alone is good, it certainly is not less. Our refrain should be: deliver us from evil. We have cause for rejoicing in the good news that Jesus came to complete this exact mission.

The Deliverer

John tells us that, “the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). What a mission! Where our first parents failed in a garden, the Son of God succeeded in a desert. The one who teaches us to pray, “deliver us from evil,” himself serves as our Deliverer. While on earth, the God-man maintained a vibrant conversation with his Father via prayer and exhibited a reliance on the Holy Spirit, by which he never succumbed to the temptation to sin. For those of us seeking to follow Christ, we must use the same means in order to be delivered from evil. Christ serves as both the author and perfecter of our faith (Heb 12:2) and our example (Rom 15:3). While we suffer externally from the evil of others and internally from our own proclivity to sin, our solution to this problem of evil is found in the eternal God-man who became evil so that we might inherit his righteousness (2 Cor 5:21).

When a disciple of Christ is made, a change occurs. The disciple is delivered “from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of [Christ]” (Col 1:13). In him we are forgiven of our evil deeds. We are delivered from the penalty of our own evil at the moment we place our faith in Christ, our Deliverer. We then begin the maturing process of sanctification. For this reason, we are given the command to continually petition our Father to “deliver us from evil.” While Christ has already paid for our evil deeds on the cross, our desire should be to avoid situations in which we will be tempted to sin. Our deliverer, Jesus, allowed the Father to lead him into temptation (Matt 4:1) and was then victorious over it. Based on his victory, he instructs his disciples to be diligent to plead God have mercy to lead them away from it. Our ability to cry out to God, “please don’t let me find myself in a situation where I might lust or gossip,” is a great mercy. He gives good gifts; so why not ask for them?

Those of us on the journey of discipleship aren’t called to do it alone. When we ask God to deliver us from evil, an aspect of that deliverance is corporate as well. We are personally delivered from the penalty of evil upon faith, and delivered from situational evil upon petition and dependence on the Holy Spirit. From there, we are called to bring that deliverance to others as we serve as conduits of God’s grace. We multiply disciples when we share the good news that Jesus came not to condemn evil people, but to save them (John 3:17).

Externally, an evil one seeks to destroy us. Our Deliverer, came to set us free from his tyranny. Internally, we wage a war with our flesh and its evil desires. We’ve been given the Holy Spirit by whom we can put these deeds to death. Our eternal, good Father hears our prayers and is faithful. May he get all the glory for this for, “he delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him, we have set our hope that he will deliver us again” (2 Cor 1:10).

Lord, deliver us from evil.

—

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.

Dominion Commission

As Christians, we understand that every single person on the planet is created in the Image of God. The Genesis account of man’s creation communicates this truth (Gen 1:26-28).

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Even though most Christians are familiar with this passage, many are confused about what it actually means. In other words, what are the implications of being a man or woman created in the Image of God?

According to Genesis 1, God’s image bearers were called to express their identity by having dominion over the earth. This dominion commission is accomplished in two ways—filling the earth with children (28) and by subduing the earth (26, 28).

We don't just tell stories. We live them. We orchestrate our lives around a big story that we trust in

Think for a moment about this place in history. God created man and woman in his image and they are unhindered by sin and enjoy perfect fellowship with God, each other, and all of creation. God gives them the gracious task of ruling, and they found joy in the opportunity to procreate little image bearers and subdue the earth. They had everything they needed to be obedient to God’s dominion commission. And they were to do it for the glory of their Maker.

Think about this commissioning in light of Psalm 8:4-9:

What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, And also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, Whatever passes along the paths of the seas. O LORD our Lord how majestic is your name in all the earth.

Therefore, as Image bearers we are to have dominion and this is good. However, man’s ability to be obedient to this commission to have dominion has been paralyzed because his relationship with God is severed.

Christians are all too familiar with the dreaded Genesis 3 account of the fall of man:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate and she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

In three short chapters, Adam and Eve go from being naked and not ashamed to being naked and ashamed and unable to enjoy a relationship with God and fulfill the task God has given them to have dominion over the earth.

The story doesn’t end there, though. God does something incredible.

Pay close attention to Genesis 3:15:

“I [God] will put enmity between you [the serpent] and the woman [Eve], and between your [the serpent’s] offspring and her [Eve’s] offspring; he [Jesus] shall bruise your head, and you [serpent and his offspring] shall bruise his heel.”

What is God doing here?

God is preaching the gospel. In one verse, we come to understand that God has graciously saved the newly depraved Eve (puts enmity between her and the serpent); he divides the world up into two communities: those who love God and those who love self (Eve’s offspring vs. the serpent’s offspring). He foretells of a Deliverer we know in this verse as the snake-crusher, which is Christ.

Ephesians 1:7 states, “In him [Christ] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.” God through Jesus Christ has and is restoring the image of God to his church. This restoration was his plan before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4).

After Christ died on the cross and bodily and eternally rose from the grave, securing salvation for his church, he gives this commission to his disciples:

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold I am with you always, to the end of the age.” – Matthew 28:18-20

Do you understand the significance of this truth? Because Christ has secured our salvation, we now have the ability to be obedient to the dominion commission.

The Great Commission is a dominion commission just as Genesis 1:26-28 is a dominion commission. Because of the authority of Jesus and the Holy Spirit indwelling believers we can joyfully make disciples of all nations, baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and teach them obedience.

God through Jesus has restored his image to his church and has reconciled us to himself for his glory. Furthermore, he has reasserted our purpose to have dominion on the earth—for his glory. We do this by faithfully heralding the good news of the gospel in the authority of Jesus Christ.

Christ won’t return until all of his children from every tribe, tongue, and nation proclaim his kingship (Ps 110:1). He has appointed that glorious day, long ago (Mk 13:32; Acts 17:31). Our commission to spread the glory of God to all nations will be successful. Christ died so that it would be. Embrace your identity and find fulfillment and joy in the task that God has graciously called and equipped you for.

—

Joey Tomlinson lives in Yorktown, VA with his wife, Brayden and their son, Henry Jacob. He has served as a pastor at Coastal Community Church for almost 10 years and is pursuing his doctorate in biblical counseling at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is also a certified biblical counselor with IBCD.

Resolved to be Human

I’m ashamed and embarrassed to admit that, for most of my Christian years, I have answered an important question incorrectly. A critical question. I’ll get to that question. But first, rambling. Maybe it’s because I am “one untimely born” into a celebrity culture fueled by the following values: smarter, louder, better. Maybe it’s because I have always subconsciously gravitated towards big personalities. Maybe it’s because biographical sketches of the Ernest Hemingways and Jack Londons of the world are littered throughout my Google search history.

This is a true story: I once had somebody ask me if I had short man syndrome. I had thought my pop-culture vernacular was up-to-date and was forced to ask for clarification. And the definition she gave me for short man syndrome? “Short man syndrome is when a short man tries to make up for his height with his personality.” I’m 5-foot 7-inches. Maybe she’s right. Or maybe there’s an incorrectly answered question lurking beneath my theology.

Should humanity be recovered or surpassed?

Questions about our humanity are never questions asked outside of the classroom of the gospel. How we answer the question mentioned above gives a distinct flavor to our personhood. It can determine whether we limp with other people or run ahead, whether we bleed with other people or walk away at the sight of blood. It helps us answer questions of personality, like: do I need to be smarter? Louder? Faster

It’s okay if you require a moment to respond to this question. Do you feel the need to be smarter, louder, or faster?

For most of my time as a Christian, I thought my humanity should be surpassed, not restored. In thinking of my humanity this way, Cornelius Van Till would say: it’s only one drop of poison, but it poisons the whole glass. The following few paragraphs are a few ounces I humbly distil from the glass of my life. I hope they serve to illustrate how this notion can subtly poison a personality.

First, it eliminated from my parlance one of the most important statements central to being human: “I don’t know.” That sentence, though skinny in volume, is fat with anthropological meaning between the syllables. When you possess the freedom to use those three words, you also possess the strange ability to humanize yourself.

Hemingway would be proud of this phrase's compact way of confessing that you, too, are created from the same clay. But when we understand humanity as something to be surpassed, we feel the pressure to become a living, breathing, answer key. Did you know sometimes people ask questions they don’t want answers to? I didn’t. Remember that the phrase “I don’t know” is a fine way for the Christian to communicate that although we don’t have all the answers, we do have a Person.

Second, it subtly and slowly nudged me away from the social skill of empathy. We may never bump into a thesis about empathy in our systematic theology volumes, but empathy is deeply theological. If we understand humanity as an obstacle, then humanity is no longer something we can identify with. In my life, this means that when other people would vomit their failures and sins to me, I would present myself to them as the example, not the empathizer.

Slowly, my “here’s what I do” suggestions began to dominate the arm-wrestling match against my “I understand” sentiments. When we think humanity should be surpassed, people will strangely begin to look less like yourself and more like something else as you look across the table and over the steaming coffee in discipleship discussions. We can know that we have answered the question wrongly the moment people begin to look less like mirrors and more like fill-in-the-blanks. If people don’t know you are more like them than unlike them, may I suggest using the phrase “I understand” more?

Third, if humanity should be surpassed, then other people are merely obstacles. The impact this has on social dynamics is endless: disciples become competitors, brothers and sisters become rivals, and so on. Though I disagree with his premises, I sadly agree with Darwin’s conclusion that the dominant attitude of human beings in a relationship is marked by competitive hostility.

The Bible has much to say about this. When this attitude is present, this achievement is impossible: “If one member is honored, all rejoice together” (1 Cor. 12:26). If you notice you cannot rejoice when honoring others, could it be this poison is present in your spiritual life? The gospel has much to say about this, but most importantly this attitude reverses the reconciliation the gospel achieves.

Pushback

Let me briefly address some pushback. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be a people of answers or example. I am saying that the phrase “I don’t know” sometimes has surprisingly more assuaging power than we realize. And “I understand” doesn’t always demonstrate a lack of ministry competence. Looking more like Christ doesn’t always demand looking less like others. If our humanity should be restored, then Jesus is in the business of making us like Jesus, not into Jesus.

This distinction matters. So let me say it again: Jesus is in the business of making us like Jesus, not into Jesus. The gospel is the story of Jesus restoring our humanity. J.I. Packer says, “To be truly happy, be truly human. The way to be truly human is to be truly godly.” He who is truly human can truly empathize with other humans. And that is truly godly.

All this talk about humanity and empathy also reminds me of Jonathan Edwards’ eighth resolution: “Resolved . . . that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God.”

Edwards’ resolution is a resolution to be human. In the sins of others, he is resolved to see his own sins. In the confessions of others, he is resolved to see his own capacity for sin. When you read that resolution is that not a pastor you would like to spend time with? It shouldn’t surprise us that people desire to find their Christ in Christ and desire to find their people in people. Remember that people want genuine people.

Example and Empathizer

What should shock us most into joy is Jesus. In the person of Jesus and the story of the gospel, we have both our example and our empathizer: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses” (Heb. 4:15). And from the person of Jesus, we hear him quietly and powerfully communicate both “here’s what I do” and “I understand”: “Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect. . . . For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Heb. 2:17-18).

But there are still times when I react with a frustrated hostility against the limitations of my humanity. I bite, claw, and scratch it by talking louder and reading more, but in rare moments of victory, I find quiet contentment with being human. I want you to have those in your life. What’s more these moments usually happen when my humanity is most restored and perhaps in these moments I am still just as loud and read just as much. But I am also more dazzled by a central truth about our Jesus: we have a person in our Christ and a Christ in that person.

—

Cole Deike is a full-time church planting resident at Redeemer Church in Cedar Falls, Iowa—a church that is part of the SBC. Formerly, Cole was a high school English teacher and wrestling coach. Find him on Facebook or Instagram.

Wrestling with God

When I was nineteen years old, a doctor told me I might have a disease that would allow me only a few more years to live. I had been ill, and, because of my not-so-enviable family genes, a team of doctors was analyzing me in a clinic far from home. I left the clinic that night, knowing the details of the disease and contemplating what it would mean for my life. Back in the apartment where I was staying, I began to send messages to a friend back home in Oregon. I detailed the symptoms I was experiencing, and the ones coming if my diagnosis was accurate.

The very places we already inhabit are places that we have been sent with the good news of Jesus

His response: “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. May the name of the Lord be praised.”

My response as I read those words: “Jerk-face! Who says that when a friend shares hard stuff?”

Thankfully, I only thought it and didn’t type it back to him. It had taken thirty minutes before I began to question if he was right. If God rules the world, does all I have belong to him anyway? Am I called to praise him even when I wrestle in suffering?

My friend’s message initiated my struggle with God, with pounding questions in cycles of suffering to come.

Indescribable Loss and Incompetent Comforters

Job was blameless in the eyes of God, as well as rich in commerce, greatness, and family. He feared God, caring about what God thought first and foremost. There was still a cosmic debate. Satan questioned Job’s motivations, so God allowed Satan to take Job’s possessions, children, and, eventually, his health. His response was what my friend referenced—he praised God (Job 1:21, 2:10). Nevertheless, Job mourned.

As good friends, the comforters gathered first with kindness in silence. However, when the silence was broken, so was the peace. After Job’s opening expressions of despair and anger came a deluge of accusations, assumptions, and insinuations. Job’s friends knew God better than Job, so, of course, they were right. “Job must have sinned,” they said, “or God would not have allowed this evil to happen to him.”

They were master over-simplifiers. They turned the biblical wisdom literature into formulas. “Bad things happen to bad people and good things to good people,” they reiterated incessantly. Job must be bad. His only hope was to repent so that God could restore him.

Job defended himself for three rounds, responding to his friends before the cycle began again. “I am innocent,” he maintained. His friends were wrong. In his grief, Job described his pain and the character of God, all the while he was pleading for God to do something, to respond. Job knew God had put him where he was (19:6-7), yet he also knew that God would vindicate him. God was righteous and still his hope (27:1-22).

Then a fourth junior team friend speaks; Elihu comes with a more moderate position. He says that neither the friends nor Job is right, and, with an air of authority, he declares that he knows. While his argument isn’t perfectly correct either, he does shift the conversation from centering on Job and humanity’s iniquity to the majesty and faithfulness of God.

In my apartment late that fearful night, I didn’t have accusers or bad theologians as friends. But those did come later—“Your suffering was generated by God’s anger at your sin.” This allegation related to my health, my circumstances, as well as other kinds of suffering. Like Job, I’ve sometimes responded with strong words to those who told me this. Like Job, I’ve wrestled with questions about physical, emotional, and relational pain. Like Job, I’ve needed to hear from God himself.

The Astounding Interview

The LORD God answered Job out of a whirlwind. God gave him the interview he had been begging for. But the conversation consisted of questions for Job to answer, rather than the planned questions for God. God brought perspective through this correction, reminding Job of his place. He allowed Job to reexamine who he was and who God was. Job was not God. Job does not see it all. Job did not create the world; he does not rule it now. So can Job judge God? Can he evaluate if God is doing what he should?

God reminds him of the wild, dangerous, and beautiful world that exists. Through the examples of the Behemoth and the Leviathan, God shows Job this world is not tame. It is complex. Job responds with faith, faith in God’s words and God’s role. He changes his mind and is finally comforted.

In all of this, God does not condemn Job and is not provoked to punishment. He vindicates Job and tells the “friends” that they need Job’s prayers to avoid punishment from God, whom they represented falsely.

Faith in Pain

I find great hope in the fact that the struggle of Job was not condemned. Job fought to understand. He sought to know the character of God combined with what he saw happening to him. God saw and engaged. And he held him up as the righteous one among his friends. God vindicated Job by showing him that his suffering was not due to sin. But Job needed more. Later in history, the Redeemer Job hoped for came to bring the fullness of his hope (Job 19:25). Jesus mediates for us so that we can come to God with our questions and wrestle with hope. Hope because we know his response will be only love and discipline, never God’s anger towards our sin—because our Redeemer took all of that forever.

The book of Job doesn’t answer why God allows suffering. It doesn’t give us impersonal truths to cling to; instead, the focus lands squarely on faith—the faith of Job to trust in the One who he knows is allowing him to suffer. The book of Job models choosing hope in redemption from the God who brings pain into our lives.

Many years later, I am still alive. The next morning the diagnosis the doctors had feared was eliminated as a possibility. But the truth still remained—God gives and takes away. I wanted to praise him no matter what. Suffering, hardship, and pain come to us in this dangerous world. Sometimes it is because of our own sin, directly or indirectly. Other times it is not.

I still wrestle sometimes. We will all likely wrestle like Job at some point in our lives, asking God to answer. The same God-in-the-whirlwind will engage us as struggling sufferers with truth. He will meet us with a reminder of what our Redeemer has done, as the full answer to our suffering. He will comfort us with hope. And he will humble us by telling us that he is still God.

Yes, Lord, you are. And we praise you.

—

Taylor Turkington has worked for a church in the Portland area for the last six years, teaching, discipling, and training. She loves being involved in the equipping and encouraging of people for the work God has given them. Before her church life, Taylor worked as a missionary in Eastern Europe and graduated from Western Seminary with an M.A. in Biblical and Theological Studies. Currently, Taylor is a student at Western in the D.Min. program. She loves teaching the Bible and speaks at seminars, retreats, and conferences. Taylor is a co-founder and co-director of the Verity Fellowship.

Forgive Us Our Trespasses

Field day was the best day of the year. We got out of class to play outdoors. One of my favorite activities was tug of war since it made me feel a lot stronger than I was. Honestly, my arms are zero percent muscle. One year, we got into place and started out with power. The knot of the rope was steadily budging to our side when I fell, and my leg got caught under it. My ankle experienced the wrath of the great war between the two teams shifting the rope each way. Just as the opposing team broke into victorious cries, they let go, and the rope furiously ran across my skin towards their outburst of triumph.

Jesus teaches us to start our prayers by remembering we belong to God’s family—the family that God has rescued and is gathering together from all nations.

I yelled out and looked up at my team in defeat. As I lifted myself from the grass, my friend asked if I was okay to which I answered with a negative. Immediately, he called the nurse over, and she came running. I was confused, so I told them I was fine and explained that my concern was for our loss . . . not my ankle.

The pain was the least of my worries until I saw the look of disbelief on their faces. To assure them, I grabbed my ankle and looked at it. I winced in pain and saw deep white tissue exposed. The rope hadn’t caused blood, but a blistering white battle wound. I frantically started crying and screaming for help.

Sometimes we don’t feel hurt until we get the courage to look at our wounds. Occasionally, this delayed sense of hurt can reference physical pain, but most often it’s the truth speaking into emotional or spiritual pain. When we courageously acknowledge our hurt, we’re forced to ask for help, which is why forgiveness carries weight.

The Courage to Look at Our Wounds

The power of forgiveness triumphs over pride, jealousy, and death itself, but if we never acknowledge the need for it, then we’ll never engage it. Often, our minds are too distracted with who won the tug of war to look down at our wounds. Our hearts grieve the loss of our victories and ignore the grave repercussions of the battle. Will we continue to ignore hurt for the sake of ourselves? Or can we get to a place where we humbly cry out for help before the mess of scabs and scarring?

“But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes, we are healed.” – Isaiah 53:5

Forgiveness circumvents the untreated mess of unspoken hurt, which is known to spread rapidly across our lives and infect our peace, joy, and love. Forgiveness cleanses us, renews us, and sends us out stronger than before. More than that, it ushers in the reason for Jesus—the gospel.

Jesus gave his life so that he may enter into ours. The beating, mocking, and even death that he endured was for our freedom. If he had chosen to bypass the brutality of the cross, we wouldn’t have freedom in Christ. The empty grave glorifies his supernatural victory over death, but this victory is not victorious without the pain, hurt, and suffering. Although we did nothing to deserve freedom, his generosity is an indication that the Spirit works on our behalf to reconcile, redeem, and restore.

“Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” – Colossians 3:13

His courage to forgive made way for reconciliation. Jesus had wounds that remind us of our own, which instills in us a reason to look at him as we hurt, suffer, and heal. If God has forgiven mankind, then how much more can we forgive one another?

Spirit-empowered Forgiveness

Forgiving others requires courage because we must look down to inspect the wounds inflicted upon us, and even harder, the wounds we inflict upon others. But this kind of inspection is also good news. Christ provided more than just the command to forgive; he provided his own Spirit that empowers us to forgive.

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” – Romans 8:1-2.

Wounds are tender, and they have to be treated with care. When I was a young girl playing tug of war, I felt more pain when I grabbed my leg in arrogance. I had to dig my fingers into the fleshy burn and see it with my own eyes, instead of just accepting that I was hurt and in need of help. We must examine our hurt as well.

We try so hard to prove that we’re invincible, that our hurt isn’t worth our time, and that the wounds will heal themselves. If we never care for our wounds, then they won’t heal. Acknowledging our need for forgiveness empowers our hearts to generously give and receive forgiveness. God has been showing me my need to do this and the freedom that’s found in doing so.

Hoping for Forgiveness

My hope for you is:

• I hope you will have renewed gratitude for Christ’s forgiveness.
• I hope you will approach your own hurt and forgive the people who have caused it.
• I hope you will humbly seek forgiveness from (at least) one person that you have hurt.

Life has its battles, and we can’t escape that harsh reality. However, we can be more conscious of what they do to us. Jesus fought for forgiveness, let’s humbly follow him.

“Christ performs the office of a priest by once offering himself as a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice, and to reconcile us to God, and by making continual intercession for us before God.” – John Piper

—

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.

Our Daily Bread

I’ve never not had daily bread. Sure, when my siblings and I were growing up we complained, “There’s nothing to eat in the house!” We meant that there was nothing we wanted to eat (my mom had a strange affinity for cabbage and beans. In Jimmy Fallon’s words “EW!”). But there was always something to eat. Maybe that’s why I don’t routinely pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matt. 6:11). It doesn’t fit within my experience. In modern Western culture, daily bread is often assumed.

Jesus’ teaching turned people’s religious ideas inside out and upside down.

Meals are planned out days or even weeks in advance. I don’t think to pray for bread. It’s just there. However, Jesus instructs his disciples to pray for daily bread, so if we call ourselves disciples, we need to grapple with what that means for us today.

Daily Bread Is Not the Norm For Everyone

Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount before crowds of poor peasants oppressed under Roman rule. Most workers in first-century Palestine were paid on a day-to-day basis with no assurance of tomorrow’s work. Illness, unjust governments, or changes in climate could all bring instant deprivation. These were people for whom daily bread was an uncertain part of life.

When Jesus tells his followers to ask their Heavenly Father for daily bread, he means food for sustenance. The Jewish mind inundated with the Exodus story would be reminded of Yahweh’s miraculous provision of manna in the wilderness. In the same way, the Israelites were called to trust God for their very sustenance, so now Jesus’ followers were called to trust the Father for their basic survival needs. This petition was a call to radical dependency on God.

This kind of dependence may be lost on many of us in developed countries, but it’s not lost on everyone. Hunger is still the norm for many people around the world. A variety of outside influences can spell out tragedy for families today just as it did in Jesus’ day.

I witnessed this in Southern Sudan during a visit in 2010. War had ravaged the land. The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) controlled many of the resources. Children were orphaned. Crooked government drained outside aid. Families were destitute. When they prayed, “Give us this day our daily bread” it wasn’t symbolic sentiment offered as a religious rite. They were legitimately asking God to provide their next meal.

This experience made the petition for daily bread real to me. At the heart of the request utter dependence and childlike trust. Jesus wants his followers to ask and depend on God for their most basic needs.

How Should We Pray If Daily Bread Is Our Norm? 

So what do we do with Jesus’ word if our basic material needs are supplied? This question caused me to pause this week—especially from those of us who have abundant resources. I came away with two points of personal application that may be helpful in your prayer life.

– Repent of prideful independence and acknowledge total dependence on God. 

Americans have made a god out of independence. Few things are valued like the independent, self-sufficient man. We work hard, we get good jobs, and we provide for ourselves. Most importantly, we depend on no one. If we have daily food, it’s because we earned it. We’re proud of that.

What we fail to understand is God’s providential hand in everything. If you’re not worried about where you’ll get dinner tonight (and I don’t mean what farm the chickens were raised on!), it’s not ultimately because you’re a stellar businessman or know how to rock Groupon. It’s because a gracious, loving God has supplied you with abundance. 

God created, sustains, and governs the world in such a way that we are dependent on him for everything. He “gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25). The next breath we take is dependent upon God’s provision, which means—brace yourself—we aren’t the independent, self-sufficient people we pride ourselves upon. We’re dependent beings. There’s a built-in Creator/creature distinction that no one escapes.

You have much less control over your life than you would like to believe. God determined the boundaries of your life—the family you were born into, your country of origin, where you live, the government you reside under, and the circumstances that got you the job. God placed you in an environment with the resources and opportunities you needed to flourish. He gave it, and he can take it away.

The Lord’s Prayer reminds you of this radical dependency. It gives you an opportunity for repentance, confession, and worship. Confess ways you’ve trusted in your work to provide for you and your family. Acknowledge your dependence on God for all your material needs, even your daily bread.

Praise God for the many blessings he’s given you. Thank him for the skills and resources he has provided. We’re so quick to complain about what we don’t have (money for all organic foods or to eat at trendy restaurants), not realizing how privileged we are. We have food! God has been good to us. Allow this to generate childlike worship in your life.

– Pray for your hungry brothers and sisters around the world. 

When you pray “Give us this day our daily bread” don’t miss the “us.” You won’t find a single singular pronoun in the Lord‘s Prayer. Personal requests are important but this prayer shows particular concern for the corporate body rather than the individual believer.

As I observed this, the need to pray for my brothers and sisters around the world hit me like a ton of bricks. My basic needs may be met, but many of theirs aren’t. We’re one family in Christ, so their burdens are my burdens. I’m fed, but they go hungry. This realization caused me to stop my studies and devote time to prayer!

Will you join me? As you pray “Give us this day our daily bread” would you petition the Father for hungry believers around the world? If so, here are specific things I’m praying for:

• The faith of believers to be strengthened so that they can ask and trust God for provision.
• Christian organizations to be well funded so that they can be on the front lines in the worldwide hunger crisis.
• Support for Christian orphanages, so that they can feed and house hungry orphans.
• Just governments to be put in place so that they can champion the cause of the hungry.
• Churches and Christians to grow in their generosity and sacrificial giving so that more resources can go to the hungry.

This list isn’t exhaustive. Pray as the Spirit leads. But pray!

Daily bread was a legitimate concern for Jesus’ original hearers, and it still is for many today. Allow this to break your heart and fuel your prayers for your local and global faith family. If you’ve been blessed with basic provision, acknowledge the Giver of all good gifts then pray for those who need daily bread.

—

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.

Speak into Suffering

When my first daughter went to be with the Lord, one friend wrote to me, “There are no words.” There are no words to describe, quantify, or eliminate the pain of child loss—it was a depletion of my person in nearly every possible manner. There are no words for the kinds of suffering we can endure on this earth. Experiencing that kind of depletion is not a reason to despair with hopelessness, for it can give way to great rejoicing. Through it, the abundance and sufficiency of Scripture become unmistakable. There are divinely-inspired words—that can never be depleted—to speak into intense suffering.

Disciples devour and dwell on the things of God found in the Scriptures. We pray. We kill sin in our lives. We serve others.

Many who have not personally experienced intense suffering feel depleted of words the minute they hear about someone else’s deep pain. Perhaps that is you. You feel you cannot relate well to others’ agony. Perhaps you have heard the widespread advice that the best approach to someone who is suffering is to be present and only listen. Or, perhaps you have only had occasion to read or learn about what not to say when someone is suffering, so you are at a loss for exactly how to act or be. God’s Word is an abundant, sufficient help for you too.

The God Speaking There

In The Hiding Place, Corrie ten Boom was familiar with her own suffering and that of others. She recounts that women with of her in a Nazi prison camp would encircle her and her sister, pressing in closely and attentively, as they read the Word of God (thanks to a Bible God miraculously provided).

Precisely during this level of suffering, they desperately needed and wanted the Word. The God speaking there—through those pages—was their only hope. This remarkable account shows the Word bringing hope and light to a dark and, from an earthly perspective, hopeless circumstance.

So as a Church, as disciples, as teachers, as leaders, as friends, as one who is suffering intensely—right where we find yourself—let’s do well at speaking Scripture into suffering. To do so, we will need to learn the Word itself—not just verses we pluck from the book, but the meaning of passages and, then, the application of passages to our overall theology and the way we view the world.

And, ethen, we need to become good listeners. I have learned that there is no substitute for these—learning the Word and listening—and that when they are done well, I have much more to offer someone who is suffering in addition to myself.

As disciples—right where we find yourself—let’s do well at speaking Scripture into suffering

Think about your life and heart. What often results in your own spiritual growth? You have an ache. And you bring it to the Lord and his Word. Whether through an article, a conversation with someone else, a lecture, a small group meeting, a sermon, a book, reading the Bible in the quietness of your home, you have a realization about that ache. That is, you learn what the Bible speaks into that ache.

When you do, you grow. You are made more whole with the truth of his Word. One experience like this after another is what carried me through grief.

So, if you have a suffering friend, listen for the ache when he or she speaks. If you cannot identify it or if you do not yet know how the Bible speaks into it, then be satisfied with being a good listener—after all, you would only be speaking for the benefit of your friend. Make no assumptions, for a response of Biblical perspective to the ache they feel, might not be the words you think they need to hear.

Identifying the Ache

But do know, if you can indeed identify another’s ache and can grow to interpret and apply the Bible well to the aches you begin to hear around you, then trust that the Word of God is your sufficient and most compassionate resource to share with someone who is suffering.

When suffering is new, resonate with the ache. A sorrowful reaction to suffering is Biblical.

• When everything in life now feels meaningless, remember that there is a reason for this feeling—the world is not as it should be (Ecclesiastes).
• When the experience of grief is life-consuming, remember how consuming was David’s grief over his baby’s impending death (2 Sam. 12:15-17).
• When suffering makes you feel lonely, read the Psalms to know you are truly not alone.
• When you feel angry with the woeful way of the world, think of Jesus’ troubled, even angered, response to death because of death’s impact upon those grieving the loss of Lazarus (Jn 11:33).
• When this life feels full of anguish, think of Jesus’ anguish in the garden of Gethsemane. The burden he felt when anticipating the cross demonstrates the miserable state of the world (Lk 22:44).
• When suffering makes you feel ostracized, take heart that you are in good company when suffering (1 Pt 4:12).
• When suffering makes you feel misunderstood, look to the account of Job and the mistaken assumptions of his friends (Job 4-31) or to the gospel accounts to see how constantly Jesus was unappreciated, misunderstood, unrecognized for who he is. People are flawed.

Longing for Hope

Listen for the aches longing for light, hope, comfort, or purpose amidst suffering.

• When friends and family members do not meet all of your needs, be encouraged that the comfort we receive—even when given through others—is comfort ultimately from God (2 Cor. 1:4).
• When you see debilitating sickness or death overcoming your body or the body of someone you love, remember that we believers will one day have resurrected, glorified, and redeemed bodies just like his heavenly one (1 Jn 3:2; 1 Cor 15:42).
• When the force of emotion is strong, and your words won’t suffice to express your heart, take comfort that the Holy Spirit himself intercedes for you (Rom 8:26).
• When you feel forgotten in your suffering, remember that God memorializes every tear that falls from your eye (Ps 56:8), just as he knows the number of hairs on your head (Lk 12:7).
• When suffering severs a relationship, remember the ultimate relationship forsaking willingly endured within the Godhead for you (Matt 27:46). God understands.
• When you do not feel the compassion of others, remember that Jesus’ suffering (Is 53) and overcoming-power makes him a High Priest, who relates to us and causes us to overcome with power too (Heb 4:14-16)—giving grace for the present and the promise of heaven.
• When death or the fear of death seems to conquer you, remember that he has ultimately defeated death (1 Cor 15:55-57).
• When you feel distant from God, dwell upon the truth that he has given a love that no suffering, pain, or heartache can pull away from you (Rom 8:38-39).
• When suffering makes you feel unmoored, haphazardly walking through life while wondering when you will finally be free from earthly concerns, remember that you are truly and solidly anchored through Christ to the world to come (Heb 6:19).
• When suffering makes life feel slow, remember that by God’s definition—given the eternal state—this suffering is light and momentary (2 Cor 4:17).
• When you need to be reminded of the treasures that can come alongside of suffering, learn why Jesus said that it is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting (Eccles 7:2) or why Peter said that faith refined through suffering is gold (1 Pt 1:7). God’s glory can be evident in your faithfulness, giving you purpose and joy.

Stuck When Suffering

Listen for the ache of being stuck when suffering. 

• When you experience unending bitterness toward God, look to the story of Jeremiah, who also felt bitterness at his intense suffering. Hear how patient and sure were the words of exhortation and restoration that God spoke to him (Jer 15:18-21).
• When others avoid you or when you are tempted always to avoid others who do not fully understand, think of how you might give someone opportunity to enter into your mourning or suffering with you. Then, take heart that when you can share their joy, it truly becomes your own (Rom 12:15).
• When you can think of no reason to not blame God for the suffering that has come into your life, look to Genesis 3; the original sin of Adam and Eve is what broke the world. God is One in whom there is no darkness (1 Jn 1:5), who created the world good (Gen 1:31), who cannot tempt with evil (Jas 1:13), and so, cannot be convicted of wickedness, malice, or evil.
• When you simply cannot understand your suffering within God’s sovereign plan, rest content that his ways are beyond yours (Rom 11:33; Matt 18:2).
• When suffering makes you stuck in a cycle of looking only inward, remember that you have gifts that can be employed for others’ good and God’s glory (1 Pt 4:10).
• When you, Christian, are having difficulty being grateful for what you do have, remember the wrath from which you have been saved (Rom 5:9; 1 Thess 1:10).
• When escaping from suffering has become your focus, remember that Jesus Christ, and his good pleasure, is your reward (Matt 25:23).
• When you are tempted to blame yourself for circumstances beyond your control, remember that God has purposed all of the events in your life and the lives of those you love—including birth and death, and every circumstance in between (Ps 139:16)—just as he planned from the beginning of creation that Jesus would die for us (1 Pt 1:20). Remember his sacrificial love as the reason to move forward, and move forward in devotion to him.
• When you question if your suffering has any meaning or purpose, trust in the sovereignty of God to bring his purposes to fruition through the circumstances of your life, all of which are a part of his plan (Gen 50:20; Job 42:2).
• When you question what miracle of goodness God can bring from your suffering, meditate on Romans 5:3-5 and trust that suffering can teach you, give you a depth of knowledge of God like never before, and bring encouragement when the genuineness of your faith becomes evident (1 Pt 1:17).

Applying Scripture to All Our Aches

Whatever the circumstance, listen for the underlying yearning or longing. Let’s keep learning how to carefully apply Scripture to all of the aches we experience. The process of teaching and discipleship is God’s to lead faithfully.

And our aches are often the impetus and route God uses for our growth to increasingly display his glory through changed and faithful lives; the kind of lives that display his glory like this are grown from his Word.

While it’s not ours to invent or assume others’ aches, it is ours to listen well, to acknowledge back to the sufferer what we hear, and trust that for every need of the heart, God has spoken abundantly and sufficiently in his Word. You can learn skillful application of his Word to human aches and be empowered to give others more than yourself—you can speak his Word.

Take heart that this is your source of compassion for the sufferer, and this is your source of comfort when suffering—for putting his salve of truth skillfully into our aches is always our good.

If or when a circumstance of suffering comes into your life that cannot be described in words, remember, he speaks.

Behind the Mask

• What could you add to these lists since it’s not exhaustive?
• How has God spoke through your suffering?
• How have you listened poorly or well when others have been suffering?
• What hope do we have in the midst of sufferings?

—

Lianna Davis (@liannadavis) is wed to Tyler and mom to two girls, one who lives in heaven and one who lives on earth. She serves with Hope Mommies, a non-profit organization sharing the hope of Christ with bereaved mothers, and is co-founder at Of Larks, a blog for theologically-minded women writers and readers. 

Thy Kingdom Come

For much of my Christian life, I failed to connect the dots. I couldn’t bridge the gap between what I knew God had done in my heart and how that truth applies to the world around me. Is following Jesus just a small, subjective feeling? Did the Spirit’s work in changing my heart mean that his work was only for my heart? These questions perplexed me for quite some time. I never received peace until I dug into the scriptures to explore the kingdom of God.

Jesus teaches us to start our prayers by remembering we belong to God’s family—the family that God has rescued and is gathering together from all nations.

Central to the gospel announcement are the words of Jesus himself: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe the gospel” (Mk 1:15). Our Lord saw his vocation as Israel’s Messiah as genuinely good news—and it had everything to do with God’s Kingdom coming to bear on this earth.

The Kingdom of God

The Kingdom announcement was about God’s rule being established in time and on earth. The prophets of old had warned of this great day (e.g., Dan 7:13–14), and Jesus declared without hesitation that the day was “now.” “If it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matt 12:28).

The ministry of Jesus consisted of both demonstration and proclamation. He showed and taught the ways of the Kingdom. He healed both external wounds and internal injuries. The Kingdom of God was an all-encompassing reality—a new world order underneath the lordship of Christ Jesus.

Jesus taught his disciples to pray for this fact to “come.” Incidentally, it was coming. Had Christ died for sinners? Not yet. Was the tomb empty? Not quite. But the Kingdom was breaking in, and the disciples were to ask God to increase the temperature.

Notwithstanding the disciples’ current struggle with unbelief, Jesus assured them that their prayers would not go unheard. If they prayed like this, then the Father would hear their cry.

“Prayer doesn’t change things; God changes things in answer to prayer.” – John Calvin

Praying for the Kingdom

What does it mean for us to pray for God’s Kingdom to come? To start, we must keep in mind that prayer is God’s means. It is no accident that Jesus here taught his disciples to pray and not how to organize a three-point sermon. The preaching would come later when the Spirit would descend and give them authority and power.

What they needed now was to learn in Christ’s school of prayer. They needed communion with God. As Jesus would later pray in Gethsemane, that they also may be in us

Praying to “our Father” that the Kingdom would “come” is simply another way of communing with God underneath his sovereign authority and plan. Even though the disciples would have to walk through countless trials—including the death of their teacher—they were to stick closely to God in prayer, believing that, in doing so, the world would be changed.

This second petition covers everything from eschatology to missiology and ecclesiology to piety. I want to focus in on just three aspects of this second petition.

Three Key Elements of the Lord’s Prayer 

1. We pray that sin would be eradicated.

Because “all mankind” is “under the dominion of sin and Satan,” we pray for the Kingdom of God to come and deal with the big problem of sin. Because the Kingdom was inaugurated, we must not forget how it was done.

Christ’s substitutionary death was an end to sin. The Lamb of God came to take away the sins of the world, and he intends to do just that. Praying for the Kingdom to come is to pray that Christ’s sovereign rule would wipe out our lustful thoughts and irritable attitudes.

We don’t want God’s moral law to be trampled; we want it to be honored! We want sin to be eradicated, and we look forward to the day when it will be.

2. We pray that Satan would be snuffed out.

“Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). The Bible makes several things clear about Satan and his demise.

• He has been disarmed, defeated, and triumphed over (Col 2:15; Rev 12:7ff; Mk 3:27).
• He is “fallen” (Lk 10:18) and was “thrown” down out of heaven (Rev 12:9).
• For the early Christians, he was crushed under their feet (Rom 16:20).
• He has no authority over Christians (Col 1:13).
• Jesus tied him up, binding him so that the nations could no longer be deceived (Matt 12:29; Mk 3:27; Lk 11:20; Rev 20).
• Satan has been “judged” (Jn 16:11) and cast out (Jn 12:31).
• He can’t touch a Christian (1 Jn 5:18).
• All his works have been destroyed (1 Jn 3:8).
• Satan has nothing (Jn 14:30), and he flees when resisted (Jas 4:7).
• He is alive in the world, but he is a defeated enemy moping around in his bitterness.

Praying for the Kingdom to come means that evil and Satan her leader must go.

3. We pray that Christ’s glory would cover the earth.

Because the Kingdom has come and it intends to grow in history (Dan 2; Matt 13; Isa 9:7), we pray for its expansion in every neighborhood and every home. “For the earth will be filled with knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Hab 2:14).

The glory of God is the supremacy of his personhood; we want desperately for his holiness, love, grace, wrath, and mercy to be acknowledged by all men, women, and children everywhere. The impetus for the missional church is this glory.

Multiplying Disciples

When we consider the task of making, maturing, and multiplying disciples, sometimes we fail to see (like I did!) how the Kingdom connects to real life. At a basic level, we know that disciples are made and brought into the Kingdom because the Spirit changes a person’s heart through our preaching of the gospel message (Rom. 10:14–17).

We usually understand this regarding evangelism and discipleship—both are necessary correlated. When we consider maturing disciples, we understand that the power to make and grow disciples rests in the power of the gospel.

We make a disciple by the power of the gospel, and we grow a disciple by the same thing. The trouble comes in on this last part: How do we multiply disciples, and how does it connect to this second petition?

When we consider the reality of the Kingdom that has come and pray for its effects to grow, we need to keep in mind that a significant part of that growing comes from the Church. In other words, the Church of Jesus is a colony of heaven; our citizenship is held in the heavenly file room while our practical passports are held at the local assemblies.

Baptized disciples who partake of the Lord’s Supper under the leadership of qualified elders and listen to the preaching of the Word of God each Lord’s day are ambassadors of this Kingdom. The signposts of heaven are people.

Pieces of the Kingdom

If we intend to plant churches, grow missional communities, and send out missionaries around the globe, we’re going to need to keep in mind that God has ordained these means to achieve his Kingdom ends. All those late-night counseling meetings, all those coffee conversations, those men’s groups, ladies’ book studies, missional community gatherings, fight clubs, and church planting efforts are all pieces of the great Kingdom puzzle.

To connect the dots between what God has given you and what God intends to do through you, we must realize that the dots are already connected.

Everything we do is motivated and fueled by God’s Kingdom work. Usually, we divorce our multiplication efforts from the Kingdom—and sometimes for good reason. It often just doesn’t look like the Kingdom. But perhaps we aren’t looking at it with the right glasses? Perhaps the invitation of the Kingdom is an invitation into the small stuff that doesn’t look like much.

When we catechize our children, go to work and do a good job, interact on social media in an honorable way, or even change a diaper, all of it falls under the lordship of Christ.Since the entire world belongs to him

Since the entire world belongs to him in principle and is commissioned to multiply disciples who think, speak, act, and toil like Jesus, we are now free to find all our work, all our missional community efforts—all of life—as honorable work for the Kingdom.Since we are sent into the world that belongs to King Jesus, even the small stuff matters.

Since we are sent into the world that belongs to King Jesus, even the small stuff matters.

Reflections

• How does praying for God's kingdom to come bridge the gap between his work in your heart and the world around you?
• What does it mean for us to pray for God’s Kingdom to come?
• In what ways can you pray for sin to be eradicated in your community and city?
• What is the impetus behind the mission of the church?
• How does the kingdom of God bring significance to even the small tasks in this life?

—

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.

The Reluctant Missionary

When my wife Emily and I moved to Mexico, I self-identified as a reluctant missionary; God called us to the mission field, but I didn’t go singing like one of the astronauts in the movie Armageddon. Since then I’ve sweat more than I thought possible. And much of what I was reluctant about, I’ve navigated with forward momentum. Sure, I’ve bumped my head a few times, even caught it on fire, stalled a van full of mission trip guests roughly eight times in one outing and now have the language capacity of a 3-year-old with a speech impediment, but things are good.

The Lord has helped us make sense of a lot in eight months. We’ve learned a lot about each other, our marriage, his mission, and Mexican traffic patterns. Over and against all these, though, he’s taught me the most about my reluctance as a missionary.

I only want Grace to write a dramatic, perfect sentence in my story. I don’t want to relinquish the whole narrative.

At its core, my reluctance wasn’t about language barriers, selling my truck, or an inordinate amount of sweating. It wasn’t about disputed dreams. Sure, those things were there. But at its core, my reluctance fundamentally was about Grace.

Grace is scary.

In The Reason for God, Tim Keller writes about a woman who gets her heart around grace. She realized if she could earn Grace, she can demand of it. If she can crowbar Gods love, then God is in the hot-seat. She’s paid her tax and got skin in the game, so God needs to ante up. But, if God loves us, saves us, by grace—due to nothing on our end—then there’s nothing he can not ask from us.

If you’re like me, that’s comforting at first, but immediately terrifying.

I want Grace, but, if I’m honest, I only want a kind of Grace that steps in to rescue, but then leaves me alone. I only want Grace to write a dramatic, perfect sentence in my story. I don’t want to relinquish the whole narrative.

But Grace doesn’t co-author.

That was my predicament: I wanted a sentence about grace, but God pens entire stories with it. And when your story is penned by Grace, it means your story is not about you. Grace is so scandalous that it enters your story without permission. And, Grace is so scandalous it will send you into others’ stories without permission.

I’ve learned grace not only saves; grace sends. And grace sends wherever grace saves, which, again, makes us uncomfortable.

Grace goes “far as the curse is found.” Grace goes and sends us into every nook-and-cranny of the world that’s been warped, desecrated, and bothered by sin, selfishness, and stupidity.

The Ordinariness of Grace

Grace isn’t shaped or stopped by geography, class, race, intellectual status, plausibility structures, income level, or click-bait. Grace isn’t skeptical, which means it walks up to whoever it walks up to and says, “Follow me.”

And grace doesn’t only send cross-culturally. For most, grace won’t send you farther away than family, friends, neighbors, school, though, it very well might. But it will send you deeper into those people and places. Grace is extravagant, but grace dwells in the everyday.

Grace sends us into the extravagance of the everyday, which is the hardest place. Because it’s in the everyday that we’ve grown accustomed to “this is just the way things are.” But grace isn’t content with “the way things are.” Grace won’t be content until things are “the way they ought to be.” Grace hears through the white-noise of life. Grace hears and sees the vulnerable, the overlooked, the unjust, the crooked, the condemned, and the mistreated who’ve faded into the everydayness of our lives. And grace sends us there.

Things might be a tad more dramatic, at times, for the cross-cultural missionary, but no matter where it’s the same rhythms of relationship, trust, conversations, patience, prayer, and more patience that are part of the “sent” life anywhere.

Because we’re saved by grace, there’s nothing it cannot ask of us.

Grace scares us from the comfortable, predictable stories we want.

Even death looked at Grace and said, “You’re too much for me.”

The Stubbornness of Grace

Grace is stubborn, like a hurricane. You can board up the windows of your heart and stack sandbags around your story, but it’s a losing battle. Grace will out stubborn you, every time.

When Grace comes and we hear the shutters of our stories crack against the walls of our hearts, our knee-jerk reaction is to hide. We scramble to grab whatever vestiges of our personal narratives we can salvage and batten down the hatches. But what sounds devastating and scary and brutal isn’t the sound of destruction. It’s the sound of a new story.

Grace isn’t a bully. It’s as stubborn as a hurricane, but it’s as careful, intimate, and personal as a good storyteller.

At first, it seems like an arrogant actor, shoving your carefully crafted script back in your face. But Grace isn’t an actor in your little narrative; it’s the director. And your script isn’t being shoved back at you.

Rather, you’re being offered a part and invitation into a story not less than yours, but so much bigger.

It’s a story you may know nothing about, but you’ve always wanted. It’s a story more ancient than the cosmo and more new than morning dew.

It’s a story that knows the depths of human suffering and the astronomical heights of joy. It’s a story as everyday as grocery shopping and as outrageous as climbing Everest.

It’s a story that knows the pangs of division, racism, and human brutality, but glories in reconciliation and resurrection. It knows the powerful may appear to have all the cards, but the meek shall inherit the earth. It’s a scary, foolish, subversive story, and is full of surprises.

I’ve seen Grace take a young boy isolated in hardened, confused fear and change him into a team player on the soccer field. I’ve seen grace use bunk-beds to remind a mom her kids have a Father who cares for and sees them.

I’ve seen Grace take a sewing class and make it ground zero of empowerment and dreaming in an impoverished community. I’ve seen Grace take a five-year old’s ashamed, rotten smile and give him the biggest set of chompers you’ll ever see.

I’ve seen Grace give a young girl new life in Christ the same week she welcomed a new baby brother. I’ve seen a young boy with special needs have the best day of his life carting around a stalk of plantains.

I’ve seen Grace transform a young girl from someone who thought she’d never get through high school to someone who was signing up for her first university class.

The Surprise of Grace

But Grace was here long before we were and Grace will be here long after we’re gone. Truth is that Grace surprises people everywhere everyday. And these surprising narrative twists happen in-between the hard and dark plot points.

But that is the point. Grace isn’t writing a clean, tidy, white-washed, quarantined story that’ll drop out of the sky one day. It’s an inside job.

The story of Grace is mysterious and transcendent, but it knows the dust of the earth. Grace knows of a world where life, justice, and beauty flourish all the live long day and Grace put on flesh to bring it here.

Grace came from the extravagance of Heaven into the everydayness of Earth. And Grace knows the depth of a tomb so we can know the heights of the Kingdom. I’ve learned that Grace scares us from the stories we want, and surprises us with stories we could never ask for, nor imagine.

So, wherever Grace sends you today—a college classroom, an office, a newborn’s crib, a bus stop, a funeral, a doctor’s office, a community center, a hard conversation, an urban elementary school, a church building, a grocery store, a nursing home know this: Grace will not send you where it will not surprise you.

And that’s good news.

—

Ben and Emily Riggs serve in Cancun, Mexico, on staff with Back2Back Ministries, where they seek to protect and restore vulnerable children and strengthen at-risk families. Prior to that he served as Director of Storytelling for Apex Community Church. Ben blogs at Logline and writes for Back2Back. 

Salvation: Past, Present, & Future

It is well said by many in the church that the Christian is not who he’s supposed to be, but by God’s grace he is not who he used to be. This well worn saying strikes at a truth we all know intellectually and experientially but get discouraged by in the aftermath of sin: sanctification doesn’t happen overnight. It is painful and progressive. By way of example, I think of my friend, we’ll call him George. George used to be dominated by alcoholism, but now by the empowering of the Spirit he has been sober for several years. In the earlier years of his struggle, however, this was not the case. He might go two weeks without a drink only to go on a weekend binder. He’d repent, muster up his strength, and get back on the wagon. Two months, maybe four, and he’d fall off again. While stuck inside this cycle it was easy for George to get discouraged. Didn’t Jesus die to save him from this mess? He hated alcohol, but like a dog returning to its vomit he kept returning to it (Prov. 26:11). That’s where fellow sojourners on this journey toward glorification had to meet with him and remind him of the truths that would get clouded by his sin. If he were to fall off again tomorrow, Jesus’ grace would still be there to help reorient him towards the fixed goal.

One step forward, two steps back. Such is the awkward dance of sanctification. But we do not dance alone. Jesus is our masterful dance instructor, never missing a beat, but always extending a hand to pull us back to our feet when we trip ourselves up.

God has Saved Us

Many people write the date they accepted Christ in the front cover of their Bible. It is a helpful reminder, an ebenezer to the day God first introduced himself to you. Yet, we risk misplacing our faith in a particular date in time instead of a particular person who entered time and took on flesh (Jn. 1:14). While from our human perspective it is helpful to remember the day we acquired a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, it is all too simplistic to think of that as the day we were saved.

Instead, salvation was purchased for us on a cross in Calvary some 2000 years ago. Long before our mothers had planned to birth us God had planned our second birth. Paul says, “And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Rom. 8:30). Jesus knew the names of those he was dying for even before they were born.

In eternity past, God decided it was good for him to make man in his own image (Gen. 1:26, 27). At the cross, he chose to ransom some of every tribe, tongue, and nation and in the future he will bring many sons and daughters to glory. Our salvation, in one sense, was entirely determined in the past by the triune God.

God the Father had a plan and a purpose to accomplish our salvation the moment our first parents sinned in the Garden. As Adrian Rogers was fond of saying, “The Trinity never meets in emergency session.” This plan was then executed by the son who was obedient even to the point of death (Phil. 2:8). He, as the second Adam, succeeded in the desert in contrast to the first Adam who failed in the garden. It was the Holy Spirit who led the Son to the desert (Lk. 4:1) and now indwells all who trust in Christ. All of these events were sovereignly ordained prior to the birth of those of us alive today. When understood and contemplated they should overwhelm our hearts and bring us joy. We have been saved indeed. All that was done to accomplish this was determined in eternity past. And all of it accomplished by grace; we can do nothing to add to it. We can nod in agreement with the truth that “we are great sinners, but Jesus is a great savior.”

Yet, in another sense, our salvation has not been completed.

God Will Save Us

The death of Christ is not our only and ultimate hope, although it was necessary to purchase salvation for us. Paul says that we are hopeless without the resurrection of Christ and should be pitied (1 Cor. 15:19). If the death of Christ was the payment for sin, his resurrection is the proof of purchase to take home the prize.We don’t worship a dead Savior, but a Savior that defeated death and promises that we will too if we place our faith in him.

So long as we toil in these earthly bodies we fix our gaze toward the renewed heaven and earth (2 Pet. 3:13) where even the presence of sin and death will be removed. Jesus’ earthly ministry (Rom. 5:10) and substitutionary death (2 Cor. 5:21) purchased for us nothing less than paradise. It purchased life for our dead souls at the cross and in the future will cast death itself into the grave.

At times Christians have been accused of being “so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good.” This criticism is a sort of evidence that most of us understand (at least in part) the future hope of our salvation. Yet, something gets missed. Our hope is misplaced if it is in the paradise. Paradise isn’t important without the one who we are with in that paradise. Jesus promises the thief on the cross paradise in his presence (Lk. 23:43). Note this.

Perhaps you’ve heard the hymn “I Will Trade the Old Cross for the Crown.” While it may comfort us in our suffering, the song misses the gospel. One line talks of carrying a cross for the Savior, but no line about the cross he carried for us—a glaring omission. Furthermore, the hymn writer sets our hope on obtaining a crown in exchange for a cross. But in Revelation 4 the elders cast down their crowns at the feet of Jesus because of his worth and glory. We will receive crowns, no doubt, but we’ll return them to King Jesus.

When we think of our future salvation, we must cautiously direct our thoughts not to the crowns we will receive but to the King who is worthy of our worship. It is there, with him, that every tear will be wiped away and death will die (Rev. 21:4). We will cast our gaze on him and see him face to face (1 Cor. 13:12). His righteousness will dwell there and that will be enough (2 Pet. 3:13). He will be more captivating than the paradise that merely provides the background for his glory. So God has saved you, he will save you, and he is saving you. Past. Future. And now we move to present.

God is Saving Us

We are a fickle people. As another hymn states, we’re “prone to wonder…[and] leave the God we love.” But God has redirected our hearts and minds via signposts to what we need most—himself. We draw encouragement from the actions of God in the past that secured for us salvation. We set our hope on a future day when we will see him face to face. But God is not distant and confined only to the past and the present. His grace is here for our taking now.

Paul writes,

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. – Romans 5:1-2

Through Jesus we stand in grace. Yes, we stood in grace when he saved us in the past. Yes, we will stand in his grace in the future when he himself serves as the light of the new heavens and earth (Rev. 21:23). But we are short changing ourselves if we relegate God only to the past and the future. Paul David Tripp, pastor and writer, says:

Many believers have a gap in the middle of their gospel. They understand salvation past—the forgiveness that they have in Christ; and salvation future—the eternity that they’ll spend with Christ. But they don’t understand the present benefits of the work of Christ in the here and now.

We have a mediator interceding for us at the throne of God at this very moment (Rom. 8:34). This should be cause for rejoicing. We have peace with God, not because we have put down the gauntlet, but because Jesus has absorbed our sin in his body on the tree. Because we have placed our faith in him, we can boldly approach the Father (Heb. 4:16). He is not mad at us; we don’t have to avoid him. Do not neglect to plumb the depths of this great grace.

The prosperity gospel teaches us to demand earthly rewards in the here and now—rewards that Christ himself rejected in the desert (Lk. 4). We should reject this over-realized eschatology found in the prosperity gospel. We will enjoy physical blessings in the end, but as I stated that’s never the point. The point is a person. So as we daily struggle with sin and discouragement over our slow progress in sanctification, we should boldly claim the blessings we are promised now. In Jesus Christ, all of God’s promises are yes (2 Cor. 1:20). We can commune with God now in preparation for seeing him face to face. We have the Spirit of Christ within us. We have Jesus enthroned in the heavens interceding for us. We have everything we need to make it home. Rejoice in hope of the glory of our God!

—

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.

Good News in a Bad News World

If you only spend a few moments watching or reading the news, it's obvious that the world no longer resembles the peaceful reality of Eden. Death, destruction, famine, hatred, greed, and brokenness are not the exception today, they are the norm. They are so common that these things are sometimes described as inevitable or expected. No one expects life to be perfect or to go on forever—but we know, in our core, it should not be this way. Doesn’t it all seem out of place and unnatural? (Guess what? It is.) How did everything get this way? We find our answer in Genesis 3.

Satan, the enemy of God disguised as a serpent, challenges God’s command to stay away from the tree. He asks Eve, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” (Gen. 3:1). We see later in the Bible that Satan likes to twist God’s words (Matt. 4:1-11). He convinces Adam and Eve that God is a liar, and that God is holding out on them. He convinced them that God doesn’t want them to be like him, so he tells them to stay away from the tree (Gen. 3:3-6).

After being tempted by Satan, our ancient parents ate the fruit, immediately noticed that they were naked, and hid from God. They were ashamed. They were self-conscious. They were scared. They had disobeyed their Creator, and they knew it. They handed over their God-given responsibility to God’s great Enemy.

This was the first sin.

Sin, Death, and the Bad News of the Garden

Sin can be described as anything (whether in thoughts, actions, or attitudes) that does not express or conform to the holy character of God as expressed in his moral law. Sin is rebellion against God, first and foremost. Some say that to sin means to “miss the mark.” When we sin, we don’t just miss the mark—we point the bow in the other direction and shoot into the sky. Sin causes us to “fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23) and leaves us under God’s wrath (Rom. 1:18). It doesn’t just cause division between people or cause us a little more trouble that we’d like; it brings division between people and life, and because of sin, death is now something we all must deal with.

Sin is bad news, and the creator of all bad news in the world.

The gut-wrenching stories we see on the news every night are an integral part of living in a world infected by sin. But sin also brings division between God and people. We see this immediately when Adam and Eve were taken out of the Garden of Eden because of their sin against God. Their perfect relationship with him was damaged from then on out (Gen. 3:16-19). This left mankind freefalling toward utter destruction.

Not only were Adam and Eve punished for their sin, but the consequences of their rulebreaking affects every person born afterward. They passed the nature of sin to their children and it’s been passed along ever since. The Apostle Paul says that “just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” and that “one trespass led to condemnation for all men” (Rom. 5:12-19).

Sin runs in the family. Sin is a disease that would make the bubonic plague blush. Sin is deadly, in every sense of the word. It’s the real Black Death. It brings not only physical death, but also spiritual death.

Our bodies are buried in the ground, but even worse, souls without Christ are banished to Hell, a place of torment and never-ending separation from God (Matt. 25:46; Jude 1:7; Rev. 21:8). As Scripture tells us, physical death can and will be defeated, but spiritual death lasts into eternity. Adam and Eve, and all of us, were made to live forever with God. Now, we all are sentenced to death from the very start apart from his forgiveness (Rom. 3:9-18; 6:23).

We need to be delivered from sin and its effects. The apostle Paul felt the soul-crushing burden of sin, and he wanted to be done with it. “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 7:23–25).

Good News in a Bad News World

But there’s good news in this bad news world. Deliverance from sin, the undoing of Satan’s work in the Garden of Eden, is found in the person and work of Jesus Christ. As John says, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). Simply put: Jesus came to conquer Satan and restore the world to its rightful King.

Jesus is the most important person that lives—and ever will. He sits alive today in the heavenly places as the Cosmic King, inviting sinners to repent and place their complete trust in him for the forgiveness of sins and the hope of eternal life.

It's all about Jesus. This Galilean carpenter is the hope of the world. The entire plan of God (Gal. 4:4-5), the whole swing of the Scriptures (John 5:39), and the sum of human history all lands squarely—like nails ripping through flesh, bone, and wood—on Jesus (Eph. 1:10). All things belong to Jesus, and all things were created by Jesus (Col. 1:15). And right now, all things are held together by Jesus, from Haley's Comet to the micro-skin-flake falling from your fingernail, Jesus is in control. “In him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17) and, "he upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3).

Is that your Christ? Do you have towering thoughts about the Lord Jesus, or are they reduced to a first-century Israelite who had a knack for healing and preaching? “Who is Jesus?” isn’t the mega-stumper question on the SAT. This isn’t the dreaded pop quiz question that you know you studied but can’t remember. This is eternity. This is your life now and your life to come.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus asked his disciples this very question. “Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, 'Who do people say that the Son of Man is?' And they said, 'Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, 'But who do you say that I am?'"(Matt. 16:13–15). Is Jesus just a teacher? Is Jesus just a healer? A popular prophet? Captain of the fib team?

Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16). So, what then? Who is this man?

Like the great C. S. Lewis said,

Socrates did not claim to be Zeus, nor the Buddha to be Bramah, nor Mohammed to be Allah. That sort of claim occurs only in Our Lord and in admitted quacks or lunatics. I agree that we don’t ‘demand crystal perfection in other men’, nor do we find it. But if there is one Man in whom we do find it, and if that one Man also claims to be more than man, what then?

The quest for the Biblical Jesus is of first importance. We can be like Adam and Eve and run away to a substitute, or we can be like Peter and stumble our way toward him.

—

Brandon D. Smith works with the Holman Christian Standard Bible and teaches theology at various schools. He is also co-author of Rooted: Theology for Growing Christians. You can follow him on Twitter.

J.A. Medders is the Lead Pastor of Redeemer Church in Tomball, TX. He and Natalie have two kids, Ivy and Oliver. Jeff digs caffeinated drinks, books, and the Triune God. He blogs at www.jamedders.com and tweets from @mrmedders. Jeff’s first book, Gospel-Formed: Living a Grace-Addicted, Truth-Filled, Jesus-Exalting Life, released this November from Kregel.

This is an excerpt from Rooted: Theology for Growing Christians by J. A. Medders and Brandon D. Smith. Get it on Amazon here.

Living as the New Covenant Temple

Temple language and activity saturate the New Testament, following in the footsteps of the Old Testament. Somewhat surprisingly, much of this temple imagery is not primarily concerned with Herod’s stunning Second Temple makeover, but rather, with the New Covenant Temple (NCT hereafter) that Jesus was building. NCT imagery was important for the New Testament authors and their community, and therefore, such imagery should also be enriching for the Church today.

NEW COVENANT TEMPLE IMAGERY

According to the New Testament’s NCT imagery, Jesus is the NCT (John 2:21), the cornerstone (Matt. 21:42, Eph. 2:20), and the high priest (Heb. 4:14, 10:21). The curtain is Jesus’ flesh (Heb. 10:20). Jesus is the atonement (1 Jn. 2:2, Rom. 3:25).

The foundation for this new temple is made up of the apostles and the prophets (Eph. 2:20, Rev. 21:14). The pillars are James, Cephas, John, and the one who conquers (Gal. 2:9, Rev. 3:12). The saints are the living stones being indwelt and built together by the Spirit (1 Pet. 2:5, Eph. 2:22). The saints are also the priests (1 Pet. 2:5, 9). The lives of the saints are daily sacrifices (Rom. 12:1).

Holy living, sacrificial giving, and the prayers of the saints are the daily incense (2 Cor. 2:14-16, Philip. 4:18, Rev. 5:8). The Holy of Holies is heaven (Heb. 4:14, 8:1). The Holy Place is the Church on earth (1 Cor. 3:16-17, 2 Cor. 6:16, Eph. 2:22). Ministry is care for (or cultivtion of) the saints, and expanding the reach of the earthly Holy Place (Acts 14:27, 1 Cor. 16:9, Rev. 3:8).

Therefore, the Holy of Holies in heaven and the Holy Place on earth are one temple, but YHWH’s people are still awaiting the final “summarization” in Christ (Eph. 1:10). The NCT is already a present reality, and it is the true temple, but it has not yet reached its full consummation (Rev. 21-22).

JESUS OR THE CHURCH?

But is Jesus still the NCT or is it the Church or is it both? As observed above, the language used for the NCT is remarkably consistent, but a few issues do exist: namely, distinguishing between the NCT imagery used for the body of Jesus, the Universal Church, and the local church.

When Jesus walked upon the earth, the Gospel of John viewed Him as the locus of the presence of God on earth (John 1:14, 18). Therefore, Jesus was the true temple, and He transcended the Second Temple and all other temples. The Spirit was at work in the formation of the Old Covenant Temple, and the Spirit brought about the formation of Jesus as the temple (Matt. 1:18, Rom. 8:11).

After Jesus’ ascension, the Spirit was sent to build the NCT that Jesus founded on earth: the Lord’s community, which is the Universal Church. The Universal Church is made up of local churches, which are being joined together as the one NCT by the Spirit (Eph. 2:21-22).

As high priest, Jesus offered final atonement for His people through His death outside the city (Heb. 13:12, Lev. 16). Jesus now continues to span the gap between heaven and earth by constantly mediating for His followers and by allowing their prayers to be pleasing incense before the Father (Rev. 5:8). Jesus is a perfect high priest, and His people will never be guilty of sin because of Him (Lev. 4:3-12, Eph. 3:12).

Jesus’ continual presence in the heavenly Holy of Holies assures His people of their covenant status: which has always been a cause for great joy and trembling (Lev. 9:23-24). Also, as Josephus pointed out, the materials of the garments for the high priest were similar to the materials used to build the tabernacle. In other words, by representing Israel to YHWH and by representing YHWH to Israel, the fully clothed high priest becomes a microcosm of the tabernacle/temple.

Therefore, in one sense, Jesus is still the NCT, and one can only be part of the NCT by being in Jesus through the new creation of the Spirit. In another sense, Jesus is the high priest within the NCT, which is made up of the heavenly Holy of Holies and the earthly Holy Place, and He mediates between God the Father and His people. To put it another way, Jesus is a high priest who never takes off His high priestly garments. Through the Holy Spirit, the saints will one day be the high priests and the completed temple where God’s presence rests (Rev. 22:3-4, Exod. 28:36-38).

ALREADY AND NOT YET

The already/not yet temple that Jesus founded will one day be consummated as a fulfilled and improved Eden. In the end, through the Spirit’s power and the return of the true king, the current Holy Place will be unveiled as the newly created Holy of Holies (Rev. 21:16). The Book of Revelation seems to present this process in the following way: as the saints of the earthly, “already” Holy Place die, they are assimilated into the “not yet” Holy of Holies that is being prepared in a heavenly bridal dressing room until the king returns.

When He returns in His glory, then the Bride (the Church) will be revealed from heaven for the final consummation of the kingdom of God and the NCT. When YHWH fully indwells the New Jerusalem—the newly created Holy of Holies, the primary dwelling of His presence—then His people will be able to fully enjoy YHWH’s glory. They will serve in His presence as Christ Jesus, the current high priest, perpetually does. YHWH’s people will be both temple and high priest.

The foundation has been laid, the building has begun, and its completion is imminent, but the king has yet to bring the work to fruition. In the meantime, the Church-under-construction is the official place of God’s presence on earth.

A MORAL EXHORTATION FOR HOLY LIVING

In the “already,” New Testament authors employ NCT imagery to admonish their readers to live wholly consecrated lives to YHWH. As the Holy Place of the NCT, the Church is the locus of God’s presence on earth under the New Covenant, and one’s actions have extra weight when they are performed in the temple. Through the presence and work of the Holy Spirit, the Church’s character should mirror YHWH’s.

Following are two key passages that connect NCT language and holy living.

In 1 Pet. 2:1-12, Peter sandwiches his moral exhortations around obvious NCT language. Jesus is the “living stone,” and those who believe on him become as “living stones” being built into a spiritual house and a holy priesthood (1 Pet. 2:5). Peter then clarifies the building plan for these living stones by quoting from Isa. 28:16, Ps. 118:22, and Isa. 8:14 in succession: they are not just being built up as any other house, they are being built up as the NCT. Their priesthood is not only holy (2:5), but also royal (2:9), therefore, they must keep away from passions of the flesh.

In 2 Cor. 6:14-7:1, Paul begins by listing several dichotomies for why members of the Corinthian church should not be unequally yoked with unbelievers (6:14-16a). His closing dichotomy is between the temple of God and idols. Since the holy and living God dwells in the Church, the members of the Church should take every precaution in order to be holy. God’s presence is a great promise, but his presence should also create a healthy fear among his people (2 Cor. 7:1). The Church is the official place on earth where YHWH is worshipped, and all other temples, religions, and gods are treason. Therefore, individual believers should be characterized by their consecration to YHWH.

ESCHATOLOGICAL HOPE FOR SACRIFICIAL LIVING

The NCT’s “not yet” aspects help to provide the hope needed by YHWH’s people in order to live as sacrifices in two ways: (1) expanding the sacred space of the earthly Holy Place (evangelism), and (2) caring for the NCT on earth (building up other saints, i.e. sanctification).

The Holy Spirit not only binds the Church together as the NCT’s Holy Place, but also empowers the Church to continue Christ Jesus’ mission to reconcile creation through sacrificial love (2 Cor. 5:16-6:13).In other words, YHWH’s reconciled sacred space is expanded through the Spirit-empowered sacrifice of his people. YHWH’s priests are to serve by being living sacrifices (Rom. 12:1).

Similar to Hezekiah in 2 Chr. 29:3-19, YHWH opens doors (temple doors) to potential sacred space, and he bids his priests to enter and to serve, trusting that he will provide what they need in difficult circumstances (Rev. 3:8). Those who conquer, by the empowerment of the Spirit, will be made pillars in the temple of God and will have the name of the New Jerusalem and Jesus written on them (Rev. 3:12).

The hope of being part of the future consummation of the NCT should drive the Church to sacrifice for those in need as the Lord leads. The Church as the NCT on earth has a mission to reclaim creation as sacred space for YHWH, but – at the same time, as the NCT on earth—the Church must also allocate appropriate energies inwardly as well.

Not only is the Church part of the expansion of the NCT’s Holy Place through sacrificial living, but also, the Spirit uses the members of the Church to build itself up (1 Cor. 14:12). The Church should continually care for its members, for in doing so, the Church is actually caring for the hallmark of Jesus’ kingdom: YHWH’s NCT. Until the king returns, the Church should be more dedicated to the NCT than the faithful Davidic kings of the past were to the OCT because she knows that in caring for herself, she is a partaking in YHWH’s work and mission on earth. YHWH will bring it to completion (Philip. 1:6).

All in all, the Church should emphasize both (1) holiness for its members in order to be a pure and spotless Bride, and (2) sacrificial living to expand and care for the NCT on earth. The Spirit is once again making a new creation as the dwelling place of God—through the Church—as the NCT is being expanded and built up. The final consummation is coming, and the NCT eagerly awaits its rest in the undisputed coronation of Christ.

CONCLUSION

The New Testament authors employed NCT imagery throughout the New Testament in order to morally exhort the Church to holiness and to provide eschatological hope for sacrificial living. The New Testament authors believed that this language was especially effective because it accurately described the current inaugurated eschatology of God’s kingdom, and how humanity was being reconciled to its creator.

The Church’s privilege of being the NCT has many theological implications: it is the official place to worship YHWH, the sign to all of YHWH’s enemies that they stand no chance (Eph. 3:10), and the community where humanity is beginning to realize its goal. The NCT and the kingdom of God are both “already but not yet,” which will not be fully consummated until Christ Jesus returns.

Come Lord Jesus!

—

Timothy Rucker earned a Th.M. degree from Western Seminary. He currently lives in the Tampa Bay Area with his family, where he worships with and serves the congregation of Keene Terrace Baptist Church

Cross-posted from Western Seminary's Transformed blog as part of a partnership. Adapted from Living as the New Covenant Temple - Part 1 & Part 2