Jesus Goes to a Wedding

Due to technical difficulties, my sermon from this past Lord’s Day, preached on John 2:1-12 (Jesus at the Wedding in Cana) didn’t record.  Because I love the passage so much, I figured I’d post the content from the sermon in blog form in lieu of the recording on our sermon page.

Jesus at the Wedding at Cana (John 2:1-12)

Jesus and His Pals

As Jesus enters the wedding at Cana, he has a new group of guys who have begun following Him.  They came from all different “walks” of life (some seekers, one a skeptic, etc.), and yet they ended up at Jesus.  He is now identified with them, in a sense, as a unit – where he goes, they go.  Thus he is invited to a wedding, and so are they.

Mary Working

Meanwhile, Mary appears to be working at the wedding. 2:2 says that Jesus and the guys were invited, while Mary was simply there at the wedding.  Perhaps she was working alongside the mother of the bride or groom, which would also explain why she can tell the servants later to do what Jesus says, and they do.

Outta Wine

When the wine runs out – a major social oversight one which was not supposed to happen -- Mary summons Jesus.  We don’t know exactly why she does, but she does.  Perhaps she knew that he could do something about it.  Perhaps she knew that something was weighing on him so he’d be inclined to act.  In any event, when she tells him of the wine problem, Jesus’ response is poignant: “Woman, what does this have to do with me?   My time has not yet come.” 

What did Jesus mean by this?  While the roughness of his response should not be minimized – because this is a rebuke of Mary – the response shows that something is weighing on him.  What was it?

Well verse 11 makes clear that what he was to do next was a sign.  Notice John doesn’t refer to this as a miracle (though it was one), but as a sign.  This means that the action which Jesus takes will point elsewhere.

Also remember that in another famous episode where a situation weighs on Jesus to the point of emotional output was during Lazarus’ death.  There the people were in such pain at his death and Jesus had his own eyes fixed forward to His own death.  And this made Jesus weep (11:35). 

In the same way, the wedding situation, which would house a great sign from Jesus, pointed forward to His death – the true wine (His blood) which would be poured out to make glad the multitudes.  And it weighed on him here, and that’s why he responded to Mary the way he did.  He was, although fully God, fully man as well - capable of real emotions and real pain.  Here his impending death is feeling more and more real.

The Reality To Which This Miracle Points

Since it is established that this action is a sign of things to come, we can discuss exactly what things.  Through His death, he’ll accomplish three things:

          1. He’ll drive outward religion inward.  He’ll take concern with outward purity – that is, feeling clean and “saved” because you simply participate in certain religious activities such as church, communion, baptism, tithing, etc. – and drive it inward.  So when people know him, they won’t seek to be clean by doing outward things, but will strive for the inward cleansing of the Holy Spirit. 

            We know this is his point by the fact that he turns the water from the Jewish ritual jugs (which were used to clean “dirty” hands of religious people) into wine that is consumed into the body.

            This is bad news for those who just want a religious card in the back pocket without surrendering their hearts to God.  But it’s incredibly good news for those who want to go deep with God.  Jesus came to take us further.

            2. He’ll marry His bride, the church.  In the passage, when the wine is tasted by the master of the feast, he gives the bridegroom credit for a job well done in keeping the best wine until the end.  Of course, Jesus referred to Himself as the Bridegroom who had come into the world to marry his bride (Matt. 9:15), and John the Baptist, on the opposite page from John 2 in my open Bible, said that he himself was backing out of the ministry because Jesus the Bridegroom had come (Jn. 3:28-29).

            Thus Jesus is the true bridegroom who brings the wine for his people to enjoy as He comes to the earth to take His bride – the church, those who are called by his name and are thus responsive in faith and repentance. 

            I love that the Bible puts the relationship between God and His people in terms of a wedding and marriage relationship.  God is personal.  He wants to be pursued, and enjoyed.  Truly He is the pursuer of people (Luke 19:10).  He is the apple of His peoples’ eye, and they are the apple of His.  Though they add nothing to Him, yet he delights in them so much so that He was willing to go through hell and back to bring them home to Himself.

            3. He’ll unleash pure joy on His people who know him.  Just as the best wine showed up at the end of the party, so the “best wine” has showed “in these last days” (Hebrews 1:1-2) for the nations, in Christ.  It’s scandalous that Jesus went to a party and brought the booze.  But it is even more scandalous why He did – to indicate that He came to give His people the good time of being with Him for eternity.  It is a joy to know Christ.  It is happy.  It is the very best one can get to, and the very best that can be imagined.  It is exactly what we were made for.  So the Apostle told his audience, “We write these things that your joy may be full” (1 Jn 1:4).  “You give them to drink from the river of your delights” (Ps 36:8).  “My people shall be satisfied with my goodness” (Jer. 31:14).  This is why one fruit of the Spirit is joy – where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom, and where there is freedom to enjoy the presence of God, there is joy.  He came for our joy (cf. Jn 16:3).

The Bible’s Wedding Language

Do you have this relationship with God through His Son?  Are you among the married to Him?  Check your heart – if you delight in Him and don’t consider Him an intruder on your time, but instead is Himself the very best use of time and very best end of your affections, you are drinking the best wine.  And the promise of this scripture, based on it's reality as it happened all those years ago in Cana, is that this wine will never run out.

A Christian, A Seeker, and a Skeptic Walk Into a Savior

I preached this past Sunday on Jesus’ interaction in John 1 with several men who were to become his disciples.  As I prepared and then delivered, I was struck by how the men each approached Jesus from different places in life, different levels of faith, different dispositions of personality, etc. and yet Jesus seemed to know how to get right to their hearts.

Three Different Men

First, one notices that when Andrew and “another disciple” approached him after hearing John the Baptist say that Jesus is the Lamb of God, Jesus asks them, “What do you want?” (1:38, paraphrase)  In other words, he was asking them why they’d volunteer for what He had coming to him.  Their question regarding his lodging (“Where are you staying?”) shows they apparently have plans in place for what they’d like to see, but Jesus’ response – “Come and you will see” (1:39) – brings them right to the heart of discipleship: Your lot, known to me, will be a mystery to you, and you must come ready for whatever I have for you.

Then Jesus finds Simon son of Jonah, and gives him the nickname of Cephas/Peter, which means “rock” (1:42).  Peter will truly only become a rock-like figure later, after Jesus rises again and gives Peter and the disciples His Spirit.  But Jesus’ calling Simon the rock this early is a guarantee and promise of what Jesus is going to do in him over the next several years.  He will change Simon so that in the end he is Peter.  This is parallel to what happens to all Christians: They receive the righteousness of Christ, adoption, and the Holy Spirit when they believe (Ephesians 1:14), all as a down payment on the real gift that will be given later: bodily resurrection, salvation from all that is painful, and no more darkness or it’s unwelcome cousins.

Finally, Jesus has an interesting encounter with Nathaneal.  Nathaneal, known elsewhere as Bartholomew, is a skeptic.  As Philip, a committed disciple and friend of Nathaneal, tells him about Jesus, Nat famously scoffs at the idea of a Messiah coming from lowly Nazareth (1:46).  He simply doesn’t have a category for the notion that the Messiah comes from Nazareth, and, perhaps arrogantly, dismisses the whole notion.  But 1:47 shows us that he came anyway. 

As Tim Keller has rightly said, Nathaneal’s skepticism was a veneer covering up his real longing for redemption and for his categories to in the end be proven untrustworthy, as they bow to something greater.  So he comes.  And when Jesus welcomes him with a statement that can be taken both as a commendation and as a sarcastic bag, Nat is curious how Jesus knows him, and Jesus simply tells him he saw him before, “under the fig tree” (1:48).  Nat is struck by this, because apparently whatever was happening under the fig tree was discreet.  But Jesus saying he knew about it elicits a profession of faith from Nat (1:49).  The skeptic has been converted!  But Jesus interestingly cuts him off, now dismissing him, for having a shallow faith: “Because I said I saw you, you believe?  You’ll see greater things than this!” (1:50) Jesus then tells Nat and the other disciples that He is the ladder to heaven from Jacob’s dream (cf. Gen. 28:12-13), and that they’ll see him as such if they follow him.

Apparently Nathaneal was building his faith on the miracle of Jesus’ perceived ESP.  This shallow faith would ultimately fall apart if the miracles ever ran out, not that they ever would.  But Jesus says a similar statement to Thomas later, when he only believes because he’s seen the risen Christ (20:28).  Jesus tells him how weak this is, making the point that he needs to believe just because of who Jesus is.  This is the point with Nathaneal – skepticism almost kept him out, a miracle drew him in, and eventually he’d lose it all unless he begins to see Jesus as the Ladder to Heaven.  So Jesus tells him to follow until he sees with the eyes of faith.

Three groups are represented by these disciples: Christians (Philip, a committed disciple), seekers (Andrew, Peter, the other disciple), and skeptics (Nathaneal).  And Jesus had an uncanny ability to not only interact meaningfully with each of them, but to do so in a way that drew each of them into life-giving faith in Him.  He knew how to get people, and He still does.

No One Too Far Gone

There isn’t anyone on earth who is too far gone for Jesus to reach.  He not only can reach the Christians, but he can reach seekers and skeptics alike.  Each person has idols of the heart, dispositions of personality and interests, premade goals in seeking Jesus, etc.  But he knows how to peel back the layers and get to the heart.

This means that wherever you are in the faith, you’re not too far for Jesus to reach you, nor will you be, as long as you have breath.  This is why Jude said that Jesus had the power to keep us until He returns (Jude 24).  This is also why Jude told Christians to have mercy on those who doubt – skeptics – (Jude 22): Because Jesus could still reach them, so Christians need to not put anything in their way.

Your loved one who is walking in rebellion from Jesus their Creator, and won’t listen, isn’t too far gone either.  You just need prayer and faithfulness, because through these, Jesus reaches people.  It remains to be seen if He will, but it doesn’t remain to be seen if He can.  Our task is to be ambassadors (2 Cor. 5:20), and trust the rest to Him.

Deep Waters

Proverbs 20:5 says that the purpose in man’s heart is deep waters, but the man of understanding draws it out.  In other words, people are complicated, and Gospel presentations, whether sermons or books, are not one-size-fits-all.  But Jesus, the true Man of understanding, Wisdom Personified (cf. Prov. 8:22-35, Jn. 1:14), knows how to draw out the purpose of their heart and drive in His truth.

I suppose what I’m saying is this:  If you know Jesus, don’t worry or fret about the weakness of your faith or your loved ones’ lack thereof.  If you yourself are the doubter, just come and see.  Jesus can prove Himself. But come and see.  He can reach people and draw them to Himself (Jn. 6:44).  If He was equally accessible to Philip, Andrew, Peter, and Nathaneal alike, so that, coming from all different places, they each became disciples, don’t we think He can do the same today?  Thus, our job as Christians is to lift Him up in word and deed, and pray that He, through His Spirit, will proclaim liberty to the captives.  He’s done it before, and He’s still doing it now.

Church Full of Cotton Headed Ninny Muggins

We were watching Elf the other night, and I was especially struck by the toy-making scene where Buddy will miss his quota pathetically.  He is crushed by his obvious limits as an elf, famously calling himself "just a Cotton Headed Ninny Muggins."  What struck me (for the first time) was the response of all the other elves.  While Buddy is crushed and broken, the elves rush to his comfort, several chiming in to lift up his broken spirits.  "Buddy you're not a Cotton Headed Ninny Muggins."  "Buddy you have lots of gifts."  "Buddy, you're just special." Even though Buddy is not an elf in real life, and his being out of place in the toy factory is hampering their production, the elves just can't bear to see someone writhing in depression.  So they all break from meeting their individual quotas to cheer Buddy up and show him he's a part of the group and they love him.

What if church was like that?  What if church was a group of people who have committed to follow Jesus together, so that when one of them eventually shows incredible weakness in the particulars of living for Jesus, the rest of the crowd gathers around them to lift them up?  Truly if the Gospel of God's grace is being faithfully proclaimed in the church context, the reality of sin will be a part of the church's culture, so that repentance from said sin is regularly enjoined.  Thus when some believers are stuck in sin, unable to find repentance or freedom -- and make no mistake; we all do stumble in many ways (James 3:2), and there is no one who doesn't sin (1 Kings 8:46) -- they will look at everyone else and feel like a Cotton Headed Ninny Muggins.

But at that point their believing family within the church will move from merely sitting around them to entirely surrounding them.  The weak brother or sister will know that even though they're weak, they have a body of weaklings surrounding them to strengthen and restore them, by the Word of Christ.  This bearing with one another's burdens in fact fulfills Christ's Law (Galatians 6:2).  I think this is what the Apostle John spoke about when he said that we are sure we're loving our brothers and sisters in the Lord only when we are ourselves walking in His commands (1 John 5:2-3).  And I know it is what the Lord Himself meant when he said that our love for one another will set us apart in the world as the people of Jesus (John 13:35).  This kind of brutal honesty toward sin that lays us in the dust when we fail, but lifts us back up as other believers purpose to strengthen and restore us until we find repentance and freedom from our High Priest-King Jesus is not only helpful, but life-changing.  It is the essence New Testament Christianity.

This in no way minimizes sin.  Instead, it deeply intensifies the reality of sin.  And in so doing, it intensifies the need for believers to gather around one another when one is stuck.  All of us feel like a Cotton Headed Ninny Muggins at times, but in reality we are simply missing the mark.  But the encouragement of believing brothers and sisters who all together confess that they too miss the mark (Romans 3:23) is itself the Lord's hands and feet reminding us of His steadfast love and faithfulness.

Christian, you may be a Cotton Headed Ninny Muggins.  But you're a beloved Cotton Headed Ninny Muggins, and your Lord is interested in what you do from here.  Start with thankfulness for His grace toward you, and watch how the grace changes you.  Church, let's set the tone for patience, long-suffering, and burden-bearing.  Repentance is necessary, but repentance comes from the Lord as a grace (2 Timothy 2:25).  And often the means of grace is the community of Christ's followers - us, being Him to one another.

Bye, Buddy.

Keep Christ in Christmas?

I’ve taught a lot of Bible studies over the years, and preached many sermons.  I’m young, but God has given me many opportunities in my early years to use the gifts of communication that He has given me.

One thing that has happened far too often is that I have come into a study or sermon ill prepared.  I will teach or preach obviously wanting in the areas of clarity, content, or execution.  Often want in execution flows from want of clarity or content.

There have been times when I’ve walked away from a Bible study or sermon thinking, “Man that was bad.  I really didn’t execute what I knew.”  But in fact the real issue isn’t that I didn’t execute what I knew, but that I didn’t know what I was executing well enough for it to happen naturally.  Either I didn’t know the content well enough, or I knew it, but didn’t rightly order it so as to make it most clear.  To use a football analogy, my poor execution didn’t have as much to do with a perceived inability to “stand in the pocket” as much as it did with not knowing the plays well enough. 

I should have prepared better.  Perhaps I should simply be prepared better.  “Always be ready to make a defense” (1 Pet. 3:15); “be ready in season and out of season” (2 Tim. 4:2).   The implication in these verses is that if you know the content of the Gospel, you’ll be able to execute in the pocket because it’ll come naturally to you.  In other words, if you know the Word, you’ll always be ready to communicate the Word.

December is always the month when many of my fellow Christians speak a lot of “keeping Christ in Christmas.”  While I would never argue with the need to keep Christ on the forefront of anything, I have been intrigued at the recent surge of challenges by skeptics to the Americanized version of Christian Christmas.  It seems to have started with The Great Starbucks’ Holiday Cups Debacle of 2015, and has now flowed further into many people questioning the integrity of the Christmas holiday itself.   They cite the questionable history of the December 25 dating; they cite the obvious pagan use of things such as trees and how Christians several hundreds of years ago took those pagan celebrations and Christianized them; they note connections between early Christmas celebrations and ancient pagan “holidays” and cry foul over it.  While it is a complicated history (and shouldn't be oversimplified), there is warrant for questioning the integrity of the modern version of Christmas as at least partially unbiblical.  That isn’t to say that celebrating Christ’s birth is wrong by any means – Christians are to observe all that the Bible says, including the birth narratives as the miraculous accounts that they are.

But I wonder if many of my fellow Christians are pushing too hard to “keep Christ in Christmas,” because, frankly, they aren’t keeping Christ in the rest of their year.  In other words, could it be that we want to protect Christmas so bad because it is when we (finally) feel closer to Jesus, when in reality, Jesus wants us to be closer to Him all the time?  The New Testament message is nothing short of fellowship with Christ:  “You were called by God into the fellowship of His Son” (1 Cor. 1:9); “Our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ” (1 Jn. 1:3); Jesus said to His disciples, “Surely I am with you always” (Matt. 28:20).  Christianity is nothing less than a present awareness of His presence with you.

If deep and rich communion with Christ – union nonetheless, as in marriage (Eph. 5:32) – is Biblical Christianity, then why do we have to try so hard to “keep Christ in Christmas?”  Won’t our participation in the holiday, as His disciples, mean His participation in the holiday?  The reality of Christmas is meant to flow out to the rest of life: Immanuel means “God with us”; and as the passages above make clear, the true Christian is the one who lives in that place all the time: God is with them, in Jesus.  “God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son” (1 Jn. 5:11). 

Let us not be a people who uses this time to fight.  Instead, let us be a people proclaiming peace.  Secular people and nonbelievers are never won to Jesus by bickering or fighting, but are won by Jesus making Himself known to them, as He made Himself known to us.  If during the Christmas season we show the peace of God ruling in our hearts, it will mean that the peace of God really does rule in our hearts all the time, and perhaps the Lord will bless our witness.  We’ll be prepared to show Christ to people in this Christmas time because Christ is really with us all the time.  In other words, we’ll execute because we know existentially and truly the very truths which the holiday is supposed to communicate.  

If we "fight" to "keep Christ in Christmas," we’ll lose; and it won’t be because we didn’t fight well enough.  It might sadly be because we fought for something that is perhaps only true to us for a month out of the year, instead of being true to us every month.  And if it's only true for you this month, it won't be true for you this month or any other month.  But if Christ is truly with you now, He's with you all the time, and the peace of God will rule over you now and all the time.

The Deception of Glory

"How can you believe in me when you receive glory from one another and don’t seek the glory that comes from the only God?"

                                                                               Jesus, as recorded in John 5:44

The church is the community of those individuals who are content to have God on their side, regardless of who else is.  They are individually belief-and-behavior committed to Christ, entirely in His hand for His will, regardless of if it is popular or if people join them.  And it is each of their individual commitment therein that gives them a collective identity with others who share the commitment.  They know that Christ is enough moving forward, but they are delighted to know that Christ has also given them many more who are with them in this conviction.

Starving to be affirmed

Our media-driven culture today perpetuates a systemic neediness for affirmation.  Facebook and Twitter thrive on users sharing things from their lives so that the things will be liked by others.  Sadly, I see Christians all the time sharing recent good deeds they’ve done, clearly in hopes of touting their goodness and receiving affirmation from others.  It is one thing to share the joy of a church service project, but quite another to blog or post about what I did today that was good to a person or people.  Jesus says a few things about this – ie. If we practice our righteousness among others to be seen by them, we’ve already received our reward (Matt. 6:1, 16); further, we are not to “let our left hand know what our right hand is doing” when we have given to those in (any kind of) need (Matt. 6:3).  Hearing others say, “Great job!” or “You’re such a good person” or “We need more people like you” will feel good at the time, but it will be the only reward we receive.  In the end we’ll appear before God and not be able to appeal to those good deeds as reason to be invited into the Heavenly City we all long for (cf. Matt. 7:21-23).  And we will certainly try to, if earning affirmation is what we're after.  But it will be futile.

Affirmation blinds

In John 5, we find a statement Jesus made to those who were refusing to believe in Him to receive eternal life.  Jesus had recently said at several points that eternal life is received by simply believing in Him (Jn 3:14-16, 5:24); thus anyone who simply sees Him for who He is and entrusts themselves to Him in submissive faith will be guaranteed all of God’s love and kindness for forever. 

But these people to whom He spoke wouldn’t believe.  And Jesus goes further in 5:44, by telling them that they couldn’t believe.  What a jarring statement.  But it is true – much like people focused on the world can’t submit to God’s truth (Rom. 8:7-8) or receive the things of God’s Spirit (1 Cor. 2:14), so these people to whom Jesus spoke couldn’t believe in Him.  Why?  Because they receive glory from one another and don’t seek the glory of God.

It is interesting that Jesus doesn’t speak of giving affirmation/glory to others as a catalyst for unbelief.  Affirming others is a good thing – Paul says we are to give honor to where honor is due (Rom. 13:7), and constantly consider ourselves as debtors to love others (13:8).  Affirming what is good builds the good-doer up.  But it is the need for receiving glory that makes one unable to believe in Christ.  It appears here that Jesus is making a profound statement: Dependence upon the opinions of others hardens one from being able to believe in Christ, because Christ’s redemption is first and foremost a redemption attached to God’s opinion. 

God's affirmation

And what does God say about people?  “There is none who does good” (Rom. 3:12); “No one seeks after God, they’ve all turned aside” (Ps. 14:2).  None can claim to be right with God – thus, “Who can say, ‘I have made my heart pure; I am clean from my sin’?” (Prov. 20:9).  And “If the Lord should mark iniquities, who could stand?” (Ps. 130:3)  

Dealing with God’s opinion is traumatic.  But it is necessary.  This is why Jesus was saying to His audience that they couldn’t believe – they only care about others’ opinions, and so they couldn’t be concerned with God’s.  And the subtle thing about caring about others’ opinions is that you will only care about some others’ opinions: those with whom you agree, and who have proven trustworthy by your own standard.  Jesus came to reconcile sinful people - fools - with a holy God who loved them even when they were unlovable.  But Jesus' coming to do this strikes a hard blow to those with such grandiose views of self that they don't think they need help.  

Throwing Other Believers Under the Bus =/= Christlike-ness

I’m grieved at how many people in my millennial generation are, in the name of Christ, seeking to be conciliatory with the world at the expense of throwing other believers under the bus.  Do brothers and sisters really think that’s going to make converts?  Or do they even care about converts?  Perhaps they just want to be liked.  It is sometimes necessary to challenge believers who's actions are robbing others of the joy God wants for them.  Thus honesty among God's people is critical.  "Let each of you speak the truth with his neighbor" (Eph. 4:25).  But be the same brand of real with the broader secular culture today, too.  And don’t use the excuse that “Well Jesus didn’t condemn the adulteress woman.”  In one sense, yes he did – He told her to go and sin no more (Jn. 8:11); His saying, “Neither do I condemn you” was a picture of the reality of His redemption of sinners: He bears punishment for them, and lets them go free to live for Him, given they’ll see their need for repentance clear enough to repent.

But didn’t He also challenge the religious establishment and pronounce “whoa’s” on them?  Yes.  But he also called a woman a dog for apparently putting herself ahead of Israel in the redemptive pecking order (Matt. 15:26); he also called his generation twisted (Matt. 17:17); and finally, in the face of a recent tragedy grieved by multitudes, He responded, “That’ll be you if you don’t repent” (Lk. 13:3, 5 paraphrasing).  Simply read in John 4 of his conversation with the Samaritan woman to see how politically incorrect He is about this woman’s crooked life which had spun out of control.

Don’t call yourself loving if you won’t tell the world of the whole Christ.  Jesus did not and does not gloss over the truth because it is offensive to an ever-shifting cultural conscience.  If He challenged religious people who were getting in the way of lost people coming to Him – ie, Matt. 23:13 – it was so that those to whom He spoke – the lost – would be saved (Jn. 5:34).  This is why Paul said later that Christ became a servant to the Jewish people that the nations would glorify God for His mercy (Rom. 15:8-9) – yes, Jesus was hard at times with His teaching, but it was so that lost people would be saved.  And don't forget - He was honest with the lost people too.

We Christians, like everyone, often have logs in our eyes which blind us so that we can only see the speck in someone else's.  Thus our task should be to present Christ, the whole Christ, and nothing but the Christ, confident that He will deal with people, religious or irreligious, in His saving way.  But we only will present Him faithfully if we don’t need the people to agree with us and love us.  We must pick a side.  

In the end, Eliphaz’s words to his friend Job are still instructive: “Agree with God, and be at peace; thereby good will come to you” (Job 22:21).  It isn’t about peoples’ opinions of us, or even their opinions of God.  The message is to be slanted toward God-centeredness, highlighting the peace He offers to those who will let themselves in on the freedom of His truth.  Our job is to let Him be who He is.  And if we will, Jesus will build His church. 

Christianity the same today as it was yesterday

When Jesus promised His disciples they’d be persecuted for His sake, He wasn’t saying Judeo-Christian morals would not be accepted in an increasingly socially liberal world, or that religious views would make the one who holds them an outsider.  He was saying that those who love Him and want to fan His glory into their world will automatically be out of sync with their world, regardless of it’s cultural moment.  This is because He is out of sync with the world, regardless of it’s cultural moment, and this will never change until He returns.

Jesus’ being out of sync with the world is why the Apostle Paul called the message of the cross of Christ “foolishness” (1 Corinthians 1:18).  Most people today, believer or skeptic, would have a hard time referring to the Christian message of salvation as “foolish.”  It certainly seems like too offensive a word to use!  But Paul, by most estimations the champion of the cross message, referred to the cross as “folly” and “the foolishness of God” (1 Cor. 1:23, 25).  Paul was admitting that, by any majority’s cultural standards, the idea that the only hope the world has is a bleeding Savior being executed and then risen again is complete absurdity.  People want political, social, economic power; but God's way to save the world is through His Son giving Himself up to death on a Roman execution stake.  And Biblical Christianity teaches that this enterprise of death and resurrection reversed the curse that everyone in the world invariably feels in themselves and their world.

To be a Christian is not necessarily to hold certain ethical or moral principles, to vote a certain way, or to feel certain sympathies or sensibilities toward a people group.  It is to believe that the only hope for the world is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  That His bloody death happened to save undeserving people from the just judgment of a holy God, and that in dying to rise He was, in love, defeating the world’s agenda of victory through intimidation and coercion. 

If America is still moving in a more socially liberal direction (which I believe it still is and will), Jesus will remain out of sync with it.  If it were today, post-2016-election, moving in a more socially conservative direction, Jesus would still be out of sync with it as well.  Jesus is a friend of sinners, but that only matters to the one who wants to talk about sin.  He’s a friend of presidents, politicians, and rulers too.  But similarly, that fact only matters to one who is willing to accept that those positions come from God (Jn. 19:11; Dan. 2:21), and ultimately exist for Jesus, to point the way to Him and His authority (Col. 1:16).  One can be a friend of Jesus’, but only if they’ll in fact accept Him for who He is: King of kings and Lord of lords.

This morning Ray Ortlund, a pastor whom I’ve never met but have enormous respect for and learn a lot from, tweeted something to the effect that the only thing that changed for Christians overnight was the political identity and power block to which we will speak with a Gospel voice.  That will always be the case, because Jesus, with His Word of truth, is always out of sync with the world, regardess of who is in power.  And our responsibility is to fan His glory and goodness into our world.

When the power is more liberal-minded, Jesus stands as a prophet telling people to take sin seriously and to repent into His costly grace with the assurance that they’ll be welcomed and changed into His likeness by His great mercy.  When the power is more conservative, He bends down as a servant of mankind, challenging the powers that be with the truth that He has come to be a servant to the poor, downcast, and downtrodden, and that He stops at nothing to love His reality into people, instead of beating it into their heads by force.

I’m not worried.  I’m optimistic.  I believe that Jesus is alive today and He comes with good news to those who look around and feel that there is none.  And I believe that many, regardless of their voting status yesterday, feel dirty enough after this election cycle to perhaps listen to One who promises to, as Tolkien reminds us, make everything bad come untrue.  But you’ll only hear Him if you’ll listen to a Word that is and will remain foolish.  Somehow it’s foolishness, especially in our times, makes it all the more attractive.

Why Jesus Isn't Just Another Option

“In the past, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days He’s spoken to us by His Son”

                              Hebrews 1:1

In a recent Tuesday night men’s Bible study, we saw how a long time ago God promised to Israel’s leader Moses that there was going to one day be a “prophet” who would speak all of God’s words to God’s people, and they would listen (Deuteronomy 18:15-18).  The context of the statement is this: when Moses was on Mount Sinai delivering God’s Law to Israel, the people of Israel couldn’t bear to hear God’s voice, so they contracted Moses to do all the listening and then delivering to them (see Exodus 20:18-21).  They made him a mediator between they and their God, because in their fallenness they couldn’t take the voice of God in its fullness.

Moses relays later that when this all went down on the mountain, God had responded to their request, saying to Moses, “They’re right – they can’t take me” (cf. Deut. 18:15-18).  There is a clear breakdown between God and people, such that they can’t brush shoulders with God – they must stay separate.  So God promises to the scared people and their leader Moses that He’d send a prophet “from among them” one day, who would speak all of His words (18:18).  This is because even though God is holy and man isn’t, and the lines of demarcation are drawn, God does want to be known, heard, followed, and enjoyed.  So a Mediator is needed, and God promised to Moses and Israel a specific man would come one day to fulfill the promise.

Many prophets after Moses then came and spoke God’s word to the people until the fulfillment came.  Finally came Jesus of Nazareth, a man with words and works that were (and are) unlike anyone in history.  People marveled at Him and hung on His every word (see Matt. 7:28 and Luke 4:20).  He was repeatedly referred to as THE Prophet (John 1:21, 6:14, 7:40).  The idea is that He is the one who was born among God’s people but who was Himself from God, who speaks God’s Word to them.  He can be trusted as the Prophet who has come into the world.

This has profound implications for our late modern times today.  Today the battle is for authority – i.e., who should be in charge?  Who can we trust to tell us truth without us being afraid of their agenda?  I don’t know if you know this or not, but it’s an election year in America.  And every campaign is a smear campaign against the opponent – less important is a candidate’s promise to do this or that right; more important is a candidate’s saying what his or her opponent is doing wrong.  Who can be trusted?

I remember being in college suffering through an excruciating bout with depression.  I’d never experienced anything like it.  It affected schoolwork, my jobs, my relationships, etc.  I went to professors for help and guidance, and they, being the godly men they were, did the best they could.  But I was in a dark place.  I began not feeling like I could trust anyone to give me rock-solid truth upon which I could stand to start walking forward.  All truth was like quicksand.  As I’d start to stand, it’d start to give way and I’d sink.

Then I started reading the Bible as a Christian.  I had grown up in church but never read the Bible as a Christian.  What I mean is that I never read it seeking God and His truth.  By His grace I started believing what I read.  It made sense.  It penetrated into my psyche – I started thinking about it when I wasn’t reading, and started thinking and acting out of belief in it.  I started believing that even though I couldn’t trust myself or anyone else, it seems like I can trust Jesus, because He died for my problem which neither I nor anyone else could fix.  My life’s never been the same.  I came alive there in my early 20s reading the Bible.  Since then I’ve been learning how to obey, love, serve, and trust, trying to help others do the same.

We all want there to be rock-solid truth.  But we often assume we as individuals are clear-thinking enough and unbiased enough to see it more clearly than everyone else.  And when you have millions of Westerners, millennial and boomer alike, who all know the truth, but seem to disagree, who can be trusted?  Are we all lying?

These questions are why what God said to Moses on that mountain is so important.  He was saying, “Truth is accessible to the one who wants it.  But they can’t get it themselves.  I have to bring it to them.”  And Jesus was God bringing truth to us.  That’s why Jesus called Himself “Truth” (John 14:6).  He was saying truth itself is embodied in His person.  He speaks rightly, judges rightly, is unbiased, and isn’t swayed by appearances or sympathies.  At one point, a group of people said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are true, and do not care about anyone’s opinion.  For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God” (Mark 12:14).  What kind of man is this?!  The Prophet whom God said would come with His Words to lead His people into the light.

One time in Jerusalem, after Jesus’ resurrection and when the early believers in Jesus were just getting organized, the Apostles Peter, preaching a sermon to skeptics, quoted the Deuteronomy promise of Jesus being the Prophet, attaching it to a promise of refreshing as well as God’s earlier promise to Abraham of blessing the nations (Acts 3:21-26, cf. Gen 12:3, 22:18).  God wants to refresh all peoples with the life-giving truth His Son speaks.  He doesn’t want them to remain fumbling around and arguing with one another aimlessly, only to die separated from Him and destined for His anger for forever (although perfect justice requires it if they don’t repent and believe).  He wants to meet them in their mid-day desert sun and give them the cool water of His Word, that they’d be revived, nourished, and ready to continue on.  This is why Peter had earlier told Jesus that he and the disciples would never leave Him because His words were the words of eternal life (John 6:68).  When Jesus spoke, their hearts leapt.  He was the Prophet. 

He is the Prophet still!  Through Him God speaks to us still today, giving life by His word to the lost, hopeless, and broken.  When one sees Him for who He is, their hearts leap when He speaks.

And this is why Matthew’s Gospel, the first of the New Testament, and the one most purposefully written to Jewish people, opens telling of how:

-       Jesus is the seed of Abraham (1:1-17),

-       Jesus is the Immanuel promise of Isaiah the prophet (1:23),

-       Jesus was born in Bethlehem, as Micah the prophet had said (2:6),

-       Jesus went to Egypt as a baby, to show how He is the true Israel who would obey His Father (2:15),

-       Jesus’ way was prepared by the Isaiah 40 prophet, John the Baptist (3:3), and

-       Jesus fasted under testing for forty days and nights, like Moses (Ex. 34:28), quoting Moses’ writing in the Scriptures to withstand Satan’s tempting (4:1-11)

Because after all this is laid out, Matthew then tells us that Jesus then went up on a mountain and began speaking the Word of God to the people of God (5:1-2).  God’s promise to Moses had come full circle: On the mountain, the people knew they couldn’t take God’s voice.  So God said He’d send a prophet from among them who would speak His words so they’d listen.  And Jesus, from Heaven, came as a lowly Galilean Israelite, and showed His being the promised Prophet by speaking God’s Word from a mountain.  And one of His first statements was, “I’ve not come to abolish the Law and Prophets, but fulfill them” (5:17). 

Stand on this truth and see how it helps.  Jesus might seem like just another option for those curious about religion.  But if you lean in to Him, you’ll see He’s not.  He speaks the words of God, because they are His own words.  He can’t lie and you won’t sink.

Brokenness Required

Every other Sunday night our church will be meeting for prayer and fellowship.  In those meetings I will be doing an exposition of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which I believe to be perhaps the most important explanation of the Christian life ever spoken.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:3).  Isn’t it interesting that Jesus begins the sermon with these words?  In preaching school they teach you to begin with an introduction that will “grab” people.  I often use movies or news stories – the former because I’ve wasted so many hours of my life watching movies so I have to use it somehow for the Kingdom, and the latter because we are in the information age, and news stories are easy to tie in.  But Jesus here begins with a dogmatic statement – a blessing for those who are inwardly destitute and broken.  It might not be an exciting sermon intro, but it is Jesus’, and it is richly counterintuitive. 

The Scripture teaches the Kingdom of God (or of Heaven) to mean the reign of God through His Son over all of His creation.  As sin corrupted God's creation (which He allowed), His reign must be sought.  But the prophet Daniel promised roughly 2600 years ago that a man would receive from God a “kingdom” which “shall not be destroyed”, calling this man a “son of man” who came (to earth) “with the clouds of heaven” (Dan. 7:13-14). 

Jesus is here claiming to be the Son of Man from Daniel's prophecy, who comes from heaven with the keys to this Kingdom.  And since Daniel extended the “ownership” of this Kingdom past Jesus to “the saints” (7:22), saying they will also “possess the Kingdom” (7:18), it would appear Jesus is speaking very clearly to the audience versed in the Scriptures:  He is the Son of Man who has come to take His Kingdom, which He will share with His people.

Yet He adds an imperative: in order to have this blessing, one must be inwardly poor.  Matthew doesn’t record Jesus elevating outward poverty (though Luke does in his gospel), but Jesus elevating inward poverty.  That is to say that one must be broken and ready for what Jesus brings – redemption, salvation, reconciliation with a Holy God, and this is not something a person can do for themselves, so they come to Jesus on their knees, asking Him to do it for them.  Thus Jesus says later that He’s come to give rest to those who are weary and heavy laden (Matt. 11:28).

This is the opposite of the way we would normally think.  Our motto today is, “Believe in yourself.”  But Jesus says that you must believe in Him, and you only can believe in Him if you are inwardly poor.  Mark this: all we need is faith in Jesus, but faith by necessity requires brokenness and inward poverty of spirit.  No one truly believes unless they’ve been broken by God’s Law and the weightiness of this life – the former meaning they see they can’t keep God’s standard, and the latter meaning that with Solomon they see that under the sun, “All is a striving after the wind.”  Jesus comes to those who qualify and says, “You’re blessed!  The Kingdom is for you – and I’ve come to give it to you.  Follow me.”

God has always been looking for those with inward brokenness.  The sacrifices “of God” are a broken heart and a contrite spirit (Psalm 51:17).  Sacrifice means worship, and David here writes that true worship “of God” has a heart broken for Him and a sorry heart for sin and rebellion in one’s self and the world.  It is different than the common prayer, “Break my heart for what breaks yours Lord."  Rather the prayer is, “Break my heart for you, because I’ll only see you if I’m broken.”

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones – the Doctor, as he was called – rightly commented about Jesus' prerequisite to enter the Kingdom: “The Gospel empties before it can fill.”  That is to say, yes the Gospel will fill with life those who believe.  But it must utterly empty a person of inward righteousness, pride, self-reliance, and self-assurance before it can give life to the believer.  God wants this for people – but people only get this if they see through the counterfeits to the God whose truth they’ve suppressed and tried keeping down, for the sake of independence, autonomy, and mirth.

This is why James tells a church with obvious inner issues, “Be wretched and mourn and weep.  Let your laughter be turned to the mourning, and your joy to gloom” (James 4:9).  It isn’t that God wants to be Johnny Raincloud on all of our happiness.  It is simply that much of our happiness depends on glorying in things that don’t last for eternity.  So our joy is counterfeit – fool’s gold.  And it won’t satisfy for long (which is you keep going back to it), and most definitely not for eternity.

Jesus said that one’s treasure must be in heaven, and not on earth (Matt. 6:19-21).  The one with inward poverty of spirit is the one who no longer treasures what’s on the earth, and they need to know there is better out there somewhere.  Jesus is saying that it is in what God is building for His people in heaven.  And it is for us.  But we must be over the things of life enough that He can become our very life.

Go there.  And get there by looking to Christ, reading His Word, asking Him to shine His light in your heart (cf. Numbers 25-26, Psalm 119:135), and then keep doing all of the above until you see His glory.  You don’t need to be the life of the party – that is overrated.  And honestly, can you keep making yourself the life of the party?  Or is it time to get serious about truth?  If so, take heart – the Kingdom belongs to such as you.  His promise is of eternal joy - you can become an heir of God's Kingdom (Rom 8:17, Gal. 4:7).  But it is only for those who only want His treasure.  And this inner yearning will manifest itself in poverty of spirit.  Don't fight it - embrace it.  And you will be embraced.