• Living in Plan “A”

    As people reflect on the fall of humanity into sin and God’s plan of redemption which stems from that fall, it is common to consider this plan of redemption as something of a “Plan B.” If we would have just side-stepped the temptation, wouldn’t the world be a marvelous place?! As uncomfortable as it may seem, I am going to contend for the position that our timeline is not God’s plan “B”, hastily set in motion because we messed up plan “A.” I believe that this is plan “A”. This deserves some explanation.

    In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth (Gen.1:1). Why?!! My working theory is that the creation of the universe in general, and our race in particular, were for the purpose of God revealing Himself to a race with the capacity to recognize Him and honor Him for His greatness. Think about that: A vast, complex, beautiful creation set in place as an illustration of the Majesty of the Creator–that is, God is the presenter and we are the audience. If creation is all we have to work with in God’s self-presentation, what can we learn? He is quite powerful (just think of all of the incredible output of our own star, the sun. And consider that our star isn’t especially large (it’s only a million times the mass of the earth)–and that there are millions of stars per galaxy and millions of galaxies in the known universe. It’s stunning, right? We also learn that He is creative as we observe the incredible diversity of flora and fauna on our little planet. God has an intense attention to detail. But who is He really?

    In order to actually know God, He must reveal more about Himself than His creation tells. God struck up a relationship with a particular man, Abram and promised to make him into a nation (and this was hard to believe since Abram was already old and, at that point, childless). By His faithfulness, God brought about His promise to Abraham and built His people into a nation in the land of Egypt. Eventually, all of the Hebrews became slaves in the land of Egypt and God mightily delivered them from that state. Suddenly, they were free. Free to wander the wilderness with no availability of the necessities of life. Yet God provided for them with no visible source of support. Now we have learned that God is a deliverer and a provider.

    In Exodus 34, Moses has asked God to show him His glory. God agrees to do what is possible by putting Moses in a cave and covering him with His hand. Then He passes by, declaring His name (and what is meant by His name, Ex.34:6,7). After God passes by, He removes His hand so that Moses is allowed to see God’s back. But let us focus on what God revealed about who He is as He is declaring His name. “The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means forgive the guilty…” Seven aspects of who He is, and the first six are permutations of mercy and grace. God is indeed the judge of sin, but that is the last mentioned of His attributes. He would far rather manifest mercy and grace.

    Mercy is not receiving a punishment that is earned. Grace is receiving a reward which is not earned. Now back-track in your mind to the garden of Eden. At this point, Adam and Eve only know God as Creator. Sin has not come into the world and they deserve God’s kindness. Nobody has earned God’s wrath, therefore mercy is unknowable. Everybody deserves God’s rewards, therefore grace is unknowable. Therefore the heart of who God is is unknowable. In order for God to be known, sin had to be known. This has some terrible-sounding implications; but I will wait to address them until my next post.

  • Building a House

    In 2Sam.7, we find King David living like a king, because he has indeed become the king of a united kingdom. But he feels a pang of conscience because he has built himself a palace while the place for worshipping God was still housed in a tent (v.2). David begins to dream of building a permanent, glorious temple–a house for God.

    What was right in David’s motivation? It is not right to treat ourselves like royalty and give God the dregs. Whatever we have given to Him, it is right for us to confess, “Lord, You deserve better than this.” We ought always to aim higher in our exaltation of Him who will always remain infinitely higher than we are.

    God makes a reply to David through the mouth of a prophet, essentially refusing David’s plan to build God a house (see v.4-10). On what grounds does God make this refusal? If there is any confusion regarding who provides for whom, let the records reflect this fact: God is the Provider and we are those for whom He provides. In response to David’s declared purpose to build God a house, God says to David, “Nice try–but actually I am going to build you a house!” (see v.11,16). “I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” (v.12,13).

    We cannot help but think of David’s son, Solomon and the glorious temple which he built. But was that the descendant and was that the house to which God referred? Probably not. Because Solomon’s throne was not established forever. In the course of time, Solomon died and his descendants were characterized by such idolatry that God sent them into exile and the temple Solomon built was burned to the ground. This is not a picture of the glory which God had prophesied to David.

    Fast forward four hundred years after the return from exile in Babylon. Mary has been betrothed to Joseph. She turns up pregnant and Joseph knows this is not his child. As he ponders breaking off the engagement, an angel comes to him in a dream and says, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matt.1:18-21). Although Joseph was not the biological father of Jesus, Jesus would be accounted as the descendant of David anyway (and Mary was also from David’s line). This was the Son who was prophesied, who was destined to sit on David’s throne forever. This is the One who would build God’s house–the place where sacrifice draws all worshippers near to their Creator. “Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope” (Heb.3:6). Amen!

  • What the Jars of Clay Are and Are Not

    “For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2Cor.4:6). I do not know of any more glorious description of our conversion to Christ than this verse! In the beginning, God did a creative miracle so that the earth would be lighted. Before there were sun, moon and stars, that is, before there was a physical source for the light, God called light into existence by the power of His word! Now Paul teaches that our hearts coming alive with faith towards Jesus–a perception of His glory and a love for that glory–involved exactly this same sort of miracle. God did not foster a faint faith. We had not faith! Not until God spoke it into existence! What a treasure…

    “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” (2Cor.4:7). At this point, it is tempting to cause this passage to say something that it actually does not say. Namely, to identify the wrong sort of weakness as that which demonstrates that the glorious treasure of our faith in Christ as moral weakness. You can tell that God’s gospel is alive in my heart because I still live like a wretch. But does moral compromise make God look great in our lives? Isn’t compromise actually a force which calls the reality of the gospel into question in public? If this is so, what kind of fragility is Paul talking about that certifies that the glory is not from us, but from Him?

    “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus might also be manifested in our bodies” (2Cor.4:8-10). These are not moral failures! These are the consequences of standing with Jesus and receiving a portion of the opposition that He endured in His own day and in His own body. Opposition from the world is guaranteed, provided we stand boldly with Jesus. Affliction is to be expected (and this shows that we are frail, but not morally compromised). Being perplexed is to be expected (who among us has perfect insight into the word of God and our place in His current plan?). Violent opposition is to be expected (think about our family in Nigeria right now and ready your heart to be numbered with them). Resurrection power is for those who have not shrunk back from being united with Jesus in His death. Yes, this manifests our weakness–but it also manifests His power! Refuse to come into agreement with moral compromise (it does not make Him look good). But expect your frail mortality to be a vehicle for His great glory to shine through as you encounter opposition from the same world that opposed Jesus!

  • The Way Things Feel vs. The Way Things Are

    “The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven; his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man.” –Psalm 11:4

    God is present, both in His temple and on His throne. The temple is a place of atonement for the sake of worship. Blood is offered for the sins of the people who wish to draw near to the presence of God. And what would a person do who comes near to the divine presence? Worship! God’s throne is the place from which He rules. Making His presence known in His temple is never at the expense of His perfect authority over all that He has made. Only One who is perfectly omnipresent is capable of being truly–and equally–present in both places at once. Those who would have their sins covered so that they may enter the presence of the Almighty must also be coming to offer their obedience to Him who is gracious and holy.

    He who is everywhere present maintains a thorough knowledge of all that transpires in every portion of His dominion. “His eyes see…the children of men.” That is the truth about the way things are. Yet the world of our experience does not always seem to be in line with this revealed truth. “His eyelids test the children of man.” Eyes are indicative of gazing while eyelids are indicative of inattention or sleep. Some days it feels like our trials are our own only and that God is taking no notice of our troubles (this is not the way things are, only the way that they seem). Take heart at the next phrase, “The Lord tests the righteous.” (Ps.11:5a). Does it seem that God is not paying attention to you even though you have devoted yourself utterly to Him? This is how He deals with the righteous at times! But why?

    How would it be if every wish of yours were granted just as soon as the desire had entered your heart? What sort of expectations would you develop as you learned that your every whim would be satisfied instantly? Prayer would be out. Faith would be out. Work would be out. Probably love would become a much poorer version of itself in a world where giving cost the giver nothing in particular. God tests the righteous with a show of inattentiveness even though the truth of how things are is that He is ever seeing; this is for the purpose of purifying our love and strengthening our faith. “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb.11:6). So there are times when God appears to hide His face so that we may walk by faith alone to the end that our way is pleasing to Him who gazes upon us in spite of how we feel.

  • Approaching Relationship Reverently

    We probably all keep the content of what Jesus identified as the first and great commandment near the front of our minds: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matt.22:37-39). Why is the second commandment like the first? Loving God will cause us to love all of those who bear His image (Gen.1:26). A neighbor is anyone who is near enough to observe. This is the foundation of how we are to treat one another.

    Bearing the image of God is a fearful thing. I must keep in mind as I interact with my wife, my children, clients, strangers, friends, church attenders, that I am a representative of God to them. Do my words reflect the heart of God towards people? Do my attitudes accurately represent God’s disposition towards those I interact with? Am I slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love like He is? Do I have an earnest desire for reconciliation like He does? Do I treasure that which is eternal like He does?

    There is a second lens through which to view this awesome truth that human beings are created in the image of God. As I interact with other people, it is incumbent upon me to remember that all of the other people with whom I speak and live are also image-bearers. Thus, how I treat them is an indication of how I regard God. Does He exist merely for my pleasure? Of course not! Would I be comfortable with snapping at the Almighty in a petty fit of anger? Not while I am in my right mind! Even while I am called to represent Him to my fellow human beings, I must do so with the knowledge that they also are in the process of imaging Him to me and that I must deal with them in an attitude of reverence for the One whom they represent.

    I define reverence as acting as if God were literally present. When I was a child, I was taught that reverence meant being quiet and thinking about Jesus’s death on the cross in the minutes before the service started. Hebrews 5:7 has caused me to shift my view of reverence to the one I have written above. “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.” For Jesus, reverence moved Him to loud cries and tears. When I use the word “reverence” in regard to our relationships with other human beings, I do not just mean one thing (e.g. thinking quietly about Jesus’s work on the cross). I mean acting in fear as a representative of who God is with respect for those who are likewise entrusted with the responsibility of imaging Him to the world.

  • David Strengthened Himself in God

    “And David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul, each for his sons and daughters. But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.”

    Everything seemed to be against David: Living in the land of the Philistines because the king of Israel sought to kill him even though God’s anointing oil had marked David as the chosen successor to the king….at first, there seemed to be indications that God’s blessing was on him even in exile, for Achish looked on David with such favor that he gave David a city and made him his bodyguard. But now, on the eve of battle, the lords of the Philistines rejected David and his men, sending them back to Ziklag–and on arriving at Ziklag, they find that all of their families have been captured by a marauding band. David’s men might have grumbled, “We were not supposed to be here anyway! What were you thinking by serving the Philistines? This is probably God’s judgment on us for not living in His will, in Israel.”

    Let’s give that comment as much credit as possible for a moment. What if David’s presence in Philistine territory was a lapse of faith? Is God sovereign over lapses of faith? I am reminded of Jonah’s flight to Tarshish “away from the presence of the LORD” as he supposed! Due to his disobedience, he was thrown overboard into the sea and swallowed by a fish. When the sea grew immediately calm, that boatload of heathens made sacrifices to Yahweh. God redeems even the rebellion of His own. Even if David was in his situation because of his own weakness (and that is up for debate), he knew enough to trust that God was still in control.

    All things working together for the good of those who love God who are called according to his purpose (Rom.8:28) includes the failures of those who love God! David strengthened himself in the LORD his God. When I see the personal name of the LORD (Yahweh), I remember that this is the name by which God introduced himself to Moses in Exodus 3. This God pursues relationship with those who bear his image. And the word “God” means, “the one I worship.” David put confidence in the deity he worshipped because he trusted that God was still in pursuit of him in faithfulness. This same confidence is supposed to be ours in all our distresses.

  • 2 Chronicles 31:21

    Hezekiah’s faithfulness to God does not fail to revive worship in the temple of God in his day. “And every work that he undertook in the service of the house of God and in accordance with the law and the commandments, seeking his God, he did with all his heart and prospered.”

    My heart throbs with longing as I read this! These words are the vision of my heart for church ministry–that I should undertake service for the house of God (He dwells in human hearts individually and collectively), and that this service should result in an obedience from the heart (remember the New Covenant promise from Jer.31:31-34. According to this promise, the law will be written on the heart, resulting in a superior obedience to God than the law written on tablets of stone could accomplish–see also Ezek.36:26)–this is how I would define the word “prosper” from our target text.

    What is the value of amassing material possessions or having a healthy balance in our bank accounts if the Church is in decline? But if God’s name is being honored among His people because His image is accurately bourn by those whom He has redeemed for Himself because obedience to God has become their new instinct, that is prosperity indeed! I long for nothing else…

  • Psalm 56:10,11

    “This I know, that God is for me. In God, whose word I praise, in the LORD, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?”

    It is quite easy to misinterpret the sovereignty of God. Beginning with the understanding that He is perfectly cognizant of every detail of every created thing –from the sparrow that falls to the ground to the constantly-changing number of hairs on our heads (Matt.10:29,30), it is easy for our fallen hearts to decide that One with such a scope of observation and limitless power must not care much about those whom He has made. Why then the horrors of war? Why is there so much hunger in the world? Why do earthquakes and landslides ravish our planet? Why are maniacs allowed to stay in positions of authority over their helpless nations decade after decade? (In fact, Romans 13:1-5 seems to indicate that God put these people in their positions and that we are to honor Him by submitting ourselves to them).

    All of the above questions are a little bit of a distraction from the central question that each person has: Is God on my side? The answer is yes. What effects should I expect in my life if I assume that God is for me? In short, we should expect a tale of redemption to be spun our of our lives. Redemption is all about starting with a train-wreck and ending with something of enduring beauty. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us–for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree….’” (Gal.3:13). Whose curse falls on us as a result of the law? God’s curse. Who redeems us from God’s curse? The Son of God. In a sense, God is the author of the problem as well as the solution (please don’t take this too far, as if He were the author of sin). Nevertheless, He ordains tough paths for us so that we despair of ourselves and trust in Him (Dt.8:3).

    People are dangerous. When we fear them, it is because we have been given good reason to be afraid. And when it comes to dangerous people, I am on the top of my list. Who else has greater potential to put me in hot water than me? “I will trust and not be afraid–what can man do to me?” And I am just a man! Glory to God who tells His tale of redemption which will not be derailed by my deficiencies! Amen.

  • A Third Culture

    Recently, I wrote that all gospel outreach is cross-cultural; today, I want to expand on that idea in a particular direction. Let us suppose for a moment that we are engaging “our” culture. I place “our” in quotation marks because Jesus said that we are not of this world, even as He is not of this world (Jn.17:14). Nevertheless, we are (according to God’s plan) in the world–planted into a cultural context. Let us freely acknowledge that our most familiar cultures need to be transformed.

    When we reach out to someone who belongs to the familiar culture in which we grew up, we do so as people who have been adopted out of what once was our indigenous culture to become people of the kingdom of heaven. From now on, we are no longer from our own culture, or the culture of any of the people we seek to reach. Our culture is a third thing: the culture of heaven.

    What is the distinctive nature of this new culture? The Lamb is the lamp (Rev.21:23). In His light we see light (Ps.36:9). Jesus Christ is central in our culture. We remember that He is delegated authority (1Cor.15:25-28) and that we honor Him who is the source of all authority by submitting ourselves to that which He has raised up (Rom.13:1-5). In all of our submitting, we are to make our aim to clearly show forth that all we do is done in honor of Christ (1Pet.3:15).

    This knowledge of our unique culture as citizens of the kingdom of heaven ought to move us away from making cultural clones (like what took place in the early days of the Western missionary enterprise). As people who humbly acknowledge that we were born into cultures which need to be redeemed, we must stifle the impulse to mold people into broken cultural forms which must ultimately be laid aside. Rather, each people group is to embrace Christ as Lord and seek how God made them uniquely to reflect an aspect of His majesty. In that climate, each of us has something to teach and each of us has much to learn.

  • A Rough Sketch for Cross-Cultural Outreach

                It seems to me that the artificial division between evangelism and missionary outreach has handicapped our evangelism due to our too often making the assumption that we know our own culture. All outreach ought to be considered cross-cultural. In this way, we come into any conversation assuming that we know absolutely nothing of the person with whom we are conversing, and we must ask questions in order to come to know the individual. Asking questions—learning—is a humble approach. And are we not seeking that the grace of God which is offered to all humanity be further spread by our lives? Of course we do! Since grace comes only to the humble (Jas.4:6), we become the best emissaries of grace by receiving it liberally for ourselves.

    The secret ingredient in successful cross-cultural outreach is total helplessness. Consider Paul’s statement to the Galatians that, “…it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first” (Gal.4:13). Lots of people set out with schemes to reach an unreached culture that involve teaching superior agricultural processes or establishing medical clinics. On one hand, it is hard to throw rocks at these efforts; after all, how else are we going to secure visas into hostile territory? But the other part of the equation is, sending experts in to supply what “those poor people” lack is pretty humiliating for those whom we seek to reach with the gospel of Jesus. So I recommend helplessness. I remember being laid low with malaria in Indonesia for a couple of weeks. Being ministered to by my host family while I stayed in bed was the method through which I acquired the most of their language. As it turns out, people also oppose the proud and give grace to the humble.

    That which impels us to go to all the families of the earth (Gen.12:3) with the good news of the blessing that is theirs is more than the weight of Jesus’s commission; it is the certainty that God created all human beings to reflect His image (Gen.1:26) and that that image is worth perfecting and preserving. With all this being said, what should our approach be?

    Knowing that human beings are made in the image of God should move us to a process of discovery: learning about people and relating what we find to what we know about God. This may well be a lifetime project, sketching out who God has revealed Himself to be in His word and relating that revelation to what we discover about people. The net result should be something of wonder in us who make cultural discoveries—something to the effect of, “I see the kindness of God in you; the reflection of this aspect of His glory is so exceptionally clear. Oh friend, you are incredibly valuable! What I see in you is worth perfecting and worth preserving. Did you know that God has a plan already in place to accomplish both your perfecting and your preserving?” (And if you did not notice yet, that is a perfect set-up for presenting the gospel which flows naturally from getting to know people). I believe that this approach would work just as well for getting to know individuals as it would for crossing cultures.

    But this gets really complicated. How do we isolate the shape of a culture from the personality of the individual people? How are we to differentiate between those aspects which need to be reformed (or eliminated) from those aspects of a culture that are virtues which God intends to preserve? I am reminded of Paul’s speaking of the grafting in of branches onto the root of Israel (Rom.11:16-24). In the process of grafting branches from one fruit tree to another, the foreign branch retains its genetic identity while it begins to take its sap from a superior source. Jesus is the root and offspring of David (Rev.22:16). He is the superior source of life to which a “branch” may be attached and live forever! It is He who said, “Abide in me and you will bear much fruit” (Jn.15:4,5).

    It is important here to avoid complicating something that God intends to be fairly straightforward. We do not have the responsibility to determine which aspects of a culture need to be reformed or rejected; our responsibility is to get people attached to Jesus by faith. As that Source of life begins to perfect the branch and the fruit becomes good, we can take notes on what He is doing and become more discerning regarding what needs to happen in a culture based on what He does in and through an individual.

    This has been a bit of a ramble. More questions have been raised than have been answered. In future days I shall attempt to address more of these questions.