Strength for the Journey: “Shaping a Better God” – Numbers 31:1-20

chiseling godIdolatry is the single most talked about problem in all of Scripture – but you don’t hear it that much in the western church. When we do mention it, we picture some primitive tribe far away, not people we see every day. According to the Bible, most people are idolaters. Now, I readily admit that in the modern world of the west, most do not think of themselves as idolaters – but in the Biblical terminology that is exactly how they would be described. This isn’t a new problem, but one that accompanies the ages. It was John Calvin who wrote: “Everyone of us is, even from our mother’s womb a master craftsman of idols.”

We may not build elaborate temples and construct vast sacrificial platforms. We may not bow to a statue of some hideous creature or sumptuous human form, but each of us serves something with vigilant allegiance – even if it is ourselves. The Biblical definition for idolatry is “anything that takes God’s rightful place in our life as it regards our hungers, choices and desires.” For some it is money, for others an inordinate craving for the love of another. For some it is surely power. Some yearn deeply for success and will cast aside any principle for the perks of material gain. For some the driving hunger is fame. For some, every waking moment seems to be a search for sexual gratification. Some make a god of their career, while others exalt their body to serve the god of image and strength. To a great many in our culture, the god of comfort and pleasure demands our highest allegiance. I have to agree with Kyle Idelman who wrote: “Behind every sin struggle that you and I have is a false god that is winning the war in our lives.”

We must be careful not to allow other things to come between us and God. The Bible warns us in many places concerning this – but there is another “twist” on idolatry I want you to notice – our modern attempts to re-shape God into something that is more acceptable to our sense of fairness and justice. We began to see this in the last chapter, where we noted the “modern clash of culture” we have with the text of Scripture regarding the judicial responsibility of women (Numbers 30). We noted the unchanging principles of God’s Word are sometimes openly offensive to modern sensibilities, and that in our day the church is quickly succumbing to the need to be loved by the world rather than firmly committed to holding the treasure of the Creator’s words above all else. If you have been listening, you know the media LOVES any church that wants to update and re-think the Bible’s most clear statements to conform with the morals of modernity.

I don’t want to obfuscate and sound so theoretical I skirt needed discomfort, so let me say it plainly: Our culture is at war with the God of the Bible as He is presented in the text. They don’t WANT HIM. IF they want any god (and many do not), they want to be able to shape what He cares about. They want to tell Him what the Bible SHOULD say. They want to re-make the rules on marriage, finance, sexual behavior, honesty – all of it. The parts of the Bible about God’s love are no problem. The problem is all the other things God says… God the Sovereign is being demoted to God the elected… and there is a reason.

Many Christians simply don’t understand that from the opening line, the Bible is deeply offensive to the modern sensibilities of our culture. Its pages open with a simple claim: “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the earth.” If that claim is true – if God DID in fact create all that is and then defined its purpose (as the rest of Genesis 1 claims) – everything finds its real meaning and definition in Him. He defines justice. He defines goodness. He defines mercy. He defines truth. Even more offensive is the notion that in such a case, God isn’t forced to act according to modern man’s ever flexing sense of fairness… a truly burning offense to modern man. Our culture cries out for a creator that can be shaped! Our nation seeks a god that blesses us without questioning our gluttony for endless pleasures and encourages us without challenging our flexible morality and unrestrained perversions.

A God that pre-existed the material world, a God that created all things– is fundamentally at odds with the gods of modern men. Why? If God created, He was not a creation of good men – He is the author, not the tale. If God created, He has by definition a Sovereign right to be recognized as Who He is. He cannot be forced into rules that His creation attempts to subject Him to, nor can He be shaped by men’s thinking, for we were shaped by His hands. He is the Untamable God – the writer of a story in which we find ourselves characters.

Key Principle: God isn’t forced to act according to our sense of justice – He defines justice. He defines goodness. He defines mercy. He defines truth… This is the truly offensive word of the Bible to modern man.

Let me challenge you with a story from the Bible that will help us see even our own temptation to shape God. Like the last lesson – this one challenges our modern definitions of fair and just, and forces us to rethink how our minds have been pressed into the world’s mold. There is much in the passage, so we will deal with it in two parts – this is the first installment.

Part One: The Last Battle for Moses

The first half of the chapter is constructed as a record of four scenes:

• God commands Moses
• Moses passes marching orders to leaders
• Israel’s army routs Midian
• Moses meets the returnees

This is a story about a war. It is the plan and execution of a surprise attack, initiated by God against a devious enemy that had caused problems in the past for Israel. It is a tough story to read – with butchery and blood of men and women, and the enslaving of children. It is a frank look at the rugged and brutal existence of God’s people long ago… and it is not easy to seriously contemplate.

Scene One – God to Moses:

It opens with God talking to Moses. Take a moment and pull in your focus to listen to a short and direct command from God given millennia ago:

Numbers 31:1 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people.

The opening line of the story is no doubt a summary of a longer conversation, but in the short two sentences we see the revelation of three facts:

First, God wasn’t willing to let the terrible abuse of His people by devious men who tried to destroy God’s plan in and through them remain unanswered.

When we read “take vengeance” as Christians, we are perhaps uncomfortable with a kind of call from God, since it seems contrary to the call of God to us – and it meant the brutal killing of human beings. Don’t you feel a reaction? Perhaps it will help if you recall the event that God was referencing in his command, and see if it puts this command in context. Numbers 25:1 reported: “While Israel remained at Shittim, the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab. 2 For they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. 3 So Israel joined themselves to Baal of Peor, and the LORD was angry against Israel. 4 The LORD said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of the people and execute them in broad daylight before the LORD, so that the fierce anger of the LORD may turn away from Israel.” 5 So Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you slay his men who have joined themselves to Baal of Peor.”

While observing this first fact – that God wouldn’t let the abuse go – it occurs to me that four ideas surface that we should take a few minutes to explore on the way to helping us make sense of this command of God for vengeance:

  • God called Moses in with the plan to pay back Midian for their sin. This wasn’t a political stunt, and it wasn’t done with a malicious heart on the part of Moses. Vengeance is God’s alone – and we are not to cook up ways to hurt people who hurt us. Moses was acting as the hand of God in a specific situation – and we aren’t Moses. We don’t have the history of the same kind of communion with God and don’t have the same responsibilities before God as he did.
  • We don’t recognize how hurt the people of Israel were concerning the resultant plague that decimated them, killing 24,000 of their family and friends (Numbers 25:9) directly because of that sin. These deceivers felt like cloaked terrorists, and the event felt like a 9/11 cataclysm to the people. America WANTED to fight after they were attacked. After Pearl Harbor, there was no ground swell of a peacenik American. When people are hurt and victimized, their sense of JUSTICE overwhelms them. God’s call probably satisfied many people who lost loved ones that were casualties of another’s misdeeds. Some of you may be keen to ask: “Wait! These didn’t die in an attack – the plague of the Lord took their lives. That isn’t the same thing!” (I want to address this, but I will do so later in the lesson).
  • We don’t recognize how deeply God abhors those who ensnare His people in idolatry and licentious living. To God, these tribesmen were like an ancient form of a street “drug pusher” – offering something free and getting people “hooked” – while steadily “milking” their life from them. If you have ever felt that there was a special place in Hell reserved for such people, you know a bit of the outrage of God over what they were doing. He HATES the deliberate perversion of a child. He DETESTS the beckoning of the tempter who creates enslaving pornography and traffics in human flesh of those held in bondage. He LOATHES the voices of those who arrogantly challenge His right to keep His people distinct from filth.
  • We must recognize that God worked with Israel in unique ways in the past in regards to national direction, and this view of “carnal warfare” is not the same in our nation and time in history. We follow a chosen value at Grace called “Non-resistance”. We are not pacifists, and do not believe that Jesus’ commands to individual believers translate to national instructions, but we do believe there is a profound difference in the way we should handle what our forefathers called “carnal strife” – fancy terms for “national wars”. Non-resistance in our doctrinal statement means essentially that we do not believe that our nation or our church are to involve themselves in battles that are designed to “carry out the Lord’s vengeance on them” as stated in Numbers 31:3. Serving in the country’s armed forces is not a problem for us – but it would be if our country tried to execute a war claiming it was the “arm of God”. In our time, we believe there is a distinction between the Kingdom “not of this world” that we serve, and the earthly kingdom to which we show allegiance as a matter of obedience to Romans 13 and those who are in authority. Our movement came from a time in European history when people were killing each other in the name of Jesus – and we don’t believe in that. We can and will defend our national interests as loyal citizens, but we will not defend the nation claiming it is “the command of the Lord” over another people. We make a distinction between our faith Kingdom and our earthly Kingdom that ancient Israel did not need to make.

God wouldn’t let it go, but there is more in this little reading of Numbers 31:1-2.

Second, Moses needed to care for the response and not let it pass to his successor. There would be plenty of fighting that Joshua needed to contend with – but God wanted this chapter finished by Moses’ administration. It wasn’t wise to place the clean-up operations on the shoulder of the new guy. As we slip out of a long-held role of leadership, sometimes we are tempted to “let things go” and not press to the final tape with our best efforts. It would have been easy to see how Moses could have felt it best not to “re-open a can of worms” and rather “let sleeping dogs lie” – the laissez faire (“leave it be”, literally “let do”) form of leadership. Because of that temptation, and because God wanted to balance the scales of judgment, He simply stepped in and instructed that Moses clean up this problem.

Third, this was the LAST big assignment Moses needed to face as leader. He would be “retired” after this war. Moses was probably looking forward to resting from the weight of the office, and since many of his friends were already gone, he probably knew it was time for a new leader. From what we can tell, the words of God didn’t threaten him, they comforted him.

Scene Two – Moses to Men:

There are more than two verses to consider in the story! Keep reading…The instruction firmly planted in his ears, Moses drew the people together and faithfully reported to him all that God told him to say:

Numbers 31:3 So Moses said to the people, “Arm some of your men to go to war against the Midianites so that they may carry out the Lord’s vengeance on them. 4 Send into battle a thousand men from each of the tribes of Israel.” 5 So twelve thousand men armed for battle, a thousand from each tribe, were supplied from the clans of Israel.

He told them to get ranked, dressed and ready for battle. He delivered the reason, just as God gave it to him – it was God’s idea, not his. The objective was given by the Most High, but the plan needed to be executed in their hands.

Scene Three – Men to War:

Gathered and ready, off they went to attack as they were told to do. They were strong physically, and walked with an emotional certainty knowing they were following the Lord’s command.

Numbers 31:6 Moses sent them into battle, a thousand from each tribe, along with Phinehas son of Eleazar, the priest, who took with him articles from the sanctuary and the trumpets for signaling. 7 They fought against Midian, as the Lord commanded Moses, and killed every man. 8 Among their victims were Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur and Reba—the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. 9 The Israelites captured the Midianite women and children and took all the Midianite herds, flocks and goods as plunder. 10 They burned all the towns where the Midianites had settled, as well as all their camps. 11 They took all the plunder and spoils, including the people and animals, 12 and brought the captives, spoils and plunder to Moses and Eleazar the priest and the Israelite assembly at their camp on the plains of Moab, by the Jordan across from Jericho.

Moses SENT them, but Eleazar the High Priest ACCOMPANIED them with articles from the Tabernacle – the silver trumpets used to call them to war from its doorway. The men apparently attacked the Midianite encampment with complete surprise – and the slaughter was thorough. Every fighting man of that tribal encampment was killed. Five chieftains were encamped there – though the text does not inform us why they were all in that one camp. It looks like a “pow-wow” was interrupted at just the right time!

Did you notice that Balaam the prophet was also with them? At the end of his time with Chief Balak, Numbers 24:25 recorded: “Then Balaam arose and departed and returned to his place, and Balak also went his way.” What was he STILL DOING IN THE MIDIANITE CAMP? Truthfully, we do not know. It could be that he returned to his tent at the end of Numbers 24 with the intent of going home, but decided to stay around and see how the whole thing worked out. Some have even suggested that he set out to return to Mesopotamia, but was again summoned by tribesmen that wished to hire his services. 2 Peter 2:15 certainly left the door open to that when it recorded his legacy as: “forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness.” I cannot prove it, but I suspect that he found himself seduced by the sensual cult that pervaded the camp of Midian, and he wasn’t willing to go back home.

Because I feel it inappropriate, I will not graphically remind you of the cultic practices, except to say they were sensual and orgiastic. The women captured by Israel’s raiders were some of the same enchantresses from the “cultic orgy” of Numbers 25 that drew them into trouble with God and His Word. It is also important to mention that the so-called “towns” or “cities” Israel burned in verse ten were “encampments” and “maqads” or safe havens – cave structures that stored food and water for the journey through their surrounding territory. Moses was trying to make it clear that every Midianite in the area was taken, and the raiders checked carefully the region around the camp. What they brought back was a rich trove of stored materials, and a certainty that there would be no immediate counter-attack.

Scene Four – Moses Met Returnees:

Collecting the spoils of the encampments in the region, and the supplies of the maqads, they returned to Moses – with flocks, herds, plunder, women and children. The reading that follows is a bit jarring:

Numbers 31:13 Moses, Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the community went to meet them outside the camp. 14 Moses was angry with the officers of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—who returned from the battle. 15 “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. 16 “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man. 19 “Anyone who has killed someone or touched someone who was killed must stay outside the camp seven days. On the third and seventh days you must purify yourselves and your captives. 20 Purify every garment as well as everything made of leather, goat hair or wood.

The record of the return reveals that Moses looked at what they brought back. He was, no doubt, relieved to see them all come home. Any leader would be. He walked out of the camp to meet Eleazar the High Priest, and address the commanders of the tribal warriors of Israel. As he saw them, dirt and blood still dried on their skin and tunics, his eyes scanned the crowd. He saw the spoils of silver and gold, the trinkets and treasures of a people now defeated and dispatched. Then the smile slipped from his face… His mouth dropped open. Could it be? Were the very women that stood before him those who had seduced the children of Israel and brought about the idolatry and plagues a short time before? What had his army done? Why had they let them live? Here is the question at the heart of the narrative’s application for our study.

When my unbelieving friends want to criticize the Bible, verses like the one we just read are the very ones they use. They sound barbaric. Any Pastor would rather avoid these texts and hide inside the warmth of the Gospels or the reasoned argumentation of the Apostle Paul. This record is sickening to anyone who is not calloused. We are speaking of the death of women and children. How can this be in our Bible?

Despite what my students may say, I am not an un-compassionate man. Seriously, I ache when I see scenes from Damascus today, or Egypt, or Libya, or Afghanistan or Iraq. I cannot easily endure the sight of killing – and I have seen it before, and handled fallen bodies with my own hands. When you really look at war, you learn that, up close, all wars seem like crimes – regardless of the point. Who can take the life of a child and not be changed forever by the taking? I watched in horror as the footage was released of those who were painfully gasping for breath as they suffered the effects of Sarin nerve gas in Syria.

You see, the burning desire for God to fit into our feelings, our inner barometer of justice – makes us vulnerable to a sinful reshaping of God. Do you recall the key principle I cited for the study?

“God isn’t forced to act according to our sense of justice – He defines justice. He defines goodness. He defines mercy. He defines truth… This is the truly offensive word of the Bible to modern man.”

Let’s remember when we read of this tale that God was leading the people through the journey to the Promised Land. They were following Him when the enemy attacked through a slick traveling preacher named Balaam and his suggestion to win their hearts through sinful compromise. He may have sounded like a man of god, but the rattle of a snake was present behind his voice. He didn’t seem like such an offensive character – he was not a vulgar and boisterous man. He did not stand on the hillside shouting obscenities to his foes. He sat in a meeting, and quietly planned seduction and destruction of God’s people. He laid out the plans with care and shared with tribal chiefs how they could make God’s people GIVE THEM a victory they knew they could not TAKE by force. That’s the way the enemy really works most effectively. Why assault us openly when he can lull us into conformity and then force us into slavery?

Let’s recall when we encounter this story that God directed the assault on the people and that God had the absolute right to do so. That is where the real justice issue plows into our culture. It is that same sense of justice that is causing the modern “church of tolerance” so pervasive in our day – to reshape the Bible on a narrative on the mention of Hell. It offends an American culture that doesn’t truly accept authority – even from a Creator. In our culturally accepted arrogance, we feel qualified to shake our fist at Heaven itself and demand that God get into the box of our sense of fairness. He can’t kill if we don’t think He has that right. He can’t demand a man to take his only son and place him on an altar and sacrifice him at God’s call. God doesn’t really OWN people – He isn’t really ENTITLED to do as He pleases with my life… do you see where this is going?

Here is the crux of the struggle. A believer cannot truly make sense of God’s commands if they don’t remember God’s position as Creator, Master and Sovereign.

When we compromise on the Sovereignty of God, we destroy the Bible. We declare God subject to human will. We make Him answerable to US and not us to HIM. We draw back in fear of rejection or hunger for acceptance from a broken and temporary world and do not represent the God Who is not intimidated by the strongest of men. We stand, like David’s brothers, quaking before a defiant Goliath as he mocked the God of Abraham.

I simply argue that I cannot make the God of the Bible palatable to the arrogant voices of modernity. I have no way to bend God so low as to serve men’s pleasures, or to flex His sayings to make what is popular right. If the work of the shepherd in a church is going to be measured in terms of common popularity, I suspect those of us standing with the plain reading of the text will not be deemed successful this side of Heaven. No matter. All I can do is be as kind as possible, but be true to the Word as well.

Given time, people will re-write and explain away every counter-cultural statement of the Bible – including the Gospel itself. I like something Pastor Tim Keller wrote: “The universal religion of humankind is: We develop a good record and give it to God, and then he owes us. [God should weigh out the good I have done in my life and let me into Heaven.] The gospel is: God develops a good record and gives it to us, then we owe him (Rom. 1:17). [God sent His Son to save us.] In short, to say a good person, not just Christians, can find God is to say good works are enough to find God. You can believe that faith in Christ is not necessary or you can believe that we are saved by grace, but you cannot believe in both at once. So the apparently inclusive approach is really quite exclusive. It says, “The good people can find God, and the bad people do not.” But what about us moral failures? We are excluded. The gospel says, “The people who know they aren’t good can find God, and the people who think they are good do not.” Then what about non-Christians, all of whom must, by definition, believe their moral efforts help them reach God? They are excluded. So both approaches are exclusive, but the gospel’s is the more inclusive …. It says joyfully, “It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been at the gates of hell. You can be welcomed and embraced fully and instantly through Christ.” (taken from “Preaching Today”).

One who embraces the God of the Bible recognizes a truth the world is blinded to. They grasp that there is no compassion in man greater than compassion found in man’s Creator – He invented love, He invented care. God didn’t ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac without a plan to save both of them. God’s compassion was so great that HE GAVE HIS SON. He sent Jesus. He allowed Him to be nailed to a Cross. Then, in the midst of the agony and tears, God did the unthinkable. He left Jesus there. He allowed Jesus to experience the utter anguish of Hell – the separation from God Himself. Jesus had existed as ONE with the Father throughout the ages back to eternity. On a terrible early afternoon outside of Jerusalem as the sky grew dark, God turned His back on His Son. The separation tore at the universe on a molecular level. Jesus’ great punishment was not simply that He was stripped of His clothes in a body beaten nearly beyond recognition. His profound punishment was not simply that his skin was torn through by the piercing nails into his flesh. These things were horrible, but paled in comparison to the absolute horror of the tearing away of His Father.

Hell is exactly that. It is, at its essense, the removal of God’s presence. All the grace, gentleness and love evacuates like the day’s heat in the cloudless desert. The cold settles and the darkness envelopes the soul. The physical pains are real and descriptive, but the separation from God is the reason the thirteeeth century poet Dante Alighieri placed above the gates of Hell these words: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”. Jesus did that for me and you – because that was required to save us from our mutiny.

You can try to make God fit into your mold – but God’s face will be shaped in your heart to look like your own. America is suffering from a need to have a man-like Christ in the place of a Christ-like Christian.

God isn’t forced to act according to our sense of justice – He defines justice. He defines goodness. He defines mercy. He defines truth… This is the truly offensive word of the Bible to modern man.

Renewing Our Resolve: “The Outburst” – Colossians 3:12-4:1

laughterI don’t know if you have ever had this happen, but I would be willing to wager that at least a few of you have been in this desperate position. Imagine you are in a public place, and someone said or did something very funny, or something just struck your funny bone in a way that you could not control. Maybe you were in a place where laughter wasn’t appropriate. Maybe you were halfway into drinking a soda. You get the idea… Not long ago I saw a YouTube clip of a weather man on a local station that just couldn’t do his job. Whatever happened just before the live broadcast started, the guy just LOST IT on camera. He tried to fight through it. He attempted to offer the weather… but there was simply NO HOPE. As I watched, something within me was routing for him to win against the overwhelming impulse. It never happened. He collapsed, unable to finish. He was overtaken by an outburst of laughter that would not be controlled.

I mention it because I believe that is the pattern for real change that happens when God works within you. It is not that you collapse on the ground in laughter – but rather that an inner change comes unmistakably to the surface with undeniable force. The most profound changes Jesus works are within His followers – but they do not remain there. You can most often see them in the relationships between His followers, because of attitude changes. You can sense them in a new compassion, a new peacefulness, and a joyful thankfulness. Maturing believers learn, step by step, to navigate life together with the guiding principles of His insightful direction from His Word. We behave with a privileged sense of representing Him and His Kingdom. We seek to dwell together in unity. It is not our loud preaching that invites us into the lives of hurting people; it is our kindness, our Christ like attitudes, and our behaviors toward one another, and toward a hurting world. It is humble living, not boisterous protest of their lifestyles.

Key Principle: The profound changes WITHIN us work their way OUTSIDE us. Christianity is a relationship with God through Jesus that changes the way we live our daily lives.

Paul knew the small community of Colossae in Asia Minor. He worked out of Ephesus, the great port city of the region, but he kept in touch with the believers in the more remote areas of Hierapolis, Laodicea and Colossae. The Colossian church was a small one- probably meeting in two or perhaps three homes – not more. Paul knew what it meant to work in the big city, but also the small town. In fact, my life journey has taken me on that same path…Along the way, I have taken special comfort in Paul’s writings to the small agricultural first century town of Colossae, and his especially warm words to Epaphras, one of its chief disciple makers.

I have walked the tell – the archaeological ruin – and the city was tiny. I love this little letter, because in its pages you find encouraging words about the fullness a surrendered believer can have in Christ, in spite of the small and rural town that was receiving the letter along with its sister cities of Laodicea and Hierapolis. The theme of Colossians appears to some scholars as “completion and fullness in Christ”. You can get that idea from a quick survey of the language…

1:9 asking God to fill you with all understanding… 1:19 all fullness dwelt in Christ…. 1:25 I have become His servant by the commission God gave me to present the Word in its fullness….1:28 We proclaim Him, that we may present everyone perfect (full grown, mature) in Christ. 2:2 My purpose is that they may have the full riches of complete understanding…. 2:9-10 In Christ the fullness of the Godhead dwells… and you have been given fullness in Christ.

Can anyone else spot the utter irony in this theme? Paul wrote about completeness and fullness to the smallest church in the New Testament! Most of us don’t think of small churches in words like “fullness” and “completion”. Here is my point: smaller churches cannot ease the work of making completed disciples, while they settle on citing their inadequacies and long for the profound programming of the larger churches that make the news. Our ministry profession is to make disciples that make disciples.

Years ago I heard a speaker mention this: “When we think of small churches, we tend to think of the incomplete nature of the church. We see limitations, and believe that it isn’t really possibly to “fully complete” discipleship like the church that has all the departments and the programs.” I want to urge you that such thinking is very American, but not at all Christian. Paul told believers at Colossae – by my count (at most) a total of thirty people, that they could produce by God’s power, people who were complete in Christ.

How? They had no gym, no youth program, no power point – and yet they could produce mature believers! By now the church at Rome probably had a cool logo on their chariot bumper stickers – but Colossae had no budget for such things. I am forced to conclude that the small church – if it is acting in obedience in discipleship and honest diligence in outreach – is just the right size to get discipleship done. What do I mean? I don’t mean that small is better, or bigger is better, but let’s be practical – if you live in a town of 1000, dreams of mega-church building are both unwise and unlikely. But here’s the catch: No matter what size the town or the church – our commission of growing people to maturity is NOT beyond our reach nor beyond our responsibility!

Let me say it this way: There is no purpose of the local church that cannot be accomplished in the smaller church – but it will require of the Pastor and workers a deliberate attention to the discipleship process, just as it should in the larger church. If they are truly reaching out to lost people, they are the right size to be all that God called them to be – but they must not secretly pine to be what they are NOT. The New Testament is a record of small places, and small fellowships building great people.

I am not speaking against large churches, nor am I speaking against avid evangelism. What I am saying is this: the small church Pastor cannot let himself off the hook in raising believers to maturity because of the apparent inadequacies of buildings, budgets and bodies. That isn’t Biblical, and that excuse must be put to rest. There is no evidence, in the history of world missions, that the church is more or less able to grow people to greater spiritual maturity in the larger setting. Big churches are wonderful in many ways, but they aren’t necessary to accomplish our mission to make disciples that make disciples. God CAN bring the fullness of Christ to our people through His Word, His Spirit and His gifted people. We must not cop out and long to be what we are not. We need to refocus the task on BOTH evangelism and impact of the lost community – as well as the growing to real maturity in Christ those we have been given.

Let me ask a question that will guide our thinking in the next verses as we study them. What does a “life transforming work” of Jesus look like in a man or woman as they submit to God? Our text offered six clear markers:
Six Markers of God’s Transforming Work:

Marker 1: New Eyes.

Our eyes are the windows through which we look at life. People who are transformed by Jesus gain a new perspective by a spiritual “eye replacement” surgery – they see life differently. Paul made clear that we begin to see each other with love and compassion – because we recognize how much we have received in compassion from an absolutely perfect and holy God.

Colossians 3:12 So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; 13 bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. 14 Beyond all these things [put on] love, which is the perfect bond of unity.

• Note that he reminds them, first of all, that they have been chosen of God. You and I who follow Jesus did not search endlessly for truth and find a reluctant God hiding from us. That isn’t the Bible’s claim. The Scriptures say that God sought us “while we were yet sinners”. The Bible’s earliest search was God looking for a sinful Adam and Eve who were hiding from Him. If you know Jesus, God chased you to grab your heart. If you don’t know Jesus, can you feel His tug? He brought you to hear this lesson today.

• Second, Paul reminds them that they were distinct and beloved of God. The Bible says that: “We love because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19). God’s love is initiating; ours is responsive. Why is that important? Because it showed the pattern of loving relationship. Someone has to take the first step. In our case it was God, perhaps using someone else. Now it is OUR TURN to be used by God as an instrument of His love.

On the basis of those two ideas – they were chosen and separated out by the love of God – Paul placed a list of eight commands of changed acts on their lives:

• Put on a heart (splangkh’-non) of compassion (oyk-tir-mos’): the idea is represented in two Greek words. The first term is the word “bowels”, and the second (oiktirmós) is properly, an emotional pity or. deep feeling about someone’s difficulty or misfortune.

• Put on kindness (chréstotés): We have no word that translates this directly, but a good way to think of is “useful kindness” – a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:22) whereby the believer is empowered to meet the practical needs of another.

• Put on humility (tapeinophrosuné): This compound word is two terms – tapeinós – which means “lowly or humble”, but implies becoming God-reliant rather than self-reliant (which ironically brings us true worth, cf. 1 Pet 5:6); and phrḗn – a word for “the midriff (the root word for “diaphragm”), referring (figuratively) as “the parts around the heart”.

• Put on gentleness: praótēs, was derived from the root pra- (emphasizing the divine origin) and the term meekness, or “gentle strength”. This is a word for power with reserve, ever exercised in controlled measure.

• Put on patience: makrothumía is a compound word from makrós, “long” and thymós, “passion, or outbursts of anger”. The word has the import of one who consistently chooses to wait sufficient time before expressing anger, thus avoiding the premature use of force or retribution.

• Put on “bearing with one another”: anéxomai is from “completing a process” and exō, “to have” – properly it is translated “forbearing” but actually means to “bear up while understanding a process is in action”. It has in view that our ability to help is enhanced when we see the faults and weaknesses as another being dealt with by God – as He is maturing them.

• Put on forgiveness for one another: xarízomai is literally “favor that cancels”. The term is used of God giving His grace to pardon, not based on any merit of the one the gift. In the believer, it denotes an attitude of grace despite any work that makes the recipient worthy.

• Put on love – the superglue that holds us together: agápē – properly, love which centers in moral preference.

The point is that we need to SEE differently. Instead of convincing ourselves that we were somehow BETTER and MORE APPEALING to God than other people around us – we must recognize that we have been the recipients of God’s love and care. He pulled us to Himself because of love – and we must see each other as valuable. God said that those who are around you – other annoying believers that you worship with – were worth His love, His purchase, His selection, His Son! If that is true, we must SEE EACH OTHER through the new eyes that reflect that value. Then we must ACT ACCORDINGLY.

2: New Steadiness

People who are transformed by Jesus are to learn to allow the peace of Jesus rule their heart.

Colossians 3:15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body;

The word PEACE is the New Testament term eirḗnē, taken from the word eirō, “to join, tie together into a whole” and means wholeness, a completion. Something is wrong with a generation of believers constantly stirred up – they seem to be lacking something. I have been talking to believers, trying to figure out what is keeping them stirred up. Here are a few of the WHOLENESS ROBBERS I have discovered:

Fear of loss of the past: A great many people in America today live with the constant fear that new government programs, new propaganda planted in our educational system, and an emerging new moral system that is casting off the most basic constraints are about to topple our way of life. They may be right, but their response is not. Living in fear of eventual loss sours you to living with today’s joys. The constant whining of some under the guise of “we have to make people aware of the problem” seems like those who share prayer requests in order to gossip – it isn’t honest. If you are spending hours a day reading and reposting articles about how the government is being ruined – you aren’t spending those hours in peace, nor are you sharing Christ or discipling others. What will you accomplish with a lifetime of Facebook complaints about America? I know what you would accomplish by using that time to learn and teach God’s Word. In the process, you would gain back a measure of wholeness. Every time you allow yourself to be stirred by a problem you have no ability to directly influence, you surrender peace.

Fear of coming troubles: Akin to the loss of the past is the ever threatening voice of “their going to take your guns”. They are going to take away our religious freedoms. They are going to come and make our children do wrong. You know what? I think you may be right, but I am not worried. My years on this earth are limited, and my purpose is primarily to see that those who need to hear about Jesus, do. Washington doesn’t care about my opinion. I give it regularly to be a good citizen, but I don’t believe my belief system is in the majority. I cannot get overly excited about what is going to happen in the country while I forget that my neighbor doesn’t have Jesus.

Fear of loss of control: From health care to guns, from school curriculum to state welfare – we are constantly being campaigned to join a cause. It has become a national obsession. Believers confess to me that they dance between immersion in the news cycle and retreat from media, only to come back and do the dance all over. I appreciate wanting to be informed about issues, I truly do. We aren’t running a monastery here. At the same time, we have to recognize that liking an article is not making new legislation. Pick what you are concerned about, and find a practical way to make a difference in that area. Leave the rest for prayer. God is not going to hold you personally responsible for the back door dealings of the Congress – because you can’t do anything about them. Practice some version of the serenity prayer:

During the Second World War, servicemen heard the prayer that originated by Reinhold Niebuhr. A version of it is still circulated in AA meetings:

God, give me grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

Living one day at a time, Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did, This sinful world as it is, Not as I would have it.

Trusting that You will make all things right, If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen.

I am not declaring you all alcoholics, but I am saying there are too many believers that are too stirred up, and we are commanded to put on the ruling mastery of peace. Note the language of the text that carefully calls us to allow God’s gift of WHOLENESS to take charge of our heart. It is simple rebellion to resist the ruler ship of peace and turn over the realm to worry.

3: New Demeanor

When we learn to see each other differently, and let peace stabilize our daily walk, the third mark will show profoundly… We will learn to be thankful!

Colossians 3:15b “…and be thankful.

The word “thankful” is euxáristos, taken from eú, “well” and xarízomai, “grant freely”. It means you become “thankful for God’s grace working out what is (eternally) good”. It is a LONG TERM look at life – a look with eternity’s values in view. It is a heart recognition that leads to a positive outlook.

Let’s be honest. You and I have no control over the issues of life. Forget that you don’t control the government… as we age we are struggling to control our own “plumbing”. Don’t be embarrassed by the fact that as we age, we realize that control is an illusion lived in the minds of the young. Yet, we are not to panic – we are to face facts. We were NEVER in control. We have journeyed through the battlefield of life and have no idea why some who lived more healthy lives were taken long before we have been. Some of us can admit we pulled CRAZY stunts without a scratch, but were badly injured by household chores. You don’t have control, but you DO know Who does. You DO know what His big purposes in the world are, if you know His Word. If you know Him, how can you look at eternity with Him and not be unbelievably thankful?

4: A New Mouth

With a thankful and peace guarded heart, I must learn that as a follower of Jesus I need to fill my mind with the Word of Christ daily. When I do that, I will want to recite it in three ways:

Colossians 3:16 Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms [and] hymns [and] spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Did you see the three recitations of God’s goodness? They are found in the words “Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs”. What are they?

Psalms: the term “psalmós” was originally Scripture sung and accompanied by a plucked musical instrument (typically a harp). It was an old Hebrew tradition that made its way into the early church.

Hymns: hýmnos is a word taken from hydeō, which means “to celebrate”. In antiquity, these were generally songs that praised heroes and conquerors. The emphasis was they were “historically well known” songs. Many church hymns were set to tunes known in celebrations and even pubs. Luther encouraged the German church to place Christian words to already popular tunes.

Spiritual Songs: An ōdḗ was a song that wove a tale with a moral exhortation. In some ways, it was like a ballad that unwound a story in song. The term was used of spontaneous, impromptu (unrehearsed) melodies of praise, giving testimony about a walk with God to other worshipers.

Whether we sing out the Word of God (something I wish we did even more than we do), sing historic and well-structured hymns and songs of the faith, or whether you are simply “making music as the Lord leads” in “spiritual songs” about your journey with Jesus, your mouth will reflect what is going on inside – transformation!

Ephesians 4: 29 reminds: “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.” For those who have struggled with a “bad mouth” before Jesus (and sometimes after), I suggest you change your musical diet. Sing the Word more! Sing Praises more! A new vocabulary comes with practice!

5: A New Purpose

When we sing out in joy, and walk in the stability of peace, we begin to challenge attitudes and actions in ourselves that do not agree with our new heart. We see that our purpose in life is changing. We learn to being to do all that we do in Jesus’ name (in His character and under His authority with personal responsibility).

Colossians 3:17 Whatever you do in word or deed, [do] all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.

Note that Paul carefully covered every word and every deed. Your faith on Monday should sound like your “church faith” on Sunday. Also note that Paul talked about a testimony of acting out truth – DOING SOMETHING thankfully.

Let me ask a pointed question: When was the last time you really felt like your actions clearly showed others your faith? I don’t mean that you did a good deed or were a nice person… I mean, when was the last time that your actions so clearly pointed another to Jesus, they knew you were a believer – not just a nice person?

Paul said that we were to do EVERYTHING WE DO, and say EVERYTHING WE SAY according to Jesus’ character. We are to say and do all this THANKFULLY.

When asked to list what he was thankful for, one little boy wrote, “My glasses!” “That’s good,” said the teacher, “they help you see better”. “No,” responded the child, “I’m thankful for my glasses because they keep the other boys from hitting and fighting with me and the girls from kissing me.” This little guy clearly understood the meaning of gratitude! (from William Akehurst in Sermon Central).

The songwriter said: “YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’VE GOT TILL IT’S GONE!” It is SO true! Our power is shut off, and suddenly we become thankful for electricity. Our garbage is not picked up, and suddenly we become thankful for the garbage collector’s weekly stop. A good friend dies, and suddenly we discover how much he meant to us. Our water becomes too polluted to drink and suddenly we appreciate having good waterWHO and WHAT are you looking past today that God is blessing you with?

6: New Relational Behavior

The passage ends with a laundry list of instructions about RELATIONSHIPS that change when we practice God’s Word in daily life.

Colossians 3:18 Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them. 20 Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord. 21 Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart. 22 Slaves, in all things obey those who are your masters on earth, not with external service, as those who [merely] please men, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve. 25 For he who does wrong will receive the consequences of the wrong which he has done, and that without partiality. 4:1 Masters, grant to your slaves justice and fairness, knowing that you too have a Master in heaven.

These aren’t unfamiliar words… but they may be unfamiliar actions in our lives! Look at the list:

Wives: be subject. Let’s face it, ladies. You know the truth. He can’t make you voluntarily place yourself in a serving position in your marriage – but I will tell you the truth: He yearns to be respected. Men want to be respected more than they desire to be loved. That respect is clearly transmitted when you place them above you in rank, though (and we know it is true), we are often not nearly as smart as YOU! This “befits” a believer according to the text.

Husbands: There are TWO instructions. The first is LOVE your wife. The second is to deliberately toss out of your heart anything that will allow bitterness to take root inside you concerning her. The word used, pikrainó, can mean “to make bitter” or “to make harsh”. Address issues and then LET THEM GO. Love her, and cherish her. Let her know you are fortunate to have her in your life.

Children: In a bare-knuckled, no-nonsense way, Paul says: “Please the Lord and obey your parents.” He is addressing this to those who are not considered adults, and he is saying that parents are supposed to be honored and respected.

Fathers: Paul returned to the men of the congregation and directed them to learn some tempering gentleness when dealing with their children. Roman fathers “accepted” or “rejected” a child immediately after birth when someone placed the child at the foot of the father. He was under no legal obligation in Roman society to claim the child, and could order the child abandoned. Such dictatorial power over even life and death for a child could have easily given them an un-tempered harshness with their children.

Slaves: Paul told slaves who knew Jesus to serve Jesus by serving their masters. Though the rewards may not have come to them in this life, their real inheritance was beyond this life. Look closely and you will see some great principles for how God wants us to think when we are in unjust situations.

Masters: God’s Word to those who held power over others was to look up, and remember God had power over their lives!

A few years ago, a magazine offered this little nugget: If you were to Google the phrase “Christians are known for” what do you think the results would be? What are people who call themselves followers of Christ known for… whether good or bad?
The following are some of the results you would find:

… being trustworthy and honest and having high levels of integrity
… building governments based on fairness
… respect for others and tolerance
… their intolerance of non-Christians and other religions
… their high level of integrity, their moral character
… their homophobic views toward anything remotely gay
… their gratitude and thankfulness
… their hatred, not the good and love they claim to practice
… what they are against, not what they are for
… denying birth control to families in the so called ‘third world’, resulting in hungry, unwanted babies
… replacing science with superstitions in the schools
… looking for trouble in the hopes of controlling others
… their love of others and towards God.

If you think about that list you will see some things that are quite contradictory. You will see items that are fortunately true, unfortunately true, and items that are false. What I hope you see is that the simple question of: “what are Christians known for” is not an easy question to answer. –www.orcmagazine.com

Colossians 3 says that the redeemed show it in actions and attitudes – not just labels and memberships…

The profound changes WITHIN us work their way OUTSIDE us. Christianity is a relationship with God through Jesus that changes the way we live our daily lives.

Strength for the Journey: "Dissonant Sounds" – Numbers 30

guitarPerhaps nothing is more beautiful than a quartet of musical master performers playing soft chamber music on perfectly tuned and delicate strings. The dips and vibrations of the music are incredibly soothing to me. Conversely, nothing is more difficult to listen to than the dissonant sounds of an instrument utterly out of tune.

I am being brief because I want to get to the point, and I don’t want the point to be muddled by a cute opening story. Today we tackle a tough passage. It will not be boring, nor will it be complex. It will, however, be openly rejected by much of the church in our country at the beginning of this century. What we desire to study will be both TRUE and TERRIBLY UNPOPULAR – because the tones of this passage will sound as dissonant to the accepted morays of modernity. The Bible is not a book that flexes with man’s fickle sense of progress – it speaks as a foundational set of truths by the Creator. Those who do not believe that have already dismissed its message – and they control the “culture shaping” airwaves of our day. In Numbers 30 we are looking at a passage that was once in tune with our nation and her people, but no more. Yet, as our culture has walked away from Biblical truth, many have made God, our very Creator, the villain that works against our freedom and happiness. Even in the church, we find ourselves at odds with some key truths of Scripture.

Let me mention two, and then look carefully at one of them – because it is the heart of our passage for this lesson. We have been thoroughly taught that America was designed to be a “melting pot” of many people into one. At one time that was true. The corollary teaching that has been a subtext to many a politician’s speech has been this popular notion that PLURALITY is what makes America strong. I want deliberately to argue that is both an unwise premise and an untrue statement. Only a strong culture can accept many into its shores and resist giving up its long held tenets. As a nation keenly and deliberately built on certain Biblical premises expressed clearly in the Declaration of Independence, we were at one time able to accept masses into Ellis Island without diluting the essential nature of our understanding of national purpose and cosmic plan. Weakened from the inside, we no longer have such a resolve. Let me illustrate:

When a doctor that heads the department of surgery or a local government sponsored “health care review board” at our local hospital is Buddhist and believes in reincarnation, how do you suppose that will affect his view of the dignity of human life, and the amount of effort and cost that should be expended in the prolongation of life of a senior citizen?

Is plurality always a strength? Should not the dignity of man found in their ONE life on the earth be the deciding factor. No, if you are from a generation that equates pluralism with strength and the demand to stand on founding principle as a throw-back to some red neck form of ignorance. Pluralism is the sweet brand of polytheism that now reigns in the hallways of Kansas public schools that are challenged in court at the very mention Jesus, but enforce policies whereby students learn the five pillars of Islam. Pluralism in a culture that doesn’t know its own foundation is a tsunami pushing against a building that is unattached to a foundation. Yet, ask students across the country, and they will not only not know much of the Bible, they will overwhelmingly believe what they have been taught – pluralism is GOOD, and always the BEST WAY FORWARD.

If you find yourself troubled by the first illustration we just offered, you will find yourself enraged at the next one. We are going to tackle a treasured misbelief so dear, that many believers would fight with their last sinew of strength to defend a principle that just won’t hold up in the court of clear Biblical study. I don’t want to pick a fight, but the time to back up when the culture leans in to push the text around is long over. These clashes must be answered with LOVE, but that love does not imply a PUSH OVER DOCTRINE.

Key Principle: Our true purpose is determined by our Creator, not our culture. It is in that purpose we find peace.

Before we dive in, let’s set the passage in context. The “Civil Code” of Law in Exodus and Numbers finds its last chapter here. The subjects of Civil Code began with the Core Values of Exodus 20, along with some case studies on issues regarding Servants, Injuries, Property, Social Issues and Celebrations in Exodus 21-23. The Exodus account ends with an affirmation that the people of Israel would stand by that Law as a covenant with God (Exodus 24). The laws were to them, but the principles within those laws made clear the priorities of a changeless God that we serve today – and in that way the laws were also for us (in principle form). Numbers continued that Civil Code of Law in passages like:

• Numbers 5 that dealt with the purity in marriage and the faithfulness of a spouse.
• Numbers 6 we discussed the issues of purity again, and saw the Nazarite vow before the Lord.
• Numbers 15 we observed the “basics” of Jewish observance of religious rites that pleased God.
• As we end our view of the Civil Code, we have discussed offerings given to the Lord.
• In the end, we read of the very important statement concerning the subject of making VOWS before God.

Take a deep breath, because the lesson today isn’t about VOWS – it is about judicial responsibility before God. It is about the direct clash the Bible has with our modern assumption that God has made us all, in every way, absolutely EQUAL before Him. Let me be very clear to state something I believe to be overwhelmingly Biblical, but undeniably at odds with modern western culture… God did not make all men and women equal in responsibility before Him- though He made them all absolutely equal in value before Him.

I am not suggesting that our sex determines our VALUE before God – but it does determine our judicial equality and our culpability before God. The Bible nowhere tries to make the case that women have the same spiritual culpability and judicial responsibility before God as men. That doesn’t make them any LESS than it makes those of us without a WOMB less a parent. It makes us DIFFERENT, but modern western thinkers ABHOR DIFFERENCES – for they can only see one size for everyone. In modernity, there must be equal pay for one who cannot lift the jackhammer as for one who can – or somehow it is NOT FAIR.

Don’t write off what we are studying yet, for the Bible offers a very complete explanation that has been so thoroughly erased from our culture, that many young women would trade the Bible away for the promise of an equality that will leave them both empty and adrift.

First, let’s wrestle with the text before us, then we shall put it in a larger Biblical context. We will address it in a series of five principles:

Principle One: Tough Issues are supposed to be handled by leaders, and carefully explained to the people.

Look at the opening of Numbers 30:1 Moses said to the heads of the tribes of Israel: “This is what the Lord commands…16 These are the regulations the Lord gave Moses concerning relationships between a man and his wife, and between a father and his young daughter still living at home.

Moses spent no time explaining God’s right to prescribe truth. That would have been foolish! This was the generation who spent time in the desert. They knew God stood for them in front of the Amalekites that attempted to wipe them out. Their parents told them of the parting of the Sea when Pharaoh launched an attack on them. Stories of manna and water from rocks filled their childhood ears – so God’s power and their protection was nothing new to them. Yet, like the miracles God performed to get a few small wooden vessels across the Atlantic to the shores of the new world; like the powerful record of God’s abundant provisions of dried corn to prayerful and desperate settlers at Plymouth Rock – many stories had lost their power over time. Moses simply took the Word of the Lord and spoke it. That was the beginning of power, and still is.

When the pulpits of our land ring with a serious tone of the truth of God’s Word – there will be seriousness about our sin. When our schools again remember that a Personal and Loving God gave us a world to live in – there will be the bowing of the knees of our people rather than the arrogance of entitlement. When Washington stops trying to placate the insatiable perversions of men and turns its sights again to the Heavens – the family will take wings and rise from the desperate ashes we have enflamed. Judgment begins with the household of God. Truth begins with the knowledge of the Lord. Where there is neither truth, nor seriousness over sin – folly reigns – and with it increasing darkness, higher expense, and less safety to good citizens.

Look at the words of the last verse of Numbers 30. This is the regulation of God. These are truths about how the Creator views the responsibility of men (fathers and later husbands) of a woman. This is God’s expectation, and behind it is a simple principle – people are to pattern respect, understanding and rules by what God says is right.

Principle Two: Your word is your bond before God!!

Moses moved to the simple statement that has been deeply eroded in our own litigious society. Numbers 30:2 When a man makes a vow to the Lord or takes an oath to obligate himself by a pledge, he must not break his word but must do everything he said.

Here is the standard of a vow. Keep your word. Don’t look for a thousand justifications in piles of paperwork to somehow recuse yourself from keeping a promise. When you say you will do something, let your word be your bond. When you carefully speak to the Lord concerning an issue in your life, and you outline your own willingness to make a change – keep what you have promised. When you sign it, stop looking for ways to say you shouldn’t have to do what you signed.

I know in the slippery world we live in this principle is getting harder to deal with. Recently, I had to take a child to the hospital and was handed a form and told I had to sign it. I replied, I need to know something about the cost. I cannot simply sign that “I will be responsible for payment” when the amount could be $1,000 or $1,000,000. The man at the desk looked at me as if I grew an extra head. “Just sign it, that’s what everyone does!” I found no comfort in those words, and I know that it isn’t always as simple as doing what you said, when you cannot even know what promise you are making.

What I can say is this: a great many people are trying to skirt the rules they knew very well when they made promises. Let me try it this way: When you agreed to do your job, you may have been given sick days as part of your contract. These SICK DAYS are not extra vacation days. They are exactly what they are called – SICK DAYS. I cannot tell you as an employer how many people used them up on silliness, and then posited that I wasn’t a nice guy because now they “were actually sick!” Let’s stick to honest use of our tongues. If you have to lie to sell it, leave the work. If you have to cheat to win, quit the contest. If your word is no longer important to you – know that it IS IMPORTANT to God.

Principle Three: Women do not share equal judicial culpability before God.

Here is where we really get into some trouble with modern culture. First, listen to what Moses said God told him in Numbers 30:3 “When a young woman still living in her father’s household makes a vow to the Lord or obligates herself by a pledge 4 and her father hears about her vow or pledge but says nothing to her, then all her vows and every pledge by which she obligated herself will stand. 5 But if her father forbids her when he hears about it, none of her vows or the pledges by which she obligated herself will stand; the Lord will release her because her father has forbidden her.

Look carefully at the conditions. This is a young woman that has not been married, and she is at her father’s home. She vows to the Lord something that she must do. When her father became aware of the vow, he had the power of a veto over her decision. At the same time, if she made the choice but her father rescinded her vow – God cleared her of responsibility for the vow.

Look at another case to underscore the point in the text. In Numbers 30:6 “If she marries after she makes a vow or after her lips utter a rash promise by which she obligates herself 7 and her husband hears about it but says nothing to her, then her vows or the pledges by which she obligated herself will stand. 8 But if her husband forbids her when he hears about it, he nullifies the vow that obligates her or the rash promise by which she obligates herself, and the Lord will release her.

In the second case the woman is outside her father’s home, and living with her husband. She is an adult, and she is capable to busy herself in commerce, as Proverbs 31 clearly says. If she makes a rash promise and her husband hears and rejects the terms – God releases her from the guilt involved in that promise. This is one reason why the Bible insisted on parental involvement in the wedding process – something our culture now assumes to be utterly unimportant.

While some of you are ready to fight back about this as if God was robbing this woman of some intrinsic dignity and value – don’t forget the premise. Our true purpose is determined by our Creator, not our culture. It is in that purpose we find peace. God protected women in a way that our society has desperately tried to define as bondage.

When our culture followed God’s law, I could open a door for a woman without her feeling as though I was somehow stating that she could not manage to turn a knob and pull it. I could exempt her from the awful conditions of combat to keep her as a protected and cherished part of our homes that would not be subjected to the forced situations that plague our military even as we speak. We think we made women free – but we didn’t. We demeaned them by making them do things they were not meant to do. The horrors of war are just the beginning. The world stands back and cannot fathom the harm done to women in India, when a group of empowered men assault a woman in broad daylight. I will speak from my own experience – war is worse. It is unquestionably, unfathomably worse. Amped up with testosterone and with the taste of blood in the mouths of warriors, there is no place for a woman in a combat zone. You can agree or not, but I have been there, and I will not change my mind after the horrors I have seen.

Enough of my opinion, the text is what is important. The text makes certain that a woman is protected from ultimate judicial responsibility. That much is clear and undeniable.

Principle Four: There are women without coverings.

God never wanted it to be this way, but one of the most difficult parts of becoming a widow or a divorcee as a woman was to have your covering removed. The protection that a woman had under the law did not extend to such cases, as found in Numbers 30:9 “Any vow or obligation taken by a widow or divorced woman will be binding on her.

Here I can offer only one comfort: the fair warning should make one more careful about making agreements when uncovered. Advise should be sought, as it will make things safer. Fortunately for believers, we have a family beyond the physical, and this is one place the covering can be, at least in part, restored. That was part of the purpose of Paul’s careful instructions concerning widows to Timothy.

Principle Five: A husband is judicially responsible for his wife.

When you read the last part of the passage, it appears a repeat – but it is not. The purpose is to emphasize the end. In Numbers 30:10 “If a woman living with her husband makes a vow or obligates herself by a pledge under oath 11 and her husband hears about it but says nothing to her and does not forbid her, then all her vows or the pledges by which she obligated herself will stand. 12 But if her husband nullifies them when he hears about them, then none of the vows or pledges that came from her lips will stand. Her husband has nullified them, and the Lord will release her. 13 Her husband may confirm or nullify any vow she makes or any sworn pledge to deny herself. 14 But if her husband says nothing to her about it from day to day, then he confirms all her vows or the pledges binding on her. He confirms them by saying nothing to her when he hears about them. 15 If, however, he nullifies them some time after he hears about them, then he must bear the consequences of her wrongdoing.”

The point of the passage is that the husband is held fully responsible for his wife’s vow if knows about it and does not swiftly nullify it. This is because of the judicial chain of responsibility of the Bible.

If you look elsewhere in the Bible, you will see how this truth plays out in life for a believer, even today. Let’s looks at three passages that will help us see it:

First, let’s recall when, how and why women were created in Genesis 2.

Genesis 2:18 Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” 19 Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought [them] to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. 21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. 22 The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. 23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.” 24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

• God had the intention of making woman to help man because he would be alone, and that was not good (2:18).
• God made her to be different (“nehged” is translated “suitable” but also “apart from” or “opposite” him – 2:18).
• God waited for man to recognize that there was no one “like” him, even though it was clear to God already (2:19-20). This is a common pattern, where God allowed man to learn what he needed to by experience.
• God fashioned woman FROM man – so that he would cherish her as part of himself. Self-preservation and its paired value of EGO were very much a part of man from the beginning (2:21-23).

Here is the part we often read past. The point of the passage wasn’t supposed to offer a science lesson on woman’s creation – it was much more. The whole POINT to the story was the end in 2:24. God formed the family based on the MAN HAVING THE JUDICIAL RESPONSIBILITY before God and making himself responsible for covering the woman. The woman was to be HIS RESPONSIBILITY to love and protect, to cherish and provide for. This wasn’t supposed to be about her taking responsibility for HIM. That is the projection of values that are foreign to the Biblical idea.

I simply argue that we MUST teach young men to care for women with a special protective cover. They should not mock, mimic or molest – but treat them with respect, care and courtesy. It MUST come from within the church – because the society is at odds with this under the guise of “equal rights”. I will say it again – because I do not have a womb does not make me less a parent. Value is not the same as function. She is to be prized, but she is to be protected. That is the clear pattern of the text.

Second, let’s examine the cataclysm of the Fall in Genesis 3 and observe what happened to women in the aftermath of the Fall.

Sin entered the garden with the Tempter taking the form of the serpent. In Genesis 3:16 God spoke to the woman about her rebellion and its consequences: “To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you.”

Even the most casual reading reveals three truths: First, God levied a measure of discipline on the woman directly. Second, the reproductive system and pain were part of the discipline. Third, she would have a desire that was part of the discipline – a passion for something regarding her husband that was followed by the phrase – “Your husband will rule over you!” The term for “desire” is seldom used in Scripture, but is used in cases where one stretched out to gain something they wanted – they reached for it. The term “rule” simply translates “have dominion”. A simple reading is this: You will reach for control, but I have given that to him. You aren’t in charge, but you will want to be.

Chauvinist!” You may yell. Ok, I don’t believe if you knew me you would believe that, but I am willing to accept that in “modern culture terms” that is what it looks like. Rack that one up alongside the notion of “tolerance” that is now making it impossible to agree with the Bible on marriage and morality and still be considered a truly “loving” person. Rather than being a reactionary, let’s simply evaluate what the Bible actually says. For those who don’t like it, that is a different problem than those who don’t hear it clearly or understand it thoroughly.

Third, let’s observe the way Paul applied the truths about women to leadership issues in the church.

Paul’s argument about women leading in the church had nothing to do with their personal capability to do so. He didn’t stop women from Pastoral ministry because he thought they were less adequate in their mind or heart. He did so because the Scripture doesn’t allow us to overrule the judicial standards of God because we wanted God to do things more in keeping with our culture.

Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 2:11 A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. 12 But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. 13 For it was Adam who was first created, [and] then Eve. 14 And [it was] not Adam [who] was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. 15 But [women] will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint.

Paul argued the reasons she was to quietly learn in the public worship meetings of the church were because of the order of creation, and the order of the deception involved in the Fall in the Garden. In another letter, this one to the Corinthian church he said this in 1 Corinthians 11:7 For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. 8 For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man; 9 for indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake. 10 Therefore the woman ought to have [a symbol of] authority on her head, because of the angels. 11 However, in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. … 16 But if one is inclined to be contentious, we have no other practice, nor have the churches of God.

Here Paul added to the order of creation and fall, and inserted PURPOSE of Creation, and because of some on-looking angels, that seem to still be open to rebellion. He finished the passage with a note that ALL THE CHURCHES were so instructed – resisting the notion that this was but a localized principle for the women in Corinth.

Finally, let’s see how Numbers 30 applies in principle to the background of these three other passages.

Let me say it gently, carefully, but ever so clearly. God made women from men and held them under a man’s judicial responsibility. They were designed to be cherished not abused, protected not objectified. Our culture stands opposed to this. They want EQUAL RIGHTS to mean that she serves in combat, and she is treated in all respects as though her body is identical to his. It offends common logic, and worse yet – is flat out un-Biblical.

Now the point of the lesson:

Our true purpose is determined by our Creator, not our culture. It is in that purpose we find peace.

We won’t find peace in our society by erasing the Bible – we will find confusion. We won’t free women by saddling them with weight they were not designed to carry – regardless of how many people in our society say we will. These are the voices that say “family” is a cultural term. These are the voices that say “gender” is in your “head” and not determined by your biology. Watch the social services budgets soar as we create more confused, more entitled, more broken people. They wanted easy divorce – they got it. They want now to erase the other lines. The Bible will not go with them – so they will fight to extinguish its message. We will, filled with love and compassion – look them in the eye and tell them they are wrong. The undoing of the foundation will be the undoing of the society it built. Of that, I have no doubt.

We will deal honestly with the clash of cultures, just as Christians have done for centuries. We will wash their dirty feet and hug filthy bodies. We will work hard and provide for ourselves to be an example to the ever growing community of the confused and needy. Their freedoms will enslave them, but we will show them where the key that unlocks the shackles can be found. The Savior still has the keys!

Renewing Our Resolve: "The Siren's Song" – Colossians 1 and 2

sorrentoLast week, I was staying in a hotel on the beautiful cliff-side southern Italian town of Sorrento, overlooking the Bay of Naples. If you imagine it to be a beautiful place, you are only beginning to get slightly “warm”, for it is much more than that! In fact, it is almost a surreal setting. They routinely grow lemons the size of American footballs! I mention the visit, because when I am overlooking the cliffs, I cannot help but recall the origin of the name of the place.

The name “Sorrento” was taken from ancient Greek mythology, originating with the Homeric epics and eventually making their way, as tales do, into the Roman tales of the past found in the works of Vergil in his masterpiece, “The Aeneid” (written shortly before the time Jesus was born in Bethlehem). The ancient mariners told of three beautiful sirens that beckoned to sailors and distracted them from properly watching the rocky shoals. Distracted by their song and small glimpses of their beauty, the sailors would find themselves crashing into the rocks near to the shore, trying to get closer to the sun bathing sea nymphs that appeared once as birds, but now as beautiful women. In the stories of Jason and the Argonauts, the sailors had to get past the women or fall prey to their trap, which would have ended their journey and left them crashed below the cliffs. What the sailors learned was simple: distractions are dangerous… The beautiful women and their irresistible voices had to be avoided or the distracted men would drift from their labors, and they would turn their ships into broken wrecks, as many a crew did before them.

They are everywhere… distractions. Long before cellphones and televisions in restaurants, ions before the first “billboard” ever made its debut… people were finding themselves distracted by the enticements of this world. Paul knew very well that early believers in Jesus were facing that temptation… and some were drawn away by enticements that often resulted in destroying their walk and witness for the Savior.

Key Principle: The only way to accomplish God’s call is to recognize and avoid the distracting beckoning of the sirens, and build defenses to keep focused on the mission ahead.

In my life, I have seen many bright testimonies drawing near the hazardous rocky shoals of sin, and suffering the damages of the sharp danger lurking in the rocks beneath the surface of the rough tide. This isn’t new, it has always been the case. The enemy has always used the sounds of sirens to pull away God’s workers. Recognizing that, Paul wrote to a small group of believers in two tiny house churches in Colossae, in Western Asia Minor a letter that has circulated ever since among believers. It was not his easiest writing to grasp, and has been far less preached that his other works. In some ways, this writing is his most complex, with perhaps the exception of Galatians – which is so often misunderstood. Yet, the little letter of Colossians, written from near the Tiber River in Rome around the years 61-63 CE, is FULL of important warning and practical instruction that is needed for the easily distracted among us.

The temptations mentioned are significant, but Paul’s case began in the first chapter with something we must understand before we can launch into the controversial matter of what pulls believers away from their walk with Jesus. Paul opened the letter with an important foundational set of truths that laid the foundation of his warning. He spoke of seven truths, broken three ways:

• Two of the truths concerned the Savior.
• One concerned the recipients.
• The balance concerned Paul’s mission and problems.

Truths about the Savior

What Jesus Did

First, on his way to challenging them to pay attention to dangers, Paul made plain what Jesus did for them when He found them as lost captives to the enemy of God (1:13).

Tucked into the middle of a prayer for the Colossians, he mentioned in verse 1:13: “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

Jesus rescued them and moved them from the dungeon of the deceiver, while granting them a new place to live, within His Kingdom. The importance of that truth was they no longer needed to serve sin, because they were out from under the evil enemy’s grip, and were now free to follow their new Master. People that don’t understand the freedom they have in Christ are much more likely to live in perpetual defeat, because they do not understand the incredible power of the Master, and they don’t truly understand that the shackles that bound them to an endless cycle of sinful behaviors has been broken. Jesus was their RESCUER, so they could look at life differently, and no longer live as victims caught in a trap.

Who Jesus IS

Second, he reminded them of Who Jesus truly IS (1:15-20).

He continued in 1:15 “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”

Look at the list of qualifications Jesus has to do a work in us! We could spend all our time looking only at the depth of resume Jesus draws from in setting people free.

• He is the expressed image of God – He shows exactly what the character of His Father in Heaven is like – but He did it in HUMAN form, where we could see and touch it.

• He is the one with the double inheritance of a firstborn son, one who could speak for the Father and His Word was the bond of the whole family – just as His Father’s Word.

• He was the agent of all Creation – nothing as made apart from His specific action.

• His mind was before all creative events – nothing was, until He called it into being.

• He binds all the universe together, and is both the head of the church and the first fruits of the Resurrection – guaranteeing that we will be raised in the same pattern He was.

• He is the Supreme ruler of all throughout the ages – both in Heaven and on earth.

• He is the bridge to again reconcile things broken by the ravages of the Fall of man as well as the Fall in the Heavens.

He is the Highest, the Supreme, the Creator, the Sustainer, the Powerful, the Master, the King, the binding glue of both the physical universe and spiritual powers themselves!! Why did Paul explain so much of the Savior? There is a simple reason… Telling people they are free only helps if they grow to understand the incredible power the Savior has at his disposal. We are NOT simply dealing with a baby in a manger, nor the broken body of a man crucified on Calvary. He is no static symbol of the medieval past. He is ALIVE, POWERFUL and ACTING NOW. We are finding our solace in the Magnificent One, the Architect, the Sustainer of all that has EVER been created. He has the power to MAKE, the power to KEEP, the power to SAVE and the power to BIND. In fact, He invented the word POWER, along with every other word or idea ever brought into existence.

Truths about the Recipients of the Letter

Who believers WERE

A third foundational truth reminded the Colossians who they WERE before Jesus grabbed their lives (1:21-23).

Colossians 1:21 “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— 23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.”

Paul made it clear that the Colossians did not live their lives in deep search of truth, kindness and God. They walked apart from God, and frankly, like us, many never even thought about it! Just like us, the Colossians of old lived in a dark and selfish rebellious state into which they were born. We must recognize something essential about ourselves: There must be an ingrained humility in sharing the Good News of Jesus… We didn’t get a relationship with God because WE brought so much to bridging the gap with God, but because God bridged the gap with us. Reminding ourselves of that will return our voices to humble tones… the gentleness of the “there but by the grace of God go I” sense of viewing sinful and rebellious people. When we become judgmental, it is so often because we have come to see ourselves as someone “GOOD” that reached out to touch God and earned His favor. Nothing could be less true – it is an absolute lie. Salvation is a privilege brought to us by a God that loved us while we walked about ignoring Him, pressing selfishly in the other direction. Those who walk in rebellion now are no different than we were in that state. It is Jesus Who did the work to reconcile us, and it is Jesus has a goal to present us spotless to His Father. We are the privileged, but not the more deserving… not at all.

Truths about the Writer

Where Paul WAS

With the fourth truth, Paul began a discussion about his own life, call and obstacles. He made clear WHERE he was (1:24) – the imprisonment was part of what he called experiencing in “my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions“. Here is a remarkable truth for our day… trouble was welcomed when it was unavoidably part of following Jesus! It is impossible to take this apart too carefully to a generation of believers that has been soaked with the notion that salvation is about producing comfort and peace this side of glory. That message may resonate with American Christians, but does little among the hurting Christians in Africa, the broken hearts of Syrian and Egyptian Christians, or any other group that has truly suffered for Jesus. We must recognize, especially as the days grow difficult that the Gospel’s promise of abundant life was not meant to be a “pile of cash” and an “ease of lifestyle”. That kind of preaching has left us an anemic church, unable and unwilling to stand up to the wall of persecution and trouble the enemy is working to bring against us. Paul counted it a privilege to fill up the lacking dimension of suffering in his day – and we may need to recognize that we deserve no better treatment in the lost world than he received, or our Savior before him. Was Paul chafing at his arrest, or wounded that God would allow him to pass through trials? Not at all! In Colossians 1:24 he thankfully shared: “Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.” Carefully focus on that word: REJOICE. It is beyond most of us to grasp rejoicing in troubles – but Paul wasn’t raised to believe in Christ he would not face them.

What Paul WAS

As he continued, he made clear a fifth truth that concerned WHAT he was (1:25-27)- he was a man on a mission!

Colossians 1:25 “I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness— 26 the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. 27 To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

Paul recognized that he was a minister of a revealed truth, and a steward of the teachings of Jesus from His Word. Oh that our churches of today would grasp this truth!!! We are not called to make people comfortable with their sins, or to find new counseling methods to ease their consciences. We are an organization the stewards carefully a great and precious treasure – the Words of our Creator! We explain the truths He has carefully uncovered in the revelation of His Word. It is our delight, and it is an entrusted stewardship of the Most High! Let the church hear this: We are called to steward the truth, not blend it with modern error that would make it more palatable to the taste buds of lost men and women. It is our call to hold fast the precious Word on every issue – sinful behavior, the high place of marriage, the careful handling of both the body of our own vessel and the Body of Christ, His church. We are to clearly stand against the selfish waves of consumerism sweeping the church, and the dulling effects of self-interest that has swelled the ranks of prosperity hungry Americans. We are to warn of trouble and warm from the cold of a dark world. We are not here to compromise truth, but to deliver it like warm and comforting care to those who have lost the arrogance of self hope.

What Paul WANTED

In the sixth important foundational truth of Colossian 1:28-29, we recognize that Paul had a GOAL.

Colossians 1:28 “He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. 29 To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.”

Look at the verbs, the action words of these verses: proclaim, admonish, teach, present. Here is a great message of Paul’s simple but powerful vision. What began with a simple announcement of the truth of Jesus’ life and work, became a warning that response to the gift of God MUST come. After that response, the acceptance of Jesus, there followed the need to teach men and women of a walk with God. All of this work – the preaching, the teaching, the warning – had a single goal – to present those reached as followers that delighted Jesus, and completed the work in them! Do we really CARE if those in the body of Christ are getting ready to meet Him? Do we even think – with our culture so thoroughly soaked in the “It’s nobody else’s business but mine what I do” that we SHOULD care about whether our brothers and sisters are becoming stronger in their ability to live and work for Jesus? Individualism is the world’s way – body is the Bible’s way. Paul stood opposed to individualism that allowed people to name Jesus as their Savior without responsibility to the body of Christ in their daily walk. With so many churches – many built on the ego of men and women – people move about without any real accountability and think they have founded a new “individualist Christian way of life”. Paul would have clearly argued they were completely wrong. Only a believer who thinks himself or herself accountable comes under admonishing preaching and teaching. The others ignore it, and live a half-surrendered, self-made version of the original Christian message.

What Obstructed Paul

Finally, Paul made clear what stood in his way to accomplish his goal – so that the Colossian believers would be able to pray and recognize the issues behind the struggles of Paul (2:1-5).

Colossians 2:1 I want you to know how hard I am contending for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me personally. 2 My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments. 5 For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.

Paul was concerned for those who knew Jesus and followed the message, but Paul had not yet met face to face. He was forced to settle with being “with them in Spirit” but being entirely unable to dwell together with them. Paul craved the personal touch in ministry, not a long-distance ministry aided by secondary methods. I think he would have used electronic ministry methods, but as a disciple maker, I think he would have disdained the impersonal nature of them. He used writing, because it was the best option available to him at the time.

The foundation was clear:

o Jesus sought us and found us.

o He is the Sovereign Creator, and has the ability to change us and clean us.

o We did not seek Him, He grabbed us in our sinful rebellion.

o His servants are not exempt from the pains of life now if their participation in them will further the message of the Gospel.

o Paul therefore, was undistracted by his house arrest, and was a man focused on his vision – to persuade people of Jesus and present them as grown and functioning disciples to His Master.

o He frustrated over distance and delay – just as we all would – but he recognized the work was getting done in God’s way.

Here is where Paul focused the people of the church at Colossae. He wanted them to pause and focus on four very powerful distractions that could pull them from Jesus and effective living for the Truth:

Don’t get afraid this will go on too long. The foundation we built in the last few minutes was very strong, but the argument Paul made was actually quite simple and straightforward… He warned believers long ago of four very powerful enticements, and some who are participating in this lesson are no doubt feeling the tug of them even today… consider each carefully. They come in the form of the word “therefore” in the coming chapter…

Enticement One: The Deception of Something More (2:6-15)

Colossians 2:6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

Paul took the believers back to where they began. They were taught to live IN CHRIST. They were told to find their rooted security IN HIM – not is their self-importance, their bank account or their political freedoms. They were strengthened by HIS WORD and built up in HIS SPIRIT – not trained to draw their significance from their peers, their children or their church. It was a live dependent on the Word of God, and the WORK of God in them… and it popped out of their mouths in thankful words. If you are grousing and complaining all the time – you need TIME OUT in the corner with God. You need a cleansing of the inside that comes when you are again worked from the inside out by Jesus.

The truth is, many people don’t want that. They want something more IMMEDIATE, something that meets the demands of their FLESHLY DESIRES in the here and now. Paul wrote:

Colossians 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.

In a world where Romans greeted their departed ancestors daily in the atrium of their house, where they prayed for their spirit guidance and looked for assistance from the long dead for matters ranging from crop planting to child-rearing, ancient Romans were always tempted to look back into their traditions for answers. Philosophies abounded on the street in the multi-cultural polytheism of the Roman city. The temptation to hear of “something new” and “something more” abounded everywhere.

The sad part is that two thousand years later, many a believer has fallen prey to the same type of speculation. Instead of carefully studying God’s infallible Word on the issues of life after death, they scoop up the books on the market shelf about people’s speculative ventures into Heaven from an operating table, and think they can now prove the truth from some “slice of life” biography. Woefully ignorant of the context of many passages of Scripture, they swallow false prophetic visions and gleefully claim promises God never gave them – when the promises God HAS made for them are marvelous and rich. Still other believers are drawn into some arduous religious practice as a replacement for real prayer – a quiet, reflective time alone with Christ as the day dawns. Throngs seek ever more emotional worship settings to pour out in music with hands reaching aloft, but can barely spend moments in conversation with the Lord they are so desperate to sing to. Sunday troops will come prepared to work for Jesus, but find little time to talk WITH JESUS. We must never forget that religion is a cold imitation of a real and vibrant relationship with Jesus Christ. It is not WORK FOR HIM that we desperately need – it is Christ Himself, gently invited into our heart to share the pains, ponderings and plans of our life. Paul reminded them of all that Jesus truly is in the verses that followed (look at these words cut from the total paragraph):

• 9 Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form,
• 10 In Christ you have been brought to fullness.
• 11 In him the flesh was put off
• 12 having been buried with him in baptism,
• 13 God made you alive with Christ.
• 14 [God] canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.
• 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

When you read the words, the point is clear – Jesus paid your debt, and you account is clear. STOP living as though your need to impress people with your body is important – that is short lived nonsense. Stop living for the next party – that won’t satisfy. Stop moving from one hunger to purchase something to another – your addiction only satisfies the people making the JUNK you are buying. Stuff is just stuff. Fortune, fame, power and pleasure in this life pale in comparison to following the call of God with your whole heart. WHAT a Christ you serve. Fully God! Fully Giving! Fully Satisfying – if we stop running around looking for another way to be made complete. Find your fullness in Him or be distracted into believing there is something more… but that is a desception.

Enticement Two: The Defrauding of False Judgment (2:16-23)

Colossians 2 continues with another enticement to feel right with God and accepted by others – the deception of living under the false judgment of controlling religionists. Don’t be distracted by those who are impressing rules on you that cannot be clearly and carefully shown from the Word of God itself:

Colossians 2:16 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. 18 Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. 19 They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow. 20 Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22 These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. 23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

Look at how quickly a walk with Jesus is torqued by some to become an issue of CONTROL. They want to tell you what to EAT, what to DRINK, when to CELEBRATE, how ANGELIC WORSHIP will bring you “good luck” or how some vision they have seen should change how YOU live! Keep reading, and it will come down to RULES: Don’t touch this! Don’t taste that! Paul said: “They look and sound wise!” but they will all be like a balloon suddenly popped.

Don’t misunderstand me. There are rules to relationships, even those with the Lord Jesus. He didn’t save you to empower your sinful rebellion. The problem is that too many people want you to live by THEIR RULES, and not by the Spirit-affirmed, Scripturally-mandated truths of life. Don’t ever believe me if you cannot see it in the text of Scripture. Don’t take it from the book by the latest author or the lyric of your favorite singer. Get into the Word and check EVERYTHING by that – or keep walking on. No one can disqualify you from the race but the Creator of it – and He sees everything you do. Please Him. Please Him. Please Him…. Not yourself… nor please those you wish to impress on this earth. Please Him!

Enticement Three: The Distraction of Temporary Values (3:1-4)

Colossians 3:1 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Some are content with Jesus, and can discern the Scripture in a way that they are not led into the controlling hands of the legalist… but they are still distracted. The siren that captured their heart is the focus on the PHYSICAL WORLD. For some it comes in the form of LUST. They gaze far too deeply and far too often at physical beauty devoid of reality and relationship. They crave constant good feeling. For others is it GREED. They want the next shiny toy. They dream of owning it, and can only feel complete when it is fully in their possession. The list of sin symptoms is long, but the disease is ONE – believers can be distracted to LIVE THE WRONG LIFE. They love the wrong things, because they crave the temporal over the things above.

• If I love Heaven more than earth – my life will be intentionally lived to please Christ.
• If I love Heaven more than earth – my possession will be less important than storing up treasure above.
• If I love Heaven more than earth – my lost neighbors will be more painful to contemplate than the new healthcare plan or government regulation.

What will it take for us to really understand that we are called to focus on things above and let that focus determine the priorities of the things below? We need a view of Heaven that helps us gain stability in the tossing about by the earth’s short term issues.

Enticement Four: The Dirtying of Mud Pulls (3:5-11)

Colossians 3:5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. 7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8 But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11 Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

Paul offered word of yet one more distraction… the hunger to satiate the flesh. In a way, it is a more exaggerated form of the distraction of temporary values we just talked about. In another way, a very personal way, it is the deep and driving appetite for many an addiction. As a Pastor and Bible teacher, I am not unaware that some who are encountering this lesson have as recently as the last twenty-four hours found themselves hiding from others and indulging in pornography. Perhaps you listen to this lesson as some strange form of Bible penance. Here is the truth: Your desires CAN be put away. You may need to confess to those who are a part of your daily life that you need their assistance – and that is terribly painful. At the heart of the problem is a single lie. You may be listening to the voice of the deceiver, who wants you to be these words: “YOU NEED THIS. YOU CANNOT STOP. YOU MUST HAVE THIS TO MAKE IT THROUGH THE DAY.” He is lying, and deep inside you know he is. If you were stuck on a desert island, you wouldn’t die from a lack of porn. The practices of the life lived for self-pleasures that bring enormous guilt must be put to death in Christ.

He applies that same word to bad mouthing, angry outbursts, filthy speech. Stop saying that Jesus has the power to take away your sin, but hasn’t the power to help you stand against the lie that you need dirt to fulfill your life. You don’t. There is a way of escape. He provides it.

Paul’s simple message was this: “When you are on the right path, avoid every temptation to turn aside to another direction – it won’t get you where you need to go!”

In the legend of the sirens, there were those who navigated successfully around their coasts. The Argonauts passed by unharmed with the help of Orpheus, the poet who was drowning out the Siren’s song with music of his own. Odysseus made it by bound tightly to the mast with his men blocking their ears with bee’s wax. The Sirens, according to the myth, were so distressed to see men hear their song and yet pass by, they threw themselves into the sea and drowned. That is just a myth. What isn’t is that when the Devil cannot draw you in – he will simply flee. Resist him, and he will walk away.

The only way to accomplish God’s call is to recognize and avoid the distracting beckoning of the sirens, and build defenses to keep focused on the mission ahead.

Strength for the Journey: “A Year to Remember (Part 2)” – Numbers 29

time fliesAre you surprised at how fast a year goes by? I am always surprised at how fast time flies. One of the unexpected realities of how my life has been structured after starting the school at GCBI is how the pattern of school has again become my own. Each year, we start with 1189 chapters of the Bible to complete, page by page – and work frantically to get through it without pressing it so quickly that it is not meaningful. Just about the time that school is over, we are cleaning up the last of the Bible, and then we graduate the students and fly off to Israel with them. There is a two month retooling, and then we have to get set up for the next group. I love the process, but I feel like I blink, and we are back at it again. Those close to the process know that our coverage of the Bible has grown to be more and more thorough with each passing year, as we press to do the job a little better with each group.

For some of you, the year looks like getting the children ready for school and living for the next vacation. I am not talking about the CHILDREN living for the vacation, though that may also be true – I am talking about YOU trying to keep up the energy to make it through to the next break. Many of you are working, providing a proper home for your children, and trying to keep it all together. Morning at your house may be a breakfast mess while lunch bags are being prepared, and children are trying to find homework. For those who are past that stage, you remember it “oh so well!” Years rush by, and it seems like seasons brush lightly the landscape and then give way to the next.

God knew that our lives would be like a vapor, and He said so. He knew that we would get caught up in the pursuit of all kinds of things. Fortunes are made by spending life blood and profitably using the seconds that tick by on the clock. Even among those who do not make much money, there is a hope of a time nearing the last quarter of life that they may live without the daily grind of going to a job. It may never happen, but the hope still lives within us. God directed His people to the “break times” of life, so that they would walk through the years with Him. As this is the second part of the lesson, we should remind ourselves what the point of our study has been and the point of the record of the Annual Calendar law truly was…

Key Principle: God communicated through the offerings His desire to walk the daily road of life with His people. When a community recognizes the value of following appointed times with God – it secures deep values in the hearts of its people.

When God structured the calendar for Israel, He outlined a daily, weekly and monthly calendar of offerings and “appointments”, just as we pointed out in our last lesson. At the same time, He delineated a series of appointed feasts for the annual national observance of His people.

• First, we looked at the day, week and month portion found in Numbers 28:1-15.

• Next, we followed the annual “daytimer” calendar through the twelve months – and even into a thirteenth one periodically added to correct the calendar! In Numbers 28:16-31 the Moedim (appointed times) of the Spring are explained.

• Today’s lesson encompasses the Fall Moedim – the final three of seven feast times (Num. 29).

The Annual Feast Calendar

The seven feasts are each given specific reference in Leviticus 23 and in Numbers 28-29, and are listed in the order they were celebrated in the calendar year. The spring festivals include the first four mentioned, the autumn festivals are the last three:

Spring Festivals

1. Passover (or Pesach, Nisan 14th, the first day of Unleavened Bread) Lev. 23:4,5; Numbers 28:16.
2. Unleavened Bread (the week of Chag Hamatzot) Lev. 23:6-8; Numbers 28:17-25).
3. First Fruits (or Bukkurim on Nisan 16th, the second day of unleavened bread) Lev. 23:9-14; Numbers 28:26).
4. Weeks (also called Shavuot or Pentecost) Lev. 23:15-22; Numbers 28:26-31).

Autumn Festivals

5. Trumpets (also called Yom T’ruach or Rosh Hashanah) Lev. 23:23-35; Numbers 29:1-6.
6. Day of Atonement (or Yom Kippor) Lev. 23:26-32; Number 29:7-11.
7. Tabernacles (or Sukkot) Lev. 23:34-44; Numbers 29:12-38.

Look back at the Lessons of the Spring Festivals (the first four moedim):

First, the Principle from Passover:

God offered Passover to remind His people that they needed to PERSONALLY APPROPRIATE the means He provided for atonement – and that is true of all of us as well.

In our lesson, we briefly followed the progression of the sacrifice for redemption that unfolded – and how it was to be appropriated into each person’s life. In Exodus 12:3-5, God gave careful instruction about the preparation of the home before the Lord executed judgment on the Egyptian firstborn. Each man was instructed to take “A LAMB” (12:3) for his house. If “THE LAMB” (12:4) was too much for the small household, the man was to share with his neighbor and not waste. The lamb was to be spotless, sacrificed that its blood may be used as a marker. It was to be killed and personally applied as “YOUR LAMB” (12:5). Individuals would have to use the blood, nothing else would suffice. People needed to personally believe and act upon the message of God and follow the instruction of God to be saved from calamity and set free from bondage.

Second, the Principle from the Feast of Unleavened Bread:

God told them to “get the leaven out” for a week to remind them that SALVATION belongs to the Lord, but INTENTIONAL LIVING is the domain of God’s people – and that is something we must constantly recall.

Leaven in the Bible was normally prohibited by God in connection with offerings and sacrifices. (Lev. 2:11). From the instruction came the Chametz cleansing that became the background for “Spring cleaning”. Jews remove all leaven from their homes, and destroy it or sell it. As the feast approaches each year, the message is clear: Get the leaven out. Though Passover was all about God’s provision to save – something theologians called “justification”, Unleavened Bread was all about a man’s work of intentional removal of corrupting influences. This is termed by theologians as “sanctification”- a term that means “set apart for a specific use, often a holy use.” The usable vessel before God was to be free of leaven, and recall God’s purposes were to make a new and clean people to serve Him.

Third, the Principle in the Feast of First Fruits:

Tucked in the middle, God gave a promise in the form of another practice called First Fruits – that HE was going to provide something beyond their understanding – the provision of a NEW LIFE through the resurrection of the dead. Physical death isn’t our end. It isn’t even the end of this body. It will be reconstituted for a future – a renewed body based on the current model, but with all the new technology of Heaven.

The most interesting thing about the Feast of Firstfruits is the fact that it was NOT commanded to be on a counted date, as in the case of Passover – Lev. 23:5. Rather this was the to ALWAYS be celebrated on the same day of the week – Sunday, rather than a calculated DATE (Lev. 23:4,15,24,27,34). Paul argued in 1 Corinthians 15, the feast for that Sunday following Passover was a “shadow” of Messiah’s resurrection (and eventually OUR resurrection!). The point of John 20:1 “On the first day of the week” was to REMIND EARLY FOLLOWERS OF THE SPECIAL DAY on which Messiah was raised. It was the Feast of First Fruits! This was the lesson of Paul to Corinth (1 Cor. 15:20-32), that the resurrection of Jesus was the CLEAR answer to the shadowy symbol of the waving of the sheaf commanded so long before!

Fourth, the Principle in the Shavuot Offerings (Feast of Weeks):

Fifty days after the festival of first fruits, the festival of Shavuot or “weeks” began. The Greek word for “fifty days” is Pentecost, and the festival received this name in ancient Jewish sources from the Second Temple Period. This was the time that recalled the “Giving of the Law” in Exodus, a time when many synagogues still have an all-night reading of Scripture as part of the celebration of the Torah.

This Moed had a strange instruction. In contrast to the feast of “unleavened bread” where all leaven was to be purged from the sacrifice and it was to be clean of fermenting corruption, the feast of weeks includes two loaves of meal baked with leaven (Lev. 23:17). The leaven was prescribed as part of the ceremony, and obedient faithful could do nothing less than obey. Why include the leaven in the loaves? What was God’s intention in this “shadowy symbol”? For the answer, we move to a much later time in the Bible, in the Book of Acts. Acts 2:1 reminds us that the Spirit of God came upon the first followers of Jesus at Pentecost. The disciples were gathered together to recall the giving of the Law at Sinai that occurred fifty days after Pesach in Exodus, and the Spirit came upon them and began to write the Law on their hearts. In front of them on the table was a simple symbol – leavened bread. God was forming something that would be a part of His plan – His church. It would not replace Israel, but it would carry the message of His love while a darkness and blindness descended for a time over the Jewish people. Thirty-five hundred years ago, God already announced the plan of a second group of people to carry His name that were not one nation – and He did it through a feast.

The Four Spring Moedim offer me these four truths:

  • If I want salvation, I need to listen to what God provided and receive it.
  • If I want to become what He intends, I need to get some things out of my life.
  • If I really listen to Him – He is offering me more than “a saved NOW” – He is offering me “a RISEN THEN”!
  • When God began His special work on Israel’s redemption, He started by creating time of veiled darkness where He offered the world an opportunity for relationship.

The long, hot, dry summer rolled through Israel each year. As the Autumn neared, the season for “Moedim” again drew near, and the last three lessons of the calendar were offered:

Autumn Festivals:

In Jerusalem, you can feel the festival season coming the way you can feel the opening of schools in North American each school year. This calendar year, Rosh Hashanah will occur on the night of September 5-6, 2013, as the Jewish “New Year” is marked. Immediately after the beginning of the year, a period called the “ten awesome days” ensues, in which Jewish people introspectively consider their lives before Yom Kippur or the “Day of Atonement”, which will be celebrated on September 14, 2013. Five days later, the Appointment of God to recall the time in the wilderness journey comes upon the people at Sukkot or the “Feast of Tabernacles” takes place between September 19-20, 2013.

Rosh Hashanah Offerings (Yom T’ruach or Feast of Trumpets):

Numbers 29:1 Now in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall also have a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work. It will be to you a day for blowing trumpets. 2 You shall offer a burnt offering as a soothing aroma to the LORD: one bull, one ram, [and] seven male lambs one year old without defect; 3 also their grain offering, fine flour mixed with oil: three-tenths [of an] [ephah] for the bull, two-tenths for the ram, 4 and one-tenth for each of the seven lambs. 5 [Offer] one male goat for a sin offering, to make atonement for you, 6 besides the burnt offering of the new moon and its grain offering, and the continual burnt offering and its grain offering, and their drink offerings, according to their ordinance, for a soothing aroma, an offering by fire to the LORD.

When you read the passage in Numbers 29, it is hard to see the simple truth about the day that has become the “opening” of the Jewish sacred year. The new year celebration in most cultures is a “secular” event. Here God commanded a burnt, grain and drink additional offering set, along with a special “day of blowing trumpets” to mark the occasion. Before fireworks, people had trumpets to blast away at special occasions – and this was a special day. This marked the beginning of the new call to God to bring the rains and provide a harvest. It was a cry to God to renew the economy – and nothing could sound to the modern ear more SECULAR than dollars and cents (or shekels and agorot!).

God wanted Israel to know that to separate the “sacred” from the “secular” violated the very spirit of the Torah. Because of the combination of calendars in ancient Israel, there are literally several “New Year’s Days” in the calendar. In rabbinic tradition, there is even a new year beginning for trees, a new year for animals, a new sacred year and a new civil year for administration. The “Day of Trumpet Blowing” (Yom T’ruach) was prescribed by God as the beginning of the civil year, or “secular” year. It was prescribed as the beginning date for financial transactions, for market purposes, and for military services. It also introduced the highest holy days of the month Tishri, the sacred seventh month (by religious calendar reckoning) that contained the highest holy days. It was simply the “ringing in” of a new civil calendar year. Why would God include this in His list of sacred observances (Lev. 23:23-25)?

God knew that His children are tempted to compartmentalize their faith into only one part of their lives, but God was to be Lord of all parts of the lives of the people under the covenant. He wanted every aspect of their lives to be attached to their Divine relationship. Even the wearing of the royal blue ribbon in the prayer shawl (tallith) and tassels (tsit-tsiot) was to help remind them of the special relationship (Num. 15:38ff). Their “faith” must not be separate from the functions of life. Sacred and secular were to be one, all under the leadership of the Lord God.

Is this still a temptation for the people of God? Yes, it is, and it is growing. A Jewish friend of mine in Jerusalem used to carefully observe his faith, but cheated in his business. I called it to his attention one day, and he said this: “Business is business and Moshe is Moshe!” The implication was clear: My faith and my business practices are not related. That is a violation of the Torah principle found in this feast.

Today educators are becoming more brazen, separating morality and honest history from what we are training our young people to believe. Listen to an excerpt from Marvin Olasky of World Magazine:

Two days before the summer solstice, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences with great fanfare released “The Heart of the Matter,” a blue-ribbon-panel document emphasizing the need to beef up teaching of the humanities. …the AAAS commission in 92 pages came out in support of “full literacy … cohesive curricula … new partnerships.” Why should we love the humanities? …The AAAS tells us, “We live in a nation that has been built … on a foundation of humanistic and social science scholarship, from our Founding rooted in Enlightenment philosophy to a future informed by the compilation and analysis of Big Data.” The author says… “Really? I thought our nation grew in the belief that we are endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights. America’s founders quoted the Bible a lot more than any Enlightenment text. They treasured life and liberty, not Big Data. Why should we love the humanities? “Humanists and social scientists are particularly well suited to address … the ethical questions attending the adoption of new technologies; the social conditions that provide context for international policy decisions regarding the environment, global health, and human rights; and the cultural differences that aid or hinder global security.” Really? Houston Baptist professor Micah Mattix put it well: “Does anyone who has taken a humanities course at a secular college or university in the past 10 years doubt that instead of teaching us who we are, many humanities courses teach that identity is constructed; that instead of teaching the classical and cardinal virtues, they recommend the self-serving virtues of moral relativism and egalitarianism; and that instead of helping students to become better husbands, wives, and citizens, the real focus is on making them more autonomous?”… The writer continued: “Instead of plowing through the AAAS report, I’d suggest reading a piece now on the internet that’s only eight pages long, John Milton’s “Of Education” (1644). Milton opposed the leading humanities teachers of his day, the “monsieurs of Paris [who] take our hopeful youth into their slight and prodigal custodies and send them over back again transformed into mimics, apes, and kickshaws.” …”The goal of education”, Milton wrote, should be “to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him.

We are training people to distance faith and moral understanding from “real thinking” and “real living”, and the end of this system will bring nothing but relativism that paralyzes our workforce and endangers our local communities. Raise children that don’t connect GOD to MONEY and then stand back and watch how MONEY BECOMES THEIR GOD. Teach children that INTEGRITY is not as important as SUCCESS and you have launched the next generation of Wall Street tycoons and Harvard cutthroat plagiarizers. Sacred is secular, and secular sacred. God is either the foundation, or there is no foundation – and the building we are attempting to build will fall when the storms blow against it. One thing my years of life on the planet has told me is this: “Count on storms coming!”

Yom Kippor (Day of Atonement) Offerings:

Most everyone is familiar with the term “Yom Kippor” which simply means in Hebrew: “day of covering”. The covering refers back to the atonement blood poured on the mercy seat to cover the sins of the priest and the people in ancient Israel. Here are a few words:

Numbers 29:7 Then on the tenth day of this seventh month you shall have a holy convocation, and you shall humble yourselves; you shall not do any work. 8 You shall present a burnt offering to the LORD [as] a soothing aroma: one bull, one ram, seven male lambs one year old, having them without defect; 9 and their grain offering, fine flour mixed with oil: three-tenths [of an] [ephah] for the bull, two-tenths for the one ram, 10 a tenth for each of the seven lambs; 11 one male goat for a sin offering, besides the sin offering of atonement and the continual burnt offering and its grain offering, and their drink offerings.

Look at the blood tally: ONE BULL, ONE RAM, SEVEN MALE LAMBS. That is ON TOP OF the daily sacrifice – and in addition to the grain and drink accompanying offerings. The point is: MANY ANIMALS DIED IN REPLACEMENT OF PEOPLE’S SIN. There is an incredible high price for sin, and God required death as a penalty – just as He told Adam and Eve that He would. The command was given with serious tone, that each of the children of Israel would be impressed the seriousness of the day (Lev. 23:29) or they would be cut off from the house of Israel.

Shepherds from all throughout the land of Israel understood the significance of the sacrifice to Israel. For months, they cared for and cautiously groomed the livestock that would be used for atonement sacrifices. The price of sin was paid by the animal suited for sacrifice. The solemn Sabbath was observed by the High Priest of the nation, as he adorned the priestly garb and made a sin sacrifice at the Temple (Lev. 16:29-34ff). The sin offerings were prescribed to include a sacrifice for the sin of his family, then an offering for the cleansing of the sanctuary, and finally an offering for the sin of the people of Israel. The sin was to be atoned by the sprinkling of the blood of the spotless sacrifice on the Mercy Seat of the Holy of Holies. The price of sin had to be paid in the atoning sacrifice that included blood.

We cannot, we must not, as believers, forget the importance of the price of sin and the power of the blood that saves us even today. Do not mute the bloodiness in our message:

Hebrews 9:11 “But when Christ appeared [as] a high priest …12… through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.”

Blood and death aren’t a pretty part of our message – but they are the essence of it – that Jesus paid for the sins of men, and the power of the blood is unstoppable! Forty-three times in the writings of the early Christian Scriptures we read of the blood of Jesus that was shed to wash away sin. The very last time, in Revelation 12, John wrote: “And they overcame Him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.” This is the overcoming blood with the power to SAVE, but also the power to ENABLE believers in dark days to withstand the deceptions and accusations of Satan. Judas betrayed “innocent blood” (Matthew 27:4). Peter called it “the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:9). It is called the “cleansing blood” in 1 John 1:7 and the “washing blood” in Rev. 1:5. Over and over the blood is mentioned – always powerful, always encountering the dirty and leaving it sin cleaned. The wages of sin is death, but the blood of the sacrifice can wash away the stain – so said the God of Yom Kippor.

Sukkot Offerings:

A very long “shopping list” like section of Numbers 29 invited the people to count off the sacrifices, day by day, of the seven day feast of Tabernacles. It begins in Numbers 29:12 “Then on the fifteenth day of the seventh month you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work, and you shall observe a feast to the LORD for seven days.”

Next, for the week-long feast God commanded daily grain and drink offerings paired off by a long but decreasing tally of bulls, with two rams and fourteen male lambs daily as follows:

On the first day… thirteen bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs (13-15).
• Then on the second day: twelve bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs (17-19).
• Then on the third day: eleven bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs (20-22).
• Then on the fourth day: ten bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs (23-25).
• Then on the fifth day: nine bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs (26-28).
• Then on the sixth day: eight bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs (29-31).
• Then on the seventh day: seven bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs (32-34).
• On the eighth day you shall have a solemn assembly; you shall do no laborious work. 36 …one bull, one ram, seven male lambs one year old without defect; (35-38).

The time of Sukkot in Israel was originally the “end of harvest” feast (cp. Ex. 23:17), also called the “in gathering”. The autumn harvest was now nearly completed. After the long and hot summer months in Judea, God had again shown His faithfulness to Israel in bringing in the “miracle crop” of grapes. The olives and grain harvests now all stored, the celebration of God’s faithfulness to the children of Israel completed the calendar of sacred observances. At the same time, the “BOOTHS” were not simply a reference to the agricultural harvest shelters – it was an image that hearkened back to the tents in the wilderness as God led Israel from Egypt, and made a nation from an extended family.

The feast of Booths, Tabernacles or Sukkot reminded the children of Israel of God’s great work of salvation from the bondage of the Egyptian Pharaohs. The children of Israel were commanded to live in huts (Lev. 23:42) or booths during the week of the festival (see also Neh. 8:14-18), to remind them of the travel through the wilderness. Sacrifices during this time were prescribed to include 189 animals (Num. 29:12-38), and the week was full of reminders of the faithfulness of God in the wilderness journey (Lev. 23:43). The faithfulness of God was taught to each generation of Israel as they sat in their booths, recalling the wilderness journey.

God had shown Himself merciful and faithful to the children of Israel in the desert wilderness. The dividing of the Sea, the manna of the wilderness, the cloud of guidance, and the pillar of fire were all images to be recalled to each new generation of Israelite children from within the sukkah, that they might remember and understand their Father in Heaven. At the end of the journey was their promised home, a land that was theirs by Divine covenant. God had freed the people, lead them, and finally gave them cities “that they did not build” with “wells they did not dig” (Dt.6). Israel was never to forget. Israel was to always teach their generations that the God of Abraham keeps His covenants. He is faithful to bring His people home.

We talk in our day about faithfulness, but on the level of the daily grind, we don’t seem to treasure it. We like the quick fix over the long and arduous process that brings lasting success. It seems we don’t say enough about those who stick by the stuff over the long haul, but that is becoming rarer. I am speaking of the mom and dad that work hard at their marriage and stay together through thick and thin. I am speaking of the teacher who quietly pictures Jesus in a classroom as each year brings more compromised curriculum and hostility toward God and His Word. I am speaking of the many who make ministry happen in a local body. Max Lucado wrote of this idea of faithfulness, when he said:

Norman Geisler, as a child, went to a DVBS because he was invited by some neighbor children. He went back to the same church for Sunday School classes for 400 Sundays. Each week he was faithfully picked up by a bus driver. Week after week he attended church, but never made a commitment to Christ. Finally, during his senior year in High School, after being picked up for church over 400 times, he did commit his life to Christ. What if that bus driver had given up on Geisler at 395? What if the bus driver had said, “This kid is going nowhere spiritually, why waste any more time on him?” – Max Lucado, God Came Near, Multnomah Press, 1987, p. 133.

Don’t forget, not only did a church stay faithful – so did GOD. How many years did he wait for YOU to open your heart to Him? How many blasphemies came from your lips while God was patiently wooing you to Jesus? How many nights were spent in beds you didn’t belong, or grasping a bottle that didn’t hold the real answers – but God was patient with you? The message of Sukkot was patience and faithfulness – attributes of God that have made all the difference in our lives.

The passage closes with the reinforcing truth that all the observances were to be observed strictly according to the command of God: Numbers 29:39 You shall present these to the LORD at your appointed times, besides your votive offerings and your freewill offerings, for your burnt offerings and for your grain offerings and for your drink offerings and for your peace offerings.'” 40 Moses spoke to the sons of Israel in accordance with all that the LORD had commanded Moses.

Let’s say it clearly, before we turn the page of this text to another lesson:

• God made an offering available for our salvation, but we have to personally appropriate it.
• God planned that after we were HIS, there would be some “cleaning house” in our lives.
• God had a plan from long ago that would conquer death and offer a new life in resurrection!
• God’s plan for Israel’s rejection of Him also included drawing others to Him on the way to turning His face back to Israel – and He called the His “church” – his “called out ones”.
• God refuses to see Himself segmented and secluded from all parts of our life.
• Sin has a terrible price, and death and blood were dragged in by our mutiny against God.
• God has been ever faithful to provide all that He has promised to people who deserve exactly none of it.

That is the message of God’s appointed times.

Living Hope: “Undistracted” – 2 Timothy 4:9-22

Child drownedWhen she called us, her voice was broken – a reflection of her broken heart. There is no pain like the searing burn of the loss of a child. A simple picnic, and a happy family time was forever stained with painful loss. She was setting the picnic table, and he was grilling the burgers. For only a few minutes they lost track of the toddler. When they realized he had wandered, they both felt the flash of pain and a sick feeling, as they dropped what was in their hands and ran down toward the pond a hundred steps off the back patio. Seeing her child face down in the water was more than she could bear. He charged into the shallow pond, but it was too late – and now their hearts were broken. Guilt swept through the hole in their hearts. How could they have lost track of their child. How could they comfort each other and face the days ahead? How could they keep their other two children safe without smothering them. These were the painful pressures they felt – and they all came at one time.

First, there were the EMTs and their horrified looks. Then there was the police officer that seemed to lack the compassion one needed for such a delicate task of asking questions to dazed and bruised hearts. Finally there was the trip to the hospital, then to the funeral home. Questions were pelted by family members, clueless friends tossed platitudes, but they were barely holding it together – and that is when she called.

Regardless of how you feel about the inattention this young couple gave to their child, you and I have to admit the obvious – anyone can get distracted. No one is insulated from making a critical mistake when operating a motor vehicle or watching a child. Focus is critical in a world full of distractions. Add to that the fact that most of us have been duped into believing that our brain can multi-task – like a dual core processor – and the tendency to be distracted can bring us into certain peril.

Distraction isn’t only an issue when it comes to SAFETY, but also to SPIRITUAL GROWTH. The simplicity and passion of our early walk in the Word, our relationships to people, and our Intimacy with God can easily get lost in the barrage of other “Christian agenda items” (like service, programs, property management, etc.) The issues of life are demanding, and it takes fervent and deliberate focus on the most important issues to keep us walking with God through the mess of daily living. I want to take us back to a simpler faith – and the place to look is the end of the last letter of Paul’s writings in the New Testament – the last part of 2 Timothhy 4. Paul was facing his own end on earth, and it was clear that his magnificent career as a writer of the Word given by the Spirit of God was coming down to its final word. His career as a writer spanned twenty to twenty five years. It grew in four stages: Prophetic, Polemic, Philosophical and Pastoral. By the end, Paul settled into the idea that ministry is not just about the future, not just about being correct, not just about understanding who you are in Christ and grasping great Heavenly truths – it is about friends and cloaks when you get cold.

Go back with me to the dank and putrid dungeon, and listen as the seconds tick away in the final moments of Paul’s life. What did he learn?

Key Principle: God’s best work is accomplished in followers who learn to focus on the three eternal parts of life: people, the Word and intimacy with God.

I. Focus on People:

Paul learned, through his tough but fruitful ministry, that a live lived serving God is all about PEOPLE. He did not subscribe to some MONASTIC view of holiness that moves the believer from the fray of everyday living. Rather, he made life about a series of people – different types – that he experienced, and now he wanted to “turn the light on” for Timothy.

One of the mistakes of youth can be seen in their handling of people. As teens, we all pass through a time when we don’t recognize the wisdom of those who love us the most, and many of us fell prey to peers that had little more wisdom than we did – but perhaps had more “street smarts”. Learning to read people, and growing in our ability to work together with people is a key to our success in life, and in the ministry of service to one another. Listen to what Paul wrote to the younger Pastor…

2 Timothy 4:9 Make every effort to come to me soon; 10 for Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica; Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. 11 Only Luke is with me. Pick up Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for service. 12 But Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus. …14 Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds. 15 Be on guard against him yourself, for he vigorously opposed our teaching. 16 At my first defense no one supported me, but all deserted me; may it not be counted against them. …19 Greet Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus. 20 Erastus remained at Corinth, but Trophimus I left sick at Miletus. 21 Make every effort to come before winter. Eubulus greets you, also Pudens and Linus and Claudia and all the brethren. 22 The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you.

In his closing remarks, Paul offered to Timothy what looks like a shopping list of sixteen names. Read the end of the book quickly, and it sounds like a roster for a baseball team, or roll call in a college classroom: Demas, Crescens, Titus, Like, Mark, Tychichus, Alexander, Prisca, Aquila, Onesiphorus, Erastus, Trophimus, Eubulus, Pudens, Linus, Claudia. Obviously, Paul was wrapping up the letter with a few comments to Tim about what he had done in relation to the team of people that were a familiar part of first century church ministry.

A closer look at the name list reveals two things:

Paul’s had a variety of relationships that were very important to him in the handling of the message of Jesus – his work was among and about PEOPLE. His end comments were not simple administration – they were of the work of co-laborers and fellow servants.

Paul saw great value in all of the other people in the ministry – though many had relatively minor contributions compared to the Apostle. We don’t know much about most of the people on the list. There was no great council of the church called by Eubulus, and there is almost nothing known of many of the other names listed in the text – but Paul recalled them and God recorded them. The reason is clear: any one who yields themself to the power of God’s transforming work can begin to see that God can accomplish great things through the smallest among us. No man can offer another a true measure. Our work is rightly measured by our Master alone.

Make sure people know they are important.

Look at the beginning of the portion, back in verse nine. Paul opened with an “I need you – please come soon” (4:9) request. The beginning of a focus on people is a genuine recognition of our NEED for what others bring to our lives and to the work of the Savior. We cannot really minister in the lives of others until we believe that we not only have truth to offer THEM in terms of a relationship with God, but they have VALUE to God regardless of their current state in regards to a walk with Him. People are loved by God, even when they are resisting Him, and don’t see the value of having HIM in their daily lives. We need to see the value, or we will blow the opportunity to be used of God in their lives. The Daily Bread offered a great illustration of this:

A story is told of a man who loved old books. He met an acquaintance who had just thrown away a Bible that had been stored in the attic of his ancestral home for generations. “I couldn’t read it,” the friend explained. “Somebody named Guten-something had printed it.” “Not Gutenberg!” the book lover exclaimed in horror. “That Bible was one of the first books ever printed. Why, a copy just sold for over two million dollars!” His friend was unimpressed. “Mine wouldn’t have brought a dollar. Some fellow named Martin Luther had scribbled all over it in German.” -Our Daily Bread, June 7, 1994.

Here is the truth: we won’t long to reach people when we don’t LOVE people and VALUE people. We will see them as a hassle, and not as a wonder made by God. One of the ways to practice seeing the value of people is rehearsing in our minds when they can TEACH US about life. We have things to LEARN from others, and in opening ourselves to learning, we help communicate the value of the other people and make a real life connection. Paul did that, and the request reflected that he knew he had need of Timothy HIMSELF – not just things Tim could bring to him in prison. The sense of loneliness Paul felt could be eased by Tim’s presence.

Don’t forget that many people, like Tim, probably didn’t see their own value. Up against the intellect, the capability, the accomplishments of Paul – they felt small. For those among us who have lived lives of success, who have accomplished great feats for God – it is especially important for that kind of person to work hard to show value in the others around them. I have served with some great men. Pastor Vince, before he went to Jesus, served in Africa for many years. His last classes alone brought literally hundreds to Jesus Christ. Yet, he never made people feel small. He treated me with respect and kindness, even though my life hadn’t come close to his in accomplishments for the King.

Recognize there are a variety of people in your life.

Beginning a closer study at verse 10, I felt it may be helpful to move the people from the list into groups that reflected what Paul may have seen as the “sun set on his ministry” and he faced his own death. I believe the text exposes eight types of people:

Let me start with those who were a negative influence on Paul – to get past the bad news and into the good:

#1 Defectors:

Quickly jumping off the page in 2 Timothy 4:10 is Demas felt the connection to the world more deeply than the connection with me (4:10a). He was a former companion of Paul and left Paul – drawn away by the things of the world.

Who hasn’t seen this? In the life of our family, I have watched my parents, my brothers and sisters, and even my wife and I draw close to help some individuals that take from us, but don’t really follow Jesus. They start off looking like they want Jesus, but after a while, the world’s attractions draw them away. The more you gave, the harder it is to let go without pain.

Here is the truth, that I will call the “Defection Principle”: We will invest time and energy in some who will slip away, attracted by other priorities. In Matthew 13 Jesus encountered the same thing! In the background there were people leaving the ministry, and pressure was coming on Jesus to “get the crowds back”. He offered a step parable, where each thought was built on the previous thought:

1. The Sower on the Terrace (Mt. 13:3-9; 18-23): The problem with followers is not the seed, but the soil. The sower is true, the seed is good, but the soil must be right to get growth.
2. The Wheat and the Tares (Mt. 13:24-30; 36-43): Some leave us because they were never truly with us.
3. The Mustard Seed (Mt. 13:31-32): Some leave because they do not understand my priorities!
4. The Leaven (Mt. 13:33): The Kingdom WILL have its effect – no need to worry.
5. The Treasure (Mt. 13:44) Some have left but they are making preparation to take it fully!
6. The Pearl (Mt. 13:45-46) Some will be coming that have left all behind to grasp it!
7. The Dragnet (Mt. 13:47-50) It is the nature of the Kingdom to grab all kinds – and LATER it will be sorted out who was the true follower.

Not only will we have people that seem to be with us and then show themselves to be of another mind, but the fight for the hearts of men is a SPIRITUAL battle – and as such it will bring us into conflict. Drop your eyes down to verse 14 for the second kind of person–

#2 Enemies:

Alexander the Coppersmith set out to harm Paul (perhaps by testifying against him in addition to standing against Paul’s teaching) – but Paul had to leave him to the Lord’s judgment and warn Tim to keep an eye out for him (4:14-15). Paul had no illusions that enemies existed. He had gone out into a spiritual war, and he raised the eyes of the enemy and his minions. Paul had previously instructed the church in Ephesus 6:10-20 (Call/Conduct/Conflict) that there were battle armaments: belt of truthfulness, breast plate of right choices, sandal cleats of the identity in Christ, then as necessary – the blocking and locking shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the small dagger of the “rhema” Word. All were to be used with constant prayer and watchfulness. Paul was very conscious that he was at war.

I often find that believers walk without a consciousness that there is an enemy crouched in the tall grass of life. He is seeking to destroy and uses people to get that destruction to tumble onto us. Paul didn’t hate people – but he also didn’t underestimate how much damage people could do when operating as stooges for the underworld. He didn’t HATE them, because he knew that would hurt his own walk.

It was Dale Carnegie who wrote, “When we hate our enemies we give them power over us – power over our sleep, our appetites and our happiness. They would dance with joy if they knew how much they were worrying us. Our hate is not hurting them at all, but it is turning our days and our nights – drawing us into hellish turmoil.”

God offered encouragement in the war in the past when he wrote things like – Isaiah 43:2, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be destroyed; the flames will not consume you.” (my paraphrase). Don’t misunderstand that as a blanket promise that life won’t hurt – that isn’t the context. What God consistently told His people is this: “Follow Me and I will lead you through life to complete your call!”

Let me offer this “Attack Principle”: Some will attack us and try to destroy what we are building as we reach out for the Lord – and that was promised from the beginning. Jesus made the promise in Matthew 5:11 “Blessed are you when [people] insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. 12 “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

We must be wise and keep our eyes open, but not walk around with a chip on our shoulder! We pass the names of those who oppose the Gospel, not as an act of hatred, but in an attempt to protect those who come behind us by making them aware of potential deceptions. We needn’t get paranoid, but we don’t want to be ignorant of the enemy’s schemes and devices.

Now let me turn to the many people that were positive in the life and heart of Paul:

#3 Vision Expanders:

Paul moved his attention from warning Tim, to celebration of his co-workers. He said the Gospel was moving forward with Crescens in Galatia and Titus in Dalmatia – both out doing the work (4:10b).

I love to hang out with missionaries who are actively on the battle lines around the world. They are people under fire, but they are people who have their blood pressure heightened and their mind sharpened – because they are in the midst of the fight. The pressure of the front line has toughened their resolve, and the daily need for prayer and armor has led them to greater disciplines that help snap me back into reality. Most of all, I appreciate the way they stir up vision in me – and help me to see beyond the four walls I live inside – to a hurting and needy, lost world.

Here is the “Mission Team Principle”: We have the privilege of serving with others that are sometimes far away. We hurt with them, and pray for them, but they also add something – they help expand our vision beyond our own work.

#4 Faithful Companions:

Paul made clear that “Luke remains at my side” (4:11a).

Years ago, Henry Durbanville wrote: “A friend is the first person who comes in when the whole world goes out.” There is a delight in sending out people to ministry, but thankfully some stay with us and cling to us. What a joy! Building a team in a small town has taught me that everyone who decides to remain and capture the local vision is a gift of God to us!

Not to wander, but let me say this: I keep hearing about Cyber-church, and part time shepherding, etc. We need to be careful and not to be so foolish as to think we can reinvent real companionship and relationship. The computer is a TOOL to reach into each other’s lives, not a substitute. The electronic religion of the multitudes creates an emptiness—interpersonal relationships are so desperately needed to keep our faith glowing and growing, and not just in chat rooms… If you drop off your associations with other Christians and disassociate yourself from them in worship and service, you will run out of spiritual fervor and dedication in a short time. Here is the “Companions Principle”: There is no relational substitute for sweating while laboring side by side with a friend.

The TRUTH of Koinonia is that God’s family has some responsibility to and with one another…

1. We are to be hospitable to one another – 1 Peter 4:9 – being more than nice.
2. We are to have a care for one another – 1 Co 12:26 – not lip service – but selfless service.
3. We are to pray for one another – James 5:16 – not ignore one another.
4. We are to restore one another – James 5:19-20 – not destroy each other.
5. We are to teach and admonish one another – Co 3:16 – teach where you can, correct where you must.
6. We are to serve one another in love – Galatians 5:13 – giving of yourself to one another.

The greatest hindrance I have observed in church ministry is NOT the behavior of lost men and women around us – but perpetually immature people among us. Churches are CRIPPLED by spending hours settling disputes caused by immature people.

Some need affirmation. They play games. They are willing to minister if they get the opportunity to be important and affirmed. They will be gone for a few weeks and then be upset that no one seemed to notice. Here is a truth: Get involved in ministry and people will know when you aren’t there. If you are not a vital part of keeping it moving, people may not notice if you absent yourself. Don’t play games with busy people who are doing the work. It is immature, and it bogs down children’s workers and deacons that are already taxed heavily with the size of the issues in front of them.

Ask yourself this: Am I giving more than I expect to take in relationships with others in my church? If you are giving more, then ask this: “Am I hungering for attention and praise, or am I growing in maturity and serving the Lord for His praise?”

Perhaps in order to move my mind off of my own troubles, I should learn to take notice of the cares and the joys of the fellow Christians around me. Maybe I am talking too much but listening too little. Maybe too many of my sentences are filled with “I” and “me”. Listen to others; listen in order to help them. Often you won’t even need to say anything. You don’t have to fix all their problems – but you do have to care.

Let me deliberately encourage you to find an active role in the life of the family. Have you ever heard anyone say, “I can worship and be fed spiritually at home…” They say that because they think church is for THEM. We are for each other, and all of us collectively are for HIM. Don’t forget to pray for those with special needs, mentioning them by name in your private prayers. Don’t make prayer requests a matter of gossip, but keep prayer requests simple where they can be and confidential where they must be.

#5 Restored Ones:

In the words at the end of verse 11: “Pick up Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for service…” Paul made it clear that he recognized old conflicts needed to be laid to rest (4:11b).

Mark had a spotted past. Most scholars think he was the disciple that ran from the Garden of Gethsemane without his cloak. We know that he was a rich kid from a Cypriot Jewish home. We also know he left Paul on the earliest mission journey and his second attempt to come on board ended up splitting the team of Paul and Mark’s uncle Barnabas – a painful moment in Paul’s ministry. Here Paul called on Mark and made the point that he was profitable.

Now we see at work the “Restoration Principle”: Mistakes ARE made in ministry, and we need to recognize them and still love one another. Restoration is a central theme in God’s salvation story!

Chuck Swindoll made the observation that,“ The neighborhood bar is possibly the best counterfeit that there is to the fellowship Christ wants us to give his church. It’s an imitation, dispensing liquor instead of grace, escape rather than reality – but it is a permissive, accepting and inclusive fellowship. It is unshockable. It is democratic. You can tell people secrets, and they usually don’t tell others or even want to. The bar flourishes not because most people are alcoholics, but because God has put into the human heart the desire to know and be known, to love and be loved, and so many seek a counterfeit at the price of a few beers.

#6 Reinforcers:

Paul’s reference included the man who apparently went to carry this very letter, 2 Timothy, to its recipient – Pastor Timothy at Ephesus. Paul recognized that Tim needed additional support (and this letter) in Ephesus, so Paul sent Tychicus (4:12).

The writer of proverbs says: Proverbs 27:17 – “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another” –reinforcing friends help sharpen us to become spiritually acute a bit at a time. Think of a blacksmith who makes swords. He takes a hammer that is made out of iron and methodically beats another piece of iron, continuously landing blow by blow, until it takes the shape and sharpness of a sword. That isn’t always comfortable for either side – the hammer or the sword – but the effect is worth the struggle.

We are better when we have reinforcing friends that can help shape us.

The sending of Tychicus illustrates the “Reinforcer Principle:: We all need those who will under gird and reinforce the work that God has laid on our hearts. Often our vision can only be accomplished when many hands and feet move! We have to SEE each other. C.S. Lewis said something simple, but illuminating: “Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, “What! You, too? I thought I was the only one.

#7 Old Friends:

By this, I don’t just mean friends that have been on the planet a long time, I mean friends that have known US a long time. Paul mentioned Priscilla and Aquila, the tent makers with the old battle scars from war fought alongside Paul (4:19) as did the worker Onesiphorus (literally, “profit bringer” – 4:19b) a member of the church who boldly supported and encouraged Paul in the past (1:16).

The little children’s song said: “Make new friends, but keep the OLD, one is silver and the other gold.” Psychology Today: In a survey of more than 40,000 Americans said these qualities were most valued in a friend: “1. The ability to keep confidences 2. Loyalty 3. Warmth and affection.” quoted in Homemade, June, 1982.

Proverbs 17:17 says: “A friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity.” Friends are committed for seasons, great friends are committed for life.

The “Old Friend Principle: is this: Build a life team – a corps of people that you stay in contact with over the years to mutually pray for and encourage each other. Even at the end of his life, Paul wanted them to know that he had not forgotten them. Friends stick and though the days with them slip away, they live in our hearts.

#8 Supporters:

4:20 “Erastus remained at Corinth, but Trophimus I left sick at Miletus.”

Erastus, the city treasurer of Corinth (Rom. 16:23) was not able to be present, but aided the ministry in his own abilities. He couldn’t GO, but he could GIVE (4:20). Some people like Trophimus are God-provided supporters unable to follow due to the failing of their body (4:20) but they desired to be faithful.

The “Supporter Principle” is this: Sometimes the most meaningful and needed friends aren’t the ones on the battle line, but the ones on the supply line.

Look at the local church that was Paul’s support base: surrounded by believers who made a difference, Paul wrote: 21 “ … Eubulus greets you, also Pudens and Linus and Claudia and all the brethren.” (4:21b), and writing to another church (the YOU is plural in the end of the letter – showing Paul’s intent was public reading for this personal letter). Acts 2:42 says the early Christians devoted themselves to fellowship. They just didn’t HAVE fellowship; they devoted themselves to it. This means that fellowship was a priority and one of the objectives for gathering together.

II. Focus on The Word:

To keep a people focus, we will need frequent correction and instruction – even if we have walked with God for many years. I LOVE that Paul’s final comments went PAST PEOPLE. He loved the team, and he knew ministry was about people – but that is NOT the only eternal value we are to have! Look at what he asked Tim to bring him.

2 Timothy 4:13 When you come bring the cloak which I left at Troas with Carpus, and the books, especially the parchments.

Though Paul requested his letter writing equipment, he particularly wanted the parchments – The Word of God (4:13). He didn’t know how long he had to live, but he knew what message warmed his faith and kept him digging into LIFE… God’s Word.

III. Focus on Intimacy with God:

We have seen Paul focused on PEOPLE and he expressed his hunger for the Word – but the final words of the Apostle also included two very important little sentences that lay open his heart:

4:17 But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that through me the proclamation might be fully accomplished, and that all the Gentiles might hear; and I was rescued out of the lion’s mouth. 18 The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed, and will bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom; to Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Paul was able to say it clearly:

• God stands with me when I am alone (4:17a).
• God gives me the strength to complete the work He has commissioned (4:17b).
• God rescues me from the snare of the enemy (lion – 4:17b).
• God delivers me safely to His home (4:18).
• God is worthy of praise for all the ages! (4:18b)

As we face the end of life’s journey, our real values come out. I recall the old story:

Eleven millionaires went down on the Titanic. One wealthy man, Major A. H. Peuchen left $300,000.00 in money, jewelry and securities in a box in his cabin. “The money seemed a mockery at that time,” he later said. “I picked up three oranges instead.” – Source Unknown.
Paul shared his end values:

God’s best work is accomplished in followers who learn to focus on the three eternal parts of life: people, the Word and intimacy with God.

Living Hope: "Living in Certainty" – 2 Timothy 4:6-8

rushingPeople really are in a hurry today, but I am not sure they really know why! The musical band “Alabama” sang a number of years ago a refrain that captured the thought well. It says: I’m in a hurry to get things done; I rush and rush until life’s no fun. All I really gotta do is live and die; But I’m in a hurry and don’t know why.

We have to admit it – we live in the days of the frantic rush. I admit it. I am exhausted many nights just trying to keep up – don’t you feel that way? I remember one of my friends used to burn frenetically with energy. His mantra was: “I will sleep when I am dead!” The funny part is, as a believer, he knew that wasn’t even true. Leaving this body isn’t about rest as much as it is about the fascination of a new life in a new location!

One of the things we are all painfully aware of is that the clock is running. We can see it graphically in our morning bathroom mirror. We watch things change around us – sometimes at a break neck pace. We lose dear friends to eternity, and sorrow for our loss even though we know this isn’t the end…

Did you ever walk through an old cemetery and look at the epitaphs on the grave stones?

Some time ago, a man was trying to trace his family origin. In the process of his research he visited several cemeteries collecting information from the markers. At one place he came across a monument with the following inscription: “Pause now stranger, as you pass by; As you are now, so once was I As I am now, so soon you’ll be. Prepare yourself to follow me.” Next to the marker, he noticed someone had placed a board with the following words: “To follow you, I’m not content; Until I know, which way you went!

Isn’t that the truth? I wouldn’t want to face the end of this life without knowing what was going to happen next. Fortunately, the Bible is not silent on the issue. In fact, a hero of church planting and Apostleship offered us a great picture of the hope that comes from a secure day beyond the grave. Paul made very clear to the Corinthian believers that God has a future for those who know Him beyond just the physical life:

2 Corinthians 5:1 “For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For indeed in this [house] we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, … 6 Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord—7 for we walk by faith, not by sight—8 we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. 9 Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.

In Paul’s letter, he wanted to remind them that here or there, our lives are about pleasing Jesus. At the same time, our walk here is filled with days lived out while MISSING HOME. We live, as followers of Jesus, with the incredible and exciting reality that when we face the grave – MUCH MORE is ahead. Frankly, that makes us really different. Our clock isn’t set to the here and now – but to the Master of time. We live here because He has planned that – and we will move on when the trumpet sounds or when God summons us to the Divine invitation to graduate from time to eternity…

Key Principle: The hopeful mark of a believer is the statement of CERTAINTY about the future.

Why is that important? Because then truth of our eternity changes the lifestyle of our NOW. it is the ESSENCE of CHRISTIAN HOPE. It is a primary difference between us and the lost world – and it is SUPPOSED TO BE!

When Paul wrote the first letter to the Thessalonians, he penned out the earliest letter we have from his quill to this day. He was in his early to mid-forties in age, and he experienced for the first time the move of the Spirit of God in producing an inspired work – destined to be bound in the New Testament to this day. He was writing to those who earlier that year had come to Christ, after a very short time with them in which Paul was forced to move out of town by some trouble makers. The letter has five chapters, and the first three do little but explain what God was personally doing in Paul. Chapters four and five are the heart of Paul’s teaching, and reflect what God wanted to characterize believers. Paul outlined several imperatives:

1. Believers were to hear and obey God in the use of their body.

1 Thessalonians 4:3 “For this is the will of God, your sanctification; [that is], that you abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor. God wanted the church to be pure in behavior in direct contradistinction to the well accepted loose-living of the brothel filled Roman cities. In the first century, there were more than forty NAMED brothels recalled by writers and historians. FUN to a believer is living life to please the Savior.

2. Believers were to work hard, keep quiet and focus on caring for people, excelling at other-person centered guardianship of people:

1 Thessalonians 4:10b “… But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more, 11 and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you, 12so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need. Fulfillment to the believer is experiencing the joy of caring for others – not accumulating more stuff for the estate sale after we are gone.

3. Believers were to see life and death by new definitions.

Lost people were DEAD (Ephesians 2:1), and saved people who were in the grave were with the Lord in spirit (2 Corinthians 5) but waiting the resurrection of their body in the coming days. 1 Thessalonians 4:13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of [the] archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words. The future of believers is Heaven.

Believers, from the very beginning of the spread of Christianity, were to see fun, fulfillment and future in new ways. Paul didn’t only instruct it – by the end of his life he LIVED IT OUT as a model.

Here is underlying the truth for the believer: “The clock isn’t my Master – the Lord is. I walk with a certainty that the world cannot offer. We who know Jesus are certain that our life will count for something bigger than our century on this planet. We are certain that death is a means of conveyance and not an end. We are certain that there is both a purpose to our struggles, and an end point to our pain. We are certain of a real and intimate communion with our Lord – in a reward that is beyond imagination!

Where did we get these ideas? We got them from the Bible in places like 2 Timothy 4:6-8, where I would like to spend a few minutes. Facing death, Paul wrote these words of HOPE to Timothy:

6 “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; 8 in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.”

Can you not hear the HOPE in this man? Paul summarized his life as “I FOUGHT, I FINISHED, and now I have a FANTASTIC FUTURE!”

When I talk to people about preparing for this life’s end, sometimes the conversation turns to whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing to know in advance that you’re dying. There are advantages and disadvantages to either scenario. If you know it is coming soon – you have time to prepare. Many not to think about it for so long. They would prefer to simply “drop over” without having to dwell on it. We don’t all agree… but if the truth be told—we all know we are dying! The real issue is when not if! Human mortality is 100%. Funny how some of us live as though WE are going to be the exception…

Did you hear about the three guys discussing their obituaries? One asked, “What would you like folks to say at your wake?”

• One of his buddies thought for minute, “I’d like them to say ‘He was a great humanitarian who cared about his community.’”

• The fellow who had initiated the conversation replied, “I’d like them to say ‘He was a great husband and father who was an example for many to follow.’”

• The two nodded in agreement and looked to the silent buddy. Without hesitation he added, “I’d like them to say ‘Look, he’s still breathing!’”

The text of 2 Timothy was penned by a man who knew his days were severely numbered. He offers us several reasons to look squarely over the edge of death’s cliff and see it as a reason for HOPE SPRINGING UP.

Paul argued there are FOUR REASONS a believer has an unstoppable JOY and an overwhelming HOPE:

First, a believer knows his life has more meaning than the century of life on the planet:

Paul said it this way: 1 Timothy 4:6a “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering…”

The term to “pour out as a drink offering” is one word in Greek – “spen’-domai”: to pour out as a libation, i.e. (figuratively) to devote (one’s life or blood, as a sacrifice) (spend) — (be ready to) be offered. A priest in the Temple would approach the altar of hot coals with a container of wine. As a prayer or special vow was spoken the wine would be poured on the coals. The wine instantly evaporated giving off a cloud of smoke and a sweet rich fragrance. Even pagan Romans knew about drink offerings. They often ended a meal or banquet with such an offering. It marked the time to rise and move on as well symbolized the giving of last drop to glory of the gods.

That is how Paul viewed his coming death. It is as if he was saying: “The day is ended; it is time to rise and go; and my life must be poured out as a sacrifice to God.

William Barclay remarked: “Paul did not think of himself as going to be executed; he thought of himself as going to offer his life to God. His life was not being taken from him; he was laying it down. Ever since his conversion Paul had offered to God, his money, his scholarship, his strength, his time, the vigor of his body, the acuteness of his mind, the devotion of his passionate heart. Only life itself was left to offer, and gladly Paul was going to lay life down.

You and I who know Jesus have the privilege of consciously pouring out our lives in service to Him by caring for one another, and by reaching those who are so very needy in our world. Some of the needs are physical, and we can serve people practically and help them with temporal needs. Other needs are spiritual – finding God and learning to walk with Him. We can extend a hand to each one, and that is our offering before God. For that, we are not diminished – the impact of our lives grows GREATER with each person we touch. What’s more, we didn’t start the journey. Many great men and women of God were at it long before us – and it is possible that God has many more generations to follow after us.

My point is this: We are PART OF SOMETHING BIGGER than just a little club in Sebring. We are part of God’s church – His carefully chosen and blood-bought team to reach in love to a hurting world. We have a vast family that started with the disciples of Jesus from the Gospels, and has grown in number until now. Don’t let the world try to tell you that no one is left in our family. God has thousands upon thousands He has called to be a part of what we are doing.

• In a small village in Africa today, there is a huddled group who trust Jesus, and want to serve Him with their whole heart.

• We see them in Cambodia, where rural villages are being touched with the Gospel.

• Hiding inside during curfew in Cairo are small groups of Christians who are reading God’s Word and learning to trust Him for the days ahead.

On and on it goes: Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Mexico. Pick a nation and God is at work in some place that CNN will never go… and YOU are a part of it all!

Second, as a follower of Jesus, I know physical death is a means of conveyance, not an end.

Paul said it this way in 2 Timothy 4:6b “…and the time of my departure has come.”

Look at the word “departure.” (analusis). That word had at least four discernible usages:

1. First, it was used as a Nautical Term: This was a term sailors used for the un-mooring of a ship. When a ship would set sail, and move out of the harbor, people would stand on the pier and watch the vessel move toward the horizon. He was at the quay, ready to go.

2. Second, the term had a Military Use: When soldiers would fold up their tent and move on to another campaign, the taking down and folding of the tent invited the use of the same word. He was being folded up and readied for a new place.

3. Third, there was a Political Use: The term was sometimes used for the release of a prisoner from bonds. He was being loosed from the constraints of the warfare this side of Heaven. You see, our brothers and sisters who have gone home to Jesus are not only free from pain – they are free from their own SIN NATURE! Their ego is completely God-tempered!

4. Finally there was an Agricultural Use: When a farmer unburdened the ox and removed the yoke it was a kind of “loosing” that was also covered by this word. The fact is, the ministry burdens of Paul were about to be removed from his shoulders. Death was not his penalty, it was his relief. If you have even sat with one who was suffering, you know the feeling very well.

In Hollywood, there are those who know how to make an entrance… I want you to KNOW HOW TO MAKE AN EXIT! When we leave this body, we sail away to another port. We pull up the tent pegs. We are a prisoner set free. We lay down the burden of this fallen physical life. We go home with God – untethered, unbound, finally tasting our promised freedom! This is another HOPE BUILDER the negro spiritual song writer reminded us with: “Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty I am free at last!”

Third, a believer knows that life’s struggles are not in vain – and they have a soon-coming end.

Paul said it this way: 2 Timothy 4:7 …”I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith”.

Paul was able to face his departure from this life with confidence because he knew he had successfully “finished his race.” (v. 7). Paul looked back to the past and said, “My life has not been easy, but it has been worth it.” Look at the realism of Paul’s eyes on his history. He used three word pictures from the athletic world to make his point:

• I have fought the good fight.

The term “FOUGHT” is “agonizomai”: a descriptive word for a struggle contending with an adversary for the prize. We get the term “agonize” from this word! Romans had both wrestling and a crude form of boxing in their day.

The truth that seems to escape some of the “prosperity people” is that not only can life be tough, but after the Fall, the battle is inevitable. The world doesn’t play fair. The Devil has no interest in being gentle. The flesh rages against what is right within. Sometimes we must do hand-to-hand, down and dirty combat with each. It’s truly a fight, but finishing well is worth the effort. The struggles will honor the Master – and nothing will be more important when we stand before Him!

• I have finished the race.

The verb “teleo” means to end or come to the point. In commerce it was a word for “completed” or “paid in full”. In athletics, it was a racing term for a long race – like a marathont. Finishing meant, in this case, simply not giving up. Paul gives to believers a view from near the finish line. He’s nearing his big finish in life’s arduous marathon and offers to his younger protégé, an encouragement. He said: “Tim, let me tell you how I feel right now, just yards from the end. There is a burst of satisfaction that I’ve got going on inside me as I approach the finish line.” Here was a coach calling the play with seconds left on the game clock, and down by two – but with a great line! You can hear Paul telling Tim – “Finish the game! It isn’t over! Go for it and leave it all on the field!” That is where the satisfaction comes from. The half-hearted warrior knows the ordeal – the persistent one knows the satisfaction.

• I have kept the faith.

Paul looked at his own record, and concluded with joy that he had run by the rules. He hadn’t cheated, cut corners or covered over his bad performance. This is similar to the thought of 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. …Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize”.

One commentator (William Barclay) writes: “The one thing necessary for life is staying-power, and that is what so many people lack.

A very famous man was offered a writer to help him complete his biography while he was still alive. He refused to move on the project, for he reasoned: ‘I have seen far too many men fall out on the last lap.’”

Paul could see the end; he knew he kept the faith. He did it by staying close to Jesus and living INTENTIONALLY inside the Word. He stayed at it until it was done right! He had taken no short cuts, and avoided no obstacles. He ran from no conflict – but faced the problems and opponents head on. Instead of circumventing the mountains, he climbed them. He weathered the storms faithfully. Moses prayed for God to “teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom” (Psalm 90:12). Paul did that. We can too.

Fourth, a believer awaits a stunning reward – and we didn’t earn it.

Paul said it this way: 2 Timothy 4:8 “in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.”

Paul looked toward his future and in essence said, “I can’t wait.” He looked forward to his reward, “a crown of righteousness.” (“stephanos”: a VICTOR crown) used of competition and completion in sport contests. These were the laurel wreaths of the ancient Olympic style games – long before GOLD MEDALS were offered, The wreath had little intrinsic value – . Its worth came from the occasion and the hand that placed it atop the head of the victor.

“…the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award…” has an accompanying word in Greek, “monon”: merely — alone, but, only. Paul knows the ONLY real judge of this life is his Master, Jesus.

Heaven is not first about gates of pearl and golden streets. It is about the presence of the Lord. Jesus, “I go to prepare a place for you that where I am there you may be with me.” For the lover of God the presence of God is the ultimate reward. In one of his books, A.M. Hunter, the New Testament scholar, related a story of a dying man who asked his Christian doctor to tell him something about the place to which he was going. As the doctor fumbled for a reply, he heard a scratching at the door, and he had his answer. “Do you hear that?” he asked his patient. “It’s my dog. I left him downstairs, but he has grown impatient, and has come up and hears my voice. He has no notion what is inside this door, but he knows that I am here. Now then, isn’t it the same with you? Even though you don’t know or understand everything that’s on the other side, you know Who is there. That’s what makes the difference.

Paul Azinger was a graduate of Brevard Junior College in Brevard County Florida. He went on to FSU before he turned pro as a golfer in 1981. He was named the PGA player of the year in 1987. Six years later he won the coveted PGA championship (1993). At the age of 33 he had a remarkable ten tournament victories to his credit. The very next year Azinger was diagnosed with cancer. He wrote of his experience. “A feeling of fear came over me. I could die from cancer. Then another reality hit me. I’m going to die anyway, whether from cancer or something else. It’s just a question of when. Golf suddenly became meaningless to me. All I wanted to do was live.” As Azinger faced the possibility of his own death, he remembered something that Larry Moody, a chaplain to the pro golfers, had said to him. “Zinger, we’re not in the land of the living going to the land of the dying. We’re in the land of the dying trying to get to the land of the living.” Azinger beat the cancer. He recovered from chemotherapy and returned to the PGA tour, but Job’s question: “If a man dies, shall he live again?” (Job 14:14) changed his life. Azinger wrote, “I’ve made a lot of money since I’ve been on the tour. I’ve won a lot of tournaments. But that happiness is always temporary. The only way I have ever found true contentment is in my personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I’m not saying that nothing ever bothers me and I don’t have problems, but now I’ve found the answer—the answer to the six-foot hole.”

Paul said it already in this letter, but in different words…”I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.” (2 Timothy 1:12).

Matthew Huffman was the six-year-old son of missionaries in Brazil. One morning he began to complain of a fever. As his temperature climbed, he began to lose his eyesight. His mother and father knew he needed medical attention so they placed him in the car and rushed to the hospital. As they were driving, Matthew was lying on his mother’s lap, and began to do something his parents will never forget. He extended his hand in the air. When his mother took it, he pulled it away and extended it again. Once again she took it and again he pulled it back and reached into the air. Confused, the mother asked her son, “What are you reaching for, Matthew?” Matthew responded, “I’m reaching for Jesus’ hand.” And with those words, he closed his eyes and slipped into a coma from which he never would awaken. He died two days later, a victim of bacterial meningitis. In six years of life, Matthew learned the one lesson no one can afford to miss in this life… know what the end is all about!

My friends:

  • Death is Inevitable (Hebrews 9:27 “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.) In order to live a life without regrets, we need to know what to live for. The world has it all wrong. They say you only live once so go ahead and grab all the gusto you can. Party hard, live loose because when you die, that’s it. That philosophy teaches that the only thing to live for is immediate satisfaction and gratification. It teaches that the highest purpose in life is to be happy and pain free. But the Bible paints a very different picture of life. In fact, we are warned not to love this world nor the things in this world.
  • Death is impartial—It is no respecter of persons (The old will die, some young will die). To live a life of no regrets, we must learn what is important in life. We have to learn to trade monuments of man’s achievements for moments in God’s presence. There is a place where all this world’s goods will lose their luster. Paul lived with no regrets because he kept eternity in view.
  • Death is often unexpected – We make material preparation (buy a good insurance benefit for the surviving relatives and sometimes buy a nice burial ground) but we must make a spiritual preparation! Death need not be a mystery or a loss!

1 CORINTHIANS 15:54 says “‘When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.

I want to read again our short text for this lesson, but I want you to hear it in another translation – a paraphrase called “The Message”:

You take over. I’m about to die, my life an offering on God’s altar. This is the only race worth running. I’ve run hard right to the finish, believed all the way. All that’s left now is the shouting – God’s applause! Depend on it, he’s an honest judge. He’ll do right not only by me, but by everyone eager for his coming.” 2 Timothy 4:6-8

Do you possess the hope that comes with Christian CERTAINTY? IF NOT, WHY NOT?

Paul used this language about death. Remember in Philippians 1:20-24:

I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.”

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. What does that mean?

First, it means that God has a purpose for us in this life – to walk with Christ. We are not floating on a rubber raft in the ocean with nowhere to go and no reason to be there.

Life has been described as propping a ladder against a wall, and spending all your years climbing it. Too many people will climb all their lives, only to get to the top and realize they were climbing the wrong wall.

Second, it means that in death a believer gains something. What?

1. We gain a better body – a glorified, immortalized, resurrected body. 1 Corinthians 15 says that in this present body of clay we’re subject to all the sorrows and tears that life deals out. Age, sickness, and finally death are the inevitable end of this house made of the dust of the earth. But in death and the resurrection we gain a better body, one that can never grow old, know disease, suffer pain, and can never die. No more cough, no more cancer, and no more consumption. We gain a better body.

2. We gain a better home – John 14 reminds us that Jesus is preparing the next dwelling for us! Paul is able to face his departure from this life with confidence because he knew where he was headed. His departure from here means his arrival in heaven. Paul knew without a shadow of a doubt where he was headed in eternity. Do you? Paul says in his first letter to the Corinthians (5:6,8) “Therefore we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord… (8) We are confident, yes well pleased rather to absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.” Do you realize that the Bible says that you can know for sure where you are headed in eternity. 1 John 5:13, says “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.” (NKJV).

Death does not have to be a leap into darkness into the great unknown. “So like a prisoner awaiting his release, like a schoolboy when the end of term is near, like a migratory bird ready to fly south, like a patient in the hospital anxiously scanning the doctor’s face to see whether a discharge may be expected, I long to be gone – extricating myself form the flesh I have too long inhabited, seeing the great doors of eternity swing open …” – such is the prospect of death for a Christian. [George Sweeting. “Can I Die Well.” (Moody Jan/Feb 2003) p.70.]

3. We gain a better inheritance – Ephesians 1-3 reminds us that the believer’s place and reward is not here – it is in Heaven. Living for God on earth has its advantages now – a clean conscience, freedom, purpose, meaning, hope. But the full value of the Christian life will be seen in heaven.

4. We gain a better fellowship with Jesus – The Christian life on earth was one of faith, believing before seeing, but heaven works differently, for we see the Lord face to face.

“I’m Free” by Unknown

Don’t grieve for me, for now I’m free, I’m following the path God has laid, you see.
I took His hand when I heard him call, I turned my back and left it all.
I could not stay another day, To laugh, to love, to work, to play.
Tasks left undone must stay that way, I found that peace at the close of day.
If my parting has left a void, Then fill it with remembered joy.
A friendship shared, a laugh, a kiss, Oh yes, these things I too will miss.
Be not burdened with times of sorrow, I wish you the sunshine of tomorrow.
My life’s been full, I savored much, Good friends, good times, a loved one’s touch.
Perhaps my time seemed all too brief, Don’t lengthen it now with undue grief.
Lift up your hearts and peace to thee, God wanted me now; He set me free.

The hopeful mark of a believer is the statement of CERTAINTY about the future.

Strength for the Journey: “A Year to Remember” – Numbers 28:16-31

About a year ago, I was searching for some infA Year to Rememberormation to help someone with a loved one that was living in the nightmare of a food disorder. I didn’t have any background in the subject, since “Near East Archaeology” and “Rabbinic Judaism” – the subjects that captured the majority of my education – offered little help on the subject. Searching through the libraries of information, I found a new book, published the month I began my search. Because it was a novel, I found only a little help there, but I recall the book in part because the story line struck me as the right kind of plot for the journey of self-understanding. It is called A Year to Remember by author Shelly Bell. The story was all about a woman named Sara Friedman. The publisher advertised the book this way:

When her younger brother marries on her twenty-ninth birthday, food addict Sara Friedman drunkenly vows to three hundred wedding guests to find and marry her soul mate within the year. After her humiliating toast becomes a YouTube sensation, she permits a national morning show to chronicle her search. With the help of best friend, Missy, she plunges head first into the shallow end of the dating pool. Her journey leads her to question the true meaning of soul mates, as she decides between fulfilling her vow to marry before her thirtieth birthday and following her heart’s desire. But before she can make the biggest decision of her life, Sara must begin to take her first steps toward recovery from her addiction to food.

From the opening, it was way too girly for me, so I didn’t read it – but the title stuck in my mind. We are not going to explore food addictions in this lesson, though the Bible does have words about taking care of the body that Jesus gave us and paid for at the Cross of Calvary. Instead, I want to focus on the title of that novel: “A Year to Remember”.

When God structured the calendar for Israel, He outlined a daily, weekly and monthly calendar of offerings and “appointments”, just as we pointed out in our last lesson. At the same time, He delineated a series of appointed feasts for the annual national observance of His people. Last time we looked at the day, week and month portion found in Numbers 28:1-15. In this lesson we will follow the annual “daytimer” calendar through the twelve months – and even into a thirteenth one periodically added to correct the calendar!

Key Principle: God communicated through the offerings His desire to walk the daily road of life with His people. When a community recognizes the value of following appointed times with God – it secures deep values in the hearts of its people.

God knew what He was doing when He instructed the observance of seven holidays called “Ha Moedim” (or appointments). These weren’t man made remembrances, they were “appointments with God”, directly mandated by God for the people of Israel. Remember: though the Law was not something we as Christians from the nations are called to observe, its principles (given to our older brother Israel), still clearly help us understand our Father’s cares and desires. It is always the principle that should drive our study of the Word – not the prescription – since we aren’t the people to whom the text was written. Each Moed has guiding principles and truths about our Father that are not only worth the time, but were included in His Word to teach us, correct us and comfort us.

There are too many of them for us to do this in ONE LESSON. Instead, let’s break it the way the chapters of Numbers are today. This lesson will be about the SPRING FESTIVALS in Numbers 29:16-31; the next lesson will embrace the Autumn festivals of Numbers 29.

Don’t forget – holidays are about INDIVIDUAL recognition, but also about COMMUNITY and FAMILY observance. They strengthen both – individuals and communities, families, towns and churches. They aren’t just something you do yourself, they are communal efforts. When we as a church acknowledge a special appointment with God, we demonstrate our value system, and help people understand what we truly believe. Let me illustrate how that works in looking back to the history of the Moedim.

The Annual Feast Calendar

The seven feasts are each given specific reference in Leviticus 23 and in Numbers 28-29, and are listed in the order they were celebrated in the calendar year. The spring festivals include the first four mentioned, the autumn festivals are the last three:

Spring Festivals

1. Passover (or Pesach, Nisan 14th, the first day of Unleavened Bread) Lev. 23:4,5; Numbers 28:16.
2. Unleavened Bread (the week of Chag Hamatzot) Lev. 23:6-8; Numbers 28:17-25).
3. First Fruits (or Bukkurim on Nisan 16th, the second day of unleavened bread) Lev. 23:9-14; Numbers 28:26).
4. Weeks (also called Shavuot or Pentecost) Lev. 23:15-22; Numbers 28:26-31).

Autumn Festivals

5. Trumpets (also called Yom T’ruach or Rosh Hashanah) Lev. 23:23-35; Numbers 29:1-6.
6. Day of Atonement (or Yom Kippor) Lev. 23:26-32; Number 29:7-11.
7. Tabernacles (or Sukkot) Lev. 23:34-44; Numbers 29:12-38.

Spring Festivals:

The Principle from Passover:

Numbers 28:16 Then on the fourteenth day of the first month shall be the LORD’S Passover.

There are not many words that describe the occasion in Numbers 28, because it was like describing Christmas to most of you – it was all very well explained elsewhere.

Passover, was the time that recalled in Exodus 12 the move of the hand of God on the firstborn of the Egyptians that did not mark their doorposts or tent posts with the blood of a spotless lamb. The deal was simple: mark the door with blood, and the Lord will turn His face away and not exercise His wrath. It was an important exercise to help Israel clearly understand that God wanted each generation of Israelites to recall the need for individual, personal belief that played out in actions – in order for the people to be saved from the wrath of God that they deserved. Man mutinied against God, and the wrath of God was the consequence. Don’t forget, the wrath of God was His consistency – not just an angry response. It is the “cause and effect” nature of God that has left His fingerprints on our world.

The Hebrew term for “wrath” is from the three letter ALEPH-BET-RESH or A-V-R, the very root word from which the name of the Hebrews comes. They are a symbol of God’s consistency. Here is what He told them to do that first Pesach:

Israel found itself in bondage for ten generations. After serving Egyptian Pharaohs, the cries of the children of Israel went up before the Lord God, and He sent a deliverer to release His captive children. He sent a series of plagues designed to press on fickle Pharaoh as well as teach His people of Himself until God finally pronounced that He would send a plague that would be forever remembered. Exodus 12 records that the power of God would strike down the firstborn of every home in Egypt not protected by the mark of lamb’s blood on the door or tent post.

If we had time, we would follow the progression of the great story of redemption that unfolded. If you mark your Bible and check Exodus 12:3-5, you will see that God gave careful instruction about the preparation of the home before the Lord executed judgment on the Egyptian firstborn. Each man was instructed to take “A LAMB” (12:3) for his house. If “THE LAMB” (12:4) was too much for the small household, the man was to share with his neighbor and not waste. The lamb was to be spotless, sacrificed that its blood may be used as a marker. It was to be killed and personally applied as “YOUR LAMB” (12:5). Individuals would have to use the blood, nothing else would suffice. God set the standard of atonement and the people needed to trust that God would keep His word. They would have to silently wait and trust that the blood was enough to protect them from the judgment of God, when it came.

Don’t get caught up in the tents, the flocks and the Egyptian sand. God made some simple points:

1. God alone sets the standard of what pleases Him. No amount of service in replacement of the lamb would keep people from the wrath of God – period.
2. People needed to personally believe the message of God and follow the instruction of God to be saved from calamity and set free from bondage.
3. God took no time to explain why that payment was suitable – He set a standard of obedience, and did not ask our opinion.

It is so very important that we understand this in a time when our rulers are all chosen by our populace. God is an absolute Sovereign. He has no need to politic to gain our favor. He is God, and His Word is absolute. If we ignore it, we face the penalty, and we have only ourselves to blame.

Don’t die thinking God will put a scale before you and balance your good and evil deeds. That isn’t what He said He would accept. He wants the blood covering of a sacrifice. That is the reason believers celebrate the death of Jesus before the Resurrection of Jesus. God outlined that a lamb had to die, and blood needed to be shed – or that judicial payment for mutiny was not fulfilled. Good people that helped their neighbors and paid their taxes on time died in the wrath of God if they didn’t use the blood covering as He instructed. That should tell us something about our own efforts to please God apart from His standards.

The Principle from the Feast of Unleavened Bread:

Immediately following the Passover, God added to the original holy day a week long observance called the “Feast of Unleavened Bread”. He described it in Numbers 28:17-25. Look at the beginning, and I will summarize the other verses:

Numbers 28:17 On the fifteenth day of this month [shall be] a feast, unleavened bread [shall be] eaten for seven days.

On the first day, verses 18 and 19 describe the burnt offering. Verses 20-22 describe the grain offering measured against the appropriate animal, and verse 23 describes that these offerings are IN ADDITION to the regular daily offerings. Verse 24 reminded the people to do it every day for the whole seven day stretch, and verse 25 told them to take the seventh day off work and meet in worship.

Many believers are familiar with the pictures and stories of leaven in the Bible, but some may not recall the imagery. Leaven was normally prohibited by God in connection with offerings and sacrifices. Lev. 2:11 excluded its use in most of the sacrifices claiming it was a corruption of the sacrifice. God made a standard that leaven was corrupt and unusable in this context – though fermented beverages were allowed. The issue may have been to limit the time and assure freshness in the offering, we simply cannot say. We do know that a festival of one week with unraised bread was a CHANGE from the norm, and many rabbis suggested the symbol would remind them of the journey, where they could not remain in a place for a long time. That sounds right, because the Biblical argument was simply the reminder that between two Sabbath rests, this week long observance was intended to remind them that “the Lord brought the children of Israel out of Egypt” (Ex. 12:17).

From the instruction came the Chametz cleansing that became the background for “Spring cleaning”. Jews remove all leaven from their homes, and destroy it or sell it. It is a fascinating part of Jewish life in Jerusalem. As the feast approaches each year, the message is clear: Get the leaven out. The day after the Passover sacrifice and meal, a week-long festival ensues (Lev. 23:6). Instruction on the festival is given in Exodus 12:15-20 (cp. Lev. 2:11 for leaven) and today supermarkets quarantine all leavened materials and sell them to off shore companies. On my old street in Jerusalem, little piles of dust were burned from the cleaning of my neighbor’s homes.

The principle behind the cleaning out of the leaven was well illustrated by the teaching of an old fisherman. The fisherman took his small boat out to sea early each morning to catch the fish for the market. He moved along the surface of the water with great ease, for the boat was well designed for fishing. On one occasion, the old fisherman took his son with him to the sea. His son was unaccustomed to the boat and began to tip the small craft as he walked around inside it. The older fisherman raised his voice and exclaimed, “Sit down! The boat is fine in the sea, but we don’t want the sea inside the boat!” That same “keep the sea out of the boat” principle is the message of the feast of Unleavened Bread, a message of a clean walk.

What is the deal with keeping leaven out of the house, and out of the bread? The yeasts that were used in making bread came with them out of Egypt. Most people had very few implement to make up a kitchen, but the “starter dough” with its infused leaven was something they took on any journey. There were no fast food restaurants in Sinai, and if they wanted to make any bread by-product, the starter dough was essential. How they used it with manna is not at all clear, but the truth behind the festival was – they were to set aside using leaven – and eat bread WITHOUT IT. In this way, Egypt and its corrupting influence needed to be set aside by the people. The principle of cleansing the house from leaven (chametz cleansing) was an illustration of the need to live a life that was intentional about separation from corruption and sin.

Passover was about God’s provision to save – something theologians called “justification”. Unleavened Bread was all about a man’s work of intentional removal of corrupting influences, termed by theologians as “sanctification”- a term that means “set apart for a specific use, often a holy use.” The usable vessel before God was to be free of leaven, and recall God’s purposes were to make a new and clean people to serve Him.

This concept constantly needs to be reaffirmed, especially in the American “Bible belt”, where cultural Christianity can easily replace an intentional walk of obedience to Jesus Christ. It isn’t enough to go to a Billy Graham Crusade, pray a prayer and walk an aisle. God didn’t just call you from the world so that you could live as you choose and then retire to Heaven when you die. That isn’t a new idea that came with televangelists; it has always been a deception of the enemy. All the way back in the beginning of the church, Paul wrote of this, reminding the early believers in Jesus that God had bigger plans for their lives:

Ephesians 2:1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly [places] in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, [it is] the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

In salvation, a follower of Jesus DOES get the promise of Heaven, but in Ephesians 2, God wanted them to recall that He had a bigger purpose – to create through each of their lives of intentional yielding, a picture of God’s handiwork done in a life interrupted by His grace. The message of the church cannot be ONLY about JUSTIFICATION or it becomes utterly imbalanced. John 3:16 is a wellspring of life – but it is not the only truth in the book. We must not forget the story is not one only of personal benefits apart from personal commitments. That idea may sell well today, but it is only PART of the story of God’s grace. His story was never intended to be a license for selfish living followed by retirement in Heavenly bliss. We are saved by grace, but the reason we are saved is not only for ourselves. We are to become a living display of His workmanship. If that were not true, the Scriptures would be much shorter on instructions of life, and there would be no need to “strive against sin”. Our call is to preach BOTH – God’s undeserved favor that saves, and the intentional active pursuit of our walk with God once He offers us new life.

The Principle in the Feast of First Fruits:

Numbers 28:26 Also on the day of the first fruits, when you present a new grain offering to the LORD.

There is but a small half verse on the Feast of First Fruits in our passage, so we will but mention the principle that is clear if one takes the time to study Leviticus 23:9-14. The Sabbath had given the children of Israel the necessary understanding that a close of cycle and rest was necessary. What the Sabbath did for the end of one’s work, the feast of First Fruits outlined for the “beginnings” of life. The beginning of the harvest was the setting for this important lesson. God wanted the children of Israel to understand that He had provided for them, and they were to respond to His gracious giving. All they possessed was undeserved blessing (Dt. 6), and all they had belonged to God (even their children, see Ex. 13:2).

Frankly, on payday it is easy to think we earned the money, and it is ours. For a farmer, the harvest is the beginning of the payday. Hours of plowing, planting, watering and waiting begin to show FRUIT for the labor, pun intended. THAT was the very time Israel was to make an offering of thanksgiving, an offering of anticipation of continued blessing (“first” fruits implies later fruits), and an offering of acknowledgment.

Yet, tucked within the TIMING of the “Feast of First Fruits” the Apostle Paul also reminded early believers that God had a picture waiting –Jewish believers could clearly see it in the first century – but it may not be as obvious to us today. Tucked between the command for Jews to celebrate Pesach (Passover) and Shavuot (Pentecost) was a “Feast of First Fruits”. This feast involved taking the un-ripened grain THE SUNDAY AFTER PASSOVER and bringing it to the priest at the Tabernacle (and later the Temple) to wave it before the Lord, make a lamb offering. The offering included a meal offering, a wine offering and special dietary commands for the day (Lev. 23:9-14).

The most interesting thing about the Feast of Firstfruits is the fact that it was NOT commanded to be on a counted date, as in the case of Passover – Lev. 23:5. Rather this is the only feast in the chapter to ALWAYS be celebrated on the same day of the week – Sunday! Remarkably, all of the other feasts are all based on a calculated DATE (Lev. 23:4,15,24,27,34). Paul argued in 1 Corinthians 15, the feast for that Sunday following Passover was a “shadow” of Messiah’s resurrection (and eventually OUR resurrection!).

The point of John 20:1 “On the first day of the week” was to REMIND EARLY FOLLOWERS OF THE SPECIAL DAY on which Messiah was raised. It was the Feast of First Fruits! This was the beginning of the “countdown” to Pentecost (Lev. 23:15), but it was much more. This was the day they celebrated the COMING OF A GREAT HARVEST! What a spiritual picture! This was the lesson of Paul to Corinth (1 Cor. 15:20-32), that the resurrection of Jesus was the CLEAR answer to the shadowy symbol of the waving of the sheaf commanded so long before!

Don’t forget that in the Hebrew mind, harvest and judgment were indelibly linked together. One is usually expressed in the terms of the other. This is true in the terms of the prophets as they express God “treading out the grapes of wrath”, in the same way Jesus used it (Mt. 13 “reapers” that were angels). To the Hebrew mind, God does not judge man. Man grows his fruit, and God harvests that which man grows. What YOU sow, YOU reap! It is man’s own doing that causes his rotten fruit in the end. It is this same connection that evoked the link between the Jezreel Valley (the largest growth and harvest area in the country) and the “Valley of Armageddon” (Rev. 16:16- the valley of God’s judgment of the nations).

In the Feast of the First Fruits, God intended that Israel would understand the offering to be about things to come. Paul argued:

• Jesus has been raised! (15:20)
• As a man he conquered death, for the actions of a man brought death! (15:21-22)
• Jesus was raised as the first fruits offering (15:23), then the end comes, eventually destroying even death! (15:24-26)
• God has subjected everything to Him, and will bring it all to pass! (15:27-28)
• If Jesus wasn’t raised, the rest of the harvest could not be certain, and we may be lost! (15:29-32)

The early church celebrated the Sunday of the First Fruits, and began early to understand that this was the great symbolic show that God would bring about our resurrection as sure as the spring harvest follows the winter rains! The resurrected Jesus is the “first fruits” of our own eternal life, and His life is promised to us after our physical death (cp. 1 Cor. 15:35-58)

We are moving quickly, so let’s review:

  • God offered Passover to remind His people that they needed to PERSONALLY APPROPRIATE the means He provided for atonement – and that is true of all of us as well.

  • God told them to “get the leaven out” for a week to remind them that SALVATION belongs to the Lord, but INTENTIONAL LIVING is the domain of God’s people – and that is something we must constantly recall.

  • Tucked in the middle, God gave a promise in the form of another practice called First Fruits – that HE was going to provide something beyond their understanding – the provision of a NEW LIFE through the resurrection of the dead. Physical death isn’t our end. It isn’t even the end of this body. It will be reconstituted for a future – a renewed body based on the current model, but with all the new technology of Heaven.

If I want salvation, I need to listen to what God provided and receive it. If I want to become what He intends, I need to get some things out of my life. If I really listen to Him – He is offering me more than “a saved NOW” – He is offering me “a RISEN THEN”! Death has lost its sting, because it is no longer a mystery, nor a one way door.

Each Spring, there is one more festival that we need to consider…

The Principle in the Shavuot Offerings (Feast of Weeks):

Numbers 28:26b …In your [Feast of] Weeks, you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work. 27 You shall offer a burnt offering for a soothing aroma to the LORD: two young bulls, one ram, seven male lambs one year old; 28 and their grain offering, fine flour mixed with oil: three-tenths [of an] [ephah] for each bull, two-tenths for the one ram, 29 a tenth for each of the seven lambs; 30 [also] one male goat to make atonement for you. 31 Besides the continual burnt offering and its grain offering, you shall present [them] with their drink offerings. They shall be without defect.

In Israel, the summer months are long, hot and dry for most of the land. The spring grass is withered and brown. The flowers that dotted the Galilee landscape give way to the dark rocks and dry weeds that cover every uncultivated field. The time of the long awaited first rains of Autumn usually produce celebration, as children go outside in the rain and dance for joy (even some of us as adults join them)! The rains awaken the land to new life, and the promise of another harvest! The harvest is the life blood of any agricultural people, and the children of Israel awaited the harvest with great anticipation.

Fifty days after the festival of first fruits, the major part (if not all) of the harvest was completed. The festival of Shavuot or “weeks” began. The Greek word for “fifty days” is Pentecost, and the festival received this name in ancient Jewish sources from the Second Temple Period. Regardless of which name was used, the timing of the feast, and the peculiar instructions for the observance of the feast give the clearest indications of the meaning and purpose of this holy festival.

This feast was truly a celebration of the harvest (it is called the “harvest feast”, see Ex. 23:16). It expressed God’s gracious provision to His people for yet another year. In contrast to the feast of “unleavened bread” where all leaven was to be purged from the sacrifice and it was to be clean of fermenting corruption, the feast of weeks includes two loaves of meal baked with leaven (Lev. 23:17). The leaven was prescribed as part of the ceremony, and obedient faithful could do nothing less than obey. Why include the leaven in the loaves? What was God’s intention in this “shadowy symbol”? Why allow a corrupting influence in an observance characterized by His holy worship?

God had a plan… and we are a part of it. Don’t forget, the leaven in the loaves at Shavuot wasn’t the only corruption was found in the festival…there were people there. In addition to understanding the need to intentionally get some things out of our lives, God showed that He was planning to bond people once outside of His family into it. God was going, at the time of Pentecost, to move in people that were once strangers to His promise.

Acts 2:1 reminds us that the Spirit of God came upon the first followers of Jesus at Pentecost. The disciples were gathered together to recall the giving of the Law at Sinai that occurred fifty days after Pesach in Exodus, and the Spirit came upon them and began to write the Law on their hearts. In front of them on the table was a simple symbol – leavened bread. God was forming something that would be a part of His plan – His church. It would not replace Israel, but it would carry the message of His love while a darkness and blindness descended for a time over the Jewish people.

Do you recall that passage in Ephesians 2 were looked at earlier? Keep reading:

Ephesians 2:11 “Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “Circumcision,” [which is] performed in the flesh by human hands—12 [remember] that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

Thirty-five hundred years ago, God already announced the plan to provide a lamb, require a standard, reveal the new life of resurrection and draw in a second group of people to carry His name that were not one nation – and He did it through a series of feasts.

God communicated through the offerings His desire to walk the daily road of life with His people. When a community recognizes the value of following appointed times with God – it secures deep values in the hearts of its people.

I heard a Pastor make an observation not long ago. He said: “One of the surprising things about the Bible is that it never says that Jesus rushed anywhere. He was busy, but He found time to pray and accomplished discipleship training and WORLD REDEMPTION in three short years. While doing that, he played with children and guiltlessly took an occasional nap during boat rides. He went to weddings and even stuck around at the reception. The Bible doesn’t say, “If you hurry, you can catch up with God.” It says, “Cease striving and know that I am God.” (Psalms 46:10) Jesus’ promise was “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28). Time isn’t supposed to be an enemy – just a chance to steward life.”

Living Hope: “Four Keys to Unlock a Hopeful Outlook” – 2 Timothy 4:1-5

hope1Deep inside most of us, there is a desire to hope for better times. Anthropologists tell us that man advanced technologically, largely because he is by nature a hopeful being. It’s what drives people to part with money on the LOTTO – the hope that some alignment of the stars or happy fate of God above will bring riches unearned into their pockets. Hope is the song of optimism that God buried deep inside of man that allows him to endure tough times. Yet, for some, the weight of the world has powerfully pushed down their hope, and they admit to a struggle to get back to renewed hope. Even a well-made MOVIE can help us feel hopeful when we are down, can’t it? Isn’t is funny how we can watch a movie for two hours and be so deeply moved by the courage of the hero or heroine. Did you ever walk out of a movie and feel like you could take on the world, or aliens or zombies or animated Marvel comics characters? I am amazed at the power of the visual medium to awaken deep emotions within us. Did you ever watch a movie in your own living room, and after only an hour you were crying like a baby when a character that died that you only “met” an hour before? How powerful are the last words of a hero as he lay dying near the end of the movie! Some of those scenes stay with us for years in our mind and heart…

I mention that because one of the things I have always admired about the story of the end of the life of the Apostle Paul is that he ended well. Even as Paul was set aside under guard and then later in prison and nearing the end of his life, he knew how to lift, encourage and instruct. He did desire to become a relic, but rather he wanted his hand-chosen men to push the message forward in his place. He was thinking about the days ahead – even though he was not going to be a part of them. He wanted to pass the secrets that God had shown him in his years of serving Jesus. He wanted to unlock the hope trapped inside the younger Timothy. He wanted to encourage him – and his letter still does the same for us. It is true that in the background of the chapter, you can hear thunder. Paul foresaw rising troubles and persecution. He knew people were hurting, and it was going to get tough very quickly. With that in mind, he took his experiences of ministry and told Tim how to face the days ahead. He passed on the key concepts that worked well for him, as he wrote under the influence of God’s spirit.

Key Principle: Our daily choices make the difference in living out hope.

Paul knew that people who are effective for God are known for four things:

What They Know (2 Timothy 4:1): I belong to Him and I am accountable for this life!

What They Communicate (2 Timothy 4:2): The truth is found in His Word and I want to live it! I don’t want to run around and dabble from place to place looking for the “hottest truth”. I want to grow under systematic teaching and learn how to use God’s truth in my daily life!

What They Refuse (2 Timothy 4:3-4) I know my heart will resist truth when it causes discomfort. I refuse to let comfort rule me, and push me to use religion to justify my own wants and desires. I will settle down and stop looking for someone to scratch my ears.

What They Focus On (2 Timothy 4:5): I will stop avoiding the hard stuff, buckle down and work my gifts to His glory and accomplish God’s list for my life.

Let’s take a few minutes and break down each of these four traits that make a difference:

HopeWhat They Know (2 Timothy 4:1) – Paul made clear that he knew his real judge is Jesus (4:1).

2 Timothy 4:1 I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom:

He charged Timothy (diamarturomai: diá, “thoroughly” and martýromai, “witness, testify”), using a formula that gave the sound of a courtroom testimony before the ultimate judge – God Himself. What does that mean? In short, the standard of judgment is the standard of the judge. He will mark and grade the lives of the living and the dead. He will bring judgment to believers at the Rapture, and to the nations at the Second Coming. When the Judge enters, the judgment follows.

Why begin the charge- before even making it – with a description of Jesus? Because every believer must be constantly drawn back to one simple truth – you and I work for Jesus. We seek His approval for our deeds.

As a Pastor, I know that one of the great traps of ministry is being led by public opinion. It can drive our preaching and teaching, and it can blunt our Biblical counsel. People who work in ministry are very often people pleasers at heart. Some have very “political” orientations – to make people at ease and comfortable. That isn’t a bad thing, unless it becomes a hindrance to telling the truth. If we recall that Jesus is the only one who actually can judge righteously what we are doing – we will be slower to do what pleases men and women – simply because of their approval. We will talk to Him more, and listen to Him more carefully. We will balance the impulse to make another happy against the insult to God when we make a lie into truth.

At the same time, as believers, we are not to TRY to offend people. Very often we will be able to help them and we are certain they will feel better when they surrender to the truth of Jesus and His Word. Yet, sometimes we will be an offense because HE is an offense. Try not to cause the offense – but don’t shrink when you know you have His holy nod to speak.

Here is the simple principle: I must know I am not MINE. If I believe I am in charge of my own destiny, and can run my own life apart, I am destined to fail God’s purpose for me… period.

What They Communicate (2 Timothy 4:2) – Paul called on Tim to communicate the truth of the Word (4:2-4).

4:2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, 4 and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.

The charge was straightforward to the young Pastor – what the world needed was a complete and careful exposure to God’s Word. Nothing else would suiffice. People need nothing more than God’s Word spoken clearly. New methods will rise and fade, gimmicks will dazzle and then flame out – by carefully delivered truths sustain people through all kinds of difficulty and trouble.

How can a believer represent God with boldness? In a word – KNOW the Word. Paul pressed Timothy to be prepared (yoo-kah’-ee-roce: or “in season” is “at an opportune time”) whether people appeared to be interested in knowing God’s Word or not.

The longer I walk this earth, the more I recognize that people do not always know what they need. The bottom line is this: God knows how things work. God shared them, but we are often so easily distracted we don’t really listen to what He said. The point is not how willing people appear to hear, but how ready you are to represent God’s Word in a compelling way. They can chose to reject it, but you dare not choose to withhold it, and you dare not be lazy about understanding it. If you say it, make sure it is because you took the time to consider it carefully. Flippant use of the sword can lead to permanent and terrible wounds. We need careful believers who know the difference between their convictions and God’s Word. You may believe it fervently, but that doesn’t mean God said it clearly. Too often I am finding believers who know what political affiliation God has, and which immigration plan He supports. We muddy the waters when we take our interpretations and make them the text itself. It is easy to do, and we all have to be careful about it.

We do know for sure the process of giving God’s Word to people includes some basic elements:

Reprove: (el-eng’-kho – to convince with solid, compelling evidence). CONVINCE.
Rebuke: (epitimáō- epí, “suitably on,” which intensifies timáō, “esteem, place value”) – properly, assign value as is fitting the situation, building on the situation to correct. CORRECT.
Exhort: parakaléō (from pará, “from close-beside” and kaléō, “to call”) – properly, “make a call” from being “close-up and personal.”; refers to believers offering up evidence that stands up in God’s court. Connect with God’s big plan and therewith offer COMFORT.

Paul also set the stage for later days, and made it clear: the hearer bears profound responsibility in opening their heart to the message of the Word. If people choose to go where the ear is “tickled” they get what they choose. Myths attract attention like the dessert table at the buffet line. Yet, it is meat and potatoes of the Word people will need to endure tough times. Positive thinking and powerful motivational speeches are simply no match to systematically teaching God’s Word. Don’t forget: At the center of the work is the Word – or it isn’t God’s prescribed way of doing things.

Paul didn’t want believers to hide their foundation (4:2):

Because Timothy’s function in the Body of Messiah was to be a teacher but every believer is called to model the truth before the world. The command to “preach the Word” includes the verb “kerudzon”: which is to ‘publicly cry out in order to persuade with’. At the same time, the power of the message is multiplied when believer’s lives model truth and a positive perspective to life – that will draw people to Jesus!

Paul offered a simple principle: If we lift him up properly, Jesus will draw men to Himself. If no one wants what we have, we might begin to ask the question, “Do I have a life that reflects who God really is?”

It is easy for us to become unbalanced and portray only “one facet” of God’s nature. We can become judgmental and share with everyone that they are “getting what they deserve”. Though that may be true, that doesn’t express the GRACE of the Lord. At the same time, we may share the love of God with others and never express a frank comment about their agreement with error that is sowing the seeds of their destruction. That isn’t God’s kind of love – that is sentimentalism that won’t help the person when tragedy strikes and they ask, “Did you see this coming?”

The Word of God includes instruction, correction and encouragement. It houses truth that cuts me, and truth that heals me. My life should reflect truth in all its facets – and not just one or two.

Go back and look again at Paul’s words to Timothy about SEASONS. When Paul said “be ready”, he used the term “ephistemi”, which means ‘to stand upon’. The idea was not simply to make sure he was prepared, but rather that he would TAKE HIS STAND on the Word. It is possible that even a man of God could make his stand on his own preferences and opinions. Never let the turning away from the truth by people affect your commitment to teaching it.

Paul warned that there would be “seasons” of the truth – times when some tantalizing tidbit would become the focus of the masses. Again the Apostle offered a simple principle: The bigger picture is NOT what is HOT today, but standing with the truth taught broadly and systematically delivered over the longer span that will train us to become what we need to be. Fads come and go. They aren’t wrong, but they aren’t necessary if people are learning the whole context of God’s truth. You can chase them, but the temptation will be to become imbalanced.

Don’t just know WHAT the tool is for but HOW to use it: 4:2b: “…reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.“

Paul knew that God’s people must communicate the Bible specifically, prophetically, expectantly, patiently and intelligently.

Haddon Robinson, Making A Difference in Preaching p. 93: “In a town many years ago that revolved around the lumber business, the town council decided that they to hire a new pastor for the town church. One day, the new pastor saw some of his church members dragging logs which had floated down the river from another village upstream. Each log was marked with the owner’s stamp on the end of the log, much like a cattle brand. But to his dismay, this pastor saw his church members sawing off the ends of the logs where the owners stamp appeared. That Sunday the pastor preached a sermon on the commandment, “Thou shalt not steal.” After the sermon people said, “Great sermon pastor” and “mighty fine preaching.” But the next week they were back to stealing logs. So the next Sunday the pastor preached the same sermon, but he ended the sermon by saying, “And thou shalt not cut off the end of thy neighbor’s logs.” When he finished that sermon they ran him out of town. Now I don’t know if that’s a true story or not, but it does illustrate the need to communicate the Bible specifically.”

Paul KNEW where to find truth – but not everyone we know today truly does! We must keep communicating the truth patiently. Paul told Tim to teach “with great patience.” Sometimes we can be tempted to give up on people when they don’t get it the first time. We can get irritated when people don’t respond to a biblical principle the first time they hear about it.

I must be personally careful because too often we in churches are strong in correcting and rebuking, but weak on patience, so we blast people with guilt. I don’t want to use the Bible as a club to push people away – and I want to lead them to GOD not GUILT. At the same time, I admit that I am flabbergasted at the way people flaunt sin and disregard truth, and in that shocked state I should remain quiet… but sometimes I don’t. While I am confessing, I should also admit that I love chocolate and desert – and rebelliously do not want to eat them in moderation.

Don’t forget that we need to communicate the Bible intelligently. We communicate the Bible intelligently when we not only show people what the Bible means and how it applies, but also why the Bible makes the claims that it does. Some people believe that thinking deeply is somehow unspiritual, forgetting that the Bible tells us to not only love God with all our hearts but also with all our minds.

I was shopping for illustrations for a teaching I had to do in the first message on Jehu killing off Ahab’s family in 2 Kings 9. I found only a few messages on the text I was getting ready to preach, but one particularly intrigued me. A Pastor was using the text of 2 Kings 9:20 that says: “The watchman reported, “He came even to them, and he did not return; and the driving is like the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi, for he drives furiously.” He decided to preach on the evils of drunk driving from this text! He evidently thought this was appropriate, but didn’t take into consideration that the text had no drinking in it, and that Jehu was fulfilling a mission from God. By that method, I could prove that “furious driving” was actually an act of a godly man on a great mission – the very opposite of the truth he was preaching. Communicating bits and pieces of the Bible rather than communicating the whole Bible intelligently is devastating to our outreach across the country. We must be committed to communicating the whole Bible in its context and in its timeless truths!

What They Refuse (2 Timothy 4:3-4): Paul also knew believers needed to refuse lies in the coming defection (4:3-4)

Look again at 3 “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, 4 and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.

Robert Withrow in his book After Heaven – Spirituality in America Since the 1950’s offers some alarming statistics:

• 69% of the people in this country do not believe the Bible is God’s exact word
• Only 50% of Americans know that Genesis is the first book of the Bible
• Only 33% know that Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount

It is true: defection from truth is a reality in our day. We shouldn’t be surprised that error will become very popular – when Paul wrote the “time will come”. Note he didn’t say “might come”. God chooses His words very carefully.

Defection from truth can be Recognized: People “will not endure” is an interesting idea in the original language. After the negative “will not” is the word “anechomai”: to hold oneself up against, to forbear, suffer. “sound doctrine” the phrase that means “healthy instruction”. In other words, the time was coming when people would simply NOT HOLD THEMSELVES ACCOUNTABLE TO TEACHING THAT IS HEALTHY (“hugiaino”: healthy and wholesome, plus the word “didaskalia”: instruction or teaching).

Defection from truth has a Reason: Note what happens next. First, people reject the hearing of the truth. Next, they seek out someone who will tell them a LIE that matches their inner desires to do the things that God has said wilol hurt them and violate His holy plan (epithumia: longing or burning to do that which God has forbidden).

George Barna writes, “To the average American, truth is relative to one’s values and circumstances. Only one out of every four adults- and even fewer teenagers- believe that there is such a thing as absolute moral truth.” Barna suggests that this disregard for truth “may be the single most intense threat to the health of the United States and its people.” Barna goes on give the implications of a disregard for the truth: “Without absolute moral truth, there can be no right and wrong. Without right and wrong, there is no such thing as sin. Without sin, there can be no such thing as judgment and no such thing as condemnation. If there is no condemnation, there is no need for a Savior.”

Why tell us these things? God wanted to EXPLAIN the events so that His Word contained a prophetic record. He didn’t leave us in the dark wondering, “Am I following a myth if many or most go the other way?” He told us to SECURE OUR HEARTS in a time when that defection seems huge and rampant. Don’t worry! He knew it would come!

What They Focus On (2 Timothy 4:5): Paul wanted Tim to face the world and do the work (4:5a).

2 Timothy 2:5 “But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship…”

Sometimes walking with God is difficult because God’s people aren’t vigilant: “be sober” (nēphe: means un-intoxicated”; having clear judgment, enabling someone to be self-controlled) in all things… If we let down our guard about controls, we open the flesh to wander, the world to entice and the devil to drive hooks of guilt into our hearts. Control frees me to serve Christ with my heart! The issue can be simple LAZINESS, but the nature of discipline is that it is harder to maintain when inconsistent. Consistency is the refuge of the disciplined. When the military trains you, they do so by drilling consistency. Do it until you don’t have to decide to do it.

What if my daily reading of God’s Word was drilled to the point that I just opened the book before I was even half conscious in the morning?

There are two issues about our FOCUS in the verse that needs to be explored. First, we will be tempted to let frustration cause us to drop our guard – and that will be costly.

Let me put this in Tim’s world – that of a Pastor – because I know about that world.

The reality of ministry is this: people will often judge Pastoral performance based on the response of others – even though we don’t control their response. If I preach and ten people get saved, people go away believing that I am doing a better job – when I may have been clearer on another Sunday – but God had a work He wanted to perform today in others through me. My preparation may not have been better, and my delivery may not have been sharper. That is why we must keep our focus on one thing: We are to do what we do the best we can – for the honor of the King. At the same time, the King will use our work as He sees fit. In fact, He may choose to use someone else when we are, in fact, doing a better job – if we use the standards of the Word. By the same token, we may get the fruit of someone else’s hard labors.

Our job is faithfulness – His job is the results. Charles Stanley said it this way: “God is responsible for the results of our obedience, but we are responsible for the results of our disobedience.” Many believers report a temptation to take frustrations and bury them inside. In moments when we want release from those frustrations, we will be tempted to let down the standard of controls and drop our guard. The enemy, like a boxer, waits for the moment he can land his punch. We need to be diligent and vigilant.

A second word about our focus: We will need to recognize that working with people has always included, and will always include real pain. In the case of ministry, Paul used the term translated “ENDURE HARDSHIP” is the compound Greek word “kakopathéō” (from kakós, “of evil or malicious disposition” and páthos, “pain or feeling”) – properly, experiencing painful hardship or suffering.

Some things will seem like a “setback” in your life and ministry – but they really aren’t. You can’t always tell today what God is doing – ministry works like pickling. Brine does its work over time. Don’t judge successes or failures too quickly. You cannot opt out of pain if you want to be useful to God in ministry. At the same time, learning to endure is vital to your effectiveness. Don’t be too quick to need affirmation in people – nor in circumstances. You and I weren’t called to fix things – just represent properly the One who can.

Facing the world meant Tim’s job wasn’t just inside four walls (4:5b)

2 Timothy 2:5b “…do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”

Paul told Timothy that the work INCLUDED outreach. He was to personally do the actions (ergon) of an evangelist (one who offers a convincing presentation of the truth of the Gospel). Why did he need to tell him this? Because some go into ministry with an inordinate need to be loved by people. They mean well, but they lead by consensus. In a time of rising persecution – it is natural to stand back and allow outreach to grow quieter. Holy boldness must be prayed for, exercised and developed. It takes practice, work and persistence.

The Gospel must be shared. We dare not leave the work for others!

There was a Roman aqueduct at Segovia, Spain, built in 109 CE. For eighteen hundred years, it carried cool water from the mountains to the hot and thirsty city. Nearly sixty generations of men drank from its flow. Then came another generation, a recent one, who said, “This aqueduct is so great a marvel that it ought to be preserved for our children, as a museum piece. We shall relieve it of its centuries-long labor.” They did; they laid modern iron pipes. They gave the ancient bricks and mortar a reverent rest. And the aqueduct began to fall apart. The sun beating on the dry mortar caused it to crumble. The bricks and stone sagged and threatened to fall. What ages of service could not destroy idleness disintegrated. Resource, Sept./ Oct., 1992, p. 4.

Let me encourage you: Carefully plot a direction forward to the goal of serving Jesus with your life. Paul said it in 4:5 “But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”

Fulfill your ministry: Paul told Tim to stick to the GOAL God had placed in front of him (“plerophoreo” is entirely accomplish your “diakonia” or area of service). Tim wanted to CHANGE to something that would feel new and different than the work he had. We all get “antsy” sometimes to move on, because the work of dealing with people is at times arduous. Commitment over the long haul yields the best results. “Short term yardage keeps you in the game, but wastes a lot of time on the clock.”

In 1968, Tanzania chose John Stephen Akhwari to represent them in the Mexico City Olympics. Along the way as he ran, he stumbled and fell, severely injuring both his knee and ankle. It was 7 PM and a runner from Ethiopia had won the race. Everyone else had finished and there were only a few thousand spectators left in the huge arena. All of a sudden a police siren caught every-one’s attention. Limping through the gate came 36 year old Akhwari with his leg wrapped in a bloody bandage. The people cheered. A reporter at the gate asked him the question that was on everyone’s mind: “Why continue the race after being so badly injured?” He replied, “My country did not send me 7000 miles to begin a race; they sent me to finish a race.”

Paul knew that people who are effective for God are known for four things:

What They Know (2 Timothy 4:1): Do you KNOW you will be accountable for this life to your Master?

What They Communicate (2 Timothy 4:2): Do you learn and live the Word of God? Rather than dabbling from issue to issue and place to place looking for the “hottest truth” – are you involved in systematic study to learn how to use God’s truth in daily life?

What They Refuse (2 Timothy 4:3-4) Will we refuse to let comfort rule us and push to understand truth even when it convicts my life?

What They Focus On (2 Timothy 4:5): Will I stop avoiding the hard stuff, buckle down and work my gifts to His glory and accomplish God’s list for my life?

If I will step up, learn and follow God’s Word – I will refuse to be distracted, and my ardent focus will show itself in powerful HOPE. Why?

Because the truth is: Our daily choices make the difference in living out hope.

Living Hope: "The Sketch Artist at Work" – 2 Timothy 3:10-17

sketch artist 2

I recently read about the work of the cosmetic and soap maker “Dove” and their interesting work with women. It seems from reports that the Unilever Corporation that makes Dove products hired FBI-trained forensics artist Gil Zamora to participate in an interesting experiment concerning women and their self-image. This isn’t the only foray they have made into this realm, but it caught my attention because of how consistent the results were in the small (almost anecdotal) test pool. The company asked a number of women who were picked by an accepted random process to come into a studio and sit facing away from Zamora, who drew the women solely on the basis of the self-descriptions of each woman. Next, Zamora drew the woman again, is time on the basis of the description of a stranger who was sitting and looking at the woman while describing her. The results were surprising, and they seemed to be consistent over a number of test subjects. The result were quite surprising to me – because the sketches of the women based on self-description were without question less attractive than the ones made by a stranger’s description. The study is too small to be conclusive, but certainly implied that many women don’t see clearly their own physical beauty. Clearly the mirror of our own mind is NOT ENOUGH to cast a right picture of who we are – we need something else…

Key Principle: The Scriptures will help us to see ourselves as we are – both for good and for bad.

I love the words of the Apostle James, who reminded us long ago the Scriptures are God’s Word, and they offer a reliable picture of us.

James 1:22 But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; 24 for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. 25 But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.

This passage offers us a clear idea of what the Bible can do for us, and what will result from pushing it out of our lives and refusing to do what it teaches. Listen again closely to James’s claim about the Word:

  • It is meant to be lived, not just studied – so he sought to make his readers DOERS of the Word (1:22).
  • Encountering the Word is like encountering a mirror and seeing a reflection that requires corrective actions (1:23-24).
  • The Word is intended to be carefully observed (1:25a), as the word “intently” portrays.
  • It offers a flawless reflection of us, not marred by our fallen state or our bias toward self-interest (1:25b), as the word “perfect” implies. The Word offers a true picture, or it is worthless as a life guide. Living with a flawed Bible is like following a map drawn by a blind man, it won’t offer reliable guidance.
  • The Word was intended to set people FREE, not leave them in a state of condemnation (which is where they began before God revealed how to solve the issue). That is the point of calling it the Law of Liberty (1:25b). Making up our own moral tenets doesn’t make us free, following God’s Word does. When a society engages it principles with care, it thrives. When it replaces those for principles of their own choosing, it deteriorates. The Bible makes the bold claim that doing the opposite of its teaching is hazardous to individuals, families and society. Further, it makes the internal claim that following it frees people to become what God intended them to be when people “abide by it” (1:25b). The place of blessing is in the stream of obedience, not in the scorching sand of self-direction.

For a few minutes I want to look back into Paul’s letter to Timothy, and I want us to mentally make our own sketch of Paul. I want us to take his words and sketch out his face, his life and his ministry. As we do, one thing will become clear: walking in God’s Word, and living out its truth gave Paul a very clear view of himself. His self-image was not unduly enriched, nor needlessly defeated – his self-evaluation was a great picture of a man fulfilled, and self-aware, but also satisfied with his life rooted in obedience. Don’t forget, this was a man at the end of his life, and now imprisoned for the duration until the ax fell. Here is the text:

2 Timothy 3:10 “Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, 11 persecutions, and sufferings, such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra; what persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord rescued me! 12 Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. 13 But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, 15 and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; 17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”

Let’s take the remainder of our lesson and sketch Paul based on his words. I picked out ten traits, you may identify more. We aren’t misusing his words, since Paul made clear to Timothy that he WANTED HIM to look back at Paul’s life and take away the picture as a personal encouragement pattern.

“The Ten Traits of Paul”

Paul was not only a mentor to Timothy, he was a pattern moved by God and recorded by Scripture. If we look at what he presented of his own life to Tim, Paul claimed he was:

Anchored:

(“You followed my teaching”). Paul lived his life fixed to a body of truth that he taught both at moments of great reception before crowds of admirers and when the mob was angry and the rocks were flying. He simply related to Tim, “You know my teaching”. The term was “didaskalia” – a word that refers to his “doctrine” or his “set of unwavering beliefs”. Paul believed unapologetically that Jesus was God in human skin – and it didn’t matter what public opinion said about that. He wasn’t the only one who stood up to the world with this teaching. One writer reminds:

If Jesus is something less than God, he has no right and no power to forgive our sins. If Jesus can’t forgive our sins, we have no hope. Yes, the doctrine of the deity of Christ is worth contending for. And there is nobody God used more to contend for this biblical truth than Athanasius. Athanasius was born in the year 298 CE in Egypt. In his early twenties he was a deacon in the church in Alexandria (North Africa). During that time, the doctrine of the deity of Christ came under attack by a highly influential pastor named Arius. Arius taught that Jesus was a created being, that he had a beginning, and there was a time when Jesus was not. Therefore, according to Arius, Jesus is the son of God, but not God the son. His heresy was later known as the Arian heresy (named after Arius). It sparked a flame throughout the empire, that would dominate the church for 60 years. It was a 20 year old young man by the name of Athanasius, 40 years younger than Arius, that God would use to contend for the doctrine of the deity of Christ. Athanasius would endure decades of persecution, banished from the church, sent into exile five times, framed for murder, threatened with death, slandered by emperors and bishops, all for standing firm to the doctrine of the deity of Christ. In the end he prevailed, truth was preserved, and the church has stood on his shoulders ever since. (From a sermon by Mark Connelly, The Deity of Christ, 8/24/2011)

Paul lived a life TIED to the truth. He didn’t shift because those around him thought him to be ill-informed or obtuse about reality. He met Jesus, followed Jesus, preached Jesus and lived Jesus. For him “to live is Christ and to die is gain.” He knew how to draw hope from the truth of his message, no matter the circumstance. He faced death with confidence, and we can too! In fact, at death I’d rather be a “fumbling follower of Jesus” from a “flawed church” than an intelligent atheist with self-satisfied friends. Since my Savior has risen, my future is bright and personal, not an oblivion only abated by the memories of temporary earthly companions.

Get anchored in the truth, and you will be able to make a difference. You will become a fixture in the midst of the drifting lives around you.

Consistent:

(“You followed my conduct”). When Paul spoke of his “conduct” he used the term “agoge” – a word that means “carrying” or “guiding”. The idea behind the word was that Paul was acting out in life consistently with his teaching, and people could see that as a further life illustration of his teachings. Paul knew that he was being watched, and so are you and I. We need to be conscious of how we act, both from the standpoint of DOING RIGHT and the APPEARANCE of doing right. We cannot assume that people will understand when we act out of character with our commitment to Jesus.

In Washington D.C. there is a building called the “National Institute of Standards & Technology.” This facility is responsible for storing perfect samples of weights and measurements. They have what are called “prototypes” of pound weights and kilograms. Measuring rods for feet, yards & metric measurements like meters. For example, they have a “Meter Standard” a reinforced bar of platinum alloyed with exactly 10% iridium. When they want to know the exact measurement of a “meter” they cool this bar down to 0 degrees Celsius at a sea level of 45 degrees latitude then they know they will have the exact tip to tip measurement of a meter. That bar is known as “prototype #27, because the original is kept in a suburb of Paris at the International Bureau of Weights & Measures.

The value of the prototype is found in its consistency – just like the value of a testimony. It takes YEARS to build a consistent testimony of walking in the truth – but it has tremendous benefits. I have two friends that both think they are responsible people. One is an excellent time manager, and does his best at everything he puts a hand toward – while the other is frequently lax in his follow through on tasks. When each walks in late to a meeting, they get very different reactions from their colleagues. It is generally assumed the first one was tied up in something very important when he is tardy, while the second one is usually thought of as not having taken the meeting seriously enough. How people think of us in a specific situation is directly linked to our perception of them from their constructed testimony.

Displayed:

(“You followed my purpose”). Paul knew his life was in a “fish bowl” with enemies a-plenty watching for any failure or flaw. He said that Timothy knew his “purpose”, but that word doesn’t covey the whole richness of his chosen term “prothesis” – word not be confused with the word for artificial limbs. This term is a compound word from before “pro” and display or “thesis”. A thesis paper as we use the term today is a display of one’s academic acumen which is created to be scrutinized by scholars. Paul knew he was living on display as a show of God’s handiwork in a life interrupted by the Savior. The term “prothesis” was sometimes used of the “shewbread” in the Tabernacle, as that was also a display of God’s provision.

Don’t forget that Jesus doesn’t want to be “resident” in you – He wants to be “president” in you – in charge. He doesn’t want to “occupy a place” in your thinking – He wants your thinking to be rooted in His presence, and His principles.

A story is told that at the beginning of a new year, a high school principal decided to post his teachers’ new year’s resolutions on the bulletin board. As the teachers gathered around the bulletin board, a great commotion started. One of the teachers was complaining. “Why weren’t my resolutions posted?” She was throwing such a temper tantrum that the principal hurried to his office to see if he had overlooked her resolutions. Sure enough, he had mislaid them on his desk. As he read her resolutions he was astounded. This teacher’s first resolution was not to let little things upset her in the New Year.

Some people seem to care more IF they are ON DISPLAY, then they seem to care about WHAT they display when people are watching! We need to be careful to display Jesus and His goodness to us. A smile goes a long way! Paul displayed his faith by working, caring, sharing and teaching. You and I each have a unique combination of gifts that God has entitled us to use to serve HIM and show the world what He is like!

Clear:

(“You know my faith”). Paul’s life was a clear reflection of his “faith”. He referred to the rich term “pistis” which arrives with it many practical out workings. For our purposes, we have learned the terms “Biblical world view” – specifically that faith is looking at the world through the glasses of God’s Word. Paul had a clear view of what was happening around Him because Paul trusted the truths of God’s Word, and leaned heavily on his relationship with a God who does not change in His purposes. There is a wondrous clarity that comes with seeing the world through the principles to God’s Word. It is important that we SEE life Biblically, but it is also essential that we CHOOSE life Biblically.

Billy Graham once said, “The strongest principle of life and blessings lies in our choice. Our life is the sum result of all the choices we make, both consciously and unconsciously. If we can control the process of choosing, we can take control of all aspects of our life. We can find the freedom that comes from being in charge of our life. So start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.” On another occasion, he was quoted as saying: “If you don’t make a decision, time will make it for you, and time will always side against you.”

Let me ask you directly: “How strong is your faith?” If you are actively seeking to know God through His Word, and are meditating on that word – bouncing it around in your mind in every direction – you are growing in understanding. The Spirit of God will use the Word of God to grow your understanding and transform your mind.

Tolerant:

(“You know my patience”). I wonder how many of us could make such a claim to a traveling companion who knew us well for many years. I wonder if I could make the claim to patience if I was locked up and awaiting execution. … Paul said that he had a “long fuse”. He chose a term translated “patient” that is much more picturesque in its original form – “makrothumia”. The Greek word simply means, “long-fused” or able to withstand heat for a long time. Paul was not “tolerant” in the modern sense of the term, where no one is allowed to disagree with another or in any way challenge the assertions of another – but in a Biblical term of tolerance. The idea of the term was more that Paul could control and measure his responses, even when attempts at provocation were clear.

How did he manage to keep his cool in the face of attacks. First, he didn’t “weigh in” on too many issues. In fact, his commentary was ultra-thin on government policy and Emperor critique, and very directive on church polity and Christian behavior. Second, he kept a watchful eye on his “peace quotient”. Do you? Let’s suppose that reading articles on Facebook about the government gets you really upset, do you limit yourself from doing much of it? I am amazed at how many people KNOW what gets them aggravated, but cannot seem to limit their involvement with the source.

Stop and think about it for a moment. Perhaps the NSA collected every cell phone call you ever made. While you didn’t know about it, you kept living life. Now you know they did. Maybe you are enraged about the idea – but are you better off because you read article upon article about the program? Is your life enhanced for the hours of unhappiness that you live grousing about it? I am not suggesting you shouldn’t be informed, and that in a republic you should not weigh in at the ballot box. What I am suggesting is that we spend much more time deliberately deflating peace by feeding on fear and worry. We can vote and we can pray – but the world is not changed by whining and grousing – and I suspect that many of us have given far too much time to that! Are you watching your “peace quotient”?

Caring:

(“You know my love”). Paul offered many words to people that out of the context of the relationships can be framed as “harsh sounding”, but that wouldn’t be contextually fair. He warned believers, but he LOVED them as well. He spent time in the homes of people, walked on the roads with his companions in ministry, and they felt more from him than just being measured. He said to Tim, you know my “love” that was obvious as we traveled together. Paul employed the word for Divine love, initiating love, active love – the term “agapao”. Our handy definition of the term is: “acting deliberately to meet a need, because there is a need, expecting nothing in return. Paul did it regularly and openly, and Tim observed it.

Strong:

(“You know my perseverance”). The Apostle told his student: “You have seen me persevere!” The word “hupomeno” is the Greek for “the ability to remain under” and denotes one who has been strengthened to endure great weight placed up on him. Paul knew what it meant to have pressure on him. He felt the pressure of the sheer number of lost people in his life that he longed would receive Christ as Savior. He felt the pressure of those who were wavering because of persecution, and wanted them to look past the physical into the spiritual world beyond, and remain faithful to the calling of the Savior. He felt a strain when two believers were at odds, or a church was faltering. I am certain that he felt as I have so many times, going to bed exhausted, and then laying awake thinking of those you did NOT visit, and notes you did NOT write. He was tender at heart, but he had a very strong back! That strength made him resilient.

Resistant:

(“You know my sufferings”). Throughout his ministry, Paul was being hunted by those who could wound him emotionally and physically, and he had to learn to be both sensitive to the Spirit’s leading, and content when the Lord did not allow him to wiggle out of the grasp of wicked men (4:11). The term “suffering” is the term for “being put to flight amid chasing” and in some way refers to the way Paul had to stay “one step ahead” of those trying to hurt him. Clearly Paul suffered.

2 Corinthians 11 offers a little window into some of the tensions he faced: [I was often in] “more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. Five times I received from the Jews thirty- nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches.”

He wasn’t whining, he was answering some bold and arrogant men who questioned his sincerity, and he unloaded the truck with things that showed he was no “light weight” in ministry. Paul was the real deal, and he wanted the men who opposed him to set their resumes side by side with his. He did it because he had built up resistance in midst of suffering the attack.

Emotional:

(“You know my persecutions”). Paul knew what it was to face persecution, and the term he used for it in verse 11 was laden with emotional negatives. Despite the frequent claims by modern preachers that God’s plan is to give us ease, wealth and comfort, God’s message through Paul was that God has always been more concerned with holiness than health. The Apostle even made the direct claim, in contradistinction to modern televangelists that Godly people ought to expect trouble (4:12). “Pathema” is painful troubles that overtake someone. They are hard things that “befall” one’s life, and must be faced. Paul’s status with God didn’t exempt him from the pain, it was the biggest reason for it!

Delivered:

(“The Lord rescued me!”). Paul passed through the struggle, but he felt the strong arm of the Lord lift him up when he was engulfed in troubles and unable to extricate himself. He accepted that God knew how to deliver him at any time, and that if he was not delivered, it was because aged did not so plan it. From the hand of a man who removed the scales from his eyes, to a basket in Damascus, Paul knew what a rescue of Jesus felt like!

How did Paul gain such a stature? He walked with God. He shared his life with the Spirit of God. He leaned on the Word of God.

The Scriptures will help us to see ourselves as we are – both for good and for bad.

Why is this absolutely essential? The simplest answer is because the fallen world system is carefully constructing a moral and ethical system in opposition to God and His Word. It is being carefully engineered in laboratories, university campuses and government think tanks. Hollywood and Washington will chime in together to push the agenda. The world powers will reward the US for every single departure from the Biblical past, as we rush headlong into European and Eastern arms.

A seminary professor was vacationing with his wife in Gatlinburg, TN. One morning, they were eating breakfast at a little restaurant, hoping to enjoy a quiet, family meal. While they were waiting for their food, they noticed a distinguished looking, white-haired man moving from table to table, visiting with the guests. The professor leaned over and whispered to his wife, “I hope he doesn’t come over here.” But sure enough, the man did come over to their table. “Where are you folks from?” he asked in a friendly voice. “Oklahoma,” they answered. “Great to have you here in Tennessee,” the stranger said. “What do you do for a living?” “I teach at a seminary,” he replied. “Oh, so you teach preachers how to preach, do you? Well, I’ve got a really great story for you.” And with that, the gentleman pulled up a chair and sat down at the table with the couple. The professor groaned and thought to himself, “Great … Just what I need … another preacher story!” The man started, “See that mountain over there? (pointing out the restaurant window). Not far from the base of that mountain, there was a boy born to an unwed mother. He had a hard time growing up, because every place he went, he was always asked the same question, ’Hey boy, Who’s your daddy?’ Whether he was at school, in the grocery store or drug store, people would ask the same question, ’Who’s your daddy?’ He would hide at recess and lunchtime from other students. He would avoid going in to stores because that question hurt him so bad. “When he was about 12 years old, a new preacher came to his church. He would always go in late and slip out early to avoid hearing the question, ’Who’s your daddy?’ But one day, the new preacher said the benediction so fast he got caught and had to walk out with the crowd. Just about the time he got to the back door, the new preacher, not knowing anything about him, put his hand on his shoulder and asked him, Son, who’s your daddy? The whole church got deathly quiet. He could feel every eye in the church looking at him. Now everyone would finally know the answer to the question, ’Who’s your daddy?’ “This new preacher, though, sensed the situation around him and using discernment that only the Holy Spirit could give, said the following to that scared little boy … “Wait a minute! I know who you are. I see the family resemblance now. You are a child of God. ” With that he patted the boy on his shoulder and said, “Boy, you’ve got a great inheritance. Go and claim it.” “With that, the boy smiled for the first time in a long time and walked out the door a changed person. He was never the same again. Whenever anybody asked him, ’Who’s your Daddy?’ he’d just tell them, ’I’m a Child of God.’” The distinguished gentleman got up from the table and said, “Isn’t that a great story?” The professor responded that it really was a great story! As the man turned to leave, he said, “You know, if that new preacher hadn’t told me that I was one of God’s children, I probably never would have amounted to anything!” And he walked away. The seminary professor and his wife were stunned. He called the waitress over & asked her, “Do you know who that man was who just left that was sitting at our table?” The waitress grinned and said, “Of course. Everybody here knows him. That’s Ben Hooper. He’s the former governor of Tennessee!” -From Bob Soullier courtesy of sermon central illustrations.

Without the Word of God and its clear admonitions, believers would walk in the dark on the path of their own lives, and could offer no relief to the hurting that fall in the brutal struggle about us.

One other thing, we would not know ourselves. Our knowledge of self is also tied to the Word. We would confuse “goodness” with “righteousness” and give ourselves a pass from the Cross in favor of our own standard of works. Who could argue that we weren’t nice people that did good things?

The Word tells the truth about the brokenness and sinfulness of men. It makes clear the need for a Savior. It highlights the way God can turn a life into someone beautiful. It defines truth, so the noise of the world can be filtered.