Such Love-Part 1

Subtitle: He Became One of Us

John 1:14-18; Philippians 2:5-11.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Palm Sunday, April 2, 2023.

Today we begin a 6-part series about God's love, and how we should respond to it.

Love is a matter of call and response, or action and response.  In a way, God is always the initiator of love because of His eternal nature.  We are always the responders.

I want to refresh our memories of just how much God loved us in the coming of the one we know as Jesus, or in Hebrew, Yeshua.  On top of His love 2,000 years ago, we have His great love for us today, for you, and for others.  Do you not realize that God's amazing love will be embracing you even unto your last breath?  His amazing love will even be with humanity to the end of this age, and into eternity.

Let's look at our passage today, and remind ourselves of God's great love.

The Word became flesh (John 1:14)

In this chapter, John speaks of the One called "the Word" who is identified in verse 17 as Jesus Christ.  The Word becoming flesh points back to that moment in time when Mary first conceived.

The miracle of the incarnation is often doubted.  It is believed that Mary clearly made up the story.  However, does this square with all of the evidence?

Let's just go with the cynic on this one and assume that Mary did make it up.  Her pregnancy would have either been by Joseph, or some other man that she is unwilling to name.  Modern man may scoff that they didn't know science like we do today.  Thus, the people of Nazareth were easily duped.

Of course, this is not what happened and is very snobbish towards that generation.  They knew exactly how a woman became pregnant.  No one believed Mary's story at first, not even Joseph.  He was going to put her away silently.  However, Joseph changed his mind and married Mary.  They lived their lives with the stigma hanging over their heads that they had not waited for the proper moment to be intimate.  No one would have bought their story.

Here is the rub.  If Mary was lying, then Jesus should have fallen within the range of the Judeans of his day.  He might be a little smarter or not, but we would not expect him to stick out among the greats of Israel, much less all mankind.  The miracles of Jesus, his death and resurrection, are not explainable by a natural conception.  Of course, the skeptic continues to deny everything.  None of the miracles happened.  The resurrection didn't happen.  Over the top of all the eye witness testimony, the skeptic's biases reign supreme.   There is just too much evidence that something strange was going on with this Jesus of Nazareth.

In the opening verses of this chapter, it is clear that John is using language from Genesis chapter 1, "In the beginning..."  The apostles of Jesus had come to see the reality of who Jesus really was.  He is the Son of the Most High God, but not in the way that humans would understand sonship.  Even before anything was created, the eternal Son existed as the eternal Word of God.  How does John come up with the idea that there was a "Word" of God in the Genesis 1?  Well, primarily he doesn't "come up with it."  He understands it by the revelation of Jesus and the Spirit of God.  However, it is important to see that Genesis 1 describes the Father saying, "Let there be light,"  When we speak, words go forth from us.  Of course, God is not flesh and blood and there is no air around Him to propagate sound waves.  However, something greater is being revealed.  The One who created man, with the ability to speak and send powerful ideas out into the world around him, is able to "speak" and send forth "word" in a greater way.  What is not made clear in the text of Genesis 1 is explained in John 1.  The eternal Word was the eternal Son who went forth to accomplish what the Father desired.  John is also probably looking at Proverbs 8, in which wisdom is personified and depicted as working with God at Creation.  In a sense, John is saying that Proverbs 8 is not just poetry.  It is revelation that is not clear until the Wisdom of God, the Word of God, took on flesh.

This is the amazing part.  This One who has eternally existed not only with God, but as divine, became human.  This speaks to the depths that God was willing to go in order to save us, to show His love for us.  Yes, God is good and therefore He will do good things, but He doesn't have to be that good!  This call and response of love cannot be broken down into "laws."  Anyone who says, "This is what you have to do in order to love me," has something wrong in their heart.  They are not speaking with love themselves.  Love must be free to act and to respond.  Love must not be controlled and manipulated; true love will not dictate to other how they "must" show love.

This brings us to Philippians 2:5-11.  It uses language from Genesis 1 as well (verse 26).  In Genesis, man is made in the "likeness" of God.  He is not God, but is like Him enough that a personal relationship can develop between them.  We see this in Genesis 3 when it tells us that God would come down in the cool of the day to meet with Adam and Eve.  In Philippians, something is happening in the opposite direction.  Though man is made in God's likeness, through Jesus, God has taken on the nature and form of a man.  The Word didn't just become like a man.  Rather, He became a man.

This begs the question, "What was He thinking?"  The context of Philippians 2 is the kind of mind that Christians need to have.  Thus, Paul points back to the incarnation, taking on of flesh, of the Word of God in Jesus.  We need the same kind of mind that Jesus had when he agreed to such a plan.

Of course, becoming human is nothing to us because we are human.  Jesus was divine and the creator of all mankind.  Taking on the nature of a human is a big deal.  In fact, Paul parallels the act of Jesus taking on the likeness of humans with him taking on the form of a slave.  He didn't just become human.  He became a human slave for God the Father. 

Again, what was the eternal Son thinking?  What is this love of God that would go to such lengths, to such depths, in order to save us?  As humbling as becoming human is for God, this was not the depths of his love.

The Philippians passage uses three verbal phrases to describe the depths of God's love for us.

First, he "emptied himself."  It doesn't say exactly what he emptied himself of.  In the context, the mind of Christ is in view.  Thus, we might ask ourselves this question.  What would I have to empty myself of in order to do something like that?  Of course, Jesus is not proud and arrogant.  However, he did create all things, and has dwelled in eternal glory with the Father.  He would have to empty himself of all the reasons and thinking that would object to such a plan of salvation.  It would be an attitude that says, "I am this (a glorious God); I shouldn't have to do that (become human, etc.). 

As humans, we are altogether too familiar with that attitude.  It is not an attitude of love.  This is why Paul is pointing us back to the incarnation.  We need to first understand just how amazing it is that the Word would do this for us, and then make the leap to the fact that we should do the same for others.

Second, Philippians 2 tells us that Jesus "humbled himself."  At its root this word speaks of a lowering of position.  The eternal Son abased himself in taking on human flesh.  Yet, as a man, we see him washing the feet of his disciples.  He wasn't just becoming a great king of the earth that everyone would serve.  Instead, he was a slave of God to serve us.  He lived without purpose and will of his own, and instead, lived out only the will and purpose of the Father in heaven.  Since the men whose feet he washed were his disciples, they would then have to figure out how to lower themselves even lower than their master.  How is that possible?  Only by the grace and help of God's Holy Spirit; that's how.

Palm Sunday is all about the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.  It represents all that we want in the natural.  Jesus presents himself to Jerusalem as her awaited Anointed King from God.  We do not object to God coming down and becoming human in order to conquer our foes and lay them at our feet.  However, we do balk because we do not know what our true enemy is.  One day we are saying yeah for team Jesus, and then he does something we don't understand and we are ready to crucify him.

Just as Israel was looking for Messiah to show up and conquer the Romans, so we do today.  The Ukrainians hope for God to show up and crush the Russians.  Americans may complain that if God would just show up and destroy those who are taxing us to death, then we would be good.  Really?  The truth is that Israel's problem was not actually the Romans, and the problem for American's is not your tax-happy State capital, or Washington D.C.  Our problem is sin that is entrenched in our own hearts.  We will point out every sin, but our own.  This is our greatest problem: we are in bondage to sin.

The Word dwelt among us

Back in John 1:14, we are told that the Word became flesh and then dwelt among us.  John again uses language from the Old Testament, this time from Exodus 25-40.  The word for "dwelt" connects back to the animal skins of the tent, or tabernacle, God had Israel build in the desert.  This verb could be translated as "and tented among us."

Yeshua is literally God,  Yahweh, tenting among us.  Remember, the whole purpose of the tabernacle was to create a place that God could dwell in among the people of Israel.  As they camped in the wilderness, the tabernacle was there in the center of their camp.  The presence of God was visible in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

This visible presence of the Lord had become a thing of the past by the first century.  However, it is important to understand this picture of God dwelling among His people within a structure of animal skins.

This brings up the age old contention between Christians and Judaism, the idea of the Messiah being divine.  Is this just a Christian perversion?  Are Christians teaching things that are not in the Old Testament, either because they don't understand Hebrew, or they are purposefully twisting the Scriptures?

The presence of God was always understood to be a mystery in ancient Israelite worship.  If one pays careful attention to the text, you might accuse the writer of contradicting themselves.  On one hand, the Scriptures pound home the idea that mortal humans cannot see God without dying, and yet God is able to reveal Himself in lesser, or mediated forms.  The bush that Moses sees is somehow Yahweh, and yet it is not fully Yahweh.  The fire and smoke on Mt. Sinai is somehow Yahweh, and yet not fully Yahweh.  The same scary manifestation of fire and smoke on the mountain, then moves to the tabernacle as a less scary pillar of cloud (a somewhat different manifestation, yet of the same).  We see Moses speaking with God in the tabernacle, but at the same time he asks God to look down from heaven (Deuteronomy 26:15).  Moses was not contradicting himself.  He simply knew that God was capable of manifesting in a mediated form on the earth, while still being God in heaven.

This is the mystery of the presence of God.  It is never fully explained.  It is simply revealed and discovered by Moses and Israel.  Even the New Testament does not completely demystify this mystery of the person and presence of God.  Yet, Moses had no problem accepting that God could be "tenting" among His people within animal skins (the tabernacle) while still being resident in heaven.  Thus, before the first century, rabbis would speak of the Invisible Yahweh and the Visible Yahweh (a mediated form of the invisible God).  God is One, and yet He can somehow localize without leaving heaven.

This comes to a head in Exodus 33 to 34.  There Moses is talking with God.  He is asking God to go with them, even though Israel has been sinful and rebellious.  God promises to send His Presence with them.  At this point, Moses asks God to see His glory.  God agrees to let him see His receding glory, that is, not its fullness, because Moses could not handle it. 

The even is described in chapter 33, but happens in chapter 34.  God tells Moses to stand on a certain rock.  God would then come down and pass before Moses.  God's hand would simultaneously place Moses in a cleft of the rock, and shield him from seeing God's face.  Yet, as God passes by, He removes His hand so that Moses can see His back as He goes away from him.  Meanwhile, God is "declaring" the name of the Lord.  I will come back to this declaration of the name of the Lord in a moment.

Notice that in this passage God is spoken of in human terms: face, hand, and back.  This is a mediated human form, yet not a human.  Thus, we can see that there is no great leap to understand that just as Yahweh could tent among His people in animal skins, appear to Moses in human form, all while being resident in the heavens, so in Jesus, Yahweh could tent among His people in human skin, while still being resident in the heavens.

Why would He do this?  What love is this?

We beheld His glory

Finally, John 1:14 tells us that they beheld his glory.  Just as Israel saw God's glory come down upon the mountain, then onto the tabernacle, so God's glory was made visible in the person and work of Jesus.

I would like to point out that God's glory is not just one thing in the Old Testament.  There are many different expressions, forms, and even layers to the manifest glory of God.  No human has ever seen the unmitigated glory of God.  We cannot handle it.  Then, we see the powerful glory that scares people like at Mt. Sinai: smoking fire, Loud voice, trumpet blasts, shakings, etcetera. 

Then, there is the kind of glory that Moses saw that is a human like figure.  This connects with the Angel of Yahweh passages as well.  This Angel is more than a created spiritual messenger for God.  God's Name is somehow in Him, and he forgives sins (Exodus 23:21).  Moses saw this human form of God's glory declaring the "Name of the Lord."  What was the declaration?  Exodus 34:6-7, "And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”  God's glory is displayed in God allowing Moses to glimpse what He could of Him, but it is also wrapped up in the truth about God's nature.  He is Mercy, Grace, Patience, Goodness, Truth, Forgiveness, and the fear of the guilty.  Thus, John alludes to this passage as well when he says of Jesus in John 1:14 that Jesus is full of grace and truth.  In Jesus, Israel receives a greater glimpse of what Moses saw on the mountain. 

Of course, some of Israel saw a greater glory in Jesus than the others similar to Moses seeing God's glory greater than Israel did.  The disciples saw Jesus do things that others didn't, like walk on water and calm a storm with just the words, "Peace, be still."  However, James, John, and Peter saw the Lord's face transfigured into a glorious brightness that the other nine did not see.

Yet, the miracles and such demonstrations were probably not the greatest glory that Jesus expressed.  A case can be made that his death on the cross was the greatest display of the glory of God.  On that day, he fully revealed the heart and nature of God the Father, not only to Israel, but also to the Gentiles.  The heart of God is full of Grace, and yet also full of Truth.  He will bend over backwards to save us, even to the point of dying for us, but we must turn to Him in truth.

Today, I want us to understand what it says about the love of God that He would even come down and take on the nature of a human.  The heart of God has always been about relationship with us, and to dwell with us.  Revelation ends with us dwelling with God and the statement, "They shall see His face."  We will have been fitted to not only dwell in His presence, but also to look into the face of the full glory of God without dying!  This relationship has always been His goal.  It was there in the Garden of Eden until the serpent and sin broke that fellowship.  It was there with Israel in the wilderness, until sin and rebellion broke it.

All humanity is full of rebellion against God, and against His Anointed King, Jesus.  Yet, even now He holds out His hand in an offer of peace.  He offers the joy of dwelling with Him throughout eternity.  This is the love of God.  How can I say no to such love?

Such Love 1 audio

The Acts of the Apostles 16

Subtitle: They Had All Things In Common

Acts 4:32-37.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, September 4, 2022.

Today, our passage deals with a theme that we saw back in chapter 2, verses 44-45.  There Luke was giving a summary of the daily life of those who believed in Jesus, and how they took care of one another.

Essentially, Luke is showing that they took care of one another like family.  Yet, it was more than that.

This was a special time in the Church in which the Messiah had come and the promised Holy Spirit was being poured out.  This Holy Spirit was moving powerfully among God’s people.  It was quite common for people to stay in Jerusalem even though they lived somewhere else.  They did not want to miss out on the almost incredible things that God was doing.  Similarly, they were gathering every day in the temple where the apostles preached Jesus and encouraged the believers.  This dynamic led to a period of time where there were many reasons why people would put off normal matters of business, work.

How we need to once again become a people who are led and impassioned by what the Holy Spirit is doing.  Don’t be so sure that you have the same kind of heart.  The Holy Spirit is not inactive in our day and age, and yet many act as if He is.  Only through prayer can we get to a place where we recognize what the Holy Spirit is doing, and where He is leading.  God help us not to settle for a good life that is ignorant of what the Holy Spirit is doing in our day and age.

Let’s get into our passage.

The believers care for one another (vs. 32-37)

The issue of lacking what one needs from day to day is front and center in this passage.  Jesus spoke about this in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6:25-34.  He basically tells believers not to be anxious about their daily food, clothing, or shelter.  If they would seek the Kingdom of God first in their life, then they would find God supplying these things as needed. 

Notice that the emphasis is on our primary focus.  Of course, we will need to work, budget, and buy food.  However, we should never let this become our priority.  Jesus is speaking to people who often found themselves in poor circumstances.  They could have all kinds of reasons to become anxious and then be led into complaining against God (remember Israel in the wilderness).

In desperation, we can often live life at a very surface level that is focused upon survival and our fleshly needs.  Don’t get me wrong.  A person needs to eat, and be clothed, and have shelter.  Yet, when our life first worries about these things and then becomes consumed with them, then we are never happy.  People, who are eating and dressing quite luxuriously, people who are living in houses, or apartments, that are orders of magnitude higher than kings in the past had, can still find themselves anxious about that stuff because it has come to mean more to them than God and His kingdom.

Only Jesus and his purposes can satisfy our inner needs.  We have a promise from him that we don’t need to worry; we just need to put his kingdom first.

In this passage, we have a practical expression of how the early Church was making sure that no one among them fell into circumstances where they were going hungry, without proper clothing, or without shelter from the elements.

We should also note that there are two sides to this issue.  In Matthew 6, Jesus was speaking to the needy (really all of us).  The person in need is not told that they shouldn’t worry because the Church will cover all their needs.  They are told to make the Kingdom of God their focus, and then God would make sure that they had enough to eat, etc.  However, God wants to help us is His business.  Our job is to refrain from worry, and trust God to provide, as we do our best.

However, the other side of the issue is about those whom God wants to use to meet those needs.  God is amazing.  Whenever somebody lacks anything, God always makes sure that there is somebody who has plenty enough to meet that need.  This is not a matter of law or commandment.  God’s people are called to be volunteers out of love for Christ.  We give as the Lord Jesus puts it on our heart.  That said, this can become a cop-out for the person who is greedy and doesn’t want to give.  We can say that God hasn’t told us to help anyone, all the while our fingers are deep in our ears.  God is calling us to maturity.  If God has blessed you with anything, then you need to be asking for what purpose has He done this?  Only for you to consume?  This is more than unlikely.  We will be accountable for how we have used God’s things that He has entrusted to us, within this life that He has given to us.

Lastly in this matter, a person who lacks financially still has areas in their life where they can be used of God to help others.  Also, a person who is financially wealthy still has areas in their life where they have needs that only others can meet.  No one is wholly in one category or another.  This takes spending time in prayer in order to understand the ways in which we can meet others needs, and the ways in which we are still quite needy ourselves.

In verse 32, Luke says that the believers were of one heart and one soul.  This is similar to the phrase “in one accord,” which focuses on having a singular passion for God’s purposes.  The words heart and soul have lots of overlap and basically point to that inner life as opposed to our body.  The heart is pictured as a kind of control center of our thoughts on one hand, and of our desires on the other.  In essence, the believers were living in a way that was as if one person was doing all of the thinking and desiring.

The only way that a group of people can have one heart and one soul is by the help of the Holy Spirit.  Tyrants will use brute force and manipulation to control the people, but God doesn’t operate in this way, and neither should the leaders of the Church.  This can’t be done in the flesh.  Paul tells us to let the mind of Christ be in us (Philippians 2).  With this in mind, we can see our need as believers is to let the Holy Spirit direct our heart and soul to be like that of Christ.  He needs to direct our heart.  We need to have our thoughts conformed and our desires conformed to those of Jesus daily.  This is not an internal taking over by God, but a cooperation.  The only way this can successfully be done is through reading the Word of God, daily times of prayer, and walking with Jesus in obedience.  This is where we fight the giants internally in our soul.

Let’s look at verse 33 before we talk about the way the early Church dealt with financial needs in their midst.  It is pretty common in Acts to have a specific story about something that happened, and then follow it up with a general summation of what God was doing in the Church.  This verse is one of those summary style verses that lets us know that God was answering the prayer of the early Church.  We are once again reminded that God was working powerfully through the apostles as they preached about the resurrection of Jesus.  The great power is the dunamis power of God’s amazing work.  It is literally mega-dunamis.  God did extraordinary things through these apostles.  Just like the man lame from birth being healed in his 40’s, we are going to see more amazing miracles in the book of Acts.  These powerful demonstrations would not only let the leaders of Israel know that Jesus was multiplied in his followers, but it would also let Israel know that God had not abandoned them.  He was still pouring out His mercy and grace upon them.

This is an amazing thought.  They had taken the greatest gift of grace possible, God’s only Son, and crucified him.  Yet, here is God; here is Jesus showing them great and powerful signs and wonders.  He was essentially saying, “Even now, I will forgive.  Simply put your faith in my Son, Jesus!”

Just as there was great power through the apostles, so too, there was great grace upon the believers.  This is literally saying that grace, and that greatly (mega grace) was upon them.  It is easy to only think of grace in terms of salvation, but this term is broader than just salvation here.  It speaks to the favor, or good-will, of God resting upon them.  Jesus was not only dispensing mega powerful works by the disciples, but he was also pouring out mega grace upon his Church.  Jesus by his Spirit is the source of this overall atmosphere of God’s favor upon these believers.  This would be a supply in which they would display God’s grace among themselves, and it would then overflow into the larger community around them.

The early Christians were a people marked by the favor of God.  We can be mistaken in such judgments.  Perhaps, we may believe that the American Church is the most favored of God in every generation.  If we use the mind of the flesh to determine God’s favor, then we are guilty of the same sin of Job’s comforters, and the disciples themselves who thought wealth was a sign of God’s favor.  This was not the case with the early Christians.  The favor of God was upon them as obviously as the pillar of fire was to Pharoah that day.

Now let’s talk about the fact that the early Church took care of those who were needy in their midst.  When verse 34 says, “Nor was there anyone among them who lacked,” it does not mean no one ever had a need.  This is not some declaration that you will never have a need if you really trust Jesus.  No, many of them did have a need, a lacking.  However, those needs were being met by other brothers and sisters in the faith of Jesus.  Just like an adult son would take care of his aged mother when she is widowed, so they took care of those who encountered difficulties in life.  Most likely, they saw this number increase as persecutions led to many being arrested, imprisoned, and even executed. 

Down through the ages, the righteous have always wrestled with such things.  We are told that John Bunyan (author of The Pilgrim’s Progress, and The Holy War) spent years in the Bedford County Jail.  It bothered him that his wife and child were home penniless.  However, God used believers to care for them during this time.  It was humbling, but John knew that he was doing God’s work.  So, his family lacked in the sense of having need, but they didn’t lack because God laid it on the hearts of believers to supply their needs.

Luke describes further why these needs would be taken care of.  In Acts 6, we are going to see that they had a daily distribution of food for widows, for example.  Verse 32 says that their attitude towards their possessions was not a selfish one.  Instead, they had all things in common.  This doesn’t mean that they liquidated everything and joined a commune as some cults promote today.  It doesn’t even mean that they treated all their property as belonging to the poor.  In truth, they knew that their wealth was God’s in every way.  Therefore, they were merely stewards of God’s stuff in this life that He had given them.  It is much easier to give when your heart is not stingily clinging to the things “you have amassed by your hard work.”

In verse 34-35, we see how they were covering the needs.  When it says, “all who were possessors of lands or houses sold them,” it does not mean that no one had houses anymore.  It simply means that, as it was needed, those who had an excess of possessions would sell them from time to time.  This money was then given to the apostles, and they distributed it to those in need.  This was all done voluntarily and as God moved on their hearts.

Luke gives an example of a man named Joses.  This is not the ½ brother of Jesus mentioned in Matthew 13:55. This man is a Levite who was from the Island of Cyprus.  The name Joses is a diminutive form of Joseph.  Clearly, Joses had been in Jerusalem early on.  Was he one of those people in the crowd hearing Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost?  Or was he one of the 120 who were filled with the Holy Spirit in the upper room?  Some even speculate that he was one of the 70 sent out by Jesus.  Of course, those possibilities are merely conjecture.  Yet, Joses became a very influential person in the early Church. 

We are told that the apostles called him “Barnabas.”  In fact, this is the name that will be used of him from here on in the New Testament.  Barnabas is Aramaic and means “Son of Encouragement.”  Interestingly, the term encouragement is from the same root as the term Paraclete that is used of Jesus to refer to the Holy Spirit.  It is essentially one who comes alongside of another to help in whatever manner that will help.  It is a very broad term.  In this passage, Barnabas encourages people by giving money to the apostles so that no one in the Jerusalem Church will lack what they need.  Later, we are going to see Barnabas standing alongside of Saul of Tarsus when he believes on Jesus.  Barnabas came alongside of Saul, who came to be known as Paul, and helped the apostles to accept Paul into their fellowship.

Just as there are cautionary tales in the Bible (think of Cain, King Saul, Nebuchadnezzar, Judas, and many others), so there are many who are encouraging examples to us, even exemplars of what we should aspire to be.  Clearly, Jesus is the Exemplar of exemplars, but it is good to see righteous individuals who do particular exploits in the name of Jesus.  Pay attention to the negative examples in Scripture that we should avoid becoming, and the positive examples that we should allow to inspire us to follow Jesus more avidly.

So, what about us today?  Our culture is not as conducive to being aware of everyone’s needs.  In fact, 1^st century Jerusalem was a far different culture than 1^st century Rome, or Thessalonica.  Paul actually tells the Thessalonians that some of their people were being lazy, not working, going from house to house eating food, and being busybodies.  Paul said that such people need to work hard and eat their own food in quietness.  This corrective teaching has a fine edge put on it in the statement, “If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat.”  (2 Thessalonians 3:10 NKJV).

Our culture loves to give lip-service to concepts like love and grace.  However, it often becomes perverted and twisted into something that is contrary to what God calls us to do.  It is not the Church’s job to make sure that no one ever goes hungry.  Sometimes a person has to experience powerful hunger pains in the natural before they ever come awake to the powerful, spiritual hunger pains that they have been running from.  It is our job to follow Jesus in truth.  It is our job to be led by the Spirit of Christ as we minister to and care for those who are believers and those who are lost.

May God help us to be open enough that others in the body would know if we are hurting.  This is nothing to be ashamed of.  It is an opportunity for Christ to demonstrate his compassion in us and through others.

All Things In Common audio

Where Are We Headed? Part 2

Subtitle: Stuck in a Fallen World

Colossians 1:16-17; 1 Peter 5:8; Exodus 34:6. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on March 20, 2022.

Last week, we talked about the delusion that humanity has embraced that we do not need God, or a god, to accomplish what the Bible says God has promised.  So, we talked about how we double down on intervention, treating society like a social experiment.  The biblical framework does not have a problem with intervention so long as it is surrendered to the sovereignty of God.

Today, we can see that the world as a whole is moving towards either thinking there is no God, or gods even.  Yet, we will posit that, if there are “gods,” they are merely a part of the universe and only more advanced than us.

Regardless of this, we are refusing to listen to God’s King, Jesus, who has revealed truth to us personally and through his apostles.  In a sense, we want there to be no God, or at least for Him to leave us alone and cede the universe.

Problems with God ceding the universe

There are some big problems with this idea that God could abdicate His authority over the universe, that is, for Him to act as if He doesn’t exist and let us do what we want.  Look at Colossians 1:16-17.

When we read this, we run first into the fact that everything was made through Jesus, and it was made for him.  The whole purpose of the universe was to be for Jesus, so Christ would have to be giving it up even after having died for it.  It seems that this is not an option, since He went through such great lengths to redeem it.

Yet, we run into another problem at the end of verse 17.  It says that “in Him all things consist.”  The word “consist” has the idea of being set, or established, together.  It is a picture of the many complex systems that exist and are even inter-related.  It is not entirely clear that all things would continue to stay together if God completely ceded His authority.  Thus, we would need God to keep everything in the universe running for us, and yet stay out of our affairs.

There is another problem with God ceding the universe that we can see in 1 Peter 5:8. Even if God agreed to keep the universe running, and give up His claim on it, we are not alone in this universe.  There are interdimensional beings who have already shown a penchant for enslaving and abusing humanity.  They are light-years beyond us in abilities and knowledge, and they have the character of a hungry lion towards us.  The devil and his angels want to devour us, metaphorically speaking, and perhaps literally for that matter.

The only way that we can win against them is to resist them “steadfast in the faith.”  This is the same faith that Jude spoke of in his letter, verse 3.  “…[C]ontend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.”  To stand against them, one needs to do so with complete confidence in the God that we don’t want to believe in.  This is a big problem.

Now, we would need God to keep everything running, and we would need Him to keep any higher powers from messing with us, all while acting as if He doesn’t exist.

Finally, let’s look at Exodus 34:6. Several times, we see God proclaiming to Moses His own character, specifically, that He is gracious and has a steadfast love- this includes the notion of mercy.  If God really is gracious and loves steadfastly, could He agree to what we are asking Him to do?

Let us explore an illustration from the family.  Let’s say that your adult son loves to game with his buddies all of the time.  Sometimes they even come over and eat a bunch of food while networking their systems together to play.  Let’s say that your son comes to you and asks you to provide for the house to be used by him and his buddies, as well as keep it fully stocked with food, water, power, etc.  Similarly, they ask you to provide 24/7 security so that they can be safe.  And, they want to pretend that you don’t exist.  In fact, you should just move out and expect no more communication from them ever.

I’ve taken some time to put the picture on the table.  Now, put aside the fact that all parents would be highly offended at such a plan.  Could a good parent go along with such demands?  And, if they did, would this be good for their son and his buddies?  What kind of people would they become under such circumstances?  Perhaps, we should recognize that God is often the counter-balance to our wickedness.  A good God could not go along with this idea and still remain good.

Where would we end up if God allowed us to have it to ourselves?

If there was some way that God could agree to all of the above, where would we end up?  There are several possibilities of which I do not believe any of them end well.

First, we could destroy ourselves, which is most likely.  Even secular prognosticators of the future warn that we are most likely going to destroy the whole human race before we develop the technology to spread out.  This is what drives guys like Elon Musk.  We have to get some humans off of this rock before we destroy the whole planet and the humans on it.  Yes, many governments have continuity of government bunkers and seed vaults, etc.  However, that is a big risk to gamble that you can ride out any storm that humanity will be able to devise in 50, 100, or 1000 years.

Whether through war, or some other mechanism, our technology is at a level that such things are not so far-fetched.  If by some grace of God- irony intended- we were able to keep from annihilating all humanity, then we could only succeed to a degree far short of what we will want.

Do you remember the statements made as we entered the 1800s with the discovery of a small pox vaccine?  It was projected that science would vanquish all sickness and disease by the end of the century.  Needless to say, our gusto is somewhat tempered today.  In fact, we are seeing old “conquered” diseases come back as super strains due to the pressures that antibiotics have put on their reduplication over the years.  However, let’s say that we were able to fix our DNA, and genetically conquer all disease?  Well, we would need to fix the problem of aging.  What if we were able to fix that?  Eventually, our physical bodies would be the weak link.  Our quest to become ever more god-like in our powers would lead us to leave our biology behind and become machine, or we could attempt to go the Eastern Mysticism route and try to become pure spiritual beings.  Regardless, no matter how high we “ascended,” we could never be God, who is beyond this universe by definition and by logic.

Read this article by Eric Betz that was published on September 10, 2020, and is called The Big Freeze: How The Universe Will Die. 

“The comos may never end.  But if you were immortal, you’d probably wish it would.  Our comos’ final fate is a long and frigid affair that astronomers call the Big Freeze, or Big Chill.

“It’s a fitting description for the day when all heat and energy is evenly spread over incomprehensibly vast distances.  At this point, the universe’s final temperature will hover just above absolute zero…

“No normal matter will remain in this final “Dark Era” of the universe, which will last far longer than everything that came before it.  And the second law of thermodynamics tells us that in this time frame, all energy will ultimately be evenly distributed.  The cosmos will settle at its final resting temperature, just above absolute zero, the coldest temperature possible.”

We would always fall short, and we would turn ourselves into an unrecognizable, freakish shadow of what we once were.  What would we do when we hit the limits of the universe?  Would there be more than one of us?  Is this universe big enough for so many little gods?

Ultimately, our greatest problem is unsolvable by science.  The moral problem of man has its roots in a spiritual problem.  We are not in right relationship with God, and we are wicked.  Jeremiah 13:23 says, “Can an Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?  Then you could do good who are accustomed to doing evil.”  God is not being bitter here.  He is putting His finger on the problem.

1 Corinthians 15:50 says, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.”  Truth cannot be redefined to our liking.  Only truth can fix our moral problem, and without God, we are woefully short in that department.

If we do not have God, then the best we can do is become stuck in a material universe as fallen beings with no way out, that is, a prison universe, and waiting for an inevitable end of all things.  Who wants to be an immortal sinner who has ceased to enjoy life a 1,000 years ago, or a billion?  Who wants to be in the vice of the Big Freeze, unable to do anything but exist?

God loves us, God loves you, too much to leave us to ourselves.  He has promised to bring us to immortality and a perfect society in the way that is best for us, and in a way that works.  Perhaps, hell is best thought of as what this universe will become when God takes whosoever believes in Him into the Final State of the New Heavens and New Earth.  Or, perhaps, that is only wishful thinking.  Perhaps, we should turn back now and take His hand, and His offer to become a part of His family.

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What Does God Really Want from Me? Part 6

1 Peter 4:10-11.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, February 20, 2022.

We continue today looking at the third purpose of serving one another selflessly through the natural and spiritual gifts that God has given us.  We are going to go back to 1 Peter 4, which we looked at during the purpose of spiritual growth.  You might read verses 7-9 just to refresh yourself on the context.

God gives gifts among us

Peter has been teaching us that a follower of Jesus will live in the light of the truth that all things are under the judgment of God.  Instead of looking at the things of this world and this life with the eyes of flesh, we look at them for the purposes of Christ. 

Part of that is loving one another.  In verse 10, Peter points each one of us to the gifts that we have received from God, and he tells us to use them to serve one another.  This is his main point.  It reminds us that we have the gifts we have in our life for God’s purpose and not just to bless ourselves.

Before we get into serving one another, notice at the end of verse 10 the phrase that Peter uses to describe how we should serve, “as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.”

Everything started and will end with the grace of God.  Peter tells us that it is a manifold grace.  The word manifold means that there are different kinds of God’s grace and lots of them.  They are spread all over the world and some of those are gifts are within ourselves.  We have received them from God.  Imagine all of the things that are the grace of God that are all around us, and which we often take for granted.  This great diversity of God’s grace comes to all of us.  However, part of this sea of grace in which we swim is a particular gift that God gives to each one of us.

The word that is used for gift is where we get the word charisma.  Now, there is a Greek word for a gift that emphasizes that it is something that has been given.  However, the word used for gift here emphasizes that it is a result of grace.  It is literally the word grace and a suffix that tells us it is a result of grace, a gracious thing, thus a gift that has been given to us.

This word is used by Paul in the context of spiritual gifts, but it doesn’t only mean spiritual gifts like: healing, prophecy, a word of wisdom, and all the others.  It is a general term that speaks to both the natural and the spiritual gifts that God has given us.  The gifts that He has spread out among us are just a small part of His provision of a smorgasbord of grace.

Now, Peter gives two examples of gifts in verse 11: the gift of speaking, and the gift of serving.  These gifts are not a badge of honor to distinguish us from one another, but as an empowerment to do a service for God among one another.  This empowerment, or enabling, is two-fold.

First, there is the giving of the gift into our life.  Peter tells us to be good stewards, good managers, of this gift that God has given us, and to use it to serve others.  This is a way in which we love one another as he told us in verse 8.  However, it takes time to discover the gift that God has put in you.  Am I a stingy manager, or am I a manager who is using all of the stock for my own pleasure?  Am I a faithful manager who is serving others on behalf of Jesus?

Second, there is an enabling that comes from God as we step forward in faith to exercise our gift.  He enables us in the moment of serving and speaking.  In verse 11, Peter says that we should do so with the strength, and ability, which God supplies. 

It can be easy to be intimidated and shrink away from trying to bless others, but God is calling us to step out in faith out of a motivation of loving one another, and a motivation of faith in God’s enabling.

We must always keep this ultimate purpose in mind.  Serving others is God’s purpose in my life, but it serves a greater purpose too.  It brings glory to God the Father through Jesus Christ.  As Christians, we are representatives of Jesus.  It is important that we are connected to him, growing to be like him, and serving like him.

Just as the only way to the Father is through Jesus, so the only way to bring glory to Him is through Jesus.  Jesus is the solid ground (foundation) upon which we stand, and He is the strength and empowerment by which we do so.  Also, He is the one that we will be like when He is finished working on us in this life.  He is the one to whom belongs all the glory, and all the power of ruling, in this universe. 

Always remember that when you serve others, you enter into this holy act of bringing glory to God and take your place beside the Lord Jesus Christ.  May God help us to selflessly serve one another and bring glory to God the Father!

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