The Sermon on the Mount XX

Subtitle:  Conclusion-Build on the Rock

Matthew 7:24-27.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, May 5, 2024.

Today, we will finish the Sermon on the Mount, particularly the concluding warnings that Jesus gives.

He first warned us about the difficulty of following him into the Kingdom of Heaven.  It is difficult to follow Jesus, and they would be tempted (we are tempted) to quit the way of life and go down the easy road that leads to destruction.

He then warned about deceivers that we would have to avoid in order to remain with him in the Kingdom.  They may have a powerful appearance, but they can be known by the fruit of their life.  This is one of the difficulties that we will face on this path to eternal life.

This last warning has to do with how we live our life.  This will be tested and proven, one way or another.

Let’s look at our passage.

The person who does what Jesus says (v. 24-25)

We must be careful how we live our life because decisions and actions have consequences.  Jesus has put a way of life in front of us through this sermon, but we have a decision to make.  He calls us to join him in being salt, light, and a city on a hill that is visible to all in our communities.  Believers in Jesus are meant to be visible to all.

This sermon had three main points.  First, he tells us that we can join him in fulfilling the law.  He would teach us to see and live out the Father’s heart that is behind all that the law says.  Second, he tells us that we can live out true righteousness, instead of the false piety of the hypocrites.  They look good on the outward, but the do not care for the Father’s heart, nor do they seek to please Him.  Third, he showed us how we could avoid the pitfalls of becoming hypocrites ourselves.

Verse 24 gives us the final “therefore” of this sermon.  It ends with a tension that we find in the book of Proverbs.  Who is the wise man, and who is the foolish man?  Who is on the path of wisdom and who is on the path of folly?  You may remember wisdom and folly personified as a woman on a hill calling for people to enter their houses (Proverbs 8 and 9).  The emphasis is that wisdom leads to life and folly leads to death.   They same is presented here.

Every person had a decision before them that day.  The choice involved wisdom versus folly, but another way to view it is that is involved following the Spirit of God versus following your own fleshly desires.  The Bible tells us that our flesh is hostile to the Spirit of God and the Word of God because it too is spiritual (of the Spirit).  This is important because it means that our flesh is hostile to the things that lead to eternal life, but like the things that lead to destruction.  The choice in the moment is always this.  What will you do about Jesus now?

However, even when we choose to follow Jesus, we have an ongoing choice, day by day, that continues to ask.  Will you continue to live by the wisdom and commands of the LORD Jesus?  Thus, it is not enough to begin well, enter the narrow gate, but then fall away. 

Regardless of where you are today, you are able to turn towards Christ and believe.  We can’t change the past, but we can change the power that the past has upon our present.  In fact, if you know God, you will understand that you don’t need to change the past.  The bad things in your life that you have complained and grumbled about can all become blessings in disguise when you put your hand in the hand of Jesus.

The devil uses hurts, wounds, fear, anger, and anything else to keep us stuck in a decision to neglect the words of Jesus.  He wants to discourage you.  But always remember this.  If it was easy to become like God, then everyone would be doing it.  It is precisely because it is hard that most walk away.  Yet, God is committed to you.  Jesus told us in Matthew 5:48, “You shall be perfect , just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”  Yes, this is a challenge, but it is just as much a promise.  He who has begun a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.  Do not lose faith because He will make sure that you are perfect before Him before it is all done.

Jesus first state the positive side, i.e., what we should do.  He emphasizes that it is not enough to only hear his words (or read them on a page).  One must also do them. Hearing must be followed up with exercising our faith in Christ by doing the things that he says.  Just think of all the bright, enlightened men and women who have read the words of Jesus.  Many of them felt that there was a little bit of good in his teachings, but that they were mired in first century Judaism.  They hear, but then walk on by.

Here are some scriptures to ponder.

Romans 10:17.  “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”  If people have never heard the Gospel of Jesus, then they don’t know what they should believe in.  Therefore, people need us to tell them the good news about Jesus.  Yet, that hearing in and of itself is not enough.  It must lead to actions of faith. 

James 1:22.  “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”  He pictures a person looking in the mirror, recognizing that they need to make some improvements (comb your hair, wash your face) and yet, continuing on without doing anything.  This is not God’s intention for us.

I should mention dead works here.  Dead works are the actions of the religious who are hypocrites.  They are merely actions of the flesh trying to obtain fleshly things.  God is opposed to dead works, but not the works of faith, works that are born out of a desire to please God.  The works of true righteousness are those who put their faith completely in Jesus and learn to obey his commands by the help of the Holy Spirit.

Though we can use the term commands because Jesus did, the picture of a Father that we were made to image is not so much about commands and obedience.  These are the things for children.  But, as we grow in spiritual maturity, our hearts change and begin to desire the same things that God desires.  We begin to see the wisdom behind His instructions to us.

Always remember that two people can do the exact same thing (give money to the poor, pray, and fast), but for one it may be a dead work, and for the other, it may be an act of faith, true righteousness.  It all comes down to the motivation of our heart.

Jesus gives us a metaphor of a man who is building a house.  Those who hear the words of Jesus and do them are like a wise man who builds on a rock.  You will notice that this picture has nothing to do with people thinking you are wise.  Let me tell you a secret.  The truly wise are not generally recognized by those who are not wise.  Without the Holy Spirit, it would be impossible to find wisdom, and then become wise by learning from it.  Who are the wise of this age?  It is those who are bringing their gifts and laying them at the feet of Jesus in worship.  Many people sound wise, but they will not stand with the wise at the side of Jesus in eternity.  That is what this is about.

The rock is using foundation terminology.  It represents a sturdy, trustworthy surface that will not allow the building to sink.  The rock represents Jesus himself, and the teaching that he has given to us.  If you live your life by the wisdom of Jesus and by the help of the Holy Spirit, then your life will be upheld by the Truth, by reality itself.  Those who follow a different “wisdom” are actually building on a false truth.  It has no true substance.  Though it may have an outward form of truth, it is incapable of really, truly, holding up the weight a person’s choices place on it.

Jesus is the rock; He is the very Word of God.  He is the First Light that dawned in the void and brought forth all that has been created.  Yet, he has laid himself down as a sacrifice, as a foundation for us.  He is the absolute unifying Truth that lays at the foundation of all that you see.  Nothing has any being or substance, but through him.  Thus, even millions of people in the wilderness could not overcome the Truth that God wanted Israel to live and not die.  The waters that came out of the Rock to keep them alive are a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ.  His being struck at the cross produces for life for all who will drink.

Thus, building here represents the way that you live: the principles you use to determine the actions you will take.  This leads to consequences.  Jesus is saying that the consequences of living your life by his words is eternal life, not just quantity, but even more, quality.

This should teach us to be humble.  Have you ever heard of unintended consequences?  Almost nobody says that they want to fall and fall greatly.  Instead, they believe they are wise.  Jesus warns us to live our lives by following him, if we want to have life.

All buildings are tested by the world around them.  It would be nice if our building, our life, was never tested.  Jesus points to the threat to natural buildings, storms.  Storms bring wind and excessive rains, which bring floods.  Of course, Jesus is making a spiritual point.  The storms are all the ways in which our faith in Jesus (or whatever else we put our faith in) is tested.  The floods represent the sea of people around us who are tossed to and fro by the winds and by the lusts of their own flesh.  These same lusts can seep into our house and life if we are not careful.  The winds represent the ideas, false religions, false teachings and philosophies of this world.  Ephesians 4:15 puts it this way.  “We should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine [teaching], by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting.

False teaching is not the only storm.  The disciples were tested in the garden when they let sleepiness get in the way of prayer (lust of the flesh versus spiritual preparation).  They were all tested when they were threatened with imprisonment, beatings and death.  We are tested when people say all manner of evil things about us.  We can cave in under the pressure and seek an easier way.

We should also recognize that there are teachings of demons that promote false teachings through other willing humans.  Without Jesus, you will be tossed about like little children by the winds of life.

Jesus then tells us that the wise man’s house will not fall during the test.  It was tough and difficult, but the house was on a strong foundation, so it did not fall.  Those who put their faith in Jesus will not be taken out by these storms of life that test us along the way.  Yet, the greatest test will be the test of death.

The approach of death proves the foundation of many a person.  When we stand before God and give account for our life, it won’t matter how good things looked.  Christ will know exactly the motivations of your heart and what you were building upon.  We do not want to fall in that judgment, but instead, we want Jesus to welcome us and enable us to stand.  And, he will!  We don’t have to live in fear because He can be trusted.  Yet, we must not fool ourselves that He knows the truth.

The person who does not do what Jesus says (v. 26-27)

Of course, many who hear his words will not build on them.  They do not do what he says.  This can be in an irreligious way.  They can completely walk away from God and live for themselves and a different “wisdom.”  Or, we can reject Jesus in a religious way.  Many would follow the religious leaders of Jesus day and use the fact that he was executed as proof that they were right.  We can also live a religious looking life, but internally be as atheistic as the irreligious man.

The man who hears and doesn’t do what Jesus says is being foolish and walking down a path of folly.  Proverbs 12:15 says, “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but he who heeds counsel is wise.”  Whose wise counsel do we need to heed?  The counsel of Jesus! 

Jesus pictures this as building upon the sand.  Sand is simply disintegrated rock.  We can use our human wisdom to cherry pick the words of Jesus, those we like versus those we don’t.  Yet, the wisdom of Christ is not disintegrated.  It is an absolute whole.  If you reject his wisdom in one place, then you are also rejecting the parts that you think you accept.  An eclectic picking and choosing may feel like you are gaining wisdom.  However, think about who is doing the choosing.  How can I be obtaining wisdom by being the one to pick and choose?  Have I not made my foolish self a wisdom unto myself?  Like crossing a creek on stepping stones, we can do quite well for a while.  We can develop principles like never using wet rocks.  Yet, you will eventually reach that large rock that is dry and looks substantial, but when you jump to it, it wobbles and you fall into the water.  Not all such falls lead to the end of our life.  In such a case, we have the grace of recognizing that our wisdom can’t always determine the best course forward.  We need One who has gone there before us, and that is Jesus.

Notice that the foolish man’s house is tested by the same tests of life as the wise man’s house.  The blessing of the storms of life along the way is that we have rebukes that warn us that we are not building on the rock.  We can then choose wisdom.  Of course, it will not be a download of all wisdom in an instant.  The situation may have been bad, but it will bring forth good, if I will place my failure on the altar of God and ask for His help.

We can move from the storm imagery to the imagery of melting down ore.  When the heat is turned up on our lives, we may pray for God to take it away.  Then, we see ourselves melting and falling apart.  We then desperate cry for God to save us from melting.  Yet, God uses it to bring impurities to the surface.  If we will listen to Him, He will help us to scrape them off and be cast into a new mold.

Regardless, all lives are tested, both in the now, and later at the throne of God.  This is what makes the foolish man foolish.  Somehow, he believes that he can cut corners and that his building will be good enough.  He believes that he can disregard God’s Word and still build something substantial.  That is the folly of it.  You were warned and have countless examples around you everyday.  Yet, you persist in following the lusts of your flesh, the lusts of your eyes and the pride of life.

Sometimes the tests of life come in the form of a loved one who dies early.  God why did you let that happen?  It can come through persecution, deception, even a loved one who walks away from Christ.  Regardless, we will all be tested.  Have you built your life on the words of Jesus, or followed the hypocrites and only made it look like you were following him?

A fool’s life may even look like it has held together quite nicely all the way to death.  Yet, God is not mocked, and He is never fooled.  Do you remember the story of the Rich Man and Poor Lazarus?  The rich man looked righteous, but he ended up in torments in the grave.  Lazarus looked abandoned by God in this life, but when he died, he ended up in the paradise of Abraham’s Bosom.  The greatest test of death is faced by all.  A foolish man goes into eternity betting that he will not be held accountable to these words of Jesus, but he will.

We cannot imagine the magnitude of stepping into eternity and being found as wise or foolish.  The best thing that can happen to a person building on sand is that their house can collapse before death.  At least then, they have a wake up call and can choose to build properly.  The thief on the cross was in such a moment.  He didn’t have much time to build, but he took his stand upon the Rock, the Lord Jesus, and it was enough. 

Jesus says that the foolish man’s house will fall, and great will be its fall.  The fall of national Israel in the first century was a great fall because the leadership refused to build upon Messiah, Jesus, the Rock.  Down through history, individuals, empires and nations have continued to walk this same path of choices.

America also faces this today.  We have been building on sand for a very long time, and we are seeing our building fall apart all around us.  This is the grace of God.  Even now, God is pleading with us.  Why will you die?  Choose life!  May God help us to be a witness, a light, salt and a city on the hill to our own people.  Forget about America being a city on a hill for the world.  We need Christians who will stand up and be a city on the hill to our own republic!  This is the only truly wise thing that we can do.  May the Lord Jesus help us to build on the Rock!

Build on the Rock audio

The Sermon on the Mount XVIII

Subtitle:  Conclusion-The Narrow Gate

Matthew 7:13-14.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on April 21, 2024.

We have reached the point where Jesus concludes his sermon.  It is a series of warnings to those who have heard the teaching of Jesus.  If the warnings are heeded, then they will enjoy the fruit of being a disciple of Jesus, but if they are not, then the words of Jesus will do them no good.  Thus, it is not enough to hear the words of Jesus.  One must put them into practice in the way that he intends.

Our emphasis today is on the metaphor of a narrow gate.  Jesus is a polarizing figure, not because he intends to be so, but because he is absolute truth in a fallen and sinful world.  Thus, the words of Jesus put the ball in our court.  What are we going to do?  Will we believe in Jesus and obey his commands, or will we not believe in him and reject his commands?  In fact, Scripture reveals Jesus as the very embodiment of what the Bible itself is pointing to (Revelation 19:10).  He is the Living Word of God (John 1:1f). 

Let’s look at our passage.

Enter the narrow gate (v. 13-14)

Jesus gives his listeners a command, “Enter by the narrow gate…”  This is the righteous, proper response to hearing the Messiah.  He is opening the door to the kingdom of heaven and they need to enter.

Hearing the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a privilege and great blessing, but it also puts a big decision on your plate.  What will you do with Jesus?  This is the wonderful grace of God that He sends people with the Gospel to us.  He also forgives the sins of those who put their faith in Jesus.  On top of this, what if God only let us hear the Gospel once and then held us accountable for that first decision for eternity?  Yet, this is not how God deals with us.  He holds his hands out to us even in our stubbornness and resistance.  God’s grace allows us to repent of our past choices to reject the Gospel.

However, we should be careful not to take it for granted that we will have tomorrow, or our old age, to “get right with God.”  Now is the day of salvation.

The gate is an access point.  Jesus is the access point into the kingdom.  We need to go into it.  Yet, there is another gate, another door.  The other gate is described as a wide gate.  The narrow gate is not as easy to enter, but the wide gate is eay to enter.  There is plenty of room.  It is probably far more impressive because of its wideness too.  In fact, if we picture the narrow gate as that one degree that puts us on the right path, then we will see that the wide gate is the infinitude of other choices, and other voices, that we can hear and choose to follow.

The gate or door, as I said earlier, points to Jesus.  He alone has the words of the Father.  Jesus makes this clear in John 10:7-9.  “I am the door of the sheep.  All who ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.  I am the door.  If anyone enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out to find pasture.

There are two ways we can look at this gate.  In Matthew 7, Jesus pictures the gate as an access point onto a way that leads to a particular destination.  John Bunyan in The Pilgrim’s Progress from this Word to the Next uses this analogy.  Christian must turn away from living in the City of Destruction and go through the narrow Gate towards the Celestial City of the King. 

In John 10, Jesus is using the imagery of the flock of the LORD.  The good shepherd lets the sheep come into the pen, which represents the place of safety.  The sheep are cared for by the shepherd, who takes them in and out in order to obtain what they need.  It is a picture of life in the kingdom.  In that sense, we are not so much trying to go somewhere.  We are simply in relationship with the Good Shepherd.

If we put these two images together, then we recognize that Christ takes care of us as we grow in this life to image the Father.  This is all possible because we have a Good Shepherd.  When we physically die, we will only enter into that next good thing that the good shepherd has for us. 

We can also think of the narrow gate in the same way that Paul reveals it in Galatians  chapter one.  People can misrepresent Jesus and the Gospel into a different Gospel, a different Jesus.  In Galatians 1:7, Paul warns against those who pervert the Gospel of Christ.  Thus, the narrow path represents the Jesus who is revealed to us, once and for all, in the New Testament and, through typology, in the Old Testament.  We must pay close attention to Jesus and put our faith in him.

The two gates open up onto two very different paths, roads, or ways.  This is not a literal path.  It represents a person who is following the Way of the LORD.  It represents living a life that is informed, empowered, and directed by Jesus.

The way of Christ (the narrow gate) is described as difficult.  The word is connected to tribulation and has the sense of pressure that squeezes us.  Of course, this is in contrast to the way that the wide gates opens up to.

The wide gate leads to a broad way.  The word broad literally has the idea of spacious country.  This road is not just wide.  It is easy with plenty of room for everyone.  There is no squeezing and cramping of your style on this path.  Essentially the difference of the two gates, narrow and wide, extend to the two paths, difficult and easy.

Imagine looking through a small gate and seeing a way on the other side that is difficult and filled with tribulation.  Then, imagine looking through a wide gate and seeing a way on the other side that is easy and has no tribulation, at least not comparatively.  Note: I don’t want to give the impression that Jesus is saying that non-believers have a life that is completely easy.  However, their way is easy in all the respects that the difficult path is hard. 

Here are some verses worth meditating upon.

2 Timothy 3:12, “All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.”

1 Thessalonians 3:4, “We told you before when we were with you that we would suffer tribulation, just as it happened, and you know.”

Revelation 1:9, “I, John, both your brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was on the island of Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.”

The way of Jesus is difficult because of several reasons.  First, our flesh doesn’t like what Jesus commands, at least not all of it.  The Bible says that our flesh is hostile to the things of the Spirit (Romans 8:5-8). 

Second, the way of Jesus is difficult because the world is full of people who are going their own way, and many who have rejected Jesus.  They represent a flow of the stream in a different direction.  This is hard for us.  Also, Jesus tells us to love those who hate us and spitefully treat us, i.e., our enemies.  This too is very hard on our flesh.

Third, The way of Jesus is difficult because we have spiritual enemies, the devil, his angels, and the demons, who do not want us to follow Jesus.  They employ every temptation and scheme that they can to make it hard for us to follow Jesus.

I purposefully used the phrase “the way of the LORD” earlier.  We see this phrase throughout the Old Testament.  In Genesis 18:19, God recognizes that Abraham will command his children to keep the way of the LORD.  We should also make the connection back to Genesis three, where the way to the tree of life is blocked by the cherubim.  There was not going back into the garden as sinful people.  We had to trust God and go forward.  Israel had this same dynamic when they first refused to fight the giants.  When God told them that they would go into the desert for 40 years, they tried to go back and fight.  It was too late.  Their resistance and rebellion to the plan of God required going forward and learning the lessons of God’s faithfulness.  God’s way takes us forward through the scary things ahead of us, and brings us out the other side to the good thing that He has planned for us.  We can trust Him!

This is similar to how Psalm1 and Psalm 2 fit together.  The blessed man rejects the way of the wicked but meditates on God’s word.  It makes him fruitful tree.  In Psalm two, we see the Anointed One of God.  He is the perfect Israelite who sits at the right hand of the Father, even though the wicked fight against him.  It ends with saying that those who trust in Messiah are blessed, i.e., Messiah sums up the way of the LORD.  He is the ultimate tree of life to whom we can connect and become a righteous branch.  He is the waters of life to whom we can draw life and be fruitfulness.  He is the ultimate Blessed Man of Psalm 1 (Genesis 12) in whom all others are blessed.

Next, we are told that the two ways lead to two different destinations:  life and destruction.  Life here is the full life of God, eternal life, but not just in terms of length.  It is a quality of experience that can be described as a fullness of life without end.  The narrow gate with its difficult road leads to eternal life.  More than this, from other places, we know that the way itself has an experience of this life along the way (John 7:38).  

Yet, the wide gate with its easy way leads to destruction (death).  This is reminiscent of Proverbs 14:12, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”  We need to be careful the gate we go in, and the path that we walk (even if it is difficult).  The best things in life are always at the end of a difficult journey, and even the difficult journey itself becomes a kind of life as we persevere, cry out to God, and see His help.

The word “seems” in the above quoted verse is important.  One path seems good and feels good.  Yet, it leads to destruction.  Of course, all scams are set up to use your flesh against you.  Here, Jesus is warning us against the ultimate scam of this world.  If we follow Jesus, we will encounter difficulty, but we will take hold of the very life of God too.  If we reject Jesus, we may encounter ease and comforts, but we will find our life full of destruction in the end.

The narrow gate with its difficult way is loathed by our flesh.  However, if we continue to stay connected to Jesus by faith, we will find his supply of life flowing into our hearts and mind, even though we are in these mortal bodies.  This is why Paul taunts death and the grave.  “O Death, where is your sting, O Grave, where is your victory?”  As the follower of Christ approaches death, they can be never more alive because of what is only moments away, union with our LORD!

This is the same decision that Moses spoke about in Deuteronomy 30:19.  He said to them, “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live…”  It really is a choice between life and death, but not just in the natural.  It is a spiritual choice that impacts eternity, and that impact on eternity impacts our mortal life now.

We end with the shocker.  The shocker is that Jesus, speaking to Jews who had the word of God and His help, reveals that few will find the way to life, and most will follow the way to destruction.  This same point is made in a different context in Luke 13:23.  There a person simply asks Jesus if many people will be saved or few.  Jesus answers with this narrow gate imagery.  “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able.”  It is the difficulty of the road and the pampering of their own flesh that disables them.

In John 14:6, Jesus says, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me.”  Notice that the same components of the gate, way, destination are in this.  Jesus is not only the gate, but he is the path that we walk, the truth to which we hold on firmly.   Yet, relationship with the Father is the life that we will have, which is also relationship with Him.  Jesus is our everything.  Jesus is the fruitful tree of life and water of life that all who want to be fruitful in this life and the next will connect to.  When we do that, we will bring forth life in the here and now. 

Perhaps, you hear this and are discourage because you failed to follow him.  The apostle Peter also failed to follow Jesus, and yet God still loved him and offered him another chance.  Do you know that God still loves you too?  May God help us to choose life this morning and everyday hereafter so that we can be a conduit of God’s life into this world.

The Narrow Gate audio

The Sermon on the Mount XII

Subtitle:  Correcting the Righteousness of the Hypocrites III

Matthew 6:11-15.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on February 25, 2024.

We are picking up in the middle of the Lord’s prayer.  This is the center point of the Sermon on the Mount, and it is also a central issue, that of prayer.

Jesus is speaking to the way of righteousness in the area of prayer.  There was a lot of praying that happened in first century Israel, but not many righteous prayers.  Righteous prayer is not about quantity, but instead, it is about quality.  Thus, Jesus has pointed out that our desire for others to think well and highly of us can lead us off the righteous path in this area.

The first half of the prayer is praying for God’s purposes, i.e., His Name, His Kingdom and His will.  Of course, there is no question that these things are done in heaven.  The prayer is for these things to also be done on the earth.  Let your purposes be done on earth as they are done in heaven!

The emphasis here can be boiled down to praying in a way that demonstrates that we love God first.  We can also notice that the second half of the prayer focuses on our love for our brother or neighbor.  We not only should pray for God’s purposes because we love Him, but even when we ask for things from Him, there should be an aspect of love for others wrapped up in it- more on that later.

Let’s look at our passage.

The model prayer: prayer in relation to love for others (v. 11-13)

If a person didn’t get the imagery through the use of the term “kingdom” throughout this sermon, you should catch it here in this first request.  Jesus is in the wilderness preaching to the people, and he teaches them to ask God for their daily bread.  This would have stirred up the imagery of Israel in the wilderness receiving the supernatural manna each day.  It the recognition that we are dependent upon God for our daily bread.

We should not be too quick to jump over the natural aspect of this.  Just as Israel would have literally died in the wilderness, if God had not fed them, so we are mortal and in need of physical food.  Bread is often called a staple of life.  A staple food was the predominant food in any group’s diet.  We are spoiled today, but throughout most of history, regions had particular food that was the main source of their diet.  If it was destroyed, or ruined, then their lives were in jeopardy.  Thus, bread took on the metaphorical connotation of life itself.  No bread…no life.   Humans must eat, that is how God has designed us.  We don’t have to eat all of the time.  We don’t have to eat fancy stuff, but we do need to eat periodically.

This biological reality of life is recognized in this prayer.  “Give us this day our daily bread.”  However, God always uses natural, or material, things to teach us spiritual realities.  This is why Jesus taught using parables regarding the everyday life experience of first century Judeans.

Moses told Israel in Deuteronomy 8:3 that God had allowed them first to know hunger, and then to know His gracious supply of food in order to learn a spiritual lesson.  Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.  Thus, the literal bread that we ask of God connotes our need of spiritual bread.

In John 6:341 and following, Jesus said that “the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”  He then said, “I am the bread of life.  He who comes to me will never hunger.”  That is an amazing statement.  It is the same statement that he gives to the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4:14.  “[W]hoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst.”  Jesus is the spiritual water and bread that we need in this spiritual wilderness.  In Jesus, God supplies spiritual food to sustain your daily walk of faith with God.  Prayer is an important part of that.

We should also notice that the prayer is couched in us language.  Yes,  you need bread, natural and spiritual.  However, you are not alone and should pray as a part of a community.  This is easiest to see in a parent approaching God.  Of course, you pray for your daily bread, but I have kids who need to eat too.  A parent approaches God in prayer for the sake of the family, not just as an individual.  Yet, this dynamic needs to scope out to our extended family, our town, our county, our State, our Republic (or nation as the case may be), even to the whole of humanity.  I may pray alone in the secret place, but I am not to separate myself from others as I ask God for help.  Lord, help me so that I may be part of your help to others.

In fact, let us recognize that some people have plenty of food and money, but they still commit suicide because they have no hope or faith in the future.  This is a spiritual need that no food and money can supply, only Jesus.

I get it that people look at our world today (particularly in our cities), and they lack faith or hope.  Yet, Jesus lived in such a devastated time, and he said, “the fields are white unto harvest.”  He could do that because he spent time with the Father in prayer.  He had spiritual reserves that we are often ignorant of.  Even in the United States of America, we need a miracle of God to supply our daily spiritual bread, so that we might continue in faith, rather than fainting in death.

The second request asks for forgiveness for our sins, or debts.  In Luke 11, Jesus shares this prayer and asks, “forgive us our sins,” instead of “debts.”  There really is no difference.  The concept of debts had connotations of sin.  When someone sins against you, it is pictured as a debt that needs to be paid off through repentance and making it right.  We are asking God to forgive our sins.

However, it is connected to our forgiveness of others sins, or debts to us.  The preposition “as” is not giving a timing element.  It is not asking God to forgive us at the same time of our forgiving of others.  Rather, the word “as” is establishing a fact that should motivate God to forgive us, “as in fact, we forgive our debtors.  In Luke 11, it says, “for [because] we also are forgiving everyone who is indebted to us.”

In our private prayers, there is a strange sense in which others are always there, at least in principle.  This is my relationship with God, but I cannot relate with God without recognizing that He loves others.  If I ignore that, then it affects my relationship with Him.  This contingency recognizes that if I want God to forgive me, then I need to be forgiving of others.  Our relationships with one another affect our relationship with God, as far as it depends upon you.

This does beg the other side of the equation, i.e., when I have sinned against others.  We can demand that others forgive us, even pointing to the Bible, but that is between them and God.  It is your job to be truly repentant when you have sinned against others.  The rest is between them and God.  A truly repentant heart doesn’t require others to act perfectly.  Duh, we are admitting that we have done wrong and want others to have mercy on us.  None of this (repenting or giving forgiveness) will ever be done perfectly, without error.  Can you forgive someone for not perfectly forgiving you for your imperfection (sin)?  Of course, we can, but the truth is that too often we do not desire it.

This should remind us of Matthew 5:7, “Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy.”

The third request is generally translated as being about temptation, but the word is bigger than that, and it should be seen as properly a time of testing.  “Lead us not into testing..”  We should again imagine Israel in the wilderness.  The wilderness is not in and of itself temptation, but you had better believe that temptation is a component of what goes on in the wilderness.

God took Israel through the wilderness for several reasons.  They weren’t ready to fight all the Egyptian armies they would continue to run into along the coastal plain.  Also, they needed some time alone with God in order to get to know Him better.  This allowed a covenant to be made with God at Sinai.  Lastly, the wilderness would test their metal.  The wilderness is tough on the flesh.  There isn’t much provision in the wilderness for our flesh.  We do become tempted by the devil and the world around us, but we are just as much tempted by what our flesh likes and doesn’t like.

God often leads us into wilderness times of testing. However, we should not think that God is doing that in order to tempt us.  God leads you there because it will make you stronger spiritually, if you trust Him.  You see, when ore is tested, it is what it is.  You crush it and heat it up.  A certain amount of metal comes out of the ore and an assayer can determine how rich the ore is.  However, people are not inanimate objects.  Even as we are being melted down (thief on the cross), we can choose to put our faith in God.  In that moment, something valuable springs into existence that wasn’t there earlier.  The mercy and grace of God is with us in the time of testing.  We can choose, have faith, humble ourselves, and ask for help.  And, guess what!  There He is to help us in time of need.

There are some subtleties happening in the verbs of this section.  It can be explained easiest by translating the words this way, “Don’t just lead us into testing, but deliver us from evil.”  The point is really the heart of God anyways.  God deliver me from the evil (bad things) that I will run into in the time of testing, and there are a plethora of these.

By the way, some translations will say “evil one.”  It is true that we need deliverance from the devil and the lying demonic spirits that work for him.  However, the Greek here is simply an adjective that is being used substantively (like a noun).  The context is supposed to supply whether it is an evil man, woman, thing, or one.  In this case, there is some ambiguity, and I believe that is one purpose.  The bad things that can destroy us in the time of testing are the devil, his demons, worldly friends and societies, even my own stinking thinking.  We need delivered from any bad thing that would tempt us away from trusting God.

Are we not in a time of testing right now, as a republic and as individuals?  Yes, we are.  We do not have to be afraid of the wilderness.  If God delivers us from the evil, then only the good will remain.  The wilderness was good for Joshua and Caleb.  Do you know why they could defeat giants?  It wasn’t because they had honed the art of slaying giants while in the wilderness.  It was because they had learned that God could be trusted with even their very life.  They had learned to trust God.  Caleb was not the original trash talker trying to manipulate people into fighting giants, and scare giants with his crazy talk.  Rather, he knew that his God was greater than those giants who made him look like a grasshopper.

Be careful of thinking the lesson of this time is that Joshua and Caleb were better than the others.  No.  Joshua and Caleb were the same as all those others.  However, they trusted God over the top of the fears of their flesh.  We can all fail in time of testing, but the good news is that we can all succeed in the time of testing by trusting God with our life.

There is a question about how the prayer ends.  The second part of verse 13 is not in the earliest manuscripts.  It does show up in a 2^nd century writing called the Didache (Greek for “Teaching”).  This was a discipleship manual for early Christians and dates back to at least A.D. 130.  However, it is in a shortened form (I believe it only mentions the power and glory, leaving out the kingdom).

Regardless of whether it was original or not, it is a very biblical thing to pray, and we find it in 1 Chronicles 29:10-11.  David has been calling Israel to join him in bringing forth donations for the Temple that was to be built.  His prayer uses the same themes that are found in this closing and even matches much of the whole prayer, e.g., using the phrase “our Father.”

David was recognizing that they were all donating stuff that they had.  Yet, at the same time, all of this stuff had come from God.  We must never forget that everything we receive from God in this life (including our body and breath) is His.  The Church has often made this mistake through history.  God would give them power over natural kingdoms, but we forget it is still His.  Yes, we are His representatives on the earth, but it is always still His.  We are only stewards of His stuff.  We will one day stand before Him and give account for what we did with His stuff.  This is what is meant in Romans 11:36.  “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to Him be glory forever. Amen.”  It all comes from Him, even through Him to us.  However, all we do with it is to be to Him, i.e., for His glory.  He is the source, the channel and the goal of it all.  When we forget that, we make it about ourselves and fall into the trap of the devil.

Let’s look at the last verses of this section on prayer.

An added explanation on prayer (v. 14, 15)

There is not much interpretation needed here.  Jesus is not teaching that we don’t need his death on the cross, that we can save ourselves by simply forgiving others.  Rather, he is showing us his heart (the Father’s heart).  This is who he is.  He loves the brother that you have trouble loving.  If you truly have faith in him, and love him, then you will trust his way, his path, of forgiveness.  This is in the category of things that are easier said than done.  It becomes a litmus test of our faith and love for Jesus.

In truth, none of us can forgive those who sin against us without the help of the Spirit of God, which Jesus has supplied to us.  Still, this is a challenge from our Lord to be the merciful ones of Matthew 5:7.

We see this principle throughout the teachings of Jesus, especially in Matthew 7, the end of the Sermon on the Mount.  There, he speaks about judging your brother.

No matter how much you believe on Jesus to forgive your sins, and no matter how willing He is to cover them, He will not do so if you continue to refuse to forgive others.

In Matthew 18:21-35, Jesus gives us the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant.  The servant owed the king 10,000 talents.  When he couldn’t pay and begged the king, the king had mercy on him and forgave the large sum of money.  The man then went out and found someone who owed him 2% of 1 talent.   Thus, if we treated the 10,000 talents as $10,000 (believe me that it was much higher than this), then he was throwing a man into debtors prison over 2 cents.  Of course, the king was incensed when he found out.

Jesus uses this story to get our attention.  Yet, in our flesh, we tend to think that God may have forgiven us 10,000 talents, but my brother’s sin against me is like 10 million talents!  The beam in our eye always measures our sin in small quantities, and the sin of others in great quantities.

Perhaps, we should look at it differently.  The story hinges on what we owe the king versus what we owe one another.  Have you ever thought that our sins against one another, that seem so huge, are a pittance compared to our sins against God.  When you sin against me, it is understandable because I am a sinful human myself.  I should be able to forgive it easily because I sin myself.  Yet, our sin against God is not understandable.  God is perfect, and has only loved us.  Our sins against Him are so great as to be impossible to quantify.  It is an eternal debt.  If I want God to forgive my eternal debt, then I would be smart to forgive people their small debts to me.  Which do you want, two cents from your brother, or a clean slate with God?

Prayer audio

The Incarnation of Jesus

Galatians 4:1-7.  This Christmas sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on December 24, 2023.

It is an amazing reality that the Creator of all things took on the nature of a human in the man called Jesus. 

It is called the incarnation as a reference to God coming in human flesh.  He did not come merely in the appearance of human flesh.  Neither did he materialize like angels do. I am referring to the fact that angels can take on material form, and when they do, they look like men (i.e., humans).  Yet, it is always clear at some point that they are not men when they do things that men cannot.  A case in point would be the Angel of the LORD in Judges 13.  When the “man” ascends into heaven in the flame of a sacrifice, they know that this is not a human (i.e., a man of human flesh and bones).

This is a very important point.  Jesus didn’t even jump in as an adult.  Rather, he went through the full gestational process, was born, and experienced all the things that we experience as humans.

Have you ever had someone complain that, “You don’t know how it feels to have (insert tragedy here) happen in your life!”  This is often used to shelter a person from any input in their life from others.  There can be some truth to this, but, even with other humans, this is often over-played.  A man doesn’t have to carry a baby for 9 months and birth it in order to understand that this is simultaneously a difficult and wonderful thing.  Yes, he can’t know exactly how it feels, but he doesn’t have to in order to empathize.  If a man has his arm hacked off by a sword, everyone on the planet who saw it, or the aftermath, can empathize with the horror of what has happened and the urgency of medical attention he needs.  We don’t have to have an arm hacked off to deeply understand what a trauma this person is going through.

If this argument fails to completely hold water with humans, how much more the Creator of the Universe?  To everyone who would shout, “God doesn’t know what it is like!”  He is God.  He created all the sensory perception that you have.  Does He not know what you are feeling?  Yet, in the incarnation, God has completely taken it off of the table.  Not only can he understand your pains and difficulties, the chances are that He endured far worse than you did.  Maybe, it is us who can’t understand God.

Still, we should notice that God didn’t have to do this in order to counter our complaint.  Yet, in His grace and mercy, He takes on the nature of a human and goes through life.  In Jesus, God lets us know that He knows it is tough, and that life can cause you to want to quit believing.  Yet, there Jesus is, hanging on a cross, bidding you to pick up your cross and follow him.

Yet, Jesus came to do far more than just let us know that he is aware of how difficult it is.

Let’s look at our passage.

Jesus came when the time was just right (v. 1-5)

Paul is writing to the churches in the interior of what we call Turkey today.  The Christians there have been told by certain itinerant teachers that they had to obey the Law of Moses in addition to believing upon Jesus in order to be saved.  Paul was writing to counteract this teaching with the truth about why God gave Israel the Law, and how it functions for Jews and Gentiles.

This is an important point because we can have large assumptions about the purpose of the Law without even knowing it.  Did God give Israel the Law to save them?  Were Israelites saved by keeping the Law?

Paul uses the analogy of a tutor, or governess, for a minor child who would first step into the family business at adulthood, and then later inherit it all.  Paul is essentially describing this setting as a picture of what God the Father was doing with Israel His son.  The Law was given to be a tutor, a schoolmaster, to help Israel be ready for the day when they would be ready to step into adulthood.  This is where we are at in chapter 4 of Galatians.

Even though he is an heir, the child has a status that is like that of a slave.  They have to listen to a teacher, who may themselves be a slave of the child’s father.  This status of a slave is temporary and Paul equates it to the period from Israel’s establishment at Mt. Sinai to the presentation of Messiah Jesus.  This is over 1,400 years.  During this period, God has been using the Law of Moses to teach Israel some things so that they will be ready for the day when Messiah appears.

This brings us to the statement in verse 4 that Jesus came at just the right time, “in the fullness of time.”  There is a quantitative aspect to this because it is time, but time is not the essential element.  There is a qualitative aspect that has to do with learning that is even more important. 

We might argue against this claim of perfect timing.  In fact, Israel herself often complained of God’s timing.  They felt God was taking too long.  Perhaps, we feel that he came to soon.  Maybe that is a sign that this was the perfect timing.  Yet, the perfect timing has nothing to do with what we, or the ancients, thought about it.  For us, yesterday is the perfect time for a savior to come forth from God.

This is a statement from God’s perspective.  Notice how verse 2 reads.  Paul states that it is the Father who determines the metrics for the timing of when the young man is ready to step into adulthood.  Though Paul doesn’t mention this, we can also add that this doesn’t mean the son quits learning.  It is simply that he is no longer under the tutor, but begins to help out in the family business. 

From God’s perspective, the Law had taught Israel all it needed to know in order to embrace Jesus as Messiah, and then, to move forward in what God had for them as adults who were no longer in a slave status.

We  have been talking about Israel as a whole, but the truth is that lessons are learned individually as we corporately walk through things.  Not everyone really understands what the lesson was teaching.  Some people perhaps “learn” that they are tired of listening to a boring teacher and would rather do other things.  Others may “learn” things that are quite wrong.

Is the Law necessarily teaching that God doesn’t love the Gentiles because He never gave it to them?  Does it teach that they are irredeemable because they weren’t given the Law? 

In fact, we might ask just how the Law “teaches” us?  I would say that the Law teaches us each time that we sin, and also in the times that others sin.  It teaches us each time the prophet calls us to repentance by pointing back to the Law, and forward to right relationship with God.

This demonstrates the great wisdom of God in setting the exact right timing for the things that He does.  It is right because the experience of the “child” will have done its proper work to prepare them for the decisions to which God will bring them.   Paul boils this argument down in Romans 1 through 3.  In chapter one, he establishes that the Gentiles were separated from God by their own actions of exchanging the One True God for worshipping created things.  Every Jew would be giving a loud amen at this point.  Yet, in chapter two, Paul turns around and demonstrates that the Jews are also separated from God and guilty before Him because they have broken the Law.  Those under the Law are guilty because they have broken the Law, and those outside of the Law (Gentiles) are guilty for reasons outside of the Law.  They are both in the same place of guilt.  Chapter three follows up with a powerful statement of the purpose of the Law in Romans 3:10.  “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.”  There you have it.  The purpose of the Law is to show even the relatively “righteous” of the world that they are sinners in need of God’s mercy.  Israel had been under slavery to a law that showed them their failures at every turn long enough.  It was now time to receive God’s mercy in Jesus.

We see this perfect timing concept in other areas.  In Genesis, God tells Abraham that He would give the land of Canaan to his offspring, but not until 400 years had passed.  This was because the “sin of the Amorites” was not yet complete, or full.  They were already sinful, but it wasn’t the perfect time to judge them yet.  God would give them the perfect amount of grace, and even a witness of Yahweh through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and his family.

Another example of this is given by Paul in Romans 11.  There he talks about the partial blindness of Israel in rejecting Jesus as Messiah.  Paul tells us that this blindness to Christ would not be forever.  When the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, then Israel as a whole will have their eyes opened to who Jesus really is.

We could even ask ourselves this.  What if Jesus had been born to Adam and Eve instead of Cain and Abel?  Would they really have understood the depth and the seriousness of the problem of sin and its solution?  I don’t think so.  In fact, as I said above, not everyone learns the lessons as they should.  Even today within His Church, there are those who do not treat the problem of sin as a serious issue.

If God had seasons of learning for Israel under the Law, wouldn’t it make sense that He also has seasons of learning for the Church.  We are waiting for Christ to return, and he will do so at the perfect time.  Yet, that time is connected to God’s people and the world being taught some things.

The early Church saw persecution up into the early AD 300’s.  Think about the lessons regarding enduring persecution and the reward for those who are faithful until death.  By the end of the 300’s things changed drastically as Theodosius I became the emperor of the Roman Empire.  He was raised a Christian and even outlawed paganism.  This is why historians to this day will treat this era as the end of the Roman Empire and speak of a “Byzantine Empire.”  Pagan Rome under pagan Caesars was very different from the Christian Empire.  Yet, they are one and the same.  This season of the Church seems to teach some new lessons.  What will Christians do when they are in charge of the Empire? 

Christianity was very successful within Europe due to this turn of events.  It is interesting that Christians continued to be enamored with kings, monarchies, and emperors, and it makes sense.  God allowed Israel to have kings, and Jesus is the king of kings.  Yet, we see over and over again that no amount confessing Christ, or becoming the “Defender of the Faith,” can make a man really be like Jesus.  For 1400 years Christianity doubled down on kings, until 1776.

Did American independence transition us into a new period of learning about self-governance under “No king, but King Jesus”?  I think so.  I believe that God allowed us to establish a new kind of government that was not the failed democracies of the past, and uniquely modified the Republics of the ages.  We would now be a self-governing people with constitutions that put our servants on notice of how they were to operate.  The true human sovereignty was now collectively held by The People.

What lessons are we just beginning to understand now?  It is easy to say, “No king, but King Jesus!”  However, it is harder to live that out.  Is Jesus the king of America?  Yes, he is in position by God’s decree, but not in practice of its people.

The return of Jesus has an aspect to it in which there are lessons that we need to learn.  Yet, it also has an aspect of the fact that God will not judge the world until the sin of the nations has reached its full.  May God help us as believers to be learning the lessons while rescuing sinners out of a spiritually decaying humanity. 

This Second Coming of Jesus is a transitional point for the world.  Yes, it seems like God is taking too long, but in truth, God has just the perfect time for it to happen.  It is not ours to worry about the timing, but to be faithful to what God has given us to do for now.

Is it possible that I am spending far too much time complaining to God that He is taking too long?  Perhaps, I even have hints of threatening to leave the faith under my complaints?  Would I not do better to spend more time seeking the Holy Spirit to open my mind to the lessons that God is teaching us through His Word, and through the history and activity around us today?  Yes, I am very sure that I would.

Jesus was sent forth to redeem us

It was at this perfect time that God sent forth Jesus in order to redeem us.  There is a lot happening in that sentence, so let’s begin with the fact that Jesus was sent.

The Gospel writer clearly show that Jesus was not doing his own thing.  He was on a mission for God the Father.  Of course, this is a common problem of all the human servants of God, mixing our plans and purposes with God’s.  This is true even of the political “saviors” who rise up in our Republic, or around the world.  Ultimately, they are doing their own thing and coming in their own name.  Yet, Jesus said that he would only speak and do what the Father had sent him to say and to do (John 5:19-20; 12:49-50).  The cross itself becomes the proof that he was not just talking smack.  He put his body where his mouth was.

God wanted something done, and it wasn’t pretty.  Have you ever had something that you knew God wanted you to do, but it was a difficult thing?  Think about Mary and Joseph.  As the angel explains to Mary that she will become pregnant, but not by a man, rather, a miraculous conception, she can look ahead and see all the ways in which her society will not accept such an explanation.  She can imagine the heavy price that she is going to pay if she goes along with this.  Yet, she responds, “Let it be to me according to your word.”  Similarly, the angel appears to Joseph in a dream and tells him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife.  Joseph knows exactly what others will say and do, if he marries her.  They will see it as admission of unrighteous, sexual activity.  He too will have to pay a price.  Yet, he marries Mary anyways.

Now, Israel knew that Messiah was coming, but they believed his mission would be all about putting down the Gentiles and lifting Israel up over them.  To be sure, that is part of the work of Messiah.  We can be guilty of crying out to God for help with a long list of the things that we think He should do.  Yet, many times we do not understand what is best for us.  The first coming of Jesus is a rebuke that tells us that our greatest enemy is our own sin and its spiritual tyranny.  Only having defeated that enemy can we even talk about tyrannical forces outside of us.

This is politics in our Republic, and in any nation end up being.  A stomach churning event in which we all point the finger at the other side, or other nation.   “You are the problem!” “No, you are the problem,” comes the reply.  “Let’s lock up those people, kill that guy, etc.”  Of course, the targets of today will change tomorrow in a never ending circus of avoiding the true enemy, the sin of my own heart.

In the Bible, deliverance from spiritual tyranny is pictured as redemption.

Just what is redemption?  It starts with a person who has fallen into a state in which they have lost their inheritance, and are too poor to redeem it back.  That is, they are unable to pay the price to get it back.  The book of Ruth pictures this perfectly.  Ruth will not only be unable to pay for her husband’s inheritance in order to get it back, but she has no children to give it to.  The solution in that case had to be another Israelite who was a near kinsman, and who would be willing to pay the price of buying the land and marrying her in order to raise up a son to inherit it.

If we take that story and lay it over humanity and our sin problem, then you begin to understand why God’s solution involved incarnation.  Sin is so bad that we are debtors to God with no means of making it right.  The problem is that many humans do not believe that they are that sinful, or that sin is a big deal.  We have been cut off from our inheritance as humans (not just a problem for Israelites) because of our sins.  We are spiritually poverty-stricken and are in need of a redeemer.  This is where Jesus steps in.

Jesus qualifies to redeem us.  He is a kinsman (for Israel, a fellow-Israelite, and for the rest of humanity, a human).  This is why Paul emphasizes in verse 4 that Jesus came forth “born of a woman and born under the law.”

Being born of a woman, ties back to the original promise of God when He cursed the serpent.  He said that the seed of the woman (one from her line) would crush his head, even though he would crush the seeds heel.  This mortal wound versus an injury is the promise that a deliverer would come.  Jesus qualifies as a seed of Eve.  God could not just wave a scepter and whimsically decree that sinful humanity should have its birthright back.  A price had to be paid, and we had to agree to the terms of that payment.

Being born under the law, ties back to the covenant that God had made with Israel.  Israel saw itself as righteous among the nations.  They could understand that some Israelites needed redemption, but that as a whole, the nation was righteous before God.  It was really Gentiles who needed redemption.  Yet, the death and resurrection of Jesus under the law, and the rulers of the Law at that time, is proof that perfect laws (a divine source) can not make us righteous, or help us to inherit eternal life.  The sin-problem has to be solved.  Of course, humanity seems intent on not hearing this lesson that God has been showing us.  We appear to be doubling down on fixing things by  more and more human laws.  It won’t work because those who operate the system are just as much sinners as those who come under their purview.

Even the Millennial Kingdom shows that if we had a perfect Executive (Jesus), perfect laws, and glorified, perfected administrators (the resurrected believers), it still would fall apart if God wasn’t restraining evil.  The problem will always reside in our mortal hearts, and in the heart of the spiritual interlopers, the devil and his angels.

America is part of God’s argument to humanity about freedom.  It is great to be freed from under a tyrannical power, but now you are responsible.  You can’t blame it on King George III any more.  Politically, we haven’t gotten out of bed in order to go to work.  We’ve allowed a new tyrant class of criminal “servants” to rise up over us.  Freedom is easier said than done.

We have received the adoption of sons (v. 6-7)

We have received the adoption of sons because of what Jesus has done, because of his redemption.  In Ruth, the solution was marriage.  This image is also used of Jesus and the Church, the Bride of Christ.  However, in Galatians the solution is the Adoption of us into God’s family.  Jesus is the one true son, but we are adopted into the family of God through the work of Jesus.  The true son died in order for you to be adopted into a greater family.  When you place your faith in Jesus as your redeemer, the one who paid the price for your sins, you are then adopted by God as His child.  In fact, you enter as an adult-child.

It is one thing to be 19, 22, even 26, stepping into adulthood for yourself.  However, there is still a whole range of adulthood before you with a number of seasons filled with a number of lessons that you will need to learn.  So yes, a new Christian is a baby-adult.  We are not under the Law of Moses and so we are adults, but we have a lot to learn through the world and the Word of God, both by the Holy Spirit’s help.

We still have a lot to learn, and we are not in our glorified bodies yet.  We need to pay attention to Jesus because he is preparing us for an eternity with the Father.

Notice in verse 6 that the same words used of Jesus are used of the Spirit.  He is sent forth by the Father.  The Holy Spirit is on a mission for God too.  When you are adopted into God’s family, His Spirit takes up residence within you in order to help you become like Jesus.  Just as Jesus was on a mission of redemption, the Holy Spirit comes alongside of us to help us walk in faith through the wilderness of this world, this new adulthood.  He helps us to overcome our own sins and to become an incarnation of Jesus by proxy to the world around us.  This is referred to as a down payment on the fullness that we will receive at the resurrection.  So, think about that!

Through Jesus, God has brought you into a familial relationship that is intended to be intimate.  The Spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are a child of God, and He helps us to cry out to God in intimate terms, “Abba, Father.” 

It used to be very popular to emphasize that Abba is equivalent to “daddy” or “papa,” something a very young toddler would use.  Of course, that is a beautiful picture, and the word was (and still is) used by little kids for their fathers.

However, we should notice that it is used by Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane praying to the Father.  He was asking if the cup of crucifixion might be avoided.  Regardless, we see him resigning himself to doing the will of the Father.  “Not my will, but Yours be done.”  Jesus sweat great drops of blood as he was praying this.  This is no little kid crying out papa in the night.  This is the eternal son of God gearing up to go to war against our deadliest enemy by dying on the cross.  This is one warrior speaking to another warrior.  The word essentially means Father, but it carries with it the complete intimacy of a son, whether child or adult. 

We too can cry out to God in the midst of our difficulties and know that He hears us with full love, even when a difficult task lies ahead (especially when so).

To the world and worldly Israelites, the death of Jesus was proof that He was a sinner and not loved of God.  However, they don’t understand that this is not about the Father’s love.  His love has never been in question.  It has always been our love that fails.  No, the crucifixion is proof of the Son’s perfect love for the Father, and the resurrection is the response of the Father.

Paul ends this section by concluding that the Galatians, and we who believe in Jesus today, are no longer slaves under the Law of Moses.  We no longer need God to give us a bed-time (a superficial law that points to something deeper).  Rather, as adults, we tell ourselves that we had better go to bed because we have a lot of work to do for God in the morning.  We have stepped into the relationship of adult-sons.  We are not running the business yet, but we get up each day and report in to Jesus by the Holy Spirit.  What are going to do today, Lord?

There will be another transition to our relationship with Christ.  Whether we die or not, the resurrection will forever deal with our sinful flesh.  We will have glorified heavenly bodies and be like Jesus, perfectly in his image.

Those lessons learned by Israel over 1400 years of servitude must be absorbed by us today, while also learning the lessons taught by the Lord to his Church over 2,000 years of working for him.  In fact, we need to remind ourselves over and over again.  Praise God that His Holy Spirit helps us to war against sin in our own hearts and minds, and then helps us to be a help to others.  Christians are a people who have learned to go to war, and are still going to war, against the sin of their own flesh.  It is in that bloody battle that the grace of God brings us through, and it helps us to minister to others.

The problem today is that too many people are on the warpath to fix the sin in your life, or worse metaphorically crucify you for it.  Yet, they lack Jesus because they haven’t lifted a finger to fight sin in their own heart and mind.

All through this, Paul has referred to us as heirs of God.  We are spiritual adults, but we have only received a portion of what we will inherit.  It is not yet fully manifest what we are and shall have.  We are to show ourselves faithful with the little that we have, so that God will reward us with much by His grace.

Let every day be an adventure of discovering even more that, if it wasn’t for Jesus, we would still be stuck in a poverty-stricken state of being a slave to sin, and judged by the Law of God as unworthy.

Praise be unto Jesus!

Incarnation audio