What Are We Doing At Abundant Life? Serve Part 1

Romans 12:1-2; John 13:6-7, 12-17.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty on Sunday, May 24, 2020.

We have talked about connecting to Jesus and his people through whole-life worship, and also, growing spiritually to be like Jesus.  These are the first two purposes Christians should be fulfilling. 

Today, we are going to talk about serving.  Those who believe in Jesus are called to serve him. He is the Lord, the master, and we are his servants.  Let’s go to Romans 12 to explore this further.

We selflessly serve Jesus by presenting our lives as a living sacrifice

In verse 1, Paul is clearly using imagery from the temple sacrifices that would have been familiar to his Jewish audience.  Even the Gentile believers would have understood this imagery since their lands were filled with temples to false gods where people brought offerings and sacrifices to them.

Paul calls this a “living sacrifice.”  This is clearly an oxymoron and yet, it makes complete sense once it is explained.  Jesus is the only one who literally sacrificed his life so that our sins could be removed from us.  It has been said that, since he died for us, the least we can do is live for him.  This is simplistic and yet true.  Paul even refers to this as our “reasonable service,” which we will look at in a bit. 

So, what does it mean to be a living sacrifice?  It means that we are living for God’s purposes, and not our own.  It means that we sacrifice the desires of our flesh, and all the ways that we lived before we met Jesus, and pick up the desires and ways of Christ.  Of course, a person may lay down their life in martyrdom, but this is never seen as a means of removing sin.  Thus, even the martyr, who physically dies, goes to be with the Lord and is not really dead.  They are still living.

The word that is translated as “service,” at the end of verse 1, has a religious connection to the ceremonial duties Israel had in the temple.  For Christians, living for Jesus is presented as parallel to the work that priests did in the temple.  This connects to the New Testament concept that all believers are priests before God in the New Covenant.  What we do in this life and the purposes for which we do it requires sacrifice and serving the Lord Jesus.  I have added the adjective “selflessly” just in case a person doesn’t get what sacrificial living really means.

As a living sacrifice, it is important to present ourselves as a holy sacrifice.  This adjective ultimately means that we are declared as belonging to God, or set apart for Him and His purposes alone.  As believers in Jesus, we are to be following Jesus, not the culture of the world around us.  They continue to plunge into ever diverse ways of rebellion against God, but we are to restrain ourselves and live for Jesus.  Of course, this is easier said than done.

Thus, our holiness has two aspects to it.  Our identity as being holy is immediate upon our belief in Jesus and it is inseparable.  It is he who declares us to be one of his holy ones.  We live for him and not the world or ourselves.  In this sense, a person never becomes more holy.  You can’t be declared as holy to any higher degree.  It simply is what you are. 

However, the other aspect of holiness has to do with our practical holiness.  No one perfectly lives their life (both internally and externally) for Jesus and his purposes.  We call this discipleship and “sanctification,” (the process by which one better lives their lives for Christ alone).  In this sense, we can become more holy.  Yet, this should never be confused with salvation.  Our salvation gives us the identity of being holy and cannot be separated by the messy process of discipleship.  In fact, discipleship is a battle that we wage against our own flesh, and should be done in the power and with the help of the Holy Spirit.

May God help us to be secure in the knowledge that we are the saints (holy ones) of God, but may He also help us to be courageous in our battle against our sin and the pull of this world upon our hearts and minds.  Yes, we must keep our faith in Jesus for salvation, but we must also learn to trust in his commands and his example of how to live this life in order to please the Father.

Another concept that is added is that of being an acceptable sacrifice.  We should seek to live our lives as an acceptable sacrifice to Him.  This again relies upon the Old Testament sacrifice imagery.  A sacrificial animal had to fit all the requirements that God had placed upon it.  They were to be without blemish and in the way He commanded.  Without Jesus, none of us can be an acceptable sacrifice.  It can be easy to look at our discipleship performance and think that maybe we are not acceptable.  However, our acceptability comes directly from trusting Jesus for our salvation.  We are acceptable to God because we approach Him with a relationship of faith in His Son. 

This sets up a tension between knowing that we are acceptable because of our faith in Jesus, and the fact that true faith in Jesus will seek to be like him by cooperating with the discipleship process.  We should never deceive ourselves that we can be acceptable without both, and yet the foundation of our acceptance is Jesus, and not our ability to perform.

In verse 2, Paul moves away from the sacrifice imagery and speaks to our lives.  The life of a Christian is not to be conformity, but rather a transformational relationship.  Paul is talking about conforming to this world, but part of that world is the religious pretenders who only conform to an outward veneer of righteousness, and are inwardly one with the world system.  Church cannot become a machine that forces everyone to look, speak, and act like the pastor or the elders.  Jesus is our template, but also the inner source of our transformation.  The world teaches people to conform to the system in order to get ahead.  Many who are nonconformists may make a different way for themselves, but even this is part of the world system.  They have conformed to the world in a nonconformist way.  When we come to Christ, the Father will not accept an outward conformance to Jesus.  If the Church merely duplicates the conforming method of the world and simply uses it for its own purposes then it is not what Christ desires.  We would be relying upon the flesh rather than the Spirit of God.  People do not necessarily need to look a certain way.  There is no power in that.  What we really need is the Holy Spirit within us fueling and directing a change that is more than surface.  It is a complete transformation that is related to the word that we use today, “metamorphosis.”

Don’t settle for a life that isn’t changing to become more like Jesus, but neither settle for a life that only looks enough like Jesus on the surface to get you by.  Paul states that this transformation takes place as our minds are renewed.  The world has taught us all manner of things that are completely hostile towards the things of God.  We don’t often know all the ways that our mindset is actually antichrist, like Judas was.  God’s Word, His Holy Spirit, and the community of mature believers, surround us with the power to change our minds and thus to transform our lives.  This is not merely a power of the mind, but is a mind renewed by the working of God’s Spirit.

Ultimately, Paul says that we will end up proving that God’s will is perfect.  This is one of the ways that we serve Him.  We serve as His proof to the world and to the devil and his angels.  Satan has rebelled against God because he thinks his way is better.  May we live in such a way- you know, like Jesus- so as to prove the Father’s way right.  In fact, our transformation doesn’t stop in this life.  On the day of Resurrection, our transformation will be completed and we will stand beside our Lord Jesus as completed, adult Sons of God.  We will be a myriad of proofs against the will of Satan and those who follow him.

Now, let’s look at one more passage to talk about another side of our service to Jesus.

We selflessly serve Jesus by serving one another

In John 13, Jesus is interacting with his disciples in the last hours before he is arrested and crucified.  There is a duality throughout the first three purposes in which Jesus and his people are inseparable.  I can’t only connect to Jesus.  I also need to connect to his people.  I can’t only grow spiritually as an individual.  I also need to grow as a part of a group of people that are becoming more like Jesus corporately.  So, it is here.  We must serve Jesus, but part of that service is to serve one another with a selfless attitude. 

Jesus employs the washing of feet as a powerful picture to prove to us that he means business in this area of service. He took up a basin of water and a towel, and washed each one of their feet.  Think of it.  They had gone through dinner lying next to each other’s dirty feet.  Not one of them was willing to take the lowest place and wash each other’s feet.  In fact, they hadn’t even taken the time to wash their own feet.  This is important because Jesus did not rebuke them and tell them to wash their own feet.  Instead, he gets up and focuses their attention on serving one another.

Peter is surprised at what Jesus is doing.  Of all of the people there, he was the last one that should do such a menial task.  Peter protests, and, in so doing, becomes a picture of how our flesh protests learning to selfless serve others.  What Jesus was doing was so across the grain of Peter’s own mentality (if we are honest, ours too) that he doesn’t want to accept it.  Humility is not something that our flesh immediately embraces.  Humility simply means that there is nothing that is “beneath me,” when it comes to serving Jesus and serving each other.  When love sees that something lowly must be done, it rises up and goes to work without pride or arrogance.  Our flesh doesn’t like this.  We can only do it if a true transformation is happening in our hearts, minds, and lives.  You could say that it is a test to see if we will follow over the top of the protests of our flesh.

The noble motivation for serving one another is to have our hearts so transformed by the love of God that we now serve each other out of that same love.  However, love is not just a feeling.  It is a decision for a beneficial course of action that is mixed with the understanding that we are obligated by Jesus to serve each other.  Once Jesus took the lowest place, none of his disciples could ever again pretend that service of others was beneath them.  To refuse to serve each other is to demonstrate that we think we are above Christ.  In question form, it is this way.  If taking the lowest place to serve us was not beneath Jesus then how could it be beneath me?  It isn’t.  We either cling to our pride, and then perish, or we surrender it and follow Jesus.  Just like the cross is a hideous image to our flesh, so the basin and the towel are another image that causes our flesh to shrink back. 

Jesus drives the point home in verse 16.  The servant is not greater than the master.  None of us are greater than him, and he took the lowest place.  We can’t out do Jesus, but we can surrender and seek to become like him.

Jesus also calls this an example.  His intention is not to set up a ritual of foot-washing services, although they can serve the purpose of shocking us out of lethargy.  This was just one small area that was relevant to those 12 men in that moment.  Elsewhere in the New Testament, we see Tabitha making clothes for the poor, and others selling some of their possessions in order that widows could receive the care that they needed.  The key is not conforming to a particular act, but rather being transformed into a servant that sees the needs of people and serve them.

In the moment, Jesus washed their feet because his love for them compelled him to do it.  He knew that they would need this lesson in the trying times ahead.  May God help us to see each other enough to know how to use the gifts that He has given us in order to serve one another with humility.

Jesus ends the portion by telling us that we will be blessed by God if we do this.  This blessing is both as an individual and as a group.  Our families will be blessed when we serve one another, and our church will be blessed when we serve one another.

The blessing of God should not be seen as some kind of lucky rabbit’s foot that makes everything go well.  Instead, the blessing is the pleasure of God who walks before you, behind you and at your side.  Lord, we bless you today because you are the source of all blessings.  Help us to learn how to serve like you did.

Serve I audio

The Cross of Jesus

Happy Resurrection Sunday!

John 12:20-26.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Resurrection Sunday, April 12, 2020.

Today, we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead as the Lord of Life!  We are going to put the Gospel of Mark on pause for a while, and we are going to turn to the cross of Jesus.  In the weeks ahead, I plan to walk through the purpose that God has for His Church and each individual who makes up that Church.

Now, for the topic at hand, many tyrannical places around the world despise the cross of Jesus.  This week stories came out of China telling how crosses were broken off of churches.  When the Byzantine Empire was taken out by Muslim armies, the churches would have their crosses removed.  The cross is the signature symbol of the Christian faith. 

Yet, even Jesus was troubled by the cross in his humanity.  There is a part in all of us that shrinks back from the cross and says, “Surely that can’t be necessary!”  Or, maybe we say, “Surely that can’t fix anything!”

I would like to present to you the only man who can both save the world, and save you as an individual.  From what, do you ask?  He can save you from everything.  He can save you from hopelessness, failure, physical maladies, the many forms of self-slavery that our cravings bring us, and even death itself.  Let’s look at our passage.

The cross is a demonstration of his glory

Our passage opens with some Greeks, who had come to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, wanting to see Jesus.  Most likely, they desire some kind of audience where they might ask questions and learn about this Jesus first hand.

Remember that this is the final week before the crucifixion.  Jesus has been teaching in the Temple area while retiring to Bethany in the evenings.  Every day more and more Israelites arrive from around the world in order to participate in the Holy Day of Passover.  This is important because Jesus had made it clear that his focus was on the house of Israel and not the Gentiles up to this point.  This is not because he didn’t care about Gentiles, but rather, because he needed to reveal himself first to Israel.  It would be transformed Israelites who would then show Jesus to the rest of the world.

Before we move on, I would like to point out the interesting parallel here.  At his birth, Gentiles came from the East to worship him, and now at his death Gentiles come from the West to learn from him.  His life was and still is a magnet that draws all kinds of people from everywhere to him.

It doesn’t appear that Jesus granted these men their request.  Instead, he uses the opportunity to make several important points to the people listening to him.  As much as any of us may want to see Jesus, or God, in any particular way, we need to see him on the cross.  These Greeks are fascinated with what they have heard about Jesus.  Perhaps, they want to be wowed with his wisdom like the Queen of Sheba and Solomon.  Or, it is possible that they wanted a demonstration of his power through a miracle of some sort.  We all tend to approach Jesus with something in mind that we want to see, but what we “need” to see is something we would never think. 

Jesus refers to the cross as a time of his glorification.  The hour had come.  Now, things would change.  He would finally be glorified.  Of course, his disciples think they know what that means.  In our flesh, we all think of glory as something where we win and our enemies lose, and no doubt that is what is going to happen.  However, it will not look like winning for Jesus and it will not look like losing for his enemies.  These Greeks do not need to see Jesus as a teacher in Jerusalem who has all the answers.  Rather, they needed to see him in all of his glory. 

Typically, we picture the Second Coming as the glory of Jesus, and it is part of his glory.  However, we must not skip over the cross.  It was the beginning of his time of glory.  Can it be that dying on a cross was not the last part of his humiliation, but rather the beginning of his glory?  Or, perhaps we can describe it as a kind of twilight period of transitioning, where both exist and intermingle. 

Regardless, the world likes the message of a glorious savior to fix its problems.  Even today, it clamors looking for someone with all the answers.  Yet, the world does not see Jesus hanging on a cross as a glorious answer to their problems.

We can shout at God to come down out of the heavens to prove Himself, and yet, even then we want to control just how He does that.  Yes, God has come down out of the heavens, and He has pulled back the curtain of creation so that we can see Him, but not in the way that we are wanting.  To our flesh, the cross and glory are antonyms, but Jesus tells us that they are synonyms.  We need to see him on a cross, pause, and meditate on just why it is so glorious.

We are in a bind, both as a world and as individuals.  I can’t blame all the ills of the world upon society, and other nations.  No, I am guilty of my own sins and faults.  No amount of doing good can make up for the fact of the times that I didn’t do good.  I am continually heaping up more and more offenses against my fellow man and the God of heaven.

Jesus is the perfect Son of God who has come down from heaven, where he was safe and secure.  He made himself vulnerable by taking on flesh, and then he died in your place to pay the price for your sins.  His righteous act of sacrificing himself, outweighs every sin ever committed upon this planet.  It is that glorious and amazing.  The cross is intended to shock us out of our lethargy, and show us the depths of God’s love for each of us.  This is how much he loves us.  This is a glorious love.

Friend, understand just how much God loves you.  Yes, you are loved by your Father in heaven.  Without the cross, we wouldn’t understand just how far He is willing to go to save us.  With such a Father, we are never hopeless, though all the world be darkness.  Amen!

The cross is where he dies that we might live

The disciples had difficulty understanding the attempts of Jesus to tell them that he was going to be killed.  Part of that is because it seems like nothing can be accomplished by letting yourself be killed.  This is the amazing turning of the tables upon the devil and his cohorts.  Because of who he is, Jesus produces life for us through his death.

In verse 24, Jesus uses the metaphor of a grain of wheat.  The seed would normally be eaten, but then its life principle would be over.  If the seed is put in the ground instead then it produces much more grain than itself.  God has hardwired this teaching aid into His creation so that we can understand His power.  He has a plan that looks like a waste, but in the end, it produces more life than what you had.

This concept that life can come out of death is intended to give us hope.  The death of Jesus can produce life for you and me because he pays the price for our sins.  It is a legal action.

Yet, it is more than a legal action.  It is also an inspiring thing because he is going to tell us to follow him.  It is one thing for Jesus to die on our behalf, but quite another for him to tell us to follow him.  In a way, every generation of children watch their grandparents and parents marching ahead of them into death.  Why participate in such a macabre process?  Yet, if they have faith in God, they will grow up, create a family, grow old, and die in their own time.  The generation ahead of us marches forward challenging us to follow them.  There is life in this thing if you will just believe. 

In fact, there is life even on the other side of this thing.  The death and resurrection of Jesus gives proof and hope that God really does have a plan to resurrect all who believe in Jesus.  He will then set all things right, both spiritually and physically.  We will enter into new heavens and a new earth in order to receive the reward that only the Creator can give to us.

Ultimately, Jesus says that if he didn’t do this then God would remain alone.  Sure, it would be Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the eternal being who is also a community.  Yet, there would be no human children of God entering into His family.  I don’t think God processes aloneness like we do, but Scripture is clear.  He would rather die on a cross than go into eternity without His human family joining Him.

The cross is where we let go of our life, and serve him

In verse 25, Jesus makes one of his classic statements that is more than a challenge; it is a warning.  If I love my life then I am going to lose it.  It is generally the second part of the statement that causes people to balk.  “He who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

Here, Jesus describes a tension between this mortal life that we live and the eternal life that only God can give.  Let me quickly explain the hate part of this verse.  Some versions actually translate the word as “not love.”  Jesus does not want us to have a kind of neurotic hatred of ourselves.  The Semitic mindset used this word for a broad range that went from an extreme disgust and dislike of something, or someone, to simply not choosing something.  One example of this is found in Genesis 29, where it says that the Lord saw that Leah was hated (i.e. not loved like Rachel was).  Jacob had been tricked into marrying her, and then worked 7 more years for Rachel her sister, the one he wanted to marry in the first place.  There is no indication that Jacob mistreated Leah, despised her, or was ever mean to her, but in the end, he would always choose Rachel over the top of her.  That must have hurt a lot for her, but our culture wouldn’t use the word hate for that. 

Jesus is challenging us to choose Him over the top of our lives every time.  He wants us to follow him into his sufferings, not just suffering per se, but the sufferings that are encountered as we do what God wants us to do.  In this sense, we become pilgrims, sojourners, or strangers on this earth.  Yes, we love people and love the life that we are able to live here on the earth.  However, in the end, we are really living for Jesus and the eternal life that only he can give.  That is what he is telling us.

We are familiar with the phrase from Jesus, “Come, and follow me,” but verse 26 adds the word serve to this.  We cannot serve Jesus without actually following him. They are to be inseparably linked.  Many people have tried to serve Jesus without actually following him.  They served as deacons, pastors, archbishops, lay members, and even popes.  Yet, they will never follow Jesus to the cross where their self-will is put to death.  Jesus was dying to the self-life and living out the purposes of His Father in heaven.  In the end, the pretenders may look like they are serving Christ, but they won’t follow him completely.  They actually serve themselves with a thin veneer of service to Jesus to help them fit in.  We can’t serve Jesus and ourselves.  We will hate the one and follow the other eventually.

However, we should neither confuse salvation with service.  We are not saved by our service to Christ.  We are saved for service, among other purposes.  Our service is to flow from a heart of gratitude to the Savior for covering our sins, and turning us from the self-life to the life led by the Holy Spirit.  This situation is difficult and is much like Jacob having two wives.  It created many difficult moments between his wives and their children.  May God help us to choose Jesus over the top of our selfish desires because only he has the words of eternal life.

This passage ends with two promises for those who follow Jesus and serve him.  He promises us that we will be united with him.  Sometimes it may feel like we aren’t getting anywhere, but if our eyes are on Jesus then he is leading us to himself.  When we leave this earth, we will be in his presence and at his side, never to be separated again.  When Jesus comes back to earth, we will be resurrected and come back with him.

This leads to the second promise.  We will be honored by the Father.  The biggest part of that honor is to share in the honor of Jesus as he returns to judge mankind and set things right.  That can be a day of honor for you or a day of dishonor.  It is our choice now that determines which we will experience.

Today, the cross of Jesus has been set before you.  It is not a lovely sight for any to behold.  However, there is life on the other side, and what a life it is.  Don’t let the allure of this life and the promises of this world draw your heart away from the only hope that we have.  Christian, hold fast to Jesus and love him more than life itself.  Sinner, let go of your life and what you want it to be.  Instead, put your faith and hope in Jesus.  He alone knows the way to eternal life and a perfect world.  He alone actually loves you so much that he would die on a cross for you!

The Cross of Jesus audio

How Many Camels Can Fit through a Needle?

Mark 10:23-31.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday March 01, 2020.

In our passage this morning, we have the famous statement of Jesus that involves a camel going through the eye of a needle.  It is given right on the heels of the rich young ruler whom Jesus challenged to sell all his possessions and follow him.  We are told that the young man went away sad because he had a lot of wealth.  We should have that young man walking away from Jesus dejected in our minds as we hear these next words from Jesus.  The young man wanted eternal life and Jesus told him what he needed to do to get it.  Yet, he balked at such a drastic action.

I would like to deal with the idea of a camel going through an eye of a needle up front, so that we can focus on the main point when we get to it.  I am sure that needles and their holes were larger due to the technology employed.  Regardless, it is my contention that Jesus intended this to be a statement of impossibility.  Over the years, various ideas have surfaced as to alternate meanings.  All of them reduce this from a statement of impossibility to one of great difficulty. 

The most famous attempt involves a gate into Jerusalem called the camel gate.  It was apparently so small that the only way a camel could enter is to be unloaded and to crawl on its knees.  This is a great image for coming to Jesus.  However, the problem is that there is no first-hand evidence that this is true.  The Bible makes no mention of such a gate, and the earliest reference to such a gate that scholars have found is somewhere in the 10^th or 11^th century AD.   This gap of a millennium should cause us to balk at jumping on the camel gate band wagon.

Others have pointed out that the word for camel is just one letter different from a word for a rope made from camel hair.  Of course, there is no evidence that any manuscripts used this alternate word.  It is nothing but speculation that cannot be put forth as the true interpretation.

It seems obvious to many others that Jesus is employing simple hyperbole.  Camels going through the eye of a needle is impossible pure and simple.  Just like the Pharisees straining out gnats and swallowing camels, the absurdly impossible is used to press a point that we won’t actually believe or take seriously.  Let’s look at our passage.

It is hard for the wealthy to enter into God’s Kingdom (23-27)

The rich man may still be in their sights as he trails off over the horizon.  Here, Jesus uses the moment to teach an important thing to his disciples.  Jesus makes a statement that it is hard or difficult for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God.  I believe that Jesus is connecting the Kingdom of God back to the young man’s desire for eternal life.  Though they are two different concepts, they are very connected.  Those who have eternal life will participate in the coming Kingdom of God, in which the Messiah of God rules over the earth from Jerusalem.  They are one and the same.  We are not just talking about a reward here, but, even more foundational, also salvation.  This is a statement of difficulty that catches the disciples by surprise.

How can it be difficult for rich people to be saved?  They had been taught that good Israelites would be blessed by God with wealth.  Of course, they knew that wicked people could be rich, but our context is about an Israelite who has been observant of the Law of Moses his whole life.  Surely, the wealth of such a man was proof of God’s blessing, favor, and salvation.  This man is the poster boy for what all religious Israelites of the time would aim to be.

It is definitely easier for our age to swallow this statement.  We might be some of the first to say, “Right on Jesus.  Give it to those 1%-ers.”   Riches add temptation and hindrances to our hearts and minds that the lack of them do not.  Yes, riches can be a boon in life, but only if you aren’t a slave to them.  This is much easier said than done.  It is sad that many Christians in the West believe that they will be wealthy if they are truly pleasing God.  We must be very careful about such notions because Jesus never said that.  Yet, Jesus doesn’t stop there. 

They are amazed with this statement, so he turns around and gives them the statement again.  This time Jesus emphasizes that trust in riches is the problem.  As he said elsewhere, it is hard to serve wealth and God.  One of them will win your heart, and you will despise the other.  Our treasure is where our heart lies and the rich tend to have their heart in the wealth of this life.  They trust in riches in the way that they should be trusting in God.  They may desire eternal life, but they are unwilling to divorce their heart from their riches in order to come into relationship with the God of heaven.  Thus, Jesus has made a similar statement of difficulty regarding the salvation of rich people.

If Jesus had stopped here then it would have been a remarkable lesson to absorb for these first century Israelites.  However, Jesus then gives a metaphor that compares something that he has said is difficult to something that is basically impossible.  This is the metaphor of the camel.  A rich man being saved is not just a little difficult.  It is more difficult than a camel going through the eye of an actual needle (no one said the camel had to survive the experience).    That degree of difficulty can only be described as impossible.  Is Jesus really saying that it is basically impossible for rich people to be saved?  Yes, I believe he is.  Hang with me if you can.

We see Jesus using hyperbole in many places.  He told the Pharisees that they swallowed camels as a picture of the size of the false teachings that they had accepted all the while straining out, or rejecting, the smallest of deviations from the Law.  Yes, in the natural swallowing a camel is impossible, but theologically these Pharisees were doing it every day.  We are not intended to minimize the hyperbole, but rather see the contrasting items in a greater light.  The Pharisees were not just a little bit wrong.  They were hugely and absurdly wrong.  There is a part of us that laughingly thinks that we would rather take our chances when it comes to riches.  Like Topol in Fiddler on the Roof, we are tempted to state that if riches are a curse then may God smite us with it…and may we never recover!  Such things make for a humorous play or movie, but this is no laughing matter.  Jesus intends to put the fear of God in his disciples. 

Do I actually believe that being rich makes it so difficult to be saved that it is basically impossible, statistically a zero chance?  If it sounds shocking to you then you are in good company.  The disciples are even more amazed than before.  They whisper among themselves, “Then who can be saved?”  It reminds me of the time that Jesus taught on divorce.  By the time he was done, they were exasperated and stated, “If that is the case then it is better not to marry!”  Even religious communities can inoculate us to the pure or raw truth of God.  The teachings of their day pointed to the rich observant Israelite as a success story.  Were not the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob wealthy men?  Did not the Law of Moses promise wealth and bounty to Israel when they obeyed God?  Yes, all of these things are true.  Yet, we might ask ourselves this.  Did Abraham trust in his riches and cling to them rather than follow God?  Did his riches mean more to him than a relationship with the God of heaven?

It is similar to the wisdom of Solomon.  Many things that seem to be a blessing in this life only add a bigger burden to our task.  If your mission is to enjoy life the most you can then maybe riches can help.  However, if your goal is to come through this life with the assurance of eternal life then many things that we call blessings are actually making it harder.

The point is not that we shouldn’t have wealth or even wisdom.  Rather, we must be wide awake and alert to the difficulties that they present to us.  Jesus gives an answer to the question they are asking (that is, who can be saved), which seems to end up with the answer, no one.

It is interesting in verse 27 that Jesus doesn’t say, “With rich men this is…”  Yes, it can be assumed, but I believe he makes it general on purpose.  It seems that he is expanding the point of salvation being impossible for the rich.  We all have hindrances to trusting God, whether rich or not.  Is grasping hold of eternal life impossible for us as humans?  Our modern sensibilities want to jump in and say, “Of course not!  Don’t worry.  God has made a way.”  Yet, Jesus would rather that we face the hard facts first without mitigation.  The answer is not to diminish the difficulty of salvation by pointing to the grace of Jesus.  Rather, the answer is to absorb the revealing of just how impossible salvation is so that we can then see just how amazing grace is.  If sin is no big deal and if salvation is easy then the grace that God gives us is also no big deal.   No one can save themselves.  It is impossible.  You can do good works until you are blue in the face and it won’t fix your problem before God.  In the end, you will still be a person in love with things of this world more than God.

Jesus then turns the shocking statement on its head.  With God all things are possible, even the impossible.  If I am in relationship with God then my impossible situation now becomes possible.  This is a huge problem.  The average person on the street who isn’t a believer thinks that they are good enough that God sort of owes it to them to let them into his kingdom.  Sadly, many Christians today have an extremely low view of the grace of God because their view of sin is depraved.  God by definition is great at dealing with impossible things.  The Old Testament is full of impossible situations that God made possible.  Thus, salvation takes an intervention from God Himself, and even then, He only makes it possible.  Jesus had made salvation possible for the rich young ruler in that moment, but he went away sad that he couldn’t have eternal life and his love of wealth.

Yes, salvation is as simple as yielding to Christ, and yet as difficult as parting with all your wealth, or parting the Red Sea.  It is a spiritual work that will never happen without the help of God Himself.  Our story is about rich people, but they are not the only ones who find it difficult to obtain eternal life.  Be careful that the things of this world do not get between you and Jesus.  You can be sure of your eternal life, but it won’t be without its difficulties of dealing with temptations and getting rid of things that hinder your relationship with your Father in heaven.

The disciples had sacrificed things to follow Jesus (28-31)

True to form, Peter speaks out about their own condition.  They had left their various lives in order to follow Jesus.  Matthew 19:27 adds the question, “What will we have?”  Up until now, they had been talking about eternal life and participating in the reign of Jesus upon this earth.  Peter wants to know if they will be rewarded for leaving all of their stuff to follow Jesus.  Apparently, he had never thought of that as something righteous.  He had done it for various reasons, but some of it probably had to do with their fascination that the Messiah might actually be here!  They had unwittingly done the most important thing, which is often the case when we simply listen to the Spirit of God.

Jesus makes it clear that those who lose something in this life in order to follow him will be rewarded.  It is important to recognize that only 12 disciples were called to live with Jesus and follow him around all the time.  However, to believe in Jesus, to hear the call of the Holy Spirit, is every bit as real today as it was then.  I am going to have to let go of things in order to follow Jesus, and not just wicked things.  Many good things will have to be left in our wake if we are to stay fixated on trusting the word of Jesus and living the life that he has called us to live.  Yet, notice that Jesus is not promising them only “pie in the sky.”

He gives a list of things that people might have to leave behind in order to follow him: a house, or brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, a wife, children, or even lands.  The list is made of things and close relationships.  The point is not that you must leave your wife to follow Jesus, but that your choice to follow Jesus may not be reciprocated by your wife.  She may try to dissuade you, or hold you back.  She may even lay down an ultimatum, me or this Jesus you want to follow!  What a difficult decision to make, and yet it has happened many times over throughout history.  Oh, how many times family members have thrown down the gauntlet and said, “If you walk out that door to follow Jesus then you are no longer related to me!” 

The apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 mentions the case of having an unbelieving spouse.  He counsels the believer to do their best in order to remain in the relationship, short of turning away from Christ.  There is nothing righteous about leaving people behind for selfish motives.  People leave spouses every day in order to follow their flesh. However, Jesus says “for my sake and the Gospel’s.”  That is the key.  We often do the unthinkable by sacrificing things and relationships to follow after sin and pleasure.  This is not that.  This is the choice that must be made when those things present themselves as obstacles to following the commands of Jesus.  An unbelieving spouse is not an obstacle to following Christ, unless they give an ultimatum.

Jesus states that these things and relationships that we lost will be obtained many times over in this life.  If you lose your parents to follow Jesus then you will find many spiritual parents in the group of his followers.  If you lose your job, house, or land (yes, this happens in many places throughout this world) then you will find a community of believers that will love you, shelter you, help you find work.  You will not necessarily own these things, and you will still need to keep your trust in Jesus, not Christians whom you think should give you something.  May God help us to learn to be a better family, a family that is motivated by the Spirit of God.  We are intended to be a blessing to one another in this life.

They will also receive eternal life in the age to come.  This may sound like a lesser prize in comparison to the earlier large list.  Yes, there is a reward in this life, but an even greater one in the life to come.  We will participate in Christ’s rule over this earth and we will have eternal life!  Incidentally, in Matthew 19:28, Jesus tells the 12 disciples that they will judge the 12 tribes of Israel, during the Kingdom Age.  Wow!  Now that is a promotion, from Galilean fisherman to leader of one of the tribes of Israel.  We, of course, do not have a specific word regarding our station and reward in the coming Kingdom.  However, that pales in relation to the fact that we will have eternal life with the One who is the author of eternal life, in fact who is eternal life itself.  What is important is that we will have come out the other side of this side road of obtaining the knowledge of good and evil.  And, in that moment, we will have healing from all that sin has done to us personally, and to us as a human race.  We cannot know the full freedom that we will experience in that moment, as we look at a whole world of endless possibilities and no wickedness in sight, both without and within!  Praise God for His indescribable gift!

Our passage ends with a proverb or adage that points out that many who are first in this life will be last in the age to come, and many who are last in this life will be first in the age to come.  If you were to poll the Israelites of the first century as to who would have the greatest reward, their list would look a certain way.  However, the real list will be created by God.  God does not judge by mere appearances.  By mere appearance, the rich man was high on the list, but his response to Jesus proves that he was not nearly as high as others would think, and even dangerously near the edge of missing out completely.

We must be careful of our judgments about how great people are.  We do not often judge the same way that God judges, nor can we.  Rather, we should let such things go.  I must quit worrying about what I am going to get, and simply work to be faithful to what the Lord is giving me to do today.  Learn to enjoy the work of God that is in front of you.  The work of the future will also have joys, but I needn’t worry about it when I am in relationship with the One who is eternal life itself.  Hierarchy in this life is fraught with impure motives and desires.  In that life, we can’t imagine what it will be like when your eyes are wide open to the evils of sin, and your flesh is not tainted by rebellion.  Oh, what a day that will be!

How many camels audio

Confrontation of a False God-II

1 Kings 18:30-39.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on December 10, 2017.

Last week we saw how the prophets of Baal, a false god of the Canaanites, were unable to get an answer of fire from the heavens.  Today we will look at Elijah’s turn, but in truth it is the One, True God’s turn to prove who He is.  As the day is well past, Elijah steps forward and starts the process of setting up the sacrifice, so that he can call upon the God of Israel to show Himself to the people watching.

Israel is drawn back to God

Several phrases throughout this passage make it clear that God does not want to “wow” the crowd.  Rather, He desires to draw Israel back to Him.  We see this in Elijah’s initial address for them to “come near” and also in Elijah’s prayer that Israel would understand that God is turning their hearts back to Him.  This is an important theme throughout the Bible.  Sin has separated man from God, but God calls out to mankind to draw near to Him through His sacrifice, Jesus the Christ.  Every time a person turns to the Lord in repentance, or a group of people turn back to Him in revival, it always begins with the grace of God turning our hearts and calling us to Him.  Of course people must respond.  God will not force people to come back to Him.  But it always starts with His grace to make it possible.  This call comes through the prophet of Elijah.  Come near, and see what God will do.  They deserved judgment for abandoning God and worshipping Baal.  But, instead, God is going to give a great demonstration of His power to them, while calling them back to Him.  Elijah is not the only prophet whom God did this through.

This same theme is highlighted by Jesus and His Apostles after Him.  Let us draw near to the throne of God for mercy.  In John 7:37-38 we see, “On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.  He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”  Also, in Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus says, “Come to Me, all of you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”  The Spirit of God is continually calling us to draw near to Him.  He wants to satiate our thirst and give us relief from the burden of our sins.  But do we hear him?  And, better yet, do we respond to Him?  He calls us near so that we can experience the goodness of who He is.

Before Elijah can set up the sacrifice, he has to repair an altar of the Lord that already existed on that site.  It had fallen apart and was in disrepair because of the abandonment of worshipping Him.  The people had grown weary of sacrificing and praying to Yahweh, and so had left off for more popular altars.  Never forget that when we abandon the things of God, their disrepair is a symbol of our lives spiritually.  Think about the abandonment of God’s exclusive institution of marriage for life.  All across this land are the tattered remnants of broken marriages left in the dust, which give us a picture of the hearts that have abandoned it.  We see the same thing with the raising of children.  Broken homes and children raised by single parents and grandparents have become the norm.  The broken kids who come out of dysfunction help us see our hearts.  Of course, we should encourage and help those who step up and care in a situation that is not optimal.    But that does not counter the point I am making.  How about the many churches around the country that are empty and in disrepair?  Sure, some of it is the fault of the churches and those who lead them, but not all of it.  There are many good churches around the country that are preaching the truth of God, but people don’t want to hear it and have abandoned being connected to a church.  The disrepair of such places becomes a prophetic symbol of our hearts and lives.  So Elijah repairs the altar because the altar is the place where an individual or a people gather to meet with God.  How is your altar today?  Is it in disrepair?  I am not talking about a literal altar.  We no longer sacrifice animals as they did in those days.  Our altar is a spiritual thing.  Wherever we draw near to God in prayer becomes our place of altar.  But the altar is about more than prayer.

First it is a place of preparation.  Yes, Elijah repairs the altar.   But then he has to put the wood upon it and then prepare the animal and lay its parts out.  Elijah also adds a strange aspect to this sacrifice.  He has a trench dug around the altar and has water poured out over the sacrifice and filling the trench.  Notice that the altar is not a speedy quick-order place.  It is a place where we spend time preparing ourselves to hear from God.  Don’t be so quick to walk away from the altar when it seems like God isn’t listening.

Of course, the altar is also a place where a sacrifice is made.  The secret is not the animal used, but the heart that prepares it, and the God to whom it is sacrificed.  God had told people to approach Him in that way.  It seems strange to us, but it is highly instructive.  First, it highlighted for them and for us the coming sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, as the Lamb provided by God.  It is also instructive because it always costs us something to approach God.  When our hearts are willing to give to God that which is valuable to us, He sees it from heaven and smiles upon us.  Elijah sacrifices a bull, but it is not the only thing being sacrificed.  The water is very precious on the heels of a 3.5 year drought.  I don’t know if it came from King Ahab’s personal stash, but everyone watching could not help but think of this as a tragic waste.  So what do we sacrifice today?  We no longer sacrifice animals because Jesus is the “once for all” sacrifice for our sins.  We put on the altar of our heart those things that would separate us from God.  Some of those things are sinful.  We should put them on the altar so that God’s fire can burn them out of our lives.  However, some of those things are not sinful in and of themselves.  We still put them on the altar and let them go because we would rather have God than those things.  Some of those things that we put on the altar, that are not sinful, will be given back to us.  We see this with Abraham and the near s sacrifice of Isaac.   When God saw that Abraham would rather have God than the son whom God had promised him for so long, then God told Abraham to stop and gave him a substitute sacrifice.  This is an amazing picture of Christ.  But it also shows that God is not interested in taking things from us.  But rather, He wants our heart to be in right relationship to those good things in our life.  They are not God and they are not our source.  Only God deserves that highest place in our heart.

The altar is also a place of humility.  Elijah publicly risks himself.  Ahab can now put him to death or in prison.  What if this public demonstration fails?  Elijah does not have the ability to bring fire down from heaven.  He hasn’t been practicing in the desert and is now ready.  It took great trust, faith, and humility for Elijah to stand up in the face of a whole nation and declare that the God of Israel is greater than the false god Baal.  The altar is never about our great ability to approach God.  It is about our desperate desire to know God and His great grace to respond to our faithful obedience.

Lastly the altar is a place of prayer.  Once Elijah has everything in place, He calls out upon the Lord.  His prayer is in verses 36-37.  He makes it clear that this is about raising the honor of God and the truth about what has been going on in Israel.  He also makes it clear that this is about God turning the nation’s hearts back to Him again.  Oh that our hearts would be turned towards the Lord in the country, rather than to the world and what we want to do.  There is no shortcut to these things.  There is only a continual going back to the Lord, preparing ourselves in humility and speaking to God about those things in our life.  What is your will Lord?  I trust that You will answer, even when I go long periods of silence.  In fact, when we are waiting for a word from the Lord, it is easy to forget to be faithful to His last set of instructions.  God has told us to live lives that are faithfully following Jesus, not our imaginations of Jesus.  We are to be faithful to Jesus and to share the Gospel with the world around us.  You no longer have to climb up into the heavens to reach Him; He has come down to us in our worst hour.  Instead of running from Him, draw near!

At the end of Elijah’s prayer God responds in great power as fire falls from heaven upon the sacrifice and burns up everything even the water in the trench.  This causes all the people watching to break out in shocked praise of God.  The Lord, He is God!  This phrase is shouted by the people several times.  There was no question on that day just who was God.  It is indeed an amazing time when God demonstrates His great power.  But this demonstration is leading somewhere.  God is about to allow the rains to come back to Israel.  Men love to give credit to everything but the One True God.  In those days they would have accredited it to Baal the storm god, this was precisely his area of strength, water and fire the elements of storms.  Yet it wasn’t Baal who answered by fire that day, and thus the people would know later when the rains begin, that it was Yahweh, not Baal, who had done it.  In our day we would be giving the credit to nature, or to our scientist’s ability to manipulate it.  But, we should remember that God is the God of nature.  As the creator, He is the One who is ultimately in charge.  Nature is following the laws that He put in place from the beginning.  Now we cannot just run out and try to force God to show up in power.  Elijah states clearly that he is following the instructions that God has given him.  So what are our orders?  Though this is a real event that literally happened, there are also spiritual lessons here.  We can use this event as a metaphor for ourselves.  God needs faithful believers who will risk their lives on the altar and publically stand up for Him, whether He promises a powerful sign or not.  When we sacrifice our lives publically before the world and through prayer call upon the God of heaven, the fire from heaven will come down upon us.  This is the Holy Spirit of God.  Instead of destroying us, we are filled with the power to live godly lives and speak powerfully to the world around us.  This is the way that God has determined to turn hearts back to Him.  May we take time to repair the altar in our lives and begin walking with the Lord, rather than telling Him how He should be running things.

Confrontation II audio