 
# A Word From Our Sponsor:  
Trinitarian Sermons From Grace Communion International

Copyright 2015 Grace Communion International

Table of Contents

A Hunger for God

A Life of Generosity

Abraham – the Real Story

Believing Thomas

Finding Righteousness

Getting Real

Go and Do Likewise

It's Not What You Have – It's Who Has You

Jesus Walks on the Water

Jesus and the Samaritan Woman

Living the Trinitarian Life

Looking for a Better Life

On the Road to Emmaus

Repentance

Share God's Love

Stewardship of Talents

The Divine Drama

The Doctrine of the Trinity – Does It Make Any Difference?

The Messianic Secret

The Resurrection (1 Corinthians 15)

Touching the World in Two Ways

Who Is Jesus?

Why Did Jesus Die?

About the publisher

Grace Communion Seminary

Ambassador College of Christian Ministry

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## Introduction

This is a collection of 23 sermons given as part of the Word From Our Sponsor series, sponsored by Grace Communion International. You may watch them or download video or audio at www.gci.org/wfos. Donations in support of this ministry may be made at www.gci.org/donate.

When people speak, thoughts are not always put into well-formed sentences, and sometimes thoughts are not completed. In the following transcripts, we have removed occasional words that did not seem to contribute any meaning to the sentence. In some cases we could not figure out what word was intended. We apologize for any transcription errors, and if you notice any, we welcome your assistance.

The sermons were given by Michael Morrison, Dan Rogers, and J. Michael Feazell.

Dr. Morrison received a PhD from Fuller Theological Seminary in 2006; he is now the Dean of Faculty and Instructor in New Testament at Grace Communion Seminary.

Dan Rogers received his PhD from Union Institute and University in 2007. He was the director of Church Administration and Development at Grace Communion International; he is now retired, but still teaches at Grace Communion Seminary.

Mike Feazell received his D.Min. degree from Azusa Pacific University in 2001. He was Vice-President of Grace Communion International. Like Dan, he is retired from GCI but still teaches some classes at Grace Communion Seminary.

All three speakers are published authors, and you may find e-books by them in the same place as you found this e-book.

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## A Hunger for God

Woody Allen is not only a comedian, but also sometimes a philosopher with serious observations about life. As a movie director, he often wanted to deal with serious issues rather than comedy. He has a wit and a knack for humor, and that helped him earn money to do the other movies that he really wanted to do. He knows that life is not all about laughter; there is something more to life that he wants to find and experience – but I suspect that he has not found it.

Once when he was asked why he had an affair with a woman who was not his wife, he responded, "The heart wants what it wants; that's all there is to it." He had a desire, and he didn't think he had any control over his heart. He felt he had no choice as to what his heart might desire.

And yet civilization demands, and Christianity demands, that people exercise self-control, that the meaning of life does not consist in simply following the desires of our heart like following some alien power that has taken control of our life. If a person's heart wants to have an affair, to break promises we have given to someone else, to hurt the people who make sacrifices to help us, then if life is to be meaningful, then we have to say NO to our heart. We have to exercise self-control, or heart-control, to take control of what we supposedly want.

That's not really my topic for the message today, but it is related. I'd like to talk today about having a hunger for God, that we desire God as if our life depended on him, because it does.

But sometimes it does no good to tell people that they ought to have a desire for God. They already know that, and they don't have the desire. Telling them to hunger for God does not create a desire. It's like telling a man that he is supposed to be faithful to his wife, when he's thinking, I know I should, but I really want this other woman, too. Can't I have both? Can't I be faithful and still have an affair?

Well, no.

The question in Christianity is sometimes, Well, I know I should love God with all my heart, but my heart really doesn't care much about that – my heart wants a good job, a quiet life in the suburbs, a few friends, and that's about all I want. Isn't it God's job to give me the desires of my heart? Shouldn't he be serving my needs, instead of me serving him? He's rich and I'm poor, so shouldn't he be giving me some money, instead of asking me to give to him?

My heart wants what it wants, and that's about all there is to it. If one of those preachers at church has a heart for God, that's great. More power to them. They are following their heart, and I will follow mine. I can't do much about it, anyway. I can't change my desires, and I can't start hungering after God when I am not really hungry. Even if I tell myself to be hungry, even if I tell other people that I am hungry, doesn't make me really hungry.

So if the preacher starts talking about having a desire for God, then I will just tune him out and start thinking about lunch, or about my job, or a quiet life in the suburbs, or going home and watching TV, of having a life that is pretty much like everybody else's. Never mind that most people have a rather boring life, a rather meaningless life, with a few pleasures and then they die, pretty much like an animal. If they want to commit adultery and think they can get away with it, they do. They are just following their heart, doing the desires of their heart.

Can we do anything about the desires of our heart? Woody Allen didn't think so, but I think we can. I think that we are more than an animal, that God has given us the power to shape our lives, instead of being carried along on the current. I think the stability of civilization depends on the ability of people to control their wrong desires, and to seek new and better ones. I think that our decency as human beings, and our ability to keep our promises and to be loyal to our spouses, depends on an ability to say "no" to wrong impulses.

The Bible says that we can. It is not easy, but it is possible. If we are to have a meaning life, a decent life, a life of being faithful to who we say we are, then we need some control over our heart.

The Bible also says that we can't do this very well. Some people do better than others, but we all fall short of what we know is right. So God offers help. The Bible calls it a new heart. Now, this "new heart" is not like a heart transplant, where the old heart is taken out and we are given a completely different heart. All within one day, when we are completely unconscious, the old heart is removed and the new heart is placed inside us. No, the Bible is not talking about a physical organ, but a spiritual element within us, the seat of our thoughts and desires, the spiritual reality of who we are.

God does not simply kill us and start all over. He does not take over our hearts and change our desires overnight without any involvement from us. No, God works on the heart that we already have, changing it – not putting in a completely new heart, but making the old one new.

This takes time, and it takes our involvement. This process of change comes when we say "no" to the wrong desires of the heart – "no" to adultery, for example – and "yes" to the right desires.

That brings me back to the theme of my message today: A hunger for God. If we don't have a hunger for God, is it possible to develop one? Is it possible to shape our heart, instead of letting it dictate our lives?

Yes, it is. But of course you have to want this result in your life, so what do you do if you don't want it? What if this hunger for God sounds really boring, what if you'd really rather have a good job, a nice house in the suburbs, and a few friends?

C.S. Lewis compares it to a boy who is so busy making mudpies in the back alleyway, that he does not want to go on a holiday at the beach. Lewis says that the problem often is not that we have strong desires for wrong things, but simply that our desires are too weak. We are too easily satisfied with mudpies, when we should be looking for, longing for, hungering for, something much more.

There is nothing wrong with a good job, a nice house in the suburbs, and a few friends. But there is far more to life than this, and there is something wrong if we are satisfied with a life that has no more than this. There is nothing wrong with the boy who is happy to make mudpies in the back alleyway, but there is something seriously wrong if he continues to make mudpies for the rest of his life.

So if your goal in life is to have a good job, a nice house, and good friends, well, that's OK, but it's a trivial goal. We all need to set our sights higher than that, more meaningful than that, to want more out of life than that.

"But I am happy with what I have," says the boy playing in the mud. "If I'm happy, isn't that good enough? Why should I have to take a bath and give up the mud for a long car-ride to the beach, when I am already happy where I am?" Well, the parents might respond, "It is because we are convinced that this period of temporarily going without is only a tiny inconvenience compared to the mountain of happiness you will have on the beach. If you really want to, you can take one of your mudpies with you, but once you get to the beach, you are going to see something so grand that you are going to forget all about your mudpie."

Christ is offering us something much more than mud, or the mundane pleasures of good jobs, nice houses, and a small circle of friends. Those things are not wrong, but they are just pointers to a far greater reality that God is offering us.

The joy that we have with good things in his life is good, and God wants us to enjoy these things, but he does not want us to think that this is all that he offers. It is only a foretaste of better things to come, and he wants us to desire the better things, as well as be thankful for the small things we have now. If we like these small things, he says, then we will like the bigger things even more. And I'm not talking about more money, bigger houses, better suburbs, or more prestigious friends.

Well, as you might know, this idea comes from the Bible, and today I would like for us to look together at a passage in Paul's letter to the Colossians, in chapter 3.

To make a long story short, the people in the city of Colosse were looking for salvation in all the wrong places. Now, it is good that they were looking for something more than what this life offers, but they were going about it in some rather odd ways. Some of them said physical things were bad, so we ought to live without them as much as possible. Some were apparently into rituals, and some were saying that if we observed the holy days of the Jewish calendar then we would be closer to God.

Paul responds that no, those festivals were only shadows of Christ. They were a promise of good things to come, but now that the good things are here in Christ, we should not get fixated on the promises. It's like we enjoy being engaged so much that we refuse to get married.

Paul is saying, Do you want to get close to God? That's good, because that is exactly what Christ is offering us. In him all the fullness of God dwells. We don't need rituals, and we don't need to punish ourselves – what we need is Christ. He is everything we need. When we have faith in Christ, we are united to him – united in his death to sin, united in his resurrection to life, united even with his entry into heaven. When we are in him and he is in us, we are connected to everything that God is, everything that he wants to give us.

OK, so Christ is really good. What are we supposed to do about it? That brings us to chapter 3 – let's read verse 1: "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God."

We have been united with Christ, he is saying, so that's the one we ought to be thinking about. Not only that, he is the one our hearts ought to be set on, and the one our desires should be focused on. Our goals, our hopes, our dreams, our desires, ought to be in heaven.

It's not a matter of "what the heart wants, it wants, and that's all there is to it." No, Paul says that we can choose to set our heart on good things, and we do not have to be slaves of our own desires. We can choose to desire the things of God, rather than the things of this world. That does not mean that the things of this world are wrong, but simply that they are not the greatest good in the universe.

Verse 2: "Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things."

This repeats the thought of the previous verse, but let me comment on the word things: C.S. Lewis points out that if we seek only the things of God, then we have begun to idolize the things. We are seeking God only as a means for us to get the good things he gives. With that attitude, he says, we will never find these things satisfying. If our attitude is only what we can get, if it is essentially oriented toward ourself, then we will never get enough, or have enough; we will always want more.

The only way our desire can be fully satisfied, is if our goal is something infinite – and that is God himself. We need to hunger for God, not just the things of God. Yes, we should hunger and thirst for righteousness, but righteousness should not be our biggest goal in life, especially if it's our own definition of what righteousness is. Then we will forget about humility and mercy and grace.

Love is good, says Lewis, but when we try to make it a god, then it becomes a demon, distorted away from its real purpose. If we think that love is the supreme good, then we give it our own definition and it becomes centered on us, either on us receiving love or thinking that everything else must exist so that we can give it love – when in reality the world does not exist for us at all. If we seek love as an end in itself, then it becomes something that we want, and we are the ones who are defining good and bad, and our whole project will self-destruct.

All the good things of God are defined by God, and held together in balance, only by God. If we want righteousness, we need to seek the author of righteousness. If we want love, we need to seek the never-ending supply of love, and that is God. If we want the joy of a good job and a nice house, we need to seek the author of joy, the creator of homes and families and friendships.

We need to seek the source, not just some of the byproducts. Each of the byproducts is good, of course, but if we choose some of God's gifts to the exclusion of others, then we have set ourselves up as a god who chooses what is good and what is not so good. What we need is to seek the whole package, and that is found only in God himself.

How do we know what the package is like? How do we get a glimpse of what God is like, with the perfect mixture of all his good qualities? How do we see the right balance between righteousness and grace, between love and anger? It is by looking to Jesus. He told Philip, If you have seen me, you have seen the Father. Paul said, In him all the fullness of the Godhead dwells. He reveals to us what the Father is like, and he reveals to us what we should be like.

This is not a matter of seeing and copying, as if we could say, "Jesus did such and such, so I will, too." That would be acting as if we had the power to be like Jesus, to be like God. We don't. That is why the Bible talks about God living in us, Christ living in us, the Holy Spirit living in us – we can be like God only if God is in us.

That's another reason we need to seek God, not just the benefits we can get from him. We cannot get the results – at least not in the proper balance – by seeking them directly — we can get them only if we seek God as the source of all good things, and then he will give us what we need.

If you hunger for righteousness, then hunger for God. If you hunger for love, or for peace, or for joy, then hunger for God. If you hunger for a good job, or a nice home, or a few friends, then hunger for God, too.

If you like those things, good – God has a lot more in store for you. Just realize that these things are merely mudpies in comparison to what God really wants to give us. Sometimes we have to give up the mudpies while we travel to the beach, but once we get there, we will realize that we really didn't sacrifice much in order to get there.

Let's keep reading in verse 3: "For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God."

Sometimes I think too much about the life that died, and not enough about the new life that I have in Christ. That's because the new life is hidden, and I have to believe it is there even when I can't see it.

Verse 4: "When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." The things that are now hidden will become visible, both the good and the bad.

So what do we do? When our hearts are set on God, what does our life look like? Verse 5 tells us: "Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry."

These are the things the natural heart "wants to do." We cannot just follow our heart. What the heart wants the heart wants, that's true, but it is not true that that's the end of the story. We can do something about it; we can change what the heart wants – or rather, we can let God change it.

But we have our part to do, to tell our heart to desire the things of heaven, and to tell our heart that we are going to starve its wrong desires to death – we are going to keep saying no to sexual immorality until the desire gets weaker and weaker; we are going to say no to greed, until the heart gives up asking for more and more. This is not easy and it is not quick, but it is the only way we are going to have a meaningful life that rises above the level of animal desires.

Verse 6: "Because of these, the wrath of God is coming." God will intervene – he will interrupt human history to bring in a new and dramatically different age. That is when Christ will appear and as Paul says, will give to each person according to what they've done.

Verses 7 and 8: "You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips." It's not just lust and greed that have to go – the words we speak need a transformation, too.

Verses 9-10: "Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator."

No one stays the same throughout life. We all change, whether we believe in God or not. All people are learning, growing, changing, or becoming more set in their ways. Paul is saying that if we set our hearts on things above, then we will be changed to be more like he is – in this case, more trustworthy. We have a choice as to what kind of people we become. We can choose whether to like something, or not.

Paul has not listed every sin – he has just given some representative examples. We could add more to the list, if we wanted to, by going to some of the other letters he wrote. But that's enough for now. We should put sin out of our lives. What are we supposed to do instead?

Verses 12 and 13: "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience." When we get dressed in the morning, do we think about clothing ourselves with compassion?

Verse 13: "Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you."

When we have a hunger for God, it is going to change the way we interact with other people, because God cares about how we treat other people. We cannot love God without loving people, too. God doesn't want his children squabbling with each other and mistreating each other. A hunger for God will translate in our lives into compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, and mercy.

Verse 14: "And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity." The love has to be defined by who God is, not our ideas about what love is.

I recently read a book called unChristian. It's done by the Barna research people, and they interviewed a statistically accurate sample of non-Christians in America, asking them about what they thought of Christians. The basic answer was, those people don't act much like Jesus did.

Most non-Christians in this country have attended church at some point in their lives, and they know a bit about what the church teaches. They probably have a lot of misunderstandings, but they know that Christians are supposed to love other people, and they don't see it happening. We fall short of what we are supposed to be doing.

Maybe their expectations are not very realistic, but I think it is probably true that our performance isn't very good, either. So what do we do when the church teaches that love is important, but we don't live it out? Should we quit teaching? I don't think so. Should everybody just walk away from the church and do the best they can? No, I don't think that is much of a solution, either. We need help, and church is the place that can keep pointing us to the kind of help that we need – and that's God. As Paul says, we need to set our hearts on things above, to lift our sights a bit higher.

God loves us, and he is the source of genuine love, and he gives us strength to love. The human heart is deceitful, as likely to lead us astray as to lead us right. So we need to seek God first, to hunger and thirst for who he is, and all the good things will follow from that.

Michael Morrison

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## A Life of Generosity

We live in financially uncertain times. The stock market is bouncing up and down, several banks have been consolidated, it's getting harder to get a loan, and people are losing their jobs. Here at the church's administrative center in Glendora we are cutting our budgets, because our donation income might go down.

Economic problems have complex causes, but one of the biggest causes is greed. Today, I'd like to talk about the opposite of greed: generosity. Our lives need to be characterized by generosity, not greed.

In these uncertain times, we need to be careful. A famous preacher from the 18th century had good advice for us today: Earn all you can, and save all you can. That was John Wesley. Earn all you can, and save all you can.

But he did not stop there. He also said, Give all you can.

I'd like to talk about that: Give all you can. My emphasis today will not be on the word "give," but on the word "can." If you can't give anything, that's OK, but if you can give, then give what you can.

If you don't have any money, that's OK, but you should still give all you can. If you don't have any money, you can't give money, but you can give something else, and you can still give all you can.

You see, generosity means a lot more than money. It's possible for someone to give a lot of money and still not be very generous, and on the other hand, it's possible for a person to be generous without having any money at all. God wants us to be generous, but we need to expand our understanding of what that means.

For example, let's look at what Peter did in Acts 3, verse 6. Peter and John were going to the temple, and a crippled man asked them for some money. And Peter said, I don't have any money, but what I have, I give to you. What did Peter have to give him? He gave him health – he healed the man so he could walk, and work, and earn his own money.

That's just fine, you might think. I don't have the gift of healing, so what's this got to do with me? It's what Peter said: What I have, I give to you. You may not have any money, and you may not have the gift of healing, but you do have something that you can give.

You may have the gift of compassion, of really caring about other people. If so, you can give it. You may have the gift of time. Maybe you are out of work, but you do have time, and you can give some time. Maybe you have joy that you can share with people who need it. Maybe you have patience that you can give to people when they need it most. Maybe you can give respect to somebody who needs it, or you can give mercy to somebody who needs that. Maybe you can give up the right to revenge.

Maybe you have a particular skill, or you've been trained in a specialized kind of work. You can give that, too. You can be a source of wisdom, or a source of words, or a source of work. You can be generous, even if you don't have any money.

Sometimes we talk about time, talents, and treasure. We can be generous with those, but there are many additional ways to be generous. We can be generous in the judgments we make on other people, always giving them the benefit of the doubt. We can always think more highly of others than we do ourselves.

We can give up animosity, we can give the gift of friendship, we can be generous in the way we praise other people. We can give them extra prayers, we can give them extra hope, we can give them the good news of Jesus Christ — each person according to his or her ability.

I am not asking you to give something you don't have – I am asking you to give something that you do have.

And I would like to point out that a few people may be giving too much. We have only so many hours in the day, and if we give ten of those hours for one person, we cannot give those same ten hours to anybody else. Every time we say yes to one person we are saying no to someone else.

So I am not trying to make you feel guilty, or to give more time than you really have to give. It's like Wesley said, give all you can. Don't give more than you can. You have to judge your own situation, to see how much you can give.

The emphasis is not on give, but on can. You are generous if you give what you can. You are the judge of how much that is, and you are the judge of what that is. You can't fix every problem in this world, so you have to judge whether you have something that can help, or if you ought to pass. Everyone serves in a slightly different way.

If you are sticking on a bandage when the person really needs food, then you haven't helped much, have you? We all need to pray for wisdom in the way that we help others, in the way that we give to others, in the way that we are generous with others.

Let's look at another example of generosity, and that's the perfect example: Jesus Christ. He did not solve the problems of this world by giving us all a lot more money. He had all the money in the world, if he wanted it, but he had the wisdom to know that we needed something else much more than that. Our problem was not poverty, but depravity. We were in the grip of sin, and we needed to be set free. So Jesus gave up his wealth and his high status, and became a regular human being.

In doing so, he gives us time. He gives us patience. He gives us mercy. He gives us the gift of his righteousness. He gives us a relationship with the Father. He gives us his life. What he has, he gives to us, and he does it generously. A life of generosity does not necessarily mean giving a lot of money.

But if we have money, and we have a generous heart, then it is likely that some of our generosity is going to be demonstrated in the money we give. If we have time, and a generous heart, then we are going to be giving some of our time to other people. If we have skills, we will be using those, and if we have any mercy and patience, then we will be giving those as well.

Generosity is a matter of the heart, and we cannot measure it by hours on the clock, or dollars in the offering basket, or by how often we share words of comfort with somebody else. Those might be indicators of generosity, but they cannot prove it. You are the one who has to judge yourself: Is this something you can give?

In general, generous people want to give, and they have to restrain themselves so they don't overextend themselves. Most people restrain themselves because they really don't want to give, and they use "wisdom" as an excuse for not giving. That's just a generalization – you have to judge yourself on that one.

Perhaps by now you are thinking to yourself, OK, I guess I am not a generous person, because I am not very willing to share what I have. I don't really want to give, and I don't give much at all, and perhaps I should give more than I have been. But just saying that doesn't change my heart; it doesn't make me want to give. Is there a way to change what I want, when deep down, I'm not really sure I want to change?

I wish I had a formula that would fix that problem, because I need a little dose of that myself. We always have a gap between what we know, and what we do. The apostle Paul described that as the spirit struggling against the flesh. So what do we do? Quit struggling and let the flesh win? No, says Paul. We are supposed to fight back, and do what we know is right, even if the resident selfishness fights back.

I remind myself that God is inviting me into his life, into the love of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – and his life is a life of generosity. God wants me to enjoy that life with him forever and ever, and he knows that I will enjoy the results of being generous only if I am generous.

But I'm not going to experience those results if I'm selfish, if I'm tight with my time and stingy with my forgiveness. The reason that life with God is good is precisely because he is generous – because the divine life is one of generosity – and I want to share in that.

So I ask God to change my heart, and help me become more like the person I want to be for all eternity. I thank him, because I know that I can trust him to do it, because Jesus Christ has already qualified me to be in his kingdom. He has been generous to me, and I can learn from that.

In 2 Corinthians chapter 8 Paul writes about a collection that he was taking up in the Gentile churches in order to help the Jewish churches in Jerusalem and Judea. This offering was most likely money, simply because that was the most portable way for people in Greece to send help to Judea.

But as we see what this chapter says about a life of generosity, let's keep in mind that generosity involves time, and mercy, and patience, and every other aspect of life. Whatever it is that we have, anything that we value, anything that might help somebody else, is an area in which we might have the opportunity to be generous – each according to our ability, according to what we have. Nobody is asking us to give something we don't have. We give only what we can.

Let's read 2 Corinthians 8, beginning with verse 1: "And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. 2 Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity."

Paul is telling the rich church in Corinth about the poor church in Macedonia. Those Macedonians didn't have much, and perhaps because they didn't have much, they knew how important it was for people to help each other through difficult times. So they were quite generous in the help they were sending to the churches in Judea.

"For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, 4 they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints."

They gave a lot, and they were eager to help somebody else. That was simply part of their history. The book of Acts tells us that when Paul first went to Macedonia, he was met by someone who offered him a place to stay. And there was the prison guard who not only let Paul out of jail, he also washed his wounds, and he brought them into his house [Acts 17:34] and gave him a meal. He gave what he could, and he did it generously.

The Macedonian churches began with people who had a generous attitude. These were the people who helped Paul plant a church in Corinth, and they supported him there until that Corinthian church got started. They were glad to help somebody else, and they were even more generous than what Paul had expected: "And they did not do as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God's will."

They were not doing this to please Paul. They weren't doing it to get something in return. That's because they saw God at work in their lives. Their first thought was the Lord, and what God's will was for them in the circumstances. They supported Paul, and the collection he was taking up for Jerusalem, because they were convinced that this is what God wanted them to do.

"So we urged Titus, since he had earlier made a beginning, to bring also to completion this act of grace on your part." Paul sent Titus to Corinth once before to get the collection started. Now he is sending him again to finish the work.

Notice what Paul calls the collection here: an "act of grace." God has given us grace, and he invites us to become more like he is, and so we respond with grace. Sometimes it's the same kind of grace that God has shown us – the grace of forgiving sins – and sometimes it's grace in other ways – in this case sharing material goods.

God's grace toward us, and our faith that he will take care of us, leads us to care more about other people, and to help them as our ability intersects with their need – whether it's a physical need, an emotional need, or a spiritual need.

"But just as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love for us—see that you also excel in this grace of giving." The Corinthian church was kind of a competitive church. They wanted to be the best, and to have the best. They boasted about how much faith they had, about how much knowledge they had, about their speaking abilities. Paul knows well that they had some real deficiencies in each of these areas, but he appeals to their desire to be the best.

They were bragging about their spiritual gifts, and in his first letter, Paul told them about "the most excellent way" – the way of love [1 Corinthians 12:31]. He does something similar here. He is saying, If you want to be the best, if you want to be great, then make sure you are good at being generous. If you want to be competitive, then try to be the best at helping other people.

"I am not commanding you, [he says in verse 8] but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others." Paul may not be commanding them, but he is putting some pressure on them. They might ignore his command, but since they did like to compare themselves with others, Paul is appealing to their selfish interest to help them be a little less selfish. He is challenging them by pointing out people who are doing better than they are in this particular area of Christian life.

And he points out the example that Jesus set: "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich."

Before Jesus came to earth, he was rich. Now as far as I know, Jesus didn't have any money in heaven. There's not much use for it up there. Paul is using the word "rich" metaphorically, saying that Jesus had status, and honor, and privilege. But he gave according to what he had. He gave it up, for a time, so that we might eventually have more. He was willing to share, and that is a model of generosity.

He had the highest possible status, but as it says in Philippians 2, he wasn't concerned about hanging on to that for his own self-importance. He was willing to set it aside to help others, to give to us the salvation that we need. We didn't have to work for it or do anything for it – it is his gift to us. We are the beneficiaries, and this is the model of the divine life that God wants us to participate in.

"And here is my advice about what is best for you in this matter: Last year you were the first not only to give but also to have the desire to do so. 11 Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means." Paul is praising them here. Look at what you did in the past, he says. Was that just a temporary burst of zeal, or was it a real reflection of who you are? Were you just showing off, or was it real?

We can also look at what we've done in the past. Are we more generous now than we were ten years ago? Are we more gracious toward other people? Are we more willing to give our time to help others? Are we the sort of people we wanted to be? Are we following through on what we said we would do?

And verse 12 is the theme verse: "For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what he does not have." If our generosity is done just for show, or if it's done in response to a threat, then we might try to give more than we really have. But if it's real, we give according to what we have, and not by some unrealistic, artificial standard. It's like John Wesley said, "Give all you can."

The important thing, Paul says, is whether we are willing. That's what counts in the end, because that's the sort of person we are, the sort of person that we have let Christ form in us. We don't get any Brownie points for being compelled to give, or for feeling obligated to give.

What counts is whether we are generous in the heart, and we give according to what we have. For some people, it's money. For others, it's time. For almost everyone, it's mercy, patience and a willingness to forgive. A life of generosity means giving according to what you have, not according to what you don't have.

Paul explains his rationale further in verse 13: "Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality." Paul is not asking the people in Corinth to live in poverty so the Jews in Jerusalem can be wealthy. He is not asking for a reversal of status, like Jesus did for us. No; he is just asking for basic fairness.

"At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need." Right now, you have more than you need, and they have less than they need. The day may come when it will be the other way around. You can give to them according to what you have now, and they can give to you according to what they have then. It won't necessarily be money – it might be time, or comfort, or kindness, or some sort of emotional support when you need it.

But this is not the sort of thing that can be predicted, or calculated. We do not need an attitude that says, "I will help you today only because I think you can help me next year, and then I have a right to be paid back." No, the kingdom of God does not consist of selfish calculations about how this is going to help me in the long run. The point is, that people who have ability help those who have need, each according to what they have. That is the way that the divine life works, the way that love works, and that's why an eternity with people who think in this way will be good.

I don't know how it's going to work in eternity, because in heaven, there won't be anybody who has needs. There will just be a lot of people who want to help, and nobody who really needs help. I imagine it will be like a man building something, maybe a decorative stone wall. He is perfectly capable of building that wall by himself, but his neighbors come along and help him anyway, and they all get the job done faster, and with a lot more fun, than he could have ever done it on his own. When they are done, they have a great celebration and say, That was fun. Let's go help somebody else.

An eternity like that will be a lot more enjoyable than a life of selfishness. An attitude of generosity is a lot better way of life than an attitude of stinginess. It's not a matter of calculating whether I am ever going to get any benefits out of it. It's just giving, for the sheer joy of helping somebody else.

Jesus said [Luke 14:12-14], If you're going to give a banquet, don't invite the friends who can pay you back – invite the poor, the lame, and the blind, the people who can't pay you back. A life of generosity, a life that is reflective of God himself, gives according to need, not according to what we will get out of it in return. Today, we are able to help. Tomorrow, maybe we will have needs and somebody else will help us. And if we don't have needs, then we can be thankful about that, too.

Paul's point here is that we give according to our ability. If we have more than enough, and somebody else doesn't have enough, then we can share what we have. Then there will be equality. That's what God wants, and that's what we should want, too.

But it does not come from a mandate, or an escalating income tax that requires rich people to pay a bigger percentage than poor people do. That might be what happens in the end, if we all seek to be fair about it, but Paul does not specify any percentages. He just says that everyone should give according to their ability.

In all of life, not just in finances, we need to care about other people. We need an attitude of generosity – because God has been generous to us, and he wants to share his life with us. We want to be generous in the way we use our time, our words, our thoughts, and whatever other resources we might have. We can each ask ourselves, Am I generous with what I have? Do I give all I can?

Michael Morrison

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## Abraham – the Real Story

As a boy I heard the story of Abraham recounted at least once a week, and it usually went something like this: "God told Abraham to go, and he went. He didn't ask questions; he didn't hesitate; he just packed up and left everything he knew—country, family—and went. That's how all of us should obey God. When God says 'jump,' you don't ask 'how high?' – you just jump."

Maybe you have heard a similar story. There's no disputing the point—we should put the will of God first in our lives. But we don't. Not all the time—not even most of the time. It usually takes us a while to get our act together. We might want to do what God says, but we put it off. We might try to do what God says, but we chicken out. We might even get started doing what God says, but then not follow through.

The background for the story above comes not from the Genesis account of Abram's call, but from Hebrews 11, commonly called the "faith chapter." Verse 8 reads: "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going" (NKJV). Verse 11 adds, "By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised."

You might at first think that the author of Hebrews was reading the Classics Illustrated version of the Abraham story, because the Genesis version paints a somewhat different picture—a not so sanitized picture of the patriarch and matriarch of the chosen people.

The early record is found in Genesis 11:27-32. Let's read it:

#### This is the account of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot. 28 While his father Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans, in the land of his birth. 29 Abram and Nahor both married. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah; she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milcah and Iscah. 30 Now Sarai was barren; she had no children.

#### Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there.

#### Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran.

It's a sketchy story: Abram was the son of Terah; his wife's name was Sarai and she was barren; Terah moved Abram and Sarai, along with his grandson, Lot, to Haran; Terah died. (There is no mention of the rest of the family moving to Haran.)

Somewhere along the line (we are not told exactly when), God spoke to Abram, giving him a most remarkable promise. Let's continue the story in Gen 12:1-3:

#### Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father's house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

God told Abram to "go forth from your county." What exactly was Abram's country? Haran was only a temporary home for Abram, not Abram's home country. Gen 15:7 says, "I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it." So Ur was Abram's country and the location of Abram's "father's house."

That means it is likely that God said these things to Abram while Abram was still in Ur—while he was still with his relatives and still in his home country. Which in turn tell us that Abram may have been rather slow about getting out of his country, from his relatives and from his father's house.

It would make one wonder whether Terah, Abram's father, moved Abram, Sarai and Lot from Ur in response to what Yahweh had told Abram, because Genesis 11:31 says that Terah took Abram and headed to the land of Canaan, but stopped short in Haran.

Was he trying to light a fire under Abram by getting him started? Maybe so. But whether it was immediately or later, at some point after God's call, Abram did pack up all his considerable possessions, including slaves, and traveled from Haran across the Euphrates River and down to Canaan, leaving his father's house and whatever relatives might have also made the trip from Ur to Haran.

But Abram had barely set up shop in we call the "land of promise" before there was a famine so bad that he again packed up and moved to Egypt. We have to wonder, if Abram trusted God's promise about the land flowing with milk and honey, why go straight to Egypt when there was trouble?

Abram's stay in Egypt was no triumph of faith either. Fearing that the king would kill him in order to marry his beautiful wife, Abram asked Sarai to tell the king that she was his sister. Let's read it in Gen 12:10:

#### Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. 11 As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, "I know what a beautiful woman you are. 12 When the Egyptians see you, they will say, 'This is his wife.' Then they will kill me but will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you."

#### When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that she was a very beautiful woman. 15 And when Pharaoh's officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace. 16 He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, menservants and maidservants, and camels.

#### But the LORD inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram's wife Sarai. 18 So Pharaoh summoned Abram. "What have you done to me?" he said. "Why didn't you tell me she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, 'She is my sister,' so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!" 20 Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had."

There are several things to consider here. One is that Abram handled his affairs a lot like many of us tend to: Seek the most expedient way out of a problem. In other words, shortsighted, knee-jerk, unplanned living.

What about faith? Abram didn't show much in this episode. But there is another side to the story. In this incident, Abram was weak in faith. But here's the kicker: Consider what God did in spite of Abram's lack of faith. He blessed Abram with more stock. He protected Sarai, in spite of Abram's willingness to let the king take her. He got Abram back into the Promised Land, though it took a deportation to do it. Who knows how long Abram would have stayed in Egypt otherwise?

What is the lesson?

God is faithful, even when we are not. That's a pretty big lesson. We begin to get the impression that these Genesis stories are not here to give us models of excellent living, but to show us God's faithfulness to those who call on his name.

When we read Genesis, the facts are stacked against Abram. He doesn't sound very faithful at times. But it's often the case that the obvious, simple facts don't tell the whole story, or "the rest of the story," as Paul Harvey's popular radio short was called. There is often something going on under the surface, behind the scenes, that plain facts don't have the capacity to convey.

From your own experience, you know that "just the facts, ma'am" doesn't always convey the real story. Sometimes the facts give a false impression, because they don't contain the deeper facts, the invisible facts—the heart, the motivation, the mitigating circumstances, the personal journey.

In Mark Twain's story of Tom Sawyer, the facts were against Muff Potter. He was holding the bloody knife, he was drunk, there was a witness against him, and worst of all, he remembered nothing, so even he believed he must be guilty—from the facts. But the simple, obvious facts conveyed an untrue story. There were deeper facts, unseen facts, which told the true story and spoke louder than the simple, obvious facts.

It's easy to say Abram was weak in faith. But consider this from Abram's perspective: God spoke to Abram, giving him some of the most dramatic, famous and far-reaching promises in the Bible. In spite of such unprecedented special treatment from God, Abram's life was far from a bed of roses.

For example, where was God when the so-called promised land of blessing and descendants was a parched, cropless wasteland with no kids bearing Abram's name, when in desperation Abram decided he had to head down to Egypt so he could feed his wife, slaves and animals?

Where was God when Sarai's desperation over her barrenness drove her to offer her servant Hagar to Abram to give him a child, or when Abraham had to contend with Sarah's bitter jealousy toward Hagar and Ishmael?

Where was God when Abraham's love for Ishmael was brushed aside as irrelevant when it was time for Isaac to come along? What were the big promises worth to Abraham when he had to struggle with water rights, when he had to go to war to rescue his kidnapped nephew, when he had to send Ishmael away with nothing but the bread and water he and his mother could carry, and most of all when he was trudging along beside a donkey toward Mount Moriah, like some worshiper of Molech, to make a burned sacrifice of Isaac?

Abraham had to deal with strife, pain, heartache, tragedy and grievous disappointment, just like you and me. And through it all, he kept trusting God to be faithful to his word of grace and promise. Look at what Paul wrote in Romans 4:

#### What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, discovered in this matter? 2 If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. 3 What does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."

#### Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. 5 However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. 6 David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:

#### "Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. 8 Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him."

Paul is telling us the real meaning of Abraham's story, the truth behind the bare facts. Abraham did not earn righteousness by what he did, not even by his own faith. God gave it to him. It was a gift. His faith, weak as it was, was credited as righteousness. Paul doesn't say his faith was righteousness. Paul says his faith was credited as righteousness.

Let's continue in verse 13: "It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith." Paul is not saying that faith itself is righteousness; he is saying that righteousness comes by faith. In other words, righteousness is God's gift; its free; and it is experienced by faith.

Let's go to verse 19:

#### Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah's womb was also dead. 20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. 22 This is why "it was credited to him as righteousness." 23 The words "it was credited to him" were written not for him alone, 24 but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25 He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

Did you see that? Paul is telling us the end, the outcome, the meaning of the story as God sees it. In God's view, the facts, the details, the places where Abraham was not full of faith, aren't important. What is important is what God makes of the facts and details.

We don't see unwavering faith in Genesis 17. Let's turn there, Genesis 17:17-18, and read what actually happened: "Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, 'Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?' And Abraham said to God, 'If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!'"

Abraham found the promise that he and Sarai would bear a child to be laughable at this point. He had already resolved himself to accept Ishmael, who was born of Sarai's handmaid Hagar, to be the fulfillment of the promise. That wasn't unwavering faith.

But Paul gives us the real story behind the story – it wasn't the strength of Abraham's faith that made any difference – it was the truth of God's promise. Human faith, by nature, does waver, but truth is truth, and the truth of God's word is certain regardless of the strength or weakness of our faith.

Abraham is called the father of the faithful: not because he had unwavering faith – his faith wavered a lot. He's the father of the faithful because God transformed his weak and wavering faith into the strong and unwavering faith of Jesus Christ, whose atoning work reaches both forward and backward in time.

Abraham believed God would do whatever he promised, even though he had no idea how he would bring it about. He stuck with God in spite of his personal weakness, not because of his personal strength.

What Paul calls "unwavering faith" has to do with trusting God in spite of your doubt. Faith is not about your strength; it's about God's strength. We trust in Christ, not in our faith. Our faith can't save us: Christ saved us.

I've always been fascinated by the fact that when the story in Genesis moves over to Jacob, Abraham just kind of fades out. He remarries – a woman named Ketura – has more kids, and you just don't hear much about him any more. The same happened with Jacob, once the spotlight moved to Joseph.

All the so-called giants of faith of Hebrews 11, the faith chapter, were just regular people who had to struggle their way through life like the rest of us. They live, they struggle, and they die. Their story is our story. They didn't have super powers. They weren't X-Men or born on Krypton. They doubted, they lusted, they lied, they got mad, just like us....

And yet, God loved them, just like he loves us. In their weakness, God made them strong, just as he does us. God takes our story, including all the ugly facts of our lives, and transforms those facts and that story into his victory, the victory of Jesus Christ – and that new story, that new creation he makes of us, is more real and more true than the weak, wavering and failing story we see in the mirror every morning.

So what's the real story of Abraham, the father of the faithful? Well, sometimes Abraham put things off. Sometimes he tried to solve things himself (he did the tell-them-you're-my-sister thing again the very year Isaac was born). Sometimes he acted unwisely. But it was in the middle of the pains, problems, frustrations and mess-ups of life that Abraham trusted God, not in some happily-ever-after fairy-tale land where heroes are practically-perfect-in-every-way and nothing serious ever goes wrong.

And God was faithful to Abraham, just as he is faithful to us—not faithful to do the kind of things we think a proper God should do, like giving us whatever we long for or think we need—but faithful to us, his beloved children—to his redemptive purpose for us, to his new creation of which he has made us part in Christ.

In the same way, God has redeemed your story—your personal history, the record of your weaknesses, shortcomings and failures, and has transformed you and your history into something new—his new creation in Jesus Christ.

In Christ, we can put our troubled past behind us, and trust his word of truth for us. As Paul put it, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new" (2 Corinthian 5:17, NIV).

Mike Feazell

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## Believing Thomas

I don't know how you deal with disappointment, but I have a method I've used since I was a child. I imagine a worst-case scenario, so if it happens, I won't be disappointed, it's just what I expected. If things don't go wrong, I should be pleased. The problem is I'm not, and my negativity makes me and everyone around me miserable.

A few years ago, for Father's Day, my daughter, a psychologist, sent me Eeyore. For those of you who may not know, Eeyore is a character from A.A. Milne's stories of Winnie the Pooh. Eeyore tends to think negatively and cynically about everything. For example, if you said, "Good morning, Eeyore." Eeyore would probably respond, "Good morning – but I doubt that it is, and if it is, it will probably get worse." Or if you said to Eeyore, "Hey, let's have a picnic today," Eeyore would likely reply, "Okay, but it will probably rain, and if it doesn't, ants will probably get into food." Sadly, I can identify with Eeyore.

There's also a person in the Gospels I can identify with as well. His name is Thomas, one of the 12, usually known as Doubting Thomas. I don't think Thomas was as much a doubter as he was a cynic, the kind of person who believes the worst and doubts the best. I can identify with that.

The first time we meet Thomas in the Gospel of John is in chapter 11 verses 7 through 16. Here Jesus had just told the disciples that he's going back to Jerusalem, and the disciples warn him that he should not go because there are those there who will seek to kill him. Jesus tells them he is going anyway, and invites them to go with him. We notice Thomas's reaction to this in John chapter 11 at verse 16. Thomas says, "Then Thomas called Didymus said to rest of the disciples, 'Let us also go, that we may die with him.'"

Negative? Yeah, but brave. I like that. Thomas was a realist. What I'd like for us to do now is take a look at Thomas's encounter with the risen Christ in the Gospel of John chapter 20 verses 19 through 29, and explore what maybe we can learn from the story about our own doubts and cynicism as well as consider what we learn about God's reality versus our reality. So let's look at John chapter 20 verse 19.

#### On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews [and by this he means the Jewish religious leaders], Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

Now, we might ask, "Why did Jesus show them the wounds (evidently) in his hands and his side?" I think one reason is to say, "Look, I'm not an apparition. I'm not a ghost. You're not having a delusion. I'm here, I'm real, it's the same me. You're looking at the same Jesus that you have known now for years. The same Jesus whom you saw crucified, and the same Jesus who came out of the tomb is the one who went in, and I'm here, and I'm real."

When the disciples saw that, they were happy and they rejoiced. We continue reading. Verse 21: "Again Jesus said, 'Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.' And with that he breathed on them."

Here we find that Jesus is sending out his disciples. He's telling them that they're going out with the same authority and the same mission that he has had from his Father. They are to continue in his ministry on the earth even after he has left and gone back to heaven. He is sending the Holy Spirit, and in the Holy Spirit, they will be able to work with him in his ministry, and then the power of God at work on earth through the followers of Jesus.

The next thing that Jesus says to them after he breathes on them is, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone their sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven." This particular verse over the years has been subject to many different interpretations, and indeed it is a challenging verse to look into. The Roman Catholics have used this as a proof of needing to go to a priest and receiving forgiveness for your sins from the priest in the act of confession.

Protestants have looked at it in several different ways, including a communal view, where it is the community of faith, the church, which either lets people into the church, allows them to be baptized, or denies them admission from the church, or even sometimes excommunicates them from the church. But let me give you another view of this scripture which works for me, and I hope that it will work for you. Let me use an analogy:

Let's say a man robs a convenience store, steals all the money, makes a getaway, but from that day forward, he lives with the feeling of guilt. He knows he has done wrong, and so for the next 20 years every time he sees a police car, every time he hears a knock at the door, he wonders, "Is this it? Have they finally caught up with me? Will I be going to prison now?" He can't sleep at night. He lives in guilt for all that 20 years, and then suddenly one day, there's a knock on his door and of all things, it's the sheriff, so he puts out his hands and says, "All right, put the handcuffs on me. I know you've been looking for me. I knew my day would come, take me away to prison."

The sheriff looks at him and says, "No – you're not guilty. Let me tell you what happened. Even at the very moment that you robbed that convenience store, the governor simultaneously pardoned you and declared you not guilty. We've been looking for you for 20 years to tell you that you are a free man." The person who robbed the store would probably say, "Why did it take you so long to tell me that? I've lived 20 years of my life under guilt, and in fear, and you tell me that I'm not even guilty of a crime!"

To be free, to be declared not guilty and not know it is to continue subjectively to live with the feeling of guilt, not knowing that you're free. How many people do not know that God and Jesus Christ has indeed forgiven them of their sins, and because of not knowing, they're living a life of condemnation, a life of guilt, a life where they fear what the final judgment may be? Wouldn't it be nice if someone would find those people and tell them that they have been declared not guilty, and that in Jesus Christ they are free of the sins?

That analogy works for me and helps me understand what this particular scripture says, for he says, receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, it is as though they have not been forgiven.

Verse 24: "Now Thomas called Didymus [meaning, a twin], one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came." I have asked myself the question, "Why wasn't Thomas there? Was he discouraged, was he like Eeyore, saying, "I knew he was going to die. I knew it was not going to work out. I knew this was all going to fail." Perhaps, he just in his own mind faced the situation realistically and felt, "It's all over. Jesus is dead." The other disciples met; Thomas stayed home.

Verse 25: "So the other disciples told him, 'We have seen the Lord.' But Thomas said to them, 'Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.'"

This is interesting, that Thomas would not even take the word of the other disciples. Perhaps he was somewhat of a scientist, and without an experiment to verify and prove it, he could just not accept this. "How could this be Jesus? Jesus is dead. People don't come back from the dead! Do they?"

Isn't this really a question about God's reality versus our reality? Thomas, like many of us, knows human reality all too well, and according to human reality, people do not come back from the dead. But in God's reality, they do. Which reality is more real? I'd say, they're both real, but God's reality is even more real than what we know as humans as our reality.

Let's take another case in point. Can humans walk on water? I think many of us would say, "Well no, of course not. Humans can't walk on water." And yet in Scripture, we're told that both Jesus and Peter walked on water. Which is real? Is it real that humans can walk on water, or is it real that humans cannot walk on water? Have you ever walked on water – and I don't mean ice, I mean water? I have not walked on water – don't know that I could. Why? That's my reality, but in God's reality, according to God's will and by the power of the Holy Spirit, humans can walk on water. I ask you, which is most real?

Now, many of us as Christians would say, "Well, God's reality is most real," but then we have to ask ourselves, why is it we're not walking on water? Why is it that we like Peter when he first accepted God's reality and began to walk on water, but then look at the human reality of the high waves, and the wind, and then doubted, and then began to sink, and called out to Jesus to save him.

Isn't that the way it is for most of us? We believe in God's reality, but our human reality often interferes with our acceptance of the reality that is the most real of all. I think we can understand why Thomas had a problem with accepting the fact that Jesus had come back from the dead.

But now let's notice what happens in our story. Let's look at verse 26: "A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, 'Peace be with you.'" Here we have Jesus appearing behind locked doors.

Some say, "Did he pass through the doors, did he come through the walls, how did Jesus get there?" What is clear is that Jesus is no longer veiling his divinity. For the time that the disciples had known him, Jesus was fully human and fully God, but his divinity was veiled, was hidden from them. Now, he is fully present as a human but also in his divinity, and as the Son of God, he is the Lord of all creation, including space and time, and so Jesus appears behind locked doors through closed windows into the room with his disciples.

Let's read on: "Jesus came and stood among them and said, 'Peace be with you.'" Verse 27: "Then he said to Thomas, 'Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.'" Here Jesus allows Thomas to make a scientific experiment. Stop doubting – believe – accept God's reality. It is far greater reality than the one that you know as a human. "I am the same Jesus you knew, fully human but also a fully God, come back from the dead, and I still bear the scars in my body."

Some ask, "Well, were the scars not healed, why did Jesus still manifest these scars?" One reason is that Thomas and the others would know he was Jesus, he was the same human that they had known for so many years. He is not some different being. He is not some ghost, some spirit, some thing of their imagination. He is really and truly Jesus, fully human and fully God standing before them.

Listen to what Thomas says in his reply, verse 27: "Then he said to Thomas, 'Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.'" Verse 28: "Thomas said to him, 'My Lord and my God.'" I don't think Thomas should be known as Doubting Thomas. In fact, in this verse, he's probably made one of the most important and powerful statements in the New Testament about the divinity of Jesus Christ. He has called him my Lord.

The Greek word for Lord, Kurios, is the same word that's used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament for the Hebrew word Yahweh. So what Thomas is saying here, in a sense, is "Yahweh, my Lord and my God."

I feel for so-called Doubting Thomas, and on behalf of all realists everywhere, I would like to suggest that we now call him Believing Thomas, because Thomas now accepts God's reality as the most real reality of all, and he becomes a faithful believer. Let's read on and notice how John concludes the story in verse 29: "Then Jesus told him, 'Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.'"

Thomas was blessed. He saw, he believed, and gave a great profound announcement of faith, and yet, what about you and me today? We have not seen Jesus literally, physically with our own eyes. We have not been able to perform a scientific experiment of touching scars and yet we believe. We do know that Jesus is alive. We experience him in the spirit, and he becomes to us over time, communing with him, our best friend.

I was sharing that fact with one of my very close friends who is a non-believer, and I was explaining to him that Jesus is really my best friend. I spent lots of time with him every day. I talk with him, I ask him questions, I share my burdens, I share my problems, and Jesus is always there for me, and he always comforts me, and he always understands. He doesn't agree with what I do, but he always loves me, and always encourages me, and offers me hope.

My non-believing friend looked at me like, "Yeah, we're glad that's working for you." I knew he didn't believe, but I did, and I do, and I hope you as a Christian know Jesus and believe as well, because he is your best friend. He is real. He is alive. Thomas came to know that.

I hope and pray that everyone of us can come and know Jesus as well as Thomas knew him, confess him as Lord and God even though we have not yet seen him. We have not seen the scars in his hand or in the side – or have we? How do you view Jesus when you pray? Do you pray to the Father, through Jesus, and in the Spirit? Do you see Jesus at the right hand of God? How do you view him and how do you picture him? I tell you how I do. When I see Jesus interceding for me, mediating between all of humanity and the Father, but most particularly for me and my time of need, I see the scars in his hands.

I see the scar and the side, and for me, they're still there, even as Isaiah said, "He has born our sorrows. He has taken our iniquities upon us, and by his wounds we are healed." If you have need of a Savior, when you pray, see that Jesus, see the same the Jesus that Thomas saw, the one who forever bears our burdens for us, who has the scars in his hand and the wound in his side, there for us, because he deeply cares for us and always will.

What do we take home from this story? Let's consider some points. We realize the same Jesus the disciples knew is alive today – eternally incarnate and glorified.

We have not seen him with our eyes nor put our hands upon his scars, but we have experienced him in our lives. We believe in him and we know him. In his scars, we believe as Isaiah 53:5 says, "But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, and upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises, we are healed."

When we go before God's throne of grace, we can believe, as did Thomas, that Jesus is alive, he is our best friend, and he has taken our sins and burdens upon himself, and he has set us free, and given us eternal life. Let's not doubt that, let's be as Thomas, and know for a certainty that Jesus is alive. He is our Savior, our best friend, our Lord, and our God.

Dan Rogers

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## Finding Righteousness

As Christians, we know that salvation comes by grace and not by works. It's part of the bedrock of Christian faith.

Yet we also know the Bible tells us we need to be overcoming sin and living right. It's easy to get the idea that salvation is really based on our good works more than it is on grace. And since we all still find ourselves sinning, life can get pretty frustrating and depressing at times.

In Ephesians 2:8-9, the apostle Paul tells us, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast."

And yet, other passages in the New Testament seem to indicate that we will only be saved if we are doing good works. Take Revelation 20:13, for example: "And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works" (KJV).

How do passages like this one fit with the passages that tell us we are saved by grace and not by works? The problem is, we can't enter the kingdom of God unless we are righteous. That is a fact, and there is no way around it. Unless we're righteous, we're doomed.

The further bad news is that we don't have what it takes to be righteous. Paul reminds us in Romans 3:10, "There is no one who is righteous, not even one."

So if we have to be righteous to be saved, but none of us actually are righteous, how can anyone be saved? That's where the gospel, the good news, comes in. Second Corinthians 5:21 tells us, "God made him who had no sin [that is, Jesus] to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

That means we are saved by, and only by, God's gracious acts of love on our behalf. In spite of our sinfulness, God loves us and wants us in his kingdom. First Timothy 2:3-4 says, "This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth."

Even though God wants all people to be saved, it seems that some aren't. But contrary to what many Christians might think, it's not because they aren't righteous enough. It's because they trust in their own so-called righteousness instead of in Jesus Christ, who actually is their righteousness.

Jesus told a parable about a man who tried to sit down at a king's banquet table wearing his own garments instead of the banquet garments provided by the king. Let's read the story in Matthew 22:1-14:

#### Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: 'The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

#### 'Then he sent some more servants and said, "Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet."

#### 'But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

#### 'Then he said to his servants, "The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find." So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

#### 'But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. "Friend," he asked, "how did you get in here without wedding clothes?" The man was speechless.

#### 'Then the king told the attendants, "Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."'

Jesus' point is that God wants us at his banquet table, so he's made sure we can have, free of charge (because we haven't got enough to pay for it), everything we need to be there.

So, when we read a passage like Galatians 5:24, which says, "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires," it doesn't mean that if we crucify the sinful nature then we can belong to Christ. It means that we are righteous because we belong to Christ. We are not righteous of ourselves; we are righteous only in Christ.

We can believe it or not, but that is what God says he has done. If we believe it, we will welcome the free wedding garments. If we don't believe it, that is, if we don't accept God for who he is, the Father of Jesus Christ through whom he has saved the world, then we'll keep on living like we always have, cutting ourselves off from the joy of real life that is waiting for us in God's banquet hall.

Jesus is telling us that in the kingdom of God, people who think they have righteousness of their own aren't welcome. It is sinners who are welcome, people who know they are sinners, and who trust God to forgive them and make them righteous in Christ. Those who think they are in some way more deserving, or more acceptable, or less dirty than the others, aren't able to stay.

Ephesians 2:4-7 tells us:

#### But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

We can enjoy the glorious fruit of Jesus' victory only by trusting him, not by improving our behavior. Paul wrote in Romans 3:27-28, "Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law."

When God sent his Son to die for our sins and to be raised for our life, he made two things plain:

##### 1) He loves us immeasurably and unconditionally, to the point of taking our burden as his own, even to the point of death, and

##### 2) Our salvation was entirely his work; there is nothing we can do to save ourselves.

Imagine what would happen to, for example, a tomato plant if that plant suddenly declared independence from soil, water and light. Without resting in the elements that produce its life and growth, the plant would be doomed. It can never be what it is, a tomato plant, without soil, water and light. It can never do what tomato plants do—bear tomatoes—without soil, water and light. Yet our self-assured little tomato plant, if we can still call it a tomato plant, has decided it can be a better plant by its own hard work than it can by resting in its source of being.

Sin amounts to a state of declared "independence" from God. It's a denial of who we really are, of who we were created to be. It's like that tomato plant saying it has a better idea of what tomato plants ought to be. This denial of who we really are is the very condition of our lives. Each individual sin we might commit is just the natural fruit of a corrupt heart that doesn't know the true source of its own life.

No matter how much we overcome, no matter how many sins we shed, no matter how many bad habits we replace with good ones, no matter how much better we are today than we used to be, it is still fourth down and a thousand yards to go. It's not enough. We're not going to make it.

That's why we have to get our minds off ourselves and onto our Lord and Savior. We need to give up on ourselves and put our trust in Jesus. He fixes us from the inside out. We need to quit looking at the evidence we see in our lives and start trusting Jesus to be for us and do for us what he says he will be for us and do for us. We need to quit worrying that he will not be faithful on account of our being sinners, and start trusting him to forgive us and clean us up like he said he would.

It works like this: our unfaithfulness does not keep God from being faithful. He will be faithful because that is the way he is—faithful. We can stick out our tongues at him all day long, and he will still be faithful. We will have sore tongues and we will miss out on all the fun he wants us to have, but in spite of our wooden-headedness he will still be faithful.

God will not stop loving us and he will not stop knocking on our door, urging us to let him come in. He is, and always will be, faithful, even when we are not. We are free even to deny him. We are free to give up on him. We are free not to believe him, even to hate him. We have that choice, the choice to love our own so-called lives and turn down his gift of real life. We don't have to enjoy his kingdom. He will let us be miserable if we insist on it.

Even so, he will always remain faithful, always love us, never forcing us to accept his love, but always urging us to. As Paul wrote: "The saying is sure: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself" (2 Timothy 2:11-13).

We can get ourselves into all the trouble we want, and God will still be faithful. He will hurt for us and grieve for us, because he loves us, but he will not force us to trust him. If love is forced, it's not real love.

"Wait a minute!" you might be thinking. "Are you saying I can sin and still be saved?" All I can say to that is that you are a sinner and God saves sinners, so there can be no other answer but yes.

Does that mean I'm encouraging you to sin? Of course not. I'm encouraging you to trust God to love you and forgive you and save you in spite of your sins, because that is what he promises to do.

But how can a person can have true faith in Christ and still keep sinning? Well, it would be nice if we believers would quit sinning, but nobody, ever, in all history has quit sinning this side of death. Only Jesus was without sin.

We are all sinners, and God saves us anyway, because saving sinners is what he does. That is not an invitation to sin; it is simply a fact. God remains faithful to us even when we are unfaithful to him. If we put our trust in him and admit we are sinners, he is faithful and just to forgive us.

Someone might ask, "But God won't save us unless we change, will he?" Change how much? Change a little, change a medium amount, change a lot? How much is enough? God saves sinners. He heals the sick, not the healthy. In Mark 2:17 Jesus says, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

But don't we have to change at least some before God will save us? God doesn't save on the basis of human changes. He saves on the basis of his own righteousness. Romans 3:21-28 says,

#### But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

#### Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.

Salvation isn't about how much sin we put out of our lives. God wants us to trust him to make us righteous in Christ. We are saved by Christ's righteousness, not ours. We don't have any. But Christ has taken all humans, including you and me, into himself, and he stands in for us before the Father. He has brought all humanity, including you and me, into his intimate, loving relationship with the Father. So when we sin, as we all do, we can trust God's word that we are already forgiven in Christ.

God's children want to obey him. The Spirit of God in us leads us to obey him. Our consciences, appropriately, plague us when we know we are disobeying him. Still, there are two things we need to remember: 1) We have been forgiven already, and 2) We keep sinning no matter how much we overcome.

The person who thinks he stands is the very one who needs to take heed. Why? Because nobody stands except in Christ. Even with all the apostles urging to do what is right, not one of us actually walks a perfectly pure and holy life—except as we are held in Jesus.

Unless our righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, Jesus said, we have no part in the kingdom. The Pharisees were the most careful and devoted law abiders around! They took the word of God seriously, and they devoted themselves scrupulously to observing it. But Jesus said that anyone who will be in his kingdom must have even greater righteousness.

Do you have such a level of righteousness? I sure don't.

That's just the point. Salvation doesn't come by what we do, no matter how good we are—or think we are. Our righteousness is the righteousness of Jesus, as we're told in 1 Corinthians 1:30-31: "It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: 'Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.'"

So how do we stand? By trusting Christ who raises the dead.

How do we stand? By trusting our Father who justifies the ungodly.

How do we stand? By trusting the Holy Spirit who leads us continually back to Christ.

We do have a choice. We can try to make life worthwhile on our own steam, or we can die to all the things we thought were worth clawing for in this world, and trust God to give us the real life we don't yet see, the one that is hidden in Christ with God, as Colossians 3 tells us.

Yes, it's good to "get serious" about overcoming sin. We can avoid a lot a pain and heartache by not sinning. But we need to do so in the complete assurance that we are already God's forgiven and beloved righteous children for Christ's sake.

The reason God wants us not to sin is that sin hurts us. It hurts us and it hurts others. It's like what Proverbs 6:27 says about adultery, "Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned?" Sin hurts us, and it also makes us think God doesn't love us.

So even while we seek to live a godly life and stop sinning, we can quit worrying that our failures, setbacks and dry periods cut us off from God. They don't. God is absolutely true to his covenant promise; he will never leave us nor forsake us, and we can count on that no matter how deep in the miry pit of sin we have wallowed.

In our heavenly Father's eyes, even while we still work to turn away from our sins, we are already new and righteous with him in Christ. He sees us for what he has made us to be in Christ, not for what we have made ourselves to be by a lifetime of wrong turns, bad decisions, weak moments, failures and sins.

That's why we can find comfort, peace and rest in Jesus Christ. And that's why the gospel is called good news!

Mike Feazell

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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## Getting Real

Most of us go to great lengths to look good in the eyes of others. We want them to think well of us, to look up to us, even to admire us. Think about it: When we know someone we respect is watching, don't we make every effort to be on our best behavior?

We can even put so much effort into looking good in the eyes of others that we begin to believe our own propaganda about ourselves. We can begin to think that we really are about the finest, most decent, honest and godly human being we know. But according to Jesus, it's only when we honestly see ourselves as we really are that we begin to enjoy the grace and mercy God has given us.

The night Jesus was arrested, he took some time to tell the disciples about the Holy Spirit. In describing the Holy Spirit, he used an Aramaic word that was translated into Greek as parakletos, a word conveying the sense of "advocate," "friend" or "supporter." For example, parakletos was used to describe a person who would stand beside you in court to support you, to speak up for you, to hearten you.

Jesus knew that things were about to get hard, not just for him, but also for those who would follow him. So he said to the 11 disciples:

#### I've told you these things to prepare you for rough times ahead. They are going to throw you out of the meeting places. There will even come a time when anyone who kills you will think he's doing God a favor. They will do these things because they never really understood the Father. I've told you these things so that when the time comes and they start in on you, you'll be well-warned and ready for them. (John 16:1-4, _The Message_ paraphrase)

What is it that these persecutors did not understand about the Father?

Several things. They did not understand that the Father loved the world so much that he would send his Son to save it from its sins, as John recorded Jesus saying in John 3:16.

They did not understand what Paul described in Ephesians 3:9-11: The "mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God.... which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord." And that "in him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence" (verse 12). Jesus also said:

#### I didn't tell you this earlier because I was with you every day. But now I am on my way to the One who sent me. Not one of you has asked, "Where are you going?" Instead, the longer I've talked, the sadder you've become. So let me say it again, this truth: It's better for you that I leave. If I don't leave, the Friend won't come. But if I go, I'll send him to you. (John 16:4b-7, _The Message_ )

The disciples were sad because Jesus was leaving them. But what they didn't yet understand was that his going to the Father would result not in their loss of him, but rather in their union with him and with the Father. How? Because he would send the Holy Spirit, the Friend, who would draw them into the eternal relationship of love that exists between the Father and the Son.

"When he comes," Jesus continued,

#### he'll expose the error of the godless world's view of sin, righteousness, and judgment: He'll show them that their refusal to believe in me is their basic sin; that righteousness comes from above, where I am with the Father, out of their sight and control; that judgment takes place as the ruler of this godless world is brought to trial and convicted. (John 16:8-11, _The Message_ ).

How is the world wrong about sin?

The world thinks sinners can atone for their sins by doing works of goodness. But here is the fascinating thing. Because Jesus came to forgive all sin and reconcile all things to God, the only kind of sin that can remain is the sin of not trusting in the One who takes away all sin. The root of all sin is unbelief in God's own atonement for human sin through Jesus Christ.

How is the world wrong about righteousness?

The world thinks of righteousness in terms of human virtue and goodness. But here is the fascinating thing. Now that the Son of God has lived a sinless human life and has been accepted by the Father as the perfect offering of humanity in sinful humanity's place, righteousness can be defined only in terms of the gift of God, a gift rooted in Jesus Christ, who, in our place and as one of us, did everything his Father commanded him to do for our sakes.

How is the world wrong about judgment?

The world thinks that people who endure great suffering in this world are great sinners under God's curse, and that people whose lives are abundant have been judged worthy and are under God's favor. But here is the fascinating thing. Now that the Son of God has destroyed the works of the devil, the pioneer of sin, judgment can be defined only in terms of the condemnation of the god of this world, not in terms of the condemnation of the very people Jesus came to save.

The Holy Spirit, Jesus said, would bring the truth about sin, righteousness and judgment. He would

#### take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is. He won't draw attention to himself, but will make sense out of what is about to happen and, indeed, out of all that I have done and said. He will honor me; he will take from me and deliver it to you. (John 16:13-14, _The Message_ )

Forgiveness of sin, righteousness, and deliverance from sin are all gifts of the Father to us through Jesus Christ, and we experience them only by trust in God's word of salvation, which he gives us by the Holy Spirit. In Christ, we are reconciled to the Father, partakers of Christ's righteousness and of his union and communion with the Father.

In the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee (Luke 18:9-14), Jesus illustrated the difference between the world's view of sin, righteousness and judgment and the true view that the Spirit would lead us to see.

#### To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'

#### "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'

#### "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

Take a look again at verse 9: Jesus told this story for the sake of those "who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else." Such people don't feel the need to pray for God's mercy like the tax collector did. But it was the tax collector, the one who saw himself before God as he really was—a sinner in great need of mercy, who "went home justified before God" (verse 14).

Think about this: The tax collector had to trust God with his life, didn't he? He knew he deserved nothing, but he trusted God to be the way God says he is: "the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness" (Exodus 34:6). When we go to the judgment seat of God, honestly confessing our sinfulness and asking for mercy, the Judge turns out to be the Defense Attorney, who turns out to have taken our crimes on himself and then declared us innocent and set us free.

That is why we, as Christians, devote ourselves to extending grace, mercy and compassion to others.

The Prodigal Son in the Luke 15 parable knew he needed mercy, and that is all he knew, so that's what he went home to ask for. When he did, he found out that he had had it all along—but only now that he had come home, trusting his father to be merciful, was he able to start enjoying the mercy he's always had.

In Micah 6, God gives his answer to what the Israelites should do in the wake of their sins: "He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8). To act justly requires an unselfish agenda. It means doing what is right even if it might not be in our own best interest. We can do that when we trust God, because we believe that God sees everything and makes everything right in the end.

This goes hand in hand with loving mercy (or kindness, as it can also be translated). James pointed out that mercy triumphs over justice (James 2:13). The kind of justice God is interested in is the kind that is subject to mercy. Jesus said, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy" (Matthew 5:7), and "I desire mercy, not sacrifice" (Matthew 9:13; 12:7).

To walk humbly with God means that we see how much we need God and that we accept God's gift of mercy. Another way of saying that is "repentance and faith." To repent is to see our need for God's mercy and turn to him, in faith that whatever he does will be good and right. It means to rest in God, and in God alone.

This instruction in Micah goes hand in hand with what is called the Lord's Prayer. Jesus told the disciples to pray, "Forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors." This is not a new form of legalism. It is, rather, a description of what life is like among those who are in Christ. People who can't see their own sinfulness, and therefore don't feel any need for mercy, don't tend to extend mercy to others.

On the other hand, people who do understand the grace they've received from God, are not quick to hold a grudge or to withhold forgiveness. Because we are in Christ, we are forgivers, and we trust God to forgive us. So when we pray, "Forgive us our debts," we don't ask as though God might not do it. In Christ, God has already forgiven us.

Our asking God to forgive us our debts is two things: 1) a reminder of the forgiveness we already have in Christ, and 2) a participation in the forgiveness we already have in Christ. In the same way, the prayer "as we forgive our debtors" is also a reminder of, and a participation in, our new life in Christ in which we forgive just as we have been forgiven (Ephesians 4:32-5:1-2).

We can trust God to give us everything we need for life, godliness and salvation. Because he is the Judge, we have nothing to fear in the judgment. And more than that, God does what he does for us because it is his good pleasure to do so (Luke 12:32). He is for us.

We don't have to be prisoners of "keeping up appearances." We don't have to carry around anxiety about whether we will "make it into the kingdom." We can live carefree before God, casting all our anxieties, all our cares, upon him, because we know he cares for us (see 1 Peter 5:7).

With God, we can "get real." We can be perfectly honest with God. We don't have to hide anything from him. We can unload all our sinfulness, all our failures, all our fears on the One who loves us and gave himself for us—and who makes all things new.

Mike Feazell

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## Go and Do Likewise

It may seem like a strange question to ask Christians, but here it goes anyway. Do you love God? And you may think, "Well, that indeed is a strange question to ask a Christian." Most Christians would not hesitate a moment to answer, "Yes with all my heart, all my mind, all my soul and all my being, I love God."

Let me ask you a question that goes right along with that: Do you love your neighbor? Most of us would answer fairly quickly and probably say, "Well, yeah," but I think we have to pause for a moment, because we know some neighbors that we're not quite so sure whether we love or not.

Yet, Scripture says that we are to love God and love our neighbor. Does God love your neighbor? Can you love God and not love your neighbor? How can we understand loving God and loving our neighbor as we should? Jesus gave us a story in Luke chapter 10 called the Good Samaritan.

After telling us the story of the good Samaritan, Jesus then concludes with this statement to all of his followers, "Go and do likewise." Let's learn the lesson today from the story of the good Samaritan. If you take your Bible and turn to Luke chapter 10, we'll begin reading in verse 25: "Just then, a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. 'Teacher,' he said. 'What must I do to inherit eternal life?'"

We have here a doctor of the law according to pharisaical standards, someone who spent his life studying Torah and was expert in it. He was sort of a hired gun that the Pharisees had brought in to trick this Galilean peasant (who thought he was a rabbi) with an astute question.

When he asked what he thought was a very astute question, I'm sure that Jesus probably thought, "How stupid. First of all, what does he expect me to say? Does he expect me to contradict that which is written in the law? And what does he mean, how do you inherit eternal life?"

How do you inherit something? You inherit it when someone dies. You inherit it from having been in a loving relationship with the one who is now deceased. It's a very strange question that this lawyer asked Jesus. So Jesus, rather than just give an answer, asked a question of the lawyer.

Jesus turns the tables and says to him, "What is written in the law? What do you read there?" He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself."

Jesus, in typical rabbinic fashion, answered a question with a question. Now, it was the learned doctor who had trapped himself. He had given the correct answer. He'd given the answer that every Pharisee knew from Scripture. And yet, now, Jesus had trapped him.

Reading on, "He said to him, 'You have given the right answer. Do this and you will live.'" Now, what did Jesus mean by "do this and you will live?" Love is the fulfilling of the law. As Paul said, "Owe no man anything, but to love." When you love your fellow human being, you are participating at the very heart, the very nature, the very shared life of God, who is love and who loves humanity, including you and your neighbor, with all of his heart and with all of his being.

When we share in God's love, we have fulfilled all that God requires of us, for we are in a sense participating in God's own shared life. Continuing reading: "But the doctor of the law, wanting to justify himself, asked Jesus, 'And who is my neighbor?'"

Perhaps this was a question that had been bandied about by some of the rabbis or some of the scholars. The law says that we must love our neighbor, but then who indeed is my neighbor? Perhaps they came up with a very narrow definition of neighbor.

Anyway, the doctor thought he would justify himself and get out of the jam that Jesus had put him into by asking another question, "Who is my neighbor?" Interestingly, Jesus did not reply, "Well, there are several different Hebraic terms or Greek words used, or there's a technicality or there's a geographic reference."

Instead, Jesus simply told a story to bring home the point of who is my neighbor. Who is this person that God says that I must love? If I love God, I must also love this person. Who is this person?

We read further: "Jesus replied, 'A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him and went away leaving him half dead. Now, by chance, a priest was going down that road and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.'"

Evidently, many of the priests and Levites who served in the temple lived in Jericho, and they traversed back and forth between the city of Jerusalem and Jericho by this road that was quite steep in places and was evidently dangerous and an opportune place for robbers to strike.

So it was not uncommon for a priest or a Levite to be going by. But when the priest went by this man who lay half dead on the side of the road, he avoided him. He went out of his way to go around the man and to ignore him.

We read further: "So likewise, the Levite when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side." All right, so now we have two who we might consider holy men, religious men, men of God, who passed by this person on the side of the road and ignored him. Why would they do that?

Well, perhaps they felt like they were coming or going from their religious duties and that to touch a man who might be dead would defile them or make them unclean, and they couldn't perform their religious duties if they touched such a man.

It's hard for us to imagine that today – or is it? Would some religious types today, perhaps, pass by such a man on the side of the road? Is it possible that some religious types might feel, "That man probably deserves what he got. He's a sinner. If I went to help him, I would just be condoning his sins. If he wasn't such a sinner, he probably wouldn't be in that situation."

Or, "He just needs more faith. If he had more faith and trusted God, then God would be blessing him with health and wealth, not allowing him to be beaten like this and lying by the side of the road. I think he's a sinner, probably got just what he deserved. I'm going to let him lie there and learn his lesson."

Sometimes, certain religious attitudes interfere with what God calls "loving your neighbor." But let's go on in the story and find out what happens next.

#### But a Samaritan while traveling came near him. And when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them, then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn and took care of him.

#### The next day, he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, "Take care of him, and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend."

#### Jesus asked, "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" The doctor of the law had to say, "The one who showed him mercy." And Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."

What do we learn from this story? Of all the three characters in our story, two of whom were religious folks and one who is seen as a heathen to the Jews, a gentile (even by name calling, such as "gentile dog"), who would one think would be most likely to help someone in need?

In our story, it was not the religious types, whose very religious beliefs and religious system kept them from actually loving their neighbor. Rather, it was someone that the Jews considered an outsider, a pagan, a heathen, someone who had a false religion and false belief system, and yet that person was the one who showed himself to be a neighbor. So what do we learn?

Well, we learn that it's possible for all people to participate in the shared life of God, because only God is good. What the Samaritan did was a good thing. Jesus holds him out as an example for us of loving your neighbor. In spite of being from even a different religious point of view, a different culture, perhaps a different race, a different ethnicity, but to reach out across cultural and religious lines to show love is a godly thing.

How many times do we go down the road of our life and see people in need? How do we respond? Do we remember this story and realize that no matter who these people are, or what their needs are, and no matter who we are, that it is the shared life of God that should lead us to respond?

How would God feel about the person on the side of the road? Jesus gave his life for those of us who lie battered and bruised at the side of the road. Through the Holy Spirit he goes to those in need, to those who are hurting, to each one of us.

In the story, we're told to go, and do likewise as the good Samaritan did. When we see people on the side of the road of life, spiritually in need, physically in need, people who are hurting, we should be prepared to go to them, to minister to them, because in so doing, we're really joining with Jesus Christ, who is already there serving, helping, administering.

In this way, we participate in the ongoing ministry of Jesus Christ to the hurt, to the afflicted, to the needy, to the marginalized, to the oppressed. So as we go through life and we travel down our highways, let's keep our eyes open for the people by the side of the road who need our help, and let's be prepared and motivated by the love of God to go and share Jesus Christ and his ministry to those people.

Let's remember the words of Jesus to the crowd who gathered around him as he told that story and to each one of us today. Let's remember the story of the Good Samaritan and let's be ready to go and do likewise.

Dan Rogers

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## It's Not What You Have – It's Who Has You

I know I shouldn't tease my wife, but sometimes I just can't help it. For example she'll say, "Dan, what do you want for dinner?" I'll make up some menus such as maybe some imported sea bass, maybe surf and turf, a little filet mignon to go with that. Maybe a stuffed baked potato, some asparagus spears maybe, a salad with imported Roquefort dressing. How about some baked Alaska for dessert?

My wife will give me the look, and she says, "I don't have any of that." I said, "Well, what do you have?" She says, "Nothing." I ask her, "Well then, why did you ask me what I wanted?" She said, "Well, I was really just trying to be polite."

I don't know if any conversation around your house goes like that, but it's, "what do you have?" Sometimes our answer is "nothing." This story reminds me of an incident in the Gospels called the feeding of the 5,000, where Jesus was teaching his disciples how to do the ministry of Jesus Christ. I'd like for us to explore that section of Luke 9 and talk about the feeding of the 5,000 and what Jesus taught his disciples. I think the lesson that they learned, and hopefully that we learn as well, is that it's not what you have, it's who has you.

Let's get a little bit of a background to the story beginning in Luke 9:1-6. We read in Luke 9 beginning in verse 1: "Then Jesus called the Twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal." Notice here that they were not yet the apostles. They were the 12, and the reason they were still the 12 is because they had not been sent out, and that's what the word apostle means. This is their first sending out on a missionary trip, and Jesus is going to tell them how they are to do his ministry on this trip.

Notice what interestingly he says to them: "He said to them, 'Take nothing for your journey. No staff nor bag nor bread nor money, not even an extra tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there and leave from there. Wherever they do not welcome you, as you are leaving that town, shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.'"

Now, let me ask you this question: Does that sound like a prudent way to do a missionary journey? How would you feel if you were a missionary and someone sent you out on an expedition and said, "By the way, don't take anything with you? Don't take extra clothes. Don't take any money. Don't worry about food or where you'll stay. Don't make any reservations. Don't make any preparation. Just go and see what happens."

Why do you suppose that Jesus sent the 12 out in such an unprepared and unresourced fashion? He wanted them to rely on him. He told them that all power in heaven and earth was his and therefore he was sending them out. Whatever it was they were to do, they were to do in him, in his power and in his authority, not trusting themselves or money or resources or anything else, but trusting Jesus.

So we read: "They departed and went through the villages bringing the good news and curing diseases everywhere." Then they returned, and when they returned, let's notice what Jesus asked them. In Luke 9:10 Jesus says: "On their return the apostles told Jesus all they had done."

Think about that phrase. They told Jesus all they had done. Whose power did they go out with? Jesus'. Whose authority did they have? Jesus'. Who cast out demons? Jesus. Who healed the sick? Jesus. By his authority and by his power and the Holy Spirit, those miracles were accomplished.

Yet when the disciples returned, in spite of going out totally unresourced, without money, without clothing, they should have realized they were relying totally on Jesus, but instead when they returned, like so many of us as humans, their answer was, "Look at what we did. Look at all we did. Jesus, we were awesome. We were casting out demons. We were healing diseases. Man, you should've been there, Jesus. You should've seen how powerful we were."

At this point I think Jesus realized that the 12, now apostles, still had a lot of training in order to learn how to do his ministry. That sets the stage for the next discipleship training lesson from Jesus, and that's the feeding of the 5,000. Let's read what happens here in Luke 9: "So Jesus took them with him, and he withdrew privately to a city called Bethsaida."

Bethsaida is an interesting city. The name from the Hebrew and Aramaic means "house of fish" or "house of fishing." That always reminds me of the bass pro shop. I have this concept that Bethsaida was a fishing town, where the fishermen went to get their supplies and whatever they needed, and it was probably a bit of a remote city and one where outdoors people, adventurers, fishermen, maybe hunters would go and get their supplies and then go into the surrounding country to fish, to hunt or whatever.

They went to Bethsaida. "When the crowds found out about it, they followed him and he welcomed them, and spoke to them about the kingdom of God and healed those who needed to be cured." We notice here in the ministry of Jesus that he frequently not only preached the gospel but also did ministry in terms of physical things to help people. He met people's needs. He met their physical needs and he met their spiritual needs. It was never a case of one or the other. When Jesus presented himself and offered the gospel, he also offered help to those in need. Again, setting an example, teaching the disciples how it was that he did ministry.

Back to the story: "The day was drawing to a close and the 12 came to him and said, 'Send the crowd away so that they may go into the surrounding villages and countryside to lodge and get provisions, for we're here in a deserted place.'" They evidently had wandered far away from the city of Bethsaida out into the countryside; it was a bit of a remote area, and the crowds had followed and now gathered around them, and the evening was coming on.

I don't know the motive of the disciples. It could have been that they felt compassion for the people and wanted to send them away so that they could find a place to lodge for the night and find dinner, or it could have been that they simply were tired themselves and wanted to get rid of the people so that they could eat their own dinner. I think what we're going to find out is that their own dinner was quite small, and they were not prepared to share it with this large multitude of people.

Jesus surprised them, and notice what Jesus said to them with a very surprising statement here in Luke 9: "But he said to them, 'You give them something to eat.' They said, 'We have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless we're going to go and buy food for all these people,' for there were about 5,000 men." When Jesus said, "You feed the people," the response of the disciples was pretty much, "What do you have? – we don't have anything."

Jesus could have asked them, "What do you have?" "We don't have anything. Well, at least we don't have enough. We don't have very much. Honestly, all we have are five loaves and two fish, and that's hardly enough to feed 5,000 men plus the women and children that are here along with them. Jesus, what do you want us to do? You tell us to feed them, you asked what we have and we just don't have enough. We don't have what it takes to do your ministry. We don't have enough to take care of all these people. We cannot participate with you in feeding the 5,000 because you've not given us enough resources. We just don't have enough to get the job done."

That's not an uncommon reaction, is it, for even Christians today. That when God calls us to serve him we respond, "We don't have anything, Lord. We certainly don't have enough. Look at our small church. Our members are scattered, we're poor, we're elderly. You want us to do ministry? Lord, we just don't have enough to do your ministry." This seemed to be the attitude of the disciples in the story.

Let's read on:

#### So Jesus said to his disciples, "Make them sit down in groups of about 50 each." They did so and made them all sit down, and taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and blessed and broke them and gave them to disciples to set before the crowd, and all ate and were filled and what was left over was gathered up, 12 baskets of broken pieces.

Wow. What a story. Jesus asked the disciples, "What do you have?" The disciples responded, "We have nothing. We certainly don't have enough resources to take care of all of these people and to do what you want us to do, Lord." They made a serious mistake – a mistake that Christians down through the ages and today can make as well. The question is not, "what do you have?" When it comes to participating in the ministry of Jesus Christ, the question is, "Who has you?"

The disciples didn't have enough. Jesus had all that was necessary. Jesus was prepared himself to feed the multitude. Notice that Jesus did not do it alone. How could Jesus have fed the multitudes? Well, following the Old Testament example, he could have called manna down from heaven, and all the thousands would have been fed, but Jesus didn't do that. He could have just made their stomachs feel full and everyone could have gone away saying, "Wow. That was the best meal I never ate."

Jesus invited his disciples to participate with him. He invited them to share in his ministry. Make no mistake about it, it was his ministry. It was done by his power and by his authority and the Holy Spirit. The disciples had little to nothing to offer. Jesus has everything. What the disciples needed to do was instead of saying "what do we have" or "what don't we have," they should have said, "who do we have," or better yet, "who has us?" Jesus has us, and he has us involved in his ministry and he gives the power, he has the authority. He through the Holy Spirit can do miracles and provide whatever is needed.

Notice that Jesus' reaction when he took the five loaves and the two fish was not, "Look how little we have. Oh Father in heaven, you haven't given us very much and we're here and we're kind of helpless and we want to do ministry, but we don't have the resources." Instead, Jesus lifted up what God had given and thanked God for it and asked God to bless what they did have, and God multiplied the loaves and God multiplied the fish.

Then Jesus had the disciples participate with him. Rather than doing it all himself, he wanted to share his ministry with his followers. He invited them to get baskets, to take the food, to organize people into groups of 50, and then to perhaps enlist the aid of others in serving the food to the thousands of people that were gathered. Afterward, they had to go back through and clean the area up and they gathered 12 baskets of food left over.

Have you ever wondered why there were maybe 12 baskets of food left over? I suspect that the young man who carried the loaves and fish was probably travelling with the disciples and was carrying their provisions for them. When he came forward what he offered really was the disciples' dinner. The disciples perhaps had been hiding them, saying, "oh no, we don't have anything. All we have is our own dinner and it's not very much. But here it is. Notice how little it is. It can't feed this people." Yet in Jesus it certainly could.

The disciples were able to participate with Jesus not only in what they did in ministering to the people, but then perhaps sharing their own food with those people as well. What was the result at the end of the day? Did they have to do without? No. Ironically, when they were willing to share what little they had and offer it up to God for his service, God blessed them as well as the multitudes, and each of the 12 disciples came away with an entire basket of bread and fish.

There are many lessons in this story for us today. I think we as Christians sometimes feel like the disciples when God asks us to do something: "Well, Lord, if you just give us more funds. Lord, if you just give us a better church building. Lord, if we weren't so scattered and we lived closer together. Lord, if we weren't so elderly maybe we could do more. Oh Lord, how can we ever serve you the way we want to?"

Just remember this lesson from the feeding of the 5,000. If you look at your meager resources, it's not a question of what you have. It is a question of who has you. The one who has you is Jesus Christ. All authority in heaven and earth has been given to him. Share in his ministry. Bring forth whatever little you have and ask Jesus to bless it and then get busy like the disciples in sharing in the ministry of Jesus Christ and always remember, it's not what you have. It's who has you.

Dan Rogers

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## Jesus Walks on the Water

Dan Rogers: Good morning, everyone. We've had a nice service so far, and it's now time for the section where we talk about God's word – take a look at it, and see not only what it said, but what it's saying to us today.

Our selection for today is from Matthew chapter 14 verses 22-32. This is the well-known story of Jesus walking on the water, and Peter's attempt to walk on the water. Before we talk about the actual text itself, the action takes place on the Sea of Galilee. I wonder if any of you know anything about the Sea of Galilee? Have you ever been there? Have you ever seen it? Is there anything you could share what's about?

Person5: I knew we're going to be studying this. It brought to mind the time when I did go to see the Sea of Galilee and I didn't realize how big it was. It's really huge and we saw a boat that they've pulled up from the bottom of the sea. It looks so tiny... That's what really stuck with me.

Dan: That small of a boat on that huge body of water. Right. I think we have a picture here on our TV screen of the Sea of Galilee and the type of boat that was common among the fishermen of that day. The boat is kind of interesting. You can't see the sail, because the sail is down, but that center mast was for a sail. Then they had four positions for rowers. The boat could accommodate as many as 15 people, which, looking at the boat seem that would be pretty crowded out there on the Sea of Galilee.

From behind you can get kind of the imagery of this how big that sea is. They call it a sea, but it's actually fresh water, and it's the lowest freshwater lake on earth. I have some dimensions of it here, which are kind of interesting. As Pat said, it's quite big, 33 miles in circumference, 13 miles long, approximately 8 miles wide at its widest point, 64 square miles are covered by Sea of Galilee. It's 200 feet deep and 682 feet below sea level. It's fed primarily by the Jordan River. It's located 27 miles east of the Mediterranean and 60 miles northeast of Jerusalem. That's a good day's walk.

Storms come up on that lake. Does anybody know anything about the storms that frequent the Sea of Galilee? Has anybody read anything, or have you ever seen it in a movie? What did it look like?

Person6: It seemed like it's very violent. It's very strong.

Dan: Living here in Southern California, we're familiar with the phenomenon known as the "Santa Ana winds," and you know how they come. They come down through the canyons. That's what happens there.

There are canyons on east and west sides of the sea and the wind gets funneled through them, and at times particularly when ... It really catches speed going through those canyons, you can have some pretty serious weather out there of the sea. They've seen waves as high as at least 10 feet [Wow.] out on the Sea of Galilee. No. You usually think of a lake as pretty calm, but this one at times betrays its calmness and can turn violent very quickly and almost without warning. That gives us a little bit of maybe background of what we're dealing with. A pretty big size lake or sea, and a pretty small boat in comparison, is what we're going to be dealing here in the story.

Let's take a look then in Matthew chapter 14, and we begin reading in verse 22, which says, "Immediately, Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. After he dismissed them he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray."

Now, this is interesting. Why do you think that Jesus wanted to get rid of the disciples, which immediately he made them? He didn't ask them – he made them get into the boat. What do you think is going on here?

Person5: I think after what we've read about the hugeness of everything that went on before, I think he needed a time just to be alone and also the time to be recharged by the prayer.

Dan: What's the context that we find in the story in, in the book of Matthew? What things have just happened and Jesus' life and the life of the disciples?

Person1: He just fed the 5000.

Dan: Right. He just fed the 5000. That was probably a day's work, feeding over 5000 people. Charles, you had a comment?

Person7: I was going to echo what Julie said, and it was the fact that there's a period here of several parables that Jesus is teaching. This is in a period of a lot of teaching right now as well...so he probably needed some time alone after all this teaching.

Person3: John the Baptist.

Dan: John the Baptist. What happened to him?

Person1: Was beheaded.

Dan: Yes. John the Baptist had just been killed. What relationship did he have to Jesus?

Person3: He was his cousin.

Dan: His cousin. Yeah. This is a pretty hefty blow, the death of your cousin. What about Jesus' disciples? Did they have any relationship with John the Baptist?

Person3: Yes. They were followers.

Dan: Yes, they had been followers of John the Baptist, at least several of them, before Jesus. Here we have some people who knew John quite well, were very close to him, and now he's dead. They feed the 5000. I think Jesus says, "I need some alone time."

Jesus was the Son of God. Why did he need alone time? What's with that? Here he is praying. Since he's the Son of God, why is he praying and why is he seeking time to be alone?

Person6: I think he's modeling for us, for one thing. I think he truly had a need to be alone with his Father, and on top of that, he's modeling how we ought to respond during a time of stress. That the right to do is to go to God and seek his face and seek that solitude and quiet stillness.

Dan: There was something he couldn't do with his disciples, the group around him all the time, because they were always arguing, bickering, doing something, and he just needed some alone time, but here again I bring up the point: He's the Son of God. Was he praying to himself? How does he pray to God when he's the Son of God? Why is he praying? Why does he need to pray?

Person3: He's totally human, totally in his emotions.

Dan: He's, as well as being fully God, fully human and living out his humanity as a human, and so humans need to have alone times. They need to pray, particularly in situations like this.

We find that he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Now, I'm struck by the fact that he liked to go up on a mountain. Have you ever found it interesting to go up on a mountain to pray?

Person1: Mm-hmm (Affirmative)

Dan: Why? What is it about going up on a mountain to pray that makes it special?

Person1: Being in God's nature. Just seeing his majesty just lay before you and it just makes you feel closer to God.

Dan: When you get up higher you feel closer to him. [Laughter] I think there is truth to that and seeing his creation.

Person7: It helps you to find your place. As you go up, you can look back from where you're coming, you're looking back over your city or your town, and because you realize how vast that is and how small you are in comparison to the greater creation.

Dan: Right. It gives you some perspective, doesn't it? Isn't it interesting that how many times in the Bible significant events take place on mountains? We call it a "mountain-top experience." Going up to the mountain and coming back down, like Moses did. He had a rather miraculous thing happen to him after he came down from the mountain, didn't he?

Kind of interesting. Miraculous things happen to people when they come down back off the mountain, so let's see if something miraculous happens. Of course, we know the story, it did. Let's read on: "When evening came, he was there alone, but the boat was already a considerable distance from land buffeted by waves because the wind was against it."

What strikes me there is, how was Jesus supposed to catch up with his disciples? What do you think they thought?

Person5: He hadn't told them.... They didn't know.

Person7: All we know is he dismissed them.

Someone: He told them to go.

Person1: They probably didn't know he was going to rejoin them.

Dan: Or when. That's kind of an unusual situation. How do you think they felt?

Person3: I think they were worried.

Dan: They may have been worried. Yeah, worried about Jesus. Worried about what was happening, what was going to happen to their ministry that he said they have, and this is unusual. He disappears. We don't know when we'll see him. We'll go, "This is a big lake. We're going to cross the lake. When will we see Jesus again? Maybe he'll get a boat tomorrow and get across."

Person6: I wonder if the disciples even wondered if Jesus knew that they were in trouble, that they were in the midst of a big storm. He's off somewhere and they're in the boat, and they probably didn't even know that Jesus already had an overview, but they were just ... He doesn't know we're out here drowning...

Person5: But they did go in faith that he told them to go, and they did it.

Dan: Yeah, and they are a considerable distance, as the New International Version translates that, considerable distance out in the water this time. They're being buffeted by the waves, and I love this phrase, "Because the wind was against it." What do you think they mean by the wind was against it?

Person3: It is pushing it.

Dan: Pushing the boat?

Person3: Yes.

Dan: Do you think it was pushing them the way they wanted to go?

Person6: No. I think pushing them out further into danger.

Dan: Right. They would like to have maybe rowed to shore. Remember they have four oars in there. The sails are of no use right now, but they were probably manning those oars and rowing for all they were worth, but the wind just wouldn't let go of them. Now, if you know anything about Jewish cosmology, and you probably do, there are two places that you expect to encounter demons. You know what two places in Jewish cosmology they were?

Person7: Water is one of them.

Dan: Right, on the water, out on the sea. Remember in the book of Revelation where all these evil looking critters come from?

Person5: Out of the sea.

Dan: It's dangerous going out in the sea. Because you might encounter something out there. And the other place would be the wilderness, out in the desert. They're a little worried about something going on here that maybe more than meets the eye, and I think there's a hint when Matthew says, "The wind was against it." I think maybe he means more than physically, that things are not going the way they should. We're experienced fishermen. This doesn't look right, what's happening here tonight.

Person3: They were no longer in control.

Dan: Yeah. That's another good point. They had lost control. I think that's an excellent point. Because we know someone is going to come who takes control, who has control. Kind of a lesson for them that they don't have control of their lives or their situation. In verse 25 we read, "During the fourth watch of the night..." Does anybody have a translation that tells you what time that is?

Person6: Three o'clock in the morning, that's why it's early.

Dan: Three, and that's early. Three o'clock in the morning. "During the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went out to them walking on the lake." Walking on the lake – why was Jesus walking on the lake? Why didn't he fly? I mean, good grief, if you're going to do a miracle, why not do a big one? Why not fly? Why not suddenly appear in the boat with them? Why do you think Jesus might have been walking on the water?

Person3: Amongst the waves that were terrifying them.

Dan: He was there at ease.

Person3: Yeah. At ease walking right to them.

Dan: Yeah. I think we forget that these waves are great, and yet Jesus comes out just walking like I think we've seen in the movies, on a peaceful little lake. He's walking through these waves and the sea is bouncing up and down around him and he's walking across it.

Person5: Perhaps it's to reassure them, too, that as (because being very versed in the Old Testament), they knew they had the story of Exodus in the turmoil and everything that went on there, and the big waves that God stilled.

Dan: Very good. There's a little imagery there, walking between the waters and not being harmed by the waters if you're the chosen of God. There's a testimony as to who he was. He's walking like the Israelites walked through the Red Sea, and he's come down from the mountain like Moses. There's a lot going on here that the imagery... Do you think the disciples got all this imagery at that time? [Laughter]

Someone: They're hanging on to the boat.

Person7: Earlier you were saying that this issue of evil spirits or demons in the water is a potential... He's walked on top of the water, or is anything there that we may have missed, that Jesus is on top of the water, on top of any evil spirits that might be there? I don't know...

Dan: Yeah. It could be. Go back to Barbara's point that he is in control of all things. It's amazing, but yeah, this demonstrates his control, his peace, his promise, his faith, a lot of things. Again, the disciples had no thoughts about these things right now. Twenty years later, they reflect back, maybe, and to figure this out, but now, they're just scared. We find that "Jesus went after them walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified." Evidently, they didn't recognize him? Why do you think they didn't recognize him?

Person5: There's too much turbulence?

Dan: Too much turbulence. Okay.

Someone: Waves throwing up.

Person2: They're expecting demons.

Person3: It's a ghost.

Dan: You tend to see what you expect to see, not what is always really there.

Person6: Plus it seems so unbelievable. I mean, it's not something you would expect. That would not be something that I would immediate come to the conclusion that oh, it's Jesus. When you're already scared of demons and all those things out in the water, like you just explained, that your first assumption would probably be it's a ghost, or a demon, or something evil.

Dan: Fear hinders your vision. When you're afraid, it's harder to see Jesus, because you're worried. Your mind is where?

Person1: Your own personal storm.

Dan: Right. Where is Jesus?

Person2: He's there.

Person5: But he doesn't come to them until, or at least they don't see him, until after a lot has really happened.

Dan: Yeah. He is there, but they don't see him. Even when they see him, they don't recognize him. Isn't that a question that people tend to ask when they're in a crisis: Where is God? He's there, but we don't see him because we're not expecting him, and we're not looking for him, and really knowing that he is there.

Person6: What strikes me on this is it doesn't say that Jesus came and just calmed the storm and then walked across. Maybe I'm missing something here, but the way I read it, he's walking through the storm.

Dan: Right. That's the way it appears to me, too. That's how I read it. He's walking right through the midst of the storm, which really is amazing. He's walking on the lake and they were terrified. They said, "It's a ghost." They cried out in fear like a little girl. Oh no. That's not in there... [Laughter]

Dan: Had these fellows ever been out on the sea before? Yeah. They were fishermen. Most of them. Had they ever been out on that lake? Yeah. It was probably, maybe, one of their boats, unless they rented or borrowed it from someone, and yet these brave, experienced seamen are terrified. Something out of the ordinary is definitely happening here. Now they thought they saw a ghost. Did the disciples believe in ghosts?

Someone: Probably not.

Person3: They had them in their background.

Person6: Maybe it's still in there somewhere.

Dan: Yeah. You fall back on what you've grown up with, what you've heard. Did the Jewish people believe in disembodied spirits roaming the earth? Yeah, they did. Is Jesus a disembodied spirit?

Person5: They think he is. [Laughter] He's walking on the water.

Dan: There might be an interesting message here from Matthew (and other New Testament writers as well) of the reality of Jesus' humanity, that he is not some disembodied spirit who they perceive as a man. He is a man. He's not a ghost. He's not a disembodied spirit. He's a man, but he's a man who is walking on the water. How do you think he did that? What technique did he use to walk on the water?

Person3: He's God.

Dan: He is God, but he's operating, he's fully human. How could he do this?

Person3: By the Spirit.

Dan: I would say by the Spirit. That's the way he seems to have done everything in his ministry, is by the Spirit. He might say that same happened to Moses coming down from the mountain and glowing. He was a man, but he glowed by the Spirit. Let's say Jesus was a man, but walking down off the mountain and parting the sea, he walked like a man, but through the power of the Holy Spirit. It also shows Jesus is in control, like what Barbara's raised there. He's in control. He's in control of what?

Everything. You mean even storms?

Dan: He's in control. The forces of nature. Who in the world could be in charge of all creation?

Someone: God.

Dan: Yeah. The Creator. Who else would be in charge of all the creation, but the Creator.

"They say, 'It's a ghost,' and they cried out in fear, but Jesus immediately said to them, 'Take courage. It is I. Don't be afraid.'" Have you ever noticed how many times Jesus had to say to his disciples, Don't be afraid? Take courage, don't fear, and don't be afraid. Why do you think he had to continually encourage them not to be afraid?

Person5: There was a lot against them.

Dan: We're fearful. When things get against us, we get fearful. What have we seen that fear does to you, though, when you have that kind of fear?

Person2: Blind you.

Dan: It blinds you. Yeah.

Person3: Makes you crazy.

Person1: You start questioning everything.

Dan: Questioning, doubting ...

Person3: Can't see the truth.

Dan: Fearing. Can't see.

Person5: You can't do anything.

Person2: It paralyzes.

Dan: It kind of reminds me of the fellow who buried a talent because he was afraid. Everybody else did well. His problem was not that he only had the one. His problem was he was afraid, and when you're afraid, as Barbara said, you do crazy stuff, stuff that's not right, and you lack faith. You don't trust God, and you just make things worse. Isn't it challenging as a human not to be afraid?

We're going to find out, as we read on in the story, what a challenge it is. Verse 8, "Lord, if it's you ...," [Don't you love Peter's cry?] "If it's you [he's still having a little trouble], Peter replied, tell me to come to you on the water."

Now, notice that Peter didn't say, "Let me come to you on the water," or "Can I come to you on the water?" He said, "Command me to come to you on the water." Why do you think he put it that way? Why did he ask Jesus to command him to come to him on the water?

Person3: He wanted Jesus to make it possible that he could come, because he was afraid.

Dan: He was afraid, but he felt what? If Jesus commands ...

Person3: ... it would happen, because he's seen it.

Dan: All right.

Someone: He just thought, he's been seeing it.

Person6: He wanted to make sure it was going to work. [Laughter]

Dan: If it didn't work, whose fault was it going to be?

Several: Jesus'.

Dan: Can we ever do that?

Person7: Yes.

Dan: Oh, God, you have left me down. I asked you for this and I prayed about it. I prayed about it, and it didn't happen. It didn't turn out the way you wanted it. I don't know what's going on with you, God, but you're not listening or something out there. Yeah, I think there was a little human tendency there to "let's put this on God. I have nothing to do with it. If I fail, it's God's fault."

"So Jesus eventually said, 'Come.' Then Peter got down out of the boat." Would you have gotten down out of the boat?

Person5: Probably not.

Person3: I would hope so.

Dan: You notice that the 11 did not get down out of the boat? There was only one out of the 12 who did, but that's what? Peter's personality? Peter's nature? The others were saying, "Let's see how this thing works out. If Peter makes it, maybe we'll walk, too, but first, let Peter go." Peter got down out of the boat and walked on the water. How cool is that? Peter is walking on the water.

"He came towards Jesus, but when he saw the wind, he was afraid." What happened here? He saw the wind and was afraid. He walking on water.

Person3: He took his eyes off Jesus.

Dan: Very good. Fear blinded him, and now he couldn't see Jesus, because he's afraid. He saw what? The wind?

Person5: He saw what was going on immediately around him and said, "This is impossible."

Dan: Thankfully, we never do that. [Laughter] I think we can understand it. God, I know you're there, but look's going on around me? Oh, my goodness. What's going to happen next? I am impressed that Peter walked on the water. "He saw the wind and he was afraid and beginning to sink, cried out, 'Lord, save me.'" What do you think of his actions there? He starts to sink.

Person5: He knew who to turn to.

Dan: He knew who to turn to. Let's give Peter a lot of credit. He realized "I'm not in control, but I have a feeling Jesus, you are. [Barb: And you love me.] I need you to save me." Isn't it the cry of all humanity, or should be, "Lord Jesus, save me"?

Person6: I like it that he didn't yell to his friends. Throw him the oar over here.

Someone: Throw me a line.

Dan: You get the feeling that he was past the point of no return? There's a gospel account of Peter swimming. We know Peter could swim. Being a fisherman, we would assume he was a pretty good fisherman having grown up on the lakes, spent his life out there fishing, but at this point, he realizes he can't swim back to the boat. There is no alternative if Jesus doesn't save him. He's a goner.

"Immediately [verse 31], Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. 'You of little faith,' he said. 'Why did you doubt?' When they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, 'Truly, you are the Son of God.'" What do you make of Jesus' words to Peter, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?"

Person3: He was teaching him.

Dan: What do you think the message was?

Person3: He had to believe.

Dan: He needed to believe. He should have had more belief.

Person3: In Jesus.

Dan: Right.

Person5: I think it also probably looks ahead to the time at the crucifixion when Peter said, "I'll never give up on you," and he did, and Jesus is saying, "Don't doubt."

Person6: I think I take these words as very tender words, I guess. Because his first reaction was to save Peter, and to grab him and pull him out, and then he told them, oh, come on. It wasn't that he let him struggle or sink, or he could have dived after him really, but he took it easy on him. He saved him first, and I see these as very tender words even though they're strong. He saved him first and then he taught him.

Dan: Yeah. Some of us might say, "Well, let him learn his lesson. Let's have him drown almost and... I think you're right – Jesus was kind in his admonition. I don't even know if it's a rebuke. Peter, he says, had little faith.

Person5: But he had some.

Dan: He had some. How much faith do I have?

Person3: And how much do the disciples have? They didn't go.

Dan: They didn't even go out on the water.

Person3: But he was working with him. [Dan: Yeah.] individually...

Dan: I think the point it is, can you be saved with little faith?

Person3: Yes.

Person5: Yes.

Person3: Or with no faith.

Dan: Virtually no faith, because Jesus has faith for you. We have to trust not in our own faith, but on the faith that Jesus has.

Person6: He supplies for us.

Dan: Yeah, he had a little faith, but he was still saved. What condition was Peter in, do you think, when he got back in the boat?

Person3: Wet. [Laughter.]

Person1: Ghostly looking, looking very wet as a sheet.

Dan: Probably. Do you imagine the water was hot or cold?

Several: Cold.

Dan: And the wind was blowing. I think he might have even turned blue. How do you think he feels all wet and frozen lying there on the boat and all the other 11 looking at him?

Person3: Humble, embarrassed.

Person5: But yet he did walk on water for a little bit. "Did that really happen?" He had to be thinking about that, too.

Person7: Jesus was so full of love that in this ... I have to see that Peter's gained some additional love for Jesus, and he recognizes that "I desperately need you" and I have to see his heart growing even more there.

Dan: Then Jesus tells the storm to stop, and Peter's thinking, "yeah, now, after I'm back in the boat. Why didn't you do that before, when I was walking out there?" Anything we can learn from that?

Person3: He would have learned.

Dan: The storm actually helped Peter, didn't it?

Person3: Yes.

Dan: Did storms in our lives ever help us? They're not very pleasant ... We don't like them.... God seems to saves us out of most of them. He will save us for all eternity, but sometimes you get wet.

Person3: Cold.

Dan: He lets you get wet.

Someone: Hungry.

Dan: Then in saving you, you don't come out unscathed. Why do you think Jesus didn't stop the storm until it was over, though?

Person6: It would have had far less impact, I think, than if he would have calmed the storm. With this scenario, he didn't just calm the storm. They also walked on the water. They almost drowned. He was there in the midst...

Dan:...of the storm.

Person5: In the midst – I just thought of that, too – in the midst of the trial and the crisis. Jesus was there when he was walking on the water, and he was still in the midst of the storm, and he was still cold and shivering, and all of that, but he was still there. He did perform the miracles, too, in the midst of the trial, in the midst of the crisis.

Dan: Right. That's amazing. And you know, has God promised us no problems in life? Do you read that?...persecution... Jesus has never promised us no storms, but what has he promised us?

Person3: Storms.

Someone: That he will be with us.

Dan: He promised that he will be with us in those storms.

Person3: To the end.

Dan: Right, to the very end, and he will save us.

Person6: Even with little faith.

Dan: Even with a little faith that we have, he will still save us. Any lessons that you take away from this story today from this biblical account, anything that really just particularly stands out in your mind?

Person6: I think for me, there are several, but the one of them that just keeps popping in my mind is as a mother of two small children, the approach of that graceful loving way of dealing, the way Jesus dealt with their tantrums sometimes, or their doubts, or their fears, and how Jesus approached almost as a parent to them, how tender and full of mercy and love it was, even when they were in the midst of a crisis, tantrum, or doubt or a fear. As a mom, I think I just really want to take that same approach in life to deal with my children in a tender way, a loving way, even when there's only very little faith, and even when there's a lot of doubt whether I'm doing the right thing for them. They doubt me, I can still be there in a loving way, on that level. Of course, there's a deeper level as well as far as my personal relationship with Jesus, and the storms that I do go through and knowing that he will pull me out. He might not calm the storm, but he will be there and he won't let me drown.

Dan: Okay. Very good. What else?

Person3: There's lessons on many levels. There's the blessing of training, that Jesus was training his disciples through this whole experience about the storms and in saving them, like Suzie said about them.

Dan: Even when he is not visibly present.

Person3: Right.

Dan: You still have faith and he will save you.

Person7: The modeling at the start of the story, we have Jesus going up to the mountainside to be with his Father to recharge his batteries, to get some peace after having fed the 5000, knowing what is yet to come in his ministry, just spending a time alone with God, just a reminder that even in the midst of struggles, we need to cling to our Father.

Person5: I think that was one that I got, too, is that he was there getting close to his Father, getting recharged, but he knew about the disciples. He knew the problem they were having and he did go rescue them.

Dan: Right. How do you think maybe this speaks to people who ask that question, "When bad things happen, where is God?" How does this speak to that?

Person7: He's there. You may not see him. The storm may blind us, but he's there. We have to look for him.

Dan: He's not only there in spirit. How else is he there, do you think?

Person2: He's physically present.

Dan: Physically present, and not only in his being, but in whatever humans may be there as well. God is present, and there is no good but of God, so whatever happens to us in storms, if it's not Jesus who pulled us up ... What if it's a rowboat that came out and pulled Peter out of the water? Was Jesus still there?

Person3: Yes.

Person2: Absolutely.

Dan: Yeah. Peter's present in the people in the rowboat. You know the old joke about you know guy was waiting on his housetop in the flood for the Lord to save him, and the rowboat came up and he said, "No thanks. The Lord is going to save me." The helicopter came, "He said, No thanks. The Lord's going to save me." He drowned and went to heaven. When he's in heaven he said, "Lord what happened? You didn't save me." He said, "Well I sent a rowboat and a helicopter for you." [Laughter]

Sometimes we don't see the ways. Again, we're blind to the ways that God comes to us. We look for God to come to us in the way we want him to come, and the way we expect him to come, and when it's not that way, sometimes we're blind to it and don't see it.

Person1: I think also how much has our faith grown through each storm we face. Does our faith grow each time? Or do we allow more doubt?

Dan: I think you make a good point. One of the things about Peter was he had some faith, he thought, and he walked on the water, but even at our highest points, when we have faith to walk on water, as humans, we still revert, and then the next time, didn't learn the lesson at all. Now we doubt. Now we're sinking, and you'd think, Well, Peter, if you walked on water a while..."

Person1: Why didn't you keep going?

Dan: Why didn't he keep going? We humans, we're up and down. Thank God, it's not our faith that saves us.

Person6: What I love about this Jesus who's so fully human, he must have felt the storm and the boat rocking, and he must have been getting wet and cold. He was in the storm with them. He was not the one who was miraculously all dry and probably didn't feel the cold. He must have felt all the elements in the midst of the storm. He put himself there. To me, it's what makes Jesus so approachable knowing that I'm in a storm. "You might not calm the storm, but I know you know what it feels like."

Dan: Yeah. There's a lot to learn from this story, isn't it?

All right. Well, that concludes our message portion of the service today. We'll sing the final hymn, and have a closing prayer, and dismiss for the day.

Dan Rogers

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back to table of contents

## Jesus and the Samaritan Woman

Dan: Good morning. It's good to see all of you here today. We've had a nice time singing and worshipping together and good time of prayer. Now, it's time for us to get into God's word and talk about our message for today. As you know, we're going to be reading from John chapter 4 and the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman. Before we actually get into the text, I thought it might be interesting just to talk about the background of Samaria and that part of the world and the Samaritan people so that we have a little bit of background to work with as we get in to the story.

Anybody here who wants to volunteer some information about Samaria or the Samaritans? What can you tell us about that country and the people who live there?

Female: They were hated by the Jews. I know that. Here, Jesus was walking through it.

Dan: Okay.

Female: That's interesting.

Dan: There was some kind of antipathy between the Samaritans and the Jewish people. Anybody know what that's all about? Why? They're neighbors. How come they don't like each other? Anybody remember?

Female: Different religion.

Dan: Yeah. How so? How was it different?

Female: They worshipped at different places.

Dan: Aha. Did they worship a different god?

Female: Yes.

Dan: Did they think they worshiped a different god?

Female: No. They thought they...

Dan: The Jews thought they worshiped a different god, but the Samaritans thought they worshipped the same god as the Jews but as Barbara said, they did it in the wrong places, and the Jewish religion, in the Old Testament, was very place-conscious. Jerusalem was God's headquarters on earth and how dare they not worship in Jerusalem and worship somewhere else? Anybody know where they liked to worship? Anybody can remember?

Dan: We could figure it's probably going to be on the top of a mountain.

Female: Yeah.

Dan: What mountain was it? Anybody remember?

Female: No.

Dan: Okay. Mount Gerizim. You knew that, didn't you?

Female: We knew that.

Dan: They built a temple on the top of Mount Gerizim and they worshipped their god who they thought was the God of Israel. They almost considered themselves Israelites, which was a real insult to the Jews because it was like they were lying about their national identity, claiming to be the true people of God, claiming to worship, and doing it in a false place and in a false way with false priests. The Jews hated this defilement, as they saw it, of the true religion which they had and yet the Samaritans, sometimes, could not understand this because they thought they were worshipping the same god as the Jews did.

But then, during the Maccabean period just prior to the birth of Jesus by a couple of hundred years, John Hyrcanus led an armed force of Jews up Mount Gerizim and destroyed their temple which was an affront to the Jews, but now this became a very horrible thing in the life of the Samaritans. The Samaritans never got over the Jews coming up and destroying their temple. For years afterwards, they continue to go up Mount Gerizim and to worship in the rubble of the temple that the Jews had destroyed.

Over the centuries, this animosity have been building and reached a fever pitch. Everybody know where Samaria is?

Female: Real close to Israel.

Dan: Israel, to the Jews, to Judea. I have a little map here and if you can see it, it might be helpful just to give you an illustration. If you can see that there is Galilee in the north and there is... Samaria is in the middle and down here is Judea. You can see that you have Galilee to the north, and who came from Galilee?

Female: Jesus.

Dan: Jesus and... 11 of his 12 disciples came from Galilee, and then there's Samaria.

Female: In between.

Dan: Judea is to the south of Samaria and Galilee is just to the north and you notice the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River flowing along there and sort of dividing the land from what they call the Transjordan.

Dan: If you were going to go from Jerusalem down here, it would appear you had to go through Samaria but wait... Jews don't like Samaritans and the Samaritans don't like the Jews, so what do you think that the Jewish people going north and south from Galilee to Jerusalem would tend to do?

Female: Go around it.

Dan: They would tend to go around it and it was an easy trip. They just had to cross the Jordan River, go up that side, and then cross back over into Galilee, and they preferred that, lest they encounter any Samaritans and touch any unclean Samaritan or some Samaritan thing that had been touched. It was typical to go around Samaria to get from Galilee to Judea and Judea to Galilee, kind of an interesting little detour that they had to take.

We have some pictures here too on the TV screen. You might want to look at this area. This is in the late 1800s. This is what the site of what's called Jacob's Well in Samaria looked like. You might notice that it's in the side of a hill, and we don't typically think of having to go into a cave-like area to get to a well, but that's what it looked like in the 1800s, and then we have a more modern picture. As you notice, they've turned it into tourist attraction and built a wall around it and now, people can file in and it's labeled in three languages there, Jacob's Well. Both Jewish scholars, Muslim scholars, and Christian scholars do agree that this was Jacob's Well that's spoken of here in John chapter 4. It's pretty good archeological evidence for that.

I think we have one more picture. This is what it looks like inside. Can you see the bucket? Of course, it has been touristified to make it a shrine worthy of visiting, but it gives you an idea of where it was, and it's still there to this day. You can actually go to Jacob's Well and visit.

All right. We got some pictures to give us a little bit of background, a little bit of geography. Now, let's go to our text at John chapter 4. We read here that "the Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John." This is not good news for the Pharisees. The Pharisees thought they controlled the territory outside of the temple. If you want to know the religious marketplace of the day, the Sadducees controlled the temple. The Pharisees had everything else.

Now, here's this what we would call wild card, John the Baptist. He is not exactly an Essene but he kind of looks like one. He is not a Pharisee. He is not a Sadducee and he is getting followers. This is marketplace competition.

Now, John is gone, but of all things, there's another guy coming on the scene who is taking away people after him, and that's Jesus. He is getting "more disciples than John. Although in fact, it was not Jesus who baptized but his disciples. When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee."

You remember our little map there where everything is? Now, notice verse 4. "Now, he had to go through Samaria." What do you think John means, he had to go through Samaria? Did he have to go through Samaria?

No. Most Jews did not want to go through Samaria and went around it. Could John mean something more?

Female: He was led to go through Samaria.

Dan: He felt led, felt a compulsion, felt a need. This gives you the sense of what? A mission?

Female: Yes.

Dan: The wonderful thing about reading the fourth Gospel is the writer, John, loves to use double entendres and two and three and four layers of meanings in so much of what he says. We always have to read beyond what appears on the surface when we read John. "He had to go through Samaria. He came to a town in Samaria called Sychar near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son, Joseph. Jacob's Well was there and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well and it was about the sixth hour." Anybody got the time in your translation?

Female: Noon time.

Female: Lunch.

Dan: What do you make of this "Jesus was tired from the journey?"

Female: Been walking a long time.

Female: It was hot.

Female: He needed something to drink?

Dan: What do you think John is telling us about the nature of Jesus?

Female: He's very human.

Female: He too gets tired.

Dan: He got tired? Yeah, he wanted to rest and he was thirsty.

Female: He needed food and drink.

Dan: It's noon time. Verse 7: "When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, 'Will you give me a drink?'"

Okay. It's noon time and we have a Samaritan woman coming out from the city of Sychar. The well was outside of the city, so she has to come out of the city, walk out to this area where we saw the well located, go in there with her pitcher or bucket or whatever she had, her rope and all of that and draw water. Does anything strike you as unusual about this scenario of the Samaritan woman coming out at noon time to draw water?

Female: That seems an odd time to draw water. You would either do that in the morning or at night when it's not so hot.

Dan: Right.

Female: To come out in the middle of the day seems out of place.

Dan: Right. Do you notice anyone else coming out?

Female: She's by herself.

Female: No friends.

Dan: If you read the Old Testament, as Suzie indicates, there are many examples of women coming out for water in the stories as you read the Old Testament and they always come out at morning or in evening. Never at noon.

Why else might a woman not want to come out to a well outside of the city by herself?

Female: Safety.

Female: Robbers.

Dan: Who would typically stop by wells during the middle of the day?

Female: Strangers.

Female: People passing through.

Dan: Travelers, right. Probably caravans, and who knows who they are and what they're up to, so it would be kind of a dangerous time for a woman to come outside of the city walls by herself in the heat of the day to draw water. There's something strange going on here, and as Barbara suggested, she does not seem to have any friends. She has to come out by herself all alone—an unusual situation.

Male: It could be she's avoiding other people.

Dan: Maybe she doesn't want to be with them, right? "Jesus says to her, 'Will you give me a drink?' His disciples had gone away into the town to buy food." Every time I read that verse, I think of kind of the jokes that go like, "How many disciples does it take to buy lunch?"

Male: All of them.

Dan: What's with that? Would it take 11 disciples to go into town and buy lunch? What do you think is going on here?

Female: He sent them all.

Female: It was the plan.

Dan: Yeah. He sent them to buy lunch. I don't think you needed 11 to go into town to buy lunch. That would be a pretty big lunch for 11 people to have to carry. Do you think Jesus had something in mind here?

It looks like this was planned. He had to go through Samaria. He stayed by the well and sent them all away so that he could be alone and, "aah!" Surprise, here comes the Samaritan woman. We don't know the background. We don't know how Jesus knew all this, whether he was led of the Spirit or whether he had word that this happened or how. All we know is the story, so we have to take it at face value.

Let's see what we can glean from it. Jesus said, "Will you give me a drink?" Then, in verse 9, the Samaritan woman said to him, "You're a Jew. I'm a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" Then John, for the benefit of his writers who don't know history, said, "For Jews do not associate with Samaritans." Something very unusual is going on here. What do you make of Jesus asking her, "Will you give me a drink?" What do you think is happening here? What's going on? Why would he do this?

Female: A Jew would never address a woman and never address a Samaritan.

Dan: Right.

Female: He was showing acceptance of her which was...

Dan: Yes. Even though he asked her a favor, he was showing that he accepted her equal to himself.

Female: So weird. He is breaking down some major walls here.

Dan: That's very strange. Some major barriers of religion, of genderism, of classism and all those isms are being dramatically broken by Jesus. She gathers that he is Jew, we read that in the text. How do think she figured out he was a Jew?

Female: The way he dressed.

Dan: Yeah. Without even hearing him speak, but then when he said, "Will you..." "Mhmmm... I recognize that accent." It's Galilean if you ask me.

You must be a Jew, but I think the way he dressed and he was probably dressed somewhat like the rabbis of his day. Here you have someone who possibly is not only a Jew, not only a male, but possibly a rabbi, and he is talking to a Samaritan woman. This is earth-shattering. This is just not done.

She even almost mildly rebukes him for his nerve. How dare you speak to me?

Female: Don't you know you'd be contaminated? You may be hurt.

Dan: Verse 10: Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asked you for a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." What do you make of some of these statements? We've got the gift of God, we got living water. What do you think these things are talking about here? Let's start with the gift of God. What do you think that might be? "If you knew the gift of God ..."

Female: Jesus.

Female: If you knew who is talking to you and what I can offer you, you would beg me for the living water.

Female: He is being very plain in one sense with her because he hasn't talked to others in this way before.

Dan: In the book of John, he hasn't even talked to his disciples this way. He's talking to her in a more open way than he did with anyone that he met, at least, in the book of John to this point. Is there anything called the gift of God in the New Testament you can think of other than Jesus?

Female: The Spirit, the Holy Spirit.

Dan: If you knew the gift of God, that Spirit. If the Spirit worked with you, if you just know the gift of God and know he's with you and who it is that asked you, the Son of God... Whoa! He's getting into a Trinitarian theology here.

Talking or hinting about the Spirit, hinting about who he is, assuming that she knows some God in heaven who unbeknownst to her is the Father but he is really working with her in a Trinitarian way which he has talked to no one else about, at least at this point, his ministry throughout the Gospels.

Female: He must have known that she's very receptive in her circumstances, of coming at noon and that she was a candidate to be very open with.

Dan: What made her a good open candidate?

Female: He knew her heart. Just her brokenness probably.

Female: No friends and...

Dan: Coming out alone at dangerous time of the day.

Female: She was vulnerable.

Female: Felt very empty.

Dan: What do you think of her, let's say, intelligence and understanding?

Female: I think she was curious already and obviously was wondering about him and she was almost seeking an answer from him.

Dan: The first thing she does to him when he says, "Give me a drink of water," is to do what?

Male: Ask him a question.

Dan: What do we call people today who ask questions about Jesus?

Female: Seekers, learners.

Dan: She was, "Hey, wait a minute. I want to know more here. This is interesting. Tell me what's going on." She was indeed somewhat receptive. He said, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asked you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." What is living water? What does that expression mean?

Female: Water that will make you live forever.

Dan: That's how he's going to interpret it, as water that will make you live forever but let's say if you were just... took him at face value, do you know what they would mean by living water in that day?

Female: It would be fresh water.

Dan: Fresh water because it's alive and not dead like the Dead Sea but not full of salt but living water. Where did living water usually come from?

Female: Springs?

Dan: Springs, yeah, flowing water from... but wait a minute – this is not a spring. This is not flowing water. This is a well. He says, "I asked you for a drink out of the well but if you ask me, I would give you living water, flowing water." Rushing water, not just sitting-still water at the bottom of this well.

"Sir," very respectful. "Sir," the woman said. "You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?" What? You're going to go down to the very base of the well and find out if there's anything running in from outside somewhere? You don't even have a bucket. You don't even have a rope. How are you going to do this? "Are you greater than our father, Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?" What do you find interesting about that statement?

Female: She's very feisty.

Female: She really thinks that he might be. she's hoping that he might be.

Dan: She's engaging with him as an equal, isn't she? "You may be a rabbi, but I know a thing or two."

Female: Right, because she's saying that she knows something about her ancestor Jacob. She knows a little bit about the... maybe she even knows something about living water what he is referring to.

Dan: She could have been tongue-in-cheek saying, "I get your message but I don't understand how you're using it." Yeah.

What do you think of this, "Our father, Jacob?"

Female: That's probably who she thought was the most important person at that period of time.

Dan: Does anyone know where the Samaritans actually came from who were living in Samaria at that time of Jesus, their national origin or their regional origin? Do you know where they originated from?

The northern tribe of Israel was taken captive in about 722, 721 BC by the Assyrians. The Assyrians brought in people from some of their inhabited lands to replace the northern kingdom of Israel that they've taken. They didn't take all of them. They only took a small portion (relatively, probably) away, but they did replace them with others, and then there was intermarriage between the northern tribes of Israel that remained and all of these, let me call them Macedonians as a generalism of where they came from, that were replacing them. You got kind of a mixed breed. You know how the Jews feel about mixed breeds?

Dan: That's bad.

Dan: What does she say?

Female: She's giving a common link.

Dan: She's saying we're related to Jacob.

Dan: If you were a Jew, who would you have said your father was?

Female: Abraham.

Dan: Is that interesting? The Jews say our father, Abraham. The Samaritans say, our father, Jacob.

A little difference in theological views here. Are you greater than Jacob? After all, Jacob is the greatest of all the patriarchs from their estimation. Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him, will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

What a statement! What is he saying to her? How do you interpret that statement? What do you think it meant to her?

Female: Life.

Dan: What kind of life?

Female: Good.

Dan: Good life, the best life.

Female: Fresh and clean.

Male: Eternal life.

Dan: Had Jesus offered anyone else that you know of in the Gospels at this time in his ministry eternal life?

Female: No. I don't think so.

Female: He talks about it gushing, so it's a lot. It's not like he's going to just give her a little portion of it but a lot of... the whole amount.

Dan: There's a power there. There is a force in the sense of a spring of water welling up from the source, and flowing out and up to... the source will give you eternal life. I am impressed at the theology that Jesus is laying on this Samaritan woman. This is pretty deep and evidently, he feels she can process it.

I'm also amazed at how he... if you noticed, he leads her step by step and he began by saying, "Will you give me a drink of water?" That one question, based on her response, he then went a little further. Then based on her response, he went a little further and now, he's going, "You can have eternal life, if you will."

Female: Yes. Exciting.

Dan: At verse 15, the woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water." She's interested, isn't she? "Okay. You're offering, I'm buying."

Female: She sounds excited.

Dan: "I don't know exactly fully what you're talking about, but it sounds good to me. I want it." What's the reason she gives for wanting this water so that she will never thirst?

Female: She doesn't like her life.

Dan: What makes you think that?

Female: She doesn't want to come there ever again.

Dan: There's something about coming to the well that she doesn't like.

Female: By herself in the heat of the day.

Female: It could be her business.

Dan: It could be something, the way... something going on in her life.

Dan: It could be her business. It could be something going on in her life. We don't know yet. Of course we do, because we've read the end of the story, but we don't know yet what it is, but she's not happy.

She wants some changes. She wants to change her life. This is really quite remarkable. Jesus has not dealt with anyone like this. Of all people, the first one he deals with is a Samaritan and a woman. The 12 are "out to lunch." [laughter]

So he says to her in verse 16, "Go call your husband and come back." She says, "I have no husband." Jesus seems to have known that.

That always reminds me of asking the children, "Did you eat that cookie?" You know that they did, so why do you ask them?

Female: See what they'll say.

Dan: I think he asked her just to see what she would say, and she said, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You were right when you say you have no husband." He didn't say, "I know you're a whore."

Dan: What did he do? What approach did he take with this woman?

Female: Very gentle.

Female: Respectful.

Dan: He complimented her, didn't he? Because she told the truth. She didn't lie to him. She didn't try to deceive him. She could have, but she was just honest and forthright and said, "Yeah. I am who I am and I don't have a husband." Jesus said, "You're right."

Female: She made herself very vulnerable to someone who was giving her hope perhaps. He held something that she wanted that sounded interesting. It was giving her hope. She was being very forthright.

Dan: You get the feeling that her life had hit bottom. She's, "I got nothing to lose. You got some living water? I'll go for whatever it is. I don't fully understand but I'll tell you, where I am, I'll take whatever you have to offer."

Female: It seems like that... just from reading and I know it probably was a lot harder than it seems, drawing water and going out in the middle of the day, but that could not have been the end of the story. Just that she was this desperate to get out of that particular job. It seemed like there was layers underneath that she really wanted to get out of.

Dan: Yeah. Her whole way of life, perhaps. She wants to leave.

Jesus said to her, "You're right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands." The interesting thing here is that he said she had five husbands.

Female: In that culture, you had to have a protector. You had to have a husband.

Female: Somehow, she had five husbands.

Dan: Yeah. We don't know what happened to these five husbands, do we?

Female: No.

Dan: Do you think all five died?

Female: It doesn't sound like it and why not?

Dan: Unless she's a more dangerous woman than... but she had five husbands.

Female: She may have had abusive husbands.

Dan: She may have had abusive husbands and so we're assuming perhaps she had had five husbands. Maybe she was divorced. In Jewish law, how many times were you allowed to divorce?

Female: Once.

Dan: Actually more. They allowed three. None was the ideal. One, you were kind of "errrr." Three, that's the limit. She had had five.

Male: I don't know what Samaritan law was. I have no record of it but...

Female: Three, five... five men put her away maybe.

Dan: Yeah. That's what I was going to ask next. Could a woman put away a man?

Female: No. Rejected.

Dan: Five men had put her away.

Female: Rejection.

Dan: Who was it awhile ago? I think it was it Pat who said she was feisty.

Dan: A strong woman. A strong-willed woman, which was probably not very favorable in her culture.

Dan: Five men had put her away.

Dan: Do you think it was because she was strong willed? There could have been other reasons, various reasons.

Dan: We don't know what they all were, but five men...

Female: She seems very intelligent too, so maybe that was intimidating to the men.

Female: She seems like she had some sort of education. She does talk about as if she is aware of Jacob, of what's going on.

Female: She understands where he is from, so she doesn't sound uneducated, and he is engaging her as if she understands what... And perhaps that was intimidating to five husbands.

Female: That they were supposed to be very quiet.

Dan: I'll share a comment, this man is giving me water and saying, "What are you talking about?" Immediately, she spars with him.

Now, it tells us something about her nature. Here in verse 18, Jesus says, "The fact is you have had five husbands." Evidently five legitimate, legal arrangements, and the man you now have is not your husband, an illegal, immoral arrangement. What did he say to her? "You adulterer, you harlot, you whore?" What did he say?

Female: He said, "You spoke the truth. You were honest about this."

Dan: He did not put her down. He did not rebuke her. He did not criticize her. He complimented her for her forthrightness and her honesty. She again speaks to him with respect at verse 19. "Sir," the woman said. "I can see that you are a prophet." What do you make of that statement? She said, "I see you are a prophet."

Male: He knew stuff that he couldn't have known.

Dan: He sees things that other people don't. He obviously is an intelligent man versed in knowledge of his day.

Female: She sees that he's a rabbi. She doesn't see a Jew. He's probably...

Dan: Probably a rabbi, a teacher, a Jew, yeah, and he is not a Pharisee or Sadducee who she may be familiar with, but he stands outside of them like a prophet. Sort of like John the Baptist type of prophet, but it's interesting to note that in the Samaritan religion, they were looking for one sent from God who would be the descendant of (of course) Jacob, who would come and free their people and they did not call him the Messiah. They called him, the Prophet.

They were looking for not just a prophet but The Prophet, but I think that we can see here that Jesus is already leading her to think in a certain direction about just who he might be and he's already offered her eternal life. Wow!

Female: She must have been really surprised too that he didn't condemn her. She must have been so surprised by his response. I can only imagine her bracing for the rebuke that was to come when it was obvious that she had five husbands and was living with a guy now. His response I think triggered some of that respect that she seems to display in the ways she talks to him because she's probably floored.

Dan: Yeah. I think so. She's now very respectful, calling him a prophet and I think she's deeply touched. This is moving her emotionally.

Female: She was probably ready to put up her defenses if he had come back.

Dan: Probably used to it, don't you think? Daily... yeah.

Female: Yeah. She's got gloves on.

Dan: She was ready, but his approach was totally different from what she was used to or expected. She says to him, "Our fathers worshipped on this mountain. [That would be Mount Gerizim.] But you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem." There is a key difference.

If you worship in the wrong place, you can't be God's people. The place is what's important, and that's what divided them primarily. Jesus declared,

#### Believe me, woman. A time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and now has come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God the Spirit and his worshippers must worship him in spirit and in truth.

Wow! What a message! "A time is coming," he said to her, when who is going to worship the Father?

Female: All people. It says... yeah.

Dan: But in particular?

Female: The Samaritans.

Dan: The Samaritan woman, first of all, and the Samaritans secondarily. There is a time coming when you – that seems to me a prediction.

Female: He's very personal to her right now.

Dan: Yeah. When you, the woman, you the Samaritans, you're going to worship.

Dan: Who are you going to worship?

Female: The Father.

Dan: Anything about that strike you as unusual?

Female: Because it was Jacob that they worshipped?...

Dan: Yeah. I wonder what she thought he meant when he said, "You will worship the Father." He might be right she might tell. He means Jacob.

Female: Or maybe he means Abraham since he is Jewish.

Dan: Or maybe he means Abraham. How many people did Jesus teach about the Father in his ministry?

Female: His disciples?

Dan: Very few—and I don't think [it included] the disciples. They haven't heard about the Father. He is telling her about the Father, maybe before anyone else hears. He is revealing the Father to her and saying that, "You are going to worship the Father." To worship him, probably you ought to know who he is. Again, we get back to (in my estimation) some very heavily Trinitarian theological utterances here by Jesus to the Samaritan woman, of all people, but neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. What does that mean? You're going to worship the Father.

Female: A place...

Female: The place is not important here.

Dan: Yeah. The place would not be important any longer. "You Samaritans worship what you do not know." They didn't know the Father. They honored Jacob, looking for a prophet. They were a little bit confused. "We worship what we do know." At least we Jews have some things right.

What do you think he means, "salvation is from the Jews?"

Female: He was born Jewish. He is the Son of God.

Dan: The Messiah comes from Judah. One of the reasons the Maccabeans (who freed the Judeans from the Syrian armies and so forth) and they were very pleased throughout the Seleucid reign and all of that), but as much as Judas Maccabaeus and the Maccabean family did, the Judeans never really quite fully accepted them. You know why? They weren't of David.

You got to be of David. Salvation is of the Jews and in particular of the line of David, if you're going to be the Messiah, so they were looking to Jacob and they were looking for a prophet and Jesus is saying, "No. Salvation is from the Jews." A son of David, from the tribe of Judah. [Jesus may have said that, but John likes that phrase a lot, and he uses it quite frequently.]

"A time is coming and now has come when the true worshippers..." What do you think he means by true worshippers?

Female: For me, what stands out, he didn't call them the Jews or the Samaritans. He just calls them the worshippers so...

Dan: That's a very good observation.

Female:... taken away the... basically, the background of the person.

Dan: It's irrelevant whether you're a Jew or Samaritan.

Female: Your identity now is the worshippers.

Dan: It's not the location. It's not your national identity. It's who you worship.

Female: It's not your gender.

Dan: It's who you worship and you come to know him. The true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. What do you make of the triad? The true worshippers will worship the Father in the spirit...

Female: And in truth.

Dan:... and truth, and who is the truth?

Female: Jesus.

Dan: Jesus is the truth. We've got worshipping the Father and the Spirit through the truth. "For they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks." Anything strike you as interesting about that statement there?

Female: He doesn't seek the ones that just give lip service or to him, goes to the temple and they think they're the worshippers.

Dan: He's still looking for people like the Samaritan woman of all people who are authentic, who are open, right?

Dan: Anything else?

Female: That have the spirit of God in them and are using it.

Female: It sounds like he's still seeking and he's looking.

Dan: Who's doing the seeking?

Female: The Father.

Dan: Anything interesting about that? Wouldn't we expect that in most religious circles that you must seek God...

Dan:... and yet Jesus says, "You're not seeking God. God is seeking you."

Female: Jesus went to seek her.

Dan: Aha. He sought her out. God is seeking for people like you.

Female: He knew her and he understood her.

Dan: Wow. I'm not a Jew. I'm a woman.

Female: I'm a sinner.

Dan: Exactly. God is seeking true worshippers like you.

Female: I think it's interesting too it says here a couple of times "in spirit and in truth," connecting those two together, that spirit and truth, they go together, they are inseparable. It seems that he did it two times here.

Dan: Right. As he says, "God is spirit and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth. The only way to the Father is in the Spirit through the truth, the Son." Any other worship that is not Trinitarian, I would say you're missing the boat.

I am amazed at how Trinitarian his teaching is to this woman... While as you know that disciples who are still down at McDonald's buying lunch while this deep Trinitarian theological discussion is going on out by the well.

Female: He didn't do it there, instead of with her, so they couldn't add their two cents.

Dan: What do you think would have happened, that Barbara raises an interesting point?

Female: They couldn't believe that he was talking to her, first of all. They would make her feel that she was condemned. They couldn't help themselves, but Jesus came not to condemn.

Dan: They probably would have been judgmental. They would have judged both Jesus and her. They would have tried to stop him. They would have sent her away. He knew he had to get rid of them in order to do...

They were not yet ready for the level of discussion that he was having with this woman. Verse 25, the woman said, "I know that Messiah [and John helpfully adds for us Greek speakers] called Christ, I know that Messiah is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."

Female: Here she says, "So, she must have known something."

Dan: She knows about the Messiah.

Female: She knew about the Messiah which is a little unusual for a Samaritan.

Dan: She's probably familiar with the Jewish customs, evidently, so she is educated, well-read, well-versed. Now, Jesus, I think, has led her thinking and has shifted it away from Samaritan by saying, "Salvation is of the Jews," she has come back and connected the dot and saying, "I know the Messiah... I know he will come," and what does she say her understanding of the Messiah is?

Female: He will proclaim all things.

Dan: Right. He will explain everything to us.

Female: She's probably very happy about saying this. This is probably something that's always been inside of her. She knew that the Messiah was going to come someday to rescue and now she could verbalize it because she's happy, she's excited. The woman said, "I know that the Messiah is coming," and she didn't have any Samaritans denying her of that or anybody else.

Dan: Yeah, that's a pretty straightforward statement, "I know..."

Female: She just let it come out. It's there. It's hidden. Now, it's out.

Dan: Then, Jesus declared, "I who speak to you, am he." How many people has he revealed himself as the Messiah to? You can read the whole of book of Mark and they call it the Messianic Secret because he never tells anybody who he is, and this Samaritan woman meeting her for the first time, he says, "Hey, I'm the Messiah."

Female: Wow.

Dan: Now, for some comic diversion, the disciples return. "Just then, his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. [That's just not right. This is improper.] No one asked, 'What do you want?' or 'Why are you talking with her?'" What do you think the scene must have been like?

Female: They couldn't believe it.

Dan: I've almost imagined them nudging, "You ask him." "No, I'm not going to ask him. You ask him." "Peter will ask him." "No, I've had enough trouble. I'm not asking him."

Female: I think the body language probably revealed everything, though. They didn't need to say anything. When you have that kind of shock and surprise, most people can't hide that. They probably were already revealing their true feelings about it without having to say anything.

Dan: Non-verbal expression said it all.

Female: Our children's Bible says, "What do you want from her?" That's what he said...

Dan: Ohhh, that's not a nice thing to say.

Female: I know. That's what this says. I know. You'll never know. Maybe they knew.

Dan: That maybe what they were thinking...

Female: Maybe they knew that was her business and...

Dan: They thought that she was a woman of ill repute.

Dan: They just said... You know what? It reminds me of this Sergeant Schultz on Hogan's Heroes, "I see nothing. I know nothing. I'm going to pretend like I don't see this. Don't anybody say anything." They were shocked indeed.

Female: They probably were worried about their reputation too if this is leaking out to the public ...

Female:... that our Master is talking to her...

Female: What are people going to think of us?

Female:... and how does this reflect upon us?

Female: He will lose his credibility.

Dan: Definitely. This is a major scandal.

Dan: Verse 28: "Then leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town." What does that indicate?

Female: She was excited.

Dan: Excited. She forgot she came out to get water. That's not important. Interesting, that water is not important anymore — I found the Living Water.

Female: She didn't really let the disciples deflate her feeling that she just experienced with Jesus. She just, "Oh, I'm out of here, to tell everybody."

Dan: Does she keep her mouth shut?

Female: No.

Dan: No, but she said to the people, "Come! See a man who told me everything I ever did." What do you think that may indicate?

Female: That he could possibly be the Messiah.

Dan: Right. Do you think her fellow citizens of Sychar knew a lot of the things she had done?

Female: Yes.

Dan: They knew, and this man told her everything she had ever done and showed her nothing but love and respect. How had the city folks treated her?

Female: She was fetching water in the middle of the day...

Dan: By herself. You get the feeling she was kind of ostracized, marginalized by the city because probably they knew everything she had ever done, and yet Jesus knew everything she had ever done and treated her with respect and offered her eternal life.

Female: She was happy. She had a different attitude if somebody that wasn't repentant or... you told what they did then, "Oh no, I didn't do that." I may be very mad and angry... But instead she was very excited.

Dan: She's very honest about it and excited. Yeah. Some people call her the first evangelist. If evangelism is indeed an overflow response, this is what we see here. This woman was filled with this spirit. In a sense, she was overflowing with good news and couldn't wait to share it, even with people who didn't particularly like her or respect her. She couldn't help herself. She is so filled and so excited she has to tell people about Jesus. Indeed, in the Gospel of John, she is the first evangelist and she is a Samaritan and a woman.

The 12 are still standing around the well.

She says, "Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" I think she thinks it is, but I believe she asked that question to get their interest. "Come and see him. What do you think? What do you think? This could be..." In other words, if I say he's the Christ, you're going to say, "Nah." You come and decide for yourself and see if this is not the Messiah.

Male: Why does she say Christ and not Prophet?

Dan: Yes, isn't that interesting. It's a good point. Why?

Male: Because hey weren't looking for the Christ.

Dan: No. This would have been a shock. I thought he went to the Jewish folk.

Female: And he's here.

Dan: He's here, the Jewish Messiah is here, in Sychar in Samaria? I've got to see this for myself. I think that's a good point. Got their curiosity up. "I have to see what's going on here. This doesn't make any sense to anything I know about what's supposed to be happening religiously."

Female: I think, to me, what strikes me here is she must have really been filled with the love of Jesus at this moment because instead of the response of, "Oh, I just had this great exciting experience, but I am who I am and nobody is going to believe me. Nobody is going to... They're going to laugh at me. They might kick me out even further." She didn't have any of this response. She was filled with confidence and love to share this good news, which to me seems would be very supernatural. This is the love of Jesus that filled her. This is not a natural response.

Dan: Her eyes appear to be open and her ears appear to be hearing at this point and she's really connecting with Jesus. We find verse 38, "the people came out of the town, made their way toward him." Meanwhile...

Male: Back at the ranch.

Dan:... back at the ranch, Jesus' ever deeply, spiritual disciples, are urging, "Rabbi, eat something. Eat! Eat! It's lunch time." He said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about." Then the disciples said to each other, "Could someone have brought him some food when we weren't looking? We were in town. Where did he get food?"

Female: They were talking to themselves too. They still didn't ask him any question.

Dan: Yeah. I think they were smart enough not to ask. Verse 34, "My food," said Jesus, "Is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work." Hmm.... finish his work. Whose work do you think the Samaritan woman was?

Female: His.

Dan: Yeah, the work of the Father and the Son through the Spirit.

"Do you not say four months more and then the harvest?" What does that mean? Anybody know what, agriculturally, that refers to? Four months to the harvest.

Female: You plant and then you wait for the harvest to be ready to reap. He's saying, "I plant..." It's almost like he's saying, "I've planted the seed and the harvest is already ready." There's no waiting here.

Dan: Yeah. That's interesting. What I've read about the agriculture in Palestine is that when the rains come from like November to March and the soil is tillable and you till the soil and then you plant the grain (usually the barley and the wheat), and then you do nothing. You've done all you can do. You just wait and God has to do the rest.

I'm struck by that analogy of cultivating, planting, and then waiting for God to bring the harvest and do the work. Normally, in the agricultural cycle of things, that took four months. Indeed, they would cultivate, plant and say "four months to the harvest, four months to the harvest," and sit back and do nothing.

Female: Hope.

#### Dan: "Do you not say four months more and then a harvest? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields. They are ripe for harvest. Even now, the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. [Interesting.] Thus the saying, one sows and another reaps is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work and you have reaped the benefits of their labor."

What do you think is going on there? "Open your eyes and look at the fields. They are ripe for harvest."

Female: Maybe he's teaching the disciples that the harvest may look different than what they might have expected. It might be in the form of a woman, a sinner— that might be the harvest, where the disciples would not have looked at her as somebody to bring to Jesus. They probably would have tried to shield him from her and get her away, and he's turning things around and says, "No. My harvest looks very different. You need to look around. It's ready."

Dan: Right.

Female: Then, the time too.

Dan: Yeah. I imagine the setting something like... I don't know there was. I imagine it this way, that Jesus is speaking and the disciples are on one side and have their backs to the city. Who's coming out of the city?

Female: All the people.

Dan: All the people are coming out of the city and the disciples are just standing there with their backs to it and Jesus was going, "Hmmm... the harvest is here and the fields are ripe and here comes the harvest."

The disciples are going, "What's he talking about?" Then, you can imagine the look when they turned around and saw the whole city coming out. I wonder if they even got his words then, but he told them, it's a process. Isn't that interesting? There is cultivating, there is sowing, and there is reaping. Not necessarily one person does it all, but it's all a part of what God does, but it's people participating with him in various phases as he works with the people.

Verse 39,

#### Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did." When the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them and he stayed two days. Because of his words, many more became believers. They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said. Now, we have heard for ourselves and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.

According to John, the first group of people to say this...

Female: Are Samaritans.

Dan:... are Samaritans, of all things.

Male: Yeah, a little village.

Dan: Who would have thought in a little village led by an evangelistic female? What conclusions does anybody draw? What really stands out in this story to you? Something that really strikes you?

Female: The harvest is there. It's finding it. It's looking around and seeing it.

Female: He helps you see it too, because he says, "It's here. It's coming."

Female: And do not cut. They're saying that, "They can't know Christ. They're not good enough. They haven't done all the right things."

Female: To look beyond.

Dan: They're people of another religion, of another country.

Female: It's not a matter being good.

Dan: How should we preach to them? They won't get it.

Dan: Hmmm... maybe they will better than some who've grown up in Christianity. Anyone else?

Female: It's the manner of his love and their background. She was prepared for this time and place and he had her in mind.

Dan: The least, the last, and the lost...

Female: Yeah. He knew exactly what she did.

Dan:... are the ones that Jesus tends to go to first and they tend to be the first to receive him, the most open.

Dan: It's a remarkable story that tells us many things about God's love for all people, and there's goodness and there's God working in the lives of all people in all countries, all nations, all ethnic groups, all religions or no religion at all. God is still there loving those people and working with them. It's quite a story, Jesus and the Samaritan woman. Let's conclude with a closing hymn and a final prayer.

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## Living the Trinitarian Life

I've got a problem.

Actually, I've got two problems.

They are kind of personal problems, so I hope you don't mind me mentioning them.

But you are probably already familiar with them, because you have the same two problems.

The first problem is sin, and the second is death.

"Sin" is generally considered a religious word; it might be defined as "doing something that God doesn't like." But, even if we take God out of the picture, we still have a problem, because we do things that we don't like. We don't like lying, cheating and stealing, and yet, sometimes we do things like that. We sometimes say things to our friends that we wish we hadn't.

Well, nobody's perfect — and that's my point. We all do things that we wish we hadn't. We have a problem with the way we live. We all want good interpersonal relationships, but all of us sometimes do things that hurt other people's feelings.

Sometimes we do it innocently, sometimes we do it because we're angry, sometimes we do it to their face and sometimes we do it behind their back. We say things about somebody that we wouldn't have said if they were there in person, and other people say things about us that they wouldn't say to our face, and it hurts.

So, whether you call it sin or something else, we've got problems with the way we live. We are not as good as we would like to be.

Now, our second problem is that we are going to die. Our imperfect life is going to come to an end – and most people try to put that off as long as possible. Life has its ups and downs, and we'd really like to experience a few more "ups." Life has some unpleasant moments, but it also has some really good ones, and most of us would like to figure out a way to get more of those good moments, and figure out a way that they don't have to stop.

So our basic problems are, the way we live, and the way we die. That pretty much sums up what life is.

Now, people have been working on these problems for thousands of years, and basically, the nature of the problems has not changed, and I for one do not think that people are going to solve these problems. So I can really identify with the apostle Paul. In Romans 7, he describes his struggle with doing bad stuff even when he wants to do good, and after going on and on about this struggle he finally exclaims, "O wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?"

Well, who indeed? Paul says that Christ will rescue him—and maybe he's right. Maybe I need to bring God back into the picture. I sure know that I can't fix my problems by myself. I can't rescue myself from death, and I can't even rescue myself from the wrong inclinations that are inside of me.

Most religions just throw people back on their own strength. Just work harder, they say. Do this, do that, and do it for a really long time, and you might be OK.

I've got a problem with that approach.

It doesn't work. First, I don't "do it" very well, and after that, I am still going to die. I still have the same two problems. I need something that helps me in this life, and helps me in the next life.

The Bible says that we are rescued by God from both of these problems. He sent Jesus 1) to rescue us from death, and 2) he sends the Holy Spirit to rescue us from the evil within. He helps us live in a better way, and he assures us that we will live forever.

Now, since we've all got these same two problems, and the Bible describes a solution to these two problems, I suggest that we take a look at what it says.

So today, let's look together at what Paul wrote in Ephesians chapter 2, starting in verse 1. In this letter, Paul has been talking about how God raised Jesus from the dead and gave him a place of power in the heavens – power over everything else. This is the kind of power that God uses for us. Paul sees a parallel between what God did for Jesus Christ, and what he is doing in us, in our lives.

In chapter 2, he starts to focus on what God is doing inside of us. Let's notice what he says in verses 1 and 2: "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live... when you followed the ways of this world..."

That's an interesting combination of words – they were dead when they used to live. Obviously, Paul is using the word "dead" here as a metaphor. The people were not dead in the sense that their heart had stopped beating and their brains had stopped functioning. But Paul says that they were dead in their behavior, in the way that they were doing stuff that God says is not part of an authentic life.

God wants us to be alive, not dead. The purpose of life is to live – to live as life is defined by God. He is offering us life rather than death— but life means a lot more than a heartbeat and a brain wave. God is not just offering us a biochemical existence—he has created us for much more than that.

Think of a steer, for example – its life is not much more than eating grass, eliminating waste, gaining weight, and eventually ending up in the slaughterhouse. Or think of a fish—its life is not much more than looking for food, looking out for predators, gaining weight, and eventually being eaten by something or another.

Human life should be more than that, because God made us for something more than that. The Bible tells us that God made humans in his own image; we have been made to be a bit like God. God wants us to have a life that is somewhat like his life. He wants us to share in that life; he wants to share that life with us.

What is God's life like? What was God's life like before he created us? What was his life like before he created the universe? What was God's life like before he created anything at all? What was it like when God was all that there was?

The insight of Christianity is that there is only one God—there is an ultimate unity to the entire universe—but this one God is complex rather than simplistic. God is one being, but God is three persons in one being. These three persons are called Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and there is a fundamental unity to the three persons.

How did this triune God live?

God lived in love. There was love between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They loved each other. The Bible tells us that God is love, that this is his most basic characteristic. But if God were only one person, he could not be love, because love is defined as care and concern for something other than self, and before the creation, there was nothing other than God. But since God is three persons within an overall unity, there can be love within God, and indeed, there is. The Trinitarian life is one of love.

This is the nature of God's life, the nature of the life that he wants to share with us. So the life that he wants us to have is not just a biochemical existence – he wants us to have a life that is characterized by love – a life of joy and kindness and appreciation.

The title of my message is "The Trinitarian Life," but it's not just about God – it is about the life that he wants us to have, too. God want us to have the Trinitarian life, and the Bible says that the Father is in us, the Son is in us, and the Holy Spirit is in us, bringing that kind of life to us, transforming the way we live now, and transforming our future life, as well.

I wish he would do it all a lot faster than he does, but I have to admit that he knows a whole lot more about it than I do, so I need to be patient with the way it works. Yes, patience is one of the things I need to have.

Now, back in Ephesians 2 – Paul says that living people were actually dead in the way that they were living. They were living in a selfish way, and not experiencing life the way that God meant it to be, and they didn't have life according to the way that God defines it, and that is why Paul calls the people "dead" in their transgressions and sins. They were falling short of the life God wants for his people, and they were on a path to death.

Their so-called life wasn't much more than eating and drinking and then dying, like a cow or a fish. As Paul says, they were following the ways of the world, living pretty much like everybody else around them. We've all been there, and done that, and sometimes we do it again.

If we look around at the world, we see the strong exploiting the weak; we see violence, we see misery, we see drudgery; we see people thinking, "There's got to be more to life than this," and other people are thinking, "There is nothing more to life than this." Some will tell you that human life is no better than animal life, and some people even end up living pretty much like animals.

Some people live like plant-eaters, and some live like predators, and if humans are no better than animals, there's really no reason to say that one lifestyle is better than the other. If we are just another animal, we really can't say that it's wrong to be like a shark, or a weasel, or a crocodile.

But the Bible says, No, we are not an animal. There is more to life than that. We are not supposed to pattern our life after an animal – we are made in the image of God, and we are supposed to pattern our life after the God who has love as his central characteristic.

But we can't do that on our own – we need God to live in us, and that's what the Holy Spirit does. He brings the Trinitarian life, the divine life, the life of love and kindness, into us, and this is what Paul calls real life, the life that will make eternity so enjoyable.

There's a lot more to eternal life than just living forever and ever. We don't just need to escape death and live longer and longer – we also need a change in the way we live, and that's one of the reasons that Jesus is really good news, because he gives us both.

Paul says that if we just do what everybody else is doing, if we just go along with the crowd, then we are dead. The people in Ephesus had been like that. It's not just that they were following other people – Paul says in verse 2 that they were also following the ways of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.

So this is not just a human problem – there is some spiritual power at work in humanity. Paul doesn't say much about it right here. In other places he writes that we are enslaved by sin, as if sin itself is an alien power that can hold us captive, that can hijack our minds, that can trick us into doing what it wants.

That's why, even if we can figure out that love is a better way to live than selfishness is, that's why we just can't do it on our own. We might do it right part of the time, but we can't do it all the time. We are up against some alien spiritual power. Just exactly what it is and how it works, doesn't matter right now, because Christ gives us power over it. But Paul says that this alien spirit is still working in the people who are disobedient.

Verse 3: "All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath." We were once part of the disobedient group, with a basically selfish life, just doing whatever we wanted to do. On our own, by nature, we were "objects of wrath."

Literally, it says we were "children of wrath," and I'm not sure what that means. If it were here by itself, I might think that "wrath" means that God was angry at us. But that interpretation doesn't work, because the very next verse says that God is not angry at us. Maybe he has a right to be angry at us, and if he were like us, he would be angry at us, but the fact is that God doesn't want to punish us—what he wants, is to rescue us from the problems of sin and death.

Verses 4 and 5: "But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved."

God made us for a particular purpose, and he is not going to give up on that. He is going to rescue us from both forms of death. He is going to rescue us from the deadly way that we live, and from death itself. Sin leads to death, and if God fixes one of those problems, the other will be fixed as well. The two go together; they are just different sides of the same coin.

But the rescue operation does not come from anger, or from threats of punishment if we don't measure up — it comes only through love, mercy, and grace. That's because that is the sort of life that God has, and it's the sort of life that he wants to share with us. It has to be done with mercy and grace because that is the nature of the Trinitarian life, not only of God, but also the life that he wants us to have. You can't get love as a result if you are sowing seeds of anger and vengeance.

This is the unique message of the gospel: God has done this for us, he saved us by his grace, even when we were dead in our transgressions. Even when we were hopelessly ensnared in the wrong way of life, God made us alive with Christ. It was certainly not what we deserved – it was a gift – that's what "grace" means.

Paul puts this in the past tense – God has already made us alive. He has given us a new life, a life that is now defined by Jesus Christ rather than by the desires of the flesh or ways of this world.

As it says in Colossians, our lives are now hidden in Christ. That word "hidden" is a helpful one, because we don't always see ourselves in this new life. Sometimes we see the old life, still living selfishly, but the gospel tells us that the new life is in us, too.

God has made us alive with Christ. God's Spirit lives within us, allowing us to share in and participate in the Trinitarian life, the love that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share with each other and want to share with us as well. God is already doing it in us, communicating it to us, building it in us.

But he has done more than that – verse 6 tells us: "And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus."

Notice again that this is in the past tense. God has already raised us up, given us a new life instead of our old dead one, and placed us with Christ. As his gift to us, God has already united us to Christ, even before we were aware of it, and we are seated with Christ, on a throne, in the heavenly places, even before we were aware of it.

Now, we usually think about heaven as being "up," but it's not really "up" at all. Heaven is simply where God is, and God is omnipresent – he is everywhere all at once. God is here, just as much as he is in the sky, just as much, or maybe even more, than he is in outer space. Some people have compared it to another dimension – a dimension that we cannot see but is nevertheless all around us.

No matter how we might describe it, Paul's point is that we are already living with Christ, already sharing in his life and his privileges. Salvation means not just a rescue from death, not just a favorable verdict on some future day of judgment, but it also affects our lives right now. We are already with Christ, and he is with us, and our lives should reflect that.

Verse 7 tells us why God did this: "in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus." We will be a permanent testimony to God's generosity – and I think that we will also be the continuing recipients of his generosity. He will continue to be gracious toward us in the coming ages, because that's the sort of being that he is, and he couldn't do that in the future, unless he gives us the grace we need now, for us to even be alive in coming ages.

The same kindness that he has already shown us in Jesus Christ will continue to be shown to us in coming ages. That's because God doesn't change. He is love and he will continue to be love. He is merciful and will continue to be merciful. He is generous and will continue to be generous. What we have seen in Jesus is exactly what God is, and God will continue to be like that for all eternity.

Verses 8 and 9: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast."

God has saved us as a gift; it is not something that we could earn or deserve. We could never be good enough on our own to earn the right to live with God forever. Of ourselves, we don't have the right way of life, and we don't have the right length of life. It's those same two problems. But God has done it, as a gift, and we receive it by faith, simply by accepting it and believing it.

God does not force himself on us. We don't have to live in the way of love if we don't want to. Love, by its very nature, cannot be forced on anybody. God tells us it's available, and he is available, and he's willing to live in us and help us, but it doesn't do us any good unless we believe it, unless we want it. It's waiting there for us, if we accept it, but the gospel is an announcement that it's there. The deed has been done, the sins have been paid for and forgiven, the Holy Spirit is already here, and God offers us his life — but he doesn't force it on us. We need to respond.

But even if we respond in faith, we can't brag about that as if we have somehow done something special. Faith is also a gift of God. He makes faith available to us, but he doesn't force us to use it. We can, if we want to, if we are tired of the pointless old life that everybody else has. If we are tired of living in the ways of death, we can have life, the way of true life, the way that God intended, the life that comes from the Father, through the Son and the Holy Spirit.

If we are going to live forever, then we need to live in such a way that it will be enjoyable for everyone forever, and the only way that's going to happen is if we love one another. I'm not talking about some kind of syrupy romance. Our culture uses the word "love" quite a bit, but they often don't mean what they are saying. They are talking about lust, or a temporary fascination. When the Bible talks about love, it's talking about a self-sacrificial generosity, a love that is shown to us most clearly by Jesus, by what he did in his life and in his death.

Biblical love is not just being nice to the people we like, or to the people who like us – it is being nice even to the people who don't like us – it is a willingness to help even our enemies. This is countercultural, and people who live like this are sometimes taken advantage of, sometimes abused, sometimes killed. So in order to continue in the way of love, even in the face of a threat of death, we need some sort of assurance that there is life beyond death. We need some assurance that life is more than what we can see.

For illustration, let's suppose that we are all stranded in the desert with one gallon of water. If we share the water, it's not going to be enough for anybody—we will all die of dehydration. But if I steal the water and take it all for myself, it will be enough for me to get out of the desert and save my life. Everybody else will die, but I will live. So I am faced with a choice: either I do something evil, or I die.

Is there anything that can motivate me to do what is right, even if it means that I'm going to die? Well, life after death could make a difference. If I had some evidence that I was going to live again, then perhaps I might be willing to do the right thing in this life. If I had longer-range vision, then maybe I'd have more motive for doing what's right.

Maybe it would help if I had evidence that death had been conquered – if somebody actually came back from the dead and had a life that surpassed the kind of life that we know about. That, of course, is what we have in Jesus Christ. But it doesn't do us any good unless we believe it. We have to believe that it happened, and that it has some relevance to us today.

Now, even if we are on the right path, and headed in the right direction, we are going to make some mistakes. So, we need some sort of assurance that our mistakes do not disqualify us from the hope that we are aiming for. Jesus gives us that assurance, that forgiveness is continually available, because he has already paid for all our sins.

We need assurance that the twin problems of sin and death have been taken care of, and that's what the gospel does. But God doesn't force this solution on us, and it doesn't do us any good unless we believe it, unless we accept the gift that he has given us.

So the plan that began with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is implemented by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father sent the Son to conquer death on our behalf, so that we can be raised with him to new life. And he sends the Holy Spirit to live within us to combat the sinful tendencies that are still inside us. So he tackles the problems of sin and death.

Verse 10 tells us why God does this: "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." He saves us by grace because we are his workmanship – that is, he created us – and he is not going to let his creation go to waste. He is going to rescue what he has made.

And as we learn elsewhere, none of this caught God by surprise. He knew all along that this was going to happen, and he knew ahead of time how he was going to fix it. He knew how much it was going to cost him, and he decided ahead of time that he was going to pay it.

Why? Because he was motivated by love. He wanted to create life, life like himself, life that is characterized by love – love that leads to good works. God wants us to do good works not as an end in themselves, not as the ultimate purpose of life, and certainly not as payment for salvation, but simply because "good works" is a description of what that life will look like.

There is no contradiction between grace and good works. Paul includes them both here in the space of three verses. He says we were created for good works, but we cannot be saved by good works. Good works are the result and the purpose, but not the cause of salvation.

Actually, good works are the reason that we need salvation by grace. We were created to do good works, but we fall short of the purpose for which we have been created. Our own works do not earn us salvation – indeed, our works include works of sin, works of death, works for which we need to be forgiven, and from which we need to be rescued.

But the plan of salvation does not mean that God has abandoned his original goal for us. He still wants us to have a life of love, a life of good works, and he is working in our lives to bring that about. So he forgives our sins, and gives us grace, and he continues to give us grace. He assures us that he will give us grace all the way into eternal life, and he assures us that he lives within us, so that our lives can be energized by the Holy Spirit to do the good works God has prepared for us to do.

But God does not force this on us. He tells us that this is what life is for – and indeed, a little thought will tell us that eternal life would not be very good unless it were something like this, characterized by love rather than selfishness, characterized by good works instead of bad ones. This is what God has prepared for us, that we might share in the life of God, the Trinitarian life, the love that is shared by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

God has given this life to us as a gift, but he has also given us the power to choose. We can choose this life, or we can put it off. We can accept what he gives, or we can figuratively put it on the shelf without using it at all.

Most of us have already accepted the gift, and have begun to let it work in our lives. We still have the twin problems of sin and death, but we are also confident that Christ has overcome both of those problems, and we are promised that he is working in us, and he says that we will have an eternity in which we are freed from both problems.

Others in the audience have yet to make that decision, and if that's you, I'd like to encourage you to accept what God has given. It's like God said through Moses long ago: "I set before you life and death. So choose life, that it may go well with you, and with your children."

If you are dead in trespasses and sins, and would like to be raised up with Jesus Christ to a new life, a life in which God shares his life with you, a life characterized by love for others, then I encourage you to say "yes" to God, and I encourage you to tell somebody else about it.

I also encourage you to be baptized to symbolize this transition in your life. The Bible says that baptism symbolizes the death of your old self, and it symbolizes a new life for you, a life that's been brought into the sphere of the Trinitarian life, a life in which love prevails, not only in this life but also into an eternity with God.

Jesus Christ has conquered both sin and death, and as our Savior, he offers us love and life – not only his love for us, but also his kind of love living in us, transforming us, fashioning us for the purpose for which we were created in the first place: a life that is good, and a life that that we can enjoy forever.

Michael Morrison

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## Looking for a Better Life

Our nation is full of immigrants. Many of us were born in a different nation, and we moved to America at some point in our life. Or maybe it was our great-great grandparents who moved to America from "the old country." Even if we are Native Americans, if we go back far enough, we will see that our ancestors came to this land from somewhere else.

Many of us have moved from one state to another. Now, whether it was us or our ancestors, why did we move? I think in most cases, it's because we thought our life here would be better than if we lived somewhere else. We were all looking for a better life. We would have more good things here, than wherever we were before. A better job, a better place to live, better clothes, and other amenities.

But I suggest that we need to look for a better life in a different sense: we need to be better people. We need to live in a better way. We need to help others, and to have better relationships with others. We not only want a higher standard of living, we also want a higher standard of life. We want life to be more than it presently is.

We know that God wants to give us a better life – and I do mean "give." Ephesians 2 tells us that we are saved by grace. But what then? We have a new life in Christ, but what does that look like in real life? What does it look like in our friendships and relationships with other people?

Today I'd like to look in the book of Ephesians to see how the apostle Paul describes what the good life is really like. Let's go to chapter 4, starting in verse 22. Paul tells his readers – and that includes us today – "You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires."

Paul is describing here a change in behavior. The old way was corrupted – it was rotten – and the problem was caused by the way we think. We wanted stuff that wasn't good for us. We deceived ourselves into thinking that happiness comes from material goods, from sensual pleasures, from thinking of ourselves as better than other people, from winning the competitions we had with other people.

It was basically a selfish approach to life, and it ended up hurting other people, hurting our relationships, and hurting us, as well. So Paul says that in Christ, we have been taught to put off our old ways, and find a new approach to life.

Verses 23 and 24: "to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." Since the problem with the old way of life was in our desires, the solution involves a new attitude – we need to set our hearts on something different. We need to have desires that do not deceive us – we need to want things that are really better for us.

Paul says here that our new self is created to be like God – that is the purpose for which we were made in the first place, and that is what our new self in Christ should look like. We have been created to be like God. Not in power or brilliance, but in righteousness, in the sense of doing what is right.

We were made for that purpose. God wants us to live with him forever, and he is telling us what that sort of life is like. This is what we call the Trinitarian life, the way that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit live with one another. If we had to describe it in one word, we could call it righteousness – or we could also say holiness – or love, joy, peace, faithfulness, meekness and kindness.

This is the way that life works best. If we are going to live forever, and that's what God is offering us, then we need to live in such a way that we are not going to cause problems for other people. If we are supposed to be like God is in righteousness, then we need to find out what he's like, and then we need to be like that, too.

But as Paul tells us in other places, we cannot be like God all by ourselves – it comes only from God living in us. God is the one who does it; our role is simply to agree to what he wants to do in our lives.

That's kind of the overview. Paul gives us some specific examples starting in verse 25: "Therefore [that is, because we have been created to be like God], each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body."

So the first thing Paul mentions is that we need to tell the truth. We should stop trying to deceive other people, because that really messes up relationships. It destroys trust, but relationships need trust. We cannot have long-range loyalty without truth and trust. When we deceive people and they find out, they feel betrayed and hurt.

In eternity, we won't need jobs and houses and clothing and other material things. We won't worry about our health or all sorts of other stuff. But we will have relationships – that's what we will have in eternity, so it's important for us to get our relationships right.

That is what the word "righteousness" means – it means right conduct in our relationships. Righteousness has no meaning when it comes to the way we treat rocks. There is no "right" way to treat a rock. The concept of righteousness has meaning for relationships, especially relationships with other people, and that's something that will last into eternity.

So in order to be like God, to participate in a life like God has, then we need truth rather than falsehood – and notice the reason that Paul gives us: "because we are members of one body." We are in this together – we are going to be living with each other for a really long time, so if we hurt somebody else, it is like shooting ourselves in the foot. We are hurting ourselves, in the long run.

Paul is saying that the main reason for right behavior is that we are all members of one body. We are one community, one people. God has made us so that we will be like he is in righteousness, in the way that we treat other people. God's purpose for us is righteousness, and that means good relationships.

Let's look at his next example, in verses 26 and 27: "'In your anger do not sin': Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold."

Anger, in itself, is not always wrong. The Bible describes God as being angry at some of the stuff some people do to hurt and abuse defenseless people. Parents are right to be angry when one child purposely hurts another. We love them and are angry at what they have done, all at the same time.

So in theory, anger isn't always wrong. But in practice, it usually is. Anger is very destructive to human relationships, and so Paul says, Be careful with your anger. Don't stay angry, don't go to bed angry, because if you keep nursing a grudge against someone, you are acting like the devil, accusing people and being an adversary. That sort of attitude kills relationships.

Another example is in verse 28: "He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need."

It's not enough to just quit stealing, or just stop doing bad stuff. No, we also need to start doing something good. We don't just go from bad to neutral, from doing bad stuff to doing nothing at all. Rather, we replace bad behavior with doing something good. In this case, we try to earn enough money so that we can help someone who needs help.

Do you think that there was a big problem with thievery in the first-century church? I don't think so. Everybody in the ancient world knew that they weren't supposed to steal stuff.

So why did Paul tell people to stop stealing? I suspect that he includes this because it's a really good illustration of replacing destructive behavior with constructive behavior. It shows a change of attitude from greed and selfishness, to generosity and helpfulness. It's a change from the attitude of "get" to the attitude of "give."

So far, Paul has mentioned:

the words we use – truth rather than falsehood –

and attitudes that we have – peace rather than anger –

and actions that we do – giving rather than stealing.

Now in verse 29 he gives another illustration about words: "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen."

What does he mean by "unwholesome" talk? I'm not sure, but it seems to be words that tear other people down instead of building them up. It's gossip about how bad they are. It's negativism that says, "You're never going to amount to anything; you are too ugly; you are too sinful for God to ever like you." Those sort of comments damage relationships, and they are contrary to God's purpose for our lives.

So what do we do instead? We need talk that helps others according to their needs, that gives them some sort of benefit. It encourages them, helps them improve, lets them know that somebody cares about them and wants them to do well in life. It's words that tell people that the Creator of the Universe made them for a purpose, and he won't give up on them. It's words that strengthen bonds of friendship, words that express loyalty rather than betrayal, words that build community instead of tearing it apart.

The next verse in this chapter seems at first to be on a completely different topic. In verse 30 he writes, "And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption." Everything else in this part of Paul's letter is about our relationships with one another. Why is he suddenly concerned about our relationship with the Holy Spirit? Why does he say, Don't disappoint the Holy Spirit?

I think he does this for two reasons. First, the Holy Spirit does care about how we treat one another, and the kind of words we use with one another. When our words are used to tear down instead of build up, the Holy Spirit is sad – sad at what we have done to the relationship, sad at how we have hurt someone in the same body, sad that we are reinforcing in ourselves a habit that isn't good for us.

Second, the Holy Spirit is the divine life that is working in us. He is the one who encourages us to do right, to be helpful, to be truthful. When we refuse his advice, we are refusing him, and that grieves our relationship with him. He does care about what we do, but even more about what sort of persons we are.

Now, all of us fall short. We disappoint ourselves, and sometimes work contrary to what God is trying to do in our lives. But there is no reason for us to despair, Paul says, because the Holy Spirit's relationship with us is not fragile. He is not looking for an excuse to break it off and abandon us to our own folly.

No, Paul says that the Holy Spirit seals us for the day of redemption – the time in the future when we will be resurrected and given transformed bodies far better than what we have now. He has sealed us, earmarked us for God's family. He wants us to be there, and he will never disown us.

He is fiercely loyal to us, and even though we are sometimes faithless toward him, he is always faithful toward us. We are sealed for salvation, and God won't give up on us. That's why he cares so much about what we do and how we live – because we'll be living with him, and with each other, for a long, long time.

Paul has now given several specific examples. In verse 31 he gives a whole basketful at once: "Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice."

Why does the Bible give us rules like this? Is it because God just wants to give us a test that he knows we can't pass? Did he just make up these rules to make life difficult for us? No, not at all. He wants to make life easier for us, not difficult, and these are the sort of things that mess lives up. These are the sort of things that hurt people, and God says,

"Hey, wait a minute. I like those people just as much as I like you, and I don't want you hurting them with your words of anger, or your slander, and I don't want them to hurt you in that sort of way, either. Life in my kingdom doesn't have any room for that sort of back-stabbing, so that's not a very good habit to have. Get rid of it, and life will work a lot better for everyone concerned.

Bitterness isn't good for your health, he seems to be saying, and it's not good for your relationships. Rage and anger are dangerous, and brawling is just plain stupid. And get rid of that bad attitude called malice. Don't harbor bad thoughts about people and hope for bad things to happen to them. This is not what you were created for. This might be what you did in the past, but this is not the future you have been created for.

Now, after this basket of rotten fruit, Paul gives us a basket of good fruit in verse 32, with a few good things to do instead of malice and rage: "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you."

Be compassionate. Care about other people. That's a basic rule of good relationships. That's a basic guideline for what it means to be like God in his righteousness. Don't view your relationships as a competition for who's best, for who's the most important, for who gets their way.

In this imperfect world, things don't always go right. People don't always treat us right, even when they are trying to. Sometimes even the best of people are going to hurt our feelings, do something that disappoints us, embarrasses us or make life more difficult for us. When that happens, the basic rule of good relationships is to forgive each other.

Just remember: You were created to be like God, and his Spirit lives in you, so let him do in you and through you the same thing that he does for you – he forgives us a lot, so we should be willing to forgive other people the things they do to us. God forgave the people who killed his Son. In Acts 7, Stephen forgave the people who were killing him. God is willing to forgive us no matter what we do to him, even when we were his enemies, and so we should be willing to forgive other people no matter what they do to us.

Is that difficult? You bet it is. But we really do need to forgive other people – for our own sake just as much as for theirs. As long as the desire for revenge eats at us, we will be captive to it. It is only when we let go of those hurts of the past, that we can be freed from a burden we were never supposed to carry.

Some of us carry great pain and an unwillingness to forgive someone who hurt us a great deal. If that's you, that attitude isn't helping you very much, is it? I suggest that you counsel with someone about it. That can help lift a burden off of you that is really too big to carry. Depending on the kind of pain you carry, it can take a long time to process it all. But the sooner you start, the sooner you'll complete the process.

So learn to forgive, Paul says. Learn to be like God in that respect, too. That is the sort of life that he is inviting you to enjoy for all eternity. Don't let something that happened to you years ago keep you in its clutches. Don't let that evil person keep a ball and chain on your life today. Learn to let go, to forgive, to pray for your enemies instead of harboring malice toward them.

Paul summarizes his teaching in chapter 5, verse 1: "Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children."

We were created to be like God, so in all these instructions, Paul is telling us to be like God is. Since we are his children, we need to act like he does. This is not something we do to earn a spot in eternity – no, Paul says that we are already in the family of God. We just need to learn what this family lives like, so we can do it, too.

The summary word for God's life is "love," as Paul says in verse 2: "and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."

Again, God set the example. He is not asking us to do anything he isn't willing to do himself. God is love, the Bible says, and that pretty much describes the relationship we are supposed to have with everyone around us, and it describes the relationship we will have in eternity.

But we can't just make up our own definition of love. Our culture talks about "making love," but what it seems like most of the time is that they are just setting somebody up for betrayal. They use the word "love" for selfish purposes, and that is exactly the opposite of what it's supposed to mean.

In one of John's letters, he tells us what love is – he says, "This is how we know what love is – Jesus Christ died for us." Love means being willing to accept a little inconvenience in order to help somebody else. It means thinking about how we can help somebody else, not how we can get what we want.

It means telling the truth, it means getting rid of anger, it means working in order to share with people who have needs, it means giving encouraging words instead of words that put other people down. It means saying sorry for what we've done wrong, it means forgiving when people do something wrong to us. It means being like God in righteousness and holiness. It means living like he does; it means letting him live in us.

Most of us moved to wherever we are because we thought we'd have a better life here. Now I'd like you to think about another move – a move to the kingdom of God. There is certainly a better life there, in both senses of the word better. There are better things for us, and we are better people – and the kingdom of God is a wonderful destination precisely because there are better people there, and we will be better, too. God has designed us for this very purpose, and he is not going to give up on the good things that he wants to give us. He is always faithful to his purpose.

But we do not have to wait for the future to be better people, to have a better life. The kingdom of God exists even now, in all of God's children, in all the people the Holy Spirit lives in.

Why is that?

It's because Jesus gave himself for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice. He has done whatever it takes for us to be in God's good graces. He has paid the price, or whatever other metaphor you want to use, so that we can be there. We are included as part of the family; now he just asks us to act like it, to let the Holy Spirit do his transforming work in our minds, to change our desires and attitudes, to strengthen our relationships, to let love and loyalty be the story of our life rather than betrayal and bitterness.

But it does require some fundamental changes in the way people live. Paul says to put off the old rotten way of life. Most of us have already begun this process, to one degree or another. But no one has completed the process yet. We can always improve, we can always have a better life, because God offers us the best life possible – his very own life that he wants to share with us for all eternity. The perfect love that is characteristic of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is being offered to us.

How do we describe this life of divine love? One way to describe it is righteousness, truthfulness, helpfulness, and forgiveness. This is what Paul says that we, as God's dearly loved children, need to choose. This is the life that he offers, and he hopes that we accept it not just for the distant future, but for the good it will do in our life and our relationships right now.

But it requires a change – a change from the way life used to be, and a change away from the way life still is for many people. Paul says in chapter 5, verse 3: "But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people."

We should avoid even the appearance of sexual immorality. Why? Not because Paul is prudish, but because God created sex for something more important than casual entertainment and trivial relationships. Sex was designed to strengthen the exclusive relationship we call marriage, the relationship that gives children the stability and security that gives them confidence – and when sex is used outside of the context of an exclusive relationship, then it weakens its role in marriage.

A lot more could be said on that, but we don't need to do it today. Paul is not focusing on that here – it is just one illustration out of several things we need to keep well away from. We also need to avoid impurity and greed, because these are contrary to the way God's people should be, for the simple reason that they are contrary to the way God is.

Verse 4: "Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving." We need to keep our language clean, and keep our jokes clean. We don't need dirty jokes that tarnish something that God made good. What we need, Paul says, is an attitude of gratitude. Instead of having our mind in the gutter, or in the sewer, we need to set our minds on things above, on the good things that God is preparing for us.

Or maybe I should say that God is preparing us for the good things. Either way, it's good, and it's his gift to us, and we ought to be thankful for it, because it's far better than what we deserve. When we remember our future, we can be really thankful about the present.

In verse 5 Paul tells us why we should avoid dirty jokes: "For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person – such a man is an idolater – has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God."

Now, as Paul says in other letters, we used to be like that. We used to have behavior that was contrary to the kingdom of God, but we were forgiven, we were washed, we were set apart for God's use by his grace, and the Holy Spirit now lives in us to change us from that, into something better.

If you are greedy, Paul says, then you have an idol. If getting more stuff is more important to you than following God, then you have an idol. If immorality is stronger in your life than the desire to follow God, then you have an idol. And if you really like impurity, then you have an idol. Don't think you can bring idolatry into the kingdom of God. It just doesn't fit.

If you really want those corrupt desires, then you won't even like the kingdom of God, because they won't be there. If you are doing those things, then you are not participating in the kingdom of God. That doesn't mean that you are doomed to failure. No – Paul is just saying that we end up getting what we want. If we want greed and impurity, then that's what we will get. If we want to be rescued from greed and impurity, then we will be rescued in the kingdom of God. If we had those things in our life before, then we don't have to keep them. We can change for the better.

So I ask you: Do you want a better life? You can move, if you want to, deeper into the kingdom of God. Christ has already qualified you to be there, but he doesn't force you to go. It's not just a better life – it is the best life – the life of God, that he wants to share with you.

Michael Morrison

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## On the Road to Emmaus

It's a familiar story, so I'll just go through it quickly, and save my comments for the end. In Luke 24, we read that the women went to the tomb early on the first day of the week, and they found the tomb empty. Two angels appeared, and told them that Jesus had risen. So the women ran to tell the apostles the good news, but the apostles did not believe the women, because their words didn't seem to make any sense. Let's read the story starting in verse 12:

#### Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.

#### Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him.

#### He asked them, "What are you discussing together as you walk along?"

#### They stood still, their faces downcast.

#### One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, "Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?"

#### "What things?" he asked.

#### "About Jesus of Nazareth," they replied. "He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place.

#### In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning but didn't find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see."

#### He said to them, "How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?" And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

#### As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over." So he went in to stay with them.

#### When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?"

#### They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together and saying, "It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon." Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.

Who were these two disciples? One was named Cleopas, but we do not know the name of the other one. Maybe it was Mrs. Cleopas – we don't even know whether the person was male or female.

Maybe we can put our own name into the story at this point – maybe Luke doesn't tell us the name of the other disciple so that we can imagine ourselves as part of this story.

OK, so we were walking with Cleopas on the road to Emmaus, talking about all the things that have happened in the last few days.

Was it only a week ago that Jesus came riding into Jerusalem on a donkey? Weren't all the children singing Hosanna? Didn't all this happen to fulfill the prophecy of Zechariah about the king of Israel, riding on a donkey?

We were sure that Jesus was the Messiah, come to rescue us. We were sure that he was going to set up the kingdom of God. He kept talking about it – that's what he wanted to do, and that's what we wanted him to do, too.

And we could sure see God working in him. He kicked scoundrels out of the temple courts, and nobody stopped him. He told parables that clearly said God was rejecting the Pharisees and Sadducees, and would give the land to someone else. He showed that all those so-called leaders couldn't even interpret the Scriptures right.

He predicted the end of the age, and the Son of Man coming in glory with the clouds of heaven. And he gave us signs of a new covenant, a new relationship with God. We were sure that he was the Messiah.

And then he got killed.

(I'll skip the gruesome details.)

Remember that guy named Judas the Galilean? He said he was the Messiah and attracted a big following on the other side of the Jordan. But he got killed and all his followers scattered. Maybe we got sucked into that kind of thing. Just because we think somebody is the Messiah doesn't necessarily make him the Messiah. Jesus did some amazing stuff – I guess Judas did, too. Lots of people thought he was the Messiah. But they were wrong – and it looks like we were wrong, too.

Now it's time to get out of town, as inconspicuously as possible. We can't do it on Saturday, because that's the Sabbath, and we'll look pretty conspicuous. So we'll just stay inside and keep the doors locked. We can't leave on Sunday morning, because that's when everybody is heading into Jerusalem for more festival celebrations. The best time to leave is on Sunday afternoon, when people start going home to the nearby villages. We'll just blend in with those people, if we leave on Sunday afternoon.

And so here we are, walking away from Jerusalem, talking about what a great disappointment we've had. We thought this was going to be the best week of our life, but boy, did we get all our hopes smashed!

Have you ever felt like that? Have you ever hoped that Jesus would rescue you from some sort of problem or another? Have you ever hoped that Jesus would give you a problem-free life? Have you ever felt that instead, God had abandoned you? If he really existed, then he sure didn't seem to care about you?

That's what these disciples were talking about on the road to Emmaus. Sometimes Christians are on that road, trying to walk away from it all without attracting too much attention to themselves. They were following Jesus, but they became really disappointed in him. Their faces are downcast. They are just trudging along, going away, not quite sure where they are going to.

"We hoped that he was the one who was going to rescue us, but it sure doesn't look like that now." Maybe there won't ever be a rescue, and boy, is that depressing!

And along comes Jesus, and he chews them out, "You idiots! If you don't believe in me after all I've done for you, then good riddance! Just go away. I don't need disciples like you!"

No, Jesus didn't do that, did he? It's true that he doesn't need disciples like us, but it is also true that this is the only kind of disciples he has. We are all weak in faith. If we had been in Jerusalem that year, we would have walked away, too. We would have gone fishing, gone back to whatever it was that we were doing before. We might have hoped that Jesus would be the Messiah, but we would have given up on that hope.

Sometimes we hear other people talking about Jesus, but it just doesn't make any sense right now. The tomb might be empty, but we can't see Jesus anywhere around. It sure seems like he hasn't done anything for us. He might as well be dead, for all we are concerned.

And so we are walking away from Jerusalem, talking with our buddy Cleopas about how we got ripped off.

Jesus is not offended. He just walks with us for as long as he needs to. We don't even know that it's Jesus, but he is walking with us whether we know it or not. He'll let us talk, and tell our disappointment.

That's OK – Jesus does not feel compelled to be everything that we expected him to be. Sometimes we expected something, or hoped for something, that Jesus really isn't. Eventually, if we give Jesus a chance, he'll explain to us what sort of Messiah he really is.

For Cleopas, he talked about the Old Testament scriptures. For us, he might talk about something else, or explain things in a different way. Did you really want a Messiah who would prevent you from making mistakes? Did you really want a Savior who would suspend the law of cause and effect? Did you want a "Lord" who would do what you wanted him to, as if you are the one who is really in charge?

Do you want a Jesus who shows you mercy, but does not show mercy to other people? Do you want a Jesus who brings you personal happiness while leaving other people in misery? Do you want a Messiah who tells other people to behave themselves, so that you can have a better life?

Just what is it that you wanted from a Messiah? If you are disappointed with Jesus, just what is it that you expected, and was it a realistic expectation?

The conversation could go a thousand different ways, depending on what our difficulty is, but it eventually comes around to this: Didn't the Christ have to be the way he actually is?

Isn't death the biggest problem that humans will ever face? Whether we are rich or poor, good-looking or bad-looking, powerful or weak, all of us are going to die. And if death is the biggest problem we will face, wouldn't it be necessary for our Savior to show that he has been there and done that, and come out OK? Don't we need a Savior who has been killed, and then resurrected?

Isn't one of the biggest problems we face broken relationships? To give us assurance that Christ has overcome that, too, wasn't it necessary for him to be betrayed by one of his closest friends? Wasn't it necessary for him to be betrayed by his own people, to be betrayed by the best that human governments had to offer at the time?

There is no question about it: Life in this age is far from perfect. Everybody we meet is dysfunctional in some way or another. No matter what sort of people you have to deal with, Jesus has been there, and he's been hurt by it. He knows what we are going through, and by his example, he assures us that we can go through it, too, and come out the other side.

If we want to get away and walk to Emmaus, or even further, Jesus is willing to go with us, and keep talking with us. Eventually the time will come when it begins to make sense again. We will see that Jesus has been with us all along.

And then we'll whip out the handcuffs and lock Jesus up so that he will never leave us ever again. No, it doesn't work that way. Sometimes when we see him, he is soon gone. We have a dramatic moment when our eyes are open, and just as soon as we recognize it, the moment is gone again. We do not get a chance to put Jesus in our briefcase so that we can pull him out whenever we happen to want him.

No, we cannot control him.

So what should we do?

We should return at once to Jerusalem, to hear what the other disciples have to say about Jesus. Yes, he has risen and appeared to Peter – and to James, and John, and even Thomas – and can you believe it, even to a Pharisee named Saul!

We can hear their stories, and we can tell our stories, too, of how we met Jesus. Maybe it was something as ordinary as eating an evening meal; maybe it was an extraordinary experience with miracles at an empty tomb. We can tell of how we were walking in the depths of despair, and Jesus gave us unexpected hope. Or we can talk about how we were wallowing in guilt, and Jesus gave us freedom from our greatest oppressor. Or when we were trapped in a habit of some sort, and Jesus set us free. Or when life seemed pointless, all of a sudden we saw the point.

You know, life on this planet is filled with problems. If we are crippled by the fear of death, Jesus can set us free. If we are poisoned by one bad relationship after another, Jesus can heal us. If we are blind to the needs of other people, Jesus can open our eyes. If we are filled with lame excuses, Jesus can give us strength to be a better person.

Basically, if there were no Jesus, then we'd have to invent one to help us cope. But the truth is, that we are so dysfunctional that we can't invent a Jesus who can even identify our problem, much less help us cope with it. We need a Jesus who is different than what we want, because there's something seriously wrong about what we want. If we are to rescue ourselves, we need to desire a Jesus who is different than what we desire.

But of course we do not need to invent Jesus – he has been here walking with us all along, for almost 2,000 years now.

He is not in the tomb. He has risen, just as he said. He is not in Emmaus, but he is in his disciples – and we can sometimes see him, even if ever so briefly, when we eat together, and when we help each other, and when we talk with one another.

Each Easter, we celebrate the fact that Jesus rose from the dead. That is really good news for him, you might think, but what does it matter to me? The truth is, that it really doesn't do us much good, until he rises inside each of us. He needs to live in us. He can't do that unless he is actually alive, of course, but he also won't do that unless we let him.

He is walking with us on the road to Emmaus. We may think that we are walking away, but the fact is that we can never get far away from Jesus, because he is walking right beside us – whether we know it or not.

As Paul says in Ephesians, God made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—even when we were totally unaware of it—and God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms—all when we were totally unaware of it. He has been walking with us all along.

Many of you – most of you – already know that this is really good news, because you have seen Jesus in your life. Maybe in the breaking of the bread, maybe in some other way. You've seen that he is not only alive, but that he is living in you.

Others are not quite so sure, and that's OK. Or maybe you were once really sure, but you are beginning to have some doubts. That's OK, too. Sometimes when we are going through a really difficult time, like when we are faced with cancer, or when someone we love has just died, at times like that we have questions that have no answers, and what we need more than answers is just somebody to be with us.

Jesus is that somebody, whether we know it or not, whether we see him or not. He has been in our situation. He has faced betrayal and suffering and death. He knows what we are going through, and he has already gone through it with us, and for us. He is walking with us, even when we are trying to walk away from him.

That is really good news. We have a Savior who will let us walk, and he'll let us talk, and he will never let us get so far away that we can't get back, because he is right beside us all along.

The resurrection of Jesus is really good news, but he is not going to force it on you. Eventually the time will come when our eyes will be opened and we will recognize him for who he is, and we can join the conversation with our story: The Lord has risen, and he is living in me!

Michael Morrison

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## Repentance

I once counseled a young man who was deeply afraid that God had rejected him because of his repeated sins.

"I thought I had repented," he told me, "but I did it again." "I don't even know if I really have faith," he said, "because I'm afraid God might not forgive me again. No matter how sincere I think my repentance is, it never seems to be enough," he said.

What does the gospel mean when it speaks of "repentance toward God"?

Many Christians think of repentance as ceasing to sin. You've probably been told, or told yourself, "If you had really repented, you wouldn't have done it again."

We're told that repentance is to "turn around and go the other way," and it's often explained in the context of turning away from sin and turning toward a life of obedience to God's law.

With that idea firmly in mind, Christians set out with the best of intentions to change their ways. Some ways change, but some ways seem to stick like super-glue. And even what does change often has a nasty way of coming back to plague us again.

Just when we are feeling frustrated and depressed about our failure to measure up to the high standards of God, we hear another sermon or read another article about "real repentance" and "deep repentance" and how such repentance results in a complete turning away from sin.

So, we cinch up our commitment belt and go at it again, with the same, miserable, predictable results. Our frustration and despair deepen, because we realize that our turning away from sin is anything but "complete."

So we can only assume we have not "really repented." Our repentance was not "deep" enough, or "heartfelt" enough or "true" enough. And if we have not really repented, then we must not really have faith. Which means we must not really have the Holy Spirit. Which means we must not really be saved.

Well, there's good news. The good news is that repentance toward God is simply not about a new and improved you.

In Mark 1:15, Jesus declared, "Repent and believe the gospel." Repentance and faith mark the beginning of our new life in the kingdom of God. But they don't mark it because we did the right thing. They mark it because that is when the scales fall off our darkened eyes and we at last see in light of truth in Jesus Christ.

Everything that ever needed to be done for human forgiveness and salvation has already been done by Jesus Christ. There was a time when we were in the dark about that. We couldn't enjoy it or rest in it because we were blind to it.

We thought we had to make our own way in this world, and we spent all our effort and time plowing as straight a furrow in our little corner of life as we could manage.

We devoted all our attention to keeping our life and our future safe and secure. We worked hard to be respected and appreciated. We stood up for our rights and tried not to let anybody or anything take unfair advantage of us. We fought to protect and preserve our reputation, our family, our belongings. We did everything in our power to make something worthwhile of our lives, to be winners and not losers.

But like for everybody who ever lived, it was a losing battle. Despite all our best efforts and plans and hard work, we simply cannot control our lives. We cannot keep disasters and tragedies and failures and pains from coming out of nowhere and shattering what little scraps of hope and joy we have managed to piece together.

Then one day, for no other reason than that he wanted to, God let us in on the way things really are. The world is his, and we are his. In other words, God gave us good news! The good news is that he paid the heavy price for all our wrong living. He saved us, washed us, purified us, dressed us in righteousness and set a place for us at his eternal banquet table.

When, by the grace of God, you come to see that and believe it, you have repented. To repent is to say: "Yes! I believe it! I trust your word! I'm leaving behind this rat-race life of mine. I'm ready for your rest. Help my unbelief!"

Repentance is a change of how you think. It is a change of perspective, from seeing yourself as the center of the universe to seeing God as the center of the universe, and trusting your life to his mercy. It is believing what he says and giving him your allegiance.

It's not about promises to be good. It is not about clenching your teeth and straining to "put sin out of your life." It is trusting God to have mercy on you and to fix your evil heart. It is trusting God to be who he says he is for you—Savior, Teacher, and Sanctifier.

We are talking about a love relationship—not that you loved God, but that he loved you. 1 John 4:10 says: "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins."

God is the very fountainhead of all that is, including you, and it has dawned on you that he loves you for who you are—his beloved child in Christ—certainly not for what you have, or what you have done, or what your reputation is, or how you look, or any other characteristic you have. He loves you simply because you are his beloved child in Christ.

Believing that changes your whole perspective and attitude about life. Suddenly nothing is the same. The whole world has brightened. All your failures are redeemed and made right in Christ's death and resurrection. Your eternal future is assured, and nothing can take your joy away from you, because you now know that you belong to God and that he loves you for Christ's sake.

Paul wrote in Romans 8:1,

#### Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.

Repentance is turning to God to be for you what you could never be for yourself. To do for you what you could never do for yourself. It's about trusting God to be your righteousness, not about doing better yourself.

It's not just another hollow commitment to be a good boy or girl. It is dying to all your big images of yourself and putting your hand in the hand of the Man who calmed the sea. Galatians 6:3 says, "If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself."

When we repent, we are not gearing up for massive assault on sin, we are coming to Christ for rest. "Come to me," Jesus says in Matthew 11:28. "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

We can rest in Christ because he has forgiven our sins and he is our righteousness. We can rest in him because we are trusting him to be our all in all instead of having to rely on our own good deeds.

Let's be very clear about this: God forgives our sins—all of them—past, present and future. God did not wait until we were behaving better before he removed our sins through Jesus Christ. Look what Paul wrote in Romans 5:8: "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

Repentance, you see, is not a first step to getting God to forgive us. He did that, Paul says, while we were still sinners. In other words, our good deeds have no bearing on whether God forgives us. He has already forgiven us before we ever think about repenting.

Repentance is coming to believe he has done it. It is believing the truth that he has saved your life and given you a priceless eternal inheritance. And believing that automatically blossoms into loving him for it.

When it dawns on us that God has, for his own reasons, simply written off our lifetime of sin – all our lies, all our cruelty, all our pride, lust, betrayals, meanness, all of our evil thoughts, and deeds and plans – when we see that, we have a choice to make.

We can praise him and thank him forever for his indescribable sacrifice of love, or we can go right on living as we always have. We can believe God, we can ignore him, or we can run scared of him.

If we believe him, we can walk in friendship with him, and since he is a friend of sinners, that makes everybody, even bad people, our friends too. If we don't trust him, then we can't walk in friendship with him, or with anybody else, for that matter, except maybe for people who behave like we want them to.

Faith and repentance go hand in hand. They are like two sides of the same coin. You can't have one without the other. When you put your trust in God, two things happen at the same time:

1) You realize you are a sinner who needs God's mercy, and 2) You decide to trust God to save you and redeem your life.

In other words, when you put your trust in God, you have also repented. Turning to God is a turning away from yourself. But it doesn't mean you will now be morally perfect. It means you have turned away from your personal ambitions of making yourself worth something to Christ, and instead put your trust and hopes in his word, his good news, his declaration of your redemption and eternal inheritance.

When you trust in God for forgiveness and salvation, you have repented. Repentance toward God is a change in the way you think, and it affects everything in your life. The new way of thinking is the way of trusting God to do what you could never do for yourself in a million lifetimes.

Repentance is not a change from moral imperfection to moral perfection—you are incapable of that. You are incapable of moral perfection because, the fact is, you are dead. Sin has made you dead, as Paul says in Ephesians 2:4-5: "But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved."

Being dead is what we have contributed to this process of forgiveness and redemption. But even though we were dead in our sins, Christ made us alive. He did everything; we did nothing. The only thing dead people can do is nothing. They can't be alive to righteousness or to anything else, because they are dead, dead in sin. But it is precisely dead people, and only dead people, who get raised from the dead.

Raising the dead is what Christ does. He doesn't pour perfume on corpses. He does not prop them up and dress them in party clothes and wait for them to do something righteous. They are dead. They can't do anything. Jesus isn't the least bit interested in new and improved corpses. What Jesus does is resurrect them. In other words, the only way to enter into Jesus' resurrection, his life, is to be dead. It doesn't take much effort to be dead. In fact, it doesn't take any effort at all.

The lost sheep in Luke 15 didn't find itself before the shepherd went looking for it and found it. Let's read it in Luke 15:1-7:

#### Now the tax collectors and "sinners" were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them."

#### Then Jesus told them this parable: "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.' I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

Jesus is being facetious here: There is no such thing as 99 who don't need to repent. But notice that the repentance involves being found. The only thing the sheep did was get lost; it didn't find itself. Let's continue the passage in verse 8:

#### Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, "Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin." In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

The lost coin did not find itself before the woman went looking for it and found it. The only thing the coins contributed to the whole process of their being sought, found and rejoiced over was being lost. Their utter, hopeless, lostness was the only thing they had that allowed them to be found.

Even the prodigal son in the next parable in Luke 15 finds himself already having been forgiven, redeemed and fully accepted purely on the basis of his father's lavish and gracious love, not on the basis of his ideas about working his way back into his father's good graces. His father had compassion on him without ever hearing the first word of his "I'm so sorry" speech.

When the son finally accepted, in the stench of the pigpen, his deadness and lostness, he was on his way to discovering something amazing that had been true all along: his father, the one he had rejected and disgraced, had never stopped loving him passionately and unconditionally.

Likewise, our utter, hopeless, deadness is the only thing that allows us to be resurrected. In the three parables of Luke 15, the initiative, the work and the success of the whole operation is entirely that of the God figure in each story: The shepherd, the woman, and the father. The only thing we contribute to the process of our resurrection is being dead. That is as true for us spiritually as it is for us physically.

Repentance, therefore, is not bringing forth some good and noble work or mouthing some emotion-laden speech designed to motivate God to forgive you. There is absolutely nothing we are capable of doing that could possibly add anything at all to our being made alive. It is a simple matter of believing God's good news of forgiveness and redemption in Christ through which he resurrects the dead.

Paul talks about the mystery of our death and resurrection in Christ in Colossians 3:3: "For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God." The mystery is that we have died, yet we are, at the same time, alive, but that life, which is glorious, is not apparent: it is hidden with Christ in God, and it will not appear as it actually is until Christ himself appears, as verse 4 says: "When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." Our life is Christ. When he appears, we will appear with him, because he is, after all, our life.

Again, dead people can't do anything for themselves. They can't change. They can't "do better." They can't improve. The only thing they can do is be dead. God, however, who is the very Source of life itself, loves to raise the dead, and in Christ, does just that. Let's look at Romans 6:4: "We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life."

The corpses bring nothing to the process except their deadness. God does it all. It is his work, his alone, from beginning to end. Which means there are two kinds of raised corpses: those who receive their redemption with joy and those who close their eyes, clasp their hands over their ears and devote all their energies to pretending they are still dead.

Repentance, then, is saying "Yes!" to the gift of forgiveness and redemption that God says we have in Christ. It is not doing penance. It is not making promises or drowning in guilt. It isn't a never-ending string of "I'm deeply sorry" or "I promise I won't do it again." Let's be brutally honest. Chances are we will do it again, if not in actual deed, at least in thought, desire and emotion.

Yes, we are sorry, maybe even deeply sometimes, and we truly don't want to be the kind of person who will do it again, but remorse and regret are not the heart and core of repentance toward God. Remember, we are dead, and dead people act like dead people. But even though we are dead in sin, we are also, at the same time, alive in Christ.

Notice Romans 6:11: "In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus." But your life in Christ is hidden with Christ in the Father, and it doesn't show itself in the here and now very consistently or very often—yet. It's not going to be revealed for what it really is until Christ himself appears.

Meanwhile, even though we are now alive in Christ, we are also, for the time being, still dead in sin, and our deadness does show itself just about all the time. And it is precisely that dead you and me that Christ has resurrected and made alive with him in God—to be revealed when he is revealed.

That's where faith comes in. Repent and believe the gospel. The two go hand in glove. You can't have one without the other. To believe the good news, that God has washed you clean in the blood of Christ, that he has healed your deadness and made you alive forevermore in his Son, is to repent.

Likewise, to turn to God in your utter helplessness, receiving his freely given redemption and salvation, is to have faith, to believe the gospel. Repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin, and it is a coin God gives us for no other reason, no other reason at all, than that he loves us and is righteous and gracious toward us.

Now someone will say, repentance toward God will result in good morals and good behavior. Of course it does. But the problem is, we love to measure repentance by the absence or presence of good behavior, and that is to tragically misunderstand repentance.

The honest truth is that we believers do not have perfect morals or perfect behavior, and anything short of perfection is simply not good enough for the kingdom of God. So let's dispense with any nonsense about how "if your repentance is sincere then you will not commit the sin again."

The point of repentance is a change of heart, from ourselves being Number One in our lives to God being Number One in our lives.

God has declared an almighty, thundering, eternal "Yes!" to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Repentance is our saying "Yes!" to God's "Yes!" It is turning to God to accept his blessed gift, his righteous declaration of our innocence and salvation in Christ.

To accept his gift is to acknowledge our deadness and our need of life in him. It is to trust him, to believe him and to put ourselves, our being, our existence, all that we are, in his hands. It is to rest in him and to give him our burdens.

We need to get rid of the crippling notion that repentance is a promise not ever to sin again. First of all, such a promise is pure hot air. Second, it is spiritually meaningless.

Let's rejoice in the overwhelming grace of our Lord and Savior and take our rest in him. He redeems the lost. He saves the sinner. He raises the dead. He's on our side, and because he is, nothing can come between him and us—no, not even our wretched sins, or our neighbor's.

Trust him. It's his good news for all of us. He is the Word, and he knows what he is talking about.

Mike Feazell

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## Share God's Love

Hi everyone, I'm here today to tell you that God loves you. Now, if you're a Christian, you're probably saying, "Well Dan, I know that God loves me." I'm glad that you know that God loves you, but you know there are a lot of people out there, including maybe your neighbors and certainly the rest of humanity, that may not yet know that God loves them.

It's the will of the Father that humanity know how much he loves them. The Father sent the Son, the Son sent the Spirit, and the Spirit has sent the church to proclaim the message of how much God loves humanity and how much he wants humanity to realize that they're included in his life, in his wonderful existence.

When Jesus came to this earth, he set forth on a ministry and in that ministry he revealed the Father. He said, "For this is eternal life, to know the Father and to know how much the Father has loved you, and to know that the Son and the Spirit love humanity as well."

God loves everyone. In fact, he loves people that by our estimations and our standards do not seem to be very lovable. What about us? Do we love humanity as God does? For those of us who are Christians, we participate in the very life of God. We proclaim that Jesus lives in us and we live in Jesus.

Since we live in Jesus and he lives in us, the Holy Spirit manifests the love of God in our life and should manifest it towards other people—even towards people who are seemingly unlovable. In fact, those are the people who need to hear how much God loves them the very most.

What does it look like for us to participate in the ministry of Christ and to share God's love with other people? I'd like to take an example from the life of Jesus today and share it with you. We're going to look at the story of Jesus and Zacchaeus and the relationship that Jesus developed with him and how he let this short little unloved man know that God loved him.

Let's turn in the Scriptures to Luke chapter 19. In Luke 19, we begin the story this way, we find that "Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through it." Jericho was a town about 17 miles from Jerusalem. It was kind of a suburb, if you will, of that great city and it was a home to many religious people. Particularly to the temple priests and to the Levites who served in the temple at Jerusalem. We're dealing here with a very religious-oriented city.

"He entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich." The tax collectors in Judea were Jewish people who worked for the Roman government and took the taxes of the people and then delivered those taxes to the Roman officials.

The Roman officials did not like these tax collectors very much. They knew they were dishonest. They saw them as traitors to their own people and they were very much despised by the Romans. These Jewish tax collectors were also very much despised by their own people, because the people realized that not only did they take the taxes owed to the Romans, they took more. Yes, they extorted, they embezzled, they cheated and they robbed both the Jewish people and the Roman authorities and made themselves very rich.

What we read here about Zacchaeus is that he was a chief tax collector. He was the supervisor, the superintendent of tax collectors in that region. As a result of that, not only was he hated by the Romans, by his fellow Jews, but he was hated by his fellow Jewish tax collectors because he probably extorted and embezzled even from them. Chances are, this man Zacchaeus was a very lonely, a very unloved and even hated individual in the city of Jericho.

We pick up with our story here in verse three. He, Zacchaeus, "was trying to see who Jesus was." That's an interesting expression. He was trying to see who Jesus was. Perhaps he'd heard about him. Perhaps he knew of his fame. Perhaps there was something that he had heard about Jesus that intrigued him and he wanted to know more. He was very anxious to see Jesus as he passed through the city.

On account of the crowd, he could not, because he was very short in stature. Here we have this much-despised short tax collector trying to get through the crowds to get a look at this rabbi Jesus as he comes through town. I find it interesting that he was short and tried to get up front where he could have a view, but the crowd seemed to block him.

These perhaps very religious people in the city of Jericho wanted to see Jesus for themselves, but did not want to let this short little man Zacchaeus come forward. They despised him. They disliked him. He was very unpopular and so the crowd seemed to just kind of push and shove together to keep Zacchaeus out.

What is Zacchaeus to do if he wants to see Jesus? Well, he's got an idea here and so we find that in verse four "he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore fig tree to see him, because Jesus was going to pass that way." Here we have this man who's sort of forced out by the crowd and if he wants to see Jesus the only alternative that's left to him is to go over and climb a sycamore fig tree.

Now, the sycamore fig trees in the area of Jericho can grow to as much as 65 feet in height and they have thick leaves, sort of heart shaped. Zacchaeus could have climbed up in this tree quite easily and he probably would've been pretty much obscured from the sight of the crowd and even from Jesus and Jesus' disciples. Here we have this poor little outcast man and a much hated by the populace of the city of Jericho as it were hiding himself in a tree and peeking out in order to see more about who this Jesus is.

I don't know about you, but I think that if a movie is ever made of this story of Jesus and Zacchaeus, the part of Zacchaeus can be played by no other person in my estimation than Danny DeVito. I can't help but read this story without seeing Danny DeVito playing the character of Zacchaeus being forced out by the crowds, hated and despised, having to climb a sycamore fig tree, sitting there on a limb in order to get a look at Jesus as he goes by.

We continue in the story: "When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, 'Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.' He hurried down and was happy to welcome him." This may seem a little strange to us, for Jesus just to say "hey come on down, I'm going to come over to your house and have dinner."

That's not our custom in North America today. At this time and this period in history among the Jewish people in Judea, for a rabbi to offer to come to your house and share a meal with you was the highest compliment you could possibly be paid. This was to show you great honor.

When Jesus said, "I will come to your house and eat with you," it was seen in the eyes of the crowd that day as showing great honor and respect to this little short hated man Zacchaeus. The crowd reacted predictably. Again, we read in our story, "All who saw it began to grumble and say 'he's going to be the guest of one who is a sinner,'" which is kind of an interesting expression, which tells you the crowd certainly did not see itself as being sinners. They saw themselves as the children of Abraham. They saw themselves as the chosen people who had not defiled themselves with the Romans or with any foreign thing and they looked down upon Zacchaeus and despised him. Yet in their own eyes they saw themselves as righteous, while seeing Zacchaeus to be chief among sinners.

Verse 8: "Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, 'Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor. If I've defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.'" Then Jesus to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost."

What seems to have happened here in the life of Zacchaeus? Here is a man who was marginalized, despised and outcast, hated by his own people, his own peers, loved seemingly by no one, disrespected by this crowd, brought to the level of having to climb a tree as a grown man in order to see Jesus going by.

Yet Jesus, mindful of his own business but not too mindful to notice what was going on around him, took time to look up in the tree and observe Zacchaeus and see him there and feel compassion upon him and to invite Zacchaeus to come through the crowd and appear before him. Then Jesus offered to go to Zacchaeus's home and give him the honor of dining with him.

Zacchaeus was touched by this. I think in fact his heart was broken. A man who was so hated by so many, loved perhaps by no one, not even perhaps experiencing love at all. His only love was for his money. His money had become his god, had become his family, had become the source of fulfillment in life.

Yet we noticed how much he has been changed here by his interaction with Jesus when he offers to give up half of everything he has and repay anyone that he has ever cheated. Something truly remarkable has happened in Zacchaeus's heart. What caused this to happen? Well, obviously, the work of the Holy Spirit, but how? Zacchaeus felt loved. Perhaps for the first time in many, many years of his life, someone showed him some honor. Someone showed him respect. Someone showed him kindness. Someone showed him that he was loved and respected and worthy of honor.

This unexpected love from so great a rabbi touched Zacchaeus deeply and profoundly. So much so that it changed his whole way of life. Not only from that day, but from that day forward. Jesus said he came to seek and to save the lost, and indeed he did. Jesus sought out people like Zacchaeus to let them know that God loved them. How do we participate in this ministry of Jesus? Let's think about it for a moment. Has Jesus sought out and saved the lost? Yes, indeed he has.

Does he continue to? Yes, Jesus has, Jesus is, Jesus will save the lost. We need to participate in the ministry of Jesus Christ by letting people like Zacchaeus and indeed all of humanity, everyone within our sphere of influence, know how much God loves them. Even to seek them out if they're hiding in a sycamore fig tree and to share God's love with them.

How do we do that? I notice three things from this story of Jesus and his interaction with Zacchaeus. The first thing that Jesus did was lift up his eyes to see, and so should we. We have to look around us as we go through life. We can't be so concerned with our own affairs, our own stresses, our own pressures in life that we fail to notice people around us who are seeking, people who have questions, people who have needs, both physical and spiritual. We need to be sensitive to that and ever mindful that there is a large segment of humanity all around us in our daily lives who just don't know yet how much God loves them and how transforming that knowledge can be.

After you've opened your eyes to see those who are around you in your sphere of influence, the next thing to do as Jesus did would be to open your heart to feel for them, to be sensitive to their needs, to be sensitive to their questions, to be sensitive for what they're looking for in life. Is there some way you can respond and meet their needs both physically and spiritually?

Notice that Jesus met Zacchaeus's physical need for love and respect and honor in the eyes of the people. He made Zacchaeus feel better about himself. He improved Zacchaeus's relationship between himself and the people by showing him honor and respect. Jesus was preparing to share God's love with Zacchaeus and to let him know just how much this physical action represented the love of the Father for him.

Then finally Jesus opened his hands to help. He reached out to Zacchaeus. He met his needs that he had seen, that he'd felt in his heart and seen with his eyes, and now he was going to his home to teach him and to interact with him to have hospitality with him and to fully share God's love. Indeed, Jesus could predict that day, "salvation has indeed come to your house."

How does this story apply to us in our participation in the ministry of Jesus Christ? How are we to walk as Jesus walked? How are we to share the love of the Father in the Son and in the Spirit with humanity? We need to remember what Jesus did, and do likewise. We need to keep our eyes open, to see those around us who are seeking. We need to open our heart to be sensitive for needs that they may have, both physical and spiritual. We need to reach out with our hands to serve and to minister to those people so that not only do our words tell them about God's love, our deeds and our actions toward them show God's love for them.

As we go through life, as we participate in the ministry of Christ, we too can really by the Holy Spirit have a profound effect in the lives of people. A transformation can occur by the work of the Holy Spirit as he works in us, through us, and as we work with him in his ongoing ministry of sharing God's love with humanity.

I encourage every one of us to think about this daily. To walk as Jesus walked with our eyes, with our heart, with our hands, because you never know, you just might look up into a tree someday and see a Zacchaeus who needs your help and who needs God's love. When we share that love with them, transformation can and will occur in people's lives. Keep your eyes open and look out for that Zacchaeus in the fig tree near you.

Dan Rogers

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## Stewardship of Talents

Christian churches sometimes talk about the idea of "stewardship," but especially for new people, it is often an unfamiliar word. We don't know what stewardship is, and we don't know what a steward is.

But Jesus used a steward as an example in several of his parables, so it is helpful for us to see what he is talking about.

Basically, a steward is a person who is entrusted with someone else's money. The modern counterpart might be a business manager. The person can make financial decisions on behalf of someone else – the steward can create obligations for the owner, or on the other hand can make profits for the owner. The steward doesn't own the business – he or she just manages it for someone else.

Jesus used a steward as an example in several of his parables, because all of us in some way or another manage things that belong to God. The word "stewardship" often refers to the way that we use money, and it is a reminder that the stuff we have is not really our own, and so we ought to be generous in giving some of it back to God for his use.

But stewardship can involve many things in addition to money. We sometimes talk about "time, talents, and treasure," and we need stewardship in each of those areas – our time is to be used for God's purposes, our talents and abilities are to be used for his purposes, and our treasures should be, as well.

Today, let's look together at the parable Jesus told in Matthew 25, starting in verse 14. It is usually called the parable of the talents, because in this parable, the rich man gave his servants various amounts of money, which were called talents. A talent was worth approximately 15 years of a working man's wages – maybe 200 thousand dollars. The precise amount isn't important, so Today's New International Version just calls it "bags of gold."

So let's see what Jesus said, starting in Matthew 25:14. He's talking about the kingdom of God, and he says: "Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability." We might say that he gave them a million dollars, or half a million, or a couple hundred thousand.

#### Then he went on his journey. The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money.

#### After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. "Master," he said, "you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more." His master replied, "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!"

#### The man with two bags of gold also came. "Master," he said, "you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more." His master replied, "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!"

#### Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. "Master," he said, "I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you."

#### His master replied, "You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest. Take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. For those who have will be given more, and they will have an abundance. As for those who do not have, even what they have will be taken from them. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Parables are notoriously difficult to interpret, but let's see what we have to work with. First, Jesus said that the kingdom of God is in some way like this story, and it seems that in the story, the owner represents God, who gives stuff to people, judges them on what they've done, and throws people out if they haven't done what they are supposed to do.

Now, what's the focus of the story? Is it on the way that the money is distributed? No, that gets only one verse. Jesus doesn't even say how the master decided how much ability they had.

Is the focus on the way that the servants put the money to work? No, that gets only a couple of verses, and Jesus never really tells us how they did it – simply that they did it. We don't know whether it was farming or shipping, or a chain of coffee shops. It apparently doesn't matter – the important thing is that they put it to work and they got some more, and they gave it to the master.

The focus of the story seems to be on the judgment scene, which takes up more than half of the story. The two guys who did well get four verses; the one guy who did nothing gets seven verses. That seems to be the main point of the story. This is the surprise ending, the point that Jesus wants to leave people with.

Now, a really important question here is: What does the gold symbolize? People have speculated about that, but it's all speculation and really hard to prove. I suspect that it is deliberately vague because it can stand for anything that God gives to us, and whatever it is that he gives us, he wants us to put it to use in a productive way.

What has God given us? There's time, talent, and treasures. There's physical stuff, and there are intangible things. In our economy, most of the physical things have monetary value, and we can see how much money we get each week, and how much we have in the bank. We can see our cars, we can see the clothes in our closets, we can see the fridge full of food. We can put all that stuff to work, and the setting of the parable reminds us that this stuff is not our own – it is given to us by God and he wants us to use it not for selfish benefit, but to give the profits back to him.

Now, he will certainly reward us, and give us a share in the master's happiness, but the stuff itself belongs to God, and whatever we gain with it belongs to God, too. We give it all back to him, because it's all his.

We all have a different amount of stuff, and in the same way, we all have a different amount of time. Some people have many years to live; other people have only a few. Some people have 16 useable hours in a day; some people have 18, and some have only 14. And some people have more energy than others, and some have more strength than others.

Those differences are not really important for the parable – Jesus mentions different amounts, but he doesn't develop the story in that direction. All he seems to be concerned about in this parable is whether we try or not. Two guys tried and had different amounts of success, and they were praised with identical words. The master was equally pleased. But what he didn't like was the man who didn't do anything, who didn't try at all.

Now, what happens if there is somebody who tries to make a profit, but his investment happens to go sour, and he loses it all? What is Jesus going to do with that sort of person? Is he going to be angry? In other words, is Jesus willing to take the profits, but not the losses? Is this a one-sided business risk?

Well, the third guy worried about that kind of possibility, and he was afraid of what the master might do, so he went and hid the money instead of trying to do something with it. The implication of the parable is that we should not think that our master is like that, and we should not be afraid of the master. If we try and fail, the master is not going to punish us; we should not be afraid. Rather, we should be willing to try, because that is what he wants us to do with whatever it is he gives us.

God also gives us some intangible things, things that cannot be touched or measured. He gives us the ability to learn, to work, and to play. He gives us the ability to enjoy a beautiful sunset, to enjoy a pleasant smell, to enjoy good music. We can laugh at a playful puppy, or be amused by something that a child says.

God gives us joy. Now, what do we do with that joy – do we dig a hole in the ground and stuff it there for safekeeping, or do we use that joy in a positive way? Do we use it in such a way that at the end of the day, there is even more joy than there was before? Do we use that joy for ourselves, or do we try to share that joy with other people? The nice thing about joy is that we can give it to somebody else without ever losing any of it ourselves. In fact, it seems that the more joy we give away, the more we get for ourselves.

It is sometimes said that everything we have comes from God, but that's not really true. Can you think of something you have that does not come from God? How about pain, and sorrow, and suffering? How about sin? It seems that God gives us the ability to choose good or bad, and he gives us the ability to choose wrong things. So he doesn't own every thought that goes through our heads – he certainly doesn't own the bad thoughts.

I think there is another category of thought that is genuinely our own, and that's because God gives it to us, and that's the gift of creativity. He lets us create things that didn't exist before – he lets us invent useful tools, he lets us create an interesting sculpture, he lets us put colors together in a way that no one has ever done before, and maybe in a way that no one ever wants to again, and these are products of our own creativity. He lets us put words together in a new way, to create poetry, to create stories, to create words of instruction, to create music that has never been heard before.

God gives us the ability to create, and with that gift, we can create new things, some of them bad, and some of them good. But even though we have made these creations ourselves, we are to use them for God. At the end of the day, we can say, Master, I used the gift you gave me to create some beauty, to create some joy, to help someone else. You entrusted me with this talent, and with it I have gained some more. Here it is — it is yours.

Some of us are more talented in music, some more talented in art, some more talented in abstract reasoning, some more in compassion, some in the ability to analyze, and some in the ability to get others to open up and talk about their problems. Everyone has a spiritual gift of some sort, and every spiritual gift is a talent of some sort, an ability that can and should be used for God's kingdom.

There's another example of an intangible gift from God – and that's the relationships we have with one another. God gives us the ability to form relationships, to love and be loved. Relationships can be a great source of joy, or also a great source of pain – and because of the possibility of pain, sometimes people are reluctant to use the gift that God has given. But this parable says that we should not be so afraid, that we neglect to use the gift at all.

Our relationships are a combination of God's gift and our own choices, and like all the other assets that we have, they should be used for God's kingdom. And indeed, relationships are the core of the kingdom – they have value in their own right, and we can use them to share joy, to encourage others, to gain something for God by using what he has given us. When we enter into the Master's happiness, relationships are going to be a big part of it. The master likes relationships, and wants relationships. He not only wants to have a relationship with each of us – he wants us to have relationships with each other. That's what the kingdom is like.

There is one more thing about the parable that I'd like to talk about, and that is the punishment that is given to the third servant, the steward who was afraid, the steward who didn't do anything with the gift God had given him. That is, after all, a large part of the parable.

First, let's ask, who is that guy?

It's me, and it's you. In some respects, all of us are like the first servant, who was given a lot, and who gained a lot. In other areas, we are like the second servant, who wasn't as gifted, but still used what he had in a positive way. But none of us are perfect at it; all of us sometimes fail to do what we ought, and so all of us are sometimes like the third guy. Sometimes we are afraid and sometimes we are just plain lazy. But even at our worst, I don't think there is anyone who does absolutely nothing with the talents God has given.

However, if there is no one solidly in the third category, why did Jesus spend seven verses on the lazy, good-for-nothing evil guy who was afraid to even try? That's the main point of the parable, and if nobody fits into it, what then was the parable for?

Here's where we need to learn a little bit about how parables work, and as an illustration of that I would like to turn to Matthew chapter 7, starting in verse 24. This is the parable of the house built on a rock. Matthew 7:24-27:

#### Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.

Jesus did not tell this parable simply as a description, that obedient people end up safe and disobedient people end up with disaster. That's true, but there is something more to it than that. He was not saying that some people are predestined to end up safe, and some are predestined to end up in disaster, and he doesn't really care which is which, because either way justice is served.

No, Jesus told the parable because he did care, because he wanted people to avoid the disaster. The parable is not just information – it is also motivation. Jesus told the parable as a warning, and the purpose of a warning is not to predict the future, but so that he can influence the future.

It's like when I was a little boy, my mother told me that boys who play in the street get run over by a car. She was not telling me that as simply one bit of information to add to my stock of knowledge – she was telling me that so that I would not play in the street and I would not get run over by a car.

As another example, we might consider what Jonah told the people of Nineveh: "Forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown." Well, the people of Nineveh knew how to interpret the prophecy, and despite the way that Jonah said it, it was not a message of unavoidable doom.

Rather, the prediction of disaster was actually a warning for them to repent, and to avoid the disaster. And they did. So the prediction turned out to be false, because the function of the prophecy turned out to be true and effective. The prophecy was not so much to predict, as to motivate.

So when Jesus says that people who don't listen are like foolish builders, he was actually warning them so they would change their ways. We might even paraphrase the point of the parable as a command: "Listen up, so your life doesn't end in a disaster. Take heed. Put these teachings in to practice!"

If we go back to Matthew 25, we see another warning: people who bury their gifts in the ground are kicked out of the kingdom. This is not intended as a simple prophecy – the purpose of this parable is to get people to escape the punishment. It's just a Hebrew way of emphasizing the importance of doing what Jesus is saying.

Besides that, the punishment is not intended to be an exact description of what will happen on the day of judgment. It's not really about bags of money, for one thing. It's not really about putting money in the bank to get interest. Notice in verse 29 that Jesus talks in terms that seem to contradict themselves: As for those who do not have, even what they have will be taken from them.

The punishment is an exaggeration, and is not to be taken literally. In another parable, the master says tie the man up and throw him out. In another parable Jesus says the person will be handed over to the torture squad. These are all exaggerations, and not literal descriptions. That's because the purpose of the parables is not to describe the end-time punishment, but rather to get us to escape it.

Let's look again at the parable to see what it is we are supposed to avoid. First, in Matthew 25, verse 24, we are not supposed to think that the master is a hard man, demanding more than he has a right to. God is not out to take our stuff away from us. No, he is the one who gave it in the first place. He is not out to get us. He does not want us to fail. Rather, he wants us to succeed.

Second, verse 25, we should not be afraid of God. We should not be afraid of using what he has given us. He has given it for our joy, not as a means of tripping us up. We should not be fearful in the way we use our time, our talents, our relationships, our creativity, or our money. We just recognize that he has given it all to us, and we can rightly give it back to him. When we use it for God's kingdom, we are actually using it for our future, making an investment for our future, and God will reward us by inviting us to share in his happiness.

Third, in verse 27, God does not demand that we double everything he has given us. Even a small increase is acceptable. We don't need to worry about the amount of success, as long as we are trying to use what he has given us. Even a feeble effort is better than none at all.

Last, in verse 29, we see that people who do not want to participate in the kingdom will not be forced to. If they are afraid of the master, then they don't have to live with him. If they are so worried about themselves, then they won't be able to share in the master's happiness even if that happiness is all around them. There will be a wonderful party going on and they will be having a miserable time, because they are always afraid that the hard man will suddenly demand something out of them that they don't have.

So they would be miserable if they stayed inside in the kingdom, and so the master says, well then, you might as well be outside. You'll be miserable there, too, but at least you won't be spoiling the party for everyone else. No matter where you live, if you are not going to use the good things of God, then you are not going to be happy about life.

So we can see from the parable that there are some things we ought to avoid. Now, what about some things we ought to do? Mainly, if God gives us something, we ought to use it. We can use it to further his kingdom, we can use it to help other people, we can multiply the good by sharing the good.

The parable doesn't tell us how – but it does tell us that we aren't going to be happy unless we learn to use what God has given.

Michael Morrison

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## The Divine Drama

Do you know what is God doing in your life? And what is he doing in the world as a whole? These two questions are of course interrelated: What God is doing in your life, has something to do with what he is doing in the world as a whole.

But just what is that? What's he up to?

We wouldn't know much about God at all, except for what the Bible tells us. In order for us to see what God is doing, he has to reveal himself to us, and he does that in the Bible.

So what is he up to?

I think that the biblical story can be summarized as a great drama, a story about what God is doing in our lives. Today I will sketch that story, sort of an overview of the Bible and how it relates to us.

Act 1, scene 1, chapter 1 begins in the beginning, and the starting point for the whole story comes in Genesis 1. It says that God made the heavens and the earth, the land and the sea, the birds and the fish and the animals. He said, Let there be..., and there was.

And how does it relate to us? In Genesis 1, verses 26-27,

#### Then God said, "Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

#### So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Why did God do this? He didn't have to do it this way. He didn't have to create us to be a little bit like himself. So why did he do it?

Genesis doesn't tell us. Novels and dramas are sometimes like that, aren't they? They just begin, and we find ourselves in a scene and we have to learn what is going on. The novel starts out by saying that "it was a dark and stormy night," and we have to figure out what is going on, and as the novel progresses, we start to see how everything fits together, and what is going on in that scene.

Genesis tells us that God created human beings in his own image, in his likeness, so that we can rule over the animals and the earth. It's like we are kings and queens, and God has not only created us, he has given us a domain, a kingdom for us to enjoy, and we can be a little bit like gods in the domain that he has given us.

But why? Genesis doesn't tell us. It is only later in the biblical story that we begin to see why he did it. Now, for the purpose of this message today, I am going to tell you. So alert, alert! Here's a "spoiler." I'm going to tell you how it ends up, so if you don't want to know, if you'd rather watch the movie and be surprised, then you can stop right now.

OK, for all those who are still with me, I'll tell you how it all ends up. Why did God create human beings? The Bible says he did it because he loves us. God is love, the Bible tells us. He is a Creator, too, but he hasn't always been a creator. But he has always been love. Before he created the universe, he was love. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit loved each other, and they said, "Life is good. Let's make some creatures who are a similar to us, and can enjoy life the way we do."

So God created human beings in the image of God, gave them a wonderful place to live, and gave them everything they needed in order to prosper and be happy. And since God is love, he gave them his own friendship. He was ready to help them.

So I call Act 1, Scene 2 "God Loves Us." That is the way the story begins. God told Adam and Eve, "You've never had a life before, so you might not know how this works. I'm here to help you. There are a few things that could go wrong, so I will try to steer you clear."

Most of you know how that turned out. And so I call Act 2, Scene 1 "Humanity Runs Away." Genesis 3 tells us how God told humanity that a certain kind of fruit in the garden was poisonous. That symbolizes the fact that there are some choices in life that can make life pretty unpleasant.

God wants to share a good life with us, not a life of frustration and pain. So he tells us, If you live this way, you are going to be happy. But if you choose to go some other way, then you are not going to like the results. God gives us the power to choose, because that's part of the power that's a little bit like God; it is part of the image of God; it is part of the life that God wants to share with us. We have to make decisions as we go along in life.

Every story needs a plot, a danger of some sort, what the literary people call an antagonist, who threatens to turn the drama into a tragedy. And Genesis 3:1 introduces the antagonist: "Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, 'Did God really say, "You must not eat from any tree in the garden"?'"

Who is this serpent, and how did he get here in the garden? Genesis doesn't tell us. He just shows up, causes trouble, and he disappears from the scene for a long time. It's like somebody from off the stage threw a stink bomb into the drama, and it's a long time before we find out "who dunnit."

Here again, for the purpose of this literary review, I am going to spill the beans and tell you who dunnit. The Bible says it was a powerful spirit named Satan – that's a Hebrew word that means "The Adversary." Or we might say he is... "The Antagonist." If this was a Western, he'd wear a black hat.

It doesn't help us much to learn another name for the snake. The question for us now is this: How did this antagonistic snake get into the story? The Bible doesn't tell us. It drops a few hints here and there, but it just never comes out and tells us. That's because the Bible is not about the snake. It's about you, and me, and God's love for us. The snake is just part of the set. It somehow got into the scenery and it makes a mess that we have to deal with even if we don't know how it got there. It's part of what makes this story a drama. There's a difficulty that needs to be overcome.

What happens in this scene is that the snake convinces the humans to be antagonistic. By trickery, by deception, he gets human beings to turn against God; he gets human beings to be antagonists in the divine drama. The snake tricks humanity into rejecting the life that God offers, and going off onto their own way – a way that God knows is going to cause us lots of trouble.

And so the story goes. God told Adam and Eve that there was one tree in the garden that had strange fruit. It was sweet to the taste, but when it got to the belly it was horribly bitter. It would cause them to die. The snake said, "Don't be silly. It's OK – just eat it." They did, and then they were ashamed.

Verse 8: "Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden." They had rejected his advice, and now they rejected him. They had chosen to go it alone. They ran away.

So the framework of the story is set: We've got a problem, and the story is about how God is going to fix that problem.

Act 2, scene 2: God Pursues Us. Now, God is used to getting his own way, and he doesn't take "no" for an answer very easily. And he is love, so this story is a romance, and as part of this romance, he is going to pursue us even when we run away from him.

So, even though the man and the woman tried to go it alone, God still helped them out. He gave them some clothes; he gave them some instructions; he intervened a few times to prevent the story from turning into a total tragedy with everyone dead.

And he showed up every now and then. He told Abraham, I am going to rescue the whole world through one of your descendants. He told Israel, You know, life could be a lot better if you just followed some basic rules of decency. And Israel said, That's a good idea – now go away. We'd like to worship a golden calf.

God brought them into the land of Canaan and helped them move in and get started. And they said Thanks – now go away. We'd like to worship Ba'al. God went away and the Ba'al worshippers took over, and Israel didn't like it. So God rescued them and they said, Thanks – now go away. We'd like to worship Molech.

And he did, and they did, and they didn't like the results, and he rescued them again and again and they kept on saying, "Thanks – now go away. We'd like to do something else. No offense, but we don't like you." All the fruit that was attractive to the eyes ended up being bitter in the belly.

God gave them leaders and they said, "Thanks, but we'd rather have it some other way." God sent them prophets, and they said, "Those guys are just party poopers, crackpots, spoilsports. We'd rather go our own way and do our own thing. We can do just fine on our own." God saw that they were lame and blind and sick and not nearly as happy as they could be.

And so that is Act 2: God pursues us in love, and we keep running away. There is an interesting parable in Ezekiel 16 that describes God's love for his people. He describes them as a baby abandoned on the trash heap of history, a baby that was just thrown away without being wanted.

#### On the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to make you clean, nor were you rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths. No one looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you. Rather, you were thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised.

That happened a lot in the ancient world. If the parents didn't want the baby, they just threw it away. It's called infanticide, and it was an accepted practice in most of the ancient world. So Ezekiel is using that image as a beginning point to describe God's love for his people. Instead of creating the baby out of nothing, the story starts here with the baby barely alive, and God rescues the baby.

#### Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, "Live!" I made you grow like a plant of the field. You grew up and developed and became the most beautiful of jewels. Your breasts were formed and your hair grew, you who had been naked and bare. Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign LORD, and you became mine.

He is describing this as a marriage. He rescued her, gave her life, and promised to take care of her for the rest of her life. He took care of her needs, and gave her lovely clothing and the best food.

#### You became very beautiful and rose to be a queen. And your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, because the splendor I had given you made your beauty perfect, declares the Sovereign LORD. But you trusted in your beauty and used your fame to become a prostitute. You lavished your favors on anyone who passed by and your beauty became his.

It's the same story, isn't it? God loves humanity and eagerly wants humanity to have the best that life can offer, but humanity keeps going astray, rejecting God, messing life up. Verse 17 continues,

#### You also took the fine jewelry I gave you, the jewelry made of my gold and silver, and you made for yourself male idols and engaged in prostitution with them. And you took your embroidered clothes to put on them, and you offered my oil and incense before them. Also the food I provided for you—the fine flour, olive oil and honey I gave you to eat—you offered as fragrant incense before them. That is what happened, declares the Sovereign LORD. And you took your sons and daughters whom you bore to me and sacrificed them as food to the idols. Was your prostitution not enough? You slaughtered my children and sacrificed them to the idols.

The story gets worse and worse, and the chapter goes on and on with how God pursued the woman he loved, and she spurned him – and every good thing he gave her, she turned it into wickedness and made herself detestable. To use a more modern analogy with roughly the same amount of revulsion, it might be like saying that she pours hydrochloric acid on herself and creates horrible pain, and then there are huge sores in which maggots live.

But God did not detest her – he loved her. In verse 53 he promises, "I will restore your fortunes." It is not just Israel he says this to – he even includes Sodom in this promise. It includes all people. All people have gone astray, but God wants all people to come back, to stop polluting themselves, to stop hurting themselves.

Verse 60 promises, "I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you." And verse 63 says that God himself will make atonement for all that she has done. He will make amends for what she has done. He will keep pursuing her until she accepts his love and loves him back.

That brings us to Act 3, the climax of the story: Humanity Kills Christ. God loves us so much that he sent his own Son into the world so that whoever trusts in him can have a good life, and not a miserable one.

Yes, God himself came to earth and lived among us. And as you know, we didn't like it, and we killed him. It wasn't just the Jews who wanted him dead – it was the Romans, too. Every last ethnic group on earth would have done the same thing. In Romans, the apostle Paul tells us:

#### God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!

God is not really angry at us. People might think he is, they might hide themselves from him. They are afraid of him, because they know they deserve to be punished, but God doesn't want to punish us. No – he wants to rescue us. He wants us to stop pouring hydrochloric acid on ourselves, to stop eating poisonous fruits that cause bitterness in our lives, to stop doing stupid things that hurt us.

People might talk about God's wrath, but God is demonstrating his love for us by sending Christ to rescue us. He wants to rescue us from self-inflicted punishment, to rescue us from making stupid choices in life that just end up hurting us. God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, the Bible says.

#### Say to them, 'As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?' [Ezekiel 33:11]

Even if they are wicked, he doesn't want to punish them. He wants to rescue them! If he causes us pain, it is for a purpose. His goal is not punishment – his goal is that we are created in his image, in his likeness. He doesn't want to punish – he would far rather that people turned from their stupid ways and live a life that will bring them joy and happiness instead of anxiety and frustration. But he doesn't force them to do it – he lets them make their own decisions.

As he promised in Ezekiel 16, God himself will make atonement for all that we have done, and he did it by sending Christ to die for us. So Paul uses a legal metaphor to assure us: We are justified by the death of Christ. That means that we have been declared right. Christ experienced the results of our sins, and so we can be forgiven and we can live.

#### For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! [Romans 5:10]

Even when we run away, even when we tell God to leave us alone, he will pursue us. He loves us so much that there is nothing we can do that will ever make him turn away. Not even killing his Son will make God back off. Nothing can make him change his mind.

He still wants us to enjoy life, the kind of life that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit have had for all eternity. God has not forgotten the fact that he made human beings in his own image, each of us a little bit like God, because God wants us to be more and more like he is and to have the kind of life he has.

So we are already in Act 4: God Persists. It's a lot like Act 2, God pursues us. Now, he has raised Christ from the dead, and he is still pursuing us, eagerly desiring that we will finally get the picture and start loving him back, eagerly desiring that we stop running away and trying to live on our own and making hundreds of mistakes that just end up hurting ourselves and other people.

God is still pursing us, like a man who is trying to win the love of a woman who finds it hard to make up her mind. Now, that's a drama, isn't it? God is a lot more persistent than any man on earth would be, but that's an analogy that might help convey a little bit of what is going on in this divine romance story.

In Ephesians 5, Paul compares God's love for his people to a husband's love for his wife. There is no man on earth who has as much love as God does for his people, but Paul is saying that this is the sort of love Christ has for his people:

#### Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

This is a mystery, he says in verse 32 – a mystery about Christ and the church. Christ sets the pattern, he loves his people, and wants them clean and looking good. He's not afraid of dirt – he's used to it – he has experienced the worst of it, and that won't put him off. He knows how to clean up messed-up lives – he knows a lot better than we do how to fix messed-lives. We can trust him in that.

Paul uses a similar metaphor in 2 Corinthians 11, verse 2: "I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him."

The image is of a marriage. It's a happy ending to the romance story. It doesn't matter how messed up we used to be – Christ can cleanse us, and we will be clean indeed – we will be a pure virgin, a perfect partner for this divine marriage.

I am already talking here about Act 5: The New and Happy Ending. We can see it in Revelation 19, verses 7-9. In a vision of the future, John sees and hears some wonderful news:

#### Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting:

#### "Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns.

#### Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory!

#### For the wedding of the Lamb [that's Christ] has come, and his bride has made herself ready.

#### Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear."

#### (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.)

#### Then the angel said to me, "Write: 'Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!'" And he added, "These are the true words of God."

This will be a wedding far more glorious than any earthly prince could ever dream of. It will be glory, and rejoicing, and beauty like we have never seen. But the best part of it, is that we will be there.

Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding of the Lamb – and you, and I, have been invited to be there. Not just as a guest who gets to watch. Not just as a groomsman or bridesmaid who gets to be there on stage. No, we will be the bride, the center of attention.

Don't take this too literally – we will not all literally be in one white dress, billions of people all in one white dress. This is a metaphor, designed to give us a truth that is too good for ordinary words. It's a truth that we will be joined to Christ forever, living in the joy and thrill of the divine life. We will be where God wanted us to be all along – sharing in the love and life of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

There – we have read to the end of the book, and the good news is that we win, and we win big. There could be no happier ending, no more successful story, a dream come true. This is where the story was aiming from the very beginning, the destination that we could see only hints of in Genesis.

But that is in the future – that is not where we are in the story right now, is it? Revelation says, Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding of the Lamb.

Who is that? It's all of us. It's everybody we meet. It's people we haven't met. It's Tibetans in the Himalaya mountains. It's Uzbekistanis in the heart of Asia. It's Auca people in the jungles of South America. It's stone-age cultures in Borneo, and doctors and scientists in Sweden.

God wants everybody to come, everybody to enjoy the kind of life he has.

The question is, Will they come, or will they run away?

What about that antagonist, the snake? Revelation tells us that he will eventually be isolated where he can do no more harm, but for right now he is still lurking in the scenery, throwing stink bombs onto the stage, trying to deceive people into thinking that God is angry at them and they ought to run away. He tries to tell them that the fruit looks good, or the acid smells good, and they ought to give it a try.

He tells every lie he can think of, and from the way that the Bible tells the story, it seems that some people will reject God just as persistently as the Antagonist does. Where he comes from and where he goes may not be clear, but that's because the story is not about him – it's about us. It's about you and me, and the question for us is this: Where are we in this story? This part of the story hasn't been written yet, and God is asking us how we would like it to go. Do you want to go it alone, or do you want to go with God?

The Adversary would like you to think that God's way is too restrictive, too old-fashioned, too limiting. You should have the freedom to pour acid on yourself, to eat the poisonous fruits, to really experience the freedom of choice.

God says, Yes, you have the freedom to choose, but you can't change the results. If you play with acid, you will get burned. If you eat the poisonous fruit, it will get bitter in your stomach. He loves us, and wants us to avoid the bitter results of going our own way.

Can we trust that he really loves us and wants to help us avoid pain? Or do we listen to the Adversary whisper in our ear, "Is this really the best way for you? Why don't you try dot dot dot. Surely that will work out better. Don't accept God's solution to the problem – try to find one on your own. Be your own person, do your own thing. And besides, God is such a grumpy old guy that you don't want to be around him anyway, so run away. Keep on running."

And God says, "I love you. I gave you life. I gave you everything you have. I don't want you to use it to hurt yourself. You really have nothing to lose except pain and sorrow and frustration. A life like that really isn't worth living, so stop. Let me show you a different life, a happy and glorious ending. Trust me."

God loved the world so much that he sent his one and only Son, Jesus, so that all who trust him will not die, but live forever in peace and joy and happiness. Blessed are all who are invited to the wedding of the Lamb, and blessed are all who accept the invitation!

Michael Morrison

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## The Doctrine of the Trinity –  
Does It Make Any Difference?

Ask ten average Christians in ten average churches to explain the doctrine of the Trinity, and you'll probably get ten different explanations. Most Christians "accept" the Trinity as orthodox Christian doctrine. But they would be at a loss to explain why the doctrine matters, or how it affects their Christian lives.

As Catherine Mowry LaCugna explains in the introduction to her book, God For Us: The Trinity and Christian Life, the Trinity is a doctrine that most people "consent to in theory but have little need for in the practice of Christian faith." LaCugna continues, "On the one hand, the doctrine of the Trinity is supposed to be the center of faith."

On the other hand, as Karl Rahner [one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century] once remarked, "One could dispense with the doctrine of the Trinity as false and the major part of religious literature could well remain virtually unchanged."

And no wonder. The doctrine is hard to understand, and most discussions about it are...well... boring. For the average Christian, the kind of people who have families to feed, jobs to get to, and lives to live, what difference does an ancient doctrine make anyway? God is God, isn't he? Isn't that enough? If he happens to be Father, Son and Spirit instead of just Father, well, fine, but that doesn't really change anything from our end, does it? What difference does an ancient doctrine make for the average Christian?

Actually, this doctrine does matter. It matters a lot, in fact—which is exactly what you'd expect us to say since, after all, why else would we be taping a sermon about an ancient, boring doctrine?

First, let's dispense with going through all the biblical proof that the doctrine is correct. You can find that elsewhere, such as on our website. Just visit www.gci.org, click on "Search our site," and type in "Trinity."

Instead, let's spend some time talking about why the doctrine of the Trinity matters, and especially, why it matters to you. Let's start by taking a look at the common idea that God is a single, solitary being "out there" somewhere, looking down on Earth, watching us, judging us.

Bette Midler put it to music in the chorus to her tune "From a Distance" with the lyrics, "And God is watching us, God is watching us, God is watching us from a distance."

This God comes in three main flavors: vanilla, red hot cinnamon, and apricot. The vanilla God is the one who just kind of wound up the universe and then stretched out in the heavenly gazebo for a few-billion-year nap. (Who knows, maybe he wakes up once in a while and does something nice, kind of like the kind of God George Burns portrayed in the film Oh God.)

The red-hot cinnamon God is the one who keeps careful tabs on everything everybody does, and since everybody blows it now and then, he gets madder and madder. His worshippers say he takes joy in watching people who offend him slowly roast but never quite get done.

The apricot-flavored God is the one who might or might not like you, depending on many things, none of which are all that clear to anybody. He's the one that Oakland Raiders fans pray to for touchdowns.

Sometimes this God comes in an alternate flavor, water balloon. You might think water balloon isn't a flavor, but it is. It's chewy, and the variety of colors is endless, but it always tastes watery and rubbery. This God is more of an abstract principle than a supreme being, kind of a "spirit of everything" that you can try to get in touch with if you empty your head of all thoughts and sit still long enough without going to sleep. (I think that's where Burger King commercials come from.)

The God of the Bible is not like that. The God of the Bible is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. These three divine Persons share perfect love, joy, unity, peace, and fellowship. The reason that's important to know is that when the Bible talks about us being "in Christ," it means that we get to take part in that divine kind of life.

Just like Christ is the beloved of the Father, so we too, because we are "in him," are also the beloved of the Father. That means that you are included in the household of God. It means you're not an outsider or a stranger. You're not even a respected guest. You're one of the kids, beloved of the Father, with free run of the house, the grounds, and the fridge.

The trouble is, you probably have a hard time believing that. You know you're an S.O.B. You know what you're really like deep down inside, so you think God doesn't like you. How could he?, you figure. You don't even like yourself. So based on your assessment of your "goodness/badness" ratio, you determine that God is more than likely mad at you, and far more than likely mad at all those other S.O.B. types you meet in traffic every day.

But the whole point of God letting us know through the Scriptures that he is Father, Son and Spirit, and not just "God out there somewhere," is so that we'd know he really does love us and we really are on the ins with him.

And again, how do we know? Because Jesus, you know, "God with us," "God in the flesh," the one the Father sent not to condemn the world but to save it (John 3:17), is the Father's Son, and that means that the Son of God is now one of us. And as one of us, but still God, only God in the flesh now, he dragged the whole ragged Coxey's Army of us home to the Father right through the front door. (Look that up in your Funk and Wagnall's. If you don't have a Funk and Wagnall's, look it up on Wikipedia.)

No, we didn't deserve it and no, we didn't earn it. We didn't even ask for it. But he did it anyway, because that's the exact reason he made us in the first place—so he could share with us the life he has shared eternally with the Father and the Spirit. That's why he tells us he made us in his image (Genesis 1:26).

Salvation isn't about a change of location, floating off to some secret set of coordinates in the Delta Quadrant called heaven, as if that would solve all our problems. And it's not about a new super government patrolled by angelic cops who never miss an infraction of the divinely decimal penal code.

Salvation is about getting adopted into God's family and learning how to live in it. And the Trinity is at the heart of it: The Father (let's get technical—the First Person of the Godhead) loves us so much, in spite of our screw-ups, that he sent the Son (the Second Person of the Godhead) to do everything it took to bring us home, and the Father and the Son sent the Spirit (the Third Person of the Godhead) to live in us and teach us how to live in God's family so we can enjoy it, like we were created to do, instead of being screw-ups forever.

John 1:1 says: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Verse 14 adds: "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."

In other words, the God of the Bible is not three separate Gods, where one, the temper-challenged, unpredictable Father, is so furious at humans that he just has to kill somebody in order to calm down, so the sweet, loving Son, seeing Dad about to lose it, steps up and says, "Okay, if you've got to kill someone, then kill me, but spare these people." The doctrine of the Trinity is important precisely because it keeps us from seeing God in such a ridiculous way, and yet, that is how a whole lot of people do see God.

If you want to know what the Father is like, just look at Jesus, because Jesus is the perfect revelation of the Father. Jesus told Philip, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). He told the crowd, "I and the Father are one." We know how the Father feels about us because we know how Jesus feels about us.

God is not some isolated cosmic bean counter "out there" keeping tabs on us in preparation for Judgment Day, nor is he three Gods with very different ideas about how to deal with humanity. The God of the Bible is one God who is three divine Persons, in perfect unity and accord, who love each other in perfect love and dwell in indescribable joy, and who created us for the express purpose of sharing that life with them through our adoption into Christ, who is eternally the beloved of his Father. That's why the doctrine of the Trinity matters.

If we don't understand God the way he reveals himself in the Bible, then we wind up with all kinds of messed up, funky and scary ideas about who God is and what he might be cooking up to do to us some day.

Maybe you're still not convinced. Well, remember what Paul said in Romans 5:8. "While we were yet sinners Christ died for us." God did not wait for you to get good enough to bring you into his household. You can't get good enough, which is the reason he went after you to bring you home in the first place.

When Paul says God saves sinners, he's talking about everybody, since that's what everybody is—a sinner. (By the way, if you're worried God might find out how rotten you really are and send a lightning bolt your way, take heart, he's known all along and loves you anyway.)

Paul makes the point even stronger in verse 10 of Romans 5: "For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!"

Did you notice how Paul puts that reconciliation with God in the past tense? Jesus died for our sins—past tense. God does not count our sins against us—period. They've already been paid for. Jesus has already put us in good standing with God.

All that remains for us now is to turn to God (repent), believe the good news (have faith), and follow Jesus (let the Holy Spirit teach us how to enjoy life in the new creation).

Here are some key points:

##### • God created all humans in his image, and he wants all people to share in the love shared by the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

##### • The Son became a human, the man Jesus Christ, to reconcile all humanity to God through his birth, life, death and resurrection and ascension. In Christ, humanity is loved and accepted by the Father.

##### • Jesus Christ has already paid for our sins, and there is no longer any debt to pay. The Father has already forgiven us, and he eagerly desires that we turn to him.

##### • We cannot enjoy the blessing of his love if we don't believe he loves us. We cannot enjoy his forgiveness unless we believe he has forgiven us.

##### • When we respond to the Spirit by turning to God, believing the good news, and picking up our cross and following Jesus, the Spirit leads us into the transformed life of the kingdom of God.

Jesus said, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." When we think of God in any other way than the way he revealed himself in the Bible—as the Father, Son, and Spirit who created us and redeemed us and have made us to share their joy though union with Jesus Christ—we're going to find these words of Jesus daunting and discouraging.

But when we know God the way he reveals himself, we can say with all assurance of joy, with Paul in Romans 8:1: "Therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus..."

And as Paul wrote to the Christians in the Asia Minor city of Colossae: "God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him [Jesus], and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross" (Colossians 1:19-20). All humanity is included in that reconciliation, according to Paul.

In the doctrine of the Trinity, God has shown himself to be the God who loves the world and who beckons every person to come to Christ and take part in the joy of life in the household of God.

There is no person whom God does not want, whom God does not include, whom God does not love. In Christ, following the Spirit's lead, we are all freed from the chains of sin to come to the Father whose arms are open wide to receive us, if only we will.

That's why the doctrine of the Trinity matters. Without it, we might as well join the Hittites wondering whether this year Baal will flood out the crops with storms or burn them out with lightning.

In Jesus Christ, God has taken up our cause as his own. God has, through the atoning work of Jesus, healed us from head to toe, mind and heart, and made us the Father's Son's best friends— no, much more than that; made us adopted children of the Father, brothers and sisters of our older Brother and full members of the household of God.

Mike Feazell

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## The Messianic Secret

Have you ever wondered why Jesus never preached Jesus? He went about doing good, the Bible tells us. He healed the sick and cast out demons and taught large crowds around the countryside and smaller groups in the synagogues.

But he carefully avoided declaring that he was the Messiah. In fact, he went out of his way to keep his identity as Messiah a secret. We read for example, in Mark 1:40-45,

#### A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, If you are willing, you can make me clean.

#### Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. I am willing, he said. Be clean!

#### Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured. Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: See that you don't tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.

#### Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.

We are not going to talk about begging Jesus on our knees for healing. I suppose many people have taken this passage as an example of what to do when we sincerely desire to be healed of an affliction.

But just about as many people have been disappointed to find that Jesus did not respond to them in the same way as he responded to this leper. So there is no sense in our pretending that if we go to Jesus on our knees and beg for healing that we will assuredly receive it.

We believe that Jesus has given us the greatest healing of all—healing from our sins—but he does not always heal our physical ailments. We trust him to do what is right and good for us and to stand with us in our suffering, but experience has taught us that we do not always receive exactly what we ask for.

We are also not going to talk about offering the sacrifices that Moses commanded for cleansing. Much has been said and written about the differences between the old and the new biblical covenants, so there is no need to cover that again now.

What we are going to talk about in this message is the question of why Jesus did not want the healed leper to tell anyone about his healing. Jesus gave the healed leper the strong warning, See that you don't tell this to anyone. But the former leper did not obey Jesus. He went straight out and freely spread the news.

As a result of this man's disobedience, Mark tells us Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. And even in the lonely places, people came to him from all over.

So, what do you think?

Should we applaud the former leper, or should we lament his disobedience to Jesus' strong warning? I am reluctant to try to answer that question, except to say that I have found that it is smarter to obey Jesus than not to obey Jesus.

But in today's world, we have the view that telling people about Jesus by whatever means we can muster is the most important activity in which we can be involved. So when we read that the healed leper went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news, we tend to get excited and wish we could have that same overwhelming joy and evangelistic fervor. Maybe that's why some Christians like to magnify healings and other blessings into advertisements and publicity opportunities for the gospel.

But Jesus didn't want that man to go out and spread the news. Jesus wanted his identity to remain secret. In verse 34, we read that Jesus would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.

Similarly, in Mark 8:27, Jesus asks the disciples, Who do people say I am? Peter replied in verse 30, You are the Messiah. Good answer. But Jesus responded not by saying, Good job, Peter, but by warning the disciples not to tell anyone about him. Let's read the passage in Mark 8, beginning in verse 27:

#### Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, Who do people say I am?

#### They replied, Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.

#### But what about you? he asked. Who do you say I am?

#### Peter answered, You are the Messiah.

#### Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

That is the very opposite of what we might have expected. We want everyone to know about Jesus. But Jesus did not want everyone to know about him. What's going on? We get a clue in the next few verses of Mark 8:

#### He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

#### But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. Get behind me, Satan! he said. You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.

Do you see what's going on? Let's think about it. Why would Jesus not want his disciples to tell anyone about him? Here was the visible, flesh and blood, miracle-working Jesus walking and preaching all over the country. What better time for his followers to lead people to him and tell them who he was?

Unlike today, when we have to tell people to trust in Jesus in faith, they had Jesus in the flesh. But Jesus was clear, strong, and even stern in saying, Don't tell anyone who I am. Let's go back to Mark 8 and read it again.

#### He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

#### But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. Get behind me, Satan! he said. You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.

Do you see the difference between what Peter thought the Messiah would be and what Jesus knew the Messiah was? Peter was so certain about his perception of the Messiah that he stopped Jesus and rebuked him for all that crazy talk about rejection and being killed and rising on the third day. Peter must have thought Jesus had been in the sun too long. Everybody knew what the Messiah would do, and here's Jesus ranting about getting killed.

So Jesus took the moment to call things as they were. He rebuked Peter. Get behind me, Satan! he told Peter. The word translated Satan means enemy or adversary, and it must have stung Peter. You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns, Jesus went on.

If even the disciples, and even Peter among the disciples, didn't know what to expect of the Messiah, how much less would the general public in Judea know what to expect of him? Let's move to Mark 11, and get a close up of what the public perception of Messiahship was.

#### As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, saying to them, Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, Why are you doing this?' say, The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.'

#### They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, some people standing there asked, What are you doing, untying that colt?

#### They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go. When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted,

#### Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

#### Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!

This was what people expected of the Messiah: A triumphal entry into Jerusalem. This was fulfillment of prophecy, and it fit with their perceptions of what the Messiah would do just before he took over the leadership of the nation and led his armies to victory over the occupying Roman armies.

But they were wrong.

When people finally heard that Jesus was the Messiah, they were overjoyed to receive the news.

The problem lay in definitions and expectations. What the people expected the Messiah to be and to do was quite different from what Jesus the Messiah actually came to be and to do. The people expected a king who would rally the people, and with the blessing of God, lead them to victory over their Roman conquerors and restore the kingdom of David in all its glory.

They did not understand what the Messiah was all about. Their idea was different from God's idea. When they heard the term Messiah, they misunderstood it, because they had been conditioned to expect something else.

With this in mind, we begin to see why Jesus did not want his disciples or those he healed to spread the news about him. It was not the right time for the people to hear. The right time for the news to spread was after Jesus had been executed and raised from the dead. Only then could the real purpose of God in sending Messiah be understood for what it was.

In our world today, there are many concepts about God. If you talk to 10 people on the street, you will likely find 10 different opinions about who God is, what God is like, how God deals with humans and what God expects of us. Surveys by George Barna and others have shown that even among Christians, ideas about who Jesus is, what grace is and how it works, sin, forgiveness, faith, repentance, obedience, and so on, vary widely.

If there is so much variety among believers, how much more do ideas about Jesus vary among non-Christians? Suppose, for example, I approach a stranger sitting on a park bench and ask him if he knows Jesus. Suppose the stranger's idea of Jesus is that of a long-haired, wispy-looking weakling. Suppose his mother used to tell him that Jesus didn't like it when he played cards, or ran and played on Sunday. Suppose his most frequent exposure to the word Jesus was on a dirty cardboard "Do you know Jesus" placard glued in the parking garage of his apartment building? What would likely be the first impression this man would have of me and my question? Would that promote the gospel?

Suppose, on the other hand, I met the man, and over a period of time developed a relationship with him. Suppose we became friends. Suppose the way I treated this friend usually reflected the love of God. Suppose he eventually found out, as friends usually do, that I am a Christian. Would that tend to change his flawed perspective on Jesus and Christianity to a more accurate one?

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 points out that there is a time for everything, a season for every activity under heaven. Among these are a time to plant and a time to harvest and a time to be quiet and a time to speak up. The time to spread the news about Jesus came after his resurrection, not during his ministry.

Until his resurrection, there could not begin to be sufficient understanding of who he really was. Even the disciples were consistently ignorant about Jesus' full identity and mission until after the resurrection. The same principle applies today—people are often not ready to hear and comprehend who Jesus is until they experience his resurrection life in his people, the church.

The call to discipleship is not an individual call to a personal faith apart from the life of the body of Christ. It is only in the context of the body of Christ, the church, that we experience the life of union and communion, of oneness, that we have in Jesus by the Holy Spirit.

Let's read 1 Peter 2:12: "Be careful how you live among your unbelieving neighbors. Even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will believe and give honor to God when he comes to judge the world." You probably noticed that Peter did not say, Press your unbelieving neighbors for a decision. Peter's focus is on the honorable behavior of believers.

Why? Because it is through our honorable behavior, that is, our love, that our unbelieving neighbors see Jesus in action. Peter says this will result in their belief at a time when God chooses. The words, when he comes to judge the world, is a reference to God's timing as opposed to our timing.

The foundation, the root, the core, of telling people about Jesus is not a set of facts. It is love. Not just a feeling, but real love that displays itself in how we live with one another. Most important of all, Peter says in 1 Peter 4:8, is that we continue to show deep love for each other.

In a similar vein, Paul wrote in Galatians 6:10, "Whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone, especially to our Christian brothers and sisters." In other words, Peter's and Paul's instruction on spreading the good news centers on the witness of love, not on a well-rehearsed speech. It is our lives in him and his in us that show people who Jesus really is.

Instead, Peter wrote in 1 Peter 3:15, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if you are asked about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it. When a person asks about our Christian hope because they have experienced Jesus in us, then that person has a more accurate perspective of Jesus. They ask because the Spirit prompts them, and the catalyst the Spirit uses is the love at work in the body of Christ.

And our conversation, Paul said in Colossians 4:6, "should be gracious and attractive so that you will have the right response for everyone."

People listen to friends. People listen to those who have proven they care. People listen when the relationship is real, not artificial. People are not our personal gospel projects. People are people, valued by God at the highest level. Relationships must never be thought of as a means to an end, even if the end is to present the gospel. Relationships are the end and love is the means. The gospel is the truth of God's faithful, loving relationship with humanity in which Jesus, as God, brings God to us and as human, brings humanity to God. In Jesus, there is perfect union and communion between God and humanity.

Peter wrote in 1 Peter 4:10: "God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another, so that God's generosity can flow through you." God has richly blessed us with active parts in his work of building up the body of Christ, the church, and reaching out with the gospel to nonbelievers. At the heart of that work is love. Where love is, there is Christ. There is no love apart from Christ. God is love, John wrote.

That's what the disciples and the crowds didn't understand about the Messiah. They thought the Messiah would be a warrior champion to throw off the Roman yoke and restore Israel's glory. But the Messiah was the Father's gift of undying, indestructible, self-sacrificial love.

The gospel is the truth, and the truth is a Person, Jesus Christ, who is God in the flesh, love in the flesh. To share the gospel is to share him, which is to love. He can only be understood in relationship, not in a list of facts. The Messiah did not merely bring good news; he is the good news.

Mike Feazell

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## The Resurrection (1 Corinthians 15)

Dan Rogers: Good morning everyone. Good to see you here once again and as usual, it's time now in our service to talk about God's word. Our text for today is going to be from 1 Corinthians 15. Before we get to the text, let's talk a little about the background in which Paul is writing to them, to the church in the city of Corinth. Anybody know anything of interest about the city of Corinth that you'd like to share with the rest of us? What do you know about that town in ancient Greece?

Person: It was a very well-known town in that area. It was important as far as commerce.

Dan: What made it important and why it was such a center of commerce?

Person: It had the port.

Dan: Big port city, right. Ports on two oceans, right in the heart of Greece. Anybody know where it was in relation to Athens?

Person: It wasn't too far away. It was within...

Dan: Athens was to the east and Corinth was about 50 miles west of Athens, almost straight across right in the middle of the country. As Pat said, it was a major city. Port activity is going on there. What about its religion? What was happening religiously in the city of Corinth? Do you know?

Female: I think it was very mixed, if I understand. There were lots of people coming and going, traveling through it, that brought their religion and cultures and traditions with them, so, very multi-ethnic.

Dan: We could say pluralistic, probably a lot of religious beliefs passing through the city Corinth. Anybody remember what the main... They had many temples but their main temple, anybody remember who it was dedicated to?

Person: It had a very large temple dedicated to Aphrodite.

Dan: Aphrodite, that's right. Aphrodite was the goddess of?

Robert: Reproduction?

Dan: That's a nice way of saying it, Robert. Thank you. Yes, she was the goddess of love, erotic love, so yeah reproduction. It probably happened quite a bit there at the temple, but according to some accounts there were over a thousand temple prostitutes in the temple of Aphrodite ready to be a part of the religious activities of the city.

It's a port city. It's an important center of commerce, pluralistic and what we call today a huge sex trade going on in that city. Of course, of all things, God raises up a big church in the city, not in Athens where all the smart folk are. No, no, no, no, over in Corinth, which was called by some writers of the day the sewer of the Roman Empire, and that's the way even the locals...

Person: Where they really needed it.

Dan: Exactly. That's where God goes, where he's really needed, so we have this church emerging in Corinth that the apostle Paul founded, and now Paul is away in Ephesus and he hears these things. Anybody remember? What does he hear coming from Corinth?

Person: He hears that they're beginning to take in maybe some of the pluralistic ideas that are in the culture around them, and that's not what he started them off with. He wants to go back and help them.

Dan: Right, and there's this house of Chloe, and the people are writing letters to him saying, "Boy you left, and this church has gone to pot." Without you here, people are believing all kinds of wacky ideas. What about this problem? We have problems that you didn't have in Judea. We got people getting divorced and multiple marriages and surrogate children (you see, I'm projecting this forward now anachronistically), stem cell research. We've got issues and we want to know, what does Jesus say about stem cell research?

We may say, "That's a strange way of phrasing it," but it's no stranger than the questions they asked Paul for his day. He's like, "Jesus didn't really talk about that because he didn't live in Corinth." I've got to figure out: what do I say to these issues that you're bringing up that we never had in Judean culture at all? This is a whole new world, but I think we can identify with it because it's very much like our world today. So a little bit of background there, and we're going to be talking in chapter 15 about the resurrection of Christ.

We have a picture here on our TV set. Take a look at it here. This is a picture, if not the tomb a similar tomb perhaps, where Jesus was buried. You notice that it's hewn out of stone in the side of a rocky cliff and the doorway going inside and if you could see the stone. You see the top of the stone there? Then maybe if you could follow it right around that, you can see that stone would roll over and roll back to make access to the tomb. That gives us an idea of the kind of place maybe that Jesus was buried...

Robert: Is that very typical or unusual?

Dan: That's very typical – for the wealthy, if you were wealthy enough to afford a tomb like this. If you weren't quite as wealthy, they still might put you in a tomb, but they tended to stack you. That's why it says that Jesus was laid in a tomb that no one had ever used before, so he had the tomb all to himself for 3 days and 3 nights and then he was out.

Let's go to 1 Corinthians 15. One thing I'd like for us to keep in mind is I'm going to throw out a premise here. See if you can follow along, agree or disagree if you like, but all of these questions that are being asked, Paul is saying, "I don't have a specific answer from the words of Jesus about this," but then he's going to argue that, "But wait, Jesus is alive. He is still present with us and in us and he is still the source of inspiration and answers to these kinds of questions." How are we to live? We are to live in light of the resurrected Christ, that he is alive, he is present with us, among us and in us therefore this should lead us and inform us as to how we are to conduct ourselves.

One of the problems that he is now dealing within Corinth is that there are evidently some people there who say there is no resurrection. Why would a Corinthian steeped in Greek and Roman teaching not believe in the resurrection? What was the common Greek or Roman idea? What happened to you when you die according to Plato?

Person: You left your destructive body.

Dan: Right, you left your physical body. What left? What was that thing? What did Plato called it?

Female: Your spirit.

Dan: Your soul.

Dan: Your immortal soul, according to Plato. Your immortal soul couldn't wait to get out of that body because what was his view of the body?

Female: Evil.

Dan: Evil, dirt, foul. The cause of all your problems is your body, so what you have to do is get your good eternal, immortal spirit out of that old body and let it go to heaven to be with God or the divinity forever. I think it's very easy to see why Corinthians could lean in that direction, even as some Christians do today, unbeknownst to them.

The Corinthians were beginning to think that way and Paul says, "No, no, no. There is a resurrection." He's going to begin to argue for the resurrection by the most important resurrection of all, which is the resurrection of Christ, because if you can't accept that, there's no point of discussing it any further.

Let's see what he says here, and I want us to notice, if we can, how does he make his argument? What kind of proof does he use? Let's pretend that Paul is in the court of law and he's arguing the case for the resurrection and he's going to bring in his evidence, his proof. Let's notice what it is.

First Corinthians 15. Paul says, "Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand." Any comments about that? What gospel was that? What did he preach to them?

Person: The good news...

Dan: It's interesting he doesn't say he preached the Scriptures. He preached the gospel, "the gospel I preached to you." Who does this Paul think he is? This seems like what he preached is what's important.

Person: But they received it.

Dan: If they received his gospel they received Paul.

Dan: "Remind you of the gospel I preached to you which you received and on which you have taken your stand." What do you think that means?

Person: They believed him and they took a stand that this was where they were going to be.

Dan: And if they're beginning to doubt it?

Robert: They can point back to what they heard originally from him, trying to redirect them.

Dan: Exactly. "By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain." What does he mean by that? Let me comment that Paul is often a master of sarcasm, tongue in cheek, and ironic speech. What he's arguing with them and sometimes in an argument you take a very strong extreme position in order to argue back from it, so think about it.

"By this gospel you are saved..." What gospel is it?

Female: About Jesus, the resurrection.

Person: The good news about Jesus.

Dan: The resurrection, but whose gospel does Paul say it is, in verse 1?

Robert: The gospel he preached to them.

Dan: That's right. That's what you need to get back to, the gospel I preached. By this gospel (he means what I preached), you're saved. What if you don't believe me?

Female: Then you're just wrong.

Dan: You're not saved. You're dead. Why are you talking about the resurrection – you're dead if you don't believe what I taught you.

Person: It's all been in vain.

Dan: In other words, he's saying my preaching is meaningless if you don't believe something has changed in your life. "By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you believed in vain." What am I, a liar? Have I deceived you? If I have, you're dead in your sins. If you cannot accept what I taught and what I said, you're dead in your sins.

"For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance." They may not recognize that, but that's a rabbinic expression for the faithful passing on of oral tradition. He's using his knowledge as a rabbi, probably just came to him easily to say, "What I have received I have passed on." Now he's really saying: though you heard it from me, it's not mine. I have it from Jesus, but I want you to know that I very authoritatively and reliably have passed this on to you.

"By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance." What do you think he means by that statement of first importance?

Female: It's the most important thing in your life.

Dan: Yeah. The kind of the basis, for everything else must build upon that, but can you see why you're saying that. If you reject the resurrection of Christ, everything tumbles like a house of cards. The immortal soul will not get you there. Jesus came alive. The incarnation is critically important, and if you missed that, you've really missed the boat entirely.

"For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures." What does he mean according to the Scriptures?

Person: It was foretold.

Male: The Messianic prophecies about Jesus.

Dan: Yeah. Where do you find them?

Male: Old Testament.

Dan: Did they have a New Testament yet?

Group: No.

Person: He was writing it.

Dan: Yeah. He is quoting the Old Testament as proof. In other words, you know how Jesus died for your sins, and the Old Testament is full of that.

Dan: You had to be a Christian, I think, to really appreciate that fact. He's telling them something that he has taught them that they should know, that this was prophesied. How would that strike you if you're in a court of law and Paul is arguing to the group, "as you know, of first importance Jesus died for your sins," and how does he prove it?

Robert: According to the Scriptures.

Dan: Scriptural proof. This was prophesied. It came to pass. This shows who Jesus was. He fulfilled the prophecies. I got, "Your honor, may I offer my first point of proof, the Old Testament Scriptures? You note that they said this and Jesus did it." Proof number 1.

Let me add to that, he says. "That he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures." You've read that in the Old Testament where Jesus rose from the dead on the third day, haven't you? Do you think he's pressing the issue a little hard here or what? What do you think is going on?

Person: He's emphasizing that this was spoken of before. They just needed to look again to see where it was to understand it.

Female: This is the evidence. It's as if he wants to make sure that it's not his idea, that it's truly fact. It was written in the Old Testament. "I'm just a messenger here, and I'm pointing to you where you can find the proof."

Dan: What's he assuming about these members of the church in Corinth?

Robert: I think he's saying that they've all bought into this already, too, that when he was there they had already accepted this.

Dan: Yes. How can you give it up? If you accepted it once, you give it up now?

Robert: He hasn't said that.

Dan: He hasn't said that, but he's assuming, too, that they believe the Old Testament?

Person: They've read it.

Dan: Are they Jews? We would believe they're a mixed group, based on the city demographics, wouldn't we? Yet he assumes that they are familiar with the Old Testament and have accepted it as authoritative.

Male: They had a Greek translation of it, so they must have used that one.

Dan: Probably read the Septuagint or other Greek translations of it and were familiar with it, and whether they were gentile or Jewish, they accepted it as authoritative, so his first point of argument seems to be, "Since you accept what we call the Old Testament, then haven't you seen that it prophesied that Jesus would do these things and indeed he did do all those things that were prophesied?"

Verse 5, "And that he appeared to Peter." Does that sound like another point of evidence?

Robert: Personal eyewitness.

Dan: He appeared to Peter. Do you trust Peter? Evidently, he thought they did, or I don't think he would have appealed to him. What do you think? You know Peter, he's a big man and important. You've read about him and heard about him. All right, I appeal to Peter, who seems to be the leader of our Jewish folk, and he says that he saw Jesus alive after the resurrection. You believe Peter, don't you? "And then to the Twelve."

Female: More personal witnesses. He's backing it up.

Person: He's getting more and more.

Dan: We got a jury now. We got 12. "After that [listen to this] he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep."

Person: Brothers and sisters.

Dan: You must be reading the New Revised Standard Version. Always takes as the Greek word adelophos and in the Greek of the day it was a general term for humans, for men and women. Because it's in the masculine, and who knows what prejudices may be involved, the [1984] NIV prefers to translate it as brothers, which is literally what it means, but the NRSV likes "brothers and sisters" because that's probably actually what it meant, more inclusive than the NIV makes it.

"He appeared to 500 and most of them are still alive." Does that sound like good evidence?

Female: I like that, because you can go ask them. If you need further proof, you can go seek them out and ask them yourself.

Dan: Do you think that the resurrection of Christ could have been some kind of hallucination, as some modern Jesus Seminar scholars and others say, that they just dreamed that it happened or made it up or that it was a fiction?

Person: Not with that many eyewitnesses.

Female: That's not just a few people.

Dan: Right. You think they were all hypnotized? That was a big hypnotism. You can hardly get two people agree on anything.

Person: It sounds like it was at different times.

Dan: Yeah, or it may have been, and some theories are that it was all at one time, but it could have been certainly over the 40 days that he was here before he ascended. Quite a group of people saw him, and they're still alive and they're still able to come to court and testify and say, "Yes, I saw the resurrected Jesus."

"Then he appeared to James." Which James do you think this is, by context?

Person: His brother.

Dan: His brother, probably. Why do you think he said then, he appeared to James?" What's the importance of James?

Person: James was also a leader in a church at that time.

Male: A church in Jerusalem.

Dan: That gives like a headquarters kind of guy, and important in the church. What also is interesting about James is, as Pat brought out, this is very likely his brother. Any of you have brothers or sisters?

Female: I do, yes.

Dan: Will they say you're the Messiah?

Female: No, never.

Dan: They didn't. Do you think it's very easy for James his brother to say, "My brother is the Son of God. My brother is the Messiah. My brother died for all humanity's sins," and James didn't say that until when?

Person: After the resurrection.

Dan: He did not believe his brother. Who would believe their own brother? Until after the resurrection. That makes James a credible witness.

"Then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born." What is your translation have? The NIV has "abnormally born."

Female: Mine says, "Had been born at the wrong time."

Dan: I like that better.

Female: Explaining it like a miscarriage almost.

Dan: Yeah, a miscarriage, like I didn't come when I should have come.

Person: This one says untimely, didn't come at the right time.

Dan: What was Paul doing when he was called?

Person: Persecuting the Jews.

Dan: He was on his way to kill people.

Dan: He was known as... What was his name then?

Female: Saul.

Dan: Saul was on his way to kill some Christians, probably to torture them, persecute them, get them to blaspheme, and kill them so they go to hell – but life's changed very dramatically. He was knocked off his donkey and blinded and went through an experience. Some of us God may call over a long time, but how many people get called like that? Jesus intervened in his life and said, "I am the one that you're persecuting, Saul. I am Jesus. I am risen."

He had to address him and say, "Oh, who are you, Lord?" He acknowledged him as Lord, recognized it was Jesus [and there was a] profound change in his life. Why do you think that Paul here brings his story into a point of evidence for the resurrection of Christ?

Female: The testimony.

Person: He's the preacher that they're looking to and he actually says he was there, "I'm the least but he also appeared to me."

Male: Going back to Peter being cited as one, he denied Christ before the resurrection, too, like Paul did.

Dan: Very good point.

Dan: We got Peter who denied Christ until he met the resurrected Lord.

Male: James, too, actually.

Dan: James, who denied Christ until he met the resurrected Lord, and Saul.

Female: Paul has such an unbelievable story. It's almost as if he was to say, "Look, I would never make this up. You can trust me, because look where I came from. This is not something that happens. That's not normal. I would not make this up. I'm a credible witness to these events."

Dan: Because I was actually opposed. I was against all this and I had a dramatic change and that was only possible because I encountered the...

Group: Risen Lord.

Dan: Peter, Simon – denied 3 times – "get thee behind me Satan" – risen Lord – life changed. James, "You're my brother. Get out of town." – risen Lord – my God. Saul, "I want to kill everything Jesus and his followers stand for" – the risen Lord. You see his argument?

Dan: The proof is in...

Female: Transformation.

Dan: The proof is in the transformation of people's lives, and if you can't accept the Old Testament, which he says I think you can, if you can't accept the word of eyewitnesses, which I think you can, at least notice transformed lives. People whose lives, they were this way and then suddenly they encountered the risen Lord, and their lives were dramatically turned around by this encounter. If Jesus was not raised, how do you explain the changes in these people's lives?

Then he says, verse 9 going on about himself, "For I am the least of the apostles." What do you think he means, I'm the least of the apostles?

Female: Maybe least worthy? He feels like, look where I've come from.

Robert: He didn't live with Jesus 3½ years the same way as all the other apostles did.

Person: Maybe he felt like he was the last, the least. He's in line, but he wasn't one of the first.

Dan: He came along late – not in the right time supposedly, but yet he was made an apostle anyway.

Female: It was the right time.

Dan: Do you think that Paul felt like that he wasn't as important as the other apostles?

Robert: I don't think so.

Dan: What would lead you think that he didn't think of himself that way?

Person: He puts himself right there.

Female: He was dynamic.

Dan: When he encountered Peter, and Peter wouldn't eat with the gentiles?

Person: He rebuked him.

Person: He also calls himself, "I'm the least," but he says, "I am the least of the apostles," he does say that, so he's putting himself right in there.

Dan: I think it goes back to his thing, I was one born out of time. I'm the least only because I wasn't there from the beginning, so I'm not saying that I know everything and seen everything, but I'll tell you I'm a pretty good witness of what I have seen.

Female: He is who he is.

Female: The personality that God gave him.

Female: I think he acknowledges his strengths and his weaknesses.

Dan: He's very good at that.

Female: He's worked very hard.

Dan: There are some scholars and commentators who would say that Paul suffered from personality disorder and schizophrenia when he says, "The good that I would do, that I do not do, the evil that I will not do, that I do." Oh my, he's got a multiple personality. They seemed to miss again his rhetoric and his love of language and his ability to argue and write, where he's arguing from both sides of an issue to bring out the central point.

He says, "For I'm the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am." He understood that it's all by God's grace and by God's mercy. "And his grace to me was not without effect." What do you think that means?

Female: It changed him. The grace of God changed who he was from the very core. It's striking to me how he is giving all the credit back to God and the work he's done in him. It gives him a certain type of boldness despite his past, which is just amazing to me.

Dan: What do you think he wants his readers in Corinth and the church to get from what he's saying about himself here, that he is what he is by grace, and that grace was not without effect? What do you think he wants them to understand perhaps about themselves?

Female: It was not without the works or the product.

Dan: Right. What were the Corinthians like by nature from their growing up in their city of culture?

Female: They were wild and crazy guys.

Female: And girls.

Dan: Girls, too. They had some problems in that town.

Female: He's just showing that God can change anybody's life. Anyone's life can be changed through God.

Dan: Again, so what his point? What's his argument?

Person: Mine says here that his grace has not been in vain, that he is able to do this, and he's not in vain.

Female: To make you effective.

Dan: As with Peter, as with James, as with him, and what do you think he wants the Corinthians then to see?

Group: As with them.

Dan: As with them. Listen how he works this out, "By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this what you believed." I'm suggesting that his final point here is the Corinthians themselves. Can you see what I'm getting at there? What do you think I am saying by that, that the final proof is the Corinthians themselves?

Female: If you allow the grace of God to work in you, there will be transformation and change in your life.

Dan: Had there been change in the lives of these people? Do you remember who you were? Do you remember you live in the sewer of the Roman Empire? Do you realize what was going on? Do you realize what you participated in? They even had one member who was cohabiting with his stepmother, and these people had some problems, but overall they've changed.

Here's Paul's argument. Let's see if we can follow it. Has Christ been raised from the dead? Is Jesus alive forever incarnate? He argues, yes. What's his first evidence? Do you remember?

Group: Scriptures.

Dan: If you believe the Old Testament, then you got to believe these prophecies, and you know that Jesus fulfilled them. Proof number 2?

Robert: That Peter had seen him.

Dan: Right. We started by getting into eyewitnesses. We got eyewitnesses. We got Scripture testifies to it, proves it. We got eyewitnesses. Then what's so dramatic about Peter, James, and Paul?

Doubting brother, doubting disciple, and a murderer. Zealous for God. Transformed lives. And then his final piece of that point is...

Female: You.

Person: Your transformation.

Dan: How do you explain you, and what happened in your life? If Jesus be not raised, then how do you explain you? How can you say that Jesus be not raised from the dead?

What do you carry away from this discussion, this argument of Paul about the resurrection of Christ? Anything in particular that stands out to you in this section of the Scripture that means something to you personally?

Person: That God's grace touches every point, every part of it, and will come down and touch, he says you, me, and that it's with us.

Male: There's transforming power in the resurrection.

Dan: Transforming power and meeting the resurrected Lord.

Female: We are proof of the resurrected Lord.

Dan: We look at our own lives and say, "If I've changed, I didn't do it." It was in spite of me that I changed. I experienced the resurrected Lord in my life and I am what I am. I'm touched, and they said, "I'm still the least, and I do this and I work hard, but not me. It's God at work at me, so he balances all of that out, but says in the final analysis, "I know I've changed, and I know that I'm participating with God in what he's doing by his grace, but I know who I am, and I know it's beyond me."

There's a power beyond me that made all of that possible and made all of that come to pass. I know my Redeemer lives. That's a very powerful message for Easter or anytime of the year. I know my Redeemer lives.

Female: Amen.

Dan: Any other final closing comments?

Robert: God's grace is not in vain in any of us. It seems like grace is not as direct as commands [are], but it does work.

Dan: It has an effect. He says it has an effect. Did the law have an effect?

Robert: It did.

Dan: It did. It killed us. [laughter] But grace, its effect is new life. Isn't that amazing that people say, "Grace? What's that?" It was a powerful force that has more power than law, than (as Robert says) commandments or stipulations or working on yourself to overcome and grow. Paul said it's by God's grace I am what I am and Paul says, "I think I've been used a bit."

Female: I like the way it's also so all inclusive, not only different people from different backgrounds but your actual way of conversion, whether it'd be very traumatic like Paul's, or whether it be more subtle, of being taught as a child. It is equally valid. His grace covers them all.

Dan: Grace is a powerful thing. Quite a story, and certainly we know from our own lives, if not from all the other evidence that there may be, regardless of the Jesus Seminar folk or anyone else, we know our Redeemer lives, because as the song says, "He lives in each of us."

All right. Well, let's sing that final song then, and then we'll close services today with prayer.

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## Touching the World in Two Ways

Some people think that Christianity is interesting, but basically irrelevant—a harmless superstition. It's fine for you, they might say, but it really makes no difference to anyone else.

Now, the opposite was true for Jesus: his ministry and teachings did not help himself at all, and they made a big difference for everyone else.

In the modern world, there is often a big disconnect between Christ and Christianity, and today I'd like to explore that a little bit. We'll start with one of the events in the life of Christ, recorded in Mark chapter 6.

I'll set the scene a little bit: Jesus had sent his disciples out two by two to preach the gospel and to heal the sick. They eventually came back to report how they did, but in the interlude, Mark tells us that Herod Antipas had killed John the Baptist because John had criticized the ruler.

The incident is a subtle reminder for us that it can sometimes be dangerous for us to do what God wants us to do. Herod would not have cared if John told everybody else to repent, but he didn't particularly like it when John told Herod that he should repent, too.

John the Baptist wasn't preaching the gospel, but sometimes the same thing happens to people who are. The gospel is not always appreciated for the good news that it is. It might offend people's pride, or it might threaten to take away something they had used to control other people.

We don't want to make the message more offensive than it has to be, but no matter how nice we are, somebody is not going to like it – and if our primary goal is not offending anybody, then we are going to water down the gospel so much that there's basically no message left, and perhaps that is one reason that some people think that Christianity is irrelevant, because they've heard a message that is irrelevant.

The enemies of the gospel would like for us to be irrelevant, so they could dismiss us and ignore us. Sometimes the accusation of irrelevance is true, and sometimes it is just an excuse to ignore us.

What does it mean to be relevant? If we are going to be relevant to anyone else, it will be because we are making a difference in people's lives, and sometimes when we touch the world, we also touch a nerve.

If we are making any difference at all, somebody is not going to like it – and that is generally someone who prefers the world to stay the way it is. Some people may not care if we preach the gospel to everybody else, but if we speak to them, they may not like it. It starts getting personal then.

Let's get into the story, starting in verse 30. Mark 6, verse 30: "The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught." They came back from their mission trips and made their reports. They were probably pretty excited about everything that had happened. But all that excitement means a rush of adrenaline, and the human body isn't designed to run at a high r.p.m. on a long-term basis. So even though they were excited, Jesus knew that they needed some recovery time.

Verse 31: "Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, 'Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.'" After the excitement, we need some rest – even if, or maybe especially if, there are lots of people milling around, wanting us to do something for them. There's just no end of "ministry opportunities" —there will always be more that needs to be done, and sometimes we just need to pull away and say, "Maybe later."

Verse 32: "So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place." But as it turns out, the only time they had to themselves was on the boat itself.

Verse 33: "But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them." I don't know how the people knew where Jesus was going, but somehow they figured it out and got there first.

Verse 34, "When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd." It was a really large crowd, and Jesus would have been able to see them well before the boat reached the shore. But they landed anyway, because Jesus "had compassion on them."

The Greek word for compassion is splanchnizomai. Some of you who studied anatomy might have heard of the splanchnic nerve. It's the nerve that goes to our intestines. The Greek word splanchna means intestines, and the verb for compassion is built on that word – compassion is when you see something that tightens your stomach muscles, kind of catches your breath. You've got a gut feeling you should do something.

So Jesus had this feeling in his gut, because the people were like sheep without a shepherd. They did not know where to go to green pastures; they did not know where the still waters were. They were vulnerable to being attacked by wolves, and Jesus wanted to help them. He wanted to be relevant —and he did this in two ways:

First, verse 34 tells us, "So he began teaching them many things." The first thing they needed was to be taught. I don't think he was teaching them math, or biology. The Gospels tell us that Jesus taught them about the kingdom of God. We could turn to the Sermon on the Mount for a sample of the things he taught, or we could look at some of the parables.

Basically, he taught the people about the kingdom of God: what it's like, and that God wants us to participate in it. It is a good place to be, but this sort of life doesn't just come naturally. It involves a change in the way we think, and our purpose in life. It's not easy, because it's not the way the world usually works, and it's not the way that we used to live, and it requires a change in our thinking, and that's not easy.

But if we want life to have different results, we need to change something about the way we live. So Jesus was teaching the people, giving them hope and encouragement, and the people liked it so much they stayed as long as they could.

Verses 35-36 tell us, "By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. 'This is a remote place,' they said, 'and it's already very late. Send the people away so they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.'"

It seems that the disciples were worried about the people. Or who knows – maybe they wanted to eat something themselves. So they told Jesus, Sir, your sermon is already long enough. Why don't you quit so the people can go away? It was a reasonable suggestion, a relevant suggestion, but Jesus had something even more relevant in mind.

Verse 37: "But he answered, 'You give them something to eat.' They said to him, 'That would take eight months of a man's wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?'"

As far as I can tell, the disciples were not asking for a yes or no answer. In the first place, it is not likely that they had that much money with them – and second, it is highly unlikely that the nearby villages had that much bread for sale at that late hour of the day.

We find out later that more than 5,000 men were in the crowd. That was more than the population of Capernaum at the time. The local 7-11 was not going to have enough bread for 5,000 people. So the disciples were probably speaking in astonishment: That would take a lot more money than we have. You surely don't expect us to buy meals for everybody! Do you?

Jesus responded in verse 38, Well, "'How many loaves do you have?' he asked. 'Go and see.'" In other words, he was not expecting them to give something they didn't have. But he wanted them to see how much they did have.

When they found out, they said, "Five—and two fish." The Gospel of John tells us that these five loaves and two fish came from a boy. I don't know why he had the foresight to bring some food when nobody else did. Maybe he was hoping to sell it. Maybe his mother sent him on a shopping trip and he was supposed to bring it back home. I don't know, but somehow the disciples got the food and brought it to Jesus.

Verse 39: "Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass." You know the rest of the story: the disciples passed the food around, everybody had enough to eat, and there were 12 baskets full of leftovers. It's important to notice that there was more than enough food for 5,000 men, and maybe an equal number of women and children.

So here we see two ways in which Jesus touched the world:

First, he taught the people, and second, he took care of some of their physical needs. If you don't get anything else out of this sermon, then I ask you to get this much: we can touch the world in two ways – in what we say, and in what we do.

Now I would like to ask, How many of these 5,000 people were converted and joined the church? As far as I can tell, none of them. Maybe they eventually became part of the church, and maybe they didn't. Mark simply doesn't tell us – it was not relevant to the story. That is not the purpose of the feeding.

Sometimes we want to touch the world only if it is going to help us, only if it is going to benefit us in some way. But Jesus apparently didn't think like that. He simply saw a need, and he took care of it. The people were like sheep without a shepherd, so he tried to help them. For their spiritual need, he taught them, and for their physical need, he fed them. It was just something that was needed at the time.

The Gospels tell us several times that Jesus had compassion, and then he did something. Sometimes he healed a person, sometimes he fed them, sometimes he taught them. All of these are ways in which we can touch the world, and help where people need to be helped.

Jesus does not ask us to give something we don't have. We don't have to get a theology degree in order to tell people what we know about Jesus. We just tell them what we know. We don't have to become doctors in order to help people with their physical needs. But we can give according to what we do have.

In the book of Acts, we see the early church continuing to work in these two ways. Some people got healed, some people got fed. Lots of people got taught.

Most of the feeding ministry seems to have been internal to the church. In Acts 6 we see that people were assigned to help feed the widows, that was kindof a permanent ministry, and later the church in Antioch sent famine relief to the church in Jerusalem. This also became a long-range ministry. Paul, in his ministry, did a lot of teaching, and he collected money to help the believers in Jerusalem.

A secular historian may have thought that this group of people was pretty irrelevant, didn't make much difference in the world. But if you were one of the people being helped, it was very relevant. It made a big difference to you in this world, and in your hopes for the next.

As we look at writings from the early church, and from historians, we see that the church did not confine its good works to just helping each other. They preached the gospel, and they also fed people who were hungry. They rescued children who were abandoned by their parents. They helped sick people when nobody else would. They made a difference in this world because they were living by the principles that govern the next world.

And the church grew. People said, Those Christians seem to think that life has a purpose. They actually practice what they preach. They do good, and that makes me think that their message about a good future is also true.

I doubt that the early Christians were doing good simply as a church-growth strategy. They did not think, I will risk my life taking care of people with bubonic plague, so that the church will grow. I may not live to see it, but the church might grow. No, I don't think that was their motive. Much more likely, they were motivated by the example of Jesus, who risked his life to help people with his words and with his actions.

Many people today think that the message of Christianity is irrelevant, and they would prefer that Christians just shut up and worked. "It's OK to feed the poor and build hospitals, but don't bother us with mumbo-jumbo about salvation and the afterlife."

Well, if they don't believe the message, then it is no surprise that they think it is irrelevant. But what they don't understand is that the message itself is what inspires the good works. Christians wouldn't be doing all these good works unless they had a message motivating them. When we see what Jesus did for us, we are encouraged to do something to help others. Or rather, it is really him in us, working through us.

Believe it or not, some people in this world are actually concerned about the next life, and the message we have is very relevant to them. Many people would like to know that life itself is relevant, that there is a purpose, that there is a right and a wrong, that relationships matter, that love is not just an accident of brain biochemistry.

So when we preach the gospel, we are touching the world in a way that many people need. We are being relevant, even if not everybody believes that we are. When we help feed the poor, no matter whether that is in the Congo, or in Chicago, we are being relevant not just to people's immediate needs, but also to their eternal needs. We are showing them the love of Jesus, helping give them hope for a better world to come. Hopefully we'll also be able to tell them a little more about Jesus.

But the point is, that we don't help people for what we can get out of it, in the hopes that they will join our church. Rather, we help them because they need help. We do good because it is good. We are moved with compassion for them, and we teach what we can and help them with physical needs as opportunities present themselves. We let Christ do it in us and through us.

Now, some people today like Christ, but they don't like the church. I can understand why: Jesus is perfect, and he does only good stuff. Besides that, he lived a long time ago and people can choose to remember only the parts they like, and so they construct an idealized Jesus that contains only the parts that they like.

But the church is different. We are not perfect. We make mistakes, and people tend to remember the mistakes. But the truth is that the church is the body of Christ, and even though we are not perfect, we are the way in which Christ is working in this world today. It is not possible to have Jesus without also having the church, because the church is part of who Jesus is.

That is good news, because if Jesus were working only in perfect people, he wouldn't be doing any work at all, because there are no perfect people. But he chooses to work in people who make mistakes – and hopefully we make fewer and fewer mistakes as we go along. But the biggest mistake of all would be for us to stop trying. We learn by doing, and we learn from our mistakes, and the important thing is that we learn, and we get better at it as we work.

This means that we need patience. We may not see the results we want right away, either in people's lives, or in the church as a whole. The message may not bear fruit right away, and the good works may not bear fruit right away, but we keep doing both of them because we have compassion on the people, and we are trying to help according to the spiritual and physical resources God has given us.

What kind of results did Jesus have? In one incident he fed the people and they wanted to make him their king. They thought, this is the sort of leader we like – somebody who gives us stuff. But Jesus didn't want to be king just for the physical stuff that people could get out of it. So he escaped.

The same thing happens today, too. Some people just want the church to give physical stuff, and to leave the message inside the sanctuary, where it won't affect anybody. But no, good works go hand in hand with the good news, and both are part of the way that we touch the world.

We can do it as individuals, we can do it as a church, but either way, we should not be irrelevant in this world. We should be living the gospel as well as sharing the gospel. We should have the gospel message, but that message should also make a difference in the way we live. We need to embody the grace of Jesus Christ as he lives in us and works through us. We set a good example in the way we treat each other, and in the way that we treat our neighbors.

Let's look at one more passage that tells us how Jesus touched the world, and that's in Matthew 9, starting in verse 35. This is one of Matthew's summary statements, a generalized description of what Jesus did throughout his ministry. Here's what he says: "Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness."

There are the two forms of ministry again: words, and actions. Both of these were important to the impact that Jesus made on this world. The healings, by themselves, had only a short-term impact on a few people. They all eventually died. Jesus had a long-range impact on the world primarily because of what he taught – but we also have to recognize that if the teachings don't make any difference in what people do, then it is understandable that others will consider the message irrelevant.

If the teachings don't make a difference in this life, it would be understandable that people would wonder whether they are true for the next life. Both forms of ministry go hand in hand because both are reflections of what Jesus is, and both are reflections of the kingdom of God and the life of the children of God.

Verse 36: "When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." So he taught them, and he fed the hungry, healed the sick, cleansed the lepers, and raised the dead. He helped them in their spiritual and physical needs.

But he didn't stop there, because he knew that he would not always be around. So he said to his disciples, in verses 37 and 38, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."

Who are these workers?

The next verse tells us – chapter 10, verse 1: "He called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness." He sent them out two by two to preach the gospel, and that's where we started this message.

Jesus has compassion on the people of this world, the people who are like sheep without a shepherd, and he is looking for more people who are willing to help in the harvest. The people he told to pray, are exactly the same as the people he sent out to work.

We do not pray for God to call people to do work that we are not willing to do. When we see the need for workers, when we see that this is something that God wants done, that this is something representative of his kingdom and his family and his love, then if we are able to work, we will be one of those workers. If prayer is all that we can do, that is all God wants us to do. But if we can do more, then we probably will want to do more. We should pray, and we should work.

Christianity is relevant to the needs of this world, and we should touch the world by what we say, and by what we do. It's all part of the same package as Jesus lives and works within us.

Michael Morrison

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## Who Is Jesus?

For Christians, there are two very important questions: "Who is Jesus?" and "Who is the God revealed in Jesus?" To help us get at those two questions, I'd like for us to consider some answers given by Jesus in the Gospel of John.

Let's first take a look at John's account of Jesus at the Jewish Feast of Dedication in John 10:22-30. "Then came the Feast of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter." Let's stop for a moment right there and ask this question: What is the Hebrew word for dedication? I bet you know, even if you don't think you know it. It's Hanukkah. The celebration of the Feast of Dedication or Hannukah was established by the Jewish leader Judas Maccabeus in 165 BC to commemorate the Jewish victory over the army of the Syrian ruler, Antiochus IV. It celebrated the rescue of the Jewish temple from Gentile occupation and desecration. Judas Maccabeus was viewed by many of his countrymen as a Messiah because he had delivered his people and their holy city.

Now let's look at John 10:23. "And Jesus was in the temple area walking in Solomon's Colonnade." This was a common place for rabbis to meet with their disciples, so if anyone were looking for Jesus, he would be easy to find on this occasion. Now let's look at John 10:24. "The Jews gathered around and circled him saying, 'How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ [that is, the Messiah] tell us plainly.'" The question these Jewish religious leaders are asking is, Who are you, Jesus?

They want him boldly to proclaim that he is the Messiah. Then they can turn him over to the Romans for treason and rebellion, proclaiming that he is the King of the Jews. But Jesus, I think wise to what they're doing, does not answer in the way they wish or expect. Indeed, he gives three answers as to who he is. Let's notice those answers.

First, let's go to John 10:25 and 26. "Jesus answered, 'I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father's name speak for me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep.'" So answer number one is you know I am the Messiah, but you choose not to accept it.

Now, let's look at John 10:27-29. "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand." Here we have answer number two. I'm the Messiah, but I'm not here as a messianic warrior of the line of David, but rather as the messianic good shepherd like King David, the shepherd boy.

Then he shocks them with his third answer as to who he is. Let's look at this in John 10:30. "I and the Father are one." Okay, so here is answer number three. Totally unexpected by the crowd. Jesus says, "I am God, equal to the Father." Think about what he has just said. We have a compound subject, I and the Father. Each are distinct. We have a plural verb and "one," which in the Greek is in the neuter, meaning a thing or a being. That is, it's not separate. It's not in the masculine, meaning one person. It's "I and the Father are one." Wow.

What did he mean? How did he mean one? People have debated, did he mean one philosophy, of one attitude, of one goal? It's evident from the story that the Jewish leaders seem to know exactly what he meant. They were clear as to what they understood him to be saying, because they picked up stones to kill him for blasphemy. They indeed believed that Jesus had just made himself equal to God. What do the words of Jesus quoted by John 10:30 mean? "I and the Father are one." This became a key verse in the discussion of the doctrine of the Trinity and who is God in the early church.

Let's look further at John 14:8-11:

#### Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us." Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Don't you believe that I am in the Father and that the Father is in me? The words that I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe me on the evidence of the miracles themselves."

Here again, Jesus makes this bold claim that "the Father and I are one." I am in the Father and the Father is in me and we are one. How can two be one? This was a very difficult question for early Christians to begin to try to analyze and work out and explain. But then you may say, "What about the Holy Spirit? What does Jesus say about the Spirit?"

Let's look at John 14:16-20. Jesus said:

#### And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, for he lives with you and will be [some early manuscripts have, "and is"] in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.

Now, Jesus has added the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is "another Comforter." The Greek means by "another" "one just like myself." Now, Jesus is added to the mix. Not only are he and the Father one, but there is going to be another Comforter, the Holy Spirit, who is like him, similar to him, who is God, and is in the Father and in the Son as well.

We've got God the Father who is in Jesus and in the Holy Spirit, we've got Jesus who is in God the Father and in the Holy Spirit, and we've got the Holy Spirit who is in God the Father and in Jesus. We might comically say, "Wow, it must be getting crowded in there. What is going on? I thought there was one God?" Indeed, there is. That one God as revealed by Jesus is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and each is in each other.

What we are reading here is that John has Jesus saying that there is the Father who is God, there is Jesus the Son who is God, and there is the Holy Spirit who is one just like Jesus, but is not Jesus, who is also God. We have the Father who is in the Son and in the Spirit. We have Jesus the Son of God who is in the Father and in the Spirit and we have the Spirit who is in the Father and in the Son. These three are one. There is one God, but that one God is Father, Son, and Spirit – each distinct but not separate, in a union, a communion together as one being in three persons.

Further, listen to what Jesus has to say about the disciples, believers who are yet to come. Let's look at John 17:21. Breaking into the middle of the thought here, Jesus says in chapter 17, verse 21, "That all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, that the world may believe that you have sent me."

What does all this mean? Who is Jesus, and who is the God revealed in Jesus? Based on the scriptures we've just discussed, plus others, and being guided by the Holy Spirit, the early church came to understand that God is a Trinity: three persons and one being: Father, Son, who became the incarnate Jesus, and Spirit. All three who indwell and interpenetrate each other. Each distinct, but not separate.

By the eighth century, Christians were using the Greek word "perichoresis" to explain what Jesus was describing in the verses we have just read. Literally, the word comes from the prefix, "peri," meaning around and "choreo," meaning contain, move, rotate, go about, dwell around, and inhabit, we come up with the word in English "indwelling" or "interpenetration." When Jesus in the Gospel of John talks about "that they may be one as we are one," he is inviting us, all of humanity, into active participation and the perichoretic relationship the Father, the Son, and the Spirit have.

The early church fathers spoke of this relationship as being like a great dance, and this is a relationship with the Father and Jesus and through the Spirit. It is shared life; rich, full, abundant life; the shared life of God. God, through the incarnation of Jesus Christ, reaches out to humanity and invites all into, as the great fathers called it, the great dance. I invite all of us to take Jesus' hand and actively participate in the life of God now and for all eternity. Take Jesus' hand and come enjoy the dance.

Dan Rogers

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## Why Did Jesus Die?

In March or April of each year, Christian churches typically set aside a day to commemorate the death of Jesus Christ. And whenever we participate in the Lord's Supper or Communion, we commemorate the death of Jesus. It's an important part of Christian faith and practice. Today, I'd like to explore some of the reasons for this, and I would like to begin by asking a multiple-choice question:

Why did Jesus die?

Actually, there are multiple answers.

For example, there is a medical answer to the question of why Jesus died. Maybe it was dehydration, or heat stroke, or an electrolytic imbalance in his bloodstream that caused the muscles in his heart to stop working.

And there is a social or political answer to the question of why Jesus died: the religious leaders were afraid that he was going to cause a rebellion against Rome, and that would cause Rome to kill thousands of people. So Jesus was put to death to avoid the risk of a war. He died because the religious leaders wanted him dead.

And there is a spiritual answer, too, and again there is more than one right answer. The Bible tells us that

Jesus died for us (Romans 5:8).

He died for our sins (Romans 4:25; 1 Corinthians 15:3; Colossians 2:14).

He died to justify us, to declare us righteous (Romans 5:9; 2 Corinthians 5:21).

He died to redeem us from the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13).

Jesus died to destroy the devil, and to free us from the fear of death (Hebrews 2:15).

He died to reconcile all of us to the Father (Romans 5:10; 1 Peter 3:18).

He died to win a victory over powers and authorities (Colossians 2:15).

He died so that we could live for him (2 Corinthians 5:15).

Now, some of these biblical statements are just the tip of the iceberg.

For example, the Bible says that Jesus died "for our sins." But there is a deeper question right after that. Someone might ask, Why does his death have anything to do with our sins? What's the connection between him dying, and us living? How does this work?

Theologians have answered this question with various "theories of atonement." Depending on how you count these theories, there are a half dozen or so. All of them have some biblical support, and each of them makes sense to at least a few people.

Atonement is an old English word meaning at-one-ment, the condition of being "at one" with God – what the Bible calls reconciliation. But in modern theological usage, the meaning of atonement is usually focused on the connection between Christ's death and the forgiveness of our sins. There's more to salvation than just the forgiveness of sins, so the question can be expanded even larger than that, but to keep our discussion a manageable size, let's just look at what Jesus' death does for our salvation.

One common theory of the atonement is called the penal substitution theory. The word penal comes from the Latin word poena, from which we get the legal word subpoena, and the English words pain, and penalty, and penitentiary and penance and penalize. A list of punishments for crimes is called a penal code. When England sent criminals to Australia, it was called a penal colony. The word refers to a penalty prescribed by a judge.

This theory, when it comes to Jesus, is that Jesus was a substitute for us, paying our penalty for us.

One song puts it this way: I owed a debt I could not pay, and he paid a debt he did not owe. That's really a financial metaphor, but it's a similar idea. One person is a substitute for another, paying a penalty on behalf of someone else. We deserved to die, but Jesus died for us, so we don't have to.

Now, like I said, that is a common theory. In fact, it is so common that some people think that it's the only explanation for why we can be saved by the death of Jesus. Maybe it was the explanation that made the most sense to you, and maybe it is the way you have explained the gospel to other people.

But as we have just seen, the Bible gives a number of other explanations, and they each add something to our understanding of how we are saved by the death of Jesus.

Actually, if we take a closer look at the penal substitution theory, we will see a few problems with it, and we will see that it's a good thing the Bible gives some additional explanations as well. If we are going to explain the gospel as a substitute punishment, it will be helpful for us to know where the difficulties are, so that we can avoid some mistakes.

1. The first problem I will mention is not in the theory itself, but the way it is sometimes used. The story sometimes goes like this: God is perfect, and he gives us perfect laws, but we don't keep them. We sin, and God's sense of holiness and justice says that we deserve to die. He is angry at us and wants to punish us.

But along comes Jesus, who loves us and volunteers to die for us. Hey, Dad, he says, if I pay the penalty for them, will you stop being angry at them? So the Father and the Son make a deal, and Jesus dies for us, and God is happy with us if we have faith in Jesus.

The big problem with this is that it makes Jesus quite different from his Father. God the Father looks like an ill-tempered grump who has to be talked into loving us, who has to be paid off, and Jesus is the nice guy who figures out a way to change his Father's mind.

But this is not the way that the Bible describes God the Father and God the Son. The Bible says that Jesus is the Word of God made flesh, God made human, a person in whom the fullness of the deity lives. Jesus told Philip, "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father" (John 14:9). The Father and the Son are in perfect agreement. The Father loves us just as much as Jesus does, and Jesus hates sin just as much as the Father does.

And it's not like Jesus figured out a way to convince God to be merciful – God was already merciful, and the Father is the one who sent Jesus to save us. The Father was not angry with us in the sense of wanting to punish us. No, quite the opposite – the Bible says that God wants everyone to escape the punishment. He is angry at sin, but he wants us to escape the results of sin. So the death of Jesus was not designed to change God's attitude toward us. Rather, it expressed what God himself did for us.

2. Now let's consider something else. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death. Everybody deserves to die, and it's like we are all on death row, waiting for our execution. Along comes Jesus and says, Hey, I am willing to die for these people. If we are on death row, that sounds like a pretty good deal.

But an impartial observer says, That's not justice. Justice does not mean punishing an innocent person and letting guilty people go free, even if the innocent person volunteers for it. If somebody is sentenced to 20 years in prison, we do not let anyone else serve the time for them – and if one person deserves to be executed, we don't let anybody else volunteer to take their place, especially if they are innocent. That's not justice.

Maybe you didn't know this, but in the Middle Ages, punishments could be transferred. If the king's son got into trouble, then they beat the son's servant instead. That is the origin of the term "whipping boy." The servant got whipped, and the prince had to watch him get a beating, and in the Middle Ages, they thought that justice had been served. The penalty had been paid, even if it was by someone else.

But today, many people do not think that this is fair. It does not seem to fit into any category of justice for God to let condemned criminals go free just because Jesus volunteered to die for them. Maybe our sense of justice is wrong, but it will be difficult to argue for that in our culture. Maybe there is a better way to explain what's going on.

3. Third, the penal substitution theory focuses on the final penalty of sin – in a court of law at the last judgment, we will be found guilty and deserve the death penalty. Now, that is pretty serious, but I would like to point out that the penalty of sin at the last judgment is only part of our problem. It's only part of the problem of sin, and only part of what Jesus came to die for.

Sin is a real problem in this life. Paul describes sin as a power that grips our lives and enslaves us (Romans 6:20-21), causing us to make bad choices in life – bad choices that hurt us, and hurt the people around us. That's a real problem, and the good news is that Jesus has done something to solve this problem.

Just paying a future penalty is only part of the salvation that we need. Jesus frees us from the grip of sin – he liberates us from its enslaving power – and by the Holy Spirit, he begins to change us from the inside out. This is doing something about sin from where it begins, not just where it all ends up. This is saving us from our own corrupt selfishness, not just from a judicial verdict. That's good news, and the penal substitution theory doesn't say anything about it, but that is one of the reasons that Jesus died.

4. My last point here is that the penal substitution theory says that our salvation was completed by the death of Jesus. The substitute was offered on the cross, and the penalty was paid in full. But there is something important that is missing from this picture, and that is the resurrection of Jesus.

In First Corinthians 15, Paul said that if Christ had not been raised, then we would still be in our sins. The crucifixion is not enough – for the simple reason that the penalty is not the only problem that has to be taken care of, and the atonement of Jesus involves more than paying a penalty on our behalf.

In Romans, Paul tells us that Jesus was raised to life for our justification, and we are saved not just by his death, but also by his life.

Now, if people are really worried about the last judgment and the penalty of their sins, then the penal substitution theory addresses their main concern, and it might be enough for them. But some people have different concerns, and they need a message of salvation that addresses those other concerns. As we mature in the Christian faith, we all need to know that the problem we have, and the salvation that Jesus gives us, involves much more than removing a penalty at the end of this age.

So today, let's look together at a passage in Paul's letter to the Colossians that describes several of the ways in which the death of Jesus saves us from our sins.

We can start in Colossians 2, verse 8 – this is the setting for what Paul says about Jesus: "See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ."

Paul is dealing with some false teachings that were circulating in the city of Colosse. We don't know exactly what they were, but we do see how Paul responded to them – and in doing so, he tells us about the salvation that Jesus brought us.

He starts in verse 9 by telling us who Jesus is: "...in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form." In other words, Jesus Christ is fully divine, in a human body. Jesus was able to do what he did because he is both God and man. He represents God to us, and he represents humanity to God. Hebrews calls him a high priest, a mediator between God and humanity.

He came to earth and he became human precisely for this purpose, to become our representative. As a representative of all humanity, he died on our behalf – but not only that, as a representative of all humanity, he was raised to life on our behalf. He has joined himself to us, so that we might be joined to him in his journey from earth to heaven, in moving on the path from death to life. More on that in a moment.

Verse 10: "and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority." So, we have been given everything we need in Christ. We don't need special rituals or extra works, and we don't need to appeal to any other powers or authorities. He has all the power and authority that we need.

For example, verse 11: "In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ."

Wow – did you know that? You have all been circumcised – even the women have been circumcised – in Christ. Paul is not talking about physical circumcision, of course – he is talking about a figurative meaning – he is talking about putting off the sinful nature.

That is exactly what we need. When we are enslaved by sin, when we see that wrong desires live within us, then this is one aspect of sin that we need to be saved from, and Paul is saying that Jesus in some way separates these wrong desires from us, like cutting off a piece of flesh that we don't need. A little corrective surgery, you might say.

How does Paul figure this? He figures it because Christ is our representative, and what he did counts for us. We see more of this in the next verse, verse 12: "having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead."

As Paul says in Romans 6, we died with Christ, and we were buried with him, as symbolized in our baptism, and we were raised with him. We are connected to him, united with him. So when he died, he was not our substitute in the sense that we don't have to die. No—Paul says that we died with him. He was not a simple substitute, but an inclusive representative.

When he died, we died—and I think that is really good news. That's because there are parts of me that I wish would die. There are wrong inclinations in me that I don't want to struggle with for all eternity. So I am happy to know that when I die, those parts of me will stay dead, and only the good me will be resurrected. The death and resurrection of my body will be a cleansing process in which the weeds are thrown away and only the good grain will be gathered into the harvest for eternal life.

Sometimes people wonder, if all my sins have been forgiven in advance, and in the final judgment I am guaranteed a favorable verdict, why should I make any effort in this life? Maybe the reason that they ask this question is because the only way that they have ever looked at Christianity is through the lens of the penal substitution theory. If the only problem with sin is the verdict at the final judgment, and that verdict has already been taken care of, then the logical conclusion is that sin is not a problem anymore.

Now, most people know that that's not right, but they might have a hard time explaining why, because they are used to thinking that the only reason Jesus came was to forgive us at the final judgment.

You've probably noticed that there is a problem with sin even in this life. If your brother sins against you, it hurts. If your spouse cheats on you, it hurts. If somebody steals your money, it hurts. And on the other hand, if you lie, cheat and steal, then you find out that nobody likes you, and that hurts, too. Sin hurts all the way around, both the people who do it and the people around them.

That is why God doesn't like it. When God tells us to avoid something, this is not just an arbitrary rule that God has put in our way to see if we can jump over it, knowing quite well that we are going to stumble at some point or another. No, God is not out to trip us up. Quite the opposite—he is out to save us. The reason that he tells us to avoid certain behaviors is because he knows that those behaviors cause problems in our lives.

When God forgives us, he is saying, Look, folks. You don't have to worry about the final exam, because you're going to pass. But you still have a life to live, and I'm telling you, if you make wrong choices, you are going to hurt somebody, most likely including yourself.

We know, and God knows, that sometimes we aren't very good about doing even the things we know are right. We break our promises, we let other people down, we betray the trust they give to us, and we feel bad about it. So we need help. Jesus gives us help, and his death is an important part of that.

See, part of us needs to die, and in his death, Jesus gives us a way for those bad parts of us to die, and to stay dead. He is not only our representative – he also includes us in his death. Paul talks about it elsewhere, saying that the old person, or the old self, is dead, and the new self lives, created new in Jesus Christ. We are being recreated, bit by gradual bit, by the work of Christ in us.

There's a process of "out with the old, and in with the new." The Holy Spirit works within us to make this process possible. And when we die, the old selfish self will stay dead, and only the new person, created in Christ to be like Christ, only that good part will live into eternity. The old self will die, and the new self will live. We will be saved, and thankfully, we will not be the way we were. All the bad parts will be gone, and we'll be really glad they are.

My point here is that even though the final judgment has been guaranteed for us, it does matter what we do in this life. The problem with sin is not just a judicial verdict at the return of Christ—it's got something to do with who we are on a day-to-day basis. We as humans were made in the image of God, and that is who we are supposed to be like. Christ is the perfect human. The more we are like him in this life, the more we are like the way God designed us to be.

All of us start out as a mixture of good and evil, and we look forward to an age in which there is only good. We want to live in a world in which there is no more crying, there are no more tears and there is no more sin. We want to live in a world in which there is only love, and never any betrayal.

If we really want that way of life, we want it now. We want to love other people, and never betray them. We want to be 100 percent faithful. We want to tell the truth rather than falsehood, we want to be generous rather than greedy, we want to be kind rather than resentful, etcetera.

The evil inclinations that enslave us, we want to put to death, and in Jesus they have been put to death. What happened to Jesus on the cross is not just something that happened to him—it happened to us as well, and this is the key to the change that we each want to happen within ourselves.

1 Peter 2:24 puts it this way: "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, [why was he crucified?] so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness." Jesus died not just to take care of the future day of judgment, but also to make a change in the way we live right now.

Let's go back to Colossians 2, and pick it up in verse 13: "When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins." We were dead in our sins – living the way that leads to death. And we were spiritually uncircumcised: our sinful nature was in control.

So without Christ, we had two problems: First, that we were dead; we were on the path that leads to death. And second, that we had this sinful nature in us, enslaving us. Christ takes care of both problems for us – not just the verdict on the day of judgment, but also in the day-to-day way in which we live.

What is involved in this? First, it says, "he forgave us all our sins." Notice that this is in the past tense. When did he do it? Let's read verse 14: "having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross."

Now, this verse has had some translation difficulties, but some archaeological discoveries have made the meaning pretty clear. The NIV has "written code" here; the Greek word is cheirographon, which means handwriting. Archaeologists have discovered that this word usually refers to a handwritten note of debt. We had a debt that was against us, a debt that stood opposed to us, and Jesus took it away from us and nailed it to the cross. The debt is gone, which is another way of saying that Jesus forgave us all our sins.

He didn't just forgive some of them, such as the ones we happen to be aware of, and the ones we happen to repent of. He does not wait for us to itemize everything we've ever done wrong and say "sorry" for each one of them. In fact, he doesn't wait for us at all. This is all past tense – he did it when he died, before we were even born.

As it says in Colossians 1, verses 21-22: "Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight."

Once we were enemies, but even when we were enemies, God sent Jesus to die for us, because he doesn't want us to be enemies. He doesn't want to punish us, or to have us suffer from the consequences of sin. So he sent Jesus, and through the death of Jesus' physical body, we have been reconciled to God. That was done even before we knew about it. It was done before we were born. It was done because God wanted us to be friends rather than enemies.

We might call this a unilateral cease-fire. We might continue struggling against God, but he does not retaliate against us. He does not want to punish us – he sent Jesus to earth so that we could escape the negative consequences of sin. He wants to save us, to help us escape. So he cancels the debt – he tells us that we will be declared righteous on the day of judgment.

Now, this advance declaration of "no penalty" doesn't do us a lot of good if we insist on living in sin, if we insist on banging our head against the wall and shooting ourselves in the foot. If we act foolishly, then there may not be any penalty in the next life, but there sure is a penalty in this life. God does not take that away. Jesus did not die to somehow make it OK to sin. Sin still produces pain and suffering, and God wants us to stop it, because he loves us and he loves the people around us.

You have probably noticed that it's not very easy to just stop sinning. We've got habits. As Paul says in Ephesians 6, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but spiritual forces that are our enemies. We need victory over those spiritual forces that lead us into sin. Thankfully, Jesus did that for us, too—and he achieved that victory not by force, but by his death on the cross.

Colossians 2:15: "And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross." This is what is often called the Christus Victor theory of the atonement. It means Christ is the Victor, the one who conquered not just death, but all spiritual enemies, by his death on the cross. One of the enemies that he conquered was death itself, and one of the reasons that he died a public death is to demonstrate to everyone that he has indeed won a victory over death itself. He has been there and come out the other side.

We win our spiritual battles only because he has triumphed over all our spiritual enemies, and that even includes our own tendencies to sin. Christ conquered every spiritual enemy that we have. It is his strength that is the key to the Christian life.

Colossians 1:20 says that Christ has reconciled to himself all things. Romans 8:21 says that Christ has redeemed the entire creation. By his death on the cross, he has won a cosmic victory that is much, much larger than the verdict given to humans on the day of judgment. The entire creation needs to be fixed, and simply paying the penalty of human sin is only a small part of what Christ did on the cross. Yes, he gives us a verdict of "righteous." But he does a lot more than that – he takes care of every enemy, and everything.

So why did Christ die? He died to forgive our sins, so that we escape the final judgment. He died so that we would die with him, so that our old and corrupt self might be eliminated, so that we can get rid of everything within us that isn't like what God created us to be. And third, he died to give us victory over every spiritual enemy. He died to liberate us from the power of sin that resides within us. He died to liberate us from the power of death itself.

And last, and perhaps this is overlapping with the meaning of Easter, he died so that we might live, so that we might be raised with him into newness of life, into life the way it ought to be lived, into life the way that it will be lived in the eternal age to come. Amen.

Michael Morrison

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## About the Publisher...

Grace Communion International is a Christian denomination with about 50,000 members, worshiping in about 900 congregations in almost 100 nations and territories. We began in 1934 and our main office is in North Carolina. In the United States, we are members of the National Association of Evangelicals and similar organizations in other nations. We welcome you to visit our website at www.gci.org.

If you want to know more about the gospel of Jesus Christ, we offer help. First, we offer weekly worship services in hundreds of congregations worldwide. Perhaps you'd like to visit us. A typical worship service includes songs of praise, a message based on the Bible, and opportunity to meet people who have found Jesus Christ to be the answer to their spiritual quest. We try to be friendly, but without putting you on the spot. We do not expect visitors to give offerings—there's no obligation. You are a guest.

To find a congregation, write to one of our offices, phone us or visit our website. If we do not have a congregation near you, we encourage you to find another Christian church that teaches the gospel of grace.

We also offer personal counsel. If you have questions about the Bible, salvation or Christian living, we are happy to talk. If you want to discuss faith, baptism or other matters, a pastor near you can discuss these on the phone or set up an appointment for a longer discussion. We are convinced that Jesus offers what people need most, and we are happy to share the good news of what he has done for all humanity. We like to help people find new life in Christ, and to grow in that life. Come and see why we believe it's the best news there could be!

Our work is funded by members of the church who donate part of their income to support the gospel. Jesus told his disciples to share the good news, and that is what we strive to do in our literature, in our worship services, and in our day-to-day lives.

If this e-book has helped you and you want to pay some expenses, all donations are gratefully welcomed, and in several nations, are tax-deductible. If you can't afford to give anything, don't worry about it. It is our gift to you. To make a donation online, go to www.gci.org/participate/donate.

Thank you for letting us share what we value most — Jesus Christ. The good news is too good to keep it to ourselves.

See our website for hundreds of articles, locations of our churches, addresses in various nations, audio and video messages, and much more.

Grace Communion International  
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### You're Included...

We talk with leading Trinitarian theologians about the good news that God loves you, wants you, and includes you in Jesus Christ. Most programs are about 28 minutes long. Our guests have included:

Ray Anderson, Fuller Theological Seminary

Douglas A. Campbell, Duke Divinity School

Elmer Colyer, U. of Dubuque Theological Seminary

Gordon Fee, Regent College

Trevor Hart, University of St. Andrews

George Hunsinger, Princeton Theological Seminary

Jeff McSwain, Reality Ministries

Paul Louis Metzger, Multnomah University

Paul Molnar, St. John's University

Cherith Fee Nordling, Antioch Leadership Network

Andrew Root, Luther Seminary

Alan Torrance, University of St. Andrews

Robert T. Walker, Edinburgh University

N.T. Wright, University of St. Andrews

William P. Young, author of The Shack

Programs are available free for viewing and downloading at www.youreincluded.org.

### Speaking of Life...

Dr. Joseph Tkach, president of Grace Communion International, comments each week, giving a biblical perspective on how we live in the light of God's love. Most programs are about three minutes long – available in video, audio, and text. Go to www.speakingoflife.org.

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### Grace Communion Seminary

Ministry based on the life and love of the Father, Son, and Spirit.

Grace Communion Seminary serves the needs of people engaged in Christian service who want to grow deeper in relationship with our Triune God and to be able to more effectively serve in the church.

Why study at Grace Communion Seminary?

 Worship: to love God with all your mind.

 Service: to help others apply truth to life.

 Practical: a balanced range of useful topics for ministry.

 Trinitarian theology: a survey of theology with the merits of a Trinitarian perspective. We begin with the question, "Who is God?" Then, "Who are we in relationship to God?" In this context, "How then do we serve?"

 Part-time study: designed to help people who are already serving in local congregations. There is no need to leave your current ministry. Full-time students are also welcome.

 Flexibility: your choice of master's level continuing education courses or pursuit of a degree: Master of Pastoral Studies or Master of Theological Studies.

 Affordable, accredited study: Everything can be done online.

For more information, go to www.gcs.edu. Grace Communion Seminary is accredited by the Distance Education Accrediting Commission, www.deac.org. The Accrediting Commission is listed by the U.S. Department of Education as a nationally recognized accrediting agency.

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## Ambassador College of Christian Ministry

Want to better understand God's Word? Want to know the Triune God more deeply? Want to share more joyously in the life of the Father, Son and Spirit? Want to be better equipped to serve others?

Among the many resources that Grace Communion International offers are the training and learning opportunities provided by ACCM. This quality, well-structured Christian Ministry curriculum has the advantage of being very practical and flexible. Students may study at their own pace, without having to leave home to undertake full-time study.

This denominationally recognized program is available for both credit and audit study. At minimum cost, this online Diploma program will help students gain important insights and training in effective ministry service. Students will also enjoy a rich resource for personal study that will enhance their understanding and relationship with the Triune God.

Diploma of Christian Ministry classes provide an excellent introductory course for new and lay pastors. Pastor General Dr. Joseph Tkach said, "We believe we have achieved the goal of designing Christian ministry training that is practical, accessible, interesting, and doctrinally and theologically mature and sound. This program provides an ideal foundation for effective Christian ministry."

For more information, go to www.ambascol.org

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