No Other Gods (Exodus 20:1-3)

by Darryl on June 28, 2009

Today we’re beginning to look at one of the best known and most controversial parts of Scripture: the Ten Commandments. These commandments are so well known that they’re still being debated and discussed today. The Royal Ontario Museum recently held a lecture series called The Three New Commandments in which they asked three prominent thinkers to analyze and debate the Ten Commandments and share their ideas for a moral code for our own time. Electronic Arts, a popular game maker, commissioned a survey that found that very few people know the Ten Commandments. In fact, over a quarter of 11-16 year olds can’t recite a single one of the Ten Commandments from memory. They go on to suggest that “they are now seen as ‘outdated and irrelevant to modern life’ – so they have asked people to rewrite them to reflect the world we live in today.

So the Ten Commandments are not well known, but they are still being discussed. Why are we going to look at them? Are they really relevant today? Aren’t they too negative, and haven’t we moved beyond rules?

These are all good questions, and we’re going to explore the answers. But let me answer the two main questions. First, are the Ten Commandments still relevant? And Scripture answers: absolutely. The Ten Commandments were given to God’s people on a mountain in a dessert thousands of years ago, but they still are very important to God’s people today. When Jesus gave what we now call the Sermon on the Mount, he expounded in depth the meaning of a number of these commandments and applied them to today. When the rich young ruler asked Jesus what he must to do to have eternal life, Jesus responded first by listing some of these very commandments (Matthew 19:16-19). The apostle Paul listed recited and affirmed these commands, and concluded that “love is the fulfillment of the law” (Romans 13:10). James spoke of these commands to argue that they’re a unity. One theologian puts it this way:

There are a few details of the Decalogue that do not apply to us as new covenant Christians, but for the most part the Ten Commandments express principles that will never change, that apply to all times and all situations. The Decalogue presents these principles in general terms, thereby covering all of human life. (John Frame, The Doctrine of the Christian Life)

But here’s the second question: aren’t the Ten Commandments too negative? Or to put it differently: haven’t we moved on from the Ten Commandments to something more positive? This question is really based on a view of the commandments that sees them as negative, that sees God’s commands as a straightjacket that robs us of our freedom. We’d much rather live without rules, except for the rule that we can do as we like.

But nothing could be further from the truth. These commands were not given to take away our freedom, but to ensure our freedom. What do I mean? When God gave these commands to Israel, they had just come out of hundreds of years of slavery in Egypt. They had been in political, economic, social, and spiritual bondage. But God set them free, and now three months later God gives them these commands. He begins by reminding them, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery” (Exodus 20:2). It’s in the context of their liberty that God gives these commands. The basic question they answer is: now that God’s people are free, how can their freedom be preserved? These commands become the founding charter of God’s people, and it’s really a charter of freedoms. The goal of these commands is to protect the blessings of the freedom achieved by God when he liberated them from Egypt.

You still may be thinking, “I still don’t see how commands lead to freedom.” That’s often because we see freedom as the ability to choose for ourselves what is best. But as someone has put it, freedom is not the absences of restrictions; it’s finding the right restrictions. For instance, a fish is only free if it’s limited to water. If you liberate a fish from water, that fish will die. If you want freedom in marriage, it comes from the constraints of love, which involves a mutual loss of independence. But we become ourselves within these boundaries. “Freedom,” writes Tim Keller, “is not the absence of limitations and constraints but it is finding the right ones, those that fit our nature and liberate us.”

You see this even in this passage. The commands are rooted in two things: God’s gracious nature – “I am the LORD your God” – and God’s gracious actions – “who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” These are not the commands of a God who is against us and wishes to restrict our freedoms so we live a life of misery. These are the commands of a God who communicates his gracious nature, who gives us his personal name so we can be in intimate relationship with him. This is also the God who has saved us with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Israel then knew of their deliverance from bondage in Egypt; we now understand that we have been set free from an even greater bondage. God gives us these commands as the God who is gracious in his nature, and the God who has saved us.

So these commands are relevant to us today, and they are liberating. They preserve freedom. They are also significant because we read that God himself spoke these words. This is the one occasion in redemptive history in which all the people of God were gathered in one place, and God spoke to them directly from his own lips.

So today, let’s look at the first command, which is in many ways the foundational command for all the others. Martin Luther said that this command is “the very first, highest and best, from which all the others proceed, in which they exist, and by which they are directed and measured.” In some ways, every command is essentially a different perspective on the same thing. Each of the commands is, in essence, a restatement of this command applied to a different area of life. That means that every sin is a violation of this commandment. When we break any of the commands, we’re also breaking this one.

What is the first commandment? Exodus 20:1-3 says:

And God spoke all these words: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.”

I want to simply ask two questions this morning. First: what does this command say? Second, how do we do what it says?

So first, what does this command say?

Well, that shouldn’t be too hard. It simply says that we are to have no other gods before Yahweh. It’s very similar to the second command: “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.” Somebody has suggested that both these commands are about right worship. The first command tells us to worship the right God. The second command tells us to worship God rightly.

But let’s look a bit deeper here. Notice that God does not say that there are no other gods. Scripture does in fact say that in other places, but it’s important to notice that this command was given to a nation in which false gods abounded. They had just spent hundreds of years in Egypt, where there were many false gods. We live today in a world in which there are many gods. For instance, in Hinduism, there are over 330,000 deities in the various traditions. We live in an increasingly multicultural setting, and there deities, gods, that are rivals to the one true God as revealed in Scripture.

God says, “You shall have no other gods before me.” The words before me has the meaning in front of me. I heard recently of someone who is being unfaithful within marriage right in sight of their spouse. It’s not being carried out secretly. It’s being carried out openly, right in front of that person’s rightful partner. God here reminds us that there is no such thing as worshiping other gods behind his back. God is present, and he knows who or what we worship. We are not to have other gods before him.

So you could summarize this command as a call for singular devotion to God. The issue is exclusive loyalty. We are to refuse all rival loyalties and false gods, and worship God alone. The root of all sin, in essence, is to give the love and worship that rightfully belongs to God to something or someone else. God has entered into a relationship with us, and it is one of exclusive covenant loyalty. Polytheism and idolatry are clearly out of the question.

If you’re following along, you may be saying, “That’s right. No other gods. No false religions and idols!” You may be thinking you’re off the hook on this one because you don’t have any idols in your house. You may think this, but you’d be wrong.

The real issue goes beyond little carved statues. You see, the real issue is that false gods not only abound in other religions. They abound all around us. They’re very much a part of our world. They’re sometimes even part of the church. The modern world has developed many God-substitutes that tempt us to forsake the Creator and to give our heart to other things.

In his Large Catechism, Martin Luther asked the question, “What is it to have a god?” Listen to his answer:

A god is that to which we look for all good and in which we find refuge in every time of need. To have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe him with our whole heart. As I have often said, the trust and faith of the heart alone make both God and and idol…That to which your heart clings and entrusts itself is, I say, really your god.

Let me read that again: “That to which your heart clings and entrusts itself is, I say, really your God.”

Thomas Watson, a Puritan from the 1600s, said, “To trust in any thing more than God, is to make it a god.” He then gave a number of examples:

If we trust in our riches, we make riches our god…If we trust in the arm of flesh, we make it a god…If we trust in our wisdom, we make it a god…If we trust in our civility [our moral goodness], we make it a god…If we trust to our duties [good deeds] to save us, we make them a god.

He even says, “If we trust in our grace [instead of God], we make a god of it.” He goes on to include pleasures, our appetites, children – anything, really – we can turn it into a god.

You can see the wisdom of this commandment, because it doesn’t deny that there are false gods. This world abounds with false gods. Even good things can become rivals for the worship that alone belongs to God. The thing that we often don’t realize is that it is impossible for us to live without having an object of worship. The way that we are created demands that something or someone has our heart. Something is at the center of our worship. The only real question is whether we will give our heart to God, or to someone or something else in his place. God says: don’t have any other gods before me.

We’re going to look in just a minute at why this is a positive command. But I want to pause here and ask you what idol may have your heart. “That to which your heart clings and entrusts itself is,” Luther said, “really your god.” What is your heart clinging to? It could be a relationship, a person, money, your position, your looks, anything. Something is at the center of your life. This world abounds with false gods.

You may ask, “What’s so bad about clinging to something else besides god? What’s wrong with making money, kids, my spouse – whatever – an idol?” You have to admit, idols are pretty alluring. What’s wrong with them? It goes back to the introduction to these commands: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.” Right in the introduction, God tells us what’s wrong with giving our hearts to anyone but him. No other god is really God; no other god is gracious; no other god sets us free from bondage. Because they’re not god, they’re not worthy of worship. Because they’re not gracious, these false gods demand performance. If your job is your idol, you have to continually work to prove yourself to your idol. And because no other god sets us free from bondage, every other god will enslave us. We become slaves of our career, slaves to money, slaves to pleasure. Only when we worship God do we worship the one true and gracious God, the one who leads us out of bondage into freedom.

The command is simply, “You shall have no other gods before me.” Now you understand how sweeping this command is. Now you understand why Luther said that this command is “the very first, highest and best, from which all the others proceed.” It’s also good news because Luther also said, “If the heart is rightly disposed toward God and this commandment is kept, obedience to the remainder will follow of itself.” In other words, if you get this one right, all the rest will follow.

But you also understand how difficult this is. The real question is:

How do we do this?

How do we have no other gods before the one true God?

The really bad news is that nobody has been able to do this. This is really bad news, because this is “the very first, highest and best, from which all the others proceed, in which they exist, and by which they are directed and measured” as Luther said. But if we are honest, we all have to admit that we consistently put other things and other people before God.

It gets even worse. When Jesus was asked to identify the greatest commandment, he responded by giving us the first commandment in a positive form:

Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40)

The first and greatest commandment is total devotion to God. It’s exclusive loyalty. But we’re hopeless at doing this. We consistently give our hearts to other things and other people.

That’s why Jesus responded with a challenge one day to someone who claimed to have kept all the commandments. The man asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus reminded him of the Ten Commandments, and the man said, “All these I have kept since I was a boy” (Luke 18:21). But then Jesus said, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me” (Luke 18:22). We read that the man became very sad and walked away. Why? Because Jesus had put his finger on the one thing that he loved more than God. Jesus had identified the idol in his life, and this man was unwilling to make a break with that idol.

Jesus then said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:24-25). The people who heard this responded, “Who then can be saved?” (Luke 18:26). This is one of the best questions. What hope is there for people like us who tend to put all kinds of things ahead of god, who break the first commandment regularly, who put all kinds of gods before him?

It’s at this point that Jesus gives us hope. “What is impossible with human beings is possible with God,” he says (Luke 18:27). There isn’t a person here who is capable of dethroning all idols and giving his or her heart to God alone. It’s impossible. But what is impossible with us is possible with God.

It’s this verse that gives idolators like us hope. The only person who ever kept the first commandment perfectly is Jesus. He loved God and his neighbor so perfectly that he was willing to go to the cross and give himself in love to do God’s will and to save his enemies. On the cross, Jesus took the punishment for our idolatry. And he’s not only offered us forgiveness, but he’s given us new hearts that are being transformed so that we will one day love him with total devotion.

What’s impossible with us is possible because of what Christ did at the cross. He has changed the first commandment from being a command – “You shall have no other gods before me” – to a promise – “You shall have no other gods before me.”

So Father, take us to Jesus this morning. We realize this morning that we are incapable of keeping this command. We are all idolators. We all put other things and people ahead of you. And in breaking this, the first and highest command, we are breaking in one sense breaking the others.

But what is impossible with us is possible with you. Thank you for Jesus, who bore the punishment for our idolatry. And thank you that you give those who trust in Christ new hearts, so that they shall have no other gods before you. We look forward to that promise being fulfilled; even now, set us free from idols. We pray in the powerful name of the one who died to make this possible. In Jesus’ name, amen.

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Accept One Another (Romans 15:7)

by Darryl on June 21, 2009

When I look around on a Sunday, I’m often surprised by how different we are. Within some churches, people look pretty similar. That’s not the case here. We come from different socio-economic levels. We come from different cultures and ethnic groups. We are all different ages.

What are some of the problems that we may encounter because we are all so different? (take notes)

This isn’t a new problem. I’d like to tell you about the church in Rome around 57 A.D. The church in Rome had a major issue, and they weren’t alone. The church had two main people groups.

Jews – The Jews could look at their history and rejoice that they were God’s chosen people. Generations of Jews could read the Old Testament promises of the Messiah and the salvation he would bring. Now these Jews could rejoice that the Messiah had come, and that his promises had been fulfilled. God had kept his promises to Israel. Evidence suggests that the church in Rome had been founded by Jews and was dominated by Jews for the first two decades.

Gentiles – But some Gentiles had come to believe in Jesus Christ as well. In Rome, something unexpected happened. Comparatively few Jews had responded to the gospel, while many Gentiles did respond and become part of the church.

In 49 A.D., the Roman emperor expelled all Jews from Rome. All at once, every Jewish Christian had to leave the Roman church, and only the Gentiles were left. By the time Paul wrote this letter, many of the Jewish people had probably returned. But they came back to a church that had become a Gentile institution.

You could feel the tensions. Jews saw themselves as God’s holy and chosen people, but now Gentiles had taken over. The Jewish believers had beliefs that came from their Scriptures and from their culture about food and holy days; the way the Gentiles acted violated many of these beliefs. The tension between these two groups simmered and sometimes boiled over.

We read in chapter 14 that both groups were criticizing each other. One group – the Jewish believers – said that the Gentiles were living in a way that made people question if they were really Christians. The other group – the Gentiles – accused the Jewish believers of holding on to silly prejudices. The controversy really came down to three issues:

  • whether or not you could eat anything or whether certain foods are prohibited
  • whether some days are holy or whether every day is alike (like the Sabbath)
  • possibly, over whether or not it is right to drink wine

Bottom line: there was real tension between the Jewish believers, who were trying to keep themselves pure from idolatry, and the Gentile believers, who think that such requirements are ridiculous and a holdover from Judaism.

And so you have:

  • conflict
  • pride – a condescending attitude toward the other group
  • lack of love
  • bad testimony

The easiest thing in the world would have been to split.

These are the same problems that we have today when churches divide over issues.

What Paul Says

Paul never actually deals with who was right and who was wrong, because the real issue wasn’t the issue. The issue wasn’t one of sin or false teaching, which he would have condemned. The issue was more one of pride and lack of love.

First, stop condemning each other (14:1-12). In the first part of chapter 14, Paul does two things. First, he gets the issue out on the table. Then he says: stop judging each other! He gives two reasons. The Romans are all fellow slaves of Christ, and God alone has the right to judge his people.

This is more subtle in our day, but we still have a tendency to do this – to look down on people who are different from us. They like this music; they dress this certain way; they are too in touch and they are too out of touch. Paul says to stop all the judging. If it’s not an issue of blatant sin or false teaching, then stop pointing the finger.

The principle: we must sometimes agree to disagree over some matters. If the matter is not prohibited by Scripture, and is not against sound theological reasoning, then we should not criticize other believers or break fellowship just because we don’t like it.

Second, be loving instead of selfish (14:13-23). Here Paul addresses the group that thought that there was nothing wrong with eating meat. Paul really agrees with them, but he says there is a bigger issue: one of love.

If your brother or sister is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother or sister for whom Christ died…Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.(Romans 14:15, 19)

“Have it your way” – but what about when having it your way really irritates others? Then be loving instead of selfish.

Finally, receive each other to the glory of God (15:1-13). Paul says in Romans 15:7:

Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.

What does this mean? It means that we recognize each other as true brothers and sisters in Christ; to welcome them into our worship services and to give them full place along with other worshipers. It means that we welcome them with our hearts, not grudgingly. It means that we recognize that God has worked in history to create a people composed of both Jews and Gentiles – that God has broken down every division that separates us. As long as we belong to Jesus, we belong together.

This is one of the things that showed people the power of the gospel – that Jews and Gentiles could receive each other. Just like today. The fact that we receive each other despite all these things testifies to the power of the gospel. When we split because of these things, we may as well say that the gospel has no power.

But notice what Paul says: accept one another, just as Christ accepted us. How did Christ accept us? Verse 3 tells us:

For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.”

Jesus didn’t please himself; he lived a life of love and sacrifice. When we were sinners, he accepted us by sheer grace. How can we withhold that grace from others when we have experienced it?

Here’s the bottom line in verses 5-6:

May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is why we want to be a church in which young and old worship together, where all the divisions that bug us are overcome: so that we can testify to the power of the gospel, and so that “with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

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Spiritual Warfare (Ephesians 6:10-20)

by Darryl on June 14, 2009

Throughout the past months, we’ve been looking at the book of Ephesians. Ephesians is one of the profoundest books in Scripture that applies the gospel to all of life. Although there are many themes and topics that Paul writes about, the big two are these:

  • God is redeeming all things and bringing them back to unity under Christ; and
  • The church is God’s new humanity, his pilot project in restoring all things

There are lots of things that you can say, but they really boil down to this: God’s eternal purpose in bringing everything under Christ is unfolding just as he planned, and the church is central to what God is doing.

As we close Ephesians, I think that Paul is anticipating a danger that we all face. Sun Tzu wrote an influential ancient Chinese book on military strategy called The Art of War in which he said:

All warfare is based on deception. Therefore, when capable, feign incapacity; when active, inactivity. When near, make it appear that you are far way; when you are far away, that you are near. Offer the enemy a bait to lure him; feign disorder and strike him. Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance.

All warfare, he says, is based on deception.

What does this have to do with us? According to Paul, everything. Paul writes in verses 10 and 11: “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.”

Paul is saying that we have an enemy who engages in deceit and who has all kinds of other schemes. The word schemes there actually has the idea of deceit.

In essence, Paul is saying that God’s eternal plan in reconciling all things under Christ, beginning with the church, will not go unopposed. And at the end of Ephesians, he says that there are two things we need to do to respond. First, we have to recognize the nature of our battle. Second, we must use God’s resources in the battle.

The first thing we must do, according to Paul, is to recognize the nature of our battle.

Paul writes in verse 12:

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

What does Paul mean here? He’s already given us a hint in verse 11 when he mentioned the taking a stand against the devil’s schemes. What Paul is saying here is that we are in a spiritual battle with God against Satan. We have an enemy who has all kinds of cunning strategies, who will attack us in surprising ways. We will not be able to withstand his attacks on our own. We are in a battle, and we must be prepared.

If you go to the average church, you will not hear a lot about this. We talk about our churches as families or hospitals. In most churches, there is more danger of getting bored than getting wounded. In churches where there is fighting, the fighting is infighting. It’s easy to forget that there really is a battle, and that we are participants in a battle. One of Satan’s schemes is to lull us into complacency so that we forget there is a battle.

It’s scary enough to think about this battle, but it gets worse. The word that Paul uses is struggle. It’s actually a wrestling term. When I think of battles these days, I think of wars with guided missiles and all kinds of technologies. That’s not the type of war Paul talks about. The type of war we’re engaged in is hand-to-hand combat. We are hand to hand with evil, face to face.

And who does Paul say we are struggling with? Not flesh and blood. It’s not that the church does not encounter human opposition, but Paul says that the struggle goes much deeper than that. Paul says that our struggle is with “rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Our enemies are not human, he says, but demonic.

We don’t know as much as we’d like to about what Paul describes here, whether he is referring to different ranks of evil spirits. We John Stott notices that they have three characteristics.

One: they are powerful. They are rulers and authorities, powers and forces of evil. They do have power. When Satan tempted Jesus, claiming that he could give him all the kingdoms of this world, Jesus didn’t argue. Jesus called him “the prince of this world” (John 12:31). We know that Satan was defeated, but he is unwilling to concede defeat, and has not yet been destroyed. So Satan continues to wield power.

Second, they are wicked. Paul says they are the powers of this dark world, forces of evil. Jesus said that Satan is a murderer and a liar from the beginning (John 8:44). Peter writes that he is prowling like a lion, looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8). Stott says:

If we hope to overcome them, we shall need to bear in mind that they have no moral principles, no code of honor, no higher feelings. They recognize no Geneva Convention to restrict or partially civilize the weapons of their warfare. They are utterly unscrupulous, and ruthless in the pursuit of their malicious designs.

Third, they are devious. They rarely attack openly. They try to catch us when we are not expecting it. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 11:14, “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.” Satan and the powers of evil do not always attack us openly. They also like to lull us into complacency or discouragement or error. In The Screwtape Letters, the fictional demon Screwtape writes, “Our policy, for the moment, is to conceal ourselves.” These forces are powerful, wicked, and devious.

This is our battle. Paul has outlined God’s purposes in chapters 1 to 5 of Ephesians, and in chapter 6 he reminds us of the existence of a devil who is opposed to those purposes. In a minute, he’s going to tell us how to respond, but first I need to pause here and ask if you’ve really grasped that we are part of this battle against the cunning and powerful forces of evil.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote:

I am certain that one of the main causes of the ill state of the Church today is the fact that the devil is being forgotten. All is attributed to us; we have all become so psychological in our attitude and thinking. We are ignorant of this great objective fact, the being, the existence of the devil, the adversary, the accuser, and his ‘fiery darts’. And, of course, because we are not aware of this we attribute all temptation to ourselves. So the devil in his wiliness will have succeeded admirably. We become depressed and discouraged, we feel that we are failures, and we do not know what to do…

The first thing that Paul says in this passage is that we are in a spiritual battle, and this is our enemy.

But secondly, he reminds us of the resources that we must use in this battle.

Verses 10 and 11 say, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.” And then verse 14: “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”

If you’re scared by the idea that we are in a spiritual battle, that we’re in hand-to-hand combat with spiritual powers that are powerful, wicked, and devious, then you’re smart. Left to ourselves, we’re both overpowered and outmaneuvered. We don’t stand a chance. But Paul reminds us that we haven’t been left to our own resources. He says, “Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God.”

What we see here is that Paul gives us an image for the whole Christian life as spiritual warfare. And the way to respond is to use the Lord’s resources: the Lord’s strength, the Lord’s power, and the Lord’s armor. God supplies all that we need in this battle, and it’s more than enough.

We could spend weeks unpacking what’s in these few short verses. Martyn-Lloyd Jones took 26 chapters – 736 pages – to unpack the passage that we’re covering this morning. One day I hope to return and cover this passage in more depth, looking at the various pieces of armor that Paul lists for us.

But I want to especially highlight one thing that we sometimes miss when we read this passage. Whose armor is this? Verse 13 tells us that it is the armor of God. I don’t think this simply means that it’s armor that God provides for us. It actually goes much further than that. The prophet Isaiah gives us a fascinating picture of God who is offended by sin. He looks around to see if anyone is able to do anything about it, but there is no one. So here is what God does:

He saw that there was no one,
he was appalled that there was no one to intervene;
so his own arm achieved salvation for him,
and his own righteousness sustained him.
He put on righteousness as his breastplate,
and the helmet of salvation on his head;
he put on the garments of vengeance
and wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak.
(Isaiah 59:16-17)

This is amazing. God himself puts on armor and goes to battle against his enemies. What does this mean? It means that the Jewish people came to understand that God himself would intervene in this world and on behalf of his people. God himself would come and win victory over evil.

And that’s exactly what happened. God himself came in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus gave us images of his victory over Satan. For instance, he said that Satan is like a strong man who has been tied up, and his house is being plundered. He said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18). In other words, Satan is being defeated. His authority and power has been broken.

And at the cross, God struck a fatal blow against the rulers, authorities, and cosmic powers of “this present darkness.” Paul tells us in Colossians that Christ “disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Colossians 2:15). And Jesus now sits at God’s right hand, having struck a fatal blow against Satan and all evil powers.

But – and this is important – Satan is fatally wounded, but he’s not dead yet. His defeat has been accomplished, but he’s in his dying throes. He still continues to send his flaming arrows our way. You may have seen a hockey game with a lopsided score with the clock running out. The losing team has no chance of winning, but there’s bad blood between the two teams. Fights break out in those dying minutes of that game. There’s no way the losing team can win, but they can make it miserable. Satan is like that. He’s been defeated, but he’s still fighting in the dying minutes of the game.

So, Paul says, we must strap on the armor that belongs to God and take our stand based on what God has already done for us in the gospel. We’re to put on:

  • the belt of the truth revealed in the gospel;
  • the breastplate of God’s righteousness – putting on “the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24);
  • the shoes of readiness to tell others about what God has accomplished through the gospel;
  • the shield of faith, which means we latch onto God’s promises in the middle of the battle;
  • the helmet of the salvation we have received from God – to live in light of the fact that God has rescued us from death, wrath, and bondage through his salvation; and
  • the sword of Spirit, which is the word about the gospel that comes to us through the Spirit’s power.

Together, God has given us six pieces of his armor that all come back to the gospel. What he’s given us is enough, and yet we have to take up each piece of armor and stand confidently against all the powers of evil. God’s provided the armor; we just have to use it.

So, Paul is saying, we face a spiritual battle against enemies who are powerful, wicked, and devious. And the only way we can stand against the enemy is to use the Lord’s resources. We can’t rely on ourselves. If we do, we’re dead. Jack Miller wrote:

What we fail to see is that reliance on people, their capabilities, their keeping their promises, is a demonic faith, a cooperation in heart with the powers of darkness. We join the enemy, Satan, when we fail to rely on the promises of God to move on our behalf.

Satan’s strategy is to get us to rely on ourselves or to lose confidence because of his evil power. But Paul says we must stand against Satan because we are relying on God’s power and the gospel. “Satan is no match for my Jesus. No match at all. One word from Jesus and the whole host of hell must flee” (Miller).

Paul closes with an appeal for us to pray. “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people” (Ephesians 6:18). Paul says this is how we are to pray: at all times, with all kinds of prayers, with all perseverance (“always keep on praying”), and for all of God’s people. This is compared to how we normally pray: sometimes, with some prayers, with a little perseverance, and for some of God’s people.

Theologian John Frame writes:

Our only offensive weapons are the Word of God and prayer. This may seem a puny arsenal to the rulers of this world, but God tells us it has more power than any of those rulers. People sometimes say mockingly, “Well, we can always try prayer.” But God’s weapons are more powerful than anything in the mockers’ arsenal. A gun will subdue a man, but only the sword of God’s Word, wielded in prayer, will subdue Satan. (Salvation Belongs to the Lord)

Somebody else said, “The devil trembles when he sees the weakest Christian on his knees.” When we are prayer-less, it shows that we are relying on our own power and have not put on the armor of God. But when we recognize the conflict we’re in, and when we respond by using God’s resources through prayer, then we will be be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.

Lloyd-Jones said, “There is nothing that is more urgently important for all who claim the name of Christian, than to grasp and to understand the teaching of this particular section of Scripture.” There is nothing more important than understanding the nature of the battle, and understanding the resources we have in the Lord to respond.

This is why the two most important things we can do as a church are to continually dwell in what God’s Word tells us about the gospel, and then to rely on the Lord’s power through prayer. Everything else flows out of these two. Without them, nothing else matters.

So friends, be strong in the Lord. Understand what we’re part of: we’re part of what God is doing in uniting all things in Christ. Realize that this will not go opposed. Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.

Let’s pray.

Father, some of us have not realized the type of battle we’re in. We are in a battle that we cannot win if we rely on our own strength. Yet our battle is against a defeated foe, and we cannot lose the battle if we use the resources that you have provided for us.

Forgive us for relying on our own power. I pray that we would not only grasp the resources that you have provided for us through the gospel, but that we would use them as we pray.

May every person here understand what Jesus Christ has done to save us from sin and death, and to reconcile us to God and to each other. May every person here repent and put their hope in Jesus. And may we as a church massage the gospel into all of our lives, and rely on your power. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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The Gospel Applied to Work (Ephesians 6:5-9)

by Darryl on May 31, 2009

We’ve been looking at the book of Ephesians for months now. We’re now in the part of the book in which Paul is applying theology (what has been revealed about God) to how we live – including, as we’re going to see today, to our work lives. This is so important because preachers like me often talk about a lot of things, most of which have to do with how to be a Christian on weeknights and weekends. Today, though, we’re going to see that the gospel applies to our vocations as employees, employers, students, and so on as well.

Now, if you’ve read this passage, you may be thinking, “What does this passage have to do with my work life?” It’s a fair question. It’s troubling, isn’t it, to read about slaves in this passage, especially since this passage doesn’t condemn slavery. But to really understand what’s going on here, we have to see what Paul is talking about, and how subversive this passage really is.

So let’s try to figure out what Paul is talking about here. It’s very difficult to read a passage about slavery because our minds immediately go to the African slave trade from the 17th to 19th centuries. In fact, people have taken this passage and others to justify the slave trade. But the slavery that Paul talks about is very different.

On one hand, this type of slavery was still a bad thing. The slaves Paul talks about here did have limited rights, and they were subject to exploitation and abuse. They were seen as property and weren’t viewed as legal persons. But despite this, it was much better than our more modern form of slavery – which shows how things degraded over the centuries.

The slavery that Paul talks about was much better than American slavery for four reasons:

  • It was non-racial.
  • It was temporary. Slaves could expect to be emancipated by the age of 30. You could save and buy your own freedom. Very few reached old age as a slave. In fact, so many slaves were being freed that Caesar introduced restrictions. It was not the lifelong thing that it became later.
  • It involved different occupations. You could fill almost any role: civil services, medical care, teaching, accounting, business, domestic work, and agriculture.
  • It led to economic advancement. It was often a way of achieving Roman citizenship. It allowed you to obtain a position you couldn’t as a free person, and often enjoy a better standard of living.

If you walked down the street of Ephesus, you could not tell by looking at someone if they were a slave or not. When slaves became free, they often voluntarily chose to keep working for the same person. I don’t want to paint too rosy a picture here, but we do need to recognize that this was nothing like the slavery that developed later. What Paul writes here is much closer to employer-employee relationships than we often think.

Before we look at what Paul says, we need to deal with why Paul didn’t attack or overturn slavery. And it’s here that we see the utter brilliance of what he writes. Paul was writing to a small group of Christians who really had no hope of overturning something like slavery if they wanted to. And he was much more focused on telling them how they were to live tomorrow than he was about the big issues of society in that day. There were up to 60 million slaves in the Roman Empire. About 1 in 3 in Ephesus would have been slaves. Paul was writing to give them help in understanding how the gospel applies to their lives. He was more concerned with that in this letter than in solving the bigger issue, which wasn’t even a remote possibility at that point.

Yet what he wrote was so subversive that it did eventually lead to the elimination of slavery. You see, what Paul did here was put slaves and masters on equal footing. He relativized their position and overturned the common way of thinking. Here and in other places he addresses them as equal before Christ, valued members of the people of God. He says they have a higher allegiance than their own masters, that they didn’t really have to please their masters, but they had to please God. He instructs masters to treat them in a completely countercultural way. He gave them a reciprocal duty to their slaves.

Even though Paul doesn’t address the bigger societal issue of slavery here, what he writes is so subversive that it led to the elimination of slavery. This is why it was eventually Christians who led in overthrowing slavery. Slavery has been a fact of life throughout history in all cultures. It was as Christians absorbed the biblical teaching that they worked to end slavery, which contradicts biblical teaching.

So although this passage isn’t about how to change society, following this passage did in fact change society. And it will continue to do so today as we apply it to a context that, in many ways, is very different.

So how do we apply this to our lives today? We can apply this passage, I think, to our vocations, our work lives. We are not in exactly the same situation as the people Paul wrote to. Our situation is probably better. And we can learn three things from what Paul says. First, how the gospel changes our view of work. Second, how the gospel changes our standards. Finally, how the gospel makes this possible.

First, let’s see what Paul says about how the gospel changes our view of work.

There are actually two very common views toward work, and Paul challenges them both in this passage.

The first view of work is that work is a necessary evil, that we have to work but we should do as little as possible, and if we ever get a chance to escape work and live a life of leisure that we should take it. You see this view in this passage in verse 6, in which Paul says, “Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart.” The picture you have here is of someone who only works when the boss is looking, and who otherwise does as little as possible.

You may know the Greek myth of Pandora, the first woman, in the Greek myth, who ever lived. Zeus ordered that Pandora be created, and gave her a large jar that he told her not to open. But of course, her curiosity got the best of her, and she opened that jar, and out came evil and disease and work. The Greeks believed that work is part of what’s wrong with this world, especially manual labor, and that that we should aim to do as little as possible. This attitude lives on today when we say we live for the weekends, when we complain about having to work, and when we dream of winning the lottery so we can tell the boss – well, you know the rest. You may have thought or said it sometime.

If anyone should have such a negative view of work, it should be the slaves that Paul writes to. If anyone should hold this Greek view of work as a necessary evil, it should be these people. And yet Paul tells them that their work is holy, that their work in some way is doing the will of God. He says that their work – as slaves! – is in some sense service to the Lord, and will be evaluated by him. “Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people,” he says (Ephesians 6:7).

Why does Paul say that work is holy? What Paul is saying here is that your profession, as a teacher, doctor, laborer, student, whatever – is part of your service to the Lord. You can serve God by cleaning or cooking or lawyering as much as any missionary or pastor, Paul says. Your vocation is holy. You can say that you are in the Lord’s service.

And you see, the reason why is because Scripture teaches us something completely different about work. Work isn’t part of the curse. Our work has been affected by the curse, but it isn’t part of the curse itself. Before sin corrupted this world, God gave Adam the responsibility to subdue the earth, have dominion over it, and be fruitful within it. This is part of what it means to bear the image of God.

That is why there is, within each of us, a desire to contribute and create, to order and to add value and meaning to what’s around us. This means our work is part of what it means to bear God’s image in this world. Every time we weed a garden, teach a child, sell a product that will benefit others, or bring order to a set of finances, we are doing our image-bearing work in this world. Your work isn’t a necessary evil. It’s holy and part of your service to the Lord. God has chosen us to care for and cultivate his creation. Martin Luther said, “God milks his cows by those farmers he has assigned to that task.” Our work is part of how God intends to care for and cultivate this world.

But some people go to the opposite extreme and get their meaning and identity from their work. Paul corrects those who devalue work, but he also corrects those of us who get too much meaning from our work and who define ourselves by our careers. The masters that Paul wrote to would have been tempted with feelings of superiority from their status as masters, just like today we get meaning from our place on the totem pole. When you’re above others it’s tempting to see them as your inferiors and to treat them as means to an end.

But Paul says in verse 9: “And masters, treat your slaves in the same way.” This would have been shocking. The reasons why is twofold, in the rest of verse 9: “Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.” Paul tells us two things here, specifically to those of us who tend to overvalue our work:

  • First, no matter who we are or what our status is, we are all fellow-slaves of Jesus Christ. Our identity does not come from our vocation; it comes from the fact that we are servants of Jesus.
  • Second, God is completely impartial, and a higher social status or more prestigious position carries no weight with him. God is not as enamored with our resumes as we are.

This completely changes our view of work. You’ll sometimes hear pastors and missionaries say that they’re in full-time Christian service. That’s true, but if you ever hear a pastor or missionary say this, you need to say, “I am too.” When they ask what it is you do, then you can tell them your career. Whatever you do as a living is your full-time Christian service. Theologian Mike Wittmer says:

If we do our work as unto the Lord, then our work pleases God just as much as if we were preaching a sermon or evangelizing in a Third World nation. Whether we are a lawyer, engineer, entrepeneur, or janitor, we must recognize that our job, too, is a calling from God. (Heaven is a Place on Earth)

Do you see how the gospel changes our view of work? We won’t devalue our work, nor will we make work our idols. We’ll see it as important but not ultimate. We won’t hate work, but we won’t idolize work either. We’ll see our vocations as holy, as another way that we can serve God and others.

It also completely changes the way that we see others. No matter who you are and what job you have, we all tend to look down at those who have lesser jobs. But if we really understand a biblical view of vocation, we won’t be able to do this anymore – nor will we be intimidated by those with better jobs. The gospel changes our view of work.

But that’s not all.

The gospel also changes the standards for our work.

When you’re at school, you get report cards. When you get a job, you get performance reviews: 360 degree reviews and so on. But this passage tells us that our work is ultimately evaluated by God, because he is the one we are working for. Verses 7 and 8 say:

Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, because you know that the Lord will reward each one of you for whatever good you do, whether you are slave or free.

Do you see what this does for a slave? He can look at his master and say, “I may work for you, but I’m not ultimately working for you. My real master is the Lord.” The ultimate performance review for our work will come to all regardless of what job we held, and we’ll all be judged by the same criteria.

What difference does this make? Verse 6 gives us a hint: “Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart.”

When we work for people, then the quality of our work will depend on how much we think of those people. Has anyone here ever worked for a boss or company that wasn’t very good? I have. Our work for them won’t be very good either. When we work for people, we’ll work harder when they’re looking and not as hard when they’re away. But when we work for Christ, we will be working for one who is ultimately worthy of our best work, and who is always watching. That’s why Paul says that we’re to serve with respect and fear, with sincerity of heart, from the heart, wholeheartedly. It’s because we’re ultimately serving God in our work rather than people. You are not mowing lawns or building websites for clients; you are mowing lawns and building websites for God.

If we really worked this way, this alone would cause a lot of people to ask what it is that causes us to live this way. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said:

The Christian should always be the best in every department. I am not suggesting that the Christian is always the most able man of his group. He may not be; there may be others, who are not Christians, who are much abler…[But] the Christian should be ‘all out’, always industrious, always honest, always truthful, always reliable, always helpful, always trustworthy. That is what should always stand out in the Christian. You cannot give him new ability, or new propensities; but a Christian, however unintelligent he may be, can be an honest man, an upright man, a reliable man, a man who keeps good time, a trustworthy man, a truthful man, a man whose word is his bond—always, a man upon whom you can rely. And all this, because he is a Christian.

Paul tells us that the one who will judge us is God. “The Lord will reward each one of you for whatever good you do, whether you are slave or free” (Ephesians 6:8). “The homeliest service that we do in an honest calling,” said one puritan, “though it be to plow, or dig, if done in obedience, and conscience of God’s Commandment, is crowned with an ample reward” (Joseph Hall).

If you’ve been paying attention, I hope you’re a little overwhelmed. We’ve seen that the gospel changes our view of work: that it’s important but not ultimate. We’ve seen that the gospel gives us a new standard for work, and that from Monday to Friday we’re really working for God, and not others. But there’s one more thing that we need to see.

We need to see how the gospel makes this possible.

The only way we will ever be able to do what Paul says here is through the gospel. It’s easy to forget in chapter 6 that Paul is applying the gospel. The only way we will be able to keep the commands of Ephesians 4-6 is if we understand the gospel of Ephesians 1-3. This passage is part of how Paul says we apply the gospel to our lives as we are filled with the Spirit.

In other words, the only way we will be able to work in a way that pleases God is if we see Christ’s perfect work. The only way we’ll be freed from idolizing either our leisure or our performance is if we’re worshiping God through Christ. The Spirit will apply the gospel to our lives so that we will not only be able to live out what Paul describes; we will also want to. We can only live out what Paul says as we apply the gospel through the power of the Spirit to our lives.

What could take a group of slaves and help them see that their work was holy? Because they saw the ultimate servant, Jesus Christ, who “did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). What would allow masters to treat slaves with unparalleled respect, humbling themselves to them and even calling them brother or sister? That they saw Jesus humble himself, to leave the riches of heaven and make himself of no reputation. Jesus is the ultimate servant and the ultimate example of love, and when we grasp what he has done, we will, with the Spirit’s help, see our work transformed through the power of the gospel.

Father, I pray that you would help us have a biblical view of work that sees our vocations as part of our Christian service, as what it means to serve you in this world. I pray that you would free us from devaluing work, and that you would also free us from idolizing our work. Help us to see our work as a way that we serve you.

I pray that you would also change the standards for our work. May we work wholeheartedly and with sincerity of heart, knowing that the Lord will reward each one of us for whatever good we do, no matter what our job.

Most of all, help us see Jesus, who knew what it was to work with his hands, who knew what it was to become a servant, who was willing to serve others even to the point of death. I pray that Jesus’ gospel would become so real to us through the power of the Spirit that it will change the way we see work. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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The Gospel Applied to Parenting (Ephesians 6:1-4)

by Darryl on May 10, 2009

This morning we’re beginning the final chapter of the book of Ephesians, and we’re covering a topic that is very appropriate for Mother’s Day: parenting. As Paul writes his letter, he is applying the gospel to every part of life. We’ve been looking for two weeks at how Paul applies the gospel to marriage, and today we come to how Paul applies the gospel to children, and then to parents. This is a very practical and necessary lesson for all of us – as we’re going to see, even for those of us who don’t have young children anymore.

What in the world does the gospel have to do with parenting? According to Paul, everything. The gospel is what God has done through Jesus Christ at the cross, which is the culmination of history. Paul has explained in the first few chapters how God has reconciled all creation to himself and is creating a new people to himself in the church out of people who were formerly enemies. This is why Ephesians is so relational. In fact, somebody has said that Ephesians is essentially a book about relationships: our relationship with God, and then our relationship within the new humanity he is creating. God is not just reconciling people to himself; he is also creating a new people here and now. Paul says that the way that we relate to each other as the church is a demonstration of his wisdom to angelic beings. When angels want to see how smart God is, they look at the church, at the way that we care for and relate to each other as people who would otherwise have nothing in common with each other.

So the gospel changes our relationships. As we live under the influence of the Spirit, it changes our most intimate relationships – not only in the church, but also in our homes. The best way to transform your marriage, your relationships with your parents or children – any relationship – is to be transformed by the gospel. Understand what Christ has done in making dead people spiritually alive, and it changes everything.

So today isn’t for anyone. You can’t write a parenting book for everyone based on this passage, because it’s really for people who have been transformed by the gospel and are living in the power of the Spirit. But if you have been changed by the gospel, then the gospel is going to change the way that you relate to both your parents and to your kids.

Now, I want to pause here and say that what I want to do is preach what Paul says, not what I think about parenting. A lot of pastors have been humbled in preaching this text. I never knew so much about parenting as before I was a parent. Now that I’ve been a parent for over 14 years, I’m starting to learn what I don’t know. Today I really don’t want to talk to you based on my own experience as a parent, because I am well aware of where I have failed as a parent. I hope that by God’s grace I have also succeeded as a parent in many ways, but let’s not hear me talk about parenting today. Let’s hear from the Lord through the apostle Paul.

I also want to say that this passage is going to be challenging. This is an in-your-face passage. I hope that you will be challenged as we look at this passage, and also encouraged that with the Spirit’s help, you can make the changes necessary in your own life to put this passage into practice.

Let’s look first at how this passage uncovers our sins. Then we’re going to look very briefly at how the gospel shapes the relationship of kids to parents, and parents to kids.

First, let’s start by looking at how this passage uncovers our sins.

Sometimes when people study Ephesians, they think that Paul is reenforcing traditional family values of that day. They think that Paul is just echoing what was common in that day, and that now things have changed so we don’t have to listen to him anymore. But if you look a bit more carefully, you begin to understand that Paul is actually uncovering the sins of parents in that day. And not only this, but he’s uncovering the sins of parents today as well.

What specifically does Paul uncover? In that day, the rights of fathers were staggering. Men in general had a lot of rights, but children could change all of that. They tied you down. They were considered a nuisance. They were expensive, inhibited sexual promiscuity, and made easy divorce a lot harder. As a result, many in that day did not want children. But even if you did have children, the father’s rights would be almost unlimited. A father could sell his children as slaves. He could make them work in the field, even in chains. He could punish them how he liked, and could even inflict the death penalty on them. And this power extended over the life of his children no matter how long they lived. A Roman son never came of age. His father had rights over him as long as the father lived.

When a child was born, the child would be placed before the father. If the father stooped and raised the child, the child was accepted and raised as his. But if he turned away, the child was rejected and literally discarded. Sometimes the baby would be picked up by those who trafficked in infants; and raised to be slaved or to work in brothels. Other times they were left to die. One Roman father wrote to his wife, “If – good luck to you! – you have a child, if it is a boy, let it live; if it is a girl, throw it out.”

And then Paul comes along and, like Jesus, elevates the value of children in an extraordinary way, so that fathers have a sacred responsibility to their children. Paul revolutionizes the relationship between children and parents. You’ll remember that Jesus did the same as well, welcoming them when the disciples tried to turn them away. He warned that it would be better to be drowned with a millstone tied to your neck rather than to cause a child to stumble. He said that we have to become like children ourselves. The gospel completely overturns the culture’s views on children, completely turns them upside down.

I know that you are probably thinking that you’re glad we are more progressive today, that we finally understand the value of children. If that is what you are thinking, you are both right and wrong. In fact, we not only face the danger that Paul corrected in this passage, we face a new one too. As much as we recoil against seeing children as impediments to the lifestyle we desire, and the barbaric treatment of children, this happens today as well. This is why we can’t be smug. We still decide whether or not we’re going to have children based on how well the children will fit into our lives. This is still an issue today, in which children are seen as something that will interfere with our lives. This is still very much an issue today.

But not only do we suffer from this, but we also suffer from the opposite as well. We also end up idolizing our children. It’s strange: we don’t want children until they will fit into our lives, but once we have children, we face the very real danger of centering our lives on them. An idol is a good thing that we make an ultimate thing. It’s anything we look to apart from Jesus in order to be happy. And today we face the very real danger of turning our kids into idols, of looking to them for our ultimate happiness. Not only does this lead us away from loving God above all, but it ultimately crushes our kids. It places a weight on them that they simply can’t bare.

The good news is that Paul not only uncovers these sins, but he gives us hope. Let’s look at what he does.

So let’s look at how the gospel transforms the relationship of children to parents.

Paul says in Ephesians 6:1-2:

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother”–which is the first commandment with a promise– “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”

Here Paul gives us a general principle and an application of this principle. This principle, when we understand it, corrects both traditional and modern views of children and parenting. It’s something that the Ephesians needed to hear at a time when they undervalued children, and it’s something we need to hear today when we both undervalue and overvalue children.

What is the underlying principle? It comes from the fifth of what we call the ten commandments – “Honor your father and mother.” What does honor mean? John Calvin said it really involves three things: reverence, obedience, and gratitude. Reverence means that we respect our parents with our hearts, honoring them appropriately. Honoring them means something even more practical: that we support them in practical ways, even financially. Paul says this in 1 Timothy 5:

But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God…Give the people these instructions, so that no one may be open to blame. Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. (1 Timothy 5:4-8)

This is very strong language – not at all an optional thing. We have a responsibility to care for our parents, even our grandparents, in practical ways, including financially, as well as housing, health care, mental stimulation, and emotional support.

What about “obey”? Paul gives this as an application of the principle that we honor our parents, and it’s going to look different depending on our age. The word Paul uses in verse 1 is usually for little children living at home. When you’re a child, it really does mean obey. But as you grow, the Bible teaches that you do leave your parent’s home and form a home of your own. In Genesis it says that you are to leave father and mother and cleave to your wife. There is a bit of a change in the way you relate to your parents. As an adult, obedience means more an attitude of general submission, faithfully listening to the wisdom that your parents have.

I hope you see how this is a challenge to both traditional and modern views of family. In Paul’s day, the traditional view said that you obey your father because your father has all the rights and you have no choice. Paul says no to this. You obey and willingly submit to your parents because it is right, because it is pleasing to the Lord, and because things generally go well with you when you do. Obedience to God leads to blessing.

It also challenges modern views of family. Today we teach our children that submission to authority is a bad thing, and to challenge others and to think for themselves.

Paul says that both the traditional and modern views are wrong. Children are to honor their parents as part of their duty to the Lord. This means obeying when you’re young, but even when you’re older it means showing respect and appreciation for your parents, as well as looking after them, not only on Mother’s Day but all year long. When we do this, things go well.

The difficult part comes when this is costly, and it can be costly in two specific ways. For some of us it’s costly because our parents may not have been what we had hoped for. Some of our fathers, for instance, were not the fathers we would have liked. Paul says that we are still to find ways to show them respect and honor, not because we agree with them and not because we want to ignore all that they did wrong, but because this is right and pleasing to the Lord.

It’s also costly because it takes time and money. I keep telling my mother not to get old. So far it’s working. But there may come a day when honoring her costs in some very practical ways. I keep telling my kids to get ready for when I’m old. It’s going to be a doozy!

What gives children the desire to honor imperfect parents, to care for them even at great cost? The gospel does. The gospel gives us the ability to forgive the sins of our imperfect parents, because we see how much we have been forgiven. It gives us the selflessness to care for our parents at great cost because we see how much Christ has sacrificed for us. It lifts us out of our selfishness, so that the way we treat our parents becomes a reflection of our love for the Lord.

But Paul’s not done here in this passage.

Let’s look at how the gospel transforms the relationship of parents to children.

Paul says in verse 4: “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”

Parents usually go wrong in one or two ways. Some parents are too strict. Paul addresses this in the first phrase: “Fathers, do not exasperate your children.” It’s significant, but the way, that he mentions fathers here. Don’t let anyone tell you that parenting is a mother’s job! But then Paul corrects a mistake that is common in parenting: that parenting can be so strict that children are exasperated and crushed by the demands. Paul doesn’t want this. He wants an atmosphere of grace in which our kids are allowed to flourish.

The distinguished painter Benjamin West tells the story of one day when his mother went out, leaving him in charge of his younger sister. While she was out, he discovered some ink and decided to paint his sister’s portrait. When his mother came back there was an awful mess. She walked in, said nothing about the ink stains all over. She picked up the paper on which he had drawn the portrait and said, “Why, it’s Sally!” and then she stooped and kissed him. Benjamin West said, “My mother’s kiss made me a painter.”

Paul says, in essence, “Don’t err by being too strict and exasperating your children.” But then he confronts the other way that parents go wrong: by being too lenient. “Bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”

Training is a word that refers to discipline. Some parents err by not being disciplined appropriately. Paul has already said not to be too harsh, but here he says not to go to the other extreme and let your children do whatever they want either.

But Paul doesn’t stop there. He also mentions the instruction of the Lord. What does this mean? A lot of us want our kids to learn about the Lord. That’s why we bring our kids to church and to Sunday school. But Paul here says that the primary responsibility for this belongs in the home. It is ultimately the parent’s job – ultimately, according to Paul, the father’s job – to instruct children in the way of the Lord.

A pastor – formerly a youth pastor – complained that parents would often call him in frustration, wanting him to do something to fix their teenagers. He grew increasingly frustrated, because for years these parents had been teaching them that church and the Lord come somewhere on the list after sports and school and everything else. For years, these parents had been teaching their kids that God is not a high priority. These parents had been instructing their children, but not in the way of the Lord.

Paul says that it’s our job to instruct them in the Lord. This means making the Lord a priority in our schedules, and also in our home lives. This means that your kids will know whether your faith is genuine or not. They’re more likely to be excited about the Lord if you are excited about the Lord.

It also means that we will learn family worship. Most parents today don’t take the time to read the Bible, pray, and worship with their children. In 1647, Christians were so concerned about this that they raised the alarm and said, “If we don’t start worshiping at home, we’re going to lose our kids!” And they were right. So they instructed pastors and elders to begin inquiring about family devotions. If they found out that a father was not leading his children in family worship, they would talk to him privately. If he didn’t respond, they would actually begin church discipline against him.

Were they fanatics? Maybe – or maybe they were just on to something. Maybe they knew that parents are responsible for disciplining children, and instructing them in the Lord, and that failure to do so is catastrophic. We should care about our children’s relationship with the Lord just as much as we care about any other area of their life. It’s more important than almost anything. It’s got to be a priority.

Paul says that the gospel changes families. Maybe today you’ve been challenged as a child – even a grown child – about honoring your parents. Perhaps you’ve been challenged as a parent. You may be too harsh. Or you may be too lenient. You may not be teaching your children about the Lord. You may be neglecting meeting as a family around his Word on a regular basis. Some of you may have to go out of here and repent and make some specific changes.

But this morning I would fail in preaching this text if I did not bring us back to the gospel. The gospel is not that we are worthy and therefore deserve blessing, but that we have sinned and failed and need forgiveness. And better yet: we have received it. The gospel is the good news that before the foundation of this world, God chose his people to be holy and blameless before him. The gospel is the good news that God takes people who are spiritually dead and saves them because of his great love. The gospel is the good news that although we all had imperfect fathers, and many of us are imperfect fathers, that we have a heavenly Father who has made provision for our greatest needs through what Christ has accomplished for us.

Today we move from our inadequacy to the perfection of Jesus, trusting in the power of the gospel to reverse the effects of sin and change us so that we can become who we were meant to be. In invite you to come to the Table this morning and find all that you really need.

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The Gospel Applied to Marriage, Part Two (Ephesians 5:22-33)

by Darryl on May 3, 2009

We are looking at a somewhat controversial topic today. I don’t normally enjoy talking about controversial topics. But that’s one of the beauties of working through sections of God’s Word: you don’t get to pick the topics you cover. We’re addressing this topic because, like Mount Everest, it’s there.

But the truth is: we also need to hear what God’s Word says on the topic of marriage. I am so glad that the Bible is so practical in how it applies to every area of life. We need to hear from God, because marriage is too important and too difficult without his help.

So we’re going to get very practical today. My goal is to say all that this passage says, and to say as little as possible outside of what this passage says, and to be very practical in how we apply this to our marriages today. I think you’re going to find that while we may struggle with what this passage says at first, it is written for our joy. This comes from the God who made us and who knows us, and it brings us in touch with who he made us to be. It will actually be something that frees us rather than something that binds us.

I want to look at three things today: that there is a difference between men and women, how this difference is to work itself out in our marriages, and finally, how we can get there.

But first we have to see that there is a difference.

Paul says in verse 22-24:

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

We read this and say, “What in the world? That may have been fine back then, but why should wives submit today? And how are husbands the head?” It’s very easy to dismiss this out of hand as being outdated and oppressive, and to think that we’re more enlightened now.

But there is an underlying assumption that we need to examine. Paul is teaching here that men and women have overlapping but distinguishable ways of being human. In other words, men and women are equal, but not equivalent. We are both human, but vastly different. And our marriages are transformed as we rediscover the joy of being male and female together in our marriages in a way that completes us and that fulfills us.

Let me back up a little. When God created the world, he created Adam first. It’s fascinating that God evaluated everything that he had made, he saw that it was good. But even before sin entered the world, even when the world was perfect, God looked at the single male he had created and said, “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). Think about this for a minute. The world was perfect, but even in a perfect world, it was not good for male to be without female. And so we read in Genesis 2 that God said, “I will make a helper suitable for him.”

A lot of people have misunderstood what this phrase “a helper suitable for him” means. What it means is that Eve has something that Adam lacks. She has a strength in an area that he lacks, and he needs her. Women were created because men lacked something that only females can provide. Eve is not a clone of Adam, but rather somebody like him but different. And when Adam saw this blend of “same as but different from” he was very happy and breaks into the first poem in the Bible, and therefore the first poem we know of in history:

The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh…”
(Genesis 2:23)

It’s interesting to note that the Bible often talks about humans being made in the image of God. Whenever it does so, it is clear that it refers to both males and females. For instance, Genesis 1:27 says:

So God created human beings in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

What this means is that men and women are made equally in God’s image. It takes men and women together. If we lived in a society with only men or only women, we would not have as full a picture of what God is like than when we see men and women together reflecting the beauty of God’s character.

So we see this beautiful picture of the only perfect marriage that has ever existed before the Fall, and there were differences, and the differences were amazing. The differences were for their joy. We see the differences all over the first few chapters of Genesis, in the order of creation, the naming role of the man. God had Adam name all the creatures, and indeed he named Eve as well, not because God got tired and couldn’t come up with any names, but because he wanted Adam to take some sort of authority in naming. Naming something, even today, implies some kind of authority over what is named. There were no tensions between Adam and Eve. There was no oppression. This was the only perfect marriage that ever existed. But there were differences between them, even somewhat of a leadership role for Adam. And these differences were for their joy.

We read that one of the consequences of sin entering the world is that these differences became sources of tension as well as sources of joy. God said to Eve in Genesis 3:16:

Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.

What this means is that as a result of sin, we no longer enjoy the differences as we were intended to. Men were supposed to exercise loving, humble, and considerate leadership, but are now prone to becoming harsh and emotionally distant. Eve was intended to intelligently and willingly complement Adam and his leadership, but now wants the leadership for herself. Both Adam and Eve fall into sinful patterns. Eve wants to reverse God’s plan and lead Adam; Adam stops lovingly leading and caring for his wife. Their desires were distorted, and we live with the results today.

But I’m so glad we get a picture of what marriage was supposed to be. We were designed to be incomplete as males and females, but together there is completion. We were designed to be different, but complementary. We are equal, but not equivalent. There is an irreversible and wonderful difference between men and women that was supposed to be for our joy, not for our conflict. There really is a difference between us, and before sin distorted us, this difference was all good.

By the way, it’s not just Christians who are noticing that men and women really are different. All kinds of research shows that men and women are both similar and vastly different in how they approach everything. Our brains and how we wire are very different. Whether as young children or in how we clean or as presidents of corporations, we approach everything differently. Even if we do the same thing, there is often a different thinking process that leads us there. Anthropologists have done studies and have found that the same patterns of male and female behaviors are found throughout all cultures and times that can’t be explained merely by socialization. God really has made us as male and female, equal, incomplete without the other, and different.

So let’s look at how Paul applies this.

Here is what I really want us to understand. Paul does not want to take us back to a traditional, patriarchal view of marriage. That’s what so many people think that he’s doing here in this passage, and that makes it easy to write it off as being outdated. But that’s not at all what Paul was doing. What Paul wrote here, and elsewhere, is actually against both traditional and modern forms of marriage. It corrects both our tendencies toward male domination and toward obliterating the differences between us. You don’t find what Paul wrote here anywhere else. It’s because the gospel sets us free both from traditional distortions of marriage as well as modern ones.

No, what Paul wants to take us back to is the only perfect marriage that ever existed. You see this in verse 31, which speaks of that perfect marriage, which is a pattern for all of our marriages today. We now have the power to follow this pattern because of the gospel.

Paul is saying here that our marriages can, because of Christ, start to look like what marriage was meant to be before sin entered the world. Men can start to learn how to lovingly lead without domination; women can start to enjoy – key word, enjoy! – lovingly affirming her husband’s leadership in a way that provides strength where he lacks it. There is no power struggle, no putting down of the other. There is a beautiful coming-together of two people who would be incomplete without the other, and an enjoyment of the differences.

So Paul doesn’t want to take us back to traditional marriages. It’s much better than that. He wants to take us back to who we were supposed to be in the first place. He wants us to enjoy something like the only perfect marriage in history. Not only that, but he wants our marriages to be parables of an even greater marriage that will take place one day: the marriage between Christ and his church.

So let’s get very practical here. The two commands to women are to submit in verse 22 and to respect her husband in verse 33. We have to be clear about what this does not mean. This does not mean to become a doormat or to agree with everything your husband says, or that you stop thinking or do all the cooking and cleaning. All of those are distortions that have nothing to do with what this text says.

The principle that it gets to is this: the gospel allows you to become a wife who overcomes the distortions of sin and willingly rejoices in your husband’s loving leadership in your marriage. You are still equal in every way to your husband. Your way of approaching the world is vastly different from your husband’s, and he needs your ways of thinking. He needs your input. It would not be good for him to be alone! But you will become like Eve before the Fall: different, providing what your husband lacks at his very core; equal; without a power struggle; honoring and affirming your husband’s loving leadership.

Notice that this doesn’t say who will do the dishes. It leaves many of the implications of how this works out in everyday life up to you. But what it does say is that the gospel makes it possible to overcome the sinful effects of the Fall that caused women to start to hate their husband’s loving leadership. It allows women to enjoy the differences.

But it doesn’t end there. Paul spends most of his time talking to men, and this is what he says. Men, love your wives. Don’t be emotionally distant or domineering. Love your wife and care for her so sacrificially that you start to remind people of how Jesus loves the church. Make your marriage a one-flesh partnership so that the two of you really become one, and so that you nourish and care for her as much as you care for yourself.

In other words, the gospel counteracts the effects of sin, which cause men to become domineering and emotionally distant, and women to not want their husbands to lovingly lead. We are different, and the gospel allows these differences to be sources of joy in our marriages rather than sources of tension.

I want to get very practical here about making decisions. Does this mean that the man always gets to make the decisions, and the woman has to follow whatever he says? Absolutely not. Almost every decision can be made together. But there are times when the two of you can’t agree, and to not agree is in itself a decision. Somebody’s got to break the logjam. It’s rare, but it happens.

So here’s how it could work. You want to buy a car, but you can’t agree. You talk about it for ages, but you don’t get anywhere. So eventually the husband says, “I’m sorry, dear, but someone’s got to make the decision. I’m afraid I’ve got to make the call.” He is exercising his loving leadership. And so he makes the decision, and they buy the car that his wife wanted. He leads, but in a radically selfless way that puts her well-being first.

Let me give you a real life example. Wayne Grudem is a theologian who is known for his beliefs that men and women are complementary but different. His views are sometimes controversial. They’re afraid that his views will lead to male domination. Grudem had a prestigious post at a major school in Chicago for twenty years. He was chair of a department.

There was one problem. As a result of a car accident, his wife was in chronic pain. That pain was aggravated by cold and humidity, which mean that Chicago was not the best place to live.

After a couple of trips to Phoenix, he realized that the climate there would be much better for his wife. So he phoned the dean of a smaller seminary there and asked if there might be a job possibility there. It was a much smaller school, a much less prestigious post, but he took it. He says:

I came to Ephesians 5:28 in my regular schedule of daily Bible reading, and the Lord used this verse strongly in my own decision process: “In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.” After reading that, I thought it was important for me to move for the sake of Margaret’s physical body, her physical health.

This highlights a little of what marriage is supposed to be: a coming together of two different and complementary people who need each other, in which both are equal and both contribute. The wife willingly and joyfully respects her husband’s leadership, and the husband uses that leadership to love and sacrifice for his wife.

Paul doesn’t want us to have a traditional marriage, or a modern one. He wants us to have one that resembles the only perfect marriage in history, and one that reflects the upcoming marriage of Christ to his church.

Let me close this morning by asking how we can get there.

I realize we are all in different places this morning. I may have sparked a lot of questions, not least of which is “how do we get there from here?”

I want to close by asking you to do three things.

First, it’s tempting as we read this to wish that our spouse would listen to the part that applies to them. But the reality is that you can’t change your spouse. This passage is written for your benefit. Don’t focus on getting your spouse to obey this passage; focus on you applying this passage. Your spouse may never change, but you, with the help of God, can. I realize that this is incredibly difficult for some of you who are in difficult marriages, but please work on understanding what this passage means for you rather than worrying about how it applies to your spouse.

This doesn’t mean that you won’t have discussions about how this applies to both of you down the road. You may need to talk about this together, or even begin enlist the help of brothers and sisters. You may need marriage counseling. There is no shame in that. But don’t begin by applying it to your spouse. Begin by applying it to yourself.

Secondly, begin to rejoice in the differences. The Bible tells us that some of the things that cause tension in marriage are differences that were originally meant to give us joy. As you begin to think biblically about your marriage, you may begin to see the differences between you as gifts from God. Begin to rejoice in what it means to be men and women, and instead of letting those differences frustrate you, see them as gifts from God. We are incomplete without the other.

In music, two notes that are different from one another can clash. But there are notes that are quite different that, when brought together, create an amazing sound. There are chords and harmonies that we can only enjoy when our differences are sounded together, and these can bring us great joy.

Finally, don’t lose sight of where this comes in Ephesians. Chapters 1 to 3 of this book are about the gospel, what God has accomplished through Christ for us. Chapters 4 to 6 are about how this changes our lives. The type of marriage that Paul describes here is only possible because of the gospel, through the power of the Spirit.

I used to watch shows as a kid that would have this disclaimer: “Don’t try this at home.” This passage should come with a disclaimer: “Don’t try this without the gospel.” This passage is all about God restoring the male-female relationship to what it was supposed to be, which is only possible through the gospel. So experience this gospel. Learn what Christ has done for you. Turn to him and trust in him, and it will change every part of your lives.

My prayer for you is that you will begin to apply this to your lives and marriages; that you will learn to be fully male, fully female, and that you will enjoy the differences. My prayer is that your marriage will begin to overcome all the sinful distortions that entered the world as a result of sin, and that through the gospel it will start to look like the only perfect marriage in history – and even more importantly, like the upcoming marriage between Christ and his church.

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The Gospel Applied to Marriage, Part One (Ephesians 5:22-33)

by Darryl on April 26, 2009

For the months leading up to Easter, we were looking at the unfolding mystery. Jesus, we read, is on every page of Scripture. It all leads to him. We began to see many of the signposts that point to Jesus all throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament. The problem is that we often read Scripture and focus on the individual scenes, while losing track of the main storyline, which means that we lose track of what it’s all about.

We’re back in Ephesians now, where we’ve been since September for the most part. You’d think that we’re back in the New Testament now, so there’s no danger of forgetting the storyline. Jesus is literally on almost every page, so you’d think we would be okay, that we’d apply Jesus to everything. But you’d be wrong. This is especially true when we get to practical topics, like the one we’re looking at today. It’s easy to start handing out practical tips that are helpful, but have nothing to do with Jesus and the gospel. What do those have to do with marriage anyway?

It’s here that the Apostle Paul comes along and says: Jesus has everything to do with your marriage. Jesus is on every page of Scripture. And in today’s passage, Paul says that Christian marriage is all about Jesus. This blows me away. Do you remember how we said that the story of Abraham and Isaac on Mount Moriah is a picture of Christ, just like the Passover and the rock in the desert were pictures of Christ? Paul says here that your marriage is also a picture of Christ. It’s a signpost. Just as all these stories and types point to Jesus, you are called to apply the gospel in such a way that your marriage points to Jesus.

Paul’s not writing to ideal people who have perfect spouses and no stresses. He’s writing to real people in the real world. He’s applying the gospel to how we live our lives. And in the passage before us today, I’d like for us to see three things. First: what Paul says about Jesus. Second: how Paul applies this to marriage. Third: one way that we could miss Paul’s message, and one way that we can get this really right.

So let’s look at this. Let’s begin with what Paul says about Jesus in this passage.

As we begin to look at what Paul says about Jesus, I want to tell you about something that’s changed recently. The penny has dropped in my life so that I now understand something that I’ve never understood as clearly as I have before.

How in the world do we change? The surprising Biblical answer is that we change as we see Jesus and the gospel in new ways and apply that to our lives. Somebody has compared this to a Coke machine. You put the money in, and sometimes nothing comes out. You have to bang the machine a couple of times until the coins drop and the Coke comes out. It’s that way with the gospel. We get it, but we don’t always see the results. So what we have to do is to bang the gospel into ourselves until the coins drop, and we get the results. Our biggest challenge is to get the gospel to drop into our lives.

In other words, the best way for us to change isn’t to focus on the changes; it’s to focus on Jesus. It’s to see and understand and appreciate who Jesus is and what he has done for us. When we have a vision of the loveliness and perfection of Christ, we’ll long to be like him. When we understand that right now he is making intercession for us, and that the gospel changes us so that we have the power to obey, then we’ll be ready to live changed lives.

So notice that when Paul begins to talk about marriage, he turns our focus to Jesus. The reason is that nothing will change our marriages like seeing Jesus and understanding what he’s done for us. You could talk about the needs of men and women, and good communication skills, and all kinds of other good things. And they are good. But Paul knows what’s going to change us. We’re changed as the beauty and value of what Jesus did for us is grasped by our hearts and applied to our marriages.

So Paul gives us a vision in verse 23 of “Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.” If you read that and yawn, you haven’t really understood what Paul is saying here. If you looked at the recipients of Paul’s letter in Ephesus, they wouldn’t have looked like much. To be honest, churches seldom look like much. But Paul says that the church is much more than we normally think. It’s a new humanity, he’s explained. It’s a key part of what God has been up to for all of history: creating a people for himself. The church is part of the new creation that God is creating, experienced in advance. Here, Paul says that the church is actually the body of Christ. We’ve heard that term so often that we miss the significance of it. He’s saying that the church is somehow the physical presence of Jesus Christ himself in this world. And Jesus has authority over the church as its head. He himself is the Savior of the church.

Then you see exactly what Jesus Christ has done for the church in verses 25 to 27:

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.

Paul here is describing the extent of Jesus’ love for the church, and it’s amazing. He loved the church, Paul says. How so? He gave himself up for her. Jesus, who is God and is eternally praised loved the church so much that he came to offer up his life and die out of love for the church. He loved the church so much that he died for it. Hebrews 12:2 puts it this way: “For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame.” Jesus loved the church so much that he willingly suffered through not only the physical agony of the cross, but the agony of bearing our sins and the wrath of God, so that he could make us holy, setting us aside for himself.

You then get the beautiful picture of the results of this. What does it mean, this washing with water and the word? This may be, in part, a reference to baptism, and to hearing the and being changed by the word of the gospel. But it’s probably also a reference to the Jewish custom of a bridal bath. Ezekiel 16 gives a beautiful picture of the Lord entering into a marriage relationship with Israel:

I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign LORD, and you became mine. I bathed you with water and washed the blood from you and put ointments on you. (Ezekiel 16:8-9)

So you have this beautiful picture of Jesus loving the church so much that he dies for it, that he enters into a relationship so intimate and tender that it can only be compared to marriage. And the result is, according to verse 27, that we are going to be presented “to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” The church is blemished and wrinkled right now, but we will be presented to him at his return completely unstained, completely unwrinkled, completely unblemished. We will be dazzling because of what Christ has done for us. I love the way that Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones puts it:

The Beauty-Specialist will have put his final touch to the church, the massaging will have been so perfect that there will not be a single wrinkle left. She will look young, and in the bloom of youth, with color in her cheeks, with her skin perfect, without any spots or wrinkles. And she will remain like that for ever and for ever. The body of her humiliation will have gone, it will have been transformed and transfigured into the body of her glorification.

This is taking some work for the men, but that’s okay. You can work at this picture of being the bride of Christ while the women work on the picture of being sons of God! What Paul is saying is that the church, which looks so blemished and imperfect here, will be completely transformed by what Jesus has done for it, that it will become and remain more stunning than the most beautiful bride you’ve ever seen.

Not only that, but verse 29 says that Christ feeds and nourishes the church in the present. Christ is providing everything needed for the nourishment and growth of his church. He wholeheartedly, tenderly, and completely cares for the church out of his love.

What Paul describes here has two implications for us. The first is that it really changes our view of the church. Don’t ever make the mistake of devaluing the church. We’re not much in ourselves. We sure don’t look like much. But we are much because Christ loves us and is at work within us, transforming us so that we will one day be stunning. We need a much higher view of who the church is, not because of who we are in ourselves, but because of who we are becoming in Jesus Christ.

But this also means that we need to be amazed, stunned, by Jesus and what he has done for us. This is a picture of how much Jesus Christ loves us, and it leaves us amazed and speechless. When we see Jesus and what he has done for us, and when we really get it, then it leaves us speechless, amazed, and worshiping. “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.” When we get this – when we really get it – it will change everything about us.

So that is what this passage tells us about Jesus. Paul goes in an unusual direction with this, because he takes what is true about Jesus and applies it to marriage.

So let’s look at how Paul applies who Jesus is, and what he has done, to marriage.

The big picture is this: that our marriages, if we are his followers, are to become reproductions, in miniature, of Christ and his church. We are called to make our marriages reflections, types, parallels of the kind of relationship and radical love that Christ and the church have for each other. When we apply the gospel to marriage, we become models of the ultimate relationship we could ever have.

Remember that Paul isn’t writing to ideal people with ideal marriages. This is more than just idealism here. Paul is saying that the way to transform our marriages is for us to see Christ clearly, so that he becomes not only the motivation but also the model for how we live in our marriages.

This gives incredible value to women. When Paul wrote this, women were viewed very poorly, just as they are still today in far too many cases. Jewish men at this time used to pray every morning, giving thanks that they had not been born “a Gentile, a slave, or a woman.” Jewish law didn’t see women as persons, but as things. They had no legal rights whatsoever. And it was even worse in the Greek world. Men were not always expected to be even be friends with their wives.

Paul comes along and turns this upside down. He says that marriage is a model of the ultimate human relationship, and that women are to be loved just like Christ loves the church. In fact, Paul spends most of his time here talking to the men about the way they are to love their wives, selflessly, sacrificially. Husbands are to be committed to the total well-being of their wives, especially spiritually, so that she becomes exquisite in her splendor, unsurpassed in her beauty. This is how Christ loves the church.

We’re going to talk about this in a minute, but notice that Paul tells the wives, “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:22). I know you have questions about this. We’re going to get to those in a minute! In light of telling the wives to submit, what do you think Paul is going to say to the husbands? You would expect that Paul would say, “Husbands, exercise authority over your wives. Rule over your wives.” But he doesn’t! Not once. Not even close. Instead, he says, “Husbands, love your wives” (Ephesians 5:25). And then he gives the model: Jesus. Husbands are to love their wives just as much as Jesus loves the church. They are to give themselves to her, and the standard is Jesus. I hope you see how radical this is, how much it speaks to the value of our wives.

We usually choke on verse 22 that speaks of women submitting to their husbands. But notice carefully what it means. The word here does not speak anything of value, because Scripture clearly teaches that both men and women are equally valuable before God. It does not say that women should submit to every man, only their husbands. And it’s given in the middle voice, which means that it is voluntary, not demanded. It’s a free and voluntary choice, not a demand. And it’s not a demeaning thing. It’s so that the marriage relationship can reflect the relationships of Christ to the church, the ultimate relationship that any of us could ever have.

I realize that there’s still all kinds of questions that you may have, and I hope we will get to some of them. But I hope you see what Paul is getting at here. He wants our marriages to be changed, not by trying harder or communicating better, although those are good. He wants us to be changed because we see how Jesus loves us, so that Jesus’ love becomes the model and the motivation for our own marriages.

Let’s look as we close at two ways we can miss what he’s saying, and one way we can get it.

Our real challenge when we read the Bible, especially a passage like this, is to say all that it says without saying any less or more. I have to confess that I’ve fudged on this passage in the past, trying to soften what it says, especially because parts of it are hard to hear in our culture and our day. We miss out on what this passage says when we say less by softening it too much, or when we say more by saying things that aren’t really here. I imagine I’m not alone this morning. There are some of us who want to take scissors and cut parts of this out. There are others of us who want to add parts that we think Paul missed that would give what’s written here even more bite.

The real question for us this morning if we are going to have marriages that reflect this amazing relationship that Christ has with the church is this: will we listen to what God says through Scripture, even if it contradicts what we want him to say? Think of it this way: if God is God, wouldn’t you expect him to contradict you at points? If God agrees with you on every point, then he’s really not the true God. You’ve made him in your own image. Will you hear God speak, even when what he says is not what you’d like him to say?

There are parts of Scripture that don’t say what we like them to say. They’re out of step with the times. But here’s what I know about the times: the things we’re saying now are going to be embarrassing to your grandchildren one day. When we set up our times as the arbiter of truth, as the ultimate standard of truth, then we’re setting something up that is going to be an embarrassment in fifty years. It’s far better to allow God to speak, rather than to set ourselves up as the authority. What God says is above the currents and fashions that change. So please come prepared to hear what God says, even if it’s challenging at times. If it’s challenging, that’s a sign that maybe it is God who is speaking.

We’re going to return next week to the practical implications of this passage for our marriages. But let me close this morning with one way that we can really get this: think about Jesus. Begin to think of all that he has done to save us. Think about the extent of his love, that he willingly offered up his life for you. Think of what you are becoming, what the church is becoming. He is changing us. C.S. Lewis said that “the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.” Think and meditate on the gospel and the extraordinary love of Jesus Christ, and it will begin to change you. And the more we’ll want our own marriages to be models of that relationship, the ultimate human relationship we could ever have. The best way to improve your marriage is to become gripped with the love of Jesus Christ for the church.

Father, I pray today that you would help us see Jesus. Help us to see the extent of his love. May we truly grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge.

And I pray that this love would begin to shape our marriages, as we become models of the relationship that Christ has with his church. May Christ’s love begin to transform our marriages even as we think about it right now. And please help us as we come back next week and look at some practical applications of this in our lives. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

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The Road to Recognition (Luke 24:13-35)

by Darryl on April 12, 2009

There are lots of reasons that people struggle with Christianity. I talk to lots of people who have all kinds of objections. How could a loving God send people to hell? If God is good and powerful, why is there so much evil in the world? Doesn’t science disprove Christianity? How can Christianity claim to be universal truth? And why are Christians such hypocrites?

These are important questions, and they need to be answered. But although they are important, they are not the most important question about Christianity. The main question we have to answer is: Did Jesus really rise from the dead? If he did, then that’s enough to change our worlds and sideline all the secondary issues. If Jesus rose from the dead, then we have to accept all that he said. But if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, then who cares about any of the other issues about Christianity? The issue upon which everything hangs is whether or not Jesus rose from the dead. If he did, it changes everything. If he didn’t, then you don’t have to worry about the rest. We can live our lives however we want without worrying what the Bible says.

So today, we really have to pay attention to what the Bible says happened that first Easter Sunday. The resurrection is the ultimate vindication of who Jesus is and everything that he said. The resurrection, if true, means that there is a God, and that he as acted in history. It means that we no longer have to be afraid of anything. If Jesus did rise from the dead, it changes everything. So a lot rides on what really happened.

But we have to be honest. It’s not so easy to believe in a resurrection. And it’s exactly here that today’s passage is going to help us. What this passage tells us is that it wasn’t so easy to believe in a resurrection then either. In fact, some of us are going to really relate to the two people that we encounter in this passage.

So what I want to look at this morning is simply three things: first, at our doubts about the resurrection; secondly, at how these doubts can be resolved; and finally, the difference that it makes.

Let’s first look at our doubts about the resurrection.

We sometimes have the crazy view that we are modern, scientific people, and therefore we are a lot more levelheaded than anyone else who’s lived before us. C.S. Lewis called this chronological snobbery: the belief that the thinking of an earlier time is inherently inferior when compared to that of the present. But one of the things I love about Scripture is that there is every bit as much skepticism about the resurrection as there is today. It isn’t just modern, scientific people who struggle with the idea of resurrections. The people in Scripture struggled every bit as much as we do today. They had the same doubts about the resurrection that we do.

There were dozens of accounts of what are called post-resurrection appearances of Jesus Christ. But out of all the ones that Luke could have chosen to describe, Luke chooses three. And what all three have in common is disbelief. They know something has happened, but they are having a hard time making all the pieces fit. And they are certainly not ready to just believe that Jesus has risen from the dead. It’s as hard for them to accept as it is for the most skeptical person here this morning. And these are his followers, his disciples!

So in verse 14 we meet two of his disciples. We learn later, in verse 18, that one of them is named Cleopas. We have no idea who the other person is, although some guess that it could have been his wife. If you’re the skeptical type, you’ve got to pause here and ask why Luke mentions the name Cleopas. There’s no real need for him to be named. There’s an answer that really helps me. This was a rare name, and it’s so rare that Luke is essentially giving us a footnote, so that the original readers can check the original source and verify the story. If you lived in Luke’s day, and you wanted to, you could look up Cleopas yourself and verify that what Luke wrote was true.

So we get to verses 13 and 14, and we see that these two are walking to a place called Emmaus, and while they’re traveling they’re discussing all that happened in Jerusalem that Passover weekend. We learn what they were discussing in verses 20 to 24: about the crucifixion of Jesus; how their hopes had been shattered; how they had heard of the empty tomb, but were having a hard time coming up with a logical explanation for it. Again, we have to stop and recognize that this was big news. They said in verse 18 to this stranger who walks with them: “Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?” This was not something that a small group of people knew about. The crucifixion and even the empty tomb were big news, so much so that some 25 years later, the apostle Paul could stand before King Agrippa, the ruler over the temple in Jerusalem, and say, “The king is familiar with these things, and I can speak freely to him. I am convinced that none of this has escaped his notice, because it was not done in a corner” (Acts 26:26). Agrippa didn’t deny that he knew. He actually made an attempt at a joke to try to change the subject. And this was 25 years later. People knew the basic facts; the challenge was how to make sense of them.

So as you read about these two disciples who were on their way to Emmaus, you see that they’re trying to make sense of things too. They were shattered. Even though they had heard about the empty tomb, they couldn’t explain it. Don’t miss the fact that they’re leaving Jerusalem; they’re not sticking around with any sort of hope that something world-changing has happened. They’re going home. Verse 15 says that they’re talking and discussing. There’s a bit of a debate going on. They’re trying to make sense of everything that’s happened.

I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed before, but when this stranger appears and asks them what they’re talking about, verse 17 says, “They stood still, their faces downcast.” They’re not having a discussion like we have about how Cito is doing as manager, or what the Leafs need to do to rebuild. This is something that’s really hit them. They had hopes for this Jesus, and their hopes had been crushed. And even though they had heard about the empty tomb, they weren’t ready to believe that this could mean Jesus was alive again. They had doubts. They couldn’t make sense of it all.

I think it’s significant that Luke chose three stories about the resurrection, and all of them are about doubt. The Bible is not sentimental at all. It’s not telling us some fairy tale that we’re expected to just swallow, or some story that is not literally true but that warms our hearts. What it’s saying is that it is hard to believe that the resurrection of Jesus Christ actually happened. If you find it hard to swallow, you’re in pretty good company. So did everyone else who heard the news that Easter morning.

But something happened to change their doubts. So let’s look at that. We’ve seen their doubts.

Now secondly, let’s look at how these doubts were resolved.

Now everybody is different, and the fact that we have three stories here means that there is going to be more than one way to respond. It means that our stories are going to be different. But out of the three accounts, this one just may be the most meaningful to us today. What happened in the other two accounts will never happen to us. We’ll never stand by the empty tomb and see angels. We’ll never see the resurrected Jesus suddenly appear in a room with us like the disciples did. But what happened to these two followers can, in some sense, happen to us today.

So what happened that moved them from disillusionment and doubt to belief? Jesus appeared to them on the road, even though they didn’t recognize him. That’s the part that won’t happen to us today. But two things happened with these disciples that moved them from disillusionment to belief and joy, and these same two things can and do happen today. In fact, it’s my prayer that they will happen this morning.

First, they came to a new understanding of Scripture. You know, these two disciples had the same problem that we do. They read the Bible, and they had formed certain beliefs about the Messiah. Jesus had fit their beliefs until he died. Their problem is that they had read selectively, but they had never understood fully who the Messiah was going to be and what he was going to do. They didn’t have a category for a suffering Messiah. This is why Jesus said to them in verses 25 and 26, “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?”

Aren’t you glad that we’re better than they were? Actually, we’re not. One of our problems is that most of us have read the Scriptures, and we’ve found the parts that we like about Jesus, but then we leave out the rest. We have this tendency to domesticate Jesus, and the problem is that Jesus doesn’t fit the boxes that we try to fit him into.

So Jesus does something that helps these two, and it can help us as well. Verse 27 says, “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” Jesus helped them see that the whole Bible, from start to finish, is about him. The storyline of all of Scripture – indeed, all of history – converge in Jesus Christ. Every page of the Bible is about him – not just the explicit prophecies, but much more. The historical patterns, the promises, symbols, blessings and curses, the pictures of salvation, the shadows and types, the ceremonies – all of them point to Jesus. He’s on every page of every Scripture.

So Jesus that day may have covered some of what we’ve been covering. He may have talked about Abraham, who led his son up Mount Moriah to die, just as God led his one and only Son up the same mountain. He may have talked about the Passover, and how that pointed forward to himself as the true Passover Lamb. He may have talked about the rock that was hit in judgment by Moses in the desert as a picture of what happened when Jesus was struck in judgment on behalf of his people on the cross. He may have talked about the serpent being lifted up in the wilderness, and about David’s victory over Goliath as a signpost pointing to Jesus’ victory as our representative over death and sin. Every page – the ceremonies, the stories, the psalms, the prophecies – point to him.

When these two looked back on what Jesus taught them about Scripture, they said in verse 32, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” Something happened within them as they began to see Jesus on every page of Scripture. The same thing happens today. When we stop seeing Scripture as a set of unrelated stories, or a set of fables and examples almost like Aesop’s Fables, and when we start to see Scripture as about Jesus Christ, something begins to happen within us. Our hearts begin to burn. We begin to see Jesus not in the little box we’ve created for him, but as the climax of all of Scripture, the resolution of every storyline, and the revelation of all of Scripture.

Something else happened to turn them from doubt to belief and joy. Verses 30 and 31 say, “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.” We don’t know what exactly happened when Jesus broke the bread – more on that in a minute – but somehow, something changed. All of a sudden they saw things they hadn’t seen before. In verse 16 it says that they were kept from recognizing him, but all of that changed now. Their eyes were opened.

You may say, “That’s not very useful to me. That’s something they had no control over. It happened to them.” And you’d be both wrong and right. I’ve been reading a short biography of Jonathan Edwards, a brilliant theologian and philosopher who lived in the 1700s. He lived during a new era of scientific progress in which people were leaving Christianity behind. He wrestled with it. He wanted to believe, but he couldn’t seem to overcome his doubts. But one day he found that the certainty and clarity that he had been searching for was there. One day God gave him the spiritual eyesight, just like he gave these two disciples, and it changed everything.

If you are wrestling and seeking, then this is evidence that God is already at work. He’s already opening your eyes. You may feel like you’re all alone, but like these two disciples, you may not realize until later that Jesus has met you on the road of doubt, and he’s already walking with you. If you seek, you will find. God has to give you the gift of spiritual eyesight, but he meets us, and he gives it to those who search for it.

Well, we’ve seen the doubt, and we can relate to it. We’ve seen what changed them: that they began to see that all of Scripture points to Christ, and that they were given spiritual eyesight to see what they couldn’t see before, just like God gave spiritual eyesight to Jonathan Edwards and to all those who seek him.

As we close, I want to look at the results.

As we close, I want to look at the difference it makes when we move from doubt to belief about Jesus, and about the resurrection.

At the surface level, it’s clear that this made a huge difference. We read in verses 33 and 34 that they had certainty, so much so that even though they had settled for the night, they got up right away and made the round trip to Jerusalem.

But there’s something else that happened that’s a little below the surface. Do you remember when their eyes were opened? Verse 35 says, “Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.” Why did they recognize him in the breaking of the bread?

There are three times that Jesus broke bread in the book of Luke: one when he fed the five thousand; one when he broke the Passover bread for what we now call The Lord’s Supper; and here. Scholars who have studied Luke have identified a major theme that develops in the book of Luke: that of a Messianic banquet. In Isaiah 25, the prophet had said:

On this mountain the LORD Almighty will prepare
a feast of rich food for all peoples,
a banquet of aged wine–
the best of meats and the finest of wines….
On this mountain he will destroy
the shroud that enfolds all peoples,
the sheet that covers all nations;
he will swallow up death forever.
The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears
from all faces;
he will remove his people’s disgrace
from all the earth.
The LORD has spoken.
In that day they will say,
“Surely this is our God;
we trusted in him, and he saved us.
This is the LORD, we trusted in him;
let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”
(Isaiah 25:6-9)

Luke keeps pointing us to this Messianic banquet, in which God defeats sin and death, saves his people, and feeds us with the best food and wine. And when Luke says that they recognized Jesus as he broke the bread, I think he’s pointing us to this theme again. He’s saying that these two doubters became guests at the Messianic banquet that God has prepared for us, in which God triumphs, evil is defeated, and the world is set right.

We’re coming this morning to our own foretaste of the Messianic banquet. The food we’re about to eat is a pointer to that day when we say, “Surely this is our God;

we trusted in him, and he saved us.” God still welcomes people who’ve been on the road of disillusionment and doubt to meet him at this table and feast with him.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you that Jesus met these two doubters in the middle of their doubt. I thank you that before they even knew it, Jesus was with them, teaching them and us that all of Scripture is about him. I thank you that you opened their eyes.

I pray today that you would open our eyes. I pray that we would see all the story-lines and symbols of Scripture converge in Christ. I pray that you would allow us to see the risen Christ as someone who changes everything. And as a result, I pray that you would allow us the privilege of feasting at your table with you this morning, and fill us with hope that we will dine at the coming banquet you’re preparing for us. Grant us this I pray, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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The Bronze Serpent (Numbers 21:4-9)

by Darryl on April 10, 2009

When you go to a doctor, or when you go to a pharmacist, you will probably see a symbol with one or two snakes wrapped around a staff or a rod. One of these symbols is called the Rod of Asclepius. It’s used by the Canadian Medical Association, the World Health Organization, and countless others.

Where did this strange symbol come from, and how did it ever get to be associated with medicine, with healing? There are a few theories, but you’ll notice that the account we just read includes a snake, a staff, and healing. There are some who think that the medical symbol we used today has its origins in the account that we just read.

But this raises even more questions. What in the world is this passage about? It’s incredibly strange. At first glance it looks like some primitive magic from ancient times. It also looks at first glance like there’s a drastic overreaction to a pretty common problem. There are many passages in Scripture that are hard to understand. This one’s easy to understand, but it leaves us scratching our heads.

But as we look at it again, we’re going to see that this passage tells us three things that we need to know. First, what’s wrong with us. Second, where things start to turn. And finally, how we are healed of what’s wrong with us.

So first let’s look at what’s wrong with us.

If you’ve read the books of the Bible that recount the wanderings of Israel on the way to the Promised Land, you know that it wasn’t smooth sailing. They kept grumbling and complaining the whole way through. But when we get to Numbers 21, we’ve reached a turning point. Right before the passage we just read, Israel defeats a Canaanite king. This is the first victory over the Canaanites, and many more are going to follow. It really looks like things are finally turning around for them.

But some things don’t change. In verse 5, we encounter a problem that stayed with the people of Israel, and that if we’re honest it stays with us today. Verses 4 and 5 say:

But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!”

Now what’s going on here? When Israel wandered through the dessert, there obviously wasn’t a lot of food. But we read earlier that God miraculously provided for them. Every day he gave them what they called manna, which was a fine, flake-like frost. It was like a coriander seed, white, and it tasted like a wafer made with honey. They ground into a meal, boiled it in pots, and made it into cakes.

When you think about it, it’s amazing and miraculous that God provided so well for such a great multitude in the middle of the dessert. But here we read that the people are impatient. And if you notice, they don’t really complain that they’re hungry or that they lack food. What they do say is that they “detest this miserable food.” The manna that God provided for them, they begin to see as worthless, good for nothing, and miserable.

Now, that doesn’t look like much, but that’s probably because we suffer from the same problem that they had. It’s a problem that really doesn’t look too serious, but as we’re going to see in a moment, it’s fatal, and there are very few cures.

What is the problem? Do you notice when this sense of dissatisfaction hit? It hit right after a victory. Israel had just achieved a great success, and right after they’re complaining. They’re empty.

The New York Times ran an article of some successful people. One of them, Diane Knorr, a former dot-com executive, said, “The first time I got a call way after hours from a senior manager, I remember being really flattered.” She thought, “Wow! I’m really getting up there now.” But eventually her work and family life became a blur with hours that were hard to scale back. Back in college, she had set the goal of making a six-figure salary by the time she was 49. She had reached her goal at age 35, years ahead of schedule, and yet she said, “Nothing happened; no balloons dropped. That’s when I really became aware of that hollow feeling.”

Do you know the problem with us? Inside of us, there is this hunger, this longing. And we think, “If I just get this” – a marriage, a job, children, an achievement, this house, this car, recognition – “If I just get this, then I’ll be satisfied.” But it never happens. We reach our goals, we achieve success, but we’re still left wanting more.

Brad Pitt starred in Fight Club, which is about a man who has the American dream and yet remains unsatisfied. Rolling Stone interviewed him. Listen to what Pitt said:

Man, I know all these things are supposed to seem important to us–the car, the condo, our version of success–but if that’s the case, why is the general feeling out there reflecting more impotence and isolation and desperation and loneliness? If you ask me, I say toss all this–we gotta find something else. Because all I know is that at this point in time, we are heading for a dead end, a numbing of the soul, a complete atrophy of the spiritual being. And I don’t want that.

Rolling Stone asked him what we should do to avoid this dead end of dissatisfaction despite all that we have, and he said:

Hey, man, I don’t have those answers yet. The emphasis now is on success and personal gain. I’m sitting in it, and I’m telling you, that’s not it. I’m the guy who’s got everything. I know. But I’m telling you, once you’ve got everything, then you’re just left with yourself. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it doesn’t help you sleep any better, and you don’t wake up any better because of it.

This isn’t a new problem. It goes as far back as Genesis 3. Adam and Eve were in paradise. Everything was good. They could enjoy everything – everything! – except for one tree that God placed off limits. And even though they were in paradise, it wasn’t good enough for them because they wanted more. They wanted what they couldn’t have. They got it, too, but instead of leading to satisfaction, it led to disaster and disintegration, and the world has never been the same since.

In fact, the apostle Paul says that this dynamic is at the heart of what we call sin. In Romans 1:21 he says, “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” Sin is essentially looking to other things besides God for meaning and satisfaction, thereby rejecting God and refusing to give thanks to him. And the results, as we’re going to see it, are disastrous. One author put it this way:

It is the desire for God which is the most fundamental appetite of all, and it is an appetite we can never eliminate. We may seek to disown it, but it will not go away. If we deny that it is there, we shall in fact only divert it to some other object or range of objects. And that will mean that we invest some creature or creatures with the full burden of our need for God, a burden which no creature can carry. (Simon Tugwell)

And this leads, ultimately, to not only a rejection of God, but to enslavement and deep dissatisfaction. You see this in what happened in response to this problem in the passage.

Some have wondered why God responded so severely to this problem. We read in verse 6: “Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died.” The word venomous literally means fiery. The snakes would bite, and the result was this burning inflammation. This would probably lead to other symptoms – paralysis, blindness, thirst – and ultimately to death. Why so severe? Tim Keller has pointed out that the physical symptoms here are merely a mirror for the spiritual symptoms. When we’re bitten by this dissatisfaction of the heart, a dissatisfaction that is ultimately a rejection of God, a very similar thing happens within our souls, and the ultimate result is death. We think it’s not a big deal, but our spiritual condition is just as fatal as these snakes.

So what do we do, then? We’ve seen our condition, and how serious it is.

Let’s now look at where things begin to turn.

We read in verse 7:

The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.

You see what’s happened here? One minute they’re complaining. The next moment, they’ve realized what they’ve done wrong. There’s no blame-shifting going on here. There are no excuses. What there is is a simple confession of sin, a recognition of what’s gone wrong.

The biblical word for this is repentance. One of my favorite authors, Jack Miller, says that repentance is a form of sanity. He says that “Repentance is a return to God as my center…What a simple thing it is to humble the heart and return to sanity by repentance and praise.”

We know that repentance itself is a gift of God. It may be that God is giving some of you this gift this morning. Most of us are scared to death of repentance. We have this picture of a traumatic experience, or some dramatic experience. Repentance is something we think we’re going to hate. But repentance is actually just a return to sanity, a recognition that we’ve put other things at the center of our lives that just don’t belong there, and that can kill us. Repentance is coming to our senses and returning to God as our centers, which leads us to the cure for our disease.

That’s the last thing I want to look at this morning: the cure for what’s wrong with us, or how we can be healed.

Verses 8 and 9 say:

The LORD said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.

This is the last thing you’d expect. Shouldn’t there be some medicine, some treatment? When you’re being bitten by venomous snakes, the last thing that you want is to look at a bronze version of that snake. And you certainly wouldn’t expect that this would save you! You would at least expect a list of things to do in order to get better. But here you have the simple cure: that anyone who is bitten and about to die can simply look to this bronze snake, and they live.

The poet and composer Michael Card wrote a song about this passage, and he got it right when he said, “the symbol of their suffering was now the focus of their faith, and with a faithful glance the healing power would flow.” What does this mean? It’s a paradox! They’re saved by looking at the very embodiment of what had bitten them.

And that’s exactly how we are saved as well. In one of the most famous passages of Scripture, Jesus explained to Nicodemus and to us what why he came to the world. And, amazingly, Jesus talked about this snake. Listen to what he said: “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him” (John 3:14-15).

Do you see what Jesus was saying here? Three times in the book of John, this phrase “lifted up” appears. John tells us later in chapter 12 that this “lifting up” image was given to show us “the kind of death he was going to die” (John 12:33). In other words, Jesus was saying that he was like this bronze serpent. That’s shocking! He was going to be lifted up and placed on the cross at Calvary, and that everyone who believes and simply looks will be saved.

On the cross, Jesus became the very embodiment of what was killing us. He became the curse; he became the embodiment of our sin; he absorbed the venom. And Jesus became the source of our healing, so that all who look upon him live. When we look at the cross in faith, our sin and God’s wrath are taken away, and we live. We are healed by looking at what has been lifted up on the tree. We are healed by looking to Jesus. All we have to do is to look.

In 1850, Charles Spurgeon was a young 15-year-old boy. One morning he was walking to church in a snowstorm. The snow was so bad that he never made it to his destination. He turned into a little Primitive Methodist chapel. Only a dozen or fifteen people were there.

The minister never showed up at that church; he probably was snowed in. A thin man who was a shoemaker or a tailor, but not a preacher, was called upon to preach. Spurgeon describes what happened:

He was obliged to stick to his text, for the simple reason that he had little else to say. The text was “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth [Isaiah 45:22].”

He did not even pronounce the words rightly, but that did not matter. There was, I thought, a glimpse of hope for me in that text. The preacher began thus: “My dear friends, this is a very simple text indeed. It says, ‘Look.’ Now lookin’ don’t take a deal of pain. It ain’t liftin’ your foot or your finger; it is just, ‘Look.’ Well, a man needn’t go to college to learn to look. You may be the biggest fool, and yet you can look. A man needn’t be worth a thousand [pounds] a year to be able to look. Anyone can look; even a child can look.

“But then the text says, ‘Look unto Me’. . . . Many of ye are lookin’ to yourselves, but it’s no use lookin’ there. Ye will never find any comfort in yourselves. Some look to God the father. No, look to him by-and-by. Jesus Christ says, ‘Look unto Me.’ Some of ye say, ‘We must wait for the Spirit’s workin’.’ You have no business with that just now. Look to Christ. The text says, ‘Look unto Me.’”

At some point in the sermon, with only a small congregation present, the preacher noticed the young Spurgeon there. Spurgeon said:

Then he looked at me under the gallery, and I dare say, with so few present he knew me to be a stranger. Just fixing his eyes on me, as if he knew all my heart he said, “Young man, you look very miserable.” Well, I did, but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made from the pulpit on my personal appearance before. However, it was a good blow, struck right home. He continued, “and you always will be miserable–miserable in life, and miserable in death–if you don’t obey my text; but if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved.”

Then lifting up his hands, he shouted, as only a primitive Methodists could do, “Young man, look to Jesus Christ. Look! Look! Look! You have nothing to do but to look and live.” I saw at once the way of salvation. I know not what else he said–I did not take much notice of it–I was so possessed with that one thought. Like as when the brazen serpent was lifted up, the people only looked and were healed, so it was with me.

I had been waiting to do fifty things, but when I heard that word, “Look!” What a charming word it seemed to me! Oh! I looked until I could have almost looked my eyes away.

There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun; and I could have risen that instant, and sung with the most enthusiastic of them, of the precious blood of Christ, and the simple faith which looks alone to him…

And Spurgeon’s life was forever changed. Let’s pray.

We’ve seen this morning what’s wrong with us. We’ve seen that it’s far more serious than we expected. But we’ve also seen that things begin to turn as we come to our senses and repent.

And we’ve seen that we are healed as we look to the cross and believe. We have nothing to do but to look and live.

I pray, Father, that we would look to the cross, that we would see what Jesus has done for us in absorbing the venom, and that we would live. Because whenever anyone is bitten and looks at what was lifted up, they live.

May everyone here look to the cross today, and live. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

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The Greater David (1 Samuel 17)

by Darryl on April 5, 2009

We’ve just read about one of the most well-known and inspiring events in all of Scripture. Even if you’ve never been to church before, chances are that you’ve heard the story of David and Goliath. It’s a story of fear and courage, of the triumph of the underdog. I did a quick search in Google News this week and found dozens of articles that mention David and Goliath in relationship to sports teams, even about Facebook and Microsoft (the Goliaths) fearing young, upstart companies.

You have to admit that it’s a bit strange talking about David and Goliath on Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday marks the day that Jesus entered Jerusalem on the Sunday before he was killed, and was welcomed as the king who came to save his people. But as we’re going to see today, it’s not that unusual a passage after all.

If you’ve ever been to the eye doctor, they’ve do all kinds of things to you to test your eyesight. And then, near the end, they put this contraption in front of your eyes with different lenses. They make you look through the lenses and they ask you, “Is this one clearer, or this one?” I’m always scared of giving the wrong answer! The result, though, is that they end up finding the lens that allows you to see the chart on the wall most clearly. You may have been living with the wrong prescription for years without even knowing it, and it’s only when you see through a better lens that you realize what you’ve been missing all along.

I’m going to suggest that many of us need a new lens through which we can see the account of David’s defeat of Goliath. The lens we have right now is okay, but we may not be seeing what we’re supposed to be seeing as clearly as we should. So today I’d like to flip some lenses before you and and ask, “Is this clearer, or this one?” And I want to begin with the normal lens through which we normally view this story.

Our Normal Lens: Facing the Giants

You may have seen a movie a couple of years ago called Facing the Giants. The movie is about a football coach and team that has to stare down the giants of fear and failure. He challenges his players to believe God for the impossible on and off the field. It’s a modern day story of facing obstacles that are much bigger than ourselves, and digging down deep to overcome them even though the odds are stacked against us.

This is the lens that I think most of us use when we read the account of David and Goliath. We begin chapter 17 with the Philistines and Israel nose to nose and ready for battle, each on a mountain looking at the other side, and with a valley in the middle. Then you have this fearsome man coming out repeatedly. When I say fearsome, I’m not kidding. His height is reported as 9 feet, 9 inches. Some later versions have been found which say that he was only 6 feet, 9 inches – still tall! This may have been an attempt to tone down the height. This guy is huge!

And not only that, he has other advantages as well. They had a huge advantage in military technology. You read in verses 5 to 7 that he has all of this equipment on: a bronze helmet, a coat of mail, armor on his legs, and a javelin of bronze. The coat of mail alone weighs 125 pounds. The shaft of his spear is compared to “a weaver’s rod.” Some scholars think that this is because the technology in the spear was so new that the Israelites didn’t even have a word for it yet. They had to compare it to something they already new. This was the beginning of the iron age, and the Philistines had an advantage not only in the size of Goliath, but in their military technology as well.

So you can understand why the people of Israel were terrified. Verse 16 tells us that Goliath came out every day, twice a day, for forty days and took his stand, taunting the nation of Israel. And everyone was terrified, including Saul. We read in verse 11 that they were “dismayed and terrified.”

And then David comes along. David is not even supposed to be there. He’s not even in the army. When his brother sees him, he completely dismisses David and why he’s there. But David, the most unlikely of people, refuses to wear Saul’s armor. He refuses to accept that someone is defaming God’s name. Instead, he responds to Goliath’s taunt by promising to defeat Goliath. As he goes out to battle, he cries out: “The whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD’s, and he will give all of you into our hands” (1 Samuel 17:46-47). And then David kills Goliath with a sling and a stone.

It’s hard not to be moved by what happened. And it’s not hard to look through this lens and make application to our lives. This is the normal Sunday school application of this story. You are going to face giants in your life. You don’t stand a chance against these giants. You’re probably going to be afraid at times. But don’t forget: the bigger they come, the harder they fall. You may not be big and powerful in yourself, but with God on your side, you can face the giants in your life.

I’m going to suggest to you this morning that this lens is letting us see the story at some level, but it’s really not the best lens through which to view the account of David and Goliath. It’s leaving some things blurry that really should be clear, and it’s probably making some things clear that really aren’t even there in the first place.

The flaw in this approach is that it assumes that the author of 1 Samuel 17 gave us this story so that we would emulate the example of David. There is no question that David is worthy of emulation here: he alone acted in faith and trust in God when everyone else reacted in fear and doubt. He alone trusted the promises of God when everyone else chose to see the obstacles as bigger than the promise.

But you have to ask yourself: did the author write this passage to lift David up as a moral example for us to follow, or did he have some other purpose?

The problem with this lens is that we start to read the Bible as a set of moral examples to follow. You start to see the Bible’s message as “God blesses those who live morally exemplary lives.” And this approach starts to make people the hero of the text, rather than God.

David is praiseworthy here, but as we’re going to see in a minute, it’s for a reason. And I can’t be like David. I don’t have the power. If you tell me to walk out of here and “Be like David!” I’ll last until Tuesday at the latest before I fall apart in fear again. Not only this, but this lens obscures the message of the Bible, which isn’t that God blesses those who get their acts together, but that God showers his grace on unworthy people who don’t deserve it, and who let him down over and over again.

I’m not saying that we should throw out this lens completely, but I’m going to suggest that we try another lens to see if it will help us to see this passage more clearly.

The Lens of a Greater King

Let me give you a new lens for a minute. This lens may seem strange at first. It may take a bit of time to get used to, but let’s see how it works.

There are a couple of details that are fairly easy to miss, but that really help us grasp what this passage is really about. The first is the wider context. What in the world was the author trying to prove by giving us this account?

As you look at this passage, you realize that it’s not an isolated account buried among other random events that took place. The author has arranged these skillfully in order to communicate a message.

If you look earlier in 1 Samuel, you see that Israel didn’t have a king. But they began to cry out to God for a king who would reign over them so that they could be like the other nations. God granted their request, but before he did so, he said to his prophet Samuel: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king” (1 Samuel 8:7).

As you read 1 Samuel, you know that God gave Israel their first king. His name was Saul. And he shows some promise early on. It’s not too long, though, before Saul begins to get himself into all kinds of trouble. Saul does things his way instead of humbly obeying God’s commands. And there’s a mounting sense of tension in chapters 13 to 15 as Saul makes one bad decision after another, as he does things his way even if what he does is a complete rejection of God and his ways. It gets so bad that the prophet Samuel eventually said, “Now your kingdom will not endure; the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people, because you have not kept the LORD’s command” (1 Samuel 13:14). And even later: “The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to one of your neighbors–to one better than you” (1 Samuel 15:28).

So there is a sense of mounting tension that God has rejected Saul, and that Israel needs a better king. And then you get to chapter 16, and you discover that God has selected this new and better king. David is anointed as king, but he hasn’t yet taken the throne.

And then you get to the story of what happened with Goliath, and where do you find Saul? Verse 11 says, “On hearing the Philistine’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.” It should have been Saul’s job to accept the challenge on behalf of Israel, but instead he was cowering in fear. And then David comes in and responds, as God’s anointed, in faith and trust in the Lord. See if this lens makes sense. The author is not saying, “All of you should muster the courage you need to face giants.” Instead, he’s saying, “Israel needs a better king.” David is that better king.

But wait. There’s more. There’s another detail that’s easy to miss. Verse 4 says that Goliath is – what? – a champion. What does that mean? In ancient times, rival armies would sometimes agree to let selected individuals from each side decide a conflict. This reduced casualties and other costs. I almost wish we did this today! The two would be called champions, and they would represent all the people. Their victory would be attributed to the whole army, and so would their defeat. For obvious reasons, they would normally pick their strongest person to go to battle.

Back then, many of the cultures believed that the god of each nation would be present in that champion, and that god would go to battle along with the representative. Whichever champion won, that god would be vindicated.

And so David went into battle as a representative of all the people, as their substitute, winning the victory that they couldn’t win for themselves, so that God would be vindicated and the forces of evil defeated. He was their substitute. But you see, David came in weakness. He was so unimpressive that nobody would think God would triumph through him. He went almost as a sacrificial lamb. But God used his apparent weakness to destroy the enemy, and David’s victory was imputed to all of them. David stands in the place of many, and through his obedience God brings salvation to Israel.

If you see the story of this chapter through this lens, things look very different. It’s no longer saying that you need to get your act together so that you take on the giants in your life. Instead, it’s saying that we need a better king. We need someone who can take on the battles that we can’t win, so that his victory becomes our victory. We need him to fight on our behalf as our substitute, and as our champion. We need a king like David. We don’t need to try harder so that we triumph! We need a substitute who will come in weakness and trust, and who will win the victory that we couldn’t win ourselves.

That’s a much better lens through which to view the account of David and Goliath, I think. It’s a bit bewildering at first, only because we’re so used to seeing this account through the other lens. It’s much more in line with the structure of the text, I think. We need God’s anointed king who will triumph and win victory on behalf of his people.

But there’s one more lens that will help us see even more clearly.

The Lens of Jesus Christ

On Palm Sunday, two thousand years ago, an even greater King arrived. We read in Matthew 21 that the crowds that followed him shouted:

“Hosanna to the Son of David!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

(Matthew 21:9)

Israel needed a better king, and that king was David. And now an even better king has come, a Son of David, to win the victory that we can’t win ourselves. Jesus comes as our champion, our substitute. God’s anointed king arrives, and although, like David, he appears weak and insignificant, he fights for his people, knowing that the battle is the Lord’s. Jesus is the true and better David. He stands alone as our substitute, the one in place of the many, and through him God wins salvation for his people.

When we see the account of David and Goliath through the lens of Jesus Christ, it’s not about trying harder. It’s about the King who entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and went to the cross in weakness, who triumphed over sin and death in our place, and vindicated God’s name. It’s about God’s anointed king who has triumphed on behalf of his people.

Father, as we enter this week, we’re overwhelmed with what Jesus faced as he entered the streets of Jerusalem that Palm Sunday almost two thousand years ago. He came as a greater King, as a true and better David, to win the victory that we could not win for ourselves.

He came not in strength, but in weakness. But through the weakness of the cross he triumphed over evil, and his victory has become the victory of all who trust in him.

As we enter this week, may we do so seeing Jesus as the true and better David, the one who stood alone in the battle that nobody else could win, and through whom you have brought salvation to your people. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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