the-gospel

I created this site as a place that would help me to keep my heart and mind fixed on Him, so that I could see who He is and what He did for me more clearly, and so that my heart would be captured by the beauty of who is.  Often times my view of Christ get fragmented and disjointed so I wanted to have a place where I could order my thoughts and in order to have a more seemless understanding of His word.  I wanted to deepen my grasp of His Kingdom, His goodness, and His love for me.  Isaiah 26: ³You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because He trusts you.  

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THE GOOD NEWS OF THE GOSPEL

The gospel defines who we are, explains the meaning and purpose of life, it unfolds the greatest of humanity’s problems which is sin, and it points us to the hope of his amazing grace.   The bible is not a series of stores with a bunch of interesting characters.  It is not a book of maxims or interesting wisdom principles.  The Bible is one grand redemptive story with one hero which shows us the extent to which God has gone in order to provide salvation for us.  The bible is not about you and what you must do, but rather who Jesus is, and what He has done for us.   The gospel is a message that you need to be saved, but, there is nothing you can do about it accept believe the report in history about what He has done for us.  The gospel begins with a reporting of certain historical events that you have to accept as facts.  No other faith has started out saying “you must believe these historical events happened”.  Christianity does not start with “here is how you have to live,” but rather “here is what Jesus did for you in history”.   Every other religion is advice or council about what you must do to be saved, whereas the gospel is news that something has already happened and you can’t do anything about it except respond to it.

The good news is that sin and death have been defeated.  The Law has been fulfilled.  All the work has already been completed by the person and work of Jesus Christ.  It has all been done.  Stop fleeing.   Stop building fortifications.  Stop trying to save yourself.   The king has saved you therefore respond with joy and live in the peace which has been achieved for you.   It is a free gift that is to be received, not earned or achieved.

 

Although our salvation is a free gift, there has never been a gift offered that makes you swallow your pride to the depths that receiving the gift of the gospel of Jesus requires us to do, because it says we are so lost, helpless, and unable to save ourselves, that nothing less than the life, death, and resurrection of Christ could save us.   He comes into the hearts and lives only of those who are humble enough to know they need a savior.

It is hard to receive because it makes you swallow your pride like if you were to receive a present that was a book on how to overcome being selfish, narcissistic, and self- absorbed.  In order to be thankful for that gift you would have to admit that you have flaws, weaknesses, and that you need help.

 

It means you have to admit that you are a sinner and that you need to be saved by grace.  It means you have to give up control of your life, submit you will and heart to His authority, and that you no longer belong to yourself.  By nature our hearts are hostile to these claims. The magnitude of His claims of authority and his call to allegiance brings conflict. (sword in the soul).  It is an offensive confrontation that creates a personal crisis and conflict. When 2 wills cross there will be a fight.    The first step in making peace with God is recognizing this deep hostility entrenched in our hearts toward Him. 

 

 

 Coming to faith in Christ requires surrendering your Heart to Him.  It is not a negotiation.  If He is who He says he is, then you have to center your whole life around Him, obey Him unconditionally, and commit to denying yourself.  

 

 

You can’t say I will obey you “if”.  He is not your personal secretary, assistant, or your manager,  He is not someone you can control, He is your savior.  We are to turn ourselves into being His servants, not turning him into our servant.  When our own agendas get in the way we hold God responsible if we don’t get what we ask for and attempt to make God in debt to us.

 

If you understand the claims He makes about Himself you will either be scared of fun, furious at Him, or you will kneel before of in in worship. You’ can’t simply like Him.  His claims of absolute authority and unconditional loyalty triggers deep resistance within the human heart.  People are hostile to the claims that Jesus made because He is not only declaring an exclusive monopoly an access to God, but that He is God, and people think that is too narrow and exclusive.  The exclusiveness of Christian belief, and their conviction that Jesus was not just a God, but the God puts Christians on a collision course with nearly everyone in that religiously pluralistic society, The gospel message brings hostility because it is seen as intolerant and narrow minded. 

 

Yes it is narrow and exclusive, but it is the most inclusive exclusive truth conceivable because it is freely open to any one regardless of what you have done in your life, your status, how much money you make, your race, or gender.  We all fall share of the glory of God and yet his grace and mercy is freely available to anyone.

The gospel is a story about a God who delights in life and in what is right and good.  He is a God of light and there is no darkness in him.  He is Love, He is Holy, and He is Just.  Therefore He comes against, judges, and hates everything evil, wicked, and sinful.    Because God is perfect love, he cannot abide evil and sin.  Their is no evil in God, nor can it exist in His presence.   This presents a problem for us and where the plot of the story thickens because we are sinful people that are not good.  None of us are good and nothing good dwells in our flesh.  There is a darkness in all of our hearts. 

 

The Law God gave to Israel reveals his Holy character and in turn diagnoses the gravity of our condition.  Because of the Law, we know how we were originally created to function and what is not supposed to be dwelling in us.   It assesses and evaluates that we all suffer from the same terminal disease caused by the sin the dwell’s in our heart which leaves us  blind, naked, poor, wretched, and unable to live in a way that pleases God.  The Law serves as a diagnostic tool.

 

The Law says this is what we have in our heart.  God’s Law (X-Ray) shows us our heart and reveals our Sin (cancer).

 

Imagine if you went to the doctor’s office and went in for a routine checkup but the doctor told you that you have cancer. That would ruin your day and make you sad and upset. But the doctor is not mean or evil for telling you this, because he told you in order to save your life. He then would show you all the evidence in the x-rays of where the cancer had spread leaving you with a decision on whether you want to receive treatment to fight the cancer and live, or not accept the treatment and die.

 

So the terminal disease that has infected every single person that has ever lived is sin, and just like cancer, sin destroys and leads to death, and leaves us an able to live in a way that pleases God.  When we don’t understand what sin is about, we minimize how heinous it really is, and in turn devalue the grace that alone is able to rescue from it.   Sin is the suicidal action of the human soul against itself and robs us of the ability to live in a way that pleases God.    Sin loads on burdens, creates confusion, leaves us lame, weak, guilty and renders us unable.   Sin creates bad habits, distorts our affections, kidnaps our desires, distorts our thoughts, controls our tongue and behavior.   These things control you and you start to lose control over yourself.  You are surrendering your heart to something that wants to kill you.

 

The condition of the world that made the coming of Christ necessary, was so bad that Jesus reached for shocking language to capture it.  He indicted the world as “evil, adulterous, unbelieving, and spiritually dead”.  In Matthew 7 when Jesus taught His disciples how to pray He started with the assumption that they were evil and told them so, “if you then who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will you father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him”.  This refutes the idea that we as humans are good by nature.  Jesus acknowledged that humans may perform gracious acts like providing for their children but we do so contrary to our sinful nature.  In other words there are things we as humanity can do that are kind, philanthropic, and have some element of goodness but they don’t overcome the reality of the fallen condition, which is that we are dead in trespasses and sins which means we are unresponsive.  Death is the inability to respond to God and the truth.  We are controlled by the world and the events around us and we are driven by evil desires.  Left to ourselves, we would never want to find God, much less know Him. 

 

These are our default settings.

 

“Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.  And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, -if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth.  Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure-  you will always feel ugly.  And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you.  Worship power — you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay.  Worship your intellect, being seen as smart— you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.  And so on.   But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious.  They are default settings. They’re the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that’s what you’re doing” 

 

~David Foster Wallace

 

David Foster Wallace had correctly identified the problem and the made correct diagnosis but he unfortunately never found the cure or antidote.  3 years after this speech, took his own life.

 

So God gave the law to Moses to expose our hearts like an X-ray machine, to show us our sin, and to tell us the bad news we need to hear, so that we will want the antidote and cure which can only be found in His Son.   

 

So Jesus, the Great Physician, in the gospel is shouting to as I look at what I did for you, Look at how much I love you.  Look at the depths I went to save you.  Accept the grace I have given you so that you can live.  By placing our faith in Jesus blood that was shed at an the cross to cover, cleanse and wash our sin away. It is the only way we can be healed and made whole and the only way we can be brought back into right relationship with God, who is the only source of life.  He is the only way we can escape the sin that dwells in our heart.

 

Salvation only comes to people that admit that they are sinners and need grace.  His mercy allows us to face and admit how messed up we really are.  The way to experiencing the grace and mercy of God is through the wound.  It is through the hurt, through the brokenness, through the struggle, through the addiction, through the foolishness, through the weakness.  It is not through our strength.  The strong don’t need a doctor.  Our weakness does not keep us from him.  It is our delusions of strength that does.  The gospel is for the weak, unable, and the foolish.   The gospel is welcome to people who say, “I can’t”, but say that, running to a redeemer who can.  That is the gospel.

God’s Law set’s the standard of perfection for what is good and righteous and we all fall short of this standard even on our best day, because we have all sinned and broken His law.  None of us measure up and is the great equalizer of humanity. The thought that anyone can perform his or her way into the God’s acceptance is beyond delusional.

 

PSALM 143: 2Do not enter into judgment with Your servant, For in Your sight no one living is righteous.

 

PSALM 130: ³If you Lord took a record of sins, who could stand?

 

ROMANS 3:9What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, 10as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; 11no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” 13“Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” 14“Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” 15“Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16in their paths are ruin and misery, 17and the way of peace they have not known.” 18“There is no fear of God before their eyes.” 19Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. 

 

We all live under the weight of the Law and the inability of sin.  We all need to be saved because we have all sinned against a holy God, who is the only source of life.  Since we have all committed crimes against a Holy God, we deserve nothing but His wrath, judgement, and condemnation. 

 

Sin creates an objective record-a debt, an offense against justice-that calls for punishment.  If someone is found guilty,  judge cannot ignore the record.  A criminals record can only be wiped clean if she pays the penalty.

 

 

 

The problem is that if he just forgave us, then He would not be just, because justice demands punishment for the crime.  God’s justice demands we die, but God’s love says “I want to save”.  God is the judge and yet it says in His word that a judge who justifies the wrong doer is an abomination.

 

PROVERBS 17: 15He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just, Both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord.

 

What does God do with people like us who are selfish, wicked, sinful and deserve nothing but his wrath?  Does His holiness give way to his love, so that he overlooks sin?    Or does his love get overwhelmed by his holiness and justice, so the divine hammer falls?   

 

HOW CAN WE AS SINNERS BE RECONCILED BACK TO HOLY GOD,

WHO HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SIN,

AND WHOSE JUSTICE DEMANDS WE BE PUNISHED?  

 

 

HOW CAN GOD BLOT OUT OUR SIN WITHOUT STRIKING US DEAD,

WHICH IS THE JUST PENALTY FOR OUR SIN?

 

The answer to this seemingly unsolvable dilemma is found in the person and work of Christ Jesus, the Gospel.  In God’s grace and mercy, He made a way through the sacrifice of His son to forgive those who rebel against His authority without comprising His holiness in any way. 

 

Because He loves us, he hates what is ruining our lives, so in His grace and mercy He sent His only begotten son to put on sinful flesh, enter into the brokenness of His creation, and live the sinless life we couldn’t life and died the death we deserved.   He paid the penalty for our sin and the debt that we owed through His costly sacrifice, by taking on the curse of the law that we deserved, in our place, which satisfied God’s righteous anger against our sin. 

 

PSALM 89:14  Righteousness and Justice are the foundation of His throne; Love and Faithfulness goes before Him 

 

He fulfilled all of the Law’s requirements and became a substitute for our failures.  When we place our faith, trust, and confidence in what he did on our behalf, we are saved.   The beauty of salvation is that justice was served and yet sinners were redeemed, so that He can be both just and the justifier of those who believe.

 

Mercy can do what the law is powerless to do.  If God only offered us justice, no one would run to him.  Christ reconciles all things in heaven and earth by making peace through his blood.  When Jesus bore our punishment on the cross, love and holiness “kissed” – they were both fulfilled at once.  Love without holiness is mere sentiment; righteousness and law without a grasp of grace is Pharisaism.  Our natural temperaments incline us to one or the other, but the Gospel keeps truth and love together in our lives.

 

Love and Justice are not in opposition to each other.  If you want an loving God, you have to have an angry God.  Loving people get angry, not in spite of their love but because of it.  The more closely and deeply you love people in your life, the angrier you get.  When you see people who are harmed or abused, you get mad.  When you see injustice you get mad.  Your senses of love and justice are activated together.  If you see people destroying themselves or others and you don’t get mad, it is because you don’t care.  The more loving you are, the more ferociously angry you will be at whatever harms them.   The greater the harm, the more resolute your opposition will be.

 

IF GOD IS REALLY A LOVING GOD, 

WHY DOESNT HE JUST FORGIVE EVERYBODY? 

 

Jesus didn’t die despite God’s love, but because of God’s love.  That is because all life-changing love is substitutionary sacrifice.  If you have ever tried to love somebody who has needs, someone who is in trouble or who is persecuted or emotionally wounded, it is going to cost you.  You can’t love them without taking a hit yourself.  A transfer of some kind is required, so that somehow their troubles, problems, transfer to you.  The only way they are going to start filling up emotionally is if somebody loves them, and the only way to love them is to let yourself be emotionally drained.  Some of your fullness has to into them, and you have to empty out to some degree.  The only way to love them is through substitutionary sacrifice.

 

 

WHY DID HE HAVE TO GO THROUGH

SUFFERING AND DEATH? (110)

 

Because true forgiveness always entails suffering.  If someone robbed you of something, justice has been violated and that person owes you.  Once you sense that debt that are only 2 things you can do.   You can either make them pay you back, which does clear the debt of wrong, or you can absorb the cost yourself, which is the only way to right the wrong.  If we know that forgiveness always entails suffering for the forgiver and that the only hope of rectifying and righting wrongs comes by paying the cost of suffering, then it should not surprise us when God says, “the only way I can forgive the sins of the human race is to suffer-either you will have to pay the penalty for sin or I will”.  Sin always entails a penalty.  Guilt cannot be dealt with unless someone pays.  The only way God can pardon us and not judge us, is to go to the cross and absorb it into himself.  “I must suffer,” Jesus said.

 

Evil cannot be overlooked and it can’t be dealt with, removed, or healed by just saying “forget it”.  It must be paid for and dealt with, which requires a steep price.  They only way that Jesus could redeem us was to give his life as a ransom which satisfied God’s wrath upon the cross and paid the debt that was owed.   God’s wrath is rolling down upon us like a giant bowling ball, not just take out the pins but the whole bowling alley.  It is coming down on evil, injustice, and wickedness.  It is coming down upon those who are sinful.  We have been given the option to take the penalty ourselves and be eternally separated from God, or we can put our trust in Christ who took the wrath for us.  He took it all.  There is now no more condemnation (legal term indicating that someone is to be tried and executed within the criminal justice system) for those in Christ Jesus.   He died for our sins and because Jesus lived a sinless life, after 3 days in the tomb, he rose from the grave.  Sin and death have been defeated.  Jesus was able to rise from the grave because God would not be just and righteous if he allowed death to hold a sinless man.  

 

 

The 1st time he came in weakness, but has promised to return in strength, to end evil once and for all on the Day of Judgement.   If we have received the free gift of salvation by placing our faith and trust in what Christ did for us on our behalf,  we can stand confidently before Him on that day, because our sins have been covered by His blood, and we are no longer under God’s wrath. 

 

 

We no longer have to feel like we don’t measure up or wonder if we will be accepted by God.  We are freed from having to measure up to His standard in order to garner His love, because Jesus accomplished all that needed to be done on our behalf.   We are declared innocent, righteous, justified, and blameless in his sights and in his court.  This is how all wrongs will be made right and how God will be able execute justice by ending evil once and for all, without ending us.  Our salvation comes by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. 

 

1 JOHN 1: 8If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10If we say we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar, and His word is not in us.

 

The Bible’s plotline is resolved in Christ.   All the seemingly loose threads and contradictory claims of the rest of the bible come together in Jesus.  Jesus came and fulfilled the conditions of the Law, so God could love us unconditionally.   

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THE AUTHORITY OF HIS WORD

The scripture will never move from being just a set of words on a piece of paper to a vehicle for an encounter with the living God unless you accept its authority in total.  Unless you except it completely, you can read it, but you wont be able to hear it.  It won’t be a living word from God unless you accept it in totality.  If you start to take certain things out, then you can’t wrestle with god.  If you have any kind of real relationship you wrestle.  If you take out the parts that offend you then you are creating  a God that cant wrestle with you, knock you down, or punch you in the chops.  It cant be a life changing encounter with God unless you see it as authoritative.  

 

When you say I want Jesus, but say I cannot believe everything the bible says, you really mean you don’t want the real Jesus, you want to make up your own. You are saying the principle and main spring upon which He based His entire life, I trample.   

 

Many people want to accept the bible without accepting its infallibility.  They say if you approach the bible as truth, you can’t get into a deeper place of intimacy with God, because the conversation is over, which is one of the deepest forms of intimacy. Who are you to decide what things Jesus did were wrong and right? You will never know Him for real unless you allow the contradictions to stand. It’s not until you look into these things that outrage you are first, that you begin to see the beauty and wisdom of who He is. He is the lion and lamb. He alone combines things, excellencies and virtues, that otherwise could never be held together. Highness and lowness, strength & weakness. 

 

How can you ever know Him intimately if you don’t treat everything He says as right?  How can you ever know someone, who says this is the very basis of my life, the secret to my greatness, this is what makes me who I am, and then you say, well I don’t want to accept that, but I want to get to know you.  If you don’t let the bible tell you the bad news you need to hear, how will you ever accept. the good news you don’t want to hear.

 

Jesus is the word of God.  A person’s word is the clearest and ultimate revelation of who you are.

Example: if you rode on a subway with other people everyday, you could know many things about them, but unless you have ever spoken to them, you could not say you know them, because their words, speaking is the clearest of expression of who you are. You reveal yourself through your word.

 

You can’t know God except through His word.  That doesn’t mean you can’t know about God, but to know Him, it takes Jesus who was the word made flesh, because Jesus is the ultimate revelation of who God is.

• • •

UNDERSTANDING THE GRAND 

REDEMPTIVE STORY

The story begins with God’s Creation – the way God intended where God dwelt with us.  Everything was good and finished.   Adam and Eve had it all.  They were perfect people living in a perfect world and enjoying a perfect relationship with God.  There was no tension between them and no separation between them and God.  There was not pollution or disease, not injustice or corruption, and not hatred or violence.  They lived in a constant state of “shalom”.  Shalom means more than “peace”.  It refers to things being in the state that God intended them to be.   

 

We see in Genesis 3 however that Adam and Eve were deceived by the serpent and ate of the fruit of the tree that they commanded to not eat from.  While made to function as an integrated and connected whole, in humanity’s fall, our hearts became fragmented, disintegrated, separated and divided.   As a result, all of our relationships are marked by brokenness – our relationship with God, with other people, with creation, and even with ourselves. 

 

Creation depicts ownership and dependency but sin makes us quest for independence and self-sufficiency.    If he created us, we belong to him, which means we don’t have the right to live as we please.  Creation also depicts dependency, which means we do not have everything within ourselves to be what we are supposed to be and do what they are supposed to do.  Sin puts you on a quest to become the hero of your own story, where you were the one who pulled yourself out of the mire, and made it on your own with no one to thank but yourself.  Sin places you in the center and makes your life all about your wants, needs, and feelings. and your pursuit of happiness. Sin puts ourselves in where God is supposed to be and causes us to appoint ourselves as sovereign instead of God.   Sin steals his glory and denies His existence and authority and replaces him with something else.   Sin quests for His throne, power, and glory by challenging His rule and by questioning His goodness, wisdom, faithfulness and love.  Sin at its core is rooted in selfishness and pride.

 

God created everything-including us.  “It is he who made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture”  (Psalm 100:3)  There is one ultimate owner in the universe: God.  All others are trustees.  Neither we not what we have is finally our own.  It is all a trust to be used for the aims of the owner, therefore in a sense, all sin is embezzlement.

 

After their rebellion God announced immediately after that He would not only judge sin, but that He was going to defeat it forever, and so His grand story of redemption began. 

 

GENESIS 3: 14So the Lord God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, You are cursed more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you shall go, And you shall eat dust All the days of your life. 15And I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”

 

As a result of their sin, God drove out man from the garden placed a sword to guard the way to tree of life. 

 

GENESIS: 3 24So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.

 

 

If you have been wronged, experienced life altering injustice and evil, someone has done something to you, then a gap opens between you and the perpetrator. The perp just saying they are sorry does not close the gap and some action has to happen to close it. We feel that gap because we were “made in the image of God and that is how we experience injustice and evil. The gap we experience between each other is nothing compared to the infinite gap between the human race and God because of what we have done to his creation and to each other, and that is why God says something has to close that gap. There has to be atonement.   

 

The sword representing that there was no way back into the presence of God unless someone goes under the sword of divine justice.  It was a graphic representation of the truth that the penalty for sin is death.  The way back into the presence of God was blocked by justice.  There was a debt that had to be paid.  There was no way back into the presence of God without going under the sword.   The entire Old Testament bears witness to this because every time sin is atoned for in the tabernacle or temple, a substitute animal goes under the knife and dies.

 

 

 

Adam and Eve fell for the lie that life can be found outside of God’s all-knowing all-wise boundaries and as a result they were cast out of his presence and plunged the world into darkness. The minute Adam and Eve lost its relationship with God, we deep down inside, knew there was something wrong with us.  We experienced shame.  We don’t want people to see us. Before we were known and loved and had no problem with people seeing us, but after we lose relationship with God, we have to control what everybody sees about us with big leaves which means every person is radically insecure. 

 

 

Every person feels they have to prove themselves because they are unsure of their worth and value, so we pursue any and everything to feel better ourselves and to feel like we matter.  We are constantly trying to prove and validate ourselves to God and to others based off our performance, achievements, merit, and accomplishments.  Everyone’s identity is based on relative status…ie being the smartest kid in school at a young age which made you feel pretty good about yourself, then you show up at an ivy league school and you realize that you are below average, which makes you feel bad because your identity is based on relative status.  You derive significance and value based off being smarter than the people around you but when you are not the smartest of the people around you, you start feeling insignificant.   Everybody gets an identity through works and accomplishments and it is always relative, which means there are always some people you feel superior to and inferior to.    We desperately try to cover our nakedness and shame so we are constantly trying to control people’s perception of us which makes us slaves to riding the roller coaster of people’s opinions of us while doing anything we can to stay relevant.  We spend all your energy hiding our shame and  so it is impossible to receive love affirmation, or grace from anyone, because we convince ourself if they really knew you, they would not love or care for you.  So, we hide and bury it and becomes acidic in your soul.  Our biggest fear is to be fully known and not loved.

 

We try to feel the void that has been left in our heart with all sorts of God replacements which always disappoint and never satisfy the longing in our heart, whether it be an accumulation money, possessions, fame, sex, power, allure, relationships, influence, status etc.   We place our faith, trust, and hope in these things thinking they will deliver us.

 

All of these things are a result of sin which separates us from a loving, holy, and righteous God, who is the giver of life and it leads to inescapable wickedness, depravity, death, and destruction.  As a result of Sin, we live in a fallen world filled with trouble, injustice, violence, crime, oppression, idolatry, danger, political corruption, war, death, decay, destuction, ruin, of nations being lifted and then destroyed. 

 

 

GENESIS 6: 5Then [c]the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent[d] of the thoughts of his heart was only evil [e]continually. 

 

Ultimately this led God to judge the world with the flood to cleanse the earth apart from Noah and his family.

 

GENESIS 6: 6And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7So the Lord said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

 

The rebellion continued again after the flood.   The descendants of Noah who had formed many different nations came together and united to build the Tower of Babel. 

 

GENESIS 11:1Now the whole earth had one language and one [a]speech. 2And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. 3Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and [b]bake them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar.4And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” 

 

This again brought judgement from God where he confused the language of the nations at the tower and he scattered them across the world.  The Tower of Babel was unprofitable to God.   It was built by men’s hands to glorify themselves which results in being lifted up with pride and emptiness.  Pride goes before destruction.

 

 

GENESIS 11: 5But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. 6And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. 7Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. 9Therefore its name is called [c]Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth

 

Abram was set apart and chosen by God to come out of Babylon and to be the father of a nation which would bear fruit to God through faith in his promises.  God promises Abram that he would make him a great nation and give them the land of Canaan and that they would be blessed.  He promised to Abram and his seed the land of Canaan, even though at this point Abram was 75 years old and childless.  God then reassures Abram that even though he had no heir, that his seed would be as numerous as the stars and that they would inherit the land of Canaan.  Abram believed and it was counted to him for righteousness.

 

GENESIS 12 : 1Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you. 2I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. 3I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

 

God then establishes His covenant with Abraham. 

 

 

One thing that is unique about this story is the idea that a god would make a covenant with a person or nation.  Many Israelite practices were like those of the neighboring tribes –their sacrifices, the style of their temples, their laws and other customs. But the idea of a god making a promise and binding Himself to a people was unthinkable, and no ancient stories record anything like this outside the Bible. In contrast, the “gods” of the myths of the time were always capricious, unpredictable and frequently unfair. The difference between the true God and other tribal deities is profound, because He is a God who makes a promise and keeps it for eternity. 

 

GENESIS 15 : GODS COVENANT WITH ABRAHAM 

8And he said, LORD God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? 9And he said to him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon. 10And he took to him all these, and divided them in the middle, and laid each piece one against another: but the birds divided he not. 11And when the fowls came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.12And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram; and, see, an horror of great darkness fell on him. 13And he said to Abram, Know of a surety that your seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not their’s, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them 400 years; 14And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance. 15And you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. 16But in the fourth generation they shall come here again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.17And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.18In the same day the LORD made a covenant ^[h1285] with Abram, saying, To your seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates:19The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, 20And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, 21And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.

 

 

When God reveals Himself to humanity, He uses images and customs that are already known rather than asking people to do something they don’t understand. Here, when God made a covenant with Abram, He asked Abram to bring five animals, sacrifice them and “make a path between” the halves of their bodies. God was using a method of making (literally “cutting”) a covenant that was well known in the ancient near east.  Typically both parties would “walk through the path of blood” to take the covenant upon themselves.  Then part of the sacrifices would be cooked and eaten in a covenant meal, to celebrate the new bond of friendship between them.  Ancient covenants were not just business arrangements, they were more like marriages, where the lives of both parties are bound together to each other. 

 

 

It is thought that part of the imagery of this ceremony was that they were merging their lives together by walking through the same blood, which represents life. It is also thought that the ceremony is a way of promising that if either party does not fulfill his end of the covenant, that his life would be forfeited, like that of the animals.  It is also interesting that this ceremony is modified from its original form says something else about God. Normally both parties pass through the pieces, both committing themselves to the covenant. Here, only God passes through the pieces, as if He is making a unilateral promise to fulfill His covenant, no matter what Abram does. His constancy and faithfulness are unwavering, and thankfully not dependent on the fickleness of humankind. 

 

The key distinction in this covenant with Abraham is that is by Promise and not by Law.  God promises to fulfill His covenant with Araham no matter what Abraham does.   Only God walked through the pieces and He said if I don’t fulfill my promise then may I be as these dead carcasses.  

 

 

In the covenant made with Abraham, God said that his seed would be a stranger in the land of Egypt first, and that they shall serve them and be afflicted by them for 400 years, before God would judge them and Israel would come out with great substance.

 

GENESIS 15: 13And he said to Abram, Know of a surety that your seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not their’s, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them 400 years; 14And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.  

 

 

Here we continue to see the pattern of Justice and Redemption over and over throughout Genesis and Exodus.  God judges Egypt with 10 plagues and God rescues Israel by way of the blood on the Passover door and through Red Sea. 

 

 

After sending may plagues to Egypt to loosen the Pharaoh’s oppressive grip on Israel, one night God sent the final plague; he unsheathed the sword of divine justice which fell upon everyone.  The wrath of God did not “pass over” the Jews simply because they were Jews.  Under every household in Egypt, someone died under the wrath of Justice.  The only way for their family to escape was to put their faith in God’s sacrificial provision by putting the blood of a sacrificial lamb on teh doors as a sign of their faith in God.  In every home there would be either a dead child or dead lamb.  When justice came down, it either fell on your family or you took shelter under the substitute, the blood of the lamb.    You were saved only on the basis of your faith in the substitutionary sacrifice.

 

He then brings them to Mount Sinai where God thundered down The Law and 10 Commandments, as well as instructions on setting up The Tabernacle in the Wilderness.  The way the tribes were situated around the tabernacle formed a cross.

 

 

Just like the covenant with Abraham, in the cevenant between the Lord and Israel, God uses practices and terms familiar in the culture.  Wehn a powerful king would send a treaty to a less powerful king informing himm and his people of the powerful kings intention to rule them, the treaty contained:

 

1.  Formal self-identification of the more powerful ruler
2. a review of the history between the parties as grounds for issuing and accepting the covenant
3. the requirement of layalty to the powerful king
4. stipulations regulating future conduct of the less powerful king
5. positive and negative consequences for obedience and disobedience;
6. instructions for copying, storing, and publickly reading the covenant

The Mosaic covenant with its laws was given to people who had expressed belief in the Lord-people already rescued from Egypt.  Its purpose was not to provide a means for people to initiate or merit a relationship with the Lord.  Rather, the covenat was a means of communicating what Israel should do as a people who already belonged to Him.  The covenant was tied to what the Lord had already done for the Israelites.  This was the reason it was appropriate for them to keep it. 

 

By following the Law, Israel would show the nations, who had been scattered at the tower, what God is like.  The law was given to the Israelites so they could distinguish between the gods of the nations and the God who redeemed them out of Egypt, whom they were called to serve.  God’s law is not a burden, it is a gift of his love.  Because he knows all things, he is infinitely more qualified to set the boundaries of our living than we are.  All the things stipulated in the law that they were not to do, were the things that they were doing in Babylon, Sodom, and Egypt which brought Judgement from God.  Some of the laws are about rituals and customs that set Israel apart from walking in the customs of the nations, so they could serve the God of Israel and bare him fruit, and sanctify to himself a holy nation and a Kingdom of priests.     They were to be His peculiar treasure set apart to be a light unto the surrounding nations who were living in darkness.

 

 

The law was not given to Israel as a list of things to do in order to gain Gods acceptance and to establish a relationship with Him, because He had already chosen them and redeemed then Egypt.  So God gave the Law to Israel as an expression off his love, not as a test to earn it.  The Law was given as an expression of God’s grace.  Israel was chosen to receive it and it was to depict the special nature of their relationship with Him.  God consider Israel His bride. 

 

 

So this meant when they disobeyed, they did something profoundly more significant than break a set of abstract moral regulations. Breaking the law, sin, meant breaking relationship, so it was profoundly’ more personal. 

 

 Yet right after Moses gave them the Law, Israel immediately rebelled and broke those Laws so God caused them to wander in the wilderness for 40 years, which was recorded in the book of NUMBERS.

 

After 40 years of roaming in the wilderness,  just before they finally entered the Promised Land of Canaan, we see God adding a new covenant at Moab, to that which was given to the generation before at Horeb/Sinai. So this covenant found in the book of DEUTERONOMY was given not only to that generation, but to all generation that came after them.  The covenant at Moab was an expansion of the blessing and curses given at Horeb (Leviticus 26) pending obedience to the Law.  The Law set forth before Israel life and blessing for obedience, and death and cursing for disobedience.

 

DEUTERONOMY 30 : 19I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both you and your seed may live:

 

So the Torah, or the Law, is comprised of the first 5 books of the bible. 

 

 

Even after God gave Israel the Law, we still just see same pattern of rebellion over and over.  No matter how many laws are put in place, Israel is just going to continue to rebel.  Finally, at the conclusion of the Torah in Deuteronomy, before Israel gets to the promised land, Moses says to Israel, “I know you are not going to follow all his laws, you have proven to me that you are incapable.”  

 

Moses said that the problem is that their hearts were hard, and they are going to need new transformed hearts if they are ever truly going to follow God’s Law.  This proved to be true as Israel continued to rebel in the promised land. 

 

The rest of the old testament is considered the prophets which reflect back on the story.  In Jewish Tradition all these books are considered “The Prophets’ because they are continuing the story told from the perspective of the prophets.

 

THE PROPHETS

 

In 1 KINGS 10 we see that while in the promised land, after Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem, his heart turned from God and He led Israel into idolatry.  This resulted in God splitting the kingdom into 2 divisions. 

 

 

Just as the United States became divided during the Civil War…Israel was divided, but unlike the US, Israel never came back together.  2 Tribes which included Judah and Benjamin became known as  “The House of Judah”.  The temple was eventually destroyed and they were led into Babylonian captivity due to their continued rebellion.  The rest of the 10 Tribes became known as “The House of Israel”,  “The House of Ephraim”, or “The House of Joseph”.  They were taken captive by the Assyrians due to their continued rebellion.  Both Kingdoms ended up being banished from their land and taken into captivity.  Only a portion of the Southern Kingdom was led back to Jerusalem.

 

 

 

Now we see the scripture in LEVITICUS 26 and DEUTERONOMY 28 beginning to unfold, as the covenant curses and punishment for disobedience for walking contrary to him were enacted. 

 

DEUTERONOMY 28 : THE CURSES OF DISOBEDIENCE

64And the LORD shall scatter you among all people, from the one end of the earth even to the other; and there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known, even wood and stone. 65And among these nations shall you find no ease, neither shall the sole of your foot have rest: but the LORD shall give you there a trembling heart , and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind: 

 

DEUTERONOMY 4: WARNING AGAINST IDOLATRY

27And the LORD shall scatter you among the nations, and you shall be left few in number among the heathen, where the LORD shall lead you. 28And there you shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. 29But if from there you shall seek the LORD your God, you shall find him, if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul. 30When you are in tribulation, and all these things are come on you, even in the latter days, if you turn to the LORD your God, and shall be obedient to his voice; 31(For the LORD your God is a merciful God;) he will not forsake you, neither destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which he swore to them. 

 

Only a portion of the Southern Kingdom ever returned back to Jerusalem after being in Babylonian captivity for 70 years.   Israel, known at the Northern Kingdom was divorced by God because they hardened their hearts and rejected God’s Law in pursuing other Gods and they became scattered among the nations that were scattered at the tower..

 

JEREMIAH 3 :  8And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce;  

 

They are truly, no longer His people.   The Northern Kingdom never returned and rarely acknowledged as unified entity in scripture again, because they were eventually dispersed and never returned to Samaria, like the Southern Kingdom returned to Judah after having been taken into Babylonian captivity.  In all of this we see that which was spoken over 1100 years earlier concerning Ephraim in GENESIS 48 by Jacob himself, who prophesied that Ephraim would become the fullness of the nations, as they begin to manifest as they began to assimilate into the nations that God had scattered at the Tower of Babel. 

 

GENESIS 48 : JACOB BLESSES EPHRAIM AND MANASSEH

17And when Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him: and he held up his father’s hand, to remove it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s head. 18And Joseph said to his father, Not so, my father: for this is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head. 19And his father refused, and said, I know it, my son, I know it: he also shall become a people, and he also shall be great: but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations.

 

Ephraim and Manassah were born to Joseph in Egypt after he was thrown into an empty pit by brothers.  Because of famine, Jacob/Israel moved his family from the land of Canaan to the Land of Goshen, just outside of Egypt, where Jacob, blessed the sons of Joseph, Mannassah and Ephraim.  Jacob claims they are to be treated as his.  They were adopted (Grandfathered) in as part of the tribes of Israel. 

 

 

They came to be known as the Lost Sheep because they descended from Rachel, whose name means “ewe” which is a female lamb, who kept her father’s sheep.  Rachel is who Jacob (Israel), “loved the most” out of his wive’s.   The Apostle Paul who wrote the majority of the new testament was from the Tribe of Benjamin who was the other son of Rachel.  The tribes of Ephraim, Manassah, and Benjamin were stationed together in West while in the wilderness in the book of NUMBERS.

 

 

Even though Ephraim/Israel/the Northern Kingdom had been divorced by God and scattered among the Nations, because they had followed vanity (emptiness), and did not walk within his law, we see in the prophets, that it is God’s plan to seek them out from where he scattered them.

 

EZEKIAL 34 : THE GOOD SHEPHERD

11For thus said the Lord GOD; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out.12As a shepherd seeks out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered ^[h6327]; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have beenscattered ^[h6327] in the cloudy and dark day. 13And I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land, and feed them on the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of the country. 14I will feed them in a good pasture, and on the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be: there shall they lie in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed on the mountains of Israel. 

 

We are all sheep who have wandered from the shepherd.   We are all utterly lost in our sin and can contribute nothing to our salvation.  “Sheep” is meant to be a spiritual insult.  A sheep is a stupid animal.  It loses its direction continually in a way a cat or dog never does.  When sheep see grass no matter where it is not matter how steep or dangerous the spot they just go for the grass, even if it is a place that is impossible to climb down from.  So they go and eat until they grass is gone and then, they either have to be rescued or else they plunge to their death. 

 

 

Even when you find a lost sheep, the lost sheep brushes to and fro and will not follow you home so when you find it, you must seize it, throw it to the ground, tie its hind and front legs together, put it over your shoulders and carry it home.  This is the only way to save a lost sheep. 

 

JOHN 10: 11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.   27My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me. 28I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them out of My hand. 29My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all. No one can snatch them out of My Father’s hand. 30I and the Father are one.”

 

Unless he calls us by name we would never come to him.  Our salvation is never our attainment or a prize we receive after a long struggle while God waits for us.  No he pursues us and wakes us out of sleeep.  If we are feeding on anything besides Jesus, we are like a sheep on a ledge…ie resting our hearts deepest hopes on something else besides him.   We were infinitely lost and infinitely valued, and the shepherd will do anything and everything to bring us home.   

 

MATTHEW 15: 24But He answered and said, “I was sent only for the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

 

 

God pursues us in the midst of our rebellion.   Thankfully his consistency and faithfulness are not dependent on the fickleness of humankind, but rather is based upon his unwavering unilateral eternal promise made to Abraham.

 

 

Through the prophet HOSEA, the Lord told the people of Israel to stop their promiscuity, idolatry, and iniquity and to return to Him in humility and faithfulness toward the law of the covenant. Like a marriage partner, God is deeply involved in our lives and is pained when we go our own way.  God demands love and loyalty from His own.  Often God’s people have failed to demonstrated whole-hearted love for Him. But He stands ready to forgive and restore those who turn to Him in repentance. In buying Gomer’s freedom, Hosea pointed ahead to God’s love perfectly expressed in Christ, the Good Shepherd, who bought the freedom of His bride, the church with His own life.  

 

Through the prophet Ezekiel, God told Israel if they were ever going to follow His law, His spirit would have to transform hearts.  Jeremiah said that’s when obedience to God’s commands would happen, and it wouldn’t be a duty, but would be written deep in their hearts.  Isaiah promised a future Messiah who would lead all the people in obedience to the Law.  The whole Old Testament, referred to as the Law and Prophets, are telling one connected story about how God’s desire to bless the whole world through a people, Israel, who as it turns out, needs a new heart.  Jesus saw himself as continuing that story, so he agreed with the Law and Prophets, that It’s out of the human heart comes the ugliest parts of human nature, that the default setting of our hearts is opposed to God’s Law.

 

MATTHEW 15: 18But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. 19For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.

 

But also said that he came to solve that problem and to fulfill the law.

 

MATTHEW 5: 17“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.18For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.

 

He said that the law can be condensed to love God and love others.  He also showed that love is far more demanding than we think and narrowed down the intent of each command.  Don’t murder was refined down to don’t even hate, or be angry with someone, or resentful.  True love should extend even to our enemies.  It shows our hearts are not equipped to fulfill even this basic command from God.   Where Israel failed, Jesus brought the story to its fulfillment and showed what God is truly like through compassion, mercy, and love. 

 

After his death and resurrection, he sent his spirit to transform our hearts, so we could follow him and fulfill the purpose of the Law, which fulfills the story of the Law and prophets.    He is the light of the world which now dwells in our hearts through faith. 

 

This was the reversal of the curse of Babel where language broke down because of their pursuit of self glorification.    When the Holy spirit came down upon the people in Acts 2, the first thing that was healed was there tongues.  The disciples were able to clearly communicate with all the different nations and languages that had been scattered.   Their speech was affected and they came so eloquent that even if you didn’t know their language, you heard a word because they perfectly expressed themsleves from the inside and the listeners heard a perfect word from the outside because they holy spirt had filled their heart with something new.  At pentecost their hearts became filled with Jesus. 

 

No one ever spoke like Jesus did.  Not one unecessary, unapt, unkind, or untruthful word.  He is the word of God.  He is the final word.  He is the only word that will satisfy the infinite hunger of our human souls.  He is the only thing that can heal our hearts and mouth.  We need for God to say to us that “I am delighted in you and you are my child.”  When that truth really begins to resonate in you soul, you don’t need to lie anymore, you don’t need to tear people down with your words, you don’t have to try and control people’s opinions of you with the fig leaf because you have been clothed and covered with His righteousness.  We will be able to begin to be able to speak truthfully, honest, gentle, kind, wise, apt, and direct words to others in love.   

• • •

THE PROPHECY OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM OF ISRAEL 

THE HOUSE OF JOSEPH & EPHRAIM

THE LOST SHEEP

(which comes from the prophetic books of HOSEA and EZEKIAL)

MATTHEW 15: 24But He answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

 

In the book of EZEKIAL, the Northern Kingdom should have begun being restored after390 yearsfrom the time in which they were exiled and scattered into the nations in721 BC.

 

EZEKIAL 4 : THE SIEGE OF JERUSALEM PREDICTED 

1You also, son of man, take you a tile, and lay it before you, and portray on it the city, even Jerusalem: 2And lay siege against it, and build a fort against it, and cast a mount against it; set the camp also against it, and set battering rams against it round about. 3Moreover take you to you an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between you and the city: and set your face against it, and it shall be besieged, and you shall lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel. 4Lie you also on your left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel on it: according to the number of the days that you shall lie on it you shall bear their iniquity. 5For I have laid on you the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, 390 days: so shall you bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. 

 

This means they should have been restored in 331 BC,however, history shows that the Northern Kingdom never returned to their land. So what else does Scripture give us that can shed light on this? 

 

LEVITICUS 26 : PUNISHMENTS FOR DISOBEDIENCE

18And if you will not yet for all this listen to me, then I will punish you7 times more for your sins.19And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass: 20And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.21And if you walk ^[h1980] contrary to me, and will not listen to me; I will bring 7 times more plagues on you according to your sins.

 

390 (years laid on Ezekiel to bear the iniquity of Israel)

x 7 (the punishment for walking contrary to him in Lev 26)

_________________________________________________________________

= 2,730 years

 

 

 

Though we know Christ made it possible for the return to begin, the restoration would not fully come fruition until we were in the 3rd day of the punishment because of HOSEA’S Prophecy. 

 

HOSEA 6 :1Come, and let us return to the LORD: for he has torn, and he will heal us; he has smitten, and he will bind us up. 2After 2 days will he revive us: in the 3rd day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.

 

1 day =1000 years  

 

2 PETER 3  8But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that 1 day is with the Lord as a 1000 years, and a 1000 years as 1 day.

 

 The work of Christ started the restoration but its in the 3rd daythat He completes the restoration.  After 2 days he will revive us and on the 3rd day he will restore us so that we may live in his presence.  (as it says in HOSEA 6:2)  Which is after 2 days and in the 3rd day of the punishment. 

 

2009, the same year both of my grandfathers passed away and God stirred up my heart, began the process of the hearts of the Northern Kingdom coming back to Him in large numbers, thus concluding the Northern Kingdom’s judgement.   He is gathering up his sheep.

 

EZEKIAL 37 : ONE NATION WITH ONE KING

15The word of the LORD came again to me, saying, ¹⁶Moreover, you son of man, take you one stick, and write on it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write on it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim and for all the house of Israel his companions: ¹⁷And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in your hand. ¹⁸And when the children of your people shall speak to you, saying, Will you not show us what you mean by these? ¹⁹Say to them, Thus said the Lord GOD; Behold,I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim,and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in my hand.20 And the sticks where on you write shall be in your hand before their eyes.

 

 

21And say to them, Thus said the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, where they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land:22And I will make them one nation in the land on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all. 23Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwelling places, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God. 24And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk ^[h1980] in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them. 25And they shall dwell in the land that I have given to Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelled; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children’s children for ever: and my servant David shall be their prince for ever. 26Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the middle of them for ever more. 27My tabernacle also shall be with them: yes, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 28And the heathen shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the middle of them for ever more.

• • •

SO IS THE COVENANT BETWEEN GOD AND ISRAEL, CONDITIONAL OR UNCONDITIONAL?

 

In principle the Law given to Israel and the promise given to Abraham seem to be in disagreement.  Either God is relating to you by promise or Law.  But in practice, and in the bible, and in Christian life they are in complete agreement. 

 

 Jesus came and fulfilled the conditions of the Law, so God could love us unconditionally.   As stated in the beginning, the Bible’s plotline is resolved in Christ.   All the seemingly loose threads and contradictory claims of the rest of the bible come together in Jesus. 

 

Paul addressed this paradox in Galatians 3.  To unlock your understanding of this passage is to unlock your understanding of the whole bible, because Paul, is telling us how to understand the whole bible. The bible to many people is a trackless jungle, a tangled growth of contradictions and unrelated ideas, but the Bible actually has astounding coherence.  

 

GALATIANS 3:  IS JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH OR BY WORKS OF THE LAW?

 

1O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you [a]that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed [b]among you as crucified? 2This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? 3Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? 4Have you suffered so [c]many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? 5Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?— 6just as Abraham “believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” 7Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. 8And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying,“In you all the nations shall be blessed.” 9So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.

 

THE LAW BRINGS A CURSE

 

10For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, “Cursediseveryone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.”11But that no one is [d]justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for “the just shall live by faith.” 12Yet the law is not of faith, but “the man who does them shall live by them.” 13Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursediseveryone who hangs on a tree”), 14that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

 

THE CHANGELESS PROMISE

 

15Brethren, I speak in the manner of men: Though it is only a man’s covenant, yet if it is confirmed, no one annuls or adds to it. 16Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed,” who is Christ. 17And this I say, that the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God [e]in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect. 18For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no longer of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise.

 

THE PURPOSE OF THE LAW

 

19What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator. 20Now a mediator does not mediate for one only, but God is one. 21Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. 22But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. 23But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, [f]kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. 24Therefore the law was our [g]tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.

 

ABRAHAM’S SEED

 

26For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

 

Paul is in great pains to counteract the teaches that said:

1. Believe in Christ
2. Obey God’s Law
3. Then you’ll be saved

Paul says this is not the gospel.  Paul says there is an order which is: 

1. Believe in Christ 
2. Then you are saved 
3. As a result you obey.

The gospel requires that we obey God.  He is not saying that he can believe and still live in sin.  The difference between the 2 is the motivational structure of the heart.  Even though both have obedience they are out of 2 radically different motivations and 2 radically different effects.  Most people who go to church say, I believe, I obey, then I will be saved and they know nothing of the radically different motivational structure at the heart. that comes when you obey out of a full heart, out of joy, selflessly out of a desire to please and know the one who has saved you.

 

If we obey in order to be accepted, then our obedience is anxious and selfish. Anxious in the fact that you are never quite sure you are being good enough. Selfish because you are doing it in order to get something.  You become tired and exhausted trying to attain something that can’t be attained by own effort.  You are never quite sure if you are good enough.  It becomes a burden because you feel forced to do it even when you don’t want to.  You become touchy because if anyone criticizes you, you get upset because it is important for you to think of yourself as a good person or Else God won’t bless you.  It always results in either self-righteous pride or self-loathing, grumpiness, anger, and always fighting over who is doing things right.

 

If we obey because we are already accepted and saved and we believe we have everything we need in Him, then we would obey out of joy and love. We would ask, what can I do to delight, or be like the one who has done this for me? You would obey then out of joy and fullness of heart, not out of emptiness and anxiety. You are loving and serving others far then instead of doing it to be accepted, where you are doing it for you.  God’s Law is not our payment plan, so our obedience should never be a fearful payment, but a hymn of gratitude to a God who met you whre you were and did for you what you could have never done for yourself.

 

SO WHICH ORDER AM I LIVING IN?

I believe and have established a good record of righteousness by trying to live a good life and be a good person, then I am saved

 

I believe and I get a record of righteousness pinned to me, now I obey.

 

The 2 enemies of the gospel are self righteous legalism which postures that you can be saved by your own works and righteousness, and Antinomianism, which is a doctrine according to which Christians are freed from the necessity of obeying Mosaic Law.  Legalism doesn’t grasp Gods’ grace.  It distorts the law for its proper function as a guide for our lives, a way to become our true selves and to please God-and instead turns it into a burdensome system of salvation through which we obligate God to bless us.  Antinomianism does not grasp God’s loving grace, and also sees the law as an obstacle to freedom and personal growth rather than as the great means by which God grows us into both.

 

We do need to do what is in the bible but we really can’t, but there is one He did, and because He did it on our behalf and in our place, if we believe in Him we will begin to be able to do it, but only to the degree that we understand what He did for us.. This how our obedience flows out of a changed heart out of gratitude for what He did for us, not in an effort to try to gain His acceptance or in an effort to try to make it in in debt to us.

 

The gospel says, here has what God has done for us and how He saved us.. We in turn obey and keep His commands in response. to the grace He extended to us.  We don’t have a relationship with Him because we obey, we obey, because He has entered into’ a relationship with us.  When we place our faith in Him, He gives us a new Heart with His Law written on it, and we keep His commands because we have been given new hearts that perceive how great His Love is for us.

 

The teachers said faith and obedience go together and result in salvation.  Paul said faith and salvation go together and result in obedience.  Paul is trying to say these aren’t 2 different branches of Christianity, these are 2 different religions that have completely different results in people’s hearts and lives.  2 completely different paradigms of looking at every part of reality. 

 

The teachers said, what about the Law?  Paul said God gave it to Abraham in his grace through a promise in verse 18. Then what was the purpose of Law? (verse 19)

 

Paul is saying I am not bringing up something new, nor is he saying this part of the bible is not in effect any more or doesn’t matter. Paul is saying, if what I am teaching is not in every part of the bible, if every part of the bible does not testify to it. then I am wrong, but I am not.  He doesn’t say, here is the gospel and so now the Law is obsolete.  If the Law seems to contradict the gospel then we must not understand the Law because the purpose of everything in the bible and its teaching all comes together, It all agrees.  He is teaching us to see the bible with coherency and unity.  He does this by dividing the bible into 2 eras with 2 figures to represent those eras.

 

Abraham and Moses; Promise and law.

 

 

He shows how there is no contradiction between them, only agreement. There is nothing in the bible just to be known, it is to be applied. He wants it to be a part of you, He wants it to be life. There is no naked information in the bible.

 

Abraham:  in verse 8 God announced the gospel to Abraham in advance saying all the nations would be blessed through you. In verse 16 He says the promises to Abraham were given to him and to his seed.  The promise was that he would make them a great nation and he would give his descendants then land to live in and in your seed all the nations would be blessed. Paul is saying that the promise to Abraham is not just an earthly inheritance. Every time God tells Abraham he will bless his seed, it is a singular word. 1 seed, 1 descendant. The promise to Abraham has a physics fulfillment blessed with a physical land but it also has an ultimate fulfillment, not through a group of people but by 1, Christ, and it’s not just a physical one but a spiritual one. It is the promise of the holy spirit.

 

How did the blessing come to Abraham? It came by promise. If inheritance is dependent upon the law then it is no longer by promise.  If I said I want to give you $1000 by Promise, what do you have to do to get it? If I said there was an envelope with $1000 behind a curtain, what would you have to do to get, just believe.  A Law agreement would be, I want you to first cut down all the trees in my yard then I will give you $1000.

 

Promise agreements all depend on the Promisor, but in a law covenant, it all has to do with the promisee, whether you do what is asked.  As soon as 2 people have to fulfill it, it is a law and no longer a promise.  He promised Abraham and never said, as long as you do this. 

 

All this is alluding to Genesis 15. If you don’t understand Genesis 15, if you will not understand Galatians, nor the Bible.

 

GENESIS 15 : GODS COVENANT WITH ABRAHAM 

8And he said, LORD God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? 9And he said to him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon. 10And he took to him all these, and divided them in the middle, and laid each piece one against another: but the birds divided he not. 11And when the fowls came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.12And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram; and, see, an horror of great darkness fell on him. 13And he said to Abram, Know of a surety that your seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not their’s, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them 400 years; 14And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance. 15And you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. 16But in the fourth generation they shall come here again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.17And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.18In the same day the LORD made a covenant ^[h1285] with Abram, saying, To your seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates:19The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, 20And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, 21And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.

 

Abraham asked God, how can I know? God said in verse a bring me a heifer, goat, ram, dove, and pigeon, and Abraham knew immediately what to do with them. He cut them in half because that was the way in which you made a contract or agreement.

 

Another example of this Jeremiah 34:18.

 

JEREMIAH 34: 18And the men who transgressed my covenant and did not keep the terms of the covenant that they made before me, I will make them like^a the calf that they cut in two and passed between its parts— 19the officials of Judah, the officials of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, the priests, and all the people of the land who passed between the parts of the calf. 20And I will give them into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of those who seek their lives. Their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth. 

 

The routine way that people made contracts at that time was to cut open the flesh of animals and walk between the pieces because they were identifying with the animal.  They were saying if I don’t do what I just said I would do, then may I be like this, may I be cut to pieces and be cut off, may my body became food for the birds & beasts of the earth.  The leaders of Judah & Jerusalem had made a promise by walking between the pieces and God said because you didn’t do it, I am calling in my chips., in Jeremiah 34:18.  So Abraham says how can I know, God tells him to go get the animals, he cuts them in pieces and then a tremendous darkness fell over him, so Abraham thought that God wanted him to walk through the pieces and make a promise, but then to his utter shock, a smoking furnace and blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces and God said “I will give you this land, I will give you descendants, I will give you a seed.”

 

There is no categorical statement possible that salvation is by grace and by promise. This is why Paul said, “look at Abraham and the promise to Abraham!”    God went through the pieces, which means God is saying if I don’t do what I am promising, may I be like this. God never asked Abraham to pass through the pieces.  Abraham knew that when a king care and would make a treaty or agreement with someone he had conquered and the king of the defeated land would pass through the pieces saying this is what I agree to do.  So God passing through the pieces and not Abraham, means it does not mated what Abraham does.  There is no place that shows more strongly that salvation is not an agreement between 2 people. It is not a matter of law, it is a matter of promise.  God says I will do this, I will bless you, I will give you my spirit, I will save you, I will work my salvation. Not only can you trust me but you can’t even trust you because whether or not you listen to me, I will listen to you, whether or not you are faithful to me, I will be faithful to you. Even if I have to be killed I will do it, which happened when a great darkness came down and Jesus cried my God, my God, why have you forsaken me, and he was cut off from the land of the living.

 

Salvation is by promise, not by law. The promiser is the only thing you need.

 

How much faith do you need to be saved? If you falling’ off a cliff ‘and you see one branch sticking out, how much faith do you have to have for it so save you, just enough faith to grab it, because your faith does not save you at all, It is not the strength of your faith.  It is the strength of the branch that saves you, not the strength of your faith. Your surrender will not save you, All you need is nothing but people keep trying to bring something, and that is why no one is being saved. Paul is saying God made a promise agreement If you hear the gospel and think you have to do something to be worthy of it, that is unbelief. All you need is nothing.

 

430 years later you have Moses and the Law.  So what was the purpose of the Law if salvation is by promise? It was added because of transgressing until the seed to whom the promise was made had come. The law had been put into effect by angels though a mediator.

 

God Above  

Moses relieves law at top of mountain

Humanity Below

 

A mediator does not represent just one party but God is 1 (which means don’t pit Moses against Abraham) because the next verse says, is the law opposed to the promises of God? no, but if the law could impart life, then righteousness would have come though the Law but the scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised being given through faith in Christ, might be given to those who believe.  He is saying that yes, something cannot be by principle bound through by both law and promise, but in life, but in the bible, the Law and promise are absolutely in agreement. The Law coming along did not change the way He related to us.  When God says I will die if necessary to give you this blessing, he hadn’t died yet when the Law came along.  Is God saying it’s over now because the Law came?

 

The Law was added to make us a prisoner Paul said, for through the Law, I die to the Law.

 

The reason the Law & promise agree in the Christian life is:

1. the Law shows us the need for the promise
2. The promise shows us the scope of the Law.

The Law does not just say obey me or obey the golden rule. That’s what it says on the surface but if you listen deeply you will see, the Law is saying you will never be able to obey me, because when you really read the law and see what it demands, they are way above you head.  If you look at the law you have the 10 commandments and also the tabernacle and the sacrifices. Paul says really listen to the Law, the Law commanded that they do sacrifices means tht God in the very giving of the Law is saying you will never keep it. The only reason he would command them to do sacrifices is because he knew they couldn’t keep the law and they were always going to have to atone for sin.  Paul is saying the Law is there, it is true and right, but the Mosaic Law never said, “and this is how you will be saved!

 

If you listen to the golden rule and think about what it demands that you should be loving other people with every bit of creativity, joy, relentlessness, and energy that you meet your own needs, on one hand, its important and you need to use it as much as you can, but it is also saying you will never obey me.  The law had the tabernacle and sacrifices with it, which proves the Law couldn’t be kept. So the Law shows us we need salvation by promise, it does not disagree with the concept of salvation by promise, it shows us that without it you are dead. The Law points as to the promise. The Law says look at your transgression. The law shows us our transgressions. The Law makes us a prisoner to sin. It binds us up. If you only listen the Law faintly it will just make you feel a little guilty. If you really listen to the Law, it will imprison you, it will bind you up, knock you out, throw you down, and it will say you need something beside me, if you are ever going to find God. Not only do the Law & promise agree in that the Law shows as our need for salvation by promise, but the only people who can ever take the Law seriously, are those people who believe salvation is by promise.

 

Not only does the law show us our need for salvation by promise but the promise shows us the scope of the law. If you believe you are saved by being good, you will never let yourself see all the Law demands. The 5th commandment says don’t kill but Jesus says, do you know what that means? When Jesus opens the commands up on the sermon on the mount, we have to run away unless you believe salvation is by promise.   Only if you believe that you are saved apart from your works will you ever be able to admit what the Law demands.  The only people who can take the law of God seriously are those that know it can never save them. They are the only ones that can really admit what it actually demands, and seek to obey it without feeling crushed by it every second. They are the only ones that can love the Law. David said how much he loved the Law and said it was sweeter than honey to the mouth, Unless you understand the gospel, that is absolutely not true. There is no way you can read the law without knowing there is no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus.

 

It was 2000 years before Mary received the promise to Abraham.  His mercies they endure, ever faithful, ever sure. The mills of God grind slow, but they grind exceedingly fine. They take a time, but his promises will come true.

• • •

SO WHY THEN THE LAW? 

The Gospel which declares we are justified by faith and not by works of the Law does not negate the Law, it establishes it.  When we place our faith in Christ, who fulfilled the requirements of the Law for us, and we ask for forgiveness of sins which are transgressions of the law, we are establishing that the Law is real, that it exists, and in no way negating it.

 

The law shows us our need for the gospel, and then, once we embrace God’s salvation by faith, the law then becomes the away to know, serve, and grow into the Iikeness of the one who saved us.   

 

If God demanded righteousness from us then we are dead.  We don’t give God a righteousness and then He blesses us.  No, God gives us a perfect righteousness in Jesus Christ, then I live for Him. 

 

Personal righteousness never precedes personal justification.  Relationship comes before obedience.

 

We are not saved by the Law, we are saved for the Law.  The Law is how we regulate our love relationship with God, not the way we merit the relationship.  Gods laws are not merely busy work.  They are for our-good that we may prosper; they reflect consummate wisdom; they help us live in such a way that fulfills our designed nature. The more we obey, the more spiritually alive we become, and we become More of who God made us to be.  When we disobey, we are unleashing the forces of chaos and disorder because we are violating His design for us. 

 

To misapply the Law is catastrophic.  God’s Law is not our payment plan.  When you misunderstand the purpose of the law, you will live in bondage, even though you have been delivered from Egypt.  Your life for you will be making more bricks with less straw.  Properly understand the law and though the world and wilderness seem to crush and hem you in, you will live with the freedom of heart and flourishing of life that God intends.  To not understand the law, is to not understand God’s purpose and plans.  What’s at stake is life and death, whether we truly understand why the law was given and how it applies.

• • •

THE LAW IS AN INDICTMENT

 

An indictment is a formal charge of a serious crime.  When someone is indicted, they are given formal notice that they are believed to have committed a crime that includes the list of charges against them.  

 

We all stand guilty before a just and holy God because we have all broken his law.  The sin in our heart makes it impossible to keep his law.  God’s Law is the standard by which all men will be judged. 

 

PSALM 143 : 2Do not enter into judgment with Your servant, For in Your sight no one living is righteous.

 

ROMANS 3 : 19Now we know that what things soever the law said, it said to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.20Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

 

If someone killed one of your family members, you wouldn’t want the judge to say, “that’s ok, I forgive you”.  You would want justice.  So why would God overlook all the things we’ve done that are wrong?  We deserve nothing from Him accept death and eternal separation from Him.  Well you say that is not very loving or kind of you.   I am a good person.  I am not that bad and I don’t deserve God’s punishment.  You may be relatively good when you compare yourself with other like Hitler, but in the eyes of God there is no one good. Your heart is not good.  The only standard which you can truly compare yourself to is God’s Law, which you have broken, as we all have.   We can hide our self-indulgent, cruel, envious, lustful thoughts from others but we can’t from God.  If all of our inner thoughts for a day were published out to twitter for the whole world to see, everyone would be cancelled and condemned immediately.   

 

1 JOHN 1: 8If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

 

In showing us our sin, the law becomes our schoolteacher, our Tudor.  The Law administered by Moses’ played the necessary role of convicting people of their sin during the almost 1500 years between Mt. Sinai and the gospel of Justification by faith in Jesus Christ.  

 

GALATIANS 3:  23But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. 24Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.

 

Here the Law is pictured as a jail cell.  It is portrayed as a schoolmaster where a slave who took a young pupil for instruction and protected him from harm until he came of age.    When the gospel of Christ came, that role of the law was no longer needed.

 

The law teaches us that these are God’s standards, and we don’t meet them on our best day, and that we can’t keep God’s standards.  The Law teaches us that it is impossible to earn our way to heaven or back in God’s good graces.  All of our righteousness has no influence to keep us from hell, just as a spider web has no ability to stop a falling rock, because the law is spiritual, but we are carnal, sold under the law of sin and death because we have all sinned and nothing good dwells in our flesh.   It shows us that God is Holy and we are not and that His Holy Law establishes authority over sinful man as long as we are alive.

 

ROMANS 7 : 1Know you not, brothers, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?

 

 

ROMANS 3 : 19Now we know that what things soever the law said, it said to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 

 

Just as the term “no one is above the law” is used in our legal system, the same applies for God’s Law which means you are “under it”.  Laws are put in place for the well being of others and yourself, to keep peace and to establish justice and order.  (ie. for our own good). 

 

1 TIMOTHY :  9Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for murderers, 10For fornicators, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for enslavers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;

 

In the beginning man (Adam) was given dominion and authority over earth by God.   But because of the fall, the law now establishes dominion and authority over man while he lives and declares us all guilty before a Holy God.  We do not meet the requirements or the standard God set before us.  We do not check off the boxes nor can we.  No one can earn justification by obedience to the law’s requirements and it was never intended to be a means of salvation.  

 

JAMES 2: ¹⁰ For whoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

 

The Law brings about a curse for disobedience and failure.

 

GALATIANS 3: 10For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, “Cursediseveryone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.”

 

Sin is defined as a transgression of the Law. Sin does not exist without the Law.  We can’t understand the gospel without understanding what sin is nor what sin is, without understanding what the Law is.    

 

ROMANS 4:15 Because the Law Works Wrath: for where No Law is, there is no transgression.

 

The Law is not sin, but it gives life to it, by defining what Sin Is.

 

ROMANS 7 : 7What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. No, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, You shall not covet. 8But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, worked in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. 9For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. 10And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be to death. 11For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. 12Why the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.  

 

A law does not take effect until broken. When it is transgressed, it works wrath and debt.  

 

Example : If you are convicted of a felony by transgressing a man made law, you are in debt to repay society by serving time in prison, therefore a slave and in bondage to it. 

 

The law was added because of repeated transgressions and to establish a record of debt to stand against us that has to be paid.  The Ultimate wage of sin is death.   It is the debt all men must pay.

 

GALATIANS 3:19 Why then the law?  It was added because of transgressions, until the seed should come, to whom the promise was made.  

 

 

The Law declares that we are all under sin and that no one is righteous.  

 

ROMANS 3 : 9What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;10As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one

 

The Law declares everyone in the world guilty and no one is justified before the eyes of God.

 

ROMANS 3 : 19Now we know that what things soever the law said, it said to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.20Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

• • •

 

SO WHY DID GOD GIVE ISRAEL A LAW THEY COULD NOT DO?

To bring them to the place, where rather than try to keep the law in self effort, they would cast themselves at the mercy of God, who would do for them what they could never do.  Grace is free but what is free must be wanted.  Our fallen hearts will never want grace, they will always revert to self-effort and righteousness, and the law comes along and crushes that notion,  so that no one can boast.  Grace smashes pride.

 

EPHESIANS 2: 8For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9not of works, lest anyone should boast.

 

The primary purpose of the Law was to reveal sin in its full scope and foreshadow man’s need for the gift of righteousness through faith.   God’s Law is not our payment plan.  When the law has done its work as our schoolteacher we are left totally depleted of self-effort and we open ourselves to the grace and mercy of God. 

 

GALATIANS 3: 21Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. 22But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. 

 

I need you God to do what I could never do.  I need a perfect law keeper because I am never going to be it, which is the seed that was promised.  The law was not given to deliver us from bondage.  God in His mercy & grace brought them out of bondage.   The law shows us that we could never deliver ourselves.  The law was given to crush any pre-conceived notion that we could achieve righteousness by our own self efforts.  The Law brings us to surrender so that we will wave the white flag.  The Law brings us to the end of our rope, so at the end of it, we will find a strong and willing savior.     The gospel is for those who say “I can’t” but say that running to a savior who can. 

 

The Law crushes us, declares us guilty, condemns us and sets and impossible standard that cannot be achieved so we will die to ourselves and find life in Christ. 

 

“The principal point of the law, is not to make people better, but worse, that is to say, it shows them their sin, so that they may be humble, terrified, bruised, broken, and by this means, may be driven to seek comfort and to come to that blessed seed.” ~ Martin Luther 

 

The law was given to show us our need for Jesus.  Until we come to the place where we say I can’t, we will keep trying.  When the holy spirit takes the law of God and convicts us of our sin, it shows us we cannot keep his standard.  Then we ask God, will you meet the standard for me.   

 

This is the Good news of the Gospel.  The law shows how deep our problem is within our heart, not our behavior.  The lesson of the law is that the heart is fallen.  

 

The divine purpose of the Law was to clarify sin until Jesus Christ the seed came. 

 

GALATIANS 3:19Why then the law?  It was added because of transgressions, until the seed should come, to whom the promise was made.  

 

Seeds are meant for beauty and fullness but they first have to be put in the ground, cover and bury them where there is no light or air.  A seed has to die in order to become something new.    A seed contains instructions, which is detailed information telling how somethin should be done, operated, or assembled.  

 

ROMANS 7 :  God’s Law Is Holy

7What then shall we say? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed, I would not have been mindful of sin if not for the law. For I would not have been aware of coveting if the law had not said, “Do not covet.”a8But sin, seizing its opportunity through the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from the law, sin is dead.9Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10So I discovered that the very commandment that was meant to bring life actually brought death. 11For sin, seizing its opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through the commandment put me to death.12So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good.

 

JEREMIAH 31:  A NEW COVENANT 33But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, said the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts ^[h3820]; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, said the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

 

PSALM 37:31 The law of his God [is] in his heart; none of his steps shall slide.

 

Jesus, the seed, the word made flesh, fulfilled the requirements of the law on our behalf.   Through the Holy spirit the instructions of His word and law are administered into the soil of our heart, so that we can produce the fruits of the spirit.

 

 

 

When we receive the gospel seed and let it take root, our old self dies and we are born again of an incorruptible seed which is the word of God,  and we are given new life, meaning, and purpose.   We are new creatures in Christ.  There is no law against the fruit of the spirit.

 

1 PETER 1 :22Seeing you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit to unfeigned love of the brothers, see that you love one another with a pure heart fervently: 23Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which lives and stays for ever.

 

Death leads to life.  We cannot live for his kingdom and our kingdom.  We cannot write our own rules and submit to his rules.  We cannot pride ourselves on our independent righteousness and cast ourselves on his righteousness at the same time.  We cannot live for our glory and for his glory.  We cannot love the world in our hearts and love him above all else at the same time.  We cannot insert ourselves in the center of our worlds and have him at the center too.  Coming to Jesus is not a negotiation, an agreement, or contract…it is death, which paradoxically is the portal to real life.

 

LUKE 9: 23Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross [b]daily, and follow Me.24For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. 25For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost?

 

JOHN 12: 23But Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. 24Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much [d]grain. 25He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.

 

ROMANS 6:Dead to Sin, Alive to God

 

1What then shall we say? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2Certainly not! How can we who died to sin live in it any longer? 3Or aren’t you aware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life. 5For if we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection. 6We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. 7For anyone who has died has been freed from sin. 8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. 9For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. 10The death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God. 11So you too must count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires. 13Do not present the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and present the parts of your body to Him as instruments of righteousness. 14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

 

 

The Law crushes us, declares us guilty, condemns us and sets and impossible standard that cannot be achieved so we will die to ourselves and find life in Christ.  When we place our faith in Christ, our old self dies and we are no longer under the curse of the Law.  We receive the holy spirit and we are given new hearts with the law written on them,  which allows us to produce the fruit of the spirit,  against which, there is no law.  

 

COLOSSIANS 1 :3 We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, 4 Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which you have to all the saints, 5 For the hope ^[g1680] which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel; 6 Which is come to you, as it is in all the world; and brings forth fruit, as it does also in you, since the day you heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth:

 

Paul is saying here that the reason for your faith and love is hope. Paul is saying the Colossians Faith and love have been birthed from a hope in the things of God (his domain/kingdom) and not of the fleeting things of the world (appetites, lusts, and things your eyes crave) which will not bear the kind of fruit that leads to life. This new hope births faith and love.  Paul is saying that the gospel is a seed that has been planted and is bearing fruit. An entire forest can come from one tree as that tree bears fruit and then those seeds are blown by the wind and other trees sprout up. The seed of Gospel is planted in human heart and begins to grow inside and your changed by it, like something bursting forth. It transforms you from inside out. Paul is saying obedience and discipline flow out of a changed heart.  There’s only one thing that causes the changed heart and that is faith in the seed. Transformation is result of truth taking root and over time old patterns and thoughts are disrupted, new thought and belief is replaced and the core idea that starts it all is that you are loved unconditionally by the only one whose opinion matters and its not earned by you. God takes the love of his own son, who followed him perfectly and places that on us, through our faith in him and he says that’s how I love you. You are now in the kingdom through faith. Knowing that you are loved and secured has the power to transform a life. The Gospel renews our mind which is the catalyst for a changed life. Our new sense of hope will produce the fruit of the faith and love which is in turn can go out into the world and plant more seeds, which is our faith being multiplied.

 

 

HEBREWS 7:19 The Law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did, by which we draw near to God,

 

 God’s word is shockingly honest and says the future for this world is very tragic.   It is much worse than any scientist, politician, religious leader, or environmentalist could ever imagine.  We are not headed to a humanly engineered utopia or an our way to an age of peace and tranquility.  All history has been against the battle of the effects of sin and the effects of the curse on humanity brought by God because of sin.  Jesus came and entered into the brokenness of his creation and paid the penalty for our sin and went away.   In MATTHEW 24 He said that while He was away, things would only get worse and that wickedness will multiply.  There will be worldwide deception, wars, famines, earthquakes, and that the love of many will grow cold but those that persevere to the end will be saved. 

 

In the grim reality of living in a sin scarred and fallen world that is not’ functioning as intended, we are not left without hope because hope first assesses something is broken.  If things were perfect, we would not need hope.

 

Second, hope always has an object, what you place your hope in to fix what is broken.

 

Thirdly, hope has an expectation which is what you ask the object of your hope deliver.

 

People believe and place their hope that we can save ourselves with a political system, ideology, or that the world can be a better place through science and technology, when the gospel is shockingly honest about how dark things are.  It does not say “cheer up, if we all pull together, we can make the world a better place”. It says, no things really are this bad and inescapable, nevertheless, there is hope, and it is only through the person and work of Jesus Christ, who entered into the brokenness of His creation and defeated sin and death for us, and completely defeated sins powerful hold on our lives. He alone has provided as a way to escape our hearts. He has delivered, redeemed, and ransomed us from the power of darkness. He is our hope and our only reason for our hope. Hope is not a thing, a set of circumstances, or just a set of ideas.  Hope is a person. We no longer have to search for hope because He has already care.

 

JOHN 16 : 31Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? 32Indeed the hour is coming, yes, has now come, that you will be scattered, each to his [e]own, and will leave Me alone. And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. 33These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you [f]will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

 

“One of the greatest sources of strength in Christianity lies in its profoundly pessimistic view of human nature. an The delusion of perfect ability of human kind through a process of scientific knowledge and unconscious evolution has been responsible for a great deal of heartbreak. The Christian doctrine of the double nature of man, that He is imperfect in and of himself, yet closely related by a real unity of substance to an eternal perfection within and get beyond of in, makes the present state of human society less hopeless and less irrational.” ~ Dorothy Sayers

 

Christianity is so much more pessimistic than any human pessimism and yet so much more optimistic than any human optimism.  Dystopian outlook expects the worst and has no hope.  A Utopian outlook is unrealistically optimistic and thinks we can save ourselves with a political system, an ideology, or through scienct or technology.  The gospel says, things are really this bad, nevertheless there is hope.  Things will continue to get worse but we have hope in the fact that the gates of will hell will not stand against His church.

• • •

SO WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE GOSPEL?

Just as you have to unwrap a gift, you have to unpack what this gift means by thinking out the implications, not neglecting the gift but working out the salvation and applying it into every nook and cranny of our life so that it reshapes our desires and motivations of all that we do.  If this is true and He did this for me, then my life should be completely reshaped to live in light of this truth.  How should I respond to this truth in my relationships, my marriage, parenting, finances, my job, etc.

 

 

HEBREWS 2: 1We must pay closer attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. 2For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every transgression and disobedience received its just punishment, 3how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? This salvation was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard Him, 

WE ARE GIVEN NEW LIFE

WITH A NEW IDENTITY, MEANING, AND PURPOSE

 

Among our most important beliefs are those we hold about who we are.  Identity is the strongest force in the human personality.  We all have a deep abiding need to remain consistent with how we define ourselves.  Identity is the mst important power that determines our actions.  We will act according to our views of who we truly are.

 

When the gospel dawns us, it blows our old identity out of the water.  I must know my identity and whose I am in order to live the way he has called me to live.   In moments of uncertainty and anxiety, it is important to remember who I am, and that I am chosen and loved.  I know who I am because of whose I am.  

 

The gospel gives me the only personalized identity, value, and worth that does not come from something earned or achieved.  I work from the identity given instead of working for an identity. It comes from a free gift that is received so there is no reason to be prideful about anything.  Salvation is not a goal to achieve but a gift to receive.  My sense of value and worth is no longer up and down because it is not based on my performance or record but based on his record.  My hunt for value and worth in this world is over because I know how valued I am by the only pair of eyes on the universe whose opinion counts.   My hope is no longer based on how well I am doing, but on what Jesus has done for me.  His grace allows me to live free of false hope and the faux identity of human fakery once and for all, and to rest in the honest and stable identity I have found in Jesus and his eternal work on my behalf.  My definition of success is now God’s work in and through me, and He offers me things of superior value which are forgiveness, his presence, his Kingdom, a clean conscience, and a pure heart.    The only way to be a Christian is to give up all pretenses that you are accomplished or moral than other people.  Salvation only comes to people that admit that they are sinners and need grace.  His mercy allows us to face and admit how messed up we really are.  

 

Outside of the gospel, everyone’s identity is based on relative status…ie being the smartest kid in school at a young age which made you feel pretty good about yourself, then you show up at an ivy league school and you realize that you are below average, which makes you feel bad because your identity is based on relative status.  You are not proud of being smart, you are proud about being smarter than the people around you.   Everybody gets an identity by salvation (self-esteem/self-worth) through works and accomplishments and it is always relative, which means there are always some people you feel superior to and inferior to.   

 

Resting in the new Identity I have based on what he achieved on my behalf.  My value, significance, self-worth come from the fact that I am valuable in his eyes, and that he gave his life for me, that He is my true spouse, and I am a part of His family.  It is firm, fixed, established, secure, straight.  It is no longer based on my works, my relationship status, what others think of me, or based on any type of relative status which is always fluctuating up and down. I no longer have to work for or build an identity or brand, I work in celebration of the new identity I have been given.  I no longer have to prove myself or validate my existence.  The esteem and worth we strive so hard to achieve and get from others he bestows on us so we no longer have to be enslaved to applause, approval, and praise from others.  We can now live out of the joy and stability of knowing that we are His children and He delights in us. 

 

The only reliable standard of self-evaluation is the perfect mirror of the Word of God which frees us from riding the roller coaster of people’s views of us, which is its own form of bondage.

 

The work we are now called to do is to submit and surrender our rebellious hearts to the work of the spirit.   Our weakness does not keep us from him.  It is our delusions of strength that does.  The gospel is for the weak, unable, and the foolish.   The gospel is welcome to people who say, “I can’t”, but say that, running to a redeemer who can.  That is the gospel.

 

 

Our Identity is redefined, our purpose is redirected, our thoughts are rescued, our desires are reshaped, and our living is reformed.

Living in tension (tuned), fixed, firmed, secure, established straight, smooth and in light of the gospel,  standing firmly on these twin foundational realities – to keep from swaying to left and right, and in order to sing unto Him a new song;  No tension between these and we will yoyo between being lifted up in pride and self-loathing based off own performance.  The gospel blows this spectrum off the map because we are actually way worse off than we could ever imagine and yet more hopeful than we could ever have dreamed of.  (In physics, tension is described as the pulling force transmitted axially by the means of a string, a cable, chain…etc; tension might also be described as the action-reaction pair of forces acting at each end of said elements).   

 

 

ISAIAH 40:  Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.  Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain made low and the crooked straight, the rough plain

 

 

The gospel’s devastingly humbling news that people need to accept into their hearts and into their sense of their identity.  But this hard-to-accept news is the doorway not to depressive, self-loathing, but to eternal hope and joy.  It’s only when you accept who you are and what you are unable to do that you begin to understand the necessity of God’s gift.  Until we realize how big of a debt we have been forgiven we will not be able to respond appropriately.  Minimizing sin devalues grace.  Only when we admit how deep and comprehensive our problem is, will we get excited about the rescue that only Gods mercy can supply.  Humble my pride to the dust and raise me to the heavens out of my dispondency.  Help me to understand the depth of my sin, how much of a debt that I owed, and how much i have been forgiven so that i can better appreciate and value how much grace you have given me, and so that I can respond appropriately.

 

TENSION/TUNED

 

Confront/Convict/Confess/Humble

A Sober warning

Tan Hide

To keep from being lifted up & prideful

 

 

I am evil, sinful, wicked, naked

I was spiritually dead, unable to respond

 

The gravity of condition and fallenness & brokenness of world, and that things really are this bad, how dire a need of rescue I am in, and how badly I need a savior

The only thing I bring into the relationship is helplessness, weakness, & neediness

I am a Sinner and sin still lives inside me.

The seriousness & depth of sin, how great my debt was,  and the countless number of my sins, and that sin still dwells within me.  How poor & spiritually bankrupt I am, and how I have nothing to offer Him.  I am underserving, wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked, and the only thing I deserve is God’s wrath and condemnation

 

Putting off the old man and the body which is dead in Sin and is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts: 

 

Kenosis…lower still

Encourage/Comfort/Celebrate

Glorious Hope

Warm Heart

To keep from self-loathing 

Yet I have been clothed and sanctified.

I have been declared righteous and a saint

I am born again and a new creature

Yet we are not left without hope which only comes through the person and work of Christ

Yet how great his strength & provision is, & his grace has enabled me to do what he has called me to do

I am a King because of the  expansiveness of his grace and his mercy, and through His costly his sacrifice paid for them all and wiped my debt clean and my sins are forgiven, and my remaining sin is being progressively defeated.  I have eternal riches & inheritance in Him because of what He did for me.  He has clothed me in righteousness, given me eyes to see, and I am now a child of God, I am a new creation in Him

Putting on the new man and be filled with His Spirit which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. 

 

 

 

2 CORINTHIANS 6: 9 As unknown, and yet well known; as dying and behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; 10 as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.

 

The paradox of Christian ministry which contrasts between human frailty and the evidence of God’s power.

 

Confession of sin without the celebration of grace leads to guilt, self-loathing, timidity, and spiritual paralysis.  Embracing grace without the admission of sin leads to confident theological “always righteism” but does not result in change in your heart and life.  

 

 

Seeing myself this way shifts my complaint, entitlement, and disappointment into gratitude, need, and thankfulness.  I have absolutely no reason to boast, so I can interact with others in true humility and meekness – This allows me to combat spiritual blindness and the self-righteousness of sin.   When we believe that in Jesus Christ the Father loves and fully accepts you, then you can admit your sin and weakness and at the same time know he is going to forgive you and use you in spite of it.

 

The only reliable standard of self-evaluation/comparison is the perfect mirror of the Word of God which frees us from riding the roller coaster of people’s views of us, which is its own form of bondage

• • •

ALREADY JUSTIFIED / NOT YET GLORIFIED

THE MESSY MIDDLE

• • •

GOD’S CARE & PROVISION

TRIALS, DISCIPLINE, REFINEMENT, SUFFERING, TRIBULATION, TROUBLE, WAR

God’s care often comes in uncomfortable forms.  God saves in and through our troubles and trial, not from them.  He promises to be with us in our trouble which allows to be joyful in our suffering.  In between the already and not yet, we will face trials, troubles, and tribulation.   Because we know this is not all there is and there is eternity in our future, we can filled with hope, knowing that the sin, trials, and sufferings of this present life will not last forever.  He has overcome all things.  He has promised sin will die, suffering will end, our trials will be over, and we will live with God in pefect peace forever and ever.

 

ZECHARIAH 13:9This third I will bring through the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on My name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are My people,’ and they will say, ‘The LORD is our God.’ ”

ROMANS 5: 3 but we glory in tribulations also: knowing tht tribulation works patience, and patience, experience, and experience, hope; and hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us.

 

The devil wants us to think that God’s promises have failed if he lets us suffer.  In Luke 21:16-18 we see the paradox that under God’s care “not a hair of your head will perish” and yet “they will put some of you to death”. 

 

LUKE 21:16You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. 17And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. 18But not a hair of your head shall be lost.

 

JOHN 16 : 33These things I have spoken to you, thatin Me you may have peace.In the world you[f]will have tribulation; but be of good cheer,I have overcome the world.”

 

The only things faithful people can lose in suffering are things that are finally expendable like those things built on appearance, social status, and human approval.  The real you, the one God is creating, shaping, and molding cannot be harmed.

 

Wise believers actually rejoice in discipline, the kind of trouble that drives them to God’s Law and Word where they get relief (an inward quiteness in face of outward troubles).  While God may test and refine and us, he will never abandon us because God passed sentence on evil and then suffered himself the punishment in Jesus.  This is how we know he will never forsake His inheritance.  

 

He allows evil to come upon us so that we will understand the truth and turn to him.  (Daniel)  He sends us trouble to rescue our hearts from idolatry. (Judges)  God’s grace does not always come in the form of comfort and encouragement or relief and release.  He often sends the violent care of trouble in order to rescue our hearts from idolatry, but we are wanting situational and situational care, and when we get it, we turn back to our sinful ways.  (Every branch that brings forth fruit he purges and prunes so that it may bring forth more fruit.)

 

God’s agenda is to transform my heart not to better my circumstances.

 

He takes us places we would have never gone on our own, in order to produce in us what we could never have done on our own.

• • •

JUSTICE & MERCY

TRUTH & LOVE

1 JOHN 4: 15If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16And we have come to know and believe the love that God has for us. God is love; whoever abides in love abides in God, and God in him. 17In this way, love has been perfected among us, so that we may have confidence on the day of judgment; for in this world we are just like Him.

 

God no longer sees our sin because we are clothed in Christs righteousness and can stand before God confidently in the day of judgement and be saved from His wrath.  This is how God can execute justice and wrath as well as be merciful and loving without compromising His holiness in any way. God can now finally get rid sin and evil once and for all without ending us when he comes back to judge the earth, when the debt from the transgressions is finally due, because we are found in Christ who fulfilled the law perfectly, and died in our place, and took the wrath and punishment we deserved. 

 

PSALM 103: 6The Lord executes righteousness And justice for all who are oppressed. 7He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel. 8The Lord is merciful and gracious, Slow to anger, and abounding in mercy. 9He will not always strive with us, Nor will He keep His anger forever. 10He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor punished us according to our iniquities. 11For as the heavens are high above the earth, So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; 12As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us. 

 

If God only offered us justice, no one would run to him.  Mercy can do what the law is powerless to do.  Christ reconciles all things in heaven and earth by making peace through his blood.  When Jesus bore our punishment on the cross, love and holiness “kissed” – they were both fulfilled at once.  Righteousness and Justice are the foundation of His throne; Love and Faithfulness goes before Him (Psalm 89:14)

 

Love without holiness is mere sentiment; righteousness and law without a grasp of grace is Pharisaism.  Our natural temperaments incline us to one or the other, but the Gospel keeps truth and love together in our lives.

 

Truth isn’t mean and love isn’t dishonest.  They are two sides of the same righteous agenda that longs for the spiritual welfare of another.  Truth not spoken in love ceases to be truth because it gets bent and twisted by other human agendas, and love that abandons the truth ceases to be love because it forsakes what is best for the person when it has been corrupted by other motives.  To love truth, you have to be committed to love, and to love love, you have to be committed to truth. 

 

Justice will be served on the Whore of Babylon who is under the curse of the Law because she still rebels against God’s authority and trust in her own works.  Just like the tower of babel reached into heaven, her sins have reached to heaven, and so she will drink the cup of God’s wrath when He comes to judge the earth in righteousness.  Evil and Sin will finally be eradicated.

 

REVELATION 19:  1After these things I [a]heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, “Alleluia! Salvation and glory and honor and power belong to [b]the Lord our God! 2For true and righteous are His judgments, because He has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication; and He has avenged on her the blood of His servants shed by her.” 3Again they said, “Alleluia! Her smoke rises up forever and ever!”

 

The bride of Christ, whose sins and debt has been forgiven, will be redeemed, because she has placed her faith and trust in what Christ has done for her.  She is now under grace and can stand confidently in the day of judgement.  There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.  We are covered by the blood of the lamb.

 

REVELATION 19: 6And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, “Alleluia! For the[d] Lord God Omnipotent reigns! 7Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.” 8And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.

 

 

 

• • •

THE SEVERITY OF CHRIST

We know the sweetness of his mercies and how patient and kind and forgiving Christ was but especially offensive to the modern, western sentiment is the tough, blunt, fierce form of Jesus love.  People with thin skin would often hae felt hurt by Jesus’ piercing tongue.  People who identify love only with soft and tender words and ways would have been repeatedly outraged by the stinging, almost violent, language of the Lord.  People with thin skin would often have felt hurt by jesus’ pierccing tongue.  People who identify love only with soft and tender words and ways would have been respeatedy outraged by the stinging, almost violent, language of the Lord. 

 

What we meet in the biting language of Christ is a form of love that corresponds with the real world of corruption and the dullness of our hearts and the magnitude of what is at stake in our choices.  If there were no great evils and no deaf hearts and no eternal consequences, perhaps the only fitting forms of love would be a soft touch and tender words.  But such a world does not kill the Son of God and hate his disciples.

 

We need to listen to the stunning severity of Jesus mercy.  He was not concerned about the approval of others.   No one ever spoke like Jesus (John 7:46).  It began when he was a boy in the temple: “All who heard him were amazed at…his answers” (luke 2:47).  When he entered his public ministry in the synagogue in Nazareth at first “all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth” (luke 4:22); but when he bluntly cut across the grain of their sel-centered expectations in verses 24-27, the same people “were filled with warth” and tried to throw him off a cliff.  Then, at the end of his ministry in the last week of his life, his peircing answers finally stopped the mouths of of his adversaries, except for the cry of condemnation. “No one was able to answer hima word, nor from that day did anyone dare ask him any more questions” (Matthew 22:46)

 

The condition of the world that made the coming of Christ necessary, was so bad that Jesus reached for shocking language to capture it.  When peple came asking for a sign he responded, “an evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign” (Matthew 16:4).  When his own disciples could not cast out a demon he said, “O faithless generation, how long am i to be with you?  (Mark 9:19).   In Matthew 7 when Jesus taught His disciples how to pray He started with the assumption that they were evil and told them so, “if you then who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will you father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him”. 

 

Not only did Jesus indict the world as evil and adulterous and unbelieving, he said that all were spiritually dead.  When a disciple asked Jesus if he could go bury his father, Jesus shocked him with the wods,” Follow me, and leave the dead to bury the their own dead” (Matthew 8:22).  A terrible condition of living death called for tough words.  It was the same with the Pharisees”  “you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead men’s bones” Matthew 23:37)

The deadness was satanic because Satan has been a spiritual murderer from the beginning.  Jesus outraged pious unbelievers with this incrimination: “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is not truth in him” (John 8:44).  And when his own devoted disciple Peter spoke heroically about not letting Jesus be killed, Jesus turned to him and said, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hinderance to me” (Matthew 16:23).  There was one solution to spiritual death:  Jesus substitutionary death.  Any hindrance to that was demonic.  No words were too strong to repel it.  

 

The condition of hte human heart will lead to eternal punishment for those who do not recieve the remedy Christ brought.  THerefore Jesus spared no delicate feelings in warning against hell.  No one in the Bible spoke more often, or more frightfully, about hell:  “The angels will come out and separate the evil from the rightous and throw them into the fiery furnace.  In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 13:4950).  When disciples tried to pin Jesus down about the place of judgement, he simply answered, “Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather” (Luke 17:37).  Some realites are so fearful, they don’t call for specific precision but scandalous portrayal.

 

Hell, Jesus said, is a place “where the worm does not die and fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:48).  It is a place of “outer darkness” (Matthew 8:12; 22:13; 25:30).  It is “eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41).  The fire is “unquenchable” (Mark 9:43).  It is “eternal punishment” (Matthew 25:46).

 

Therefore, Jesus explains with heart-stopping reasonableness that mere earthly dangers-like being kill!-are as nothing compared to the danger of hell:  “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after tha have nothing more that they can do.  But I will warn you whom to fear, fear him who, after hea has killed, has authority to cast into hell.  Yes, I telly you, fear him!  (Luke 12:4-5).  In other words, “Fear not, my disciples, you can only be killed!”.

 

It follows, starkly, that horrific calamities in this world, no matter how painful, are not hte greatest tragedy.  far freater is the failure to escape hell through repentance and faith.  Jesus had a very unsentimental way of speaking this utterly crucial truth to people who put their worst horrors in the wrong place.  For example, one group was horrified at Palate’s mingling the blood of some Galilean worshipers with their sacrfices.  THey reporte this suffering to Jesus, who must have astonished them when he said, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinner than all the other Galileans, because they suffered n this way?  No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish”  (luke 13:2-3).  Ino ther words, instead of being amazed that sinful huans perish, be amazed that you haven’t.  

 

Jesus will show us the way to heaven whether we can stomach it or not.  ” if you right eye cause you to sin, tear it out and throw it aaway.  For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.  And if your right hand cause you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.  For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell”  (Matthew 5:29-30).  Better self-mutilation than damnation.  So it is with our own damantion, and how much more with the damnation of others: “whoever causes one of thse little ones who believe in me to sin, it would better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 11:12).  And it is not surprising that he would say, “The gate is narrow and the way is hard that lead to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:14).  There are not many who will trust Chrsis so deeply and cherish heavne so dearly that they count their eyes and hands and lives less precious than fellowship with Jesus in Paradise.  So the way is narrow, and few follow.  Rather, many listen to Jesu and , “THis is a hard saying; who can listen to it?”  (John 6:60).

 

But he doesn’t let up.  He presses for a narrow way not only in regard to our hands and eyes being pure, and our love for babes being radical; he also takes aim at our undue allegiance to family and self and possessions.  “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mather and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple”  (Luke 14:26).  “Whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life”(John 12:25).  “anyone of you who does not renouce all that he has cannot be my disciple”  (Luke 14:33).   Even love for godly parentlswill often look like hate to the world when we seek the kingdom first.  And if our parents are not godly, the very faith that makes us seek their salvation will turn them against us:  ” i have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law”  (Matthew 10:35).  Do we then lose our family when we follow Chrsit?  Jesus’ answer comes out of the blue:  “Whoever does teh will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:50).

 

If this does not sound like the ministry of the PRince of Peace, realize that his aim is not peace with unbelief and disobedience.  Those are the enemies that must be destroyed, let they destroy.  When the amnesty of Jesus is despised, division is inevitable-and he knew it:  “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division” (luke 12:51).  “You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and realtives and friends and some of you they will put to dath”  (Luke 21:16).  “I came to cast fire on the earth, and would htat it were already kidled!” (uke 12:49).  

 

Who can hear these things?  Who can rejoice in these words and penetrate to the truth of Jesus’ words when he says, “these things I whave spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full”? (John 15:11)  Jesus’ answere is a surprising as the laguage that raised the question.  And he gives it with joy:  “He rejoiced in the Holy Sprit and said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children” (luke 10:21)

The humble, the teachable, the broken, the submissive-the babes- these will hear the voice of strenth and truth and rightesouness and love.  They will hear, and their hears will burn within them when he speaks (Luke 24:32).   They will not be offended.  They will take heart that at last someone sees the severity of our human condition, knows the enemy, will not compromise, and speaks like a conquering King and a great Saviour.

Adam and Eve fell for the lie that life can be found outside of God’s all-knowing all-wise boundaries and as a result they were cast out of his presence and plunged the world into darkness. The minute Adam and Eve lost its relationship with God, we deep down inside, knew there was something wrong with us.  We experienced shame.  We don’t want people to see us. Before we were known and loved and had no problem with people seeing us, but after we lose relationship with God, we have to control what everybody sees about us with big leaves which means every person is radically insecure. 

 

 

Every person feels they have to prove themselves because they are unsure of their worth and value.  This causes us to pursue 

so we pursue any and everything to feel better ourselves and to feel like we matter.  We are constantly trying to prove and validate ourselves to God and to others based off our performance, achievements, merit, and accomplishments.  Everyone’s identity is based on relative status…ie being the smartest kid in school at a young age which made you feel pretty good about yourself, then you show up at an ivy league school and you realize that you are below average, which makes you feel bad because your identity is based on relative status.  You derive significance and value based off being smarter than the people around you but when you are not the smartest of the people around you, you start feeling insignificant.   Everybody gets an identity through works and accomplishments and it is always relative, which means there are always some people you feel superior to and inferior to.    We desperately try to cover our nakedness and shame so we are constantly trying to control people’s perception of us which makes us slaves to riding the roller coaster of people’s opinions of us while doing anything we can to stay relevant.  We spend all your energy hiding our shame and  so it is impossible to receive love affirmation, or grace from anyone, because we convince ourself if they really knew you, they would not love or care for you.  So, we hide and bury it and becomes acidic in your soul.  Our biggest fear is to be fully known and not loved.

 

We try to feel the void that has been left in our heart with all sorts of God replacements which always disappoint and never satisfy the longing in our heart, whether it be an accumulation money, possessions, fame, sex, power, allure, relationships, influence, status etc.   We place our faith, trust, and hope in these things thinking they will deliver us.

 

Idolatry is looking for anything to give you what only God can give you.  Where do we look to give us an identity, value, significance, self-worth, meaning, and purpose?

• • •

THE GOSPEL REMOVES BURDENS & PROVIDES REST

Resting and drawing upon his finished work.  Resting in sovereign care.  All things work together for his good and glory.   Each one of my days have been written in his book before I lived the first on them.

There is now no more condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

 

If Sabbath worship and ceremonial regulations can be set aside in a pinch, but there is absolutely no place in the bible where the moral law can be set aside a pinch, it means they are provisional, meaning they are temporary, meaning they will end when something comes along and makes them obsolete to which they point.   Jesus is the one all Sabbath regulations pointed to and only He can give deep rest of the soul.  He is the Lord of Rest.

 

God rested on the 7^th day after He looked at all He created and said, “It is good”.  If God can’t be tired, then what does it mean that He rested?  To rest is to be utterly satisfied with what has been done.  The the only way you can walk away and put your doing down, is if you are absolutely satisfied with the doing.

 

Hebrews 4: 9There remains, then, a Sabbath rest for the people of God. 10For whoever enters God’s rest (through the gospel) also rests from his own work, just as God did from His. 11Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following the same pattern of disobedience.

 

To become a Christian is to be able to look at your work and life the way that God looked at His.  Through Jesus Christ you can look at your life and say it is satisfied and good.  There is nothing else that needs to be done.  All the work that I need to do is finished.

Just stopping activity will not give you rest from the eternal inner murmur of always trying to prove and validate yourself because that work can never be finished.   That is the work underneath the work.  Vacations don’t give you rest from the REM of the soul.  The wicked are like the sea that cannot rest.  There is no peace for the wicked.  There is no rest for those who turn from God.   You can never look at your doing and say it is good.  Only through Jesus can you get this rest

 

Matthew 11: 28Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

 

He is saying everyone is serving and trying to get an identity out of something, but only if you make me the meaning of your life, will you get absolute rest.  Only through me will you be able to look at your work and say it is finished.  Everything that is necessary to be done has been done.  When Jesus died, he said, “it is finished”.  Everything needed for salvation for the most exacting conscious and perfectionistic eternal inner murmur.  To be a Christian is rest not on my works but on His, and so now when God looks at you in Christ, He says it is good and everything necessary that you have got to do is finished and the only set of eyes that you should have to prove yourself to has said this is beloved child with whom I am well pleased.

Sabbath is a discipline of liberation and trust.

• • •

THE GOSPEL PROVIDES A NEW INTERPRETIVE GRID

THROUGH WHICH TO VIEW THE WORLD

The Gospel changes everything and provides a new paradigm and interpretive grid through which to view the world.

The gospel is the window through which we should view and process everything.  If we look at life from the vantage point of the present benefits of the person, work, presence, and promises of the Lord Jesus Christ, nothing in our life looks the same.  The gospel redefines how we understand our whole story, how we think about the meaning of life, how we understand teh human struggle, where we get our identity, where we look for peace and security, what we consider in life to be dangerous, what we see as successful living, and so on.  

Our thinking is never neutral.  All of our thinking is shaped by the way we are answering the major questions in life.  Our conversations with others flow from out of who we think we are, what we think about God, what we think about thee nature of and purpose of life, and what we understand about the nature of truth and about the future.

We either have an “on earth” way of thinking that is all about this right here and now physical moment, or an “above” way of thinking that looks at life from the vantage point of the grand redemptive story and more specifically, from the perspective of the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Recognizing the eternity that is to come allows us to be realistic without being hopeless, and hopeful when things around us don’t encourage much hope.  Keeping an eternal mindset and perspective keeps us from loading up all our hopes and dreams in the right here and now of the situations, locations, possessions, positions, and people of our daily lives.  It keeps us from loading up undeliverable expectations in this life and reminds us that the life will never be paradise, rather it is a time of preparation for the paradise that is to come where everything that sin has broken will be finally restored to what God originally intended it to be.

• • •

GOSPEL HONESTY

Gospel honesty makes a grace filled merciful plea.

Gospel honesty pronounces severe compounded judgement on rejectors

Gospel honesty rests, comforted in the divine sovereignty of God

Gospel honesty makes an open offer to all who are weary and heavy laden.  Those are the ones who will respond.  Those who are crushed under the weight of the law and sin and fear of judgement.  Buried in guilt and fear with no relief.  Those who have exhausted all human resources.  (like motivated sellers in real estate)

Gospel honesty extends mercy but when it is rejected it warns about the compounding severity of judgement on those who hear the truth and reject it.

It is has a compassionate plea, a compelling warning, a confident doctrine, but it also has a comforting promise we can offer to sinners.

 

• • •

THE LAW IS A DIAGNOSTIC TOOL

The Law diagnoses the gravity of our condition.  Because of the Law, we know how we were originally created to function and what is not supposed to be dwelling in us.   It assesses and evaluates that we all suffer from the same terminal disease caused by the sin the dwell’s in our heart which leaves us  blind, naked, poor, wretched, and unable to live in a way that pleases God.  The Law says this is what we have in our heart.   These are our default settings.

 

“Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.  And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, -if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth.  Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure-  you will always feel ugly.  And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you.  Worship power — you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay.  Worship your intellect, being seen as smart— you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.  And so on.   But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious.  They are default settings. They’re the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that’s what you’re doing”  ~David Foster Wallace

 

David Foster Wallace had correctly identified the problem and the made correct diagnosis but he unfortunately never found the cure or antidote.  3 years after this speech, took his own life.

 

Imagine if you went to the doctor’s office and went in for a routine checkup but the doctor told you that you have cancer. That would ruin your day and make you sad and upset. But the doctor is not mean or evil for telling you this, because he told you in order to save your life. He then would show you all the evidence in the x-rays of where the cancer had spread leaving you with a decision on whether you want to receive treatment to fight the cancer and live, or not accept the treatment and die.

 

So the terminal disease that has infected every single person that has ever lived is sin, and just like cancer, sin destroys and leads to death, and leaves us an able to live in a way that pleases God.  When we don’t understand what sin is about, we minimize how heinous it really is, and in turn devalue the grace that alone is able to rescue from it.   Sin is the suicidal action of the human soul against itself and robs us of the ability to live in a way that pleases God.    Sin loads on burdens, creates confusion, leaves us lame, weak, guilty and renders us unable.   Sin creates bad habits, distorts our affections, kidnaps our desires, distorts our thoughts, controls our tongue and behavior.   These things control you and you start to lose control over yourself.  You are surrendering your heart to something that wants to kill you.

 

So God gave the law to Moses to expose our hearts like an X-ray machine, to show us our sin, and to tell us the bad news we need to hear, so that we will want the antidote and cure which can only be found in His Son.   

 

 

So Jesus, the Great Physician, in the gospel is shouting to as I look at what I did for you, Look at how much I love you. Look at the depths I went to save you. Accept the grace I have given you so that you can live.  By placing our faith in Jesus blood that was shed at an the cross to cover, cleanse and wash our sin away. It is the only way we can be healed and made whole and the only way we can be brought back into right relationship with God, who is the only source of life.  He is the only way we can escape the sin that dwells in our heart.

 

 

You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because He trusts you

My hope is that this will help people to be able to see more clearly, who Christ is and what He has done for us, so that their hearts would be captured by the beauty of who He is, and not by the things of this world.  Knowing, Seeing, and Savoring Him and becoming more like Him is the highest possible end.  Help me to Deepen my grasp of your kingdom, your goodness, and your love.  

Gospel joy comes from knowing how valued and loved we are in Christ, which makes us ready to further the gospel to others.  The sword of the gospel penetrates heart defenses.  We conquer through his blood and our testimony to what he has done in our lives.

He is the narrow gate and door through which all must enter.  He is the most important thing and the only sure foundation upon which to build a life.    

ROMANS 1: 16I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, then to the Greek. 17For the gospel reveals the righteousness of God that comes by faith from start to finish, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

Only a heart filled with overflowing joy will want to share the source of that joy with everyone they meet.  If you had the cure for cancer would you keep it a secret?.   Grow my understanding of your grace until it rids me of the self-consciousness, lethargy, and pessimism that keep me from opening my mouth and identifying as a Christian in public.  Forgive me for being silent about all you have done for me. 

Executing justice, wrath, and at the same time we see how loving a father He is by the grace He has extended to us. 

The worlds perspective of the gospel and Christ crucified is foolishness because it signaled weakness and it did not meet the Jews messianic expectations, but God chose the despised-those who embrace the foolishness of the cross-so that no one can boast about human accomplishment or position in his presence. 

We are given freedom to fail

If you think you have earned grace you haven’t found it.

A servant makes someone else’s agenda, their agenda. Mary’s openness to God’s will cost her everything.

Waiting is grace filled and sword piercing.  

The promise ultimately for every Christian is faith that God will fulfill his promises through Jesus Christ, which is what gives us peace.  When Christ is our hope, we can wait patiently in his promises.

Sin is like treason because it attempts to overthrow the one to which you owe everything

Sin creates an obejective record-a debt, an offense against justice-that calls for punishment.  if someone is found guilty,  judge cannot ignore the record.  A criminals record can only be wiped clean if she pays the penalty.