Meadowbrooke Church

“It’s Okay to Be Angry with God"

Introduction (Bruce Almighty movie clip)
It is possible that you are here today and are wondering how and why it is that a good God would allow some of the hard things you were forced to experience so far.  Maybe you have said or identify with Bruce’s description of his own experience with God: “God is a mean kid sitting on an anthill with a magnifying glass, and I'm the ant. He could fix my life in five minutes if He wanted to, but he'd rather burn off my feelers and watch me squirm.”
 
If God is good, and if he is infinitely and perfectly sovereign… how and why does He allow so much suffering in the world?  How is it that He allows so much evil when he is the measure of all that is holy and good?  There seems to be a great divide between the God we read about in our Bibles and the world we live in.  What are we supposed to do with the confusion, disappointment, anger, evil, and suffering God has allowed into our lives?  Is it okay to be angry with God when we suffer?  I plan to answer the above questions, but we must start with the nature and character of God as He revealed Himself to Moses after 40 years in the desert as a fugitive of Egypt after he murdered one of Pharoah’s guards. 
 
Moses’ Encounter with a Holy God
Here is what you need to know about what led up to Moses’ experience with the burning bush.  God made a promise to Abraham, Isaac, and then to Jacob that their children would become His people; the promise was threefold and included the promise of land, the increase of their people, and that their people would eventually be a blessing to the nations.  However, God also promised that they would spend years in a land where they would be afflicted (see Gen. 15:13; Exod. 12:40-41).
 
When Moses was born, the Hebrew people had spent centuries living in Egypt.  The Hebrew people were first welcomed as honored guests under Joseph (one of the sons of Jacob) who was second to Pharaoh, but as the years past, so did the memory of Joseph.  The Hebrews eventually became the slaves of another Pharaoh; he was so threatened by the birth rate of the Hebrews, that he implemented infanticide as the law of the land and wrote into law that every Hebrew son born was to be thrown into the Nile.  Moses’ mother refused to murder her baby, so she kept his birth a secret until she could not do so any longer; she put baby Moses in a basket covered with tar and pitch, put him in it, and floated it down the Nile where Pharaoh’s daughter eventually found the basket with baby Moses whom she raised as her own. 
 
Moses grew up in Pharaoh’s house, but he was also aware of his roots as a Hebrew man.  We know that Moses had a temper, and on two occasions, it cost him much.  On one such occasion, after seeing an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, Moses killed the Egyptian and buried his body in the sand (see Exod. 2:11-12). When Moses learned that others knew that he killed the Egyptian, he fled and hid in the land of Midian.  Moses spent the next 40 years of his life in Median, got married, and worked for his father-in-law Jethro.
 
What We Learn About God Through Moses’ Encounter
Before we can answer where or not it is okay to be angry with God, we need to consider the God who found Moses in Midian; against the backdrop of Joseph’s 13 years of suffering, the generations of slavery the Hebrews suffered in Egypt, and Moses’ 40 years in Midian. 
 
God is Holy: He is not like us.
Moses approached the burning bush not only because it was weird, but because God called to him, “from the midst of the bush and said, ‘Moses! Moses!” Moses’ response was simple: “Here I am.”  Notice that as Moses got closer to the burning bush, God said to him, “Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”  What made the ground holy?  The presence of God made it holy.  As R.C. Sproul wrote in his timeless and classic book, The Holiness of God: “God alone is holy in Himself.  Only God can sanctify something else. Only God can give the touch that changes it from the commonplace to something special, different, and apart.”[1] 
 
Now, just so that you are aware, it is not only Moses, a mere mortal human, who must remove his sandals in the presence of holiness.  The seraphim whose sole purpose is worship above the throne of God are not exempt from the kind of respect and reverence that was expected of Moses in the presence of the Holy One. Isaiah was invited into the throne room of Almighty God, and this is what he saw:
In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim were standing above Him, each having six wings: with two each covered his face, and with two each covered his feet, and with two each flew. And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of armies. The whole earth is full of His glory.” And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. (Isa. 6:1–4)
 
The great Seraphim must cover their face and their feet in the presence of a Holy God even though they have not been stained by sin, but because they, like us, are creatures and God is the Creator.  Isaiah’s response before the Holy One was appropriate: “Woe to me, for I am ruined!”  Moses’ response was not only to remove his sandals, but to hide his face, “for he was afraid to look at God” (v. 6).  Why?  Because God is holy, and we are not.  God is not like us.
 
God is Omniscient: He sees the big picture.
When we come to verse 6, God let Moses who it was that was speaking to him: “I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”  And just as God was intimately acquainted with the lives of Moses’ forefathers, He was aware of the suffering of Moses’ kinsmen in Egypt: “I have certainly seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their outcry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings” (v. 7). 
 
When the Hebrews entered into Egypt, they were the size of a small clan, but after hundreds of years in Egypt, they had become the size of a small nation.  When Moses fled to Midian, he was a 40-year-old used to royalty; the Moses who stood before the burning bush was any eighty-year-old shepherd.  What the Hebrews did not understand, and what Moses could not have fathomed was that God was using the ugly, the hard, and the pain for something far greater than they could have imagined.  God was aware of their suffering all along, and now in that moment was the right time to, “rescue them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from the land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey...” (v. 8) just as He promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob centuries before. 
 
So, God said to Moses: “And now come, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt” (v. 10).  To which, Moses appropriately responded: “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?”  All that the Hebrews could see was their slavery and suffering; all that Moses could see was his failures and incompetence.  What God saw was that He alone can use the foolish to shame the wise and the weak to shame the strong (see 1 Cor. 1:26-31).  What God saw was that His timing was infinitely better because He saw the big picture. 
 
God is Faithful: He keeps His promises.
Remember that the Hebrew slaves in Egypt were surrounded by an Egyptian culture that worshiped Egyptian gods who were not gods, but demons (see Deut. 32:17).  Moses questioned what name he was to give to the Hebrew slaves if they were to ask Who it was that sent Moses to deliver them (v. 13). Here is God’s answer: “And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “This is what you shall say to the sons of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you’” (v. 14).  Then God continued: “This is what you shall say to the sons of Israel: ‘Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, and this is the name for all generations to use to call upon Me” (v. 15). In other words, God told Moses: “You tell them that Yahweh sent you!”
 
At the heart of God’s answer are four facts about His nature for why the Israelites should believe the He could and would deliver them:
Yahweh is self-existent and not dependent. God was unlike the Egyptian gods who were created by their own culture.  Yahweh is the Elohim over elohims.  The great I AM was bigger than the plight of the Israelites as He is greater than any trouble in our own lives.
 
Yahweh is creator and sustainer. Who wrote the Law of Thermodynamics?  Who governs the laws of gravity? Who grants the Sun permission to get up in the morning?  Who gave the song for the birds to sing?  Who owns the cattle on a thousand hills?  Who brings men into power, raises nations into prominence and then brings them to naught?  Is it not the great I AM who keeps His covenant promises. 
 
Yahweh is unchanging. Yahweh is the great I AM whose personality does not change. He does not suffer from a multi-personality disorder.  He does not change with the ideas of his devotees.  He is unmovable because He does not change. Because Yahweh is unchanging, He is constant unlike the gods of the Egyptians or whatever idol we may have set up in our own heart.
 
Yahweh is eternal. Because He is the great I AM, Yahweh will never have a beginning nor will he ever have an end.  Even though the fool has said there is no God, Yahweh is absolute reality with nothing before or after Him. The great I AM does not sleep, slumber, slack off, or slip into a daydream stupor.
 
What God told Moses is this: “Moses, you tell My people that the Covenant Keeper who promised their forefathers that He would make them into a great nation, would give them land as a nation, and would make them a blessing to the nations... you tell them the Faithful and Living One sent you!”  God keeps His promises because He alone is faithful even when we are not.
 
Conclusion
So, the question you may still be asking is whether it is or is not okay to be angry with God?  Is it okay to be angry with He who is Holy and infinitely unlike us creatures?  Is it okay to be angry with the One who sees and knows all things perfectly?  Is it okay to be angry with the One who keeps His covenant promises because He is faithful while we are faithless time and time again?  Is it okay to be angry with Yahweh who is Almighty God? 
 
As you know, God did use Moses to lead the Hebrews out of the bondage of slavery from Egypt, and He did it miraculously and profoundly.  Yet, even after God delivered them, Moses found himself shepherding and leading a people who demonstrated over and over again just how faithless they really were.  After their grievous sin of idolatry with the golden calf, Moses pleaded with God for mercy for His people who sinned, and God granted it.  In Exodus 33:17-34:9 we are given a glimpse into Moses’ heart as a shepherd absolutely in love with Yahweh, and in that exchange asked to see God.  God told Moses that he could not see His face and live, but this is what God did say He would do: “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion to whom I will show compassion” (Exod. 33:19).
 
When God did pass, He hid Moses in the cleft of a rock, and allowed His goodness to pass by him and when it did, Moses heard God proclaim of His goodness: “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in faithfulness and truth; who keeps faithfulness for thousands, who forgives wrongdoing, violation of His Law, and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, inflicting the punishment of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations” (Exod. 34:6–7).  So, what does God’s goodness include?  It includes His mercy, patience, faithfulness, truth, and grace.  But it also includes His justice and wrath in response to sin. 
 
So, again I ask you: “Is it okay to be angry with the God who is Holy and infinitely unlike us creatures?  Is it okay to be angry with the God who sees and knows all things perfectly?  Is it okay to be angry with a holy God who is faithful while we are faithless time and time again?  Is it okay to be angry with Yahweh who is Almighty God?”  Let me reframe the question for you: If God is infinitely good and we are the ones who need to improve upon being good, do we have any right to be angry with God? 
Now, think about the effects anger has on a relationship.  When you are angry with someone because you believe you have been wronged by that person, it interferes with communication.  Anger towards a friend or a member of your family often drives a wedge between you and that person.  Anger typically results in the one offended distancing himself/herself from the person who wronged them. 
 
If there is no need for God to improve, especially in being good, then to suggest that it is okay to be angry with Him is to suggest that it is okay to accuse Him of wrongdoing.  Psalm 145 is a great Psalm to visit while suffering or confused why God would allow you to suffer; verses 8-9 say the following: “The Lord is gracious and compassionate; slow to anger and great in mercy.  The Lord is good to all, and His mercies are over all His works.”  Again in Psalm 145:17-18, “The Lord is righteous in all His ways, and kind in all His works.  The Lord is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth.” 
 
I have head Christians and Pastors console the suffering and confused: “It is okay to be angry with God.”  To which I ask, “How is it okay to be angry with He who is infinitely holy, how is it okay to be angry with Him who sees all while my vision is limited, how is it okay to be angry with the Almighty whose faithfulness has been proven time and time again while my faithfulness has been found wanting more than I count?”
 
Listen dear friend, not only are we not given permission in all of Scripture to be angry with God, but we also have no right to be angry with Him.  Here is what is permitted and even expected by God: We can be confused, frustrated, and even hurt emotionally.  If God is infinitely good, which He is, then we can run to Him with our confusion, we can run to Him with our frustration, and we can run to Him with our wounded and bleeding hearts knowing that even though we can’t see His goodness in and through our pain, we can trust that He is still good and will turn it around in His way and in His time for His glory and our good!  
 
After Moses experienced the goodness of God when His glory passed by while he was in the cleft of the rock, Moses responded on behalf of the sins of Israel: “If in any way I have found favor in Your sight, Lord, please may the Lord go along in our midst, even though the people are so obstinate, and pardon our wrongdoing and our sin, and take us as Your own possession” (Exod. 34:9).
 
Dear brothers and sisters, if your faith and trust is in Jesus as proof of God’s infinite goodness, then my plea to you is not to run from Him in anger but to him with all your pain, confusion, and frustration.  Run to the God of Romans 8:28-32,
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?
 
[1] Sproul, R.C., The Holiness of God (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers; 1998), 39.

“He/She is in a Better Place.”

I have officiated dozens of funerals over the years as a pastor, which means that I was involved in the planning of the service, the delivery of a sermon, and some form of committal service involving the burial of the deceased’s body or placement of the ashes of those bodies that were cremated.  The first funeral I officiated was that of my 47-year-old father and since I have been responsible for burying people of all ages as young as grade school to the oldest who was 101 years old.  I have been asked to memorialize people from all walks of life, many of whom loved and walked with Jesus as fellow Christians and some who were not Christian.  The one thing that every one of the funerals and memorial services I officiated have in common is that every family and friend of the diseased who asked me to officiate the service of their loved one believed and articulated their belief that he/she was in a better place. 
 
Just as the old spiritual is true: “Everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.”  So, it is true that we will grope for reasons to believe that our loved ones are in a better place regardless of what they believed or even how they lived.  Most people do not want death for anyone they love, and when death does come, we want heaven for those we love. 
 
After officiating so many funerals, I had come to the place in my experience as a pastor that I believed that I had experienced just about everything there was to experience related to funerals and grieving family member.  I am old enough and have seen enough to know better.  I remember Ian White’s family who reached out to Northwest Baptist Church (the first church I served as the Lead Pastor in Colorado).  Ian was not a Christian, nor was his family; he was found dead on the front steps of his apartment and was 34 years old.  I remember their response when I sat down with them to plan Ian’s memorial service and their request after I asked if they would like a song or two for those present to sing in honor of Ian’s life.  I expected something like Amazing Grace, but Ian’s family wanted everyone to sing Free Birdby Lynyrd Skynyrd.  
 
I remember a woman who started attending the church I planted in Colorado and the grief she carried with her with the death of her husband.  I still remember the Sunday she wanted me to know that her dead husband was with her.  In that moment I thought she meant his spirit or memory, but no... I discovered what she meant when she opened her purse to show me the urn that contained the ashes of her deceased husband. She brought the urn with her every Sunday she came, and I believe that she even sat her husband’s urn on the chair next to her.  I guess for this woman, the better place for her husband was in her purse.  
 
How do you know if a person who has died is really in a better place?  What evidence does one have to make such a claim? 
 
 
What Happens After We Die?
One of the things I say at every funeral is that when we die, we will experience the immediate judgment we are warned about throughout the Bible.  In Hebrews 9:27-28, we have one such warning: “And just as it is destined for people to die once, and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.”  But what kind of judgment are we destined to face? 
 
To begin, you need to know that there are two types of judgment every human will face, the first has to do with where our disembodied soul must go, which is temporary.  The second judgment we will all face is permanent.  For the Christian, the day that you die will be the moment you will be in the presence of Jesus just as we are promised in the Bible: “Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord—for we walk by faith, not by sight—but we are of good courage and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:6-8).  
 
Jesus told a parable in the Gospel of Luke about a rich man who lived a life of luxury while ignoring the poor man by the name of Lazarus (not to be confused with Jesus’ friend who Jesus raised to life in John 11:1ff.).  In Jesus’ parable, both men died; Lazarus’ soul went to where Abraham’s soul dwelled while the rich man’s soul went to Hades where he suffered torment.  Of Hades, the rich man begged for a drop of water to ease his torment because, his words: “I am in agony in this flame” (see Luke 16:19-31).  Before Jesus told His parable about the rich man and Lazarus, He said this about money: “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth” (Luke 16:13).  The rich man was not in hell because he ignored Lazarus, he was in hell because he loved his money more than God.  Had he loved God, he would not have been able to ignore Lazarus. 
 
Jesus spoke more about hell than he did about love or heaven, and he did so for a reason.  He spoke so much about hell because he came, “…to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10).  The reason why Jesus described the distance between the rich man in hell and Lazarus in heaven as a “great chasm” is because hell is the place where those are sent who, “will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power” (2 Thess. 1:9).  Jesus described the place the rich man went to immediately after he died in the following ways: A place of torture (Matt. 18:34), a place where the wicked are cut to pieces (Matt. 24:51), and a place of scourging (Luke 12:47-48), a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt. 8:12; 13:42; 24:51; Luke 13:20), and a place of outer darkness (Matt. 22:13; 25:30).   
 
Just as there is a new heaven and earth that is promised to the Christian, at the same time there will exist the lake of fire where the devil and his demons will be cast into forever.  The lake of fire is described as a place where, “...their worm will not die and their fire will not be extinguished; and they will be an abhorrence to all mankind” (Isa. 66:24b).  In Revelation 20:11-15 we are told of a second judgment that we all will face:
Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.... Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
 
There are only one of two outcomes every person will face the moment of death: eternal life with Jesus that will eventually include a physical resurrection and life on a new and resurrected earth, or eternal death apart from Jesus that will eventually result in eternity in the lake of fire.  Neither the lake of fire nor a resurrected life with Jesus on a new earth are temporary, but eternal. 
 
So, the question we need to answer is if it is true that every person who dies is in a better place? 
 
Jesus Is the Hope of a Better Place
There are scores of Bible passages we could have looked at today to discover whether it is true or not that all people eventually go to a better place after they die, but I thought we could settle on Revelation 1:12-18.  For me, this is one of the most hopeful and encouraging passages in all the Bible!  In verses 12-16, we are given certain details about Jesus to clue us into who He really is.  There is a lot packed into these verses that we simply do not have the time to examine, but there are some things that I must show you in order to address the topic of this sermon.
 
Jesus is a Better High Priest
First, Jesus is a better priest. Every year, on the Day of Atonement, a high priest would go into the temple in Jerusalem to enter a place called the “Holies of Holies” to bring a sin offering into the presence of God on behalf of Israel.  The high priest would do it with a rope around him just in case he died, and his corpse had to be pulled out due to any sin not yet addressed in his own life before entering.  The High Priest wore a long robe and was fitted with a type of belt or sash that was laced with gold.  Once a year, every year, the High Priest would act as a representative and advocate for all of Israel. 
 
As you know, Jesus died on a cross as “the Lamb of God” for our sins; when John turned to see the voice that was speaking, He saw Jesus dressed as a High Priest because the sacrifice He made was sufficient to cover all our sins for all time, once and for all.  For this reason, Hebrews describes Jesus in the following way: “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things having come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made by hands, that is, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all time, having obtained eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:11-12).
 
Jesus is the Only Sufficient Savior
What follows in verses 14-17 are characteristics which reveal why Jesus is sufficient to redeem and save sinners such as us.  First, His hair is white like wool and as bright as snow because He is profoundly and divinely wise.  Yes, Jesus is fully man, but He is also fully God; Jesus is the Son and at the same time He is the ancient of Days with all the wisdom of eternity (see Dan. 7:9-14). Second, Jesus’ eyes were “like a flame of fire” which speak of His ability to see and know all things as God can only do.  Third, His feet were like burnished bronze to symbolize His omnipotent strength to judge the nations, crush Satan, and triumph over death as the author and giver of life.  Forth, Jesus holds the seven stars that serve as the seven messengers to the churches of which He holds in the palm of His hand; the point is that Jesus is also divinely sovereign.  Fifth, out of the mouth of the Savior comes a sharp two-edged sword symbolizing His right to Judge as King of kings and Lord of lords.  Sixth, the face of Jesus shines like a powerful sun because of His holiness, majesty, and absolute beauty as One worthy of our worship because He is God. 
 
Jesus is presented in Revelation 1:14-16 in the way that He is because of what Adam lost in the garden due to his sin and rebellion; Jesus is the only One qualified to redeem what was lost, for He is the second and greater Adam who is fully man and fully God in one Person.  Simply put, because of Adam’s sin, we are sinners under a curse that God alone is able to sufficiently and completely reverse; Jesus was qualified to do just that!
 
Jesus is the Great I AM
The One titled the Lion of the Tribe of Judah (Rev. 5:5), the Lord of Glory (1 Cor. 2:8), the Pioneer and Perfecter of our Faith (Heb. 12:1-2), and the King of kings and Lord of lords (Rev. 19:16), is “the first and the last.”   Where else have we seen that kind of language: “I am the first and the last”?  I will tell you!  We see it in a host of passages, but Isaiah 44:6 will suffice: “This is what the Lord says, He who is the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of armies: ‘I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God besides Me.’”  Because He is the “first and the last” He conquered death because, as the Living One, “...it was impossible for Him to be held in its power” (Acts 2:24).
 
When John saw Jesus, he fell at His feet like a dead man, but Jesus declared to him: “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore...” John had no reason to fear because Jesus stood as a greater High Priest on John’s behalf, He was the sufficient savior John spent a lifetime following, and Jesus was the only One qualified to pay the penalty for John’s sin by becoming a curse in his place.  John not only believed this, but trusted that Jesus was all that he needed, and that is why he had not need to fear.  
 
Conclusion
This Jesus is the “Almighty” and the “Alpha and Omega” (Rev. 1:8; 22:12-13).  He is the “Author of Life” (Acts 3:15).  He is the Bread from Heaven (John 6:32), the Bread of Life (John 6:35), and the Bright Morning Star (Rev. 22:16).  He is the Chief Shepherd (1 Pet. 5:4) and He is the Deliverer (Rom. 11:26).  He is the Good Shepherd of the 23rd Psalm (John 10:11).  He is the rightful Heir of All Things (Heb. 1:1-2).  Jesus is the Holy and Righteous One (Acts 3:14), the Horn of our Salvation (Luke 1:69), and the Great I Am (John 8:58-59).  He is the Light of the World (John 8:12), the Gate for the Sheep (John 10:7), the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25), and He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6)! 
 
If all who die eventually go to a better place when there exists a very real hell designed by God for the punishment of sinners, then why did Jesus who is the “first and the last” willingly take on flesh to become like us for the purpose of dying for us to redeem sinners like us? 
 
If some don’t go to a better place, but most “morally good” people do, then why did Jesus say in conclusion to His sermon on the mount: “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is narrow and the way is constricted that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matt. 7:13-14). 
 
If religious people end up going to a better place, then why did Jesus warn us of the following possibility? “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; leave Me, you who practice lawlessness’” (Matt. 7:22-23).
 
If there is another way to a better place other than through and with Jesus, then why in the world did He so confidently and boldly declare the following:
“If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, this is the one who will save it. For what good does it do a person if he gains the whole world, but loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory and the glory of the Father and the holy angels.” (Luke 9:23-26)
 
There is a judgment we must all face.  The verdict from the moment of conception is this: “...all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23), and judgment for our guilt: “The wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our lord.”

“All Dogs Go to Heaven”

What I mean by the statement, “All dogs go to heaven”, is really a question I have been asked numerous times by both young and old: “Will my pet go to heaven when it dies?”  I want to do my best to answer that question, but I want you to know that my answer will also address a much broader question related to what God’s ultimate plan is for his creation.  We know what His plan is for humanity, but do you know if God’s plan of redemption includes animals? 
 
Let me begin by stating some things that could not be any clearer from the Bible and then we will dive into Psalm 8.  So, here is what I know beyond a shadow of a doubt:
The Bible assures us that God is the giver of every good thing (James 1:17); what this means is that God is not the taker of every good thing. When Nathan was five years old, we got him a kitten because we believed that he would enjoy having a cat.  You have given gifts to your children out of your love for them as well.  Here is what Jesus said about what we do for our children: “If you, despite being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him” (Matt. 7:10–11)!
 
God is so good that there is no room for improvement for Him to be better. I already mentioned James 1:17 but listen to what the verse actually states: “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.”  In Psalm 106, we are told to “give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His mercy is everlasting” (v. 1). According to Psalm 145, God is “righteous in all His ways, and kind in all His works” (v. 17).  Because there is no room for improvement, God is not trying to get it right in the way He exercises His goodness.
 
However, we live in a reality where the curse of sin is inseparable from our human experience and sorrow and sighing are like the compounds that come out of the curse that suck the joy out of life.  You may even feel like Bruce from the movie Bruce Almighty in the way he described God: “God is a mean kid sitting on an anthill with a magnifying glass, and I'm the ant. He could fix my life in five minutes if He wanted to, but he'd rather tear off my feelers and watch me squirm.”
 
So, let’s walk through Psalm 8 together with the hope that there is enough in these verses to help us gain a fuller appreciation of what God is doing with this sin-cursed world. 
 
A Good God Created a Grand Creation
I love the way the Bible begins: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters” (Gen. 1:1–2). The earth was a “formless and desolate emptiness” until God spoke.  He did not speak out of any need, for He was perfectly content within the fellowship of Himself in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  God was not lonely or bored, nor was He obligated to speak and create.  No, God created because He wanted to, and He wanted to create because He was motivated by love. Out of love, God desired to share that which nothing else could top or compare, which was Himself.  God was motivated by love to share Himself with us. 
 
Our solar system is estimated to be about 12 trillion miles wide. The diameter of our sun is estimated to be 109 times the size of our earth, and if you were to drive from the Sun to Pluto, it would take an estimated 6,000 years to complete the trip.  If that were not enough, you should know that our galaxy, the Milky Way, contains thousands of solar systems like ours.  On our little planet, in our vast galaxy, lives just over 8 billion people.  The renown astronomer, Carl Sagan, died believing that there was no compelling evidence for the existence of a Judeo-Christian-Islamic God, and said of our earth and the universe: “If we are alone in the Universe, it sure seems like an awful waste of space.” 
 
David, in Psalm 8, answers Carl Sagan’s question, and if only Sagan could have opened his eyes to see what David saw: “Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth, You who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens!”  If you are wondering if the universe is too big if life on earth is all there is, the answer is a resounding “NO!”  The universe is the size that it is because it is testifying to the majesty and splendor of the One who spoke all of it into existence. 
 
The God who spoke all things into existence out of the overflow of His love and goodness is not only knowable but created us with purpose! 
 
A Grand God Created Mankind in His Image with Purpose
There is only one creature of all the creatures created that was created in the image of God, and that creature is all of humanity.  On the sixth day, after God created the animal kingdom and everything else, He created Adam and Eve: “Then God said, “Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth” (Gen. 1:26). 
 
To Adam and Eve, God gave them the responsibility to manage His creation as His image bearers.  Humans were commissioned and commanded to care for creation and at the same time add to creation by filling the earth with humans like themselves.  We are not a part of the animal kingdom; we stand above the animal kingdom as stewards of what Almighty God created!  King David marveled over this magnificent reality in his psalm: “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place; what is man that You think of him, And a son of man that You are concerned about him” (Ps. 8:3–4)?  David does not stop there, for what he says in the following verses ought to be enough to answer what place your pet has in the universe: “You have him rule over the works of Your hands; You have put everything under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the animals of the field, The birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes through the paths of the seas” (vv. 6–8).
Adam and Eve were commanded to manage the Garden, to be fruitful and multiply, and not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  As you know, they ate the forbidden fruit from that one tree, and by eating the fruit they brought a curse upon God’s creation.  As a result, all of creation was cursed as the Scriptures testify: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all mankind, because all sinned...” (Rom. 5:12).
 
There is only one creature who bears the image of God, and that creature is mankind.  As image bearers of the living God, we were created to live forever.   There is a part of us that lives on after death known as our soul which is also referred to as our spirit (not to be confused with the Holy Spirit).[1]  Unlike the rest of creation, humans have a soul that only God is able to destroy.  So, when it comes to death, our soul lives on even after our body dies, but death for the Christian is not the end as we are assured from the Bible:
For we know that if our earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made by hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed, in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, since in fact after putting it on, we will not be found naked. For indeed, we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. (2 Cor. 5:1–4)
 
So, when your pet dies, there is no immaterial part of them that lives on because they do not bare the image of God and therefore do not have a soul.  What this means is that when your pet does eventually die, regardless of the behavior, there is no eternal punishment or eternal life waiting for them... they simply cease to exist.  The only creature that is born and lives in active rebellion towards God are humans.  Unlike the animal kingdom, sin is now a part of our nature.
 
A Good and Gracious God Has Provided Redemption Through a Second and Perfect Adam
Now, remember what I said at the beginning of my sermon: “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights...” (Jas. 1:17).  God is a good God who is the giver of every good thing, not the taker of every good thing!  After Adam and Eve sinned, they were promised a Descendant who would reverse the curse of sin.   A second and more perfect Adam was promised who would come to reverse the curse of sin: “For if by the offense of the one, death reigned through the one, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:17). 
 
The second and more perfect Adam was also promised to David who wrote Psalm 8!  God assured David, “When your days are finished and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come from you, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever” (2 Sam. 7:12–13).  What will this second and more perfect Adam do? According to Jeremiah 23:5-6, He will “reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land....”  Oh, and the Name by which the Son of David will also be called will be, “The Lord Our Righteousness.” 
 
In Isaiah we are promised that when He reigns as King, “He will judge between the nations, and will mediate for many peoples; and they will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning knives.  Nation will not lift up a sword against nation, and never again will they learn war” (Isa. 2:4).  The second Adam would, be born of a virgin as fully human and fully diving: “...a Son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.”  When the second Adam comes to reign as King, His reign will bring the kind of peace only God is capable of restoring:
...the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the young lion and fattened steer will be together; and a little boy will lead them.  Also the cow and the bear will graze, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox.... They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. (Isa. 11:6-7, 9)
 
When it was announced by the angels to the shepherds that the promised King was born, it was declared to them: “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11). Jesus, as the second and better Adam, humbled Himself by, “taking the form of a bond-servant and being born in the likeness of men.... He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death: death on a cross” (Phil. 2:7-8).  He was born to live the perfect life we could not live to die the death we all deserved.
 
There is only One who is qualified to reverse the curse of sin, and it was and is Jesus!  In Revelation 21:5, we are told that through His death and triumphant victory over death, that He is making all things new! This is what we all want and what all of creation is longing for!  We long for a day without the dark cloud of the curse of sin.  This is why Paul wrote,
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the eagerly awaiting creation waits for the revealing of the sons and daughters of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. (Rom. 8:18-21)
 
When Jesus entered into Jerusalem the week before He was to be crucified for the sins of mankind, the children in the temple area shouted something that irritated the chief priests and scribes.  As Jesus entered into Jerusalem, the children shouted: “Hosanna to the Son of David!” (see Matt. 21:15-16).  The chief priests and scribes said to Jesus, “Do you hear what these children are saying?”  What were the children saying?  They were celebrating the promised second Adam, the “righteous Branch of David”, and the One who is to be called “The Lord our Righteousness” (see Jer. 23:5-6).  Guess how Jesus answered the irritated religious leaders who were concerned about what the children were saying?  He answered them by quoting Psalm 8:2, here is what He said: “Yes. Have you never read [chief priests and scribes], ‘From the mouths of infants and nursing babies You have prepared praise for Yourself’?”
 
Do you realize what Jesus said to the chief priests and scribes? He was essentially saying that although Adam made a mess of creation through his sin in the Garden, there was a “Son of Man” who was made a little lower than the angels and God when He willingly took on human flesh to become fully human while remaining fully God at the same time!  Jesus did this for the purpose of redeeming mankind through His cross for our sins, and by doing so, made redemption possible for all creation, and this is the point of Psalm 5, “Yet You have made him a little lower than God, and You crown him with glory and majesty!”  Do you hear Philippians 2 in Psalm 8?
And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death: death on a cross. For this reason also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:8-11)
 
Now, against the backdrop of Philippians 2:8-11, listen what Psalm 8:7-8 promises: “You have him rule over the works of Your hands; You have put everything under his feet, All sheep and oxen, And also the animals of the field, The birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea, Whatever passes through the paths of the seas.”  All of creation, including your pets, are eagerly awaiting for the completion of our redemption because when it happens to us, creation will enjoy the good and faithful reign of the second Adam over them as well, and when He comes to do that, He will make all things new and it is what He will restore that all of creation is longing for:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among the people, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”
 
And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.”
 
On the Day Revelation 21 becomes our reality, all that was lost, will be restored and it will be even better than the Eden the first Adam lost!  I am not sure if that means He will restore and make new your pet that was lost to the curse, but I do know that it will be better!  The glory we will be crowned with will be the glory of King Jesus when, “There will no longer be any curse...” (Rev. 22:3).  We will “obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee away” (Isa. 51:11)!  The great hope of our future is not who is in office as our president, but the King who is coming to restore all that was lost through the first Adam.  Christian, because you belong to the second Adam, you can declare with David: “Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth!”
 
[1] Soul and spirit are used synonymously in the Bible (e.g. Acts 7:54-60; Matt. 10:28).

"God Wants Me to Be Happy"

All people want to be happy.  I have spent a lot of time with people as a pastor, and the majority of couples and individuals who met with me over the years did so because they longed to be happy.  It is also true that the motivation for couples seeking marriage or divorce, the desire for a new job or the determination to quit a job, what led to substance abuse or a willingness to break an addiction is all the same: the desire to be happy. In fact, there have been people who claimed to be Christians who sought marriage, divorce, drugs, freedom from addiction, debt, and freedom from debt out of the belief that God wanted them to be happy.
 
How about you?  Do you believe God wants you to be happy?  Do you believe that the ends justify the means to achieve and experience the happiness you believe God wants for you?  Maybe you are asking any one of the following questions: 
“I am unhappy where I live, if I have the means to do so, can I move so that I can be happier?”
 
“I am tired of driving the same old car, should I buy a new one that will make me happier?”
 
“I feel unfulfilled where I work, can I look for a new job that will fill my day with a little more joy?”
 
“I feel ignored and taken for granted in my marriage, my spouse does not meet my needs, I am unhappy, our children are miserable because we are miserable...  something needs to change so that we can be happy.” 
 
So here is what I want to do with the time we have left.  I want to show you from the Bible three things:
God expects you to seek happiness.
God commands you to pursue your joy.
Finding your joy/happiness is possible.
 
By answering the above three questions, I hope that you will have a clear and biblical understanding as to whether God wants you to be happy. 
 
God Expects You to Seek Happiness (vv. 1-5)
Let me begin by stating that in Psalm 95 alone, the word joy is repeated three times in the first two verses: “sing for joy...”, “shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation”, “shout joyfully to Him in songs with instruments.”  But Psalm 95 is not the only place where such language is used; consider the language from the Bible:
“Delight yourself...” (Ps. 37:4)
“Rejoice...” (Phil. 4:4)
“Rejoice always...” (1 Thess. 5:16)
“Let us rejoice and be glad...” (Ps. 118:24)
 
But where is it that God expects us to find our joy?  Again, consider the same above verses:
“Delight yourself in the Lord...” (Ps. 37:4)
“Rejoice in the Lord always...” (Phil. 4:4)
“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thess. 5:16-18)
“This is the day which the Lord has made, let’s us rejoice and be glad in it.” (Ps. 118:24)
 
Is our happiness only to be found in God?  What about verses like Ecclesiastes 9:9, does it not tell us to enjoy life while we have it? “Enjoy life with the wife whom you love all the days of your futile life which He has given you under the sun, all the days of your futility; for this is your reward in life and in your work which you have labored under the sun.” Yes and no.  Consider the first two verses of Psalm 19 and what it says about creation: “The heavens tell of the glory of God; and their expanse declares the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.” The heavens are what God created, and like your wife whom you love, like the life you enjoy, and everything else... it all points to the glory of the Creator! 
 
The reason why Psalm 95 begins with these words: “Come, let’s sing for joy to the Lord, let’s shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation.  Let’s come before His presence with a song of thanksgiving, let’s shout joyfully to Him in songs with instruments” is because He is the giver of all good things!  Why should we worship Yahweh?  Because Psalm 95:3-5 is true of only Him: “For the Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods, in whose hand are the depths of the earth, the peaks of the mountains are also His. The sea is His, for it was He who made it, and His hands formed the dry land.”  This is why, of the Ten Commandments, Jesus summed up the first four: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37; see also Deut. 6:5; Exod. 20:1-11). 
 
Listen, God expects us to seek our joy, but not ultimately in His good gifts but in the giver who gave those good gifts... namely God Himself.  In fact C.S. Lewis rightfully observed from reading his Bible that, “Joy is the serious business of heaven.”[1] 
 
God Commands You to Pursue Your Joy (vv. 6-7)
Psalm 95 begins with an imperative, which is a command: “Come, let’s sing for joy...”  Why does He command us to pursue our joy?  Because we exist for something greater than the good gifts of His creation.  We exist because of Him and for Him! The second imperative in Psalm 95 begins with verse 6, “Come, let’s worship and bow down, let’s kneel before the Lord our Maker.”  Why are we commanded to bow before God?  Because “He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand” (v. 7).
The command to pursue our joy is not that we find it in anything, but in the One who made all things.  He is God, and by definition there is nothing and no one that is greater than He is.  To look for or expect our happiness or joy to be primarily found in anything or anyone else will not only leave you empty and disappointed, but is to worship the gift over the Giver!  To worship the gift over the Giver is to expect from the gift the thing that only the Giver, God, can provide.   
 
C.S. Lewis wrote in his book, Reflections on the Psalms, something that I have found helpful, so I will share it with you:
“I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with.
 
Do you hear what C.S. Lewis is saying?  We praise what we value and care about and our delight is not complete until our delight is expressed. If it is true, that there is no greater beauty, reality, or person than the God who created all that is beautiful and good, true worship cannot be experienced unless it is directed at Him.  This is why the Westminster Catechism is right to begin with these words: “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”  But even on this point, C.S. Lewis made the following observation that helps us get a little closer to answering the question as to what kind of happiness God wants for us; here is what Lewis wrote: “The Scotch catechism says that man’s chief end is ‘to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.’ But we shall then know that these are the same thing. To fully enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him.”  John Piper took it one step further by swapping out the word “and” in the Westminster Catechism of Faith with the word “by”: “The chief end of man is to glorify God byenjoying Him forever.”
 
God does expect us to seek our happiness, and He does command us to pursue our joy, but a happiness and a joy that is rooted in Him.  If our happiness and joy is sought in anything other than God, it will not satisfy.  However, if the pursuit of our happiness and joy is sought in Him, there will be a joy and happiness that will be rooted in a contentment in Him. This is how and why James 1:2-3 is only true for those who find their joy in Jesus Christ: “Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
 
Finding Your Joy/Happiness is Possible (vv. 8-10)
So, does God want you to be happy?  Yes, He wants you to be happy in Him!  Does that mean that He wants you to leave your marriage because it does not make you happy?  No!  Does that mean you should leave your job because it does not make you happy?  No.  Does that mean you should get a new car because it does not make you happy? No, not necessarily.  Why?  Because your happiness and joy cannot ultimately be found in anything or anyone except the God who is your Maker.
When we come to Psalm 95:8, there is a shift from the command to find your joy in God to Israel’s rebellion while they were in the wilderness, and more specifically, the Psalm refers to something that happened in Exodus 17:1-7 not long after God saved Israel from Pharoh and his army by parting the Red Sea.  While in Egypt, Israel witnessed their God and Maker do mighty deeds that should have left little room to doubt His goodness and love for His people.  Even though they had no reason to doubt God’s faithfulness to them, they still struggled to believe His faithfulness to them, so they complained: “So the people quarreled with Moses and said, ‘Give us water so that we may drink” (Exod. 17:2)!  Moses’ response gives us a glimpse into 40 years of Israel in the wilderness: “Moses said to them, ‘Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” 
 
Throughout Israel’s existence, they were known for complaining and faithlessness towards God.  Even after 40 years in the wilderness, God said of His people: “‘Be appalled at this, you heavens, And shudder, be very desolate,’ declares the Lord. ‘For My people have committed two evils: They have abandoned Me, the fountain of living waters, to carve out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that do not hold water’” (Jer. 2:12-13).  The great evil that Israel was guilty of was that She traded God for idols that could not satisfy.  Consider another example from Isaiah 55:1-3 when God invited His people to turn away from the things that could not satisfy what they really needed:
You there! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk Without money and without cost. “Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in abundance. “Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, according to the faithful mercies shown to David.
 
So what happened in Exodus 17?  Moses immediately brought Israel’s complaint before God out of a fear that they might eventually stone him to death.  Moses asked, “What am I to do with this people?” (v. 4).  Listen to the way God responded to Israel’s lack of faith and sin: “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Pass before the people and take with you some of the elders of Israel; and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.’ And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel” (17:5-6).   In other words, God said to Moses: “Moses, take your staff that ought to be used to strike Israel for their sins, and take your rod and strike the rock I will be standing on so that Israel will not die of thirst.”
 
In 1 Corinthians 10:1-4, the apostle Paul said that the rock Moses struck was a picture and example of what God would do to satisfy the thirst of all who desire to be satisfied.  The rod of God’s judgment for our sin came down upon Jesus as the rock of our salvation!  Paul said of the rock Moses struck: “for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ” (v. 4).  Now, listen to what Jesus said in John 7:37-38, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. The one who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’”
 
Psalm 95 begins with these words: “Come, let’s sing for joy to the Lord, let’s shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation.”  Jesus is the “rock of our salvation”!  Again, Psalm 95 continues, “Come, let’s worship and bow down, let’s kneel before the Lord our Maker” (v. 6).  Of Jesus, the Bible testifies, “...for by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or rulers, or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him” (Col. 1:16).  Because the rod of God’s holy wrath came upon Jesus in our place, we are told:
And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death: death on a cross. For this reason also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:8-11)
 
The Psalmist then reminds us that not only is God our Maker, but that He is our God, “and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.  Today if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as on the day of Massah in the wilderness...” (v. 7).  Can you not hear the words of Jesus in Psalm 95:7, did He not say: “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.... I am the good shepherd, and I know My own, and My own know Me.... And I have other sheep that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will listen to My voice; and they will become one flock, with one shepherd” (John 10:11, 14, 16).
 
Conclusion
Is joy and happiness possible for you?  The answer is Yes!  But it will not come from your car, through your job, or from any other person, but your Maker and the Great Shepherd of His sheep... namely Jesus!  If you are seeking your happiness and joy in anything other than Jesus, then C.S. Lewis’ words serve as a fitting conclusion to this sermon: “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
 
God wants you to be happy and He wants you to experience joy, but it is a happiness and a joy that can only be found in Him.  The joy and happiness that can only be found in God is the kind of joy and happiness that does not dissolve through suffering but sustains the sufferer because of the One from Whom true happiness and joy comes from.  Amen.
 
 
[1] C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (San Diego: Harvest, 1964), p. 93.

Where’s the Love?

The church in Ephesus was planted sometime around AD 52 by apostle Paul with the help of Aquila and Priscilla.  The book of Revelation was written by the Apostle John sometime in the mid 90s.  The church had existed in a very difficult city for many years; a city where Christians did not have rights, emperor worship was mandatory, and the economy was heavily dependent on the worship of Artemis. From the time the apostle brought the gospel to the city and the letter to Ephesus, written to the church and included in the book of Revelation, the challenges the church faced in Ephesus did not get easier.  Yet in its 40th year (relatively speaking), they were known for doing some really good things and what they were most known for was their doctrinal purity.
 
It would have been easy for any church present in a city like Ephesus to have fallen prey to the sin of the city had its doctrine not been rock solid.  The church was commended by Jesus for her doctrinal purity: “I know your deeds and your labor and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil people, and you have put those who call themselves apostles to the test, and they are not, and you found them to be false; and you have perseverance and have endured on account of My name, and have not become weary” (Rev. 2:2–3).  Jesus praised the Ephesian Church for not tolerating evil people, their ability to sniff out false apostles, and perseverance to hold the line doctrinally in a city that was utterly demonic.
 
It is only because their doctrine as a church was pure that they were able to persevere and stand against the onslaught of evil people, false apostles, and every other demonic force that threatened their congregation.  Sound doctrine is good theology, and good theology is known as orthodoxy.  As a church, we spent 46 weeks in Ephesians.  Throughout the epistle were encouraged to make sure that our doctrine is pure!  We are told in Ephesians 5:26 that Jesus is cleansing and purifying His people “through the washing of the water of the word.” We, the church of Jesus Christ, are being, “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone...” (2:20-22).  Sound doctrine cannot and must not be substituted by what others feel is less offensive and more agreeable.  
 
However, there was something that Jesus did have against the church in Ephesus, and it is a danger each of us face even today. 
 
Their Love Was Found Wanting
There was a lot of good the Ephesian Church was doing that was praised by Jesus, but the thing that threatened the church most in Ephesus was not the temple of Artemus, it was not the demonic idols and sorcery the city was known for, and it was not even the Roman Empire that saw Christianity as a threat.  The thing that threatened the church was from within, and it is what threatens us today. The church looked healthy on the outside, but there was a cancer that if left untreated could turn terminal, and it was the only antidote that keeps orthodoxy from becoming dead legalism. Listen again to Jesus’ loving but stern rebuke of this church: “But I have this against you, that you have left your first love” (v. 4).
 
Now, there are three questions you need to answer before you can be helped and encouraged by Revelation 2:1-7, and verse 4 is at the center of those three questions.  Here are the three questions that must be answered: 
“What is meant by ‘first love’”?
“Whose love abandoned who?”
“Who is it that was no longer loved?” The question is this, “What is the object of their love that they left?”
 
What is meant by “first love”?
If the Bible you are using is the NIV or ESV, then your translation reads, “...you have abandoned the love you had at first.”  But the KJV and NASB versions of the Bible translate the Greek in such a way to suggest that the Ephesian Christians have left their first love.  Is the love that has been abandoned a person or is it the depth and quality of love?  Well, one way you can answer that question is to see if there are any clues in the epistle to the Ephesians that help us understand what kind of love is being talked about here, and thankfully there are two clues given to us at the beginning and end of Paul’s letter to this church.  The first clue is found in Ephesians 1:15-16, “For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you...”  The second clue is found in the very last verse in Ephesians: “Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love” (6:24). 
 
So what kind of love is it that has been abandoned?  I believe it is the quality of love they once had for another person or people.  This is why I believe the NLT version of the Bible offers the best translation of Revelation 2:4, “But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first!”
 
Whose Love Abandoned Who?
This is an easy question to answer.  The Ephesian church is who “left” their first love. What Paul thanked God for in Ephesians 1:15-16, they had lost.  Love is what keeps orthodoxy from becoming legalism.  Legalism is a perversion of orthopraxy (right living) that is devoid of mercy and grace.  You also need to understand that love for Jesus and His people with orthodoxy is also a deadly cancer that threatens the church. 
 
The Ephesian Church abandoned their first love, and I do not think that they did it intentionally. I believe it happened somewhere along their journey and participation in God’s mission that they did not even realize that it happened.  During my church planting years Sundays were always hard work just to make it happen.  We had to set up our platform, chairs, and equipment every single Sunday for years.  One particular Sunday, Seth wanted to go home with me so that he could play with his friends whose parents were helping me tear down.  When I was finished with what I had to do to wrap up, I headed home but it wasn’t long before I received a call from Julie (my administrative assistant at the time) who asked me if I had forgotten anything.  I immediately realized that I had forgotten my Bible to which she replied: “Yes, you did forget your Bible.  Did you forget anything else?”  At that moment, I realized I had forgotten Seth, who was about five at the time.  Somewhere along the way the passion and love for Jesus had been left behind while they held tight to their orthodoxy, but what they were left with was a legalism that threatened from within the church.
 
Who was no longer loved?
You probably already guessed by now the answer.  I believe it was their love for Jesus and His people.  When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was by a group of legalistic religious leaders, he answered: “And He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matt. 22:37–39).  Your love for God will create in you a love for people; you cannot claim to love God and at the same time refuse to love others.  Your vertical love for God will overflow into a love for others, this is especially true for those who Christ died for and are now His church (people).  If you are struggling to believe what I just said, then believe the apostle John who said, “If someone says, ‘I love God,” and yet he hates his brother or sister, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother and sister whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen’” (1 John 4:20).
 
I believe the Ephesian church, who was first known for their faith in Jesus and incorruptible love for Him was the catalyst that created in them a love for one another that they were known for in the early days of the church’s existence.  Their love infused faith in Jesus and their love for all the saints was the cocktail God used to push back evil and transform lives! 
 
What Revelation 2:1-4 teaches us is that Jesus wants our obedience, but He also wants our hearts!  In fact, if Jesus has you heart, He will have your obedience.    
 
The Way Back is Always Jesus
What about you dear Christian?  Have you lost your love for Jesus and His people?  Has your love for Him waned over the years?  Have you gotten sidetracked?  Think about the days when you first encountered Jesus and believed in Him. Remember the excitement of those days.  In many respects, it is very similar to any relationship where you experienced love.
 
If you are married, think back to the days when you first met your spouse.  Try to remember what you felt on your first date.  Can you recall the day you were engaged?  Revelation 2:1-7 reminds me of a funny little article titled, “The Seven Years of the Married Cold.” I am not sure who wrote it, but I first heard about in through a sermon Pastor Greg Laurie preached; here is how the article described the first seven years of marriage dealing with the common cold:
First year of marriage: “Sugar dumpling, I’m really worried about my baby girl. You’ve got a bad sniffle and there’s no telling about these things with all the strep going around. I’m putting you in the hospital this afternoon for a general checkup and a good rest. I know the food’s lousy, but I’ll be bringing your meals in from Rozzini’s. I already have it all arranged with the floor superintendent.”
 
Second year: “Listen darling, I don’t like the sound of that cough. I’ve called Doc Miller to rush over here. Now you go to bed like a good girl, just for Poppa.”
 
Third year: “Maybe you had better lie down, honey. Nothing like a little rest when you feel lousy. I’ll bring you some soup.”
 
Fourth year: “Now look, dear, be sensible. After you’ve fed the kids, and done the dishes, and washed the floor, you better lie down.”
 
Fifth year: “Why don’t you take a couple aspirin?”
 
Sixth year: “I wish you’d just gargle or something instead of sitting around barking like a seal all evening.”
 
Seventh year: “For Pete’s sake, stop sneezing! Are you trying to give me pneumonia?”
 
I am not sure what you may be feeling concerning your marriage, but my relationship with Jesus has also had its ups and downs.  The problem in all my 33 years since the day I entered into a relationship with Jesus was never with Jesus and always with me.  I was the one who found myself growing cold.  But when I first came to faith in Jesus, I could not get enough about Jesus, nor could I stop talking about Him.
 
Who is Jesus to you today?  Have you grown weary of spending time with Him? When you sing in church is it more about what you like about the song than it is about who we are singing about?  Do you find reading your Bible to be boring? Do you find being around His people to be irritating?  Is it possible that your problem is less about music, the church you attend, and your spiritual lethargy, and more about what you have forgotten and left behind? 
 
I don’t want you to feel worse about where you are at spiritually.  But if you are experiencing a loss of awe and wonder, if you are less grateful for the miracle of your salvation, if you are motivated by duty instead of delight for God, and if you feel pressure to perform, you have lost your first love just as the church in Ephesus did.  But here is the good news: it doesn’t have to be that way any longer! Listen to what Jesus said to the church in Ephesus and what He is saying to you: “Therefore, remember from where you have fallen, and repent, and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and I will remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent” (Rev. 2:5).
 
Here is what Jesus tells us we can do to get back to our first love: Rember where you have fallen, repent by recognizing what led you away from Jesus so that you do not do it again, and return to Jesus by serving and loving on His people. It is quite simple:
Remember the things you did that deepened your love for Jesus and His people.
Repent by beginning to do the things that fueled your love for Jesus and His people.
Return by finding ways to spend time with Jesus and ways you can serve with His people.

Freedom in the Desert

Men's Breakfast - January

Rejoicing in Suffering

1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. 6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (Rom 5:1-11 ESV)  
As we begin a new year, many of us are filled with hope and expectation. We set resolutions and goals in anticipation of making even more of the year ahead. However, we don’t really have control over the actual outcomes. Illness can beset us. We may experience the sudden loss of someone close to us. National or global events beyond our control can intrude upon our lives, affecting our businesses, jobs, or financial situations. On top of the uncertainty of life, we are constantly bombarded with stories of what could potentially go wrong. Will the stock market crash and take your retirement fund along with it? Will the economy enter a recession and cause my company or department to downsize? What if this country goes to war with that country? Now, the question that I want to address today is: how do we, as Christians, think about and address the uncertainty of this world and suffering when it happens to us and those close to us?
When contemplating this passage in Romans, I thought of a story and what it means to rejoice in suffering as a believer in the risen Messiah. This story is about a Chicago lawyer and businessman named Horatio Spafford. Now, Horatio had invested much of his wealth in real estate in the city.
Unfortunately, most of these properties, and thus much of his investment, were reduced to ash during the Great Fire of Chicago in 1871. The fallout from this loss and the work that he and other property owners in Chicago had to undertake to rebuild and restore would take years. The scale of this tragedy cannot be overstated. Over 17,000 buildings were destroyed, and more than 100,000 people (1/3 of Chicago’s population) were homeless. If this were not enough, the Spafford’s young son died of scarlet fever at the age of four not long after the fire.
A couple of years after the fire, Horatio decided to take his family on a trip to Europe to escape the constant work and stress of rebuilding. Who wouldn’t want to get away after all that had happened? He and his family were also going to meet up with and help the famous evangelist D.L. Moody, who was working on the continent at the time. However, some urgent business came up that needed his attention as the trip neared, so Horatio sent his wife and four daughters ahead of him.
One week after the ship set sail, it was violently struck in an accident by another boat at two in the morning. Because of how the ships collided, the vessel the Spafford family was on sank within 12 minutes. Of the 313 people on board, 226 perished. All four of Horatio’s daughters perished that night. His wife, Anna, was found unconscious, held up by floating debris. Nine days after the accident, Anna landed in Europe and sent a telegram. It read, “Saved alone. What shall I do?”
Upon receiving the message, Horatio booked the first passage he could find. However, this was during the 1800s, so this was far from a rapid process. One night, the captain called Horatio aside and informed him that they were currently sailing over the location where the ship carrying his family had sunk. As I contemplate this situation, I can’t help but ask myself how I would have responded. Would I be overcome by anguish or anger? Would I have broken down and wept or shouted out words of rage at God for allowing such a thing to happen? Instead of either of these things, Horatio returned to his cabin to attempt to try to sleep and felt a sense of comfort and hope overcome him. He wrote down these words, “It is well; the will of God be done.” These words would soon become his timeless hymn that resounds with so many gospel truths. The name of that hymn is “It Is Well with My Soul.”
It is worth reflecting on that there is a similar story in the Bible. Job, the man God Himself called blameless and upright, lost everything he owned in a single day. Additionally, his sons and daughters all died that very same day. Job responded to these events with the statement, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21). Notice the similarities? These are not words of quiet resignation or defeat. The LORD may give, and He may take away. In the words of Horatio, the will of God will be done. However, regardless of what happened to these two men, their response is instructive and encouraging beyond belief. Despite what comes, the believer can say, “Blessed be the name of the LORD,” and “It is well with my soul.”
Now, these stories may be inspiring, but you’d be right in asking, “How do I develop that kind of abiding faith and trust in God?” It is so easy to marvel at the faith of others. But the reality is that knowing the stories is not enough. These same types of tragedies, and many more besides, can happen in our lives. Thankfully, as in all things, God does not leave us alone. And I know this because the verses we are looking at today have been my anchor through the most challenging times in my life. They acted as my north star, the way that God guided me through trials and kept me traveling on the path that leads to Him. So, let’s dive in.
1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
            The chapter opens with the word, therefore. This means that what Paul, the apostle who wrote this letter, is about to say directly follows what he has already said. It is essential to keep this at the forefront of our minds as we read scripture; what is the context? Uncountable numbers of irresponsible teachings have come through taking verses out of context and misapplying them. So, let’s take a high-level view of what was said in the letter before our passage today. Paul was writing to the believers in Rome in anticipation of him traveling there, something he had long wanted to do. He wanted to accomplish several things. The letter to the Romans primarily concerns the gospel; Paul wanted to unify the church in Rome around the good news of Christ. Romans is a great place to start if you want a comprehensive understanding of the gospel message. Additionally, Paul wanted to prepare for the missionary journey he was planning to Spain; he wanted the Roman believers to help him on his way after he was able to visit them. Finally, Paul wanted to get in front of a growing division in the church between Jewish and Gentile believers. The focus for our study today aligns with the primary purpose for which Paul was writing: the good news of what Jesus has done. Or, as we more commonly call it, the gospel.
            Paul starts his letter by pointing to the grandeur of the universe as proof of God’s existence and that we can even learn some things about Him through creation. However, many, instead of worshiping the God who created everything, worshiped the things He made.
20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. (Rom 1:20-25)
            Paul addressed this because pagan worship was the norm in the Roman Empire. It is important to note here that the people Paul is talking about were the ones who exchanged God for created things in nature. God allowed them to choose and gave them up to what they wanted. N.T. Wright perhaps sums up this concept best.
“You become like what you worship. When you gaze in awe, admiration, and wonder at something or someone, you begin to take on something of the character of the object of your worship.” N.T. Wright
            This is a critical point that Paul made. It spoke directly to the heart of Roman culture and society. And it speaks directly to ours as well. The Romans, like the Greeks, worshipped a pantheon of gods who were very human in nature. They were spiteful, filled with lust, and sought their own pleasure above the good of others. Paul was saying that if you venerate that type of activity, you will act the same way. Now, consider our culture today; we may not wrap it up in religious language and ritual, but it is the same. Think about the lyrics of many of the most popular songs today. Consider the lives and actions of celebrities and others that our society lifts up and puts on a pedestal. Reflect on how often we are told in advertising by the rich, powerful, and famous how if we only buy this item or consume this service, we will be as happy and fulfilled as they are, or supposedly are. Think about how society as a whole treats marriage as trivial or that it is entirely ok to objectify other human beings, especially with what is deemed acceptable to view on the internet for our own pleasure.
Paul then addresses those who did know about the one true God, namely the Jewish nation. However, instead of commending them, Paul has a very different message. What he said was precisely what Jesus did. It doesn’t matter that you come from the line of Abraham or how well you know the Old Testament Law. God cares about and judges people based on what we actually do.
12 For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. (Rom 2:12-13)
            And if we stop for a minute and honestly look at our own lives, this is what we see. We know at our core that there is an absolute standard for good and evil. We know that saying one thing and then doing another is both hypocritical and wrong. We have all, myself included, done things that genuinely hurt other people, damaged relationships, and were contrary to what we know in the deepest parts of ouor being are good and right and holy. Paul quoted the Psalms to sum up this point.
10 “None is righteous, no, not one;11     no one understands;    no one seeks for God.12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;    no one does good,    not even one.” (Rom 3:10b-12)
            Now, this is a pretty bleak letter so far. This is not something that you read at the beginning of a year to feel all warm and fuzzy inside. We’re left with all of these questions that seem pretty important and rather urgent. What if there is a creator of the universe? Spoiler alert: there is. And what if He genuinely cares about right and wrong and how we treat each other? Another spoiler alert: He does. If we’ve all fallen short, and there are consequences for that, is there something that can be done to restore ourselves to God? And here is the best spoiler alert: There is. Paul tells us how this happens.
21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood (Rom 3:21-25a, NIV)
            And there it is, the gospel, the good news that Paul based his entire letter around. There is a God who created both us and the universe we live in. He is perfectly good and, therefore, has made a moral law that we all are to live by. However, all of us fall short and sin. This causes a separation between us and God. However, God did not see fit to leave us as we are. He sent Jesus to live the life we never could and die the death we deserved so that we could be reconciled to Him. This is the good news that Paul was proclaiming.
            So, we return to the opening verses of our passage today.
1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
            We now see what the “therefore” is there for. We were separated from God, but we can now be justified before him by faith. And because of this good news, that we have been justified by faith, certain things happen in the believer's life. First, we have peace with God. You see, it wasn’t that we were just separated from God. We were, in fact, working against Him and were enemies.
In another letter, Paul said, “21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation” (Col 1:21-22, NIV). We just wrapped up an extremely deep study of the book of Ephesians here at Meadowbrooke. Remember what we were told in that letter about the state we were in before being saved?
 
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. (Eph 2:1-3)
            When Paul says that we now have peace with God, he doesn’t mean that we have a tranquil state of mind or something like that. Instead, when we become followers of Jesus, we go from being against God or an enemy of God to having peace with Him. Remember what Paul said earlier in the letter. Nobody is righteous; nobody does good.
            But it doesn’t stop there. We aren’t just in some truce or ceasefire with God. What has happened is so much more glorious and incredible than that. We also, through Jesus, have obtained grace. Now, grace can be a mysterious-sounding religious word. All it means is that somebody has received unmerited or unearned favor. It means we don’t deserve the favor or good things God freely bestows on us. Remember, we all sin and fall short of the glory of God; we all were, by nature, children of wrath. The Greek word that is translated here as “access” literally means “to approach” or “to bring into.” We are brought into God’s grace and can actually have a personal relationship with Him. How much has changed because of what Jesus has done for us. We who were enemies not only have peace with God but also can draw near to Him and have a personal relationship with our Creator.
            Finally, we can rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. And given what we have just read, there is so much to rejoice in. But again, there is something even more glorious behind these words. We rejoice not just in our newfound peace with God or our ability to be brought into His grace. We rejoice in the hope of something else. The word “hope” in our English language is quite weak. Typically, it means something like, “I hope this year is better than the last” or “I hope my team wins the Super Bowl this year.” It expresses the desire for something to be true, but with the realization that it may not turn out that way. However, the Greek word employed here means something more like “joyful and confident expectation.” Our hope is in something that we are confident and sure of. Tim Keller remarked on this passage that, “Christian hope is not a hopeful wish – it is a hope-filled certainty.”
            But what is it that we are hopeful for? If we were to poll random people about what they most hoped for or were most looking forward to regarding the promises of God, we would likely get a broad range of answers. Many would almost certainly revolve around seeing loved ones again or being eternally happy and without pain or suffering. However, notice what Paul says here. His focus is on the glory of God. More than his own happiness or desires, the reason for Paul’s rejoicing is in the hope of being in the presence of God’s glory.
John Murray remarked on this passage, “[Believers] are interested in the manifestation of the glory of God for its own sake. The glory of God is their chief end and they long for and hasten unto that day when with undimmed vision they will behold the glory of God in its fullest exhibition and vindication.”
            What this means is that the hope of the Christian is not in the hope of our wants, desires, and comfort. Instead, our hope is in being with and living within the glory of God. The focus is on God, not on us. John Piper put this better than anybody else I have heard.
He said, “The critical question for our generation—and for every generation— is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ were not there?” Paul’s answer would be a resounding no. What makes the restored heaven and earth what they will be is that we will finally be with God in all His infinite glory. Everything else pales in comparison to that. And any heaven without that is no real heaven at all.
            Now, Paul has covered a lot of ground in his letter so far. The people listening to this being read for the first time would have been on a real rollercoaster of a ride. First, they heard about this God who is powerful and mighty enough to create the entire universe in which we live. But then they heard that this God is also perfectly good and, therefore, has a moral law. They, just like all of us, broke that law. And they, just like us, broke it repeatedly. They heard about how this created a separation between humanity and God, a chasm we could not overcome ourselves. However, when everything seemed lost and without hope, they heard about how God, through Jesus, redeemed them, and they were now justified. This justification was not through anything they had done but what Jesus had done for them. They heard that they did not have to try to earn God’s merit, and in fact, they never could. They heard that what God really sought after was their hearts and faith in Him. Finally, because of that faith, the believer has peace with God, access to God’s grace, and the hope-filled certainty of witnessing God in His full glory one day. What an experience it must have been to be the first people to hear this letter being read. Can you imagine hearing this fantastic news?
Then, the church in Rome would have heard the words, “Not only that…” Wait! There is more!?! What more could there be after being told this fantastic news? I can only imagine sitting there and anticipating new promises and hopes the apostle was about to relay. Instead, the audience heard, “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings.” Wait… what? We rejoice in our suffering? Weren’t we talking about drawing close to God and witnessing His glory?
            But this is reality, isn’t it? When we decide to follow Jesus, all the hardships and suffering we’ve experienced don’t magically disappear. We still get sick. Our finances don’t magically improve; we all don’t suddenly receive private jets and mansions. We still lose loved ones, and we all certainly still experience getting older and all the wear and tear that comes from that.
            As I reflect upon this past year, the single word that comes most to mind is “difficult.” This was a challenging year for our church family, and we had to go through things, including church discipline and the termination of a staff person in a pastoral role. Individuals and families in our church have also been going through extremely difficult things. There have been cancer diagnoses, losses of family members, struggles with chronic illnesses, sudden visits to the ER, heart issues, urgent and completely unexpected surgeries, and many, many more things besides. Personally, this last year, especially the past six months, has, if I’m being completely honest, been extremely difficult. Due to an autoimmune disease, my health spiraled to a place I have not experienced in over a decade. This resulted in a 10-day stay in a hospital after losing 15% of my body weight and a substantial amount of internal bleeding. But, more importantly, it put a lot of strain on my marriage and meant I was less present as a father than I should be. The stark reality is that suffering is still a part of our lives. It has real impacts on us and those around us. But, as we’ll see, faith in Jesus is not about the cessation of pain and suffering but instead giving that suffering over to God in faith that He will use it for good.
            Paul lays out how this looks for us:
3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
            Notice here that Paul says we rejoice in our sufferings, not because of our sufferings. Paul does not say that suffering suddenly becomes pleasurable for us or trivially easy to endure. He does not say that God is giving us a way to prove ourselves to Him or earn His favor by persevering through hardship. Instead, we rejoice in our sufferings because of something we know. We know that suffering can produce something within us. That something is endurance. For most of my life, and by that, I mean since I was eight, I have participated in endurance sports. This has included distance running, cycling over 100 miles in a day over multiple mountain passes, and summiting 20,000 ft peaks. I bring this up because I have learned a lot about myself and quite a bit about endurance through these activities.
            The first is that endurance is not something magical you hope to have on the day of your event. It is something that you train for diligently. It may take months or even years in some cases to train your body and mind to accomplish the goal you have set before yourself. It is possible to train and not reach the goals you set. However, if you don’t train, the goals will forever remain out of reach. And the thing about training is that a substantial amount of suffering can be involved. Mile repeats hurt. Hill training on a bike can be painful. Interval sessions have left me draped over the handlebars of my indoor trainer like a rag doll. Watching cyclists or other endurance athletes achieve the incredible can be awe-inspiring, often making it look easy. However, it isn’t. What we witness when we watch world-class athletes is the outcome of a lifetime of training and preparation.
And I can tell you from experience, every day I’ve had where I’ve looked like this, cycling up mountain passes feeling in great shape and like I could tackle the biggest of obstacles, I’ve had many more days where I’ve looked a bit more like this.
The key here is that, like in athletics, in life, endurance is not something that happens automatically or magically. It is something that is produced. And often, the production of endurance happens through the crucible of suffering.
            But, unlike endurance training for sports, the type of endurance Paul talks about is not the end goal. It serves a greater purpose. You see, our character is also changing when we develop spiritual endurance. Now, this word in Greek doesn’t just mean something like, “He is a really good person and has good character.” Instead, it is about something proven, or something tested and found to be approved. An example of this can be seen in Paul’s letter to the Philippians concerning his protégé, Timothy.
22 But you know Timothy's proven worth, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel. (Phil 2:22)
            The phrase “proven worth” is the same word that is translated as character. And to some extent, we’ve all experienced this. If we have endured something before, when we have to endure it again, there is a confidence we didn’t have before. Or, thought of in a different way, if you had to go into battle with somebody, would you rather go with a special forces soldier who had been on multiple deployments or somebody who has never been through military training but plays their fair share of Tom Clancy video games? The choice is easy, right? What Paul is saying here is that when we go through suffering, endurance is produced. And when we endure our trials and tribulations, we are tested successfully or, as Paul says, our worth is proven.
            But Paul does not stop there. He says that this “testedness” produces something else: hope. And here we return to this idea of hope. Remember, this idea Paul is talking about can be best thought of as “a hope-filled certainty.” As we go through suffering, the endurance and character that result produces an ever-greater certainty that God is exactly who He has said He is and that His promises are sure. Paul then offers a proof of this. He states that hope will never put us to shame because God has given us the Holy Spirit, who dwells within us. In fact, the relationship between the believer and the Holy Spirit is so close that he has been poured into our hearts.
            I had mentioned earlier that these verses have been my anchor verses through suffering. That is not an understatement in any way. I had grown up in the church. In fact, I heard hymns and the words of the Bible before I was born. As I grew up, I did all the church things, camps, and confirmation; I even started participating in lay-level leadership roles in my church. If any of those things sound a bit foreign, it is because I grew up in the Episcopal tradition. Ultimately, instead of letting God into my heart and being the Lord of my entire life, I was going through the motions. Especially in college, my life looked no different than anybody else’s. Remember those verses from Ephesians about living in the passions of our flesh and carrying out the desires of the body and the mind? That was me. Until that is, God got ahold of my heart. A group of us in ROTC decided that we wanted to start getting serious about our faith and started going to church together. We formed our own Bible study and as a small community of college-aged believers, we began trying to figure out what it meant to be Jesus followers.
            To make a long story very short, one of the members of this group would ultimately become my wife. As we deepened in our faith together as a group, I was drawn to what God was doing in her life. However, two weeks after we started dating, I started noticing an immense amount of pain in my abdomen and, even more concerning, evidence of internal bleeding. I started losing weight at an alarming rate and was ultimately diagnosed with an autoimmune condition called ulcerative colitis. Effectively, my immune system goes into overdrive and starts attacking and causing ulcers and a crazy amount of inflammation in my large intestine. Unfortunately, I have a rather severe form of the disease that affects not just a part of the intestine, but the entire thing. As is common with autoimmune diseases, finding the therapy that worked for me took a long time. Because of the severity of my diagnosis, this ultimately led me to being hospitalized seven times in the first 18 months following the onset of my symptoms.
            In addition to the pain, frustration, and confusion over what was happening, other things also started falling apart. A military career was now no longer an option for me. Because of the impact the disease was having on my body, I was sleeping 12-16 hours a day and was unable to continue pursuing my master's program. What is more, because of how the insurance I had purchased through the university was structured, it did not cover costs from chronic illnesses beyond $20,000. But through it all, God was working on my heart and my mind. He was showing me things about himself that I would likely never have learned had it not been for this. He was teaching me that my future job was not what defined me. Who I am in Jesus is what defines me. He was teaching me that the highest goal in life is not academic or professional achievement (I’m a bit of an A-type personality and struggle with making my life about accomplishments). Instead, He showed me that following Him is the highest purpose in life.
            Now, perhaps the most incredible thing about this entire story is that Michaela stayed by my side throughout all of it. We had only recently started dating, but she was there for everything. I can still remember her voice as I was coming out of anesthesia after the scoping procedure that resulted in the diagnosis of the disease. I was insanely sick, my planned career was completely shattered, treatments weren’t working, and I had a sum of medical debt that was growing increasingly large. There were so many times when I felt absolutely lost and without hope. Yet, because of this community of people, especially Michaela, I was constantly reminded of God's goodness and how He works all things for the good of those who love Him, even if we don’t see it in the moment. The Bible was my source of refuge, reminding me of the eternal promises of God that transcend our momentary afflictions.
            Things ultimately improved for me, and through a lot of help from my doctors and a lot of prayer, my condition was able to be controlled. There were still some rough points, and I experienced the occasional flare-up, but things returned to normal. Michaela and I got married, we found a way to pay off the medical debt, and life seemed to be going just fine. But what I didn’t know at the time was that as I was going through all my medical issues and seeing Michaela’s character displayed, God was showing me what it means to stand beside somebody as they are suffering.
            About two years after we got married, Michaela started showing symptoms of something, but the doctors couldn’t figure out what it was. Finally, they had her stay on a heart monitor for an extended time, and the results were so concerning that the hospital in Laramie told us that we needed to come to the hospital here in Cheyenne because they were not prepared to deal with whatever the issue was. When Michaela arrived here, they took an Xray, and they found out that there was a mass about 12cm in diameter in her chest next to her heart. We were once again told that she needed to go to another hospital because the one here had no idea what was going on. However, this time, she had to travel via ambulance. We had come in the same vehicle, but as she was leaving in an ambulance, I followed in the car we brought over. It was such a good thing that it was the middle of the night because I was an absolute mess. If there had been any traffic whatsoever, I probably would have crashed. On that drive, I was confronted with an absolutely petrifying truth. There was nothing I could do for my wife but pray. I was helpless in the face of whatever it was that she had to face. I could not protect her, and I could not save her. And this was an earth-shattering realization for me. Of course, we all intellectually know that our time here is limited and that when it is time for us to leave this world, there is nothing we can do to stop it for ourselves or those we love. However, facing that reality directly is an entirely different notion. The radical realization that I had was that in this situation, she was entirely in the Lord’s hands. The even more radical realization I would only have reflecting later on, was that this is true every moment of every day. I just don’t live like it.
            To capture this idea in his book The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis wrote, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” This has been precisely my experience. The eternal truths that God exists, that we desperately need Him, and that He alone is sufficient for all our needs are sometimes most clearly heard when we are in our most desperate times of need.
            Upon arriving at the University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora, we learned that the mass was a tumor, and it was an advanced stage of lymphoma. The doctors recommended that she start an aggressive form of chemotherapy immediately. We didn’t have time to go home and talk about it. We didn’t have time to prepare in case the therapy made it difficult or impossible to have kids. It was almost as if everything had been put onto tracks, and we were just along for the ride. Now, soon after all of this happened a good friend of mine who has been a mentor in many ways to me came by and prayed with us. Her prayers included pleas for healing, comfort, and everything else we typically lift up to God during these types of events. However, she prayed something else as well. She prayed that our hearts and minds would be open to what God had to teach us during this time of trial. It literally felt like a physical switch turned in my head. Despite all that I had been through, and all God had done in my own heart during my battles with illness, I had not stopped to consider that God may have something to teach us here as well. And teach He did. I learned how incredibly strong of a woman He made when He created my wife. I learned that I am not sufficient for her; only Jesus is. I learned that life can be extraordinarily fleeting and what we consider normal and act like will go on forever can end in an instant.
            Michaela spent the following months going to Denver for a week of treatment every three weeks. I tagged along and slept on the pullout bed on the couch in her room. That was our lives for almost four months: two weeks at home and one in the hospital. When I had to travel for work, her mom took my place. Now, you may be wondering who the better caretaker in our relationship is when the other is undergoing adversity. The answer is Michaela. You may also be wondering who deals with suffering better. The answer is also Michaela.
            Ultimately, Michaela completed the chemo regimen and has been in full remission for almost 10 years. Despite not being able to make alternative preparations, we have two incredible boys who are miracles in the fullest sense of the word. It can be easy to praise God and extol His greatness when things work out the way we hope and pray they will. However, there will come a day when I and everybody else whom I love will draw in their last breath. And in those moments, God still deserves all the glory and all the praise. I want to relay one more story before I wrap up about one of those times.
            My stepmom’s father, my grandfather, or as we called him, Papou (that part of my family is Greek), had been extremely sick for a long time. He was born in Alexandria, Egypt. His wife, my Yaiyia, was a missionary in Kenya when he proposed to her in a letter. After starting their young family, they moved to Athens so he could pastor a church while they served as missionaries. When they moved back to the States, their home was always a place of love where all were welcome. Toward the end of his life, he was unable to care for or even feed himself and had to be placed in a home to receive the care he needed. As the end of his life was drawing ever closer, he came down with a severe infection that left him almost entirely incapacitated. One day, some of our dearest family friends were visiting him. As they prepared to leave, everybody gathered to pray, potentially for the last time, over this man who had lived his life faithfully for God. However, before anybody else had a chance to speak, this saint (by the way, if you are a follower of Jesus, you are a saint as well) who could not feed himself or even sit up started to pray. I was not there to hear these words, but they still reverberate in the deepest part of my being more than a decade later. “Our precious heavenly father,” he said, “we just can’t thank you enough. You have been so good to us.”
            That is the strength that a life lived in the service and love of God bestows upon a person. The Christian lives not in quiet resignation in the face of a world that can be so cruel and cause so much suffering. Instead, the Christian can raise a triumphant cry that in our weakness, the strength of the Lord will be made perfect, and that is enough. We can, as Job did, bless the name of the Lord, come whatever may. We see this in the letter to the Corinthians:
9 But he [God] said to me [Paul], “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor 12:9-11)
            This is why Paul ends this passage with a reiteration of the gospel message. Even though each of us who follow Jesus has the real experience of having the Holy Spirit residing within us, there also is an objective truth for all to see. Christ came and died for us while we were still sinners. And this point is even more important than the point that we are physically broken and endure sufferings in this world. That point is that we are spiritually broken and separated from God, desperately in need of a Savior. Reflect with me on these closing verses.
6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
            Jesus did not wait until we were perfect and had everything figured out before he came to die in our place. Instead, he came when we were still in sin, weak, and enemies of God. Unlike us, who so often act out of self-regard or do something because we view somebody as good and deserving, Jesus came to save us while we were still standing in complete opposition to God. This is the incredible news of the gospel. As much pain and suffering, as much physical brokenness that we may experience in this world, it is nothing compared to the spiritual sickness we suffer because of our separation from God. We all were far from God before coming to Christ, but he died in our place regardless and rose again, conquering death. We are justified, reconciled, and saved by what he did. And if you don’t know Jesus yet, all you must do is accept him as your Lord and Savior and begin walking with him.
            Before we leave, I wanted to review some of the things I have learned from other believers and scripture about how to endure times of suffering. None of this is groundbreaking, but it works.
Don’t wait until you are in suffering to prepare – If you wait until the morning of a marathon to train, it won’t go well for you. The same is true here. If you wait until the moment of your trial to prepare, you are too late.
Be in your Bible daily – The stories of those who suffer in scripture are incredibly instructive and helpful. The principles you will learn from this book will help you in your time of need. But I never would have had these verses constantly in my mind and nourishing my soul if I had not read them. God uses scripture to help His followers in their time of need.
Build relationships with fellow believers—When Michaela and I have experienced times of suffering, it is the people of God, the Church, who have helped us more than anybody else. I have experienced the benefit of having somebody just come sit with you. Recently, while I was in the hospital, several friends visited throughout my stay. Mostly, we talked about the goodness of God. It helped me raise my eyes above my situation and stay focused on my Lord and Savior.
Pray without ceasing – Pray for those who are going through trials. Ask others to pray for you as you endure suffering. The Church was designed so that each member could help one another. And as you pray, follow God’s Spirit in how you can help. If you feel drawn to visit somebody who is ailing, go. If you feel called to cook them a meal, do it.
Look for what God is trying to teach you – Until our dying breath, we are running our race. As believers, we are walking down that narrow path that leads to Jesus. That path can be difficult and filled with obstacles sometimes. But even in our worst suffering, God is faithful, and He works all things for the good of those who love Him. If you let Him, He will develop in you: endurance, character, and a hope which will never be put to shame. Even in our greatest trials, He is still so incredibly good.

Rahab, A New Beginning

Many of us are probably familiar to some extent with Rahab, the Jericho prostitute who turns to God and is spared along with her family when the Israelites destroy the city.  But there is much more to her story that should cause us to marvel at God’s mercy and grace, and warn us against hypocrisy. 
 
Let’s go look at where we encounter her.  Israel had sent out two spies to check out Jericho.  They go to the home of Rahab, the prostitute, where presumably it would not be unusual to find strangers.  But someone alerts the authorities and Rahab is told to turn over the men.  She covers for them and hides them on her roof.  A search party begins looking for them near the Jordan River. 
 
Joshua 2:8-21
8 Now before [a]the spies lay down, she came up to them on the roof, 9 and said to the men, “I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land have despaired because of you. 10 For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the [b]Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you [c]utterly destroyed. 11 When we heard these reports, our hearts melted and no [d]courage remained in anyone any longer because of you; for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth below. 12 Now then, please swear to me by the Lord, since I have dealt kindly with you, that you also will deal kindly with my father’s household, and give me a pledge of [e]truth, 13 and [f]spare my father and my mother, and my brothers and my sisters, and all who belong to them, and save our [g]lives from death.” 14 So the men said to her, “Our [h]life [i]for yours if you do not tell this business of ours; and it shall come about when the Lord gives us the land that we will deal kindly and [j]faithfully with you.”
15 Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was on the city wall, so that she was living on the wall. 16 And she said to them, “Go to the hill country, so that the pursuers will not encounter you, and hide yourselves there for three days until the pursuers return. Then afterward you may go on your way.” 17 And the men said to her, “We shall be exempt from this oath [k]to you which you have made us swear, 18 [l]unless, when we come into the land, you tie this cord of scarlet thread in the window through which you let us down, and gather into your house your father, your mother, your brothers, and all your father’s household. 19 And it shall come about that anyone who goes out of the doors of your house outside will have [m]his blood on his own head, and we will be innocent; but anyone who is with you in the house, his blood will be on our head if a hand is laid on him. 20 But if you tell this business of ours, then we shall be exempt from the oath which you have made us swear.” 21 She then said, “According to your words, so be it.” So she sent them away, and they departed; and she tied the scarlet cord in the window.
Let’s think about a couple of things. First: How did God communicate with Rahab?  By dream? By vision? How did she learn that Yahweh was the one true God?  However He did it, we must be humbled by the love and concern God showed to a woman who was part of an accursed tribe and who lived an immoral lifestyle. 
 
Second: Think about the scarlet cord hanging out her window.  Where else do we see in Scripture that a red mark protects everyone inside a dwelling?  The night of Passover, when the blood of the lamb on the lintel and doorposts protected those who were inside.  Here is another picture of Passover, but this one is not protecting Israelites, but pagan Canaanites! Were these Hebrew spies thinking about how their relatives had been spared from wrath by a similar process? Here is an example of faith resulting in right standing with God apart from the Law, just like Abraham, proving that God is no respecter of persons. 
 
Now we pick up in Joshua Chapter 6. 
 
Most of us know how Israel marched around Jericho for seven days, so we will skip to the relevant portion for our study today:
 
 
Joshua 6:20-25
“So the people shouted, and [g]the priests blew the trumpets; and when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people shouted with a great shout, and the wall fell down [h]flat, so that the people went up into the city, everyone straight [i]ahead, and they took the city. 21 They [j]utterly destroyed everything in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, sheep, and donkey, with the edge of the sword.
22 And Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, “Go into the prostitute’s house and bring the woman and all she has out of there, just as you have sworn to her.” 23 So the young men who were spies went in and brought out Rahab, her father, her mother, her brothers, and all she had; they also brought out all her relatives, and placed them outside the camp of Israel. 24 Then they burned the city with fire, and all that was in it. Only the silver and gold, and the articles of bronze and iron, they put into the treasury of the [k]house of the Lord. 25 However, Rahab the prostitute and her father’s household and all she had, Joshua [l]spared; and she has lived in the midst of Israel to this day, because she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.
 
Let’s think about this first from Rahab’s perspective.  She and her family have been listening to utter chaos and terror outside her house.  The screams of people and animals as they are brutally slaughtered.  Then, there is, literally, a deathly quiet, and then there is a knock at the door.  With great trepidation, they open the door and step out into a living nightmare.  Everything destroyed.  All people, all livestock, all structures.  Everybody Rahab and her family knew was dead, their corpses lying mutilated on the ground.   Spared, but unclean, she and her family are put “outside the camp.” So was Jesus. 
 
Hebrews 13:11-13
 
For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the Holy Place by the high priest as an offering for sin are burned outside the camp.  Therefore Jesus also suffered outside the gate, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood.  So then, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach.”
 
Jesus has a special affinity for those who are rejected, scorned, despised by the in crowd, just as Rahab was and many others.  He personally experienced that same rejection, and invites us to journey with Him to where He resides with those whom He has rescued from rejection.
 
Back to Jericho.  Imagine the terror of what Rahab’s family was feeling.  You are now totally dependent on these people who just destroyed your city and killed all your friends and neighbors.  You are feeling not just terror, but profound loneliness and sense of loss.  Imagine if Russians invaded and killed everybody in your city except you, and now you were dependent on them. 
What about the other side?  As Israelites, you were warned to kill all the Canaanites completely, to avoid being infected with their idols.  Now, what do you do with this family?  I’m sure some advocated to let them starve.  They only promised to spare their lives from the destruction of Jericho.  There were no promises about feeding and caring for them.  But Rahab knew that Yahweh was the God of heaven and earth.  God had somehow revealed Himself to her, and He would not see her abandoned.
 
But she is a profound sinner, from a foreign culture, filled with idolatrous practices, living in enforced isolation.  How does she become discipled, and an important figure in Jewish history?  Yes.  That is exactly what happens to her, but we have to fill in the details with our imagination.  As with the mystery of Melchizedek, sometimes the most profound biblical stories are about what’s left out of the narrative. 
 
There had to have been interaction between Rahab’s family and the Israelites.  Probably, there was daily interaction as more merciful heads prevailed and food was delivered to keep them alive.  But that doesn’t solve the problem.  Keeping her alive doesn’t equate to discipleship. 
 
I can imagine a godly woman provoking her husband to think about these poor people and shouldn’t someone try to teach Rahab and her family about the Lord?  I’m sure the idea was met with apprehension at first.  “What if we get infected with their idolatry?  No, it’s too risky.  Too bad they weren’t born Jews.”
 
Time passes, but somewhere along the line, at least Rahab is discipled, probably by one of those godly wives who kept persisting until her husband acquiesced!  Rahab responds and learns well.  In fact, she surpasses most of the young Israelite women in her devotion to the Lord, and becomes known for her character and the radical transformation of a changed life.  How do we know that?  Because of something revealed in the Book of Ruth and a one-sentence reference in Matthew Chapter 1. 
 
 
So, let’s turn our attention first to Ruth.
 
If you are not familiar with Ruth, it is a short book packed with depth and meaning.  The story centers around a family from Bethlehem, a husband named Elimelech and his wife Naomi.  They have two sons, Mahlon and Chilion.  A severe drought causes them to move east across the Jordan river to the area of Moab, where Naomi stays for 10 years.  While there, her husband dies.  Her sons marry Moabite women.  But then her sons die, and she is left in Moab with her two daughters-in-law, Orpah, and Ruth.  Naomi hears that the drought is gone in Bethlehem and she decides to return, and tries to convince her daughters-in-law to stay in Moab.  Orpah does, but Ruth insists on going to Bethlehem with Naomi and staying with her until her death, and will worship the God of Israel.  So, they return.
 
When they arrive in Bethlehem, it is the beginning of the barley harvest, probably mid-April.  How to get food?  Well, Ruth goes out to glean in the common area which the landowners use, and she just happens to get connected with a man named Boaz.  We need to learn something about Boaz.  He is described as “gibbor,” which is sometimes translated as “mighty man.”  It implies he is a man of substance and character, and when we read Ruth, we are touched by his compassion and concern both for Naomi and for Ruth.  He is impressed by Ruth’s devotion to Naomi, and her willingness to seek shelter under Yahweh’s wings.
 
Interestingly, he is also a kinsman redeemer (Leviticus 25:47-55) to Naomi, and is willing to redeem her land including the necessity of giving her offspring through Ruth, the Moabitess.  He was willing to marry a foreign woman.  Boaz and Ruth had a child, Obed, who was the grandfather of David.  Ruth 4:21-22.  So, Ruth the Moabite woman participates in establishing the earthly lineage of the Messiah. 
 
We are told in Ruth 4:21 that Salmon (or Salma) begot Boaz. We don’t know from the account here who Boaz’ mother is, but Matthew clears that up for us.   
 
Matthew 1:5 tells us “Salmon fathered Boaz by Rahab, Boaz fathered Obed by Ruth, and Obed fathered Jesse.”
 
Salmon was the father of Boaz, and Boaz’ mother is Rahab.  Interestingly, she is not referred to as “Rahab the Harlot,” just Rahab.  She is a harlot no more.
 
Remember, Boaz is a man of influence and character in Bethlehem.  There is no doubt that Boaz’ character was formed in large part due to his mother’s influence.  She would have had to be a woman of great moral character to attract the attention of Salmon.
 
Knowing people as we do, we can be sure that Salmon was scorned and rejected by some of his peers for marrying a former pagan harlot.  That took a lot of courage on his part.  And think about his parents!  Let’s say our son came home all excited about this woman he met at a Bible study, who had been a sexual abuse victim by her stepdad, ran away from home, wound up on Colfax Avenue in Denver, was befriended by a man who turned out to be a pimp, got her strung out on fentanyl, and trafficked her as a prostitute?  Sound like something that happens every day.  But she had been arrested, detoxed, came to Christ while in substance abuse treatment, and was now a very godly young woman in love with Jesus.  We love to hear stories like that. 
 
But what if our son decided he wanted to marry her? Would we be accepting of her as a redeemed child of God, or would we be concerned about our family’s reputation, and suggest he seek out a virgin from one of the “good” families from his Awana’s group? 
 
What if your son said, “But what about that verse in Second Corinthians Five?
 
2 Corinthians 5:17
 
If anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”
 
Is that true, or not?”
 
Do we feel the conviction of hypocrisy as we contemplate our reaction?  Are we interested more in what serves God’s purposes, or being concerned about what our peer group will think? 
 
Remember, God chose Rahab and Ruth (and Tamar, for that matter) to be mothers of men in the lineage of Christ.  He did that on purpose to teach us something about His mercy and grace.
No doubt, Boaz’ own family history was a strong influence for him to so readily agree to marry Ruth the Moabitess.  He knew his parent’s story, had heard from his mother Rahab about the pain of loneliness and rejection when they lived “outside the camp,” and had no hesitation to marry a foreign woman who so obviously loved God and honored Naomi. 
 
The character of Rahab may also be inferred from Hebrews.  She and Sarah are the only two women named in the Hall of Faith (Hebrews Chapter 11).  Rahab is also mentioned by James as an example of the works of faith. 
 
(Call up the worship team)
 
So, who are the Rahab’s in our life?  The people who have a checkered past, but who are growing in the Lord?  Can we see past who they were, and see what they can become as the Lord changes them?  He wants us to see with His eyes, and be His hands and feet to disciple them so they can become the godly Rahab’s of this generation.
 
The main reason why I love working in the criminal justice system is that I get to participate in God’s mission of making modern-day Rahabs.  To see a life in chaos become a godly man or woman is a privilege I have witnessed repeatedly over the past 35 years. 
 
Fact is, none of us come from “good” families.  There is only one Good Family, and that consists of all of us, from whatever background, who have repented, been born again, and belong to the body of Christ.  We all are new creations in Christ, and our sins—all of them—are forgiven and forgotten by our Lord.  May we celebrate our new beginnings every day!

The Power to Stand Firm

We come to the end of Ephesians today.  At the beginning of his letter to these dear Christians, Paul prayed that they would come to know the significance of what it meant to be a Christian and what it meant to be the Church: “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the boundless greatness of His power toward us who believe” (Eph. 1:18–19a).  Isn’t this what we want for our own selves?  To see with the eyes of our hearts the hope we have because of God’s calling, to wrap our hearts around the profound implications of what it means to belong to God as His inheritance, and to have our hearts full with the reality that the boundless greatness of the power of Almighty God now belongs to those of us who have been redeemed by God’s own Son. 
 
What does it mean to be a Christian?  What does it mean to be the Church?  The answer is provided for us more than 200 times in the New Testament and over 30 times in Ephesians alone; the answer given for what it means to be a Christian and what it means to be the Church is that you are a Christian and you belong to His church if you are “in Christ.” 
 
Before He spoke Creation into existence, God chose you and set His love upon you for the purpose that you would be holy and blameless... in Christ (1:4-6).  Your sin was not so great to keep you from the love of God, for He made your salvation and redemption possible through His Son who died upon a cross for your sins and lavished His grace upon you (vv. 7-12).  You have been sealed by the Holy Spirit which guarantees your complete and total salvation... and He did it “in Christ” (vv. 13-14).  Oh, dear Christian, what did you ever do to deserve so great a salvation?  Nothing, because all of it was provided for you in and through Christ! 
 
The Christ who was raised from the dead and seated at the right hand of the Father in the heavenly places is now yours (1:20-21)!  The Christ who is far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, the One to Whom belongs the obedience of the nations, and He who is head over all things... is now yours (vv. 22-23)!  Christian, what did you do to receive Him as yours?  You who were once dead in your offenses and sins, was there anything in you that warranted God’s grace?  You were listed among the “sons of disobedience,” you “lived in the lusts of your flesh,” you “indulged the desires of the flesh and of the mind,” and because of your sins... you were categorized by the Almighty as a “child of wrath” (2:1-3).  What was it about you that compelled God to save you instead of leaving you in your sins?  It was His rich mercy, His great love, and His all-sufficient grace that made you alive in Christ (vv. 4-9).  You are now in Christ, and all because of Christ!
 
Now that you have been saved by Christ, you who were once far away have been brought near so that He is now your truth, He is now your righteousness, and He is now your peace (2:11-16).  You are now united to Christ and belong to His body (4:1-32).  As a member of His body, you now belong to the Bride of Christ, and because you are His Bride, Jesus is cleansing and sanctifying you through His word and the power of the Holy Spirit (5:22-32). 
 
So, when you come to Ephesians 6:10 and read: “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might” you should know by now where it is that you are able to find that strength.  It is found... “in Christ.”  We are strong in the Lord when we put on the “full armor of God.”  Yet, the irony is that it is already provided because of our union in Jesus.  He is our belt of truth, He is our breastplate of righteousness, He is our peace through the gospel, He is our shield of faith, He is our helmet of salvation, and He is our sword of the Spirit.  We are stronger in the Lord the more we recognize our weakness and how much we need to pursue Him.
 
Listen, the only way you will discover how weak you are is by seeing how big God is, how sufficient Jesus is as your Savior, and how powerful the Holy Spirit is as the One who is keeping you. 
 
How We Are to Pray
So here is what I want to do with the remainder of our time together.  First, I want to look at how we are to pray and then I hope to show you what that kind of praying is where the power of the armor of God is experienced.
 
There are four categories of prayer that ought to be a part of our prayer life as Christians listed in Ephesians 6:18.  The Greek word that is used four times in verse 18 that can be translated “all” or “every” is the Greek word, “pas” (πᾶς). Some versions of the Bible have chosen to translate pas as “all” every time it is used in verse 18, while others like new version of the NASB translate pas as “every” and “all.”  In an effort to make the translation read smoothly, the NASB translates it this way: “With every [pas] prayer and request, pray at all [pas] times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be alert with all [pas] perseverance and every request for all [pas] the saints...”  So how are we to pray?
 
We are to pray in ALL ways to God (v. 18a).
What are the ways you can pray?  You can pray quietly to God.  You can pray vocally to God.  You can pray with groups of other Christians to God. You can pray privately to God.  You can pray while prostrate on your face to God. You can pray while standing, you can pray while kneeling, and you can pray while walking.  You can pray with your eyes closed, you can pray with your eyes open, and you can pray with your head bowed or lifted up.  You can pray in all ways to God because of who you are in Christ.
 
We are to pray at ALL times to God (v. 18b).
You can pray in the evening to God.  You can pray in the morning to God.  You can pray midday to God.  You can pray while suffering, while hungry, while in good health, or when in ill health.  It does not matter what the circumstances are or if it is in the early morning hours or in the midnight hour... there is no time when God’s door is shut, or His time limited so that His redeemed children are not permitted to come before Him in prayer. 
We are to pray with ALL perseverance (v. 18c).
While we pray in all ways and at all times in the Spirit, we are to do so while alert and do so persistently.  We stand between the first advent and the second advent when Jesus will come again as King, until He comes again, we are to remain alert for two reasons: first, while we wait, we are in enemy territory where our adversary is categorized as a roaring lion who longs to destroy and devour (1 Pet. 5:8).  Jesus told His disciples that while we wait for His return that we must, “Watch out, stay alert; for you do not know when the appointed time is” (Mark 13:33).  Sinclair Ferguson said of prayer: “Christ is building his church on territory that has been occupied by an enemy.  Alertness is always essential when living in a war zone.”[1]
 
We are to pray for ALL the saints (v. 18d).
In the same way that we pray for ourselves, we must also pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ! We do not just pray for those who we agree with theologically, but for every Christian regardless of where they fellowship, what church they attend, or in what part of the world they live.  This also means praying for your spouse, praying for your children, praying for your grandchildren, and anyone else in your world who believes in Jesus.  When it comes to their relationship with God, God cares more about their spiritual health than you ever could, so pray expecting that God can do, “far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think...” (3:20) in the lives of those saints you pray for more than your imagination can come up with. 
 
There is a fifth way we are to pray: We are to pray in all ways and at all times in the Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is the power that makes the armor of God effective so that you can stand strong, stand against the schemes of the devil, and stand firm on the evil day.
 
The Power of the Armor of God is in Who it Belongs To
To Pray in the Spirit according to Ephesians 6:18 is not to pray in tongues, that is a different type of praying addressed elsewhere in the Bible, but not here.  When we pray in the Spirit, we pray with the confidence that we have access to God Almighty who spoke billions of stars into existence with just the word of His power; not only does He hear us as our Heavenly Father, but He can, “do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think” (3:20) because we are in Christ and He is our Heavenly father.  It is the kind of confidence we read about in Romans 8:14-16, “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons and daughters of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons and daughters by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God...”
 
Do you remember what I said about what it meant to be filled with the Holy Spirit when we covered Ephesians 4:30 and 5:18 in this sermon series? I said to be filled with the Spirit is not about you getting more of the Holy Spirit, but about the Holy Spirit getting more of you.  The more of you that the Holy Spirit has, the more power of the Holy Spirit you will experience!  Same is true when it comes to experiencing the strength of the Lord: the more of our hearts, the more of our obedience, and the more of our dependance He has of us... the more of His strength we will experience through His Holy Spirit. 
 
The power of the Armor of God is not in our ability to put it on but in the One who it belongs to! This brings us back full circle from what we read in the first sentence of Ephesians (1:1-14) to Ephesians 6:18-24.
 
Conclusion
The baby born on the first Christmas and laid in a manger is Christ the Lord! He who was born of a virgin, is the same One who formed Mary in her own mother’s womb. The One who through whom all things were created, was laid in a manger for the purpose of carrying a cross to die for sinners.  The One who lived the life we could not, to die a death we deserved is not only our Savior, but our Mediator: “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all...” (1 Tim. 2:5–6).  The Christ in the manger is ours not because of anything we have done, but because of His victory on the cross and over the grave: “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our wrongdoings, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us” (Eph. 1:7-8a).
 
So, it makes perfect sense that Paul would conclude his letter with a call to all of those who are in Christ to pray in the Spirit in all ways, all the time, with all perseverance, and for all the saints because in Jesus, “we have such a high priest, who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens...” (Heb. 9:1).  If you are a Christian, then one of the things you learn from Ephesians is that you are “in Christ.”  To be “in Christ” means that you now share an unbreakable union with Christ because that union was chosen by God the Father, purchased by His Son’s own blood, and sealed by His Holy Spirit.  Prayer is the fruit of our union in Christ, prayer is communion we have with God, prayer is the direct access we have to God because of our union in Christ. Prayer is the power source to the strength of the Lord that is available to the Christian with the armor of God. 
 
Jesus is the belt of truth, which is your identity in Him, but the security you have with Jesus as your truth will only be as firm as your understanding and confidence that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6).  Jesus is your breastplate of righteousness, but your confidence in Him as your righteousness will only be as firm as your confidence that His righteousness is all the righteousness that you will ever need.  Jesus is the shoes of the gospel of peace, but the extent you will be able to stand firm in the gospel will only be as secure as your understanding of the reality of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the shield of faith, but your shield will only be as large as your understanding of who He is based on how saturated your faith in the Word of God is.  Jesus is the helmet of salvation, but the hope of your salvation will only be as effective as your joy in just how great your salvation really is.  Jesus is the sword of the Spirit in that all the word of God points to Him, but your ability to wield the truth of God’s word will only be as effective as you are willing to use it.  Prayer is what happens when you understand how weak you are and how big God really is.
 
Prayer is the evidence that we are growing in our relationship with Christ!  Sam Allberry, in his excellent book, One with My Lord, put it this way: “Growth in the Christian life is needing God more, not needing him less.  So we will be doing more asking over the years, not less asking.  We don’t grow out of prayer, just further into it.”[2] This is why it is only fitting that Paul would conclude his epistle with the appeal to pray at all times! The more we seek God out of a growing awareness of our weakness, the more like Jesus we will become.  Again Sam Allberry is spot on: “Prayer is not about bending God to our wills but about expressing our own wills as they are being bent to his.”[3]
 
Here is the thing though: Our union in Christ is not dependent upon our performance as Christians.  Our union in Christ was, is, and forever will be dependent upon the life and faithfulness of Jesus.  To the extent that we depend upon Him will determine just how much of our hearts He really has, and to the extent of how much of our minds, our hearts, and our will that He has will determine just how much of His power we will experience in our lives.  You will never be less in Him than you already are, but His power will only be experienced in and through your life to the extent of how much of you Jesus really has.  So, my question to you dear Christian is simply this: How much of you does Jesus really have? 
 
Oh, dear brother... oh, dear sister in Christ, do you not want to see with the eyes of your heart the hope of His calling, the riches of His inheritance, and know the power of the Holy Spirit (1:18-19a)?  Do you not want to know the joy of a life built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ as your chief cornerstone (2:20)?  Do you not long for the kind of life that comes out of comprehending the width and length and height and depth of what you have in Christ (3:14-19)?  Are you not tired of the cheap thrills this world offers when it is through Christ that you can know the kind of satisfaction that comes with walking in a manner worthy of the calling in which you have been called (4:1-3)? 
 
If you understood your union in Christ, you would seek to enjoy the unity we are called to with those who belong to His Church (4:4-6).  If you understood what it is that you share with Christ, you would desire to be filled with the Holy Spirit instead of looking for ways to grieve Him (4:30; 5:18).  Oh, because of the great redemption you now enjoy, do you not hate the things that displease Him (5:1-13)?  Do you not want to come out of this life smelling like the sweet aroma of Christ; can you not hear the Holy Spirit’s call upon your life at this very moment: “Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (5:14)?
 
To be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might (6:10), the ability to stand firm against the devil’s schemes, and to be able to resist when the evil day comes... will only be experienced more frequently when you see just how weak you are and how sufficient Christ is in all things, in all ways, for all times, and for all people!  In so doing, may we be known for our love for Jesus  and in the way we live for Him and serve those around us.
 
[1] Sinclair Ferguson, Let’s Study Ephesians (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust; 2021), p. 186.
[2] Sam Allberry, One With My Lord (Weaton, IL: Crossway; 2024), p. 151
[3] Sam Allberry, One With My Lord (Weaton, IL: Crossway; 2024), p. 152.

The Sword of the Spirit

Ancient warfare was fierce.  It was close, it was personal, it was dirty, it was aggressive, it was violent, and it was in your face. In preparation for battle, soldiers lined up in tight formation side by side with about three feet separating each soldier so that they could move freely.  Every piece of the armor was critically important: The belt kept everything he was wearing in its rightful place, the breastplate protected his vital organs, his shoes were designed so that he could stand his ground and maintain his footing, his shield helped protected him from any weapon that would pierce such as arrows or spears, and his helmet kept his head on his shoulders, protected his mind, line of sight, and neck.  The part of his armor that was designed to defend and to harm was his sword. 
 
The sword used by Rome’s soldiers between 3BC and 3AD was a double-edged short sword known as the Gladius. Roman legionaries whose shield defended them from the fiery arrows of the enemy received advanced training in using the Gladius to slash the exposed kneecaps or throat of their enemies while in formation and carried their Gladius sword on their belt, or sometimes on a shoulder strap. 
 
It was impossible to forget your belt, breastplate, and shoes when marching into battle because those pieces of the soldier’s armor were attached to his person.  However, it was possible to leave you shield, helmet, and even your sword back in the camp where it was safe and comfortable, but no skilled and experienced soldier would dare enter battle without those parts of his armor he was required to take up and put on, such as his shield, helmet, and sword. 
 
A modern equivalent to just how foolish it would be for a Roman soldier to forget any part of his armor is a Russian soldier who became the 2022 winner of the Darwin Awards.  The Darwin Awards are those awards given to honor Charles Darwin by commemorating “those who improve the gene pool – by removing themselves from it in the most spectacular way possible.” Here is the description of the unnamed Russian soldier who won this award:
You are wearing body armor in a warzone. You spot abandoned Macbook. You want Macbook. Where to hide it? With quick reflexes a Russian soldier slid that Macbook into his chest armor pocket, replacing a ballistic plate designed to save his life.
 
He was killed in Irpin, and his body was retrieved, providing a hearty laugh for all of Ukraine. 'Instant Karma' They reportedly found a stolen iPad as well. Wonder where the iPad was hidden?
 
I am no soldier, and although I love my Macbook Pro and have a great deal of respect for the way it is designed, even I know enough that in a warzone it is best to keep the ballistic plate in the chest armor pocket because a Macbook was never designed to stop a bullet. Yet, when it comes to the armor of God, how often do we intentionally or unintentionally replace that which is designed to protect with philosophies, ideologies, feelings, and practices that serve the enemy rather than our own protection? 
 
What is the Sword of the Spirit
We are told what the Sword of the Spirit is in the very same verse: It is the word of God. From Genesis to Revelation the Bible claims at least 3,000 times to be “The Word of the Lord.”  In 2 Timothy 3:16 we are told: “All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness...” We are told in the Old Testament book, Deuteronomy: “...man shall not live on bread alone, but man shall live on everything that comes out of the mouth of the Lord” (8:3), which is a verse Jesus used against the devil when He was being tempted in the wilderness (see Matt. 4:1-11).  In the Psalms, we learn of the written word of God: “The Law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.  The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes” (Ps. 19:7-8).  As it relates to the authority of God’s word, we are instructed through the prophet Isaiah: “This is what the Lord says: “Heaven is My throne and the earth is the footstool for My feet. Where then is a house you could build for Me? And where is a place that I may rest? For My hand made all these things, so all these things came into being,” declares the Lord. But I will look to this one, at one who is humble and contrite in spirit, and who trembles at My word” (Isa. 66:1–2). 
 
From Genesis to Revelation the Bible claims at least 3,000 times to be “The Word of the Lord.”  The word of God in written form is contained in the 66 books that make up our Bible.  When Paul wrote that “all Scripture is inspired by God...”, we believe that it is a reference to all of the Old Testament and New Testament books that make up the Bible that were written over a period of hundreds of years with many different contributors who were all guided and inspired by the Holy Spirit, so that what you have before you is a supernatural book unlike any other book, that is without error.  It is upon the word of God, both Old Testament (the prophets) and the New Testament (the apostles) that Jesus’ Church is being built upon (see Eph. 2:19-22).  It is the written word of God that has supernatural and transformative power to shape and transform God’s people, for from the imagery of the Roman Gladius the author of Hebrews wrote: “For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, even penetrating as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12).
 
Regarding the Word of God, Jesus prayed to the Father for His church: “I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I am not asking You to take them out of the world, but to keep them away from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth” (John 17:14–17).  In just one chapter earlier, Paul said that the way Jesus is purifying and sanctifying His church is, “by the washing of the water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless” (Eph. 5:26-27).
 
So, we know what the word of God is; the question we must answer is how do we use it as the Sword of the Spirit? 
 
How Do We Use the Sword of the Spirit
To answer that question, you need to know something about the two words that are used in reference to the word of God, and they are logos and rhēma. Logos is often translated as word or message.  Rhēma is often translated word, saying, or statement.  In Hebrews 4:12 and Isaiah 66:2 (in the Greek Septuagint) the word logos is used in reference to the Word of God.  In Deuteronomy 8:3 (in the Greek Septuagint) and Ephesians 6:17, the word rhēma is used.  So, what’s the point?  Both words are used in reference to the written and spoken word of God and its authority is based on the fact that it has come from God.  
 
Listen, every word in the Bible is authoritative because it is the Word of God and is used by the Holy Spirit of God to transform and shape the people of God.  When you read or speak out loud the Word of God, as it is given within all 66 books of the Holy Bible, the voice of God is heard through His word.  Paul’s words in Ephesians 6:17 are calculated and carefully crafted through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit; do not miss what is written: “Take... the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”  God always uses the authority of His own words with the power of His Holy Spirit to transform, change, and divinely challenge! 
 
So, how does one use the Word of God as the offensive sword of the Spirit?  Jesus showed us how to use it as an offensive weapon when he was approached three times by the devil.  In Matthew 4:1-17 and Luke 4:1-13 we are given the details of Jesus’ 40 days of fasting in the same wilderness that Israel wondered for 40 years because of their failure to believe and obey the word of God.  Each of the temptations Jesus faced was like one of the temptations Israel faced and failed, by sinning. 
When Israel was in the wilderness, they complained about their lack of food (see Exod. 16). The devil came to Jesus and tempted Him with these words: “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” Jesus answered with the word of God from Deuteronomy 8:3, “It is written: ‘Man Shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes out of the mouth of God’” (Matt. 4:3-4).
 
In the wilderness, Israel frequently put God to the test, so with the second temptation Satan took Jesus to the top of the temple and said, “If you are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written: ‘He will give His angels orders concerning You’; and ‘On their hands they will lift You up, so that You do not strike Your foot against a stone.” The devil even quoted and twisted Psalm 91 to try to get Jesus to fall into the same sin Israel fell into in the wilderness. Again, Jesus responded rightly and skillfully with the word of God: “You shall not put the Lord Your God to the Test.” (Matt. 4:5-7).
 
In the wilderness and throughout Israel’s history, they were frequently guilty of false worship. In an effort to get Jesus to fall into the same sin, Satan tried to get Jesus to avoid the cross by worshiping him, to which Jesus responded with the sword of the Spirit: “You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only” (Matt. 4:8-11).
 
Jesus used the sword of the Spirit to counter the Devil’s temptations.  Did you ever notice that two of the three temptations Jesus faced were not inherently evil; it is not wrong to eat when you are hungry nor is it wrong to expect God to save you from harm. However, the scheming of the Devil was to try and get the Son of God to not trust the Father’s plan but to use a different plan that would have avoided the cross.  
 
We often counter our temptation to sin with human reason by believing another way is better than God’s way.  Think about the way we reason our way out of obedience to God: “I know God’s word says sex is a gift to be enjoyed within the covenant of marriage, but we’re in love and we’re going to get married anyway;” or “It’s only a little lie.” Sometimes it is more subtle: “I know God’s word says, ‘there must be no filthiness or foolish talk, or vulgar joking...’, but at least it is not a 4-letter word, it’s not gossip if it is a prayer request, it’s just an innocent joke...”  “I know that God’s word says that, ‘sexual immorality or impurity’ is sinful, but it’s only a few scenes in the movie.” Or... “It only happens once a month...” 
 
What if we learned from the way Jesus responded to temptation by countering our own with the Word of God?  Imagine what would have happened if, in the Garden, Adam responded to the serpent’s temptation with the Word of God? 
 
You can take up the word of God as the sword of the Spirit or you can leave it in its sheath.  Here is the thing though, just as handling a sword effectively takes some skill that can only come if you take it out of its sheath, to handle the sword of the Spirit with skill you must take it out and use it.  To handle the Word of God with skill, you need to use it by reading it, studying it, memorizing it, and immerse yourself into it so that it can do what God designed it to do, which is to change you, mold you, cleanse you, and guide you.  Just as you will never improve your shooting skills if you do not get out to a range and shoot, or a martial artist will only be as skilled as his time in the dojo practicing his techniques, so it is true with handling the word of God with skill. Just as there are resources to improve your aim, or your skills as a martial artist, so there are resources that God has provided through pastors, theologians, scholars, and Christian publishers to improve your skills in handling the word of God.
 
In his letter to Timothy, Paul wrote, “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a worker who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15).  Some think that this verse is only applicable to pastors, but do you know why we know that is not true?  How do we know that every Christian needs to strive to be able to “accurately handle the word of truth”?  Because of what Jesus commanded every Christian: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to follow all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:19–20).
 
Conclusion
Remember that the schemes belong to the devil, but the armor of God belongs to God!  The sword of the Spirit is no exception!  The list of God’s armor begins with the belt of truth, and it concludes with the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.  What we have discovered about the armor of God is that the belt of truth is our identity in Jesus, the breastplate of righteousness is our righteousness in Jesus, the shoes of the gospel of peace is our redemption that Jesus has made possible, the shield of faith is provided through Jesus, the helmet of salvation is the hope of our salvation in Jesus, and the sword of the Spirit is the word of God that points us back to... Jesus!  We learn from the Bible that all the promises of God through His word find their yes and Amen in and through Jesus Christ (see 2 Cor. 19-22).    
  
In fact, Jesus is not only God’s “Yes” to all of His promises, Jesus is God’s most perfect revelation of Himself because He is the living Word of God!  In the opening verses of the Gospel of John, we learn that as the Word of God, “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being.” And as the Word of God, He, “became flesh, and dwelt among us...” (John 1:1-14). 
 
Not only is Jesus your belt, not only is He your breastplate, not only is He your peace, not only is He your shield and your helmet... Jesus is your sword!  How do you remain strong in the Lord?  You must find Him to be your life!  In closing, I read something in Iain Duguid’s little book, titled, The Whole Armor of God, what I am about to read to you is the essence of the Christmas message:
As the Word of God, he [Jesus] spoke the world into existence.  As the Word of God, he uniquely reveals to us the Father.  As the Word of God, he is God’s final communication to this broken and now redeemed world, come to heal the sick, rescue the lost, restore the broken, and lift up the downcast.... The Word of God in its cleansing work serves as a set of shears, a scalpel, and a sword.  Ask God to equip you with these three different tools, each one uniquely crafted to help us in the fight against temptation by the world, the flesh, and the devil.  All that sanctifying power flows into your life through the work of the Holy Spirit applying his Word.  And when you fail and fall, as you often will, the Sword of the Spirit points you back again to the fact that the gospel is still true and Christ’s power is still sufficient to keep you safe and bring you at last into your heavenly inheritance.[1]
 
[1] Iain M. Duguid, The Whole Armor of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway; 2019), pp. 101-02.