God: The Maker of Heaven and Earth

Here are four fascinating facts about God the Creator that you need to know. 

“1. God created everything out of nothing.”

If we really want to understand God’s work in creation, then we should first read Genesis 1. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Simply put, God created everything that isn’t God.  At first, God alone existed, then He created things that were not Him. 

We really can’t get our minds around this. We can’t imagine a universe where only God exists. But God exists independently of all that is, and that blows our mind. It was only when God created the principles of the universe our world becomes in any way recognizable. 

God is capable of creating all things without any help. He is infinitely intelligent, infinitely strong, and infinitely powerful. It makes no difference whether God created all things in six twenty-four hour days or over eons of time—there are no limits on what He can do.

In the beginning, God created everything that isn’t God. He is outside of everything created. He spoke it all into being, and made it all from scratch.

Nevertheless, the Bible reveals something else that is fascinating about God. 

  

2.  God didn’t create all things by himself.  He used co-creators. 

God created everything out of nothing, but He didn’t created everything all at once. Whether we believe He did it in six days or six billion years, once He began to create, He made use of what He created to make more creation.

In the Genesis creation account, there’s a repeated phrase during each of the six days of creation—“let there be.” Grammatically, this phrase is a command, but it is a particular kind of command—in the “jussive” mood. It isn’t a command of direct creation, but a command for others to make it so. He doesn’t simply say, “I will make animals now,” but tells the earth “bring forth some animals”--like a captain ordering sailors to lower the main sails. It is not a creative command, but an order demanding action. 

In verse 11, He says, “Let the land produce vegetation.”  In verse 20, “Let the water team with life.” Verse 22 to the animals, “Be fruitful and fill the earth.” Verse 24, “Let the land produce living creatures.” Verse 28 to the people, “Be fruitful, fill the earth and subdue it.” 

Another repeated phrase in Genesis 1 is “after their kind.” God did not specifically create every animal, but made them to reproduce. One mark of biological life is reproduction. God expected creatures making other creatures, living and thriving to enrich the whole of creation.

Now, here’s where it gets deep! Why did God use animals to make other animals and life to make more life? He could have made all the elephants or zebras he wanted just by waving His hand. He could have made the whole world at once. But instead, He got the whole creation busy making more creation!  He created a world rolling and boiling with life, every piece of it creating more growing and thriving for its own sake as well as bringing glory to Himself.

There can only be one answer why He did it--God loves life! He doesn’t just respect, admire or appreciate life--He actually must loves it!

Let me illustrate. Let’s say two women enjoy flowers. One woman has pictures of flowers on her wall, on her dishtowels, and on all her dresses. She even has artificial flowers around her house. But the flowers themselves are messy and hard to manage, so she just has pictures of them. She really doesn’t love flowers—she just likes them. 

But the other woman has a garden. Every day she digs in the dirt and tends that garden. She doesn’t want dead images of flowers, she loves the life in flowers. She loves the smell of them, the wildness of them, the craziness of flowers, how they sometimes grow in weird directions, and how no two of them never look the same.

God enjoys the craziness of creation, as each living things takes its own direction. Creation is constantly changing, and He loves it. It is the endless diversity of the life force He has created that God loves, the diversity of each bloom on the tree of life gives pleasure to God. God didn’t create creation to be tame and compliant, but to express its individuality and joy. Every part of God’s creation expresses some new glory to God. 

Which brings us to our third fascinating fact about creation:

3.  God will uncreate everything He Creates.

Creation has an expiration date, known only to Him. Everything alive will one day end.

He did not create this current creation to exist forever, but to fade and die. The same is true of you. You will cease to be. All you have collected will be scattered.

 Here are some places where the Bible says this. 

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. A time to be born, and a time to die.” Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8.

 “For he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children.” Psalm 103: 14-17 

^“Our days may come to seventy years or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.” Psalm 90:10

“The end of all things is near. Therefore, be alert and of sober mind.” I Peter 4: 7.

Nothing last forever. The earth will one day spin into the sun. The sun will die out, or explode, scattering its bits into the galaxy. The galaxy will wind down and fade out, until not a single ember of a single sun will burn.

But cheer up! Like Jesus said, we should not lay up our value in things that will die. Don’t hold on to what doesn’t last. Value the eternal, not the temporary. The only thing that really lasts is our connection to our Creator.

 

Ecclesiastes 12: 13-14 reminds us; ^“Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.”

Which brings us to our fourth fascinating fact about creation:

4.  After He uncreates creation, He will recreate it.

This truth was hidden in the Old Testament, but it is revealed in the New. 

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away,” Revelation 21: 21. Heaven and earth will be destroyed. Then God will recreate them. 

^“For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.” Romans 8: 20-23.

Many people think that their soul is an immortal thing inside a mortal body—a ghost in a jar of clay. But that is a Greek concept, not a Christian one. Christian’s believe in the resurrection of body and soul together. Our bodies will be recreated. Not only our bodies, but all of creation will be remade by God—a creation that is immortal and glorious. 

This is a very deep mystery. After the end of all things, God will remake creation. We will be resurrected into indestructible and incorruptible bodies. We won’t age or fall apart, but will enjoy Christ forever.

The Bible teaches this, but we may only dimly understand it. God makes the world, breaks it, and then remakes it. Our world is only Earth 1.0, but version 2.0 will soon be released. As Christ was resurrected bodily, so our bodies will be recreated and will enjoy the glories of a physical existence as well as a heavenly relationship with God. In creation, and the glories of being heaven with Christ all at the same time.

God’s isn’t done with the rest of creation. It will be restored, too, when we are recreated. All of creation groans for the manifestation of the sons of God—us—which is a prerequisite for the new creation. God loves creation so much that He creates it—not once, but twice.

If God so loved His creation that He will create it twice, then how much should we love it? We have been placed here to care for it. Shouldn’t we love creation too? 

If God cares enough to create us twice, how much should we love one another? We are not just caretakers of creation, but caretakers of each other.  Christ loved creation enough to die for it. Should we not love it enough to live responsibly within it?

One day creation will be finished, and it will be wonderful. All flesh will see it together, and He shall reign forever and ever.   

Who is God? - Isaiah 42: 5-9

If we want to know the basics of being a Christian, where better to look than at the Apostles’ Creed?

Actually, the name “Apostles’ Creed” is a misnomer. It only appears in its modern form in the fourth century after the disciples. Nevertheless, it expresses what the church has universally believed since the time of the apostles. 

“Creed” comes from the Latin “credo”--which means “I believe.” We each have a creed, whether we ever say it or not. If we take our faith seriously, then we need to know what we believe. A creed is a kind of fence that surrounds and defines God’s people. Outside is another flock. The creed helps us define what a truly Christian church is, so we can distinguish truth from error. Inside that fence we can disagree, but we all live within the boundaries of that fence. To exist within the church and not hold to the doctrines of the creed is to be an illegal immigrant. That’s what makes us Christian. It is Christianity at its simplest.

It begins with this statement--“I believe in God, the Father, Almighty.”

 What’s most astounding about God is that it’s not about what we know of Him, but what we don’t know. We know very little about the nature and will of God. The Bible tells us some things about God, but not really that much. We don’t know where he came from, where He lives, or exactly what His nature might be. He just is and always has been. Everything else is beyond our comprehension.  

Whenever we try to speculate about His nature and purpose in life, apart from the few scraps of information we have about Him, we step out of knowledge and into the realm of speculative fiction. 

The creed reminds us of what we know and leaves out what we don’t know. Most theological arguments are pointless, since we, who are small and finite, can somehow grasp in our minds the nature of One who is limitless and infinite. We can’t grasp the nature of God from our short stay on earth than we can tell what a foreign country is like from a one-hour layover in the airport. 

We can’t know God—but He can and does know us. He doesn’t just know us, He also loves us.  In His love, He has revealed a few things we need to know about Himself. He is our Father. He is Almighty, and He created everything. Next week, we will talk about God as creator. Today, we will talk about the first two statements, and how they concern the way we live.

When I was a toddler, I knew practically nothing about my earthly father. I knew him, but nothing about him, except how to recognize him. I couldn’t tell you what he did for a living, the kind of car he drove, or where he went to college. Truthfully, I didn’t care about any of that. If my father had been a truck driver or a gangster, it would have made no difference to me. All I knew was that he had an enormous pair of legs that towered over me, great strong arms that held me, eyes that watched me all the time, and a smile or frown that told me when he was pleased or displeased. 

 Nothing else matters to small children than knowing their fathers love them, and that their fathers are strong enough to protect them. Nothing else is important.

Compared to God, we all are like toddlers. Theological issues are really just relational issues. All that matters is that He is with us, and is big enough to protect us.

Theologians have fancy terms for everything. The idea that God is with us, they call the immanence of God. It means that God is with us and in our lives. Is God really in our lives? Is He really with us?

In Isaiah 42: 6-7 we read this:

 “I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness!

What a beautiful picture of God. God walks with us, like a man walking with his toddler, holding his hand and gently leading the child in us. This is the gentle Shepherd God of Psalm 23, the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, the caring God who walked with Abraham and Moses.

We easily forget that God is our Father. In hard times we think he has abandoned us, because things are not going our way and He doesn’t magically make our problems disappear. In good times we abandon Him, and would rather congratulate ourselves for our own good fortune than give thanks to the God who made it possible. When He doesn’t solve our problems we blame Him. When He does solve our problems, we take the credit. Neither good nor bad fortune leads us to understand the immanence of God.

Many people reject God entirely. The number of atheists in America is growing rapidly.  Twenty years ago, more than 95% of Americans believed in God, but today only 88% do. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. A far larger group of people reject His immanence. This is called Deism—the acceptance of God’s existence, but rejecting His Presence. Deists believe God created the universe, but He doesn’t care about it now. To them God is their Father, but He abandoned His children. He is not with us.

The other statement the creed makes is this—He is Almighty. Theologians have another fancy word for this—transcendence. He is with us, but He is bigger than we are, stronger than we are, and smarter than we are. He is not like us and we can never fully understand Him. He is far greater and more powerful than anything we can ever think or imagine.

Isaiah 42: 8 says, “I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not yield my glory to another or my praise to idols.”  

“Lord” means master, boss, king, leader, ruler, president, commander, and ultimate authority. When we call Jesus our Lord, we acknowledge His transcendent place in our lives. 

God is more than just our playmate. God may enjoy being with us, but sometimes He has to say “no” to us. He makes the rules and sets the standards. We—His children—must acknowledge and respect this. If we think we can boss God around, we have not understood Him. God is not just loving. He is also awesome.    

So God reveals His two great roles in our existence—Father and Almighty. What does any of this have to do with us? 

Plenty. It means we must learn to depend on Him in every portion of our lives, and not on ourselves. We must not simply say, “Okay, God, I’ve got this.” We must instead learn to seek His will and His power in and through everything. 

In a modern war, what is the most important and effective weapon a soldier possesses? It’s not his rifle, knife, grenade or pistol—it’s his radio. If he is attacked, he uses his weapons, but if that attack is too great, he calls for reinforcements.

Prayer is our radio. When we are in constant communication with the Father, He can come rescue us. If we think we are strong enough where we never need to call for help, then we can easily be overcome. Sometimes we all feel this way. There are times when we all feel that God has abandoned us.

We know this, but we are stupid, at least compared to God. We need to keep reminding ourselves both of the immanence and transcendence of God. The Bible is one long reminder of both these ideas. They are the central theme of the whole book. When the people of Israel forgot either the immanence or transcendence of God, they started moving away from Him. It is only when we see God as with us and above us, as both caring Father and a Holy Other, did we remember to obey him and call upon Him in trouble. 

  

 That is why worship is so important in a modern Christian’s life. It is not just important on Sundays, but on every day. Worship is how we remind ourselves of God’s presence and place in our lives. That daily and weekly reminder of God must be both immanent and transcendent. 

Worship is transcendent when it focuses on God’s power, might, eternal nature, and majesty. In songs like “Immortal,” Invisible,” God only Wise,” “Holy, Holy, Holy,” and “Our God is an awesome God” we express our knowledge of his majesty, power, and glory, and we respond with respect and Godly fear.

Much of our modern worship lacks a sense of transcendent. It doesn’t focus on Who God is, but on how we relate to Him. It focuses on our personal experience, not on eternal truth. There is a place in worship for songs such as, “I just came to praise the Lord” and “Come, now is the time to Worship,” but if you notice in them they focus on how we react to God, not on God Himself. 

Imagine you want to express love to your wife, but you keep saying, “I really should love you.” Instead of “I love you,” or “I really should tell you that you are wonderful,” instead of “You are wonderful.” Every sentence begins with “I” instead of “you.” After a while, she noticed that you seem to talk more about yourself than her. You are focusing on your feelings, not her attributes.

Transcendent worship puts God first, and us second. It’s not about how well we do it, or how eloquent we talk of God. It’s about how great God is, and how glorious He is. It’s not personality driven. It’s God driven. 

But worship is more than just transcendent. It’s also immanent and intimate. It acknowledges that God really does care for us. Sometime worship feels like watching a parade, where dignitaries ride by in cars, waving at the crowd. We see them, but they don’t see us. Immanent worship reminds us that He sees us and knows us. Worship needs to be personal, too.

God went to great lengths to be immanent in our lives. He took on human form, and was born in a virgin’s womb. He lived and died on the earth, and became a man in Jesus. Jesus is almighty God’s personal expression of care and concern. No earthly father could ever love us the way Christ loves us. 

Keep God personal in your life. Study the Bible, pray, and thank Him daily. Confess your sins to Him, and acknowledge your forgiveness. Take the time on a daily basis not just to read about God, but to talk to Him as well. Don’t let a day go by without seeking the presence of God. When we are broken turn to God. 

What is Faith?

This season we will focus on the basics of Christianity. Let’s begin with the subject of what faith is.

Everyone has faith, whether they believe in God or not. It is a necessary part of human existence. 

Tillich defined faith as the ultimate concern of life. It is our life goal, but it is also what we use to make sense of the world around us. It motivates us, grounds us, and gives our lives meaning. Opponents of religion say that faith is a crutch for the weak.  It isn’t—it’s more like a skeleton. Without something to believe in, we become weak, spineless, and vulnerable.  It gives us strength, perseverance, direction, and hope.

Suppose we were to ask a hundred people what their ultimate concern was. What kind of answers do you think we would get?

A large number would probably say they didn’t have an ultimate concern, and they didn’t need one.  “I’m too busy to think about it.  I just live one day to the next.”  These people remind me of a man driving on a lonely highway who misses his turn. He just keeps going, never looking at directions, every mile getting farther and farther away from his destination. He even denies that there is a destination. Imagine him saying, “It doesn’t matter which way I go, as long as I keep driving?”  Yet that’s what we do when we live without intentionality. We eventually find ourselves in the middle of nowhere, without any idea of how we got so lost. 

That describes the life of many people who live from day to day enjoying the ride but going nowhere. They deny that life has meaning or purpose, until it’s too late to turn around. They wake up one morning and discover they have never really lived. In the words of Ecclesiastes, they discover that all they have done in life is vanity.  

Another large group of people couldn’t name their ultimate concern in life. They have many concerns, but no ultimate one. They want God in their lives, but they also want self-fulfillment, fun, loyalty to family and friends, and material possessions. One isn’t more important to them than another. As a result, their lives are full of conflict and confusion.  They have no way of deciding what is most important in their lives. 

Having a faith is better than having no faith. A person is better off in this world to be fully committed to something than partially committed to many things. God can help you order the other interests in your life. But if serving Him is only one of many equal values, then He can’t help you much.

A third group are just wrong about what their ultimate concern really is. They think they know what their true faith is, but they are wrong.

Belief and faith are not the same thing. I can believe in a lot of things--telepathy, UFO’s, ghosts, Bigfoot, or the Loch Ness monster, but how much difference does it make in our lives? These are mere beliefs, but they are not faiths.   Many people believe in God the same way. We may believe that God created the world, but that He left it alone to run itself. Practically speaking, we might as well be atheists. Such people feel no obligation to worship or acknowledge God, but live their lives as they wish. They do not pray to Him except in emergencies, do not worship, and never adjust their lives based upon His principles. They acknowledge God without obedience. Such people cannot be said to have faith, since they are not concerned about it. 

A man believes in having an annual physical by a doctor. He goes regularly once a year. Every year the doctor tells him to lose weight and quit smoking. Every year the man ignores what the doctor says. Then he develops diabetes, heart problems, and lung cancer. So he blames the doctor, “That doctor is useless!”  How can a doctor make us well if we ignore what he tells us to do? In the same way, how can we say we have faith in God, yet ignore everything He tells us?  We may have belief in God, but do we have faith?

Paul and Habakkuk say, “The just shall live by faith.” Living by faith is not just believing. It is believing + doing + feeling + obeying. Faith is basing our life upon what God says is true. We aren’t just traveling aimlessly through life. We are standing upon what God says. 

Religion and faith are not the same thing, either. I know of at least one elder in our denomination who was an atheist, but was ashamed to admit it. I know of others who were thieves and adulterers. They practiced religion. They may have even believed, but they lacked a true faith.

You may be religious but do you live by faith?  Here are a few questions to help you discern where our real faith lies.

1.  What do you take for evidence? Hebrews says that faith is the “substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” You can make no decisions in life without facts, but facts must be taken on faith. If we say, “I heard it on the news,” then we then must ask why we believe the news! Our faith determines which source we trust. Just so, if we believe the Bible to be God’s word, then the Bible is all the evidence we need. If we trust in science, then everything in the Bible must be weighed by the scientific method. Whichever way we look both sides must determine our evidence. 

2. What do you obey? Do you believe the Ten Commandments? If you do, then why don’t you keep them? Do you believe the Sermon on the Mount? Then live by them. Whatever you live by is your true faith.

3.  What comes first? Imagine you got a new scheduler. What do you put on your schedule first? In the weekly planner, where does worship fit in? In your daily page, where do devotions go? Do you recognize time set aside for the worship of God? In the Old Testament, God commanded His people to set aside one day in seven for His use. Yet we often find it hard to spare five minutes a day for prayer. 

4.  For what would we sacrifice? In Genesis 22, God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son. God did not allow Abraham to carry through with this sacrifice, but He was giving Him a test of faith. What God did with Abraham is what we need to do for ourselves. What would you be willing to sacrifice everything for?  What is worth more to you than your family friends, country, and life itself?  If you think this is simply a theoretical choice you are wrong. Every soldier who commits to fighting in war, every woman who chooses to have a baby rather than get an abortion, every person who devotes themselves to the care of an elderly relative makes a similar choice. What do we love more than life, success, or happiness?  Whatever we choose is our real ultimate concern.

 “The just shall live by faith.”  Not just any faith, but faith in God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Faith in Jesus gives room for everything else, but only if He is on top. This is the greatest lesson we will ever learn.

“This is a Football”-- Finding the Fundamentals of Faith: 2 Peter 2

³ His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. ⁴ Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

⁵ For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; ⁶ and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; ⁷ and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. ⁸ For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.

¹⁰ Therefore, my brothers and sisters,^[a] make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble, ¹¹ and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

In July of 1961 the 38 members of the Green Bay Packers were gathered together for the first day of training camp. Their previous season was disappointing. They had ended with a defeat to the Philadelphia Eagles for the NFL Championship.

That morning, their new coach, Vince Lombardi, strode into the locker room. In his hand he held a football. Suddenly he declared, “Gentlemen, this is a football!”

He stood before thirty-eight pro athletes who had just come inches from being the NFL champions, yet he started by introducing them to a football. Of course they knew what a football was! 

But this was Lombardi’s method--to go back to the basics and review the fundamentals of the game—blocking, tackling, passing, kicking, and so on. Throughout practice and on through the season, he continued obsessively to have the practice and drill the basics. Whenever they had a bad practice or lost a game, he would always begin the same way “Gentlemen, this is a football!” Let everyone else worry about fancy plays and tricky gambits, he was determined that his team would be the best team in the league on the stuff that everyone else took for granted. Six months later, they beat the New York Giants 37-0 to win the NFL Championship. They went on to win the next three championships in a row, and five of the next seven. The Packers became legendary, and Lombardi earned recognition as the best professional football coach of all time.

Lombardi’s method was the same as winning coaches in all sports. It has proven over the years to be the key to greatness. Focus on the fundamentals.  It’s not the big ideas, big choices, and big plans which matter, but the small choices and daily habits.  It’s not complicated ideas, but the basics deeply understood and practiced until they make the difference.

What’s true in sports is also true in your spiritual life. Christian living is a struggle, a kind of competition. But it is not a competition between each other. It doesn’t matter whether or not our church is more successful than others, or whether we are holier than thou. Looking at this as a competition between people does more harm than good. 

No, our competition is against Satan and with our own sinful flesh. It is as serious a competition as any ball game, political campaign, or battle ever was. Paul says in Ephesians 612,

 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. ¹³ Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.

In this struggle, we must grasp the fundamentals. They are what Paul calls the “Armor of God.”  The people who most succeed in reflecting Christ are those who have the best grasp of the fundamentals, and who have trained and practiced in them. The people who practice Christian doctrine, prayer, Bible study, and personal interaction are the ones who understand grace, love, and forgiveness. Those who best reflect Jesus are those who have trained themselves in Bible study and quiet times of prayer, who know how to worship and who can witness for Christ in the world. They know what to do, and have practiced what to do. 

To live like Jesus is the object of our Christian life. To do this, we must defeat the Devil and our own flesh. Peter describes what that victory looks like in verses 5-7,

 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.

A Christian should have faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection, and love. It’s interesting that this is not just a list, rather he lists each one of these as coming out of the other. Knowledge grows out of faith; self-control out of knowledge; perseverance out of self-control, and so forth. Having these traits are the product of something much more fundamental and basic. If we have all these things, then we can still lose the battle if we don’t have the foundations correct.

Love is good, but love without grounding in the fundamentals can produce evil results. It’s not just love that changes the world, but its love that grows out of godliness which grows out of mutual affection, which grows out of perseverance, which grows out of self-control, which eventually grows out of faith. Where it all begins makes a difference.

So where does it start? What’s the “football?”  Peter tells us in verses 8 and 9,

For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.

It begins with being cleansed from sin. We call that grace—God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.  If we start anywhere else, we will get in trouble. Without grace, we will be unproductive and unfruitful, but with grace, we may make many mistakes, but will ultimately come out at the right place.

The great theologian Karl Barth once took a trip to the United States. A reporter asked him what the most profound lesson he had learned in his decades of writing and study was. His answer was immediate, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

The basic teaching of the Christian faith is like that. God became a man, and died for our sins. Our sins are taken away from us, because Jesus paid the price on the cross for them. If God ever spoke to people, it would have be so simple that everyone could understand it, and so profound that you could study it all your life and never reach the bottom of it.  The doctrine of God’s forgiveness through Jesus is all that. It’s simple and profound at the same time.

Christianity is far, far more than a religion. It is a profound historical fact—that God became man and died for us. For that reason those who believe in Him will have everlasting life.

Christianity is simple to grasp, and simple to understand. Here is the basics in a nutshell.

First, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for you. 

John 10:10: “I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly.”

Romans 5:8: “God commended His love to us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Second, Sin has separated us from God. 

Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and come short of God’s Glory. “

Romans 6:23:  “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.”

Third, Jesus paid the price for all our sins on the Cross. 

John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him would not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Fourth, we must individually accept this gift, and make and look to Jesus as our leader and rescuer.

 Ephesians 2: 8-9: “For it is by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not from you, so no one can boast about it.” 

All we have to do is ask that our sins are forgiven, and Christ will cleanse us.

From that time on, we enter a new relationship with God. That relationship is not based on our being good, but on Christ’s goodness to us. It is His work, not ours, that sanctifies us. It doesn’t matter what you have done, or what you will ever do, but what Christ has done for you. This is the fundamental truth of the faith.

Next week, we will continue talking about fundamentals—the most basic things about being a Christian. Before we do anything else, we have to get the fundamentals correct.

This is our “football”—the reality of God’s grace. Without it, we will never succeed. But when we fully grasp the power of His love, Jesus will work inside us to grow us into His image.

Have Yourself a Messy Little Christmas -

On my parent’s coffee table every Christmas sat a nativity scene. There was a wooden stable with a kind of Bavarian peaked roof. There was a cross-legged wooden manger with clean hay in it. 

Baby Jesus lay dressed in swaddling clothes of white and gold. Mary sat behind the manger in white and blue, with a beautiful, porcelain face. Joseph stood beside her, looking down on them. There was an angel on the roof, a female one (ever notice how angels look like Barbie dolls with wings?)  The shepherds were smooth shaven, in earth-toned robes, always carrying a sheep on their back.  The Wise Men stood there in fancy dress. There were sheep, cows and camels peacefully resting nearby. Everyone, even the animals, looked adoringly at the Child. It was a domestic scene, the perfect family.

I was grown before I realized that it was wrong in almost every aspect. The stable wasn’t a stable. It was a cave underneath the inn. The manger wasn’t wood. It was probably stone. Animals don’t stay still in their stalls. They snort, snuffle, and generally get in the way. Instead of friendly beasts, think fleas and lice. The shepherds were probably Arabs, not Jewish, and they definitely were not clean. The wise men didn’t even arrive until two years later. 

The Nativity may have been a miracle, but for Mary and Joseph it was a mess. They had no help. If something went wrong with the delivery, was there even a midwife there to help? Joseph was a carpenter, not a doctor, so how was he supposed to help deliver a baby?

Mary didn’t look fresh and clean. After all, she just had a baby! Childbirth is a messy business. I’ve seen a lot of women after they had just given birth, and not one of them looked as fresh as Mary. She had just been through fourteen to twenty-four hours of hard labor and pain. As far as that carol that says, “The Little Lord Jesus no crying he makes”—have you ever seen a baby that never cried? The Bible never suggests that Jesus didn’t cry.

There is one thing that the Christmas scene gets right—the most important thing. The Son of God was born and changed the world forever. 

We’ve sanitized that scene in our minds, and in doing so we’ve made it into something that it wasn’t. Jesus wasn’t born into a perfect world or a perfect family. Jesus was born into a world like ours—where people get lost and run out of money, where travel arrangements get messed up, where there is noise and desecration, and strangers drop by unexpectedly and become a burden on us. He was born into a world where people get sick and die, and we can’t always know which will happen. He was born into a world where people can be cruel. Herod, callous and unfeeling like that innkeeper, or late, like the Wise Men, or cold and tired like Joseph and Mary. He was born to experience all these things—poverty, homelessness, bigotry, and the shame, not because we deserve it, but because we are born into this world.

This is a messy world. For a time, His parents were refugees in Egypt. The king tried to kill them. When they finally returned home, they tried to reestablish their lives after two years absence. Joseph seemed to have died early, so Mary knew the frustrations of raising kids by herself. Jesus and his brothers did not get along.  Later in life, they tried to have Him committed as a lunatic. Jesus knew how hard it was to work as a tradesman. He knew the frustration of taking on a big job for a rich man, and have him make up an excuse to not pay. He knew about paying taxes. The Roman tax code changed about every other day, and you were expected to keep current on it or be cheated by the tax man.  He knew what it was like to work all day on a piece of furniture, only to have it break on you.

Whenever he preached, he was misunderstood. Wherever he went, people wanted to argue with Him. Some thought that he had a demon. Jesus had a successful ministry, but it melted away by the time he was crucified. As his followers increased his critics decreased, until the world killed Him. 

None of this would have happened in a perfect world. In a perfect world, the good are rewarded, the wicked are punished, children never grow up hungry, and parents never fight. This isn’t our world. 

Jesus was crucified, because perfect God met Imperfect humanity, and people just couldn’t stand it. 

But even so, Jesus loved this imperfect world. He loved even the people who crucified Him. He loved the cheaters, the liars, the crooks, the proud, the vain and the pompous. He loved the gossips and drunkards and prostitutes. He loved the kings and beggars. He loved them, not because of their sin, but in spite of their sins. John 3: 16 says,

“For God so loved the world that he gave His son.”

 Jesus chose to live in this messy world, so that he could bring this messy world something better.

The cross was messier than the manger. The cross was a place of shame, of injustice, of blood and pain. It was the worst death the world could give Him. But He loved us, even from the cross. 

If you could ask Jesus if He would do it again, I believe he would answer “yes”.  To see people change was worth it. To follow the will of his father was worth it.

What about you? None of you will have a perfect Christmas. You may not get everything you want. You’ll fight with relatives. You’ll be rushed and hurried. You may even get sick. You have to pay the bills. But in the midst of all this imperfection, the perfect still exists. The perfect is the love of God. Christmas is not perfect, but it reminds us of the one pure and perfect thing that ever came into this messy world.  

Jesus, the Light of the World - John 1: 1-14

If any of the Gospel writers could write about Christmas, it was John. John became the protector of Mary, and spent many days with her. Yet John leaves out the story of Christ’s birth. He was more interested in why Jesus came than when or how. In a sense, though, John wrote more eloquently of Christmas by calling Him the Word of God, and Light of the world. Light is a powerful metaphor for Jesus.

Today, we assume that there will always be light with our electric light bulbs. But in John’s day, light only came from three sources—sun, moon and fire. It’s obviously firelight, not moonlight that John had in mind. “The light shined in the darkness, and the darkness could not extinguish it.” He compares Jesus to firelight shining in the darkness of sin.

What does Jesus share with firelight? 

1.  Light banishes darkness just by showing up. “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness cannot overcome it” Darkness cannot overcome the light, because darkness is the absence of light. The minute light shows up, darkness is gone. 

Imagine being in a cave, deep under the earth.  The darkness is so complete that you can see nothing. You cannot move because of it. But even with the smallest light your eyes can adjust to it. You can begin to move around even by the light of a tiny LED bulb or a single candle. 

Once we see Jesus even dimly, we  move from darkness to light. One candle can light a whole room. We don’t have to be scholars to have knowledge of God. All we have to do is come to Jesus, and see His light. He will reveal all things to us. 

3.  Light warms us. In John’s day, there was no light without warmth. Jesus did not do something we just see, but something we feel as well. He is like sunshine on our faces. 

The story of Christmas is a story of warm emotions. Shepherds were terrified, then rejoiced. Mary and Joseph were happy to have a baby. The Wise Men rejoiced to find Him. Hannah in the temple and old Simeon rejoiced to see the baby in the temple. It’s supposed to be heart-warming. Light warms our hearts.

Sometimes we can’t feel the warmth of our faith. That’s true of fire as well. We can see fire farther away than we can feel it. But as we draw closer to Him, we can eventually feel the warmth.  Not feeling Jesus doesn’t mean that there is something wrong with us, any more than not feeling a fireplace means that there is no fire. But as we draw close to Him, He warms our hearts and gives us joy.

There is a difference between drawing close to the church and drawing close to Christ. Many people don’t feel the warmth of Christ, because they are drawing close to His reflection, not His person. We see Jesus in the church and in others. They can reflect the light of Christ, but the warmth of Christ, the Source of our joy comes from meeting Him. Don’t just seek Christ’s reflection. Seek His Person. His presence can comfort us in our coldest and saddest moments.

3. Light pulls us together.  In ancient homes, the hearth or campfire was the center of every group. As people surrounded the light, they drew closer to each other. In the celebration of Christmas, we are drawn together. Christmas is a model of the peace that is to come as we gather around the throne of Heaven.

Tonight we celebrate the Lord’s Feast. We call it by many names—Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, Mass. But the name we prefer in our tradition is the word communion. Communion means literally “brought together.”  When we are united with Christ we are united to each other. We take the bread together to symbolize that unity. 

Charles Colson, in his biography Born Again wrote about his life after going to prison as a Watergate conspirator. He was one of Nixon’s Republican aides who once said that he would be willing to run over his own grandmother to get Nixon reelected. He found Christ while in prison. After his release, he lived in a half-way house with several other notorious prisoners, who had also become Christians. They included a liberal democratic senator, a leader of the Black Panther Party, and a former Grand Dragon of the KKK. There could not have been a more diverse group, unless you count Christ’s disciples, who included fishermen and slaves,  tax collectors and tethey were brought together in Christ. When Jesus came into the world, He became the common ground for all the world to meet.

This is important in our country today, where there is so much division. Christ brings us together when politics, race, and culture divide us. Satan uses political and cultural divisions to divide the world. The light of Christ unites us around the same fire.

4.  Fire is contagious. How could the birth of one baby in Bethlehem warm the entire world? One by one, people who were touched by Christ’s light glow themselves.  

He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God--children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

The Word literally became flesh by being born as Jesus. The word literally becomes flesh also every day through being born again in the lives of believers by the Holy Spirit. When people get close to Jesus  they catch fire. To everyone who believes on his name,  has the power to become like Him. We glow with the same fire He had.

The shepherds came to the manger terrified, but left carrying the joyful light. The Wise Men came mystified but went away bearing witness. It was not an intentional thing, but a byproduct of the fire of Christ burning in them.

Tonight, we enjoy the light of Christ.  Tomorrow, we will carry the light of Christ. We are the Light-bearers, taking his Joy and peace to all people. Let us bear that light into every area of our lives into all places where darkness still reigns, so that the promise of the Scripture may be fulfilled.

The Pool of Bethesda - John 5: 1-15

 “Bethesda” may be translated either as “house of grace” or “house of disgrace.”  Based on what was going on there, the second meaning seems a better fit.

Scholars have identified Bethesda as related to a kind of Greek temple called an asclepion. These were dedicated to the god Asclepius, who was the god of medicine and snakes. Each one had a pool where people bathed with other sick people, and then waited for a sign for some sign of healing.

 Sometimes, the priests gave them drugs, to make them dream and have visions. Other times, they lay beside the pool and allowed snakes to crawl over them. If a snake touched them, they would be healed. Another device they used was to have priests operate air pumps that made the water bubble. When the water bubbled, the first one in the water was healed. It was all fake and trickery, but the sick people were desperate, and paid to get in.  These temples were in every major city, and made a fortune. In Jerusalem it was forbidden to worship Asclepius, so  they claimed instead that an angel was troubling the water. They just left the pagan god out of it, and substituted an angel.

This was not only immoral, it was also very dangerous. Imagine sharing an unsanitary pool with hundreds of sick people!  Imagine the awful spectacle of hordes of sick people fighting to be the first in the pool! What a horrific sight it must have been!

That day when Jesus came to the pool, why didn’t He shut it down? Remember that day when Jesus made a whip and drove the moneychangers out of the temple—why didn’t He do that here? Instead of stopping it, Jesus chose to ignore it.  Instead, he spoke to a lame man on the edge of the crowd. Or better yet, why didn’t Jesus use His divine power and heal them all? He didn’t interfere, but instead went and talked quietly to one man on the edge of the crowd.   

There are a couple of reasons He didn’t. First, it wasn’t the right time. Jesus’ time was limited. He had to proclaim the Kingdom of God and be crucified on the Passover in Jerusalem. It was a strategic use of time and effort, not just a passionate response. There was so much evil in the Roman world—slavery, child abandonment, ritualized murder and death, disease, homelessness, poverty, unemployment, and so forth—that if He took on them all, he would have done nothing else. Second, Jesus allowed people to keep their idols. He invited people to turn from their idols, but He didn’t break them. Instead, Jesus wanted to break the power of idols in the hearts of people by inviting them to follow Him. If you break a person’s idol without giving them anything else, then they will just get another idol. If he took away the pool of Bethesda, someone would just build another one. So instead of breaking idols, Jesus invited them to turn to Him.

There are two view of how Christians should relate to the society around us. They are not mutually exclusive, but they are a matter more of emphasis. One view is that Christ came to reform society. Christianity is a political movement more than a religious movement. Jesus came to set up the Kingdom of God on earth by overcoming wrongs.  The other view is that Christ came to reform individuals. When individuals are changed, then society is changed. We can’t take down the idols in society, but we can help individuals turn from them and see Jesus. This story supports this latter view.  Jesus didn’t take down the idol of the pool, but he took one man from it, who would then testify to others about the true source of life. 

The crowd around the pool were not just sick people--they were deluded. They really believed this place would heal them. Jesus doesn’t mess with our delusions. He just offers us the truth. As long as those people looked to the pool, instead of God, they would never be really healed.

We don’t have such a pool, but we have other delusions. Our delusions promise us health, wealth, and happiness, but give us nothing. Stand outside a convenience store on the day of a big jackpot and you will see the poor, greedy and desperate people line up for tickets, hoping for a lucky number. Turn on game shows where people audition for their one shot at stardom. Watch open tryouts for the major-league baseball and football, where they only take one in ten thousand. It’s insanity to think that anything which depends on luck or chance will ever make our existence worthwhile.

God doesn’t give us a chance for happiness. He gives us happiness, guaranteed. If the only way we can find happiness is through a chance of circumstance, then we don’t understand the plan of God for our lives. God offers us help by offering us Himself in the form of Jesus. When we find Jesus in our lives, whether we have good fortune or bad, we have a source of happiness that will sustain us.  There are times in life when we should and must take chances. But happiness is not a chance. God’s grace is not a chance. It is a reality for anyone who will look away from the crowd and look to Jesus. 

This is another example of how Jesus looks away from the crowd to minister to one individual.   People mattered to Him one by one.  Anyone who comes to Jesus, anyone who meets Jesus can and will be changed. But in order to experience the grace of God we must follow Jesus. 

In our story, the man is changed. We can see the process of this change in the three statements that Jesus makes to this man.

First, came a question, “Do you want to be healed?”  Sounds like a silly question, doesn’t it?  If he didn’t want to be healed, why was he hanging around the pool?

It’s not a silly question at all. This man had settled down into a sick routine of life. His life was not prosperous, but at least it ws familiar. The man was being fed either through begging, relatives, or living off the public dole. He had companions. He didn’t have to work. Charity and public assistance becomes a habit after a while, and there’s nothing harder for any of us to accept than change. After a while, charity becomes addictive. 

Healing brings changes and some of those changes can be painful.  But when God gives us an opportunity to be whole, then we must be willing to receive it. That always means embracing a new lifestyle  and a new attitude.  

Alcoholics, drug addicts, and other addictions often will say they want to be rid of their addiction. But when change is offered to them, they usually choose to avoid the pain and stay with their sickness. They chose to stay as they are, rather than face a new life. 

A man came to Jesus one day an and said “Master, what must I do to receive eternal life.”  Jesus told him to keep the commandments. Then he listed some of them—do not steal, do not murder, do not commit adultery, and so on. Beside each one, the man put a little mental check mark—done that, done that, done that. All these things he was already in the habit of doing.

Then Jesus threw him a curve ball—“Give all you have to feed the poor, and come and follow me.”  Wait a minute! The man thought.  I didn’t plan on this!  Jesus always does this to us. The biggest thing Jesus asks for each of us, if we want to be well, is to surrender our habits to Him. Break out of comfortable shells and look at life in a different way.  Being healed is always going to cost us. We must be willing to choose change over comfort and routine and break free by looking at Him. 

The second thing He said was, “Take up you bed and walk.” Walking is leaving somewhere and going to somewhere. First he left his couch. Sickness, depression, and laziness puts us on the couch. We must leave the comfort and safety of our old routines. Second, he left the crowd. People have told me that they would rather go to hell than heaven, because all their friends are there. Don’t continue in delusion, because that is where your friends are, but trust God to give you some new companions when you start your new life. Third, we must break our lifestyle of dependency. You can’t stay an invalid, being helped by others, but you must be willing to stand on your own. God will help you do this, but you must be willing to stand alone.  

Walking is going to somewhere. After Jesus left this man He headed for the house of God. 

If we do not come to God, then we will fall back under delusion. It was only there, at that time that Jesus was revealed to this man as the Son of God.

Come to church. You can meet God anywhere, but God has set aside a place for us to meet him in the company of others. That place is in the fellowship and worship of a church.

The third thing Jesus said was, “Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.”  

Why does He say this? Is Jesus suggesting that his illness came from some sin that he committed?  Not at all. It’s not the cause of his lameness that is the problem, but his continuing delusion of thinking this pool will save him. His “sin” was looking in the wrong direction. He was looking for an angel disturbing the pool to be his savior, not God Himself. This is idolatry.

The tendency to idolatry is never far from any of us. None of us are immune to it, or to going back into idolatry at any time. That is why we need to not only look to Jesus, but to keep looking at Him. That is the difference between justification and sanctification. Justification is to be forgiven for our sins. Sanctification is the process of being cleansed from our sins. If we accept God’s forgiveness, then we will have eternal life. But to live holy lives, we must follow Him. Christians sin even after we have been saved. That doesn’t make us unsaved, but it still makes us a mess. We must not go back to the idols that used to dominate our lives.

Jesus offer us healing—not a chance for healing, but a guaranteed healing on the Cross. But first we must ask ourselves if we are willing to receive it. Then having received it, are we willing to set aside our idols daily, and follow Him. Being a follower of Jesus isn’t easy, but it is the only guaranteed way of salvation, given to us by God Himself, so we can be truly whole.