From Russ Moore @ Moore tot he Point
The Theology of the “Twilight” Series
— Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 —
Let me preface this by saying the only people I know who’ve seen the “New Moon” movie are enthusiastic teenage girls and Boyce College Dean Denny Burk. I can guarantee you, though, that lots of adolescent and post-adolescent women in your congregation have seen the movie and are reading the novels in the “Twilight” series.
Touchstone, a magazine where I serve as a senior editor, just ran a fascinating article on the theology behind the series. Jonn Granger, who was called by Time magazine the “dean of Harry Potter scholars,” wrote this piece, focusing on what he sees as the distinctively Latter-day Saint theological-literary structure behind the series.
Read it, and think about his thesis. What does the “Twilight” series tell you about what young women in your communities are longing for? What does it tell you about the appeal of Mormonism?
Touchstone Archives: Mormon Vampires in the Garden of Eden
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Family Christmas
Generation after generation of Christmases are strung across the decades of family histories via journals, diaries, drawings, paintings, illustrations, photographs, and videos that stand witness to precious memories. Treasured long-standing traditions become Christmas legacies carefully fostered and presented to each new generation of children, who are taught the role they play in maintaining the family's Christmas traditions.
These traditions can be very strong. They can be most useful in helping pass down the truth of the gospel from one generation to the next. We know from Scripture that the reason God led both Israel and the early church to practice such holy days was to help remind them of the statutes and testimonies of God and to cause the children to ask why these things were all about.
There is so little left of Christmas in our culture that represents a real holy day. Therefore, we must be intentional about passing down the heritage of faith that have received. Our children may well grow up in a culture where there is no spiritual meaning to the celebration of Christmas at all. They may grow to know it as a completely self-indulgent extravaganza of commercialism if we do not work to create traditions that communicate truth across generations.
We must be careful not to confuse the story of Jesus with the story of Santa Clause. If we do that we feed our culture’s mischaracterization of Jesus and the church as means to meeting the needs of a consumer Christianity. More importantly, we call into question the absolute truth of the gospel by equating God’s ultimate revelation of himself in the person of His Son to a fairy tale.
That is not to say that we can not play Santa and allow our children the imagination of Christmas. It is to say that we must be clear with them what is really real. It would be far worse to have to convince a child that Jesus is real because he just found out that Santa is not.
We must simply be careful that our culture is not successful in causing our children to think that Santa is more important than Jesus or that a Christmas Tree is more beautiful than the cross. We must be careful that we do not set an example that the material gifts of this world are more valuable than the spiritual gifts that we receive by the grace of God.
It is better to give than to receive. However, I pray that this Christmas we will be more intentional about communicating to our children that it is most glorious and delightful of all to receive the gift of God’s Son.
Rayanne and I would like to wish you a Merry Christmas and let you know that we are praying God’s blessing on every one of you who support us and Legacy with your prayers and material support.
These traditions can be very strong. They can be most useful in helping pass down the truth of the gospel from one generation to the next. We know from Scripture that the reason God led both Israel and the early church to practice such holy days was to help remind them of the statutes and testimonies of God and to cause the children to ask why these things were all about.
There is so little left of Christmas in our culture that represents a real holy day. Therefore, we must be intentional about passing down the heritage of faith that have received. Our children may well grow up in a culture where there is no spiritual meaning to the celebration of Christmas at all. They may grow to know it as a completely self-indulgent extravaganza of commercialism if we do not work to create traditions that communicate truth across generations.
We must be careful not to confuse the story of Jesus with the story of Santa Clause. If we do that we feed our culture’s mischaracterization of Jesus and the church as means to meeting the needs of a consumer Christianity. More importantly, we call into question the absolute truth of the gospel by equating God’s ultimate revelation of himself in the person of His Son to a fairy tale.
That is not to say that we can not play Santa and allow our children the imagination of Christmas. It is to say that we must be clear with them what is really real. It would be far worse to have to convince a child that Jesus is real because he just found out that Santa is not.
We must simply be careful that our culture is not successful in causing our children to think that Santa is more important than Jesus or that a Christmas Tree is more beautiful than the cross. We must be careful that we do not set an example that the material gifts of this world are more valuable than the spiritual gifts that we receive by the grace of God.
It is better to give than to receive. However, I pray that this Christmas we will be more intentional about communicating to our children that it is most glorious and delightful of all to receive the gift of God’s Son.
Rayanne and I would like to wish you a Merry Christmas and let you know that we are praying God’s blessing on every one of you who support us and Legacy with your prayers and material support.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
The Measurement of Success
I read a section in "Perspectives on Family Ministry" by Timothy Paul Jones this morning on The Measurement of Success. I found it so overwhelmingly true that I was compelled to share it here. I have been preaching a series on the nature and character of the church because I believe that any church who is looking for a pastor ought to have a Biblical understanding of what the church ought to be and what the church ought to do. This is primarily because how you define the church determines how you define success, and how you define success will dictate everything else you do.
"Unfortunately, pragmatism rules in our culture and in many of our churches. As a result, success is often measured by size and budget rather than faithfulness. In his book The Courage to Be Protestant, David Wells questions the pragmatic measures of success in many market-driven churches:
'How can we argue with success? I believe that we can. More than that, in this case, I believe that we must, that we should. What we have here are churches reconfigured around evangelism that abandon much of the fabric of biblical faith to succeed. They have taken a part of that faith, modified it in deference to consumer impulse, and then made of that part all there is to Christian faith. Here is a methodology for success that can succeed with very little truth; indeed, its success seems to depend on not showing much truth.'"
"The temptation to measure success 'with very little truth' is greater than any of us would care to admit. It is difficult not to measure success by budgets and numbers when salaries and positions depend on maintaining the organization."
"One of my friends was discussing family integration with a senior pastor who gave this reply: 'The theology sounds right, but the application has to be wrong because our people can't do it and it would make our church shrink.' This man was an ecclesiological pragmatist. He had defined not only right success but right theology according to what seemed to work from a human perspective."
"Before homes and churches can ever experience spiritual reformation, biblical standards for success must replace ecclesiological pragmatism. It is so easy to wear cultural lenses and to read culturally accepted practices into the Holy Scripture. That's also why it is important to step outside our culture by reading the works of saints who lived in other times and places."
"A church is successful only to the degree that it lines up with Scripture in these areas. To the degree that we lead God's church Biblically, we will experience his blessing, not necessarily in buildings and money but in churches that closely resemble what Jesus and the apostles expected churches to look like."
"Unfortunately, pragmatism rules in our culture and in many of our churches. As a result, success is often measured by size and budget rather than faithfulness. In his book The Courage to Be Protestant, David Wells questions the pragmatic measures of success in many market-driven churches:
'How can we argue with success? I believe that we can. More than that, in this case, I believe that we must, that we should. What we have here are churches reconfigured around evangelism that abandon much of the fabric of biblical faith to succeed. They have taken a part of that faith, modified it in deference to consumer impulse, and then made of that part all there is to Christian faith. Here is a methodology for success that can succeed with very little truth; indeed, its success seems to depend on not showing much truth.'"
"The temptation to measure success 'with very little truth' is greater than any of us would care to admit. It is difficult not to measure success by budgets and numbers when salaries and positions depend on maintaining the organization."
"One of my friends was discussing family integration with a senior pastor who gave this reply: 'The theology sounds right, but the application has to be wrong because our people can't do it and it would make our church shrink.' This man was an ecclesiological pragmatist. He had defined not only right success but right theology according to what seemed to work from a human perspective."
"Before homes and churches can ever experience spiritual reformation, biblical standards for success must replace ecclesiological pragmatism. It is so easy to wear cultural lenses and to read culturally accepted practices into the Holy Scripture. That's also why it is important to step outside our culture by reading the works of saints who lived in other times and places."
"A church is successful only to the degree that it lines up with Scripture in these areas. To the degree that we lead God's church Biblically, we will experience his blessing, not necessarily in buildings and money but in churches that closely resemble what Jesus and the apostles expected churches to look like."
Friday, October 2, 2009
Leadership Thoughts: Legacy Bibles
I was honored this past month to preach at Elkdale Baptist Church in Selma, Alabama. I was able to teach on the right definition, message and ministry of the church in the morning service and then to talk about generational faithfulness and the exercise of family worship in the evening. It was a good day and I was thankful to be able to share what God has made the passion of my heart.
Little did I now that my joy would be made complete days later when I received an email for a wonderful lady that I met while at Elkdale. She shared a story of spiritual legacy with me that gave me chills and confirmed in heart the absolute truth of the importance of generational faithfulness. Her name is Louise King and I asked her if I could share her story in my newsletter. She was very gracious and replied, “Sure, Reid...no problem..”
Mrs. Louise started by saying that Legacy was a, “huge word in my life.” She went on to tell me the story of her Legacy Bibles. It all started when her mother died and she began to be aware of the power of her mother’s spiritual legacy in her life. She says, “When my mom died, her Bible was left sitting there on her dressing table and the task began of deciding who would receive it.”
As is so often the case, we do not fully recognize the value of the spiritual legacy that we have been left until we are left without it. Mrs. Louise said, “I realized then what a treasure it was.”
As leaders and parents, we often undervalue the power of our own spiritual legacy. However, Scripture makes it clear that the family is the primary means by which God intends his truth to be passed from one generation to the next. That is why it is important for us as individuals and as churches to understand that we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, but our legacy will be determined by what we invest in those we leave behind.
Mrs. Louise became strikingly aware of this reality when she lost her mother and that awareness set her on a mission to pass on to all her descendants the treasure that had been left for her. She says, “At that point, I began working toward getting one of my Bibles in the hands of my children and grandchildren.”
What a grand investment, but most of us only have one Bible. I mean, I have dozens, but I really only have that one that has all of my margin notes and underlines. How could I get each child and grandchild a treasure of spiritual heritage like my “go-to-Bible?”
Mrs. Louise shares how she has gone about it. “To put it mildly, I mark my Bible. With my three daughters, I kept a Bible for three years, transferring notes from one to the other and then adding notes from sermons , studies, etc. for each one individually.”
I thought, “what a great idea . . . to pass down our spiritual legacy from one generation to the next, Legacy Bibles.” But Mrs. Louise did not stop there. What I read next brought tears to my eyes and overwhelmed me with the delight of the Lord. She continued, “I am now working through my seven grandchildren.” What a testimony!
Mrs. Louise will tell you it is no easy task, “I have had to shorten the time I keep the Bible. I am working on number three (for her grandchildren).” But she says the joy of the investment far outweighs the cost. “I can’t tell you what it is like jotting notes to them by Scripture. It is a joy in my life when I pass God’s Word on to my children.” Even something I said got passed down from generation to generation, even if she can not remember quite what it was, “Something you said Sunday morning . . . sorry can’t remember exactly what . . . But I wrote a note to Zec . . . ‘Zec, does your life reflect this verse?’”
Zec, I pray that it does and that you, like Timothy, walk in the faith of your mother and grandmother and great-grandmother.
I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well. 2 Timothy 1:5
Little did I now that my joy would be made complete days later when I received an email for a wonderful lady that I met while at Elkdale. She shared a story of spiritual legacy with me that gave me chills and confirmed in heart the absolute truth of the importance of generational faithfulness. Her name is Louise King and I asked her if I could share her story in my newsletter. She was very gracious and replied, “Sure, Reid...no problem..”
Mrs. Louise started by saying that Legacy was a, “huge word in my life.” She went on to tell me the story of her Legacy Bibles. It all started when her mother died and she began to be aware of the power of her mother’s spiritual legacy in her life. She says, “When my mom died, her Bible was left sitting there on her dressing table and the task began of deciding who would receive it.”
As is so often the case, we do not fully recognize the value of the spiritual legacy that we have been left until we are left without it. Mrs. Louise said, “I realized then what a treasure it was.”
As leaders and parents, we often undervalue the power of our own spiritual legacy. However, Scripture makes it clear that the family is the primary means by which God intends his truth to be passed from one generation to the next. That is why it is important for us as individuals and as churches to understand that we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, but our legacy will be determined by what we invest in those we leave behind.
Mrs. Louise became strikingly aware of this reality when she lost her mother and that awareness set her on a mission to pass on to all her descendants the treasure that had been left for her. She says, “At that point, I began working toward getting one of my Bibles in the hands of my children and grandchildren.”
What a grand investment, but most of us only have one Bible. I mean, I have dozens, but I really only have that one that has all of my margin notes and underlines. How could I get each child and grandchild a treasure of spiritual heritage like my “go-to-Bible?”
Mrs. Louise shares how she has gone about it. “To put it mildly, I mark my Bible. With my three daughters, I kept a Bible for three years, transferring notes from one to the other and then adding notes from sermons , studies, etc. for each one individually.”
I thought, “what a great idea . . . to pass down our spiritual legacy from one generation to the next, Legacy Bibles.” But Mrs. Louise did not stop there. What I read next brought tears to my eyes and overwhelmed me with the delight of the Lord. She continued, “I am now working through my seven grandchildren.” What a testimony!
Mrs. Louise will tell you it is no easy task, “I have had to shorten the time I keep the Bible. I am working on number three (for her grandchildren).” But she says the joy of the investment far outweighs the cost. “I can’t tell you what it is like jotting notes to them by Scripture. It is a joy in my life when I pass God’s Word on to my children.” Even something I said got passed down from generation to generation, even if she can not remember quite what it was, “Something you said Sunday morning . . . sorry can’t remember exactly what . . . But I wrote a note to Zec . . . ‘Zec, does your life reflect this verse?’”
Zec, I pray that it does and that you, like Timothy, walk in the faith of your mother and grandmother and great-grandmother.
I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well. 2 Timothy 1:5
Family Ministry Investment
Now that our family ministry summer is over at Bush, I am ready to get back on the road to work with churches to help move them towards a family equipping ministry model that helps them better develop spiritual leaders for the next generation.
I am looking for five churches to invest in this coming year and our goal is to help move those churches from where they are to a family equipping ministry model. I am looking for leaders who believe in three ideas.
First, that God instituted the family as the primary means of communicating his truth from one generation to the next, and that parents have the primary role in discipling their children.
Second, that God instituted the church as an aid, to equip parents for the ministry of leading their families spiritually and discipling their children, and to supplement what parents are doing at home by reinforcing it in a corporate setting.
Third, that the church fulfills a missional role, through age graded ministry, in reaching children and youth from unbelieving homes and by engaging the parents in the spiritual development of their children, reaching out to lost and broken families.
My vision is to work with those churches in three main areas. I would like to help equip their ministry team with resources and strategies to move toward a family equipping model. In this area, I think Legacy offers over five years of research in the area of youth and family ministry, years of practical experience implementing ministry strategies in local churches, and a network of ministries and churches who are making the family equipping model work in various settings.
Next, I would like to help equip their lay leadership and volunteers with the ideas and tools that they can use to communicate with parents, implement the ministry elements necessary, and invest in the lives of children and youth in a way that supplements parents fulfilling their biblical role instead of encouraging them to abdicate their role.
Most important, I would like to help communicate to parents how they can have a more positive and active role in the spiritual development of their children. In this area I think it is helpful to have someone echo the voice of the pastors in communicating parents biblical role as primary spiritual influencers. Again, we bring a wealth of research on the influence of parents. We are also able to help parents better communicate with their children by helping them understand youth culture, and giving them ideas for creating spiritual conversation. Finally, we can help parents better understand what are the primary things that they need to communicate to their children in terms of fundamental biblical knowledge, Christian worldview, and personal devotional life.
I believe in these principles and concepts so passionately that I am willing to invest in the lives of these churches, leaders and parents for an entire year. Please help me be able to do that by sharing my vision with churches who may be interested in receiving our help, and by continuing to support Legacy, so that we can invest in them for only the cost of our expenses.
Together we can make a real investment in families and develop true spiritual leaders for the next generation.
I am looking for five churches to invest in this coming year and our goal is to help move those churches from where they are to a family equipping ministry model. I am looking for leaders who believe in three ideas.
First, that God instituted the family as the primary means of communicating his truth from one generation to the next, and that parents have the primary role in discipling their children.
Second, that God instituted the church as an aid, to equip parents for the ministry of leading their families spiritually and discipling their children, and to supplement what parents are doing at home by reinforcing it in a corporate setting.
Third, that the church fulfills a missional role, through age graded ministry, in reaching children and youth from unbelieving homes and by engaging the parents in the spiritual development of their children, reaching out to lost and broken families.
My vision is to work with those churches in three main areas. I would like to help equip their ministry team with resources and strategies to move toward a family equipping model. In this area, I think Legacy offers over five years of research in the area of youth and family ministry, years of practical experience implementing ministry strategies in local churches, and a network of ministries and churches who are making the family equipping model work in various settings.
Next, I would like to help equip their lay leadership and volunteers with the ideas and tools that they can use to communicate with parents, implement the ministry elements necessary, and invest in the lives of children and youth in a way that supplements parents fulfilling their biblical role instead of encouraging them to abdicate their role.
Most important, I would like to help communicate to parents how they can have a more positive and active role in the spiritual development of their children. In this area I think it is helpful to have someone echo the voice of the pastors in communicating parents biblical role as primary spiritual influencers. Again, we bring a wealth of research on the influence of parents. We are also able to help parents better communicate with their children by helping them understand youth culture, and giving them ideas for creating spiritual conversation. Finally, we can help parents better understand what are the primary things that they need to communicate to their children in terms of fundamental biblical knowledge, Christian worldview, and personal devotional life.
I believe in these principles and concepts so passionately that I am willing to invest in the lives of these churches, leaders and parents for an entire year. Please help me be able to do that by sharing my vision with churches who may be interested in receiving our help, and by continuing to support Legacy, so that we can invest in them for only the cost of our expenses.
Together we can make a real investment in families and develop true spiritual leaders for the next generation.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Leadership Thoughts: Family and Ministry
As I have spent the last 6 years of my life focused on family and ministry, I have found great wisdom in the fact that God established the family first, in the Old Testament, and the church second, in the New Testament, as the primary means by which He intended truth to be passed form one generation to the next. The primary wisdom there is that family must come first in Family Ministry.
That is why the primary event this summer was the birth of our fourth child Aaron Gabriel Marcus Ward. Our children are our most precious gift from God, after our own salvation, and I believe the way we view family says a lot about the way we view ministry. I think it is important that we view families, particularly large families as a blessing and that we ought to honor multi-generational families.
Not only in the way we view families, but also the way we lead our families says a lot about the way we view ministry. We, as leaders, must make the investment that we are calling others to make. We must be leading our families spiritually, through family worship, bible reading, prayer and formal discipleship, as age appropriate.
The other important fact that we must remember is that anyone can lead a church, but I am the only man in the universe that can be the husband of my wife and the father of my children. God established the family first and the church second. Therefore, when He calls you to church ministry that does not allow you to abdicate your Family Ministry. For a generation we were told that was right and that was part of the sacrifice that had to be made by a minister and his family. We see now that produced a deadly trend both in our churches and in our homes.
That leads to the next big idea about Family Ministry. Ministry has to be about people, not running the organizational machine. In recent days there have been a lot of discussion in Baptist circles about the Great Commission Resurgence. I think the reason it resonates with so many is that they feel disconnected from the organizational machine that is their local church and denomination. Somewhere in our production mentality and event driven ministry models we have lost the idea that ministry is about people.
The church is people. The ministry of Jesus was always about people and never about position, power, or programming. His ministry was not about self-promotion and self-protection. It was about service and sacrifice.
Family Ministry is investment in people. When we set our focus on ideas like generational faithfulness, we begin to make investments in people and not in institutions and organizational structures. We begin to see those things for what they are, simply a means to an end. Some people find it hard to invest in this kind of real ministry because it is not cool and does not produce numbers and other tangible results. I guess that is why Jesus fed the crowd with a few pieces of fish and bread from a small boys lunch.
Finally, people represent families, no matter how “normal” or broken they may be, and all people have an innate desire to be connected to a family. At the deepest level, our people long to be connected, and their deepest need for connection is between parents and their children, and God the Father and his children. That is why the church is most often spoken of in the NT as a family, and why the church must function as a family, working as an extended family where generational faithfulness is promoted; where older men mentor younger men, and fathers disciple their sons and mothers disciple their daughters.
We must not neglect the missional aspect of Family Ministry. There is a generation of people out there who do not have believing parents, or even parents who live at home. They are lost and without father and mothers. The church must be a family to them. That is why the heart of the gospel is the heart of adoption. We must take the widows (single moms) and orphans (kids from broken homes) into the family of God, into our church family and into our personal families. We must invest in those lives and reach out through them to their families and work to restore what has been broken in this world back to newness of life in Christ.
That is why the primary event this summer was the birth of our fourth child Aaron Gabriel Marcus Ward. Our children are our most precious gift from God, after our own salvation, and I believe the way we view family says a lot about the way we view ministry. I think it is important that we view families, particularly large families as a blessing and that we ought to honor multi-generational families.
Not only in the way we view families, but also the way we lead our families says a lot about the way we view ministry. We, as leaders, must make the investment that we are calling others to make. We must be leading our families spiritually, through family worship, bible reading, prayer and formal discipleship, as age appropriate.
The other important fact that we must remember is that anyone can lead a church, but I am the only man in the universe that can be the husband of my wife and the father of my children. God established the family first and the church second. Therefore, when He calls you to church ministry that does not allow you to abdicate your Family Ministry. For a generation we were told that was right and that was part of the sacrifice that had to be made by a minister and his family. We see now that produced a deadly trend both in our churches and in our homes.
That leads to the next big idea about Family Ministry. Ministry has to be about people, not running the organizational machine. In recent days there have been a lot of discussion in Baptist circles about the Great Commission Resurgence. I think the reason it resonates with so many is that they feel disconnected from the organizational machine that is their local church and denomination. Somewhere in our production mentality and event driven ministry models we have lost the idea that ministry is about people.
The church is people. The ministry of Jesus was always about people and never about position, power, or programming. His ministry was not about self-promotion and self-protection. It was about service and sacrifice.
Family Ministry is investment in people. When we set our focus on ideas like generational faithfulness, we begin to make investments in people and not in institutions and organizational structures. We begin to see those things for what they are, simply a means to an end. Some people find it hard to invest in this kind of real ministry because it is not cool and does not produce numbers and other tangible results. I guess that is why Jesus fed the crowd with a few pieces of fish and bread from a small boys lunch.
Finally, people represent families, no matter how “normal” or broken they may be, and all people have an innate desire to be connected to a family. At the deepest level, our people long to be connected, and their deepest need for connection is between parents and their children, and God the Father and his children. That is why the church is most often spoken of in the NT as a family, and why the church must function as a family, working as an extended family where generational faithfulness is promoted; where older men mentor younger men, and fathers disciple their sons and mothers disciple their daughters.
We must not neglect the missional aspect of Family Ministry. There is a generation of people out there who do not have believing parents, or even parents who live at home. They are lost and without father and mothers. The church must be a family to them. That is why the heart of the gospel is the heart of adoption. We must take the widows (single moms) and orphans (kids from broken homes) into the family of God, into our church family and into our personal families. We must invest in those lives and reach out through them to their families and work to restore what has been broken in this world back to newness of life in Christ.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Stone XII - Consummation: Heaven; The Presence of God
After the entire course of the narrative has been played out, after the judgment, those who believe in Jesus will enter into the full enjoyment of life that they have longed for. They will hear Jesus say something like Matthew 25:34, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”
While people often refer to this kingdom as simply “heaven,” the Bible actually paints as even richer picture of a new heaven and new earth. It is a picture of promises; promises of an entirely renewed creation, promises of resurrected bodies, promises of spiritual treasure, and ultimately the promise of the presence of the glory of God.
Revelation 21:1 -4 says, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’”
What is Heaven?
Heaven is the place where God most fully makes known his presence to bless. Although God is everywhere, his presence to bless is most clearly seen in heaven, and thus his glory, as the greatest of all blessings, is most clearly seen in heaven.
I. Heaven is a place
The new Heavens and the new Earth of Isaiah 66:22 will be a place so rich and good that the former things - like death, suffering, sorrow, and pain - will not even be remembered.
Heaven is the place where Jesus is. When he ascended into heaven, the fact that heaven is a place seems to be the point of the passage.
Admittedly, we can not see where Jesus is now, but that is not because he passed into some ethereal “state of being” but because our eyes are ill equipped to see the spiritual world that exist around us.
Jesus promised in John 14:2-3, “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”
What will this place be like? John says in Revelation 21:11-14 that God showed him “the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed— on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
The city will be four dimensional, with its height being the same as its width and length. It will have a wall, “built of jasper, while the city was pure gold, clear as glass. The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every kind of jewel. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, each of the gates made of a single pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, transparent as glass.”
God will make new both heaven and earth. Paul writes in Romans 8:21, “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” No longer will there be thorns and thistles that resulted in God’s judgment for sin, nor will there be other distortions of nature that bring destruction. Paradise will be restored. Therefore, the world will no longer be broken, and the people will no longer be broken.
II. Heaven is a people
Those who live in the new creation will have glorified bodies, as we talked about last week, and with the curse of sin removed, all creation will be returned to its original state. Life in the new heavens and earth will include many of the good things about life here on earth, only they will all be much better.
All will eat and drink at the marriage supper of the Lamb according to Revelation 19:9. Jesus will once again drink wine with his disciples as the river of the water of life will flow through the street to the middle of the city where the tree of life will yield 12 kinds of fruit bringing eternal life. Music is prominent in the description of heaven. In fact, it appears that music and other artistic activities will be done with all excellence to the glory of God. Humans will continue to exercise dominion over the earth and its resources.
Though we will be like God, we will not be God. Therefore, we will not have infinite knowledge, not of ourselves or God, though we will know fully as we are fully known, meaning that all of God’s purpose for us will be revealed to us. So, for example, we will continue to increase in the knowledge of God who is infinite!
Finally, the renewed heavens and earth will be place where we can fully enjoy the treasures of heaven that we have been storing up during this life. This is wonderful encouragement for us to “do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith,” as Galatians 6:10 tells us. Therefore, as believers in Jesus, we ought to, according to 2 Peter 3:11-13, live “lives of holiness and godliness” while we are “waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.”
III. Heaven is the presence of God
Heaven should not only be conceived in spatial and materialistic concepts, but mostly as the presence of God. When John saw the city come down, the first thing he saw was that it had the glory of God, and he heard God say, “Behold, the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.”
In addition to being a place of unimaginable beauty, heaven will be a place where God’s glory is so undeniably evident that all of creation will function in a way that is in full cooperation with his will. Therefore, the simplest definition might be "heaven is the presence of God."
In the Jewish religion there was great respect for God's name. Yahweh was comprised only of consonants, "YHWH." (הוהי) There were no vowels, and the word was thus unpronounceable. It was merely formed breath. In order to avoid using God's name, the Jews used other names and designations for the name of Yahweh.
The word "heaven" became a synonym for Yahweh to post-exilic Jews. This usage is carried over into the New Testament as can be seen in the following gospel usages:
Matthew 23:22 - "he who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by Him who sits on it."
Luke 15:21 - (Prodigal son) "I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight."
John 3:27 - (John the Baptist says of Jesus) "A man can receive nothing, unless it has been given to him from heaven."
The equation of God and heaven is also evidenced in the manner in which the gospel writers use the phrases "kingdom of God" and "kingdom of heaven" synonymously. Matthew, who wrote his gospel narrative particularly for a Jewish audience, is sensitive to the Jewish evasion of the name of God and uses "kingdom of heaven" in exactly the same contexts where Mark and Luke (writing for Roman and Greek audiences respectively) use the phrase "kingdom of God." John the Baptist, and then Jesus, and then the disciples, all proclaimed to the people of Palestine, "The Kingdom of heaven is at hand!" (Matt. 3:2; 4:17; 10:7). This was the good news of the gospel; what God, what heaven, was doing in Jesus Christ.
If heaven is the presence of God, then the popular mental conceptions found in many religious circles today are most inadequate. Pictures of clouds, harps, angels, pearly gates, and gold are figures that while true are merely earthly symbols of the reality to come. Surely we must pursue an understanding of heaven beyond these inadequate pictures.
In I Corinthians 2:9 Paul quotes from Isaiah 64:4 and does so in the context of the spiritual realities God has made available to Christians in Jesus Christ: "Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him." God is so much bigger than our finite abilities to conceptualize that any images that we can conceive are but inadequate images which become idols. Perhaps that is why the Jews generally refrain from speculating about "heaven," for it leads to forbidden idolatry. But Christians have always engaged in such speculation!
My intention this week was to create for you a mental picture of heaven as the presence of God. Would you want to participate in a "heaven" that was only what your mind and heart could conceive? I would not! I have very little imagination! The "heaven" that I could conjure up in my mind would be extremely boring! That is why so many people care so little about going there.
I am convinced that heaven is not boring. Man is made so as to only be content with God!
That is why the presence of God is the essence of heaven, and we must seriously ask ourselves the question, would I want to go to heaven if God were not there? What in heaven is valuable to us apart from the presence of God? Is God really enough?
Heaven is the presence of God.
When it comes to thinking about "heaven," we, with our finite minds, do not even know how to ask the correct questions. Mankind (religious people particularly), thinking as they most often do, in a worldly, spatial and temporal framework, ask questions like these:
What will I be like in heaven?
What kind of body will I have?
Will I be able to recognize those I love?
What will I be doing in heaven?
Will all of my desires be fulfilled in heaven?
What kind of mental or emotional recall will I have in heaven from my time spent on earth?
How big will my "mansion" be?
Will I have more than someone else?
Will someone else have more than me?
Our questions about "heaven" are framed in such a self-oriented perspective they only reveal that we do not have a clue what heaven is all about!
Heaven is the presence of God.
God's presence always implies that He is acting in accord with His character. Heaven is only concerned about, centered upon, the other person and the Ultimate Other, God, who should be our ultimate concern in heaven.
Heaven is the presence of God.
The earliest proclamation of the gospel by Jesus Himself was "The kingdom of heaven is at hand" in Matthew 4:17, because the presence of God was at hand in Jesus Christ. In Matthew 5:2, Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Jesus explained in Matthew 16:19 that the "key" to the kingdom of heaven was the confession that "Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.” The kingdom of heaven is present whenever the King is present, for Jesus said, "the kingdom of God is in your midst" in Luke 17:21. In Ephesians 1:3 Paul explains that "God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus," in Jesus Christ. The writer to the Hebrews indicates that Christians have become "partakers of a heavenly calling" (3:1), have "tasted of the heavenly gift" (6:4), and have "come to the heavenly Jerusalem" (12:22) all in relation the presence of God the Spirit in us.
If heaven is the presence of God, then is the presence of God not actively present among us and within us right now, here on earth, as Christians? Are we not actively participating in the heavenly and spiritual expression of the character of God? Is that not what the Christian life is all about? I believe it is!
The heavenly Father is desirous of expressing His nature and character through His spiritual children, Christians, the People of God, As we presently participate in the "kingdom of heaven." The kingdom Christ died on the cross to initiate and will return again to consummate. But I declare that I am not saying that earth is heaven, or even that the church is heaven. To that I would exclaim, "Good heaven, God forbid!"
Heaven is the presence of God.
Heaven is the Consummation or completion of what Christ inaugurated or started on the cross, a continuum of the life that we now have in Christ Jesus. The life that we participate in as Christians, both now and then, presently and in the future, is the life of Jesus, eternal life; the life of the heavenly reality of the presence of God.
Heaven is the presence of God.
One old circuit preacher once turned the phrase like this, “The Creator-God so designed the creature-man so as to require the presence of the Creator-God within the creature-man in order for the creature-man to be the creature-man that the Creator-God intended the creature-man to be.” Plato even once said, “We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.”
Man is not man as God intended apart from seeking for and participating in heaven, seeking for and participating in the presence of God. Therefore, it is all the more exciting that God’s fellowship with us will be unhindered. We will forever be able to interact with him and worship him as we were designed to do. This will be the fulfillment of God’s purpose to call us, as 2 Peter 1:3 says, “to his own glory and excellence.” We will forever dwell in the presence of his glory with great joy! That is the gospel, the good news about heaven. Heaven: the presence of God in Jesus Christ. Now and forever more Amen! As the song writer testified, "Heaven came down and glory filled my soul."
Heaven is the presence of God.
Our greatest joy will be that we “will see his face.” The sight of God’s face will be the fulfillment of everything we know to be good and right and desirable in the universe. In his face, we will see and experience the fulfillment of all the longing we have ever had:
The longing for love, and power
The longing for peace, and glory
The longing for significance, and beauty,
The longing for joy, and wisdom,
The longing to know truth,
The longing for justice, holiness and goodness.
We will discover that in God’s presence there is, as Psalm 16:11 says, “fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
Perhaps the best paragraph in the whole Lord of the Rings Trilogy is when "Frodo" is honored with a song to celebrate his success in destroying the Ring of Doom.
“And all the host laughed and wept, and in the midst of their merriment and tears the clear voice of the minstrel rose like silver and gold, and all men were hushed. And he sang to them…until their hearts, wounded with sweet words, overflowed, and their joy was like swords, and they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flow together and tears are the very wine of blessedness.” (The Return of the King, 933)
Like those who listened to the minstrel’s song, we who see our Savior in the last day will also be made merry with the story of his victory, the grand narrative of the Creation, Fall, Redemption and Consummation. And we too will be hushed by and wounded with the sweet words that are sung of his self-sacrifice on our behalf. We will have joy like swords—bright and piercing—and all of the pain and loss of Christ’s death (and our daily dying with him) will only mix with and enhance our bliss. We will be, finally and forever, fully aware of the reality of the presence of God.
While people often refer to this kingdom as simply “heaven,” the Bible actually paints as even richer picture of a new heaven and new earth. It is a picture of promises; promises of an entirely renewed creation, promises of resurrected bodies, promises of spiritual treasure, and ultimately the promise of the presence of the glory of God.
Revelation 21:1 -4 says, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’”
What is Heaven?
Heaven is the place where God most fully makes known his presence to bless. Although God is everywhere, his presence to bless is most clearly seen in heaven, and thus his glory, as the greatest of all blessings, is most clearly seen in heaven.
I. Heaven is a place
The new Heavens and the new Earth of Isaiah 66:22 will be a place so rich and good that the former things - like death, suffering, sorrow, and pain - will not even be remembered.
Heaven is the place where Jesus is. When he ascended into heaven, the fact that heaven is a place seems to be the point of the passage.
Admittedly, we can not see where Jesus is now, but that is not because he passed into some ethereal “state of being” but because our eyes are ill equipped to see the spiritual world that exist around us.
Jesus promised in John 14:2-3, “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”
What will this place be like? John says in Revelation 21:11-14 that God showed him “the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed— on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
The city will be four dimensional, with its height being the same as its width and length. It will have a wall, “built of jasper, while the city was pure gold, clear as glass. The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every kind of jewel. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, each of the gates made of a single pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, transparent as glass.”
God will make new both heaven and earth. Paul writes in Romans 8:21, “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” No longer will there be thorns and thistles that resulted in God’s judgment for sin, nor will there be other distortions of nature that bring destruction. Paradise will be restored. Therefore, the world will no longer be broken, and the people will no longer be broken.
II. Heaven is a people
Those who live in the new creation will have glorified bodies, as we talked about last week, and with the curse of sin removed, all creation will be returned to its original state. Life in the new heavens and earth will include many of the good things about life here on earth, only they will all be much better.
All will eat and drink at the marriage supper of the Lamb according to Revelation 19:9. Jesus will once again drink wine with his disciples as the river of the water of life will flow through the street to the middle of the city where the tree of life will yield 12 kinds of fruit bringing eternal life. Music is prominent in the description of heaven. In fact, it appears that music and other artistic activities will be done with all excellence to the glory of God. Humans will continue to exercise dominion over the earth and its resources.
Though we will be like God, we will not be God. Therefore, we will not have infinite knowledge, not of ourselves or God, though we will know fully as we are fully known, meaning that all of God’s purpose for us will be revealed to us. So, for example, we will continue to increase in the knowledge of God who is infinite!
Finally, the renewed heavens and earth will be place where we can fully enjoy the treasures of heaven that we have been storing up during this life. This is wonderful encouragement for us to “do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith,” as Galatians 6:10 tells us. Therefore, as believers in Jesus, we ought to, according to 2 Peter 3:11-13, live “lives of holiness and godliness” while we are “waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.”
III. Heaven is the presence of God
Heaven should not only be conceived in spatial and materialistic concepts, but mostly as the presence of God. When John saw the city come down, the first thing he saw was that it had the glory of God, and he heard God say, “Behold, the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.”
In addition to being a place of unimaginable beauty, heaven will be a place where God’s glory is so undeniably evident that all of creation will function in a way that is in full cooperation with his will. Therefore, the simplest definition might be "heaven is the presence of God."
In the Jewish religion there was great respect for God's name. Yahweh was comprised only of consonants, "YHWH." (הוהי) There were no vowels, and the word was thus unpronounceable. It was merely formed breath. In order to avoid using God's name, the Jews used other names and designations for the name of Yahweh.
The word "heaven" became a synonym for Yahweh to post-exilic Jews. This usage is carried over into the New Testament as can be seen in the following gospel usages:
Matthew 23:22 - "he who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by Him who sits on it."
Luke 15:21 - (Prodigal son) "I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight."
John 3:27 - (John the Baptist says of Jesus) "A man can receive nothing, unless it has been given to him from heaven."
The equation of God and heaven is also evidenced in the manner in which the gospel writers use the phrases "kingdom of God" and "kingdom of heaven" synonymously. Matthew, who wrote his gospel narrative particularly for a Jewish audience, is sensitive to the Jewish evasion of the name of God and uses "kingdom of heaven" in exactly the same contexts where Mark and Luke (writing for Roman and Greek audiences respectively) use the phrase "kingdom of God." John the Baptist, and then Jesus, and then the disciples, all proclaimed to the people of Palestine, "The Kingdom of heaven is at hand!" (Matt. 3:2; 4:17; 10:7). This was the good news of the gospel; what God, what heaven, was doing in Jesus Christ.
If heaven is the presence of God, then the popular mental conceptions found in many religious circles today are most inadequate. Pictures of clouds, harps, angels, pearly gates, and gold are figures that while true are merely earthly symbols of the reality to come. Surely we must pursue an understanding of heaven beyond these inadequate pictures.
In I Corinthians 2:9 Paul quotes from Isaiah 64:4 and does so in the context of the spiritual realities God has made available to Christians in Jesus Christ: "Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him." God is so much bigger than our finite abilities to conceptualize that any images that we can conceive are but inadequate images which become idols. Perhaps that is why the Jews generally refrain from speculating about "heaven," for it leads to forbidden idolatry. But Christians have always engaged in such speculation!
My intention this week was to create for you a mental picture of heaven as the presence of God. Would you want to participate in a "heaven" that was only what your mind and heart could conceive? I would not! I have very little imagination! The "heaven" that I could conjure up in my mind would be extremely boring! That is why so many people care so little about going there.
I am convinced that heaven is not boring. Man is made so as to only be content with God!
That is why the presence of God is the essence of heaven, and we must seriously ask ourselves the question, would I want to go to heaven if God were not there? What in heaven is valuable to us apart from the presence of God? Is God really enough?
Heaven is the presence of God.
When it comes to thinking about "heaven," we, with our finite minds, do not even know how to ask the correct questions. Mankind (religious people particularly), thinking as they most often do, in a worldly, spatial and temporal framework, ask questions like these:
What will I be like in heaven?
What kind of body will I have?
Will I be able to recognize those I love?
What will I be doing in heaven?
Will all of my desires be fulfilled in heaven?
What kind of mental or emotional recall will I have in heaven from my time spent on earth?
How big will my "mansion" be?
Will I have more than someone else?
Will someone else have more than me?
Our questions about "heaven" are framed in such a self-oriented perspective they only reveal that we do not have a clue what heaven is all about!
Heaven is the presence of God.
God's presence always implies that He is acting in accord with His character. Heaven is only concerned about, centered upon, the other person and the Ultimate Other, God, who should be our ultimate concern in heaven.
Heaven is the presence of God.
The earliest proclamation of the gospel by Jesus Himself was "The kingdom of heaven is at hand" in Matthew 4:17, because the presence of God was at hand in Jesus Christ. In Matthew 5:2, Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Jesus explained in Matthew 16:19 that the "key" to the kingdom of heaven was the confession that "Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.” The kingdom of heaven is present whenever the King is present, for Jesus said, "the kingdom of God is in your midst" in Luke 17:21. In Ephesians 1:3 Paul explains that "God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus," in Jesus Christ. The writer to the Hebrews indicates that Christians have become "partakers of a heavenly calling" (3:1), have "tasted of the heavenly gift" (6:4), and have "come to the heavenly Jerusalem" (12:22) all in relation the presence of God the Spirit in us.
If heaven is the presence of God, then is the presence of God not actively present among us and within us right now, here on earth, as Christians? Are we not actively participating in the heavenly and spiritual expression of the character of God? Is that not what the Christian life is all about? I believe it is!
The heavenly Father is desirous of expressing His nature and character through His spiritual children, Christians, the People of God, As we presently participate in the "kingdom of heaven." The kingdom Christ died on the cross to initiate and will return again to consummate. But I declare that I am not saying that earth is heaven, or even that the church is heaven. To that I would exclaim, "Good heaven, God forbid!"
Heaven is the presence of God.
Heaven is the Consummation or completion of what Christ inaugurated or started on the cross, a continuum of the life that we now have in Christ Jesus. The life that we participate in as Christians, both now and then, presently and in the future, is the life of Jesus, eternal life; the life of the heavenly reality of the presence of God.
Heaven is the presence of God.
One old circuit preacher once turned the phrase like this, “The Creator-God so designed the creature-man so as to require the presence of the Creator-God within the creature-man in order for the creature-man to be the creature-man that the Creator-God intended the creature-man to be.” Plato even once said, “We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.”
Man is not man as God intended apart from seeking for and participating in heaven, seeking for and participating in the presence of God. Therefore, it is all the more exciting that God’s fellowship with us will be unhindered. We will forever be able to interact with him and worship him as we were designed to do. This will be the fulfillment of God’s purpose to call us, as 2 Peter 1:3 says, “to his own glory and excellence.” We will forever dwell in the presence of his glory with great joy! That is the gospel, the good news about heaven. Heaven: the presence of God in Jesus Christ. Now and forever more Amen! As the song writer testified, "Heaven came down and glory filled my soul."
Heaven is the presence of God.
Our greatest joy will be that we “will see his face.” The sight of God’s face will be the fulfillment of everything we know to be good and right and desirable in the universe. In his face, we will see and experience the fulfillment of all the longing we have ever had:
The longing for love, and power
The longing for peace, and glory
The longing for significance, and beauty,
The longing for joy, and wisdom,
The longing to know truth,
The longing for justice, holiness and goodness.
We will discover that in God’s presence there is, as Psalm 16:11 says, “fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
Perhaps the best paragraph in the whole Lord of the Rings Trilogy is when "Frodo" is honored with a song to celebrate his success in destroying the Ring of Doom.
“And all the host laughed and wept, and in the midst of their merriment and tears the clear voice of the minstrel rose like silver and gold, and all men were hushed. And he sang to them…until their hearts, wounded with sweet words, overflowed, and their joy was like swords, and they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flow together and tears are the very wine of blessedness.” (The Return of the King, 933)
Like those who listened to the minstrel’s song, we who see our Savior in the last day will also be made merry with the story of his victory, the grand narrative of the Creation, Fall, Redemption and Consummation. And we too will be hushed by and wounded with the sweet words that are sung of his self-sacrifice on our behalf. We will have joy like swords—bright and piercing—and all of the pain and loss of Christ’s death (and our daily dying with him) will only mix with and enhance our bliss. We will be, finally and forever, fully aware of the reality of the presence of God.
Stone XI - Consummation: Resurrection (fullness of Christ)
Jesus’ work did not end with his life and death. 1 Corinthians 15:14-19 tells us that if it ended there, “our preaching would be in vain. . . your faith is in vain” and “your faith is futile,” and “we are of all people most to be pitied.” However, Jesus conquered death, was raised from the grave, and ascended into heaven. This is called the resurrection.
Noah Webster’s 1828 First Edition defines resurrection as “a rising again; chiefly the revival of the dead of the human race, or their return from the grave, particularly at the general judgment.” And the truth of the resurrection of Christ, as the first-born among many brothers, changes the way we think about life, death and eternity.
I. Jesus’ Resurrection
“But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.
For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ, the first-fruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power.
For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For he "has put everything under his feet." Now when it says that "everything" has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.” 1 Corinthians 15:20-28
All four gospels contain accounts of Jesus’ resurrection. Throughout the book of Acts, the apostles continually speak of Jesus’ resurrection, encouraging people to trust in him as the one who is alive and reigning in heaven. The rest of the New Testament depends entirely on the assumption that Jesus is a living, reigning Savior who is the head of the newly formed church.
Christ’s resurrection was not a simple coming back from the dead, like that of Lazarus. When Jesus was raised from the grave, he began a new kind of human life in which he had a perfect body that was no longer subject to weakness, aging, death or decay. Forty days after his resurrection, Luke 24:50-51 tells us that Jesus led his followers just outside Jerusalem “and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven.”
Once there, Jesus was “exalted at the right hand of God” (Acts 2:33). God “highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name” (Philippians 2:9). Jesus received glory and honor and authority that had never been his before as either God or man! Angelic choirs now sing praise to him, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and worth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” (Rev. 5:12) There he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
II. How should we think about life?
Again, the truth of Christ’s resurrection, then, should affect the way we think about life. Consequently, all who look to Jesus for their salvation have been “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” according to 1 Peter 1:3.
Christ earned us a new future life that is like his own. Christ’s life provides a pattern for ours. Although our bodies are not yet like his new body, our spirits have already been made alive with new resurrection power. This power of God helps us live the lives we were made to live, in at least three ways.
A. Insures our regeneration - The resurrection gives us the power to gain more and more victory over sin in our lives. Because of his victory over sin, we can consider ourselves “dead to sin.” Although we will not attain sinless perfection in this life, we know that sin no longer has dominion over us. It will not rule us or control us. Because of the resurrection, the power of the Holy Spirit enables us to do the work Jesus commissioned us to do.
B. Insures our justification - The resurrection insures our right standing before God. Paul says in Romans 4:25 that Jesus was, “raised for our justification.” When God raised Jesus from the dead, he was affirming Jesus’ work on the cross on our behalf; suffering and dying for our sins, paying the penalty and defeating death, sin and hell. The resurrection affirms that Jesus’ work is complete and he did not need to remain dead any longer. Hebrews 1:3 tells us, “After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand because his work was complete.”
C. Insures our resurrection - The resurrection of Christ means we will also experience a resurrection of our own. Since “God raised the Lord,” he “will also raise us up by his power,” according to 1 Corinthians 6:14. And 2 Corinthians 4:14 says, “he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us into his presence.” Paul says that in Jesus’ resurrection we see a picture of what is to come for us. Just as the sin and death of Adam was a picture of our sin and death, the resurrection of Christ is a picture, a foreshadowing of our resurrection. As such, everything that is true for us can be seen in the resurrection of Christ. When Jesus returns, “we shall all be changed, and our mortal bodies will be exchanged for immortal ones.” At the final resurrection, our resurrection, we will receive a new body just like the one Jesus now inhabits. Just as his resurrection lets us know what will eventually happen to us, his ascension lets us know where we will eventual go. And so we wait with eager longing for Christ’s return when we will be taken from this world into a glorious new one.
III. How should we think about death?
But someone may ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?" How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. All flesh is not the same: "Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor." 1 Corinthians 15:35-41
Is death a positive or negative thing to you? I know we all weep at the thought of leaving the things of this world that do matter, like family. I know we all have anxiety about the physical transition from this life to the next and the pain that may be involved. But how we view death tells us a lot about how we view life and eternity.
A. Believers - Death brings a completion to one part of a Christian’s sanctification. At death, a Christian’s soul is immediately made perfect and enters into the presence of God. However, it is not until Christ returns that Christians will experience the full perfection of both body and soul.
Death is not a punishment for Christians. Remember, there is “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The penalty of death for sin has been paid by Christ, and the consequences for God’s children are now only corrective or instructive. Death, in the life of the believer serves as both.
God, in his wisdom, knew it was best that Christians not experience all the benefits of salvation at once. Christians still get sick, suffer from natural disasters and fall prey to acts of evil and injustice. Christians still die. All of these results from living in a world that isn’t quite right, a world not fully free from the curse of sin.
Paul tells us that although Christ defeated death when he rose from the dead, death will be the last result of sin to be removed from this fallen world. God uses the experience of death to complete our sanctification, as a means to make us more like Christ. In fact, it is very much in line with how God works in that it is not unusual for God to use hardship and pain to bring about good.
Paul tells us in Romans 8:28, “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose.” Sometimes this pain and hardship is the result of God disciplining his children for correction and instruction. Sometimes this pain and hardship is the result of human sin or the invention of Satan. Our response of obedience is the key to God’s good, pleasing and perfect will being revealed in us.
Yet, since God works even through our experience of death to complete our sanctification, preserving our life and general comfort is not our highest goal. Obedience to God and faithfulness in every circumstance is far more important. Even in the business of the church!
That is why Paul told the Elders at Ephesus in Acts 20:24, “I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.”
Even though God uses hardships like death for a positive means in our life, it is important to remember that death is not merely natural. Those who believe there is no God think sickness and evil, injustice or death are merely natural. These things are not right, and ought not to be. Although we surely live with them now, one day all of them, even death, will be destroyed.
B. Unbelievers - When people who have rejected Christ die, their souls go immediately to eternal punishment. Their bodies remain in the ground until Christ’s return, when they will join their souls for that final “day of judgment,” as we talked about last week.
Scripture never encourages us to think that people will have a second chance to trust Christ after death. Hebrews 9:27 says, “it is appointed for each man once to die, and after that comes the judgment.” Therefore, the sorrow felt at the death of someone who we believe has rejected Christ is not a sorrow mingled with hope. When Paul thought of such people in his life, he said in Romans 9:2, “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.”
Praise God that because our salvation is one by grace, through faith in Christ, and not one of works; we often do not have complete certainty that their rejection has persevered until the end. Impending death can produce true repentance and faith.
C. Our Own Death - If you have placed you trust in Christ, the Bible encourages you to not view your own death with fear. Jesus died to “deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery,” according to Hebrews 2:15. Hear that? Fear of death is slavery.
Instead, you are to view your own death with joy, knowing that after death you will be with Christ.
Paul demonstrates this clearly in 2 Corinthians 5:8 when he writes, “We would rather be away from the body and present and at home with the Lord.” In Philippians 1:23 he makes this desire personal, “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.” If we fear death and find Paul’s words hard to believe, we must confess that to the Lord and ask that he grant us better understanding of death and greater trust in his goodness. When we die, our souls go immediately into God’s presence, though our bodies remain in the ground.
Although our souls are eternally happy in the presence of God, as we will see next week, it is still right to feel sorrow at the death of a brother or sister in Christ. Acts 8:2 tells us that when Stephen was stoned to death, “devout men . . . made great lamentation over him.” Jesus himself wept at the tomb of his friend Lazarus, both because of sorrow for his friend who died and sorrow for the pain of death that all will experience until his return.
However, the sorrow felt at the death of a believer in Christ is not a hopeless sorrow since we know that the believer has gone to be with the Lord. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 4:13, we do not “grieve as others who do not have hope.”
D. Those whom are alive - I will not spend too much time here, but it is a fact that not all will die. When Christ returns, he will finally defeat death, and will judge the living and the dead.
Our passage in 1 Corinthians 15: 50- 53 says, “I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.”
Paul encourages us in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18 saying, “For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.” So, whether we are believers or unbelievers, dead in Christ or alive at his return, the resurrection should affect the way we think about death.
IV. How should we think about eternity?
"So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven." 1 Corinthians 15:42-49
We have seen throughout, and specifically in this passage, that there are two areas in which we should think of the final resurrection consummation; the eternal soul and the resurrected body.
A. Eternal Souls - For believers in Christ, when you die, your body will remain in the ground and your soul will go immediately into the presence of God. We will rest in the non-physical presence of God, until the time when Christ returns to the earth, and we wait, as Romans 8:23-24 says, for “the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved.”
B. Resurrection Bodies - For believers in Christ, the day when Christ returns will be the final step in the application of redemption. The consummation of redemption! On that day their new, perfected bodies will be reunited with their souls.
Christ was the first, but Paul says that “at his coming” believers will also be raised in this way. All believers will receive renewed resurrection bodies just like their savior received. This process is called glorification since our bodies receive a new heavenly kind of glory. These new bodies will be imperishable, that is, they will never grow old or wear out, or ever be subject to sickness or disease. They will show no signs of aging but will instead be completely healthy and strong forever.
They will be what God originally designed them to be: far more beautiful and attractive than anything you might imagine in this age, having the excellent qualities God created us to have. They will be the living proof of the wisdom of God in creation - a creation he called very Good. And so we come full circle - from creation, through the fall and redemption, to the coming of Christ and the resurrection.
We have only one more week together, in this series. With it we will gaze upon the splendor of the reality of the eternal presence of God in all his glory. And so we do all say together, as 1 Corinthians 15: 54- 58 does, "When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: 'Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?'"
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
Noah Webster’s 1828 First Edition defines resurrection as “a rising again; chiefly the revival of the dead of the human race, or their return from the grave, particularly at the general judgment.” And the truth of the resurrection of Christ, as the first-born among many brothers, changes the way we think about life, death and eternity.
I. Jesus’ Resurrection
“But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.
For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ, the first-fruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power.
For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For he "has put everything under his feet." Now when it says that "everything" has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.” 1 Corinthians 15:20-28
All four gospels contain accounts of Jesus’ resurrection. Throughout the book of Acts, the apostles continually speak of Jesus’ resurrection, encouraging people to trust in him as the one who is alive and reigning in heaven. The rest of the New Testament depends entirely on the assumption that Jesus is a living, reigning Savior who is the head of the newly formed church.
Christ’s resurrection was not a simple coming back from the dead, like that of Lazarus. When Jesus was raised from the grave, he began a new kind of human life in which he had a perfect body that was no longer subject to weakness, aging, death or decay. Forty days after his resurrection, Luke 24:50-51 tells us that Jesus led his followers just outside Jerusalem “and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven.”
Once there, Jesus was “exalted at the right hand of God” (Acts 2:33). God “highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name” (Philippians 2:9). Jesus received glory and honor and authority that had never been his before as either God or man! Angelic choirs now sing praise to him, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and worth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” (Rev. 5:12) There he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
II. How should we think about life?
Again, the truth of Christ’s resurrection, then, should affect the way we think about life. Consequently, all who look to Jesus for their salvation have been “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” according to 1 Peter 1:3.
Christ earned us a new future life that is like his own. Christ’s life provides a pattern for ours. Although our bodies are not yet like his new body, our spirits have already been made alive with new resurrection power. This power of God helps us live the lives we were made to live, in at least three ways.
A. Insures our regeneration - The resurrection gives us the power to gain more and more victory over sin in our lives. Because of his victory over sin, we can consider ourselves “dead to sin.” Although we will not attain sinless perfection in this life, we know that sin no longer has dominion over us. It will not rule us or control us. Because of the resurrection, the power of the Holy Spirit enables us to do the work Jesus commissioned us to do.
B. Insures our justification - The resurrection insures our right standing before God. Paul says in Romans 4:25 that Jesus was, “raised for our justification.” When God raised Jesus from the dead, he was affirming Jesus’ work on the cross on our behalf; suffering and dying for our sins, paying the penalty and defeating death, sin and hell. The resurrection affirms that Jesus’ work is complete and he did not need to remain dead any longer. Hebrews 1:3 tells us, “After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand because his work was complete.”
C. Insures our resurrection - The resurrection of Christ means we will also experience a resurrection of our own. Since “God raised the Lord,” he “will also raise us up by his power,” according to 1 Corinthians 6:14. And 2 Corinthians 4:14 says, “he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us into his presence.” Paul says that in Jesus’ resurrection we see a picture of what is to come for us. Just as the sin and death of Adam was a picture of our sin and death, the resurrection of Christ is a picture, a foreshadowing of our resurrection. As such, everything that is true for us can be seen in the resurrection of Christ. When Jesus returns, “we shall all be changed, and our mortal bodies will be exchanged for immortal ones.” At the final resurrection, our resurrection, we will receive a new body just like the one Jesus now inhabits. Just as his resurrection lets us know what will eventually happen to us, his ascension lets us know where we will eventual go. And so we wait with eager longing for Christ’s return when we will be taken from this world into a glorious new one.
III. How should we think about death?
But someone may ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?" How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. All flesh is not the same: "Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor." 1 Corinthians 15:35-41
Is death a positive or negative thing to you? I know we all weep at the thought of leaving the things of this world that do matter, like family. I know we all have anxiety about the physical transition from this life to the next and the pain that may be involved. But how we view death tells us a lot about how we view life and eternity.
A. Believers - Death brings a completion to one part of a Christian’s sanctification. At death, a Christian’s soul is immediately made perfect and enters into the presence of God. However, it is not until Christ returns that Christians will experience the full perfection of both body and soul.
Death is not a punishment for Christians. Remember, there is “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The penalty of death for sin has been paid by Christ, and the consequences for God’s children are now only corrective or instructive. Death, in the life of the believer serves as both.
God, in his wisdom, knew it was best that Christians not experience all the benefits of salvation at once. Christians still get sick, suffer from natural disasters and fall prey to acts of evil and injustice. Christians still die. All of these results from living in a world that isn’t quite right, a world not fully free from the curse of sin.
Paul tells us that although Christ defeated death when he rose from the dead, death will be the last result of sin to be removed from this fallen world. God uses the experience of death to complete our sanctification, as a means to make us more like Christ. In fact, it is very much in line with how God works in that it is not unusual for God to use hardship and pain to bring about good.
Paul tells us in Romans 8:28, “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose.” Sometimes this pain and hardship is the result of God disciplining his children for correction and instruction. Sometimes this pain and hardship is the result of human sin or the invention of Satan. Our response of obedience is the key to God’s good, pleasing and perfect will being revealed in us.
Yet, since God works even through our experience of death to complete our sanctification, preserving our life and general comfort is not our highest goal. Obedience to God and faithfulness in every circumstance is far more important. Even in the business of the church!
That is why Paul told the Elders at Ephesus in Acts 20:24, “I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.”
Even though God uses hardships like death for a positive means in our life, it is important to remember that death is not merely natural. Those who believe there is no God think sickness and evil, injustice or death are merely natural. These things are not right, and ought not to be. Although we surely live with them now, one day all of them, even death, will be destroyed.
B. Unbelievers - When people who have rejected Christ die, their souls go immediately to eternal punishment. Their bodies remain in the ground until Christ’s return, when they will join their souls for that final “day of judgment,” as we talked about last week.
Scripture never encourages us to think that people will have a second chance to trust Christ after death. Hebrews 9:27 says, “it is appointed for each man once to die, and after that comes the judgment.” Therefore, the sorrow felt at the death of someone who we believe has rejected Christ is not a sorrow mingled with hope. When Paul thought of such people in his life, he said in Romans 9:2, “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.”
Praise God that because our salvation is one by grace, through faith in Christ, and not one of works; we often do not have complete certainty that their rejection has persevered until the end. Impending death can produce true repentance and faith.
C. Our Own Death - If you have placed you trust in Christ, the Bible encourages you to not view your own death with fear. Jesus died to “deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery,” according to Hebrews 2:15. Hear that? Fear of death is slavery.
Instead, you are to view your own death with joy, knowing that after death you will be with Christ.
Paul demonstrates this clearly in 2 Corinthians 5:8 when he writes, “We would rather be away from the body and present and at home with the Lord.” In Philippians 1:23 he makes this desire personal, “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.” If we fear death and find Paul’s words hard to believe, we must confess that to the Lord and ask that he grant us better understanding of death and greater trust in his goodness. When we die, our souls go immediately into God’s presence, though our bodies remain in the ground.
Although our souls are eternally happy in the presence of God, as we will see next week, it is still right to feel sorrow at the death of a brother or sister in Christ. Acts 8:2 tells us that when Stephen was stoned to death, “devout men . . . made great lamentation over him.” Jesus himself wept at the tomb of his friend Lazarus, both because of sorrow for his friend who died and sorrow for the pain of death that all will experience until his return.
However, the sorrow felt at the death of a believer in Christ is not a hopeless sorrow since we know that the believer has gone to be with the Lord. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 4:13, we do not “grieve as others who do not have hope.”
D. Those whom are alive - I will not spend too much time here, but it is a fact that not all will die. When Christ returns, he will finally defeat death, and will judge the living and the dead.
Our passage in 1 Corinthians 15: 50- 53 says, “I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.”
Paul encourages us in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18 saying, “For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.” So, whether we are believers or unbelievers, dead in Christ or alive at his return, the resurrection should affect the way we think about death.
IV. How should we think about eternity?
"So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven." 1 Corinthians 15:42-49
We have seen throughout, and specifically in this passage, that there are two areas in which we should think of the final resurrection consummation; the eternal soul and the resurrected body.
A. Eternal Souls - For believers in Christ, when you die, your body will remain in the ground and your soul will go immediately into the presence of God. We will rest in the non-physical presence of God, until the time when Christ returns to the earth, and we wait, as Romans 8:23-24 says, for “the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved.”
B. Resurrection Bodies - For believers in Christ, the day when Christ returns will be the final step in the application of redemption. The consummation of redemption! On that day their new, perfected bodies will be reunited with their souls.
Christ was the first, but Paul says that “at his coming” believers will also be raised in this way. All believers will receive renewed resurrection bodies just like their savior received. This process is called glorification since our bodies receive a new heavenly kind of glory. These new bodies will be imperishable, that is, they will never grow old or wear out, or ever be subject to sickness or disease. They will show no signs of aging but will instead be completely healthy and strong forever.
They will be what God originally designed them to be: far more beautiful and attractive than anything you might imagine in this age, having the excellent qualities God created us to have. They will be the living proof of the wisdom of God in creation - a creation he called very Good. And so we come full circle - from creation, through the fall and redemption, to the coming of Christ and the resurrection.
We have only one more week together, in this series. With it we will gaze upon the splendor of the reality of the eternal presence of God in all his glory. And so we do all say together, as 1 Corinthians 15: 54- 58 does, "When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: 'Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?'"
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
Stone X Consummation: Return of the King
We have now covered everything that is and everything that should be in the life of a believer. We now look forward with grand expectation to what will be, the consummation of the Kingdom of Christ; the return of Christ to sit in authority on his throne, the resurrection of the dead when we will attain the fullness of Christ, and Heaven, the eternal comfortable presence of God.
We will start today by looking at the return of Christ as Lord, both in this life and the life to come, and how we ought to respond to that authority. Again, everything that we have looked at until now is the past or the present, this is the future. There have been many debates in the history of the church over questions regarding the future. These debates led to a great deal of study of the “Last Things,” or “Eschatology.” Eschatology comes from the Greek eschatos (which means last) and is therefore the study of last things.
I. The Return of Christ
Jesus told the disciples that he would return to earth a second time in John 14:3, “I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”
While it is clear from this and a host of other passages, like Acts 1:11, 1 Thess. 4:16, Hebrews 9:28, 2 Peter 3:10, 1 John 3:2, that Jesus himself will return, these passages also make it clear, as Mark 13:32 does, that “no one knows” the exact time of that return, for “the son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect,” according to Matthew 24:44. Although no one can know the time or day of Christ return, we can respond as John did in Revelation 22:20 when he heard Christ say, “Surely I am coming soon.” John’s appropriate response was “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”
II. The Events of the Return
Much of the disagreement within the church regarding Jesus’ return deals directly with the interpretation of one Bible passage in Revelation 20:1-10;
"Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while.
Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.
And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever."
Now I am no expert in these things. I have not studied Revelation significantly, and I think there is a lot of stuff in the “what is” and “what should be” categories that I have to get right before I dwell on “what is to be.” However, it is important for us to have some understanding of the issues in order to be able to give an account for the hope we have in Christ, for it is a future hope! The specific disagreement has to do with the thousand years that John mentions. Many Christians term this thousand years stage “the millennium,” and they usually take one of three views.
A. Premillennial View says the millennium will come suddenly, and Jesus will return before the millennium.
B. Amillennial View says the millennium is now, that we are within the thousand years, and when it ends, Jesus will return.
C. Postmillenial View says the millennium will come gradually, and Jesus will return after the millennium.
It is perhaps not surprising that Christians have differences over their views of the future. The future can be somewhat unclear to us since by definition, it has not yet happened! However there are several things about the coming of Christ that all Christians have agreed upon.
1. All Christians believe that the final victory of Christ over Satan (described in verses 7-10) will occur in the future.
2. They believe Satan will be released from his prison to gather together for battle those whom he has deceived.
3. At that final battle, Jesus will defeat Satan and his army once and for all.
4. At the end of the battle, Satan will be thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where he will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
These are things upon which we can agree and take great hope in because Jesus told John in Revelation 22:6 that his words “are trustworthy and true.”
III. The Affects of Christ Return
While we can not know when Christ will return, and there is some debate about some of the details of his return, we can be sure of the affects of Christ’s return. Jesus said in Revelation 22:12, “I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done.” After a thousand year reign of Christ, and after the final defeat of Satan and his army, Jesus will judge all mankind from his great white throne according to Revelation 20:11-15.
"Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. 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."
Jesus “will judge the world in righteousness” as Acts 17 says. He “is the one appointed by God to be the judge of the living and the dead” (Acts 10:42). His “authority to execute judgment” was given to him by God (John 5:27). Revelation 11:18 makes clear that this “time for the dead to be judged” will be a time for rewarding God’s servants, and a time for “destroying the destroyers of the earth.”
Therefore, this will be a time when both those who believe in Jesus and those who do not believe will be judged. Paul says in Romans 2:6-10, He will render to each one according to his works: "to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek."
Let’s be clear, this is not talking about salvation, this is the judgment of unbelievers for punishment and the judgment of believers for reward!
A. The Judgment of the Unbelievers - For those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There was an assurance in the Old Testament, in Ecclesiastes 12:14, that “God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.” Those who have not looked to Jesus, by grace through faith alone, for their salvation will be judged according to what they have done.
God will be fair. The degree of punishment will vary according to what each person has done, for Luke 20:47 says “some will receive the greater condemnation.”
According to Jesus himself, when teaching on the difference between eh servant who knew his master’s will and the one who did not, in Luke 12:47-48, the punishment will also vary according to how much knowledge people had of God’s requirements. They will all be punished severely and eternally, but according to their works.
B. The Judgment of the Believer - This is what Bro. Otis always called the end of life performance review. In fact, Romans 14:10-12 says, “Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written, ‘As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.’
So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. There will be eternal life for every believer, and glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good. This final judgment will not be one of punishment, but of reward. We will be brought under great conviction as God reveals to us who he created us to be and who he called us to be in Christ, and we become painfully aware of how far short we have fallen. We will be overwhelmed with the greatness of his mercy and grace towards us. And then he will wipe away every tear . . . for Romans 1:8 declares, “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.”
Therefore, this judgment should not be one of fear for the believer, but one of encouragement. It should motivate us beyond all things to make it our aim as 2 Corinthians 5:9-10 says, “So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.”
Although there will be degrees of reward in heaven, everyone’s joy will be complete, because our awareness of grace will be acute, and our joy will not come from what we possess, or our status, but from our relationship with God. As it should be in this life! In Heaven, as we will see in a couple of weeks, our joy in fully delighting in God, our joy in being able to be in his presence and fall down before his throne to worship him, will be greater than the joy found in any reward! Instead of jealousy or a spirit of competition, the fact that we will receive a reward for what we have done should spur us on to “consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near,” as Hebrews 10:24-25 says.
The rewards to be had are not finite. If I get one that does not mean there is one less for you to get. We are all in this together and should be cheering each other on to please God and receive the blessing of God both in this life and the life to come!
C. The Purpose of Final Judgment - This final judgment does not take place so that God can determine the condition of each person’s heart. The final judgment will take place so that God can display his glory to all mankind by demonstrating his justice and mercy simultaneously, just as he did at the cross.
The final judgment will be so entirely fair that each person, whether destined for eternal glory or condemnation, will be dealt with more fairly than at any previous time. So much so, even those who suffer the punishment of hell will find the judgment against them as just, as every knee will bow! 1 Peter 1:17 says God will, “judge impartially according to each one’s deeds, for Romans 2:11 says, “God shows no partiality.” James 2:1 says that we should follow this example of the impartiality of Christ, “My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.” We should see people the way God sees them, particularly not according to their wealth!
God will be so glorified in his final judgment that Revelation 19:1-2 says we will shout with a great multitude "Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just; for he has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality, and has avenged on her the blood of his servants."
D. The Application of the Final Judgment - Because there is a final judgment, we can have great hope in several assurances, without which there would be no hope in faith in Christ at all.
1. In the Final Judgment we are assured that God’s universe is fair. It satisfies our need for justice in the world.
2. In the Final Judgment we are assured that God is in control; no matter what happens, he will eventually bring about a right end to every situation.
3. In the Final Judgment we are assured that every believer should be able to forgive one another freely. For in it, we know that all accounts will be settled on that day and all wrongs will be made right.
4. In the Final Judgment we are assured that we are free from the spirit of revenge. Christians should never seek to avenge themselves, but instead “leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord,” as Romans 12:19 reminds us. When we are wronged, we can take the desire for justice to God, asking the he work it out on our behalf. We can be sure that he is just and Christ died for sin so that we do not have to. Punishment will either fall on the shoulders of Christ or on the shoulders of the offender for all eternity. We must then demonstrate mercy to others as Christ does to us, and display grace to others as Christ does to us. We must, as Jesus teaches, ask God to forgive us our sins in the same measure that we forgive those who sin against us. We must follow the example of Christ, for “when he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly,” as 1 Peter 2:23 reminds us.
Because there is a final judgment, we can also have great motivation to live each day in obedience to God and thus to “lay up treasures in heaven,” as Matthew 6:20 tells us. Even though these treasures do not earn us our salvation, they do reward us for the good we have done. More than any earthly reward or treasure ever could.
Because there is a final judgment, we have an encouragement to tell others about the good news of Jesus. God “does not wish that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance,” (2 Peter 3:9). Therefore, those who believe in Jesus should share the good news of what they believe with others.
The Bible’s clear warnings of final judgment should encourage us as believers to turn from their sin and turn to Christ alone for their salvation, by grace alone through faith alone. Finally, because of the final judgment, those who have rejected Jesus and his message will go to a place of eternal punishment the Bible calls hell. The Bible’s descriptions of hell are difficult to read, and they should be deeply disturbing to us. While we who truly believe in Christ should have no fear of hell, we should still think of it only with great solemnity and sadness.
Even God himself says, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” Still, the wicked must perish. As hard as it is to think about, the doctrine of hell is so clearly taught is Scripture that there is no way to escape it and remain true to God’s word. In a universe like ours where there is deep and profound evil that calls forth the just wrath of a righteous, holy God, evil can not simply go unpunished. All of God’s judgments are just and right, because “the Lord is upright . . . there is no unrighteousness in him.”
And so we say, with loud and often desperate voices, “Come, Lord Jesus come!” And in the while, let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, cheering each other on to please God and receive the blessings of God both in this life and the life to come!
We will start today by looking at the return of Christ as Lord, both in this life and the life to come, and how we ought to respond to that authority. Again, everything that we have looked at until now is the past or the present, this is the future. There have been many debates in the history of the church over questions regarding the future. These debates led to a great deal of study of the “Last Things,” or “Eschatology.” Eschatology comes from the Greek eschatos (which means last) and is therefore the study of last things.
I. The Return of Christ
Jesus told the disciples that he would return to earth a second time in John 14:3, “I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”
While it is clear from this and a host of other passages, like Acts 1:11, 1 Thess. 4:16, Hebrews 9:28, 2 Peter 3:10, 1 John 3:2, that Jesus himself will return, these passages also make it clear, as Mark 13:32 does, that “no one knows” the exact time of that return, for “the son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect,” according to Matthew 24:44. Although no one can know the time or day of Christ return, we can respond as John did in Revelation 22:20 when he heard Christ say, “Surely I am coming soon.” John’s appropriate response was “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”
II. The Events of the Return
Much of the disagreement within the church regarding Jesus’ return deals directly with the interpretation of one Bible passage in Revelation 20:1-10;
"Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while.
Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.
And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever."
Now I am no expert in these things. I have not studied Revelation significantly, and I think there is a lot of stuff in the “what is” and “what should be” categories that I have to get right before I dwell on “what is to be.” However, it is important for us to have some understanding of the issues in order to be able to give an account for the hope we have in Christ, for it is a future hope! The specific disagreement has to do with the thousand years that John mentions. Many Christians term this thousand years stage “the millennium,” and they usually take one of three views.
A. Premillennial View says the millennium will come suddenly, and Jesus will return before the millennium.
B. Amillennial View says the millennium is now, that we are within the thousand years, and when it ends, Jesus will return.
C. Postmillenial View says the millennium will come gradually, and Jesus will return after the millennium.
It is perhaps not surprising that Christians have differences over their views of the future. The future can be somewhat unclear to us since by definition, it has not yet happened! However there are several things about the coming of Christ that all Christians have agreed upon.
1. All Christians believe that the final victory of Christ over Satan (described in verses 7-10) will occur in the future.
2. They believe Satan will be released from his prison to gather together for battle those whom he has deceived.
3. At that final battle, Jesus will defeat Satan and his army once and for all.
4. At the end of the battle, Satan will be thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where he will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
These are things upon which we can agree and take great hope in because Jesus told John in Revelation 22:6 that his words “are trustworthy and true.”
III. The Affects of Christ Return
While we can not know when Christ will return, and there is some debate about some of the details of his return, we can be sure of the affects of Christ’s return. Jesus said in Revelation 22:12, “I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done.” After a thousand year reign of Christ, and after the final defeat of Satan and his army, Jesus will judge all mankind from his great white throne according to Revelation 20:11-15.
"Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. 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."
Jesus “will judge the world in righteousness” as Acts 17 says. He “is the one appointed by God to be the judge of the living and the dead” (Acts 10:42). His “authority to execute judgment” was given to him by God (John 5:27). Revelation 11:18 makes clear that this “time for the dead to be judged” will be a time for rewarding God’s servants, and a time for “destroying the destroyers of the earth.”
Therefore, this will be a time when both those who believe in Jesus and those who do not believe will be judged. Paul says in Romans 2:6-10, He will render to each one according to his works: "to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek."
Let’s be clear, this is not talking about salvation, this is the judgment of unbelievers for punishment and the judgment of believers for reward!
A. The Judgment of the Unbelievers - For those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There was an assurance in the Old Testament, in Ecclesiastes 12:14, that “God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.” Those who have not looked to Jesus, by grace through faith alone, for their salvation will be judged according to what they have done.
God will be fair. The degree of punishment will vary according to what each person has done, for Luke 20:47 says “some will receive the greater condemnation.”
According to Jesus himself, when teaching on the difference between eh servant who knew his master’s will and the one who did not, in Luke 12:47-48, the punishment will also vary according to how much knowledge people had of God’s requirements. They will all be punished severely and eternally, but according to their works.
B. The Judgment of the Believer - This is what Bro. Otis always called the end of life performance review. In fact, Romans 14:10-12 says, “Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written, ‘As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.’
So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. There will be eternal life for every believer, and glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good. This final judgment will not be one of punishment, but of reward. We will be brought under great conviction as God reveals to us who he created us to be and who he called us to be in Christ, and we become painfully aware of how far short we have fallen. We will be overwhelmed with the greatness of his mercy and grace towards us. And then he will wipe away every tear . . . for Romans 1:8 declares, “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.”
Therefore, this judgment should not be one of fear for the believer, but one of encouragement. It should motivate us beyond all things to make it our aim as 2 Corinthians 5:9-10 says, “So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.”
Although there will be degrees of reward in heaven, everyone’s joy will be complete, because our awareness of grace will be acute, and our joy will not come from what we possess, or our status, but from our relationship with God. As it should be in this life! In Heaven, as we will see in a couple of weeks, our joy in fully delighting in God, our joy in being able to be in his presence and fall down before his throne to worship him, will be greater than the joy found in any reward! Instead of jealousy or a spirit of competition, the fact that we will receive a reward for what we have done should spur us on to “consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near,” as Hebrews 10:24-25 says.
The rewards to be had are not finite. If I get one that does not mean there is one less for you to get. We are all in this together and should be cheering each other on to please God and receive the blessing of God both in this life and the life to come!
C. The Purpose of Final Judgment - This final judgment does not take place so that God can determine the condition of each person’s heart. The final judgment will take place so that God can display his glory to all mankind by demonstrating his justice and mercy simultaneously, just as he did at the cross.
The final judgment will be so entirely fair that each person, whether destined for eternal glory or condemnation, will be dealt with more fairly than at any previous time. So much so, even those who suffer the punishment of hell will find the judgment against them as just, as every knee will bow! 1 Peter 1:17 says God will, “judge impartially according to each one’s deeds, for Romans 2:11 says, “God shows no partiality.” James 2:1 says that we should follow this example of the impartiality of Christ, “My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.” We should see people the way God sees them, particularly not according to their wealth!
God will be so glorified in his final judgment that Revelation 19:1-2 says we will shout with a great multitude "Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just; for he has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality, and has avenged on her the blood of his servants."
D. The Application of the Final Judgment - Because there is a final judgment, we can have great hope in several assurances, without which there would be no hope in faith in Christ at all.
1. In the Final Judgment we are assured that God’s universe is fair. It satisfies our need for justice in the world.
2. In the Final Judgment we are assured that God is in control; no matter what happens, he will eventually bring about a right end to every situation.
3. In the Final Judgment we are assured that every believer should be able to forgive one another freely. For in it, we know that all accounts will be settled on that day and all wrongs will be made right.
4. In the Final Judgment we are assured that we are free from the spirit of revenge. Christians should never seek to avenge themselves, but instead “leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord,” as Romans 12:19 reminds us. When we are wronged, we can take the desire for justice to God, asking the he work it out on our behalf. We can be sure that he is just and Christ died for sin so that we do not have to. Punishment will either fall on the shoulders of Christ or on the shoulders of the offender for all eternity. We must then demonstrate mercy to others as Christ does to us, and display grace to others as Christ does to us. We must, as Jesus teaches, ask God to forgive us our sins in the same measure that we forgive those who sin against us. We must follow the example of Christ, for “when he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly,” as 1 Peter 2:23 reminds us.
Because there is a final judgment, we can also have great motivation to live each day in obedience to God and thus to “lay up treasures in heaven,” as Matthew 6:20 tells us. Even though these treasures do not earn us our salvation, they do reward us for the good we have done. More than any earthly reward or treasure ever could.
Because there is a final judgment, we have an encouragement to tell others about the good news of Jesus. God “does not wish that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance,” (2 Peter 3:9). Therefore, those who believe in Jesus should share the good news of what they believe with others.
The Bible’s clear warnings of final judgment should encourage us as believers to turn from their sin and turn to Christ alone for their salvation, by grace alone through faith alone. Finally, because of the final judgment, those who have rejected Jesus and his message will go to a place of eternal punishment the Bible calls hell. The Bible’s descriptions of hell are difficult to read, and they should be deeply disturbing to us. While we who truly believe in Christ should have no fear of hell, we should still think of it only with great solemnity and sadness.
Even God himself says, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” Still, the wicked must perish. As hard as it is to think about, the doctrine of hell is so clearly taught is Scripture that there is no way to escape it and remain true to God’s word. In a universe like ours where there is deep and profound evil that calls forth the just wrath of a righteous, holy God, evil can not simply go unpunished. All of God’s judgments are just and right, because “the Lord is upright . . . there is no unrighteousness in him.”
And so we say, with loud and often desperate voices, “Come, Lord Jesus come!” And in the while, let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, cheering each other on to please God and receive the blessings of God both in this life and the life to come!
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Family Ministry Summer
What a glorious summer it has been! As most of you know, the focus this summer has been on implementing a Family Ministry plan at Bush Memorial that we hope to be able to use as a comprehensive example and learning tool as we help churches transition to a family equipping ministry model. This past Sunday represented the official end of the summer of emphasis. However, the foundation that was lain will serve as a model for doing ministry, both at Bush Memorial and hundreds of other churches, for years to come.
What we learned this summer is something we already believed to be true, family ministry is not programs, or ministry elements, and it is certainly not just about events. Family ministry and a family equipping ministry model is an attitude or ethos. It is not something you do, it is something you believe. That sounds like biblical Christianity doesn’t it?
That is why we believe that the biblical, family equipping, model that seeks to produce a faith handed down from one generation to the next, through Parents filling their primary role as the spiritual mentors of their children and older men discipling younger men, is so compelling to this generation; because it is authentic, corporate faith that is active, distinct, generational and missional.
Because this kind of family ministry model is so comprehensive, it requires that people see beyond the individual ministry elements to the biblical core. A way of doing ministry that is generational requires believers put aside themselves and a generation of self-help, entertainment driven, consumer based ministry and take up anew an ancient idea of ministry that is grounded in service and sacrifice.
We believe that is why the best elements that we implemented this summer produced real fruit when they called people out of the normal and out of their own self-interest, and into an investment in community, multi-generational faith and service.
We have found that this requires us to put off our generational arrogance, which is the idea that one generation has an attitude of superiority that manifest itself in presumptuous claims or assumptions. It most often refers to a younger generation’s propensity to think it has all of the answers, or an older generations propensity to think it was all better in the old days.
We have also found that it requires us to put on an attitude of generational faithfulness, which is the idea of passing down one’s spiritual heritage from one generation to the next as a means of continuing, or beginning, a heritage of God-honoring, Christ-serving, kingdom-advancing children, grandchildren, great grandchildren.
That is why the central idea of this entire family ministry summer is that we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, but our legacy will be defined by what we produce in those who follow behind. We either believe that or we do not. I believe that generational faithfulness is fundamental to the survival and influence of the Church. I believe it is fundamental to the survival and influence of the family. I believe God established those two institutions as the stewards of all we know and believe as followers of Christ, and I pray you will work with us to share these principles with others.
What we learned this summer is something we already believed to be true, family ministry is not programs, or ministry elements, and it is certainly not just about events. Family ministry and a family equipping ministry model is an attitude or ethos. It is not something you do, it is something you believe. That sounds like biblical Christianity doesn’t it?
That is why we believe that the biblical, family equipping, model that seeks to produce a faith handed down from one generation to the next, through Parents filling their primary role as the spiritual mentors of their children and older men discipling younger men, is so compelling to this generation; because it is authentic, corporate faith that is active, distinct, generational and missional.
Because this kind of family ministry model is so comprehensive, it requires that people see beyond the individual ministry elements to the biblical core. A way of doing ministry that is generational requires believers put aside themselves and a generation of self-help, entertainment driven, consumer based ministry and take up anew an ancient idea of ministry that is grounded in service and sacrifice.
We believe that is why the best elements that we implemented this summer produced real fruit when they called people out of the normal and out of their own self-interest, and into an investment in community, multi-generational faith and service.
We have found that this requires us to put off our generational arrogance, which is the idea that one generation has an attitude of superiority that manifest itself in presumptuous claims or assumptions. It most often refers to a younger generation’s propensity to think it has all of the answers, or an older generations propensity to think it was all better in the old days.
We have also found that it requires us to put on an attitude of generational faithfulness, which is the idea of passing down one’s spiritual heritage from one generation to the next as a means of continuing, or beginning, a heritage of God-honoring, Christ-serving, kingdom-advancing children, grandchildren, great grandchildren.
That is why the central idea of this entire family ministry summer is that we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, but our legacy will be defined by what we produce in those who follow behind. We either believe that or we do not. I believe that generational faithfulness is fundamental to the survival and influence of the Church. I believe it is fundamental to the survival and influence of the family. I believe God established those two institutions as the stewards of all we know and believe as followers of Christ, and I pray you will work with us to share these principles with others.
Stone VIII - Redemption: Faith
As we establish our altar of remembrance, we have heard the stories of Creation and The Fall.
We began our third movement last time, Redemption. Redemption is the idea of salvation used to express deliverance from sin. We are looking at redemption in three parts that make up the fundamental statement of Christian belief, that salvation comes by Grace alone, through Faith alone, in Christ alone.
Last time we started by looking intently on the glory of God’s grace. Grace and the atonement explain why and how God himself makes a way for our salvation, through Christ, and actually regenerates us by the work of the Holy Spirit, imparting new spiritual life within.
This week we will examine our appropriate response to the gospel call, justification by faith. We pick up where Paul concludes Romans 3 by saying, “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” He then uses Abraham as an example of how believers were saved in the Old Testament through faith by quoting Genesis 15:6, “Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness” in Romans 4:1-8.
Paul applies the salvation by grace through faith formulation to those who share Abraham’s faith through the rest of the chapter and clearly concludes in 5:1-2 “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 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.”
I. Our Response
Conversion is our willing response to the gospel call, in which we sincerely repent of sins and place our faith in Christ for salvation. The word conversion itself means “turning.” For us it represents a spiritual turning from sin to the person and work of Christ.
The turning to Christ is called faith. The turning from sin is called repentance.
A. Faith - What is faith? Faith is term that we throw around in the Christian world in a way that if you really listen, it leads you to believe that we have no idea what it really is. The primary misconception is that faith is an object in itself. So many times in our culture we talk about faith as though faith were the thing, as if we were placing our faith in faith. The result is that we quantify the object. It becomes about having more faith, and we are told we need to have more faith. That is a lie.
Faith is not the object, God is! And the key is not to have more faith, but to place your faith in God. Jesus did say to the disciples when they asked why they had failed cast out a demon that it was, "Because of your little faith.” However, He continues “For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”
What Jesus was saying was that the object of their faith was small, but that the smallest amount of faith placed in the right object has infinite power. You don’t need more faith you need faith placed in the right object. If you are a believer, then you have enough faith. For can the same faith that saved you from eternal hell not accomplish all things in Christ?
Saving faith is trusting in the work of Jesus Christ as a living person for forgiveness of sins and eternal life in the comfortable presence of God. Faith is not an object or a quantity. So, what is the nature of faith?
1. The Nature of Faith - is an acceptance of truth and trust in the promise of that truth. Therefore, it is knowledge, acceptance, and personal trust. Personal saving faith, according to the testimony of Scripture, requires some knowledge of the person and work of Christ. While faith involves more than just knowledge, it is necessary to have some understanding of who Christ is and what he has done, for Romans 10:14 says, “how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?”
Knowledge about the facts of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection are important and we should do everything in our power to make sure our children and grandchildren have a working knowledge of those facts. However, knowledge of those facts is not enough. People can know the facts and rebel against them. Even more, merely knowing and accepting the facts, or agreeing that they are true, is not enough. Each of us must decide to depend on Jesus to save us personally.
In addition to knowledge of the facts, and approval of them as true, I must decide to depend on the promise of the truth for salvation. Belief must produce the action of faith, which is trust in the person and work of Christ as the object of our faith.
2. Object of Faith - Faith is personal trust in Christ alone to save me. Because saving faith in Scripture involves personal trust, trust is often a much better word in our culture than faith or belief. The reason is that in our contemporary use of language we can “believe” something to be true without having any personal commitment or dependence involved in it. That is where far too many professing Christians actually live today. They have knowledge of the truth and profess to believe it, without any real personal dependence on it or trust in it. Therefore, they live most of their lives as though what they profess to believe is not really real! The word “faith” is often used in our culture to refer to an almost irrational commitment to something in spite of strong evidence to the contrary. It communicates a sort of irrational decision to believe something that we are quite sure is not true!
In these two popular senses, belief and faith have a meaning contrary to the biblical idea. Our use of trust is much closer to the biblical idea, of Christ as the object of faith. With this understanding of true NT faith, we can appreciate that when a person comes to trust in Christ, all three elements must be in place; some basic knowledge of the facts of the gospel, agreement with these facts as truth, and a decision of the will to depend on, or put my trust in Christ alone as my savior.
This personal decision is a matter of the heart, the central faculty that makes commitments for our being.
B. Repentance - Not only must there be a turning to Christ in faith for salvation to be real and conversion to be true and complete, but there must also be a turning from sin, or repentance. We may define repentance as a heartfelt sorrow for sin, a renouncing of it, and a sincere commitment to forsake it and walk in obedience to Christ. This definition indicates that repentance is something that can occur at a specific time and is not equivalent to a demonstration of change in a person’s life. To say that someone has to actually live that changed life over a period of time before repentance can be genuine, turns repentance into a work of obedience that would merit salvation.
Of course, genuine repentance will result in a changed life, and a truly repentant person will begin at once to live a changed life that we can call the fruit of repentance. In order to pass on from generation to generation the reality of the gospel, in our families and in the local church, we must regularly call ourselves to repentance. I believe there are three categories in which people should be called to repentance; believing sinners, unbelieving sinners and religious people.
1. Believing sinners should be called to repentance by acknowledging that they sin by both omission and commission in their thoughts, words, deeds and motives. These people are the easiest to call to repentance because they desire to adjust their lives to the will and pleasure of God. By the power of the Spirit, in the community of the church, they can change their deeds, out of their newness of heart, as God grants them “repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.” The next two are much more difficult.
2. Unbelieving sinners should be called to gospel repentance, which fundamentally means changing their mind about who God is and what is really important. Through the gospel they come into loving relationship with Jesus. Then their lives change out of their new heart-level love for the Lord. Like Paul, we proclaim that “they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance.”
3. Religious people should be called to repentance for their religion. Religion attempts to attain righteousness apart from or in addition to the gift-righteousness given through the cross of Jesus. This is where most of us live. Religion seeks righteousness through goodness and religious devotion, mostly to various unbiblical legalisms and liberalisms.
I believe there are at least three reasons why we must call both the lost and the religious to repent as part of generational faithfulness; for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of unbelievers, because of the example of Jesus.
1. For the sake of the gospel both lost sinners and religious people ought to be called to repent because both pursue righteousness apart from Jesus’ grace, which is an offense to the gospel. We mock the cross when we live as though we can be good enough, or as if we deserve to be saved!
2. For the sake of unbelievers both the lost and religious should be called to repentance because if only the lost are called to repent, they wrongly think that the church is trying to make them into religious people. Far too often, they are right, while religious people fail to see that they are sinners too who need to repent and live humbly by grace.
3. Because of the example of Jesus both lost sinners and religious people ought to be called to repentance because it was religious leaders whom Jesus most sharply rebuked and was by whom he was most violently opposed.
Some of you, even now are upset in your spirit because I would suggest that you need to repent.
Though I have not called your name, you can be sure I am talking about you, because that is the Spirit, in the community of the church, calling you to turn from your selfish pride, humbly to the Lordship of Jesus. Or would you say you have no sin, and make God a liar!
Jesus said to the religious leaders of his day, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!”
“For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.” (Matthew 23)
If we are to follow the example of Jesus, we must be just as forthright with the religious, as with the lost, while accepting that they will most likely be our most vocal critics and opponents. To be an example of what a believer should look like, as Paul urges Timothy to do, leaders should openly confess their struggles and failures as sin in the hope of establishing a culture of humility and honest repentance in the church that gives everyone an opportunity to follow the leaders in personally acknowledging their need for Jesus’ saving, forgiving, and transforming grace.
C. Faith and Repentance work together - Scripture puts repentance and faith together as different aspects of the one act of coming to Christ. They both must occur simultaneously, as we turn away from sin, we turn to Christ, and as we turn to Christ, we rightly turn away from sin. They are two sides to the same coin of conversion. Neither comes first and they must come together. Therefore, it is contrary to the New Testament to speak about having true saving faith without having repentance, and also to speak about the possibility of someone accepting Christ as savior but not as Lord.
When we realize that genuine saving faith must be accompanied by genuine repentance for sin, it helps us to understand why so much preaching of the gospel today produces inadequate results - a generation of people who claim to believe, but who demonstrate no real faith in Christ in their daily lives.
Although we have been considering initial faith and repentance as the two aspects of conversion, or redemption, it is important to emphasize that faith and repentance are not confined to the beginning of the Christian life. They are rather attitudes of heart that continue to be acted out throughout our lives as believers.
Jesus tells his disciples in Matthew 6:12 to pray daily, “Forgive us our sins as we also have forgiven those who sin against us.” Therefore, although it is true that initial saving faith and initial saving repentance occur only once in our lives, and when they occur constitute true conversion, the ongoing heart actions of repentance and faith only begin at conversion. They should continue throughout life, and I believe become more acute as we mature spiritually. Each day there should be a heartfelt repentance for sins that we have committed, and faith in Christ to provide for our needs and to empower us to live the life of a true believer.
II. Definition of Justification
There is but one thing left in this idea of salvation by grace through faith. Once God has made the offer of salvation by His grace and we have responded through faith and repentance, there is forgiveness for our sins.
However, we are still not righteous before God. As we talked about when discussing grace, we still need the redemption that we have in Christ to be applied to us so that God can respond to our faith and do what He promised, that is, actually declare our sins forgiven.
This idea is called justification; a legal declaration concerning our relationship to God’s laws, stating that we are completely right before God and his law and no longer liable to punishment. A right understanding of justification is absolutely critical to the whole Christian faith. It is the dividing line between the biblical gospel of salvation by grace through faith alone in Christ and all false gospels of salvation based on good works.
A. Legal - The use of the term ‘justify’ in Scripture indicates that this is a legal declaration by God. This is most clearly seen in Scripture as it contrasts justification with condemnation.
Paul says in Romans 8:33-34, “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies; who is to condemn?”
To condemn is to declare a person guilty. The opposite of condemn then is justify, which, in this context, means “to declare someone not guilty.” This, by its very nature is a legal transaction.
Though we have been declared innocent, we are not to be confused. We still sin and are sinful by nature. God has declared us to be not guilty because Christ has paid the price for that sin, and through faith we have received that payment.
B. Declaration - In God’s legal declaration of justification, he specifically declares that we are just in his sight. This declaration involves two aspects.
1. It means that we have no penalty to pay for sin, including past present and future sins.
2. It means that God must not only declare us to be neutral in his sight, but as we have talked about many times before, that he declare us to be righteous in his sight.
III. How does God do it?
How can God declare that we have no penalty to pay for sin and that he views us as having perfect righteousness, even though we know that we are in fact guilty sinners?
A. Imputation - Remember before we have talked about the idea of imputation.
Adam’s sin imputed to us at the fall. Christ suffered and died for our sins and our sins were imputed to Christ on the cross.
Now, we see imputation for a third time. Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us, and therefore God thinks of it as belonging to us. God thinks of Christ’s righteousness as belonging to us, or regards it as belonging to us. He reckons it to our account. Because of this idea of imputation, God can apply our sin to the account of Christ and apply his righteousness to our account, so that we might be saved, and this is applied to us by faith.
B. Through Our Faith in Christ - Faith is the instrument that God chose to use in order that we might be able to receive the justification earned by the grace of God through Christ Jesus.
1. Faith is an instrument not a work. Scripture never says that we are justified because of the inherent goodness of our faith, or the quantity of it, as we have mentioned. It never allows us to think that our faith earns us favor with God in any way.
Rather, Scripture says that we are justified by means of our faith, understanding faith to be the instrument through which justification is given to us. We are justified solely on the merits of Christ’s righteousness that is given to us, not on any righteousness of our own, for we have none. 2. God chose Faith as the instrument by which justification could be given (instead of love, joy, contentment, humility, or wisdom) because faith is the one attitude of heart that is exact opposite of depending on our self. When we come to Christ in faith, we say, “I surrender, I will not depend on myself any longer. I know I can never make myself righteous before God. Jesus, I trust you and depend on you completely to give me right standing before God.”
3. Practical Implications that result from this central idea are very important.
First, this doctrine allows us to offer real hope to unbelievers. If salvation is a free gift to be received by faith alone, than anyone who hears this gospel may hope that eternal life is freely offered and may be obtained in Christ.
Second, this doctrine gives us confidence that God will never make us pay the penalty for sins that have been forgiven in Christ. We may continue to suffer temporal consequences and God may discipline us, in love, if we continue to walk in disobedience. However, God never can or will take vengeance, or exercise his wrath on us for our sins once covered by the blood of Christ.
Third, this doctrine of justification by faith gives us the privilege of adoption. This is the act whereby God makes us, at the time of our conversion, members of his family. John presents salvation as adoption at the beginning of the gospel, where he says in John 1:12, “But to all who receive him, who TRUST in his name, he gave the power to become children of God.”
The New Testament epistles bear repeated testimony to the fact that we are now God’s children in a special sense, members of his family. And if we are God’s children, are we not then related to one another as family members? That is why the idea of generational faithfulness is so important. Not because it is our plan, or simply because it helps families, but because it is the plan of God from the beginning!
In a sense it is still future tense, in that we will not receive the full benefits until Christ returns and we ourselves have been resurrected. But as we have hope in the knowledge of Truth, confidence in the acceptance or understanding of the Truth, we also have personal trust in the eternal promise of that Truth.
We began our third movement last time, Redemption. Redemption is the idea of salvation used to express deliverance from sin. We are looking at redemption in three parts that make up the fundamental statement of Christian belief, that salvation comes by Grace alone, through Faith alone, in Christ alone.
Last time we started by looking intently on the glory of God’s grace. Grace and the atonement explain why and how God himself makes a way for our salvation, through Christ, and actually regenerates us by the work of the Holy Spirit, imparting new spiritual life within.
This week we will examine our appropriate response to the gospel call, justification by faith. We pick up where Paul concludes Romans 3 by saying, “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” He then uses Abraham as an example of how believers were saved in the Old Testament through faith by quoting Genesis 15:6, “Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness” in Romans 4:1-8.
Paul applies the salvation by grace through faith formulation to those who share Abraham’s faith through the rest of the chapter and clearly concludes in 5:1-2 “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 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.”
I. Our Response
Conversion is our willing response to the gospel call, in which we sincerely repent of sins and place our faith in Christ for salvation. The word conversion itself means “turning.” For us it represents a spiritual turning from sin to the person and work of Christ.
The turning to Christ is called faith. The turning from sin is called repentance.
A. Faith - What is faith? Faith is term that we throw around in the Christian world in a way that if you really listen, it leads you to believe that we have no idea what it really is. The primary misconception is that faith is an object in itself. So many times in our culture we talk about faith as though faith were the thing, as if we were placing our faith in faith. The result is that we quantify the object. It becomes about having more faith, and we are told we need to have more faith. That is a lie.
Faith is not the object, God is! And the key is not to have more faith, but to place your faith in God. Jesus did say to the disciples when they asked why they had failed cast out a demon that it was, "Because of your little faith.” However, He continues “For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”
What Jesus was saying was that the object of their faith was small, but that the smallest amount of faith placed in the right object has infinite power. You don’t need more faith you need faith placed in the right object. If you are a believer, then you have enough faith. For can the same faith that saved you from eternal hell not accomplish all things in Christ?
Saving faith is trusting in the work of Jesus Christ as a living person for forgiveness of sins and eternal life in the comfortable presence of God. Faith is not an object or a quantity. So, what is the nature of faith?
1. The Nature of Faith - is an acceptance of truth and trust in the promise of that truth. Therefore, it is knowledge, acceptance, and personal trust. Personal saving faith, according to the testimony of Scripture, requires some knowledge of the person and work of Christ. While faith involves more than just knowledge, it is necessary to have some understanding of who Christ is and what he has done, for Romans 10:14 says, “how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?”
Knowledge about the facts of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection are important and we should do everything in our power to make sure our children and grandchildren have a working knowledge of those facts. However, knowledge of those facts is not enough. People can know the facts and rebel against them. Even more, merely knowing and accepting the facts, or agreeing that they are true, is not enough. Each of us must decide to depend on Jesus to save us personally.
In addition to knowledge of the facts, and approval of them as true, I must decide to depend on the promise of the truth for salvation. Belief must produce the action of faith, which is trust in the person and work of Christ as the object of our faith.
2. Object of Faith - Faith is personal trust in Christ alone to save me. Because saving faith in Scripture involves personal trust, trust is often a much better word in our culture than faith or belief. The reason is that in our contemporary use of language we can “believe” something to be true without having any personal commitment or dependence involved in it. That is where far too many professing Christians actually live today. They have knowledge of the truth and profess to believe it, without any real personal dependence on it or trust in it. Therefore, they live most of their lives as though what they profess to believe is not really real! The word “faith” is often used in our culture to refer to an almost irrational commitment to something in spite of strong evidence to the contrary. It communicates a sort of irrational decision to believe something that we are quite sure is not true!
In these two popular senses, belief and faith have a meaning contrary to the biblical idea. Our use of trust is much closer to the biblical idea, of Christ as the object of faith. With this understanding of true NT faith, we can appreciate that when a person comes to trust in Christ, all three elements must be in place; some basic knowledge of the facts of the gospel, agreement with these facts as truth, and a decision of the will to depend on, or put my trust in Christ alone as my savior.
This personal decision is a matter of the heart, the central faculty that makes commitments for our being.
B. Repentance - Not only must there be a turning to Christ in faith for salvation to be real and conversion to be true and complete, but there must also be a turning from sin, or repentance. We may define repentance as a heartfelt sorrow for sin, a renouncing of it, and a sincere commitment to forsake it and walk in obedience to Christ. This definition indicates that repentance is something that can occur at a specific time and is not equivalent to a demonstration of change in a person’s life. To say that someone has to actually live that changed life over a period of time before repentance can be genuine, turns repentance into a work of obedience that would merit salvation.
Of course, genuine repentance will result in a changed life, and a truly repentant person will begin at once to live a changed life that we can call the fruit of repentance. In order to pass on from generation to generation the reality of the gospel, in our families and in the local church, we must regularly call ourselves to repentance. I believe there are three categories in which people should be called to repentance; believing sinners, unbelieving sinners and religious people.
1. Believing sinners should be called to repentance by acknowledging that they sin by both omission and commission in their thoughts, words, deeds and motives. These people are the easiest to call to repentance because they desire to adjust their lives to the will and pleasure of God. By the power of the Spirit, in the community of the church, they can change their deeds, out of their newness of heart, as God grants them “repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.” The next two are much more difficult.
2. Unbelieving sinners should be called to gospel repentance, which fundamentally means changing their mind about who God is and what is really important. Through the gospel they come into loving relationship with Jesus. Then their lives change out of their new heart-level love for the Lord. Like Paul, we proclaim that “they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance.”
3. Religious people should be called to repentance for their religion. Religion attempts to attain righteousness apart from or in addition to the gift-righteousness given through the cross of Jesus. This is where most of us live. Religion seeks righteousness through goodness and religious devotion, mostly to various unbiblical legalisms and liberalisms.
I believe there are at least three reasons why we must call both the lost and the religious to repent as part of generational faithfulness; for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of unbelievers, because of the example of Jesus.
1. For the sake of the gospel both lost sinners and religious people ought to be called to repent because both pursue righteousness apart from Jesus’ grace, which is an offense to the gospel. We mock the cross when we live as though we can be good enough, or as if we deserve to be saved!
2. For the sake of unbelievers both the lost and religious should be called to repentance because if only the lost are called to repent, they wrongly think that the church is trying to make them into religious people. Far too often, they are right, while religious people fail to see that they are sinners too who need to repent and live humbly by grace.
3. Because of the example of Jesus both lost sinners and religious people ought to be called to repentance because it was religious leaders whom Jesus most sharply rebuked and was by whom he was most violently opposed.
Some of you, even now are upset in your spirit because I would suggest that you need to repent.
Though I have not called your name, you can be sure I am talking about you, because that is the Spirit, in the community of the church, calling you to turn from your selfish pride, humbly to the Lordship of Jesus. Or would you say you have no sin, and make God a liar!
Jesus said to the religious leaders of his day, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!”
“For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.” (Matthew 23)
If we are to follow the example of Jesus, we must be just as forthright with the religious, as with the lost, while accepting that they will most likely be our most vocal critics and opponents. To be an example of what a believer should look like, as Paul urges Timothy to do, leaders should openly confess their struggles and failures as sin in the hope of establishing a culture of humility and honest repentance in the church that gives everyone an opportunity to follow the leaders in personally acknowledging their need for Jesus’ saving, forgiving, and transforming grace.
C. Faith and Repentance work together - Scripture puts repentance and faith together as different aspects of the one act of coming to Christ. They both must occur simultaneously, as we turn away from sin, we turn to Christ, and as we turn to Christ, we rightly turn away from sin. They are two sides to the same coin of conversion. Neither comes first and they must come together. Therefore, it is contrary to the New Testament to speak about having true saving faith without having repentance, and also to speak about the possibility of someone accepting Christ as savior but not as Lord.
When we realize that genuine saving faith must be accompanied by genuine repentance for sin, it helps us to understand why so much preaching of the gospel today produces inadequate results - a generation of people who claim to believe, but who demonstrate no real faith in Christ in their daily lives.
Although we have been considering initial faith and repentance as the two aspects of conversion, or redemption, it is important to emphasize that faith and repentance are not confined to the beginning of the Christian life. They are rather attitudes of heart that continue to be acted out throughout our lives as believers.
Jesus tells his disciples in Matthew 6:12 to pray daily, “Forgive us our sins as we also have forgiven those who sin against us.” Therefore, although it is true that initial saving faith and initial saving repentance occur only once in our lives, and when they occur constitute true conversion, the ongoing heart actions of repentance and faith only begin at conversion. They should continue throughout life, and I believe become more acute as we mature spiritually. Each day there should be a heartfelt repentance for sins that we have committed, and faith in Christ to provide for our needs and to empower us to live the life of a true believer.
II. Definition of Justification
There is but one thing left in this idea of salvation by grace through faith. Once God has made the offer of salvation by His grace and we have responded through faith and repentance, there is forgiveness for our sins.
However, we are still not righteous before God. As we talked about when discussing grace, we still need the redemption that we have in Christ to be applied to us so that God can respond to our faith and do what He promised, that is, actually declare our sins forgiven.
This idea is called justification; a legal declaration concerning our relationship to God’s laws, stating that we are completely right before God and his law and no longer liable to punishment. A right understanding of justification is absolutely critical to the whole Christian faith. It is the dividing line between the biblical gospel of salvation by grace through faith alone in Christ and all false gospels of salvation based on good works.
A. Legal - The use of the term ‘justify’ in Scripture indicates that this is a legal declaration by God. This is most clearly seen in Scripture as it contrasts justification with condemnation.
Paul says in Romans 8:33-34, “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies; who is to condemn?”
To condemn is to declare a person guilty. The opposite of condemn then is justify, which, in this context, means “to declare someone not guilty.” This, by its very nature is a legal transaction.
Though we have been declared innocent, we are not to be confused. We still sin and are sinful by nature. God has declared us to be not guilty because Christ has paid the price for that sin, and through faith we have received that payment.
B. Declaration - In God’s legal declaration of justification, he specifically declares that we are just in his sight. This declaration involves two aspects.
1. It means that we have no penalty to pay for sin, including past present and future sins.
2. It means that God must not only declare us to be neutral in his sight, but as we have talked about many times before, that he declare us to be righteous in his sight.
III. How does God do it?
How can God declare that we have no penalty to pay for sin and that he views us as having perfect righteousness, even though we know that we are in fact guilty sinners?
A. Imputation - Remember before we have talked about the idea of imputation.
Adam’s sin imputed to us at the fall. Christ suffered and died for our sins and our sins were imputed to Christ on the cross.
Now, we see imputation for a third time. Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us, and therefore God thinks of it as belonging to us. God thinks of Christ’s righteousness as belonging to us, or regards it as belonging to us. He reckons it to our account. Because of this idea of imputation, God can apply our sin to the account of Christ and apply his righteousness to our account, so that we might be saved, and this is applied to us by faith.
B. Through Our Faith in Christ - Faith is the instrument that God chose to use in order that we might be able to receive the justification earned by the grace of God through Christ Jesus.
1. Faith is an instrument not a work. Scripture never says that we are justified because of the inherent goodness of our faith, or the quantity of it, as we have mentioned. It never allows us to think that our faith earns us favor with God in any way.
Rather, Scripture says that we are justified by means of our faith, understanding faith to be the instrument through which justification is given to us. We are justified solely on the merits of Christ’s righteousness that is given to us, not on any righteousness of our own, for we have none. 2. God chose Faith as the instrument by which justification could be given (instead of love, joy, contentment, humility, or wisdom) because faith is the one attitude of heart that is exact opposite of depending on our self. When we come to Christ in faith, we say, “I surrender, I will not depend on myself any longer. I know I can never make myself righteous before God. Jesus, I trust you and depend on you completely to give me right standing before God.”
3. Practical Implications that result from this central idea are very important.
First, this doctrine allows us to offer real hope to unbelievers. If salvation is a free gift to be received by faith alone, than anyone who hears this gospel may hope that eternal life is freely offered and may be obtained in Christ.
Second, this doctrine gives us confidence that God will never make us pay the penalty for sins that have been forgiven in Christ. We may continue to suffer temporal consequences and God may discipline us, in love, if we continue to walk in disobedience. However, God never can or will take vengeance, or exercise his wrath on us for our sins once covered by the blood of Christ.
Third, this doctrine of justification by faith gives us the privilege of adoption. This is the act whereby God makes us, at the time of our conversion, members of his family. John presents salvation as adoption at the beginning of the gospel, where he says in John 1:12, “But to all who receive him, who TRUST in his name, he gave the power to become children of God.”
The New Testament epistles bear repeated testimony to the fact that we are now God’s children in a special sense, members of his family. And if we are God’s children, are we not then related to one another as family members? That is why the idea of generational faithfulness is so important. Not because it is our plan, or simply because it helps families, but because it is the plan of God from the beginning!
In a sense it is still future tense, in that we will not receive the full benefits until Christ returns and we ourselves have been resurrected. But as we have hope in the knowledge of Truth, confidence in the acceptance or understanding of the Truth, we also have personal trust in the eternal promise of that Truth.
Stone IX - Redemption: Christ (Sanctification)
I. Definition of Sanctification
As we lay our foundation of faith, our stones of remembrance, we have covered everything that should be in the life of the believer and have arrived at how we should go forward from today - the process of sanctification that creates in us Christlikeness. We have come to the part of the application of redemption that is a progressive work that continues throughout our earthly lives as believers. It is also a work in witch God and man cooperate, each playing distinct roles.
Sanctification is a progressive work of God and man that makes us more and more free from sin and more and more like Christ in our actual lives. Paul makes this ever clear for us as we pick up in Romans 6:1-2, 11-14; “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.”
II. Differences between Justification and Sanctification
Justification by grace through faith is a once for all time legal standing. Sanctification is an internal condition that occurs continuously throughout life. Justification is entirely God’s work that is perfectly complete in this life and the same for all believers. Sanctification is a process in which we cooperate with God, and therefore is not perfect in this life and is greater in some than in others!
III. Three Stages of Sanctification
The ordinary course of a Christian’s life will involve continual growth in sanctification, and it is something the New Testament encourages us to give effort and attention to. In the New Testament we find that sanctification has three main stages. Understanding these stages may help us to evaluate where we ourselves and our loved ones are in this process and how we all might grow toward greater spiritual maturity.
A. Beginning at Regeneration - Sanctification has a definite beginning at regeneration.
A definite moral change occurs in our lives at the point of regeneration, for Paul talks about the “washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit” in Titus 3:5.
1 John 3:9 implies that once we are converted, we cannot continue to sin as a habit or pattern of life because the power of new spiritual life within us keeps us from yielding to a life of sin. This moral change is the first stage in sanctification. This initial step involves a definite break from the ruling power and love of sin. Paul says, “We must consider ourselves dead to sin, and alive to God in Christ Jesus,” in verse 11. He says in verse 14 that, “sin will have no dominion (or authority) over you,” and continues in verse 18 saying that we have “been set free from sin.” That is God’s part!
In between Paul tells believers to “not let sin reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.” He also says, very poignantly, “Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.” That is our part!
In a very practical application, we must confirm two things to be true.
1. On the one hand we will never be able to say, “I am completely free of sin.”
2. On the other hand, we as believers should never say, “This sin has defeated me. I give up. This is just the way I am.” To say that is to give sin dominion over you that Christ died to set you free from, by his grace!
This initial break with sin involves a reorientation of our desires, and as Paul indicates in verse 17, it is an “obedience from the heart.” This change of one’s primary love and primary desires occurs at the beginning of sanctification.
B. Increases through Life - Even though sanctification has a definite beginning, the New Testament also sees it as a process that continues throughout our lives as believers. This is the primary sense in which the term is used. Even though Paul has told us that we have been set free form sin and are in fact dead to it, he recognizes that sin still remains in our lives.
He tells us in verse 12-13 “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness,” do not let it reign and do not yield to it. Our task then is to grow more and more in sanctification.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:18 that throughout the Christian life, “we all . . . are being changed into the likeness of Christ from one degree of glory to another.” We are to be becoming more like Christ! Every day, in every way - Christ!
C. Complete only at Death and the coming of Christ - Sanctification is made complete at death for our souls and at the resurrection for our bodies. Because of the residue of sin in our lives, our sanctification will never be completed in this life. But in the end, it will be complete when our souls are set free from the indwelling sin of the body and are made perfect.
Even more, when we appreciate that sanctification involves the whole person, including our bodies, then we realize that it will not be complete until Christ returns and we are made new by the resurrection. What a glorious day, when he will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body (Phil. 3:21) and at his coming we will be made alive with a resurrection body and we shall fully bear the image of the Man of heaven! (1 Cor. 15)
Some may take opposition to this fact and use verses like Matthew 5:48 or 2 Corinthians 7 out of context to teach a perfectionism that holds sinless perfection is possible (maybe in fact necessary) in this life. This is an error that is simply not taught in Scripture, while there are passages throughout the Bible that teach we can not be morally perfect in this life.
Others may take this fact and use it as an excuse to not strive for holiness or grow in sanctification. This is exactly contrary to dozens of New Testament commands and is blatant rebellion.
Still others may take this fact and loose hope of making any progress in the Christian life. This is also in exact opposition to Romans 6 and various other clear teachings about the resurrection power of Christ, and his Spirit, enabling us to overcome sin. Therefore, although sanctification will never be complete in this life, we must also emphasize that it should never stop increasing in this life.
IV. Cooperation between God and Man
The role of the resurrection power of Christ, and the presence of the Holy Spirit, along with our passion and discipline, demonstrate that sanctification is a process in which we cooperate with God. We are not saying that the roles are the same, or even equal, but simply that we cooperate with God in ways that are appropriate to our status as creatures. The fact that Scripture emphasizes the role we play in sanctification, makes it imperative that we teach how God calls us to cooperate with him in this activity.
A. God’s Role - Since sanctification is primarily a work of God, as Paul prays in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, “May the God of peace sanctify you wholly,” we must talk first about the role of God.
1. One specific role of God in sanctification is his process of disciplining us as his children.
2. A second specific role of God is his causing us to want his will and empowering us to do it.
3. A third specific role of God is his equipping us with everything good for accomplishing his will.
4. A forth specific role is that Christ earned our sanctification for us and serves as an example.
5. A fifth role of God is that the Holy Spirit works within us to change us, and produces in us the fruits of the spirit that only come by walking in the Spirit and being led by the Spirit as we become more and more responsive to the desires and prompting of God in our life.
B. Our Role - Our role in sanctification, then is both a passive role in which we depend on God to sanctify us, and an active role in which we strive to obey God and take steps to increase our sanctification.
1. The passive role we play is seen our trusting God, and our prayers asking him to sanctify us. We can not be sanctified by any of our efforts if we do not first yield ourselves to God and present ourselves as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God.
2. The active role we play is best characterized in Philippians 2:12-13, “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Obedience is always the way to work out our salvation. This means that we will work out the further realization of the benefits of salvation as we follow Christ in obedience.
We, like the Philippians, are to work at this growth in sanctification, and it is not a game. We are told that awe and reverence (fear and trembling) are the appropriate manner, for it is done in the presence of God. The reason we are to work and may expect positive results is that it is God is at work in us - our cooperation with God bears fruit because of his prior, foundational, empowering work in us. There are far too many aspects to this active role that we are to play in sanctification to deal with here. The New Testament encourages us to strive, stand, abstain, make effort, purify ourselves, discipline ourselves, train ourselves, and as Philippians 2:14-16 says, “Do all things without grumbling or complaining, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.”
One thing the New Testament does not encourage is short-cuts. In fact, Scripture gives us none! Scripture simply encourages us repeatedly to give ourselves to historic, tested means; Bible reading and mediation, prayer, worship, witnessing, fellowship, self-discipline and self-control. It is vitally important that we continually grow in both our passive trust in God to sanctify us and our active striving for holiness and greater obedience in our lives. If we neglect the active, we become passive and lazy. If we neglect the passive, we become legalist and proud. In either case, our sanctification will be deficient. That is why the wise old hymn says, “Trust and obey, for there is no other way, to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”
V. Affects of Sanctification
What are the affects of sanctification? Can you remember in your own experience the definite beginning, the clear break from the ruling power and love of sin? Can you look back over the past few years of your Christian life and see a pattern of definite growth? Things you used to delight in that no longer interest you? Things you used to have no interest in that now hold great delight for you?
I believe the affects of sanctification can be discussed in three categories, much like the three stages of sanctification; motivation, transformation, and beautification.
A. Transformation - One of the affects of sanctification is that we see that it affects our whole person, our wills, intellects and emotions.
1. Will - Sanctification will have an affect on our will, our decision making faculty, because God is at work in us, “to will and to work for his good pleasure.”
2. Intellect - Sanctification will have an affect on our intellects, on our knowledge, as Paul says in Colossians 1:10 that a life “worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him” is one that is continually “increasing in the knowledge of God.”
3. Emotions - Sanctification will have an affect on our emotions, on what we love, as we find 1 John 15 increasingly true, that we do “not love the world or the things in the world” but instead delight to do God’s will.
Most of all, Sanctification will affect our spirit, the non-physical part of our beings; and our bodies, the physical part of our beings, as we fulfill God’s purpose for our lives to be increasingly “conformed to the image of his Son, in every dimension of our personhood, every fiber of our being.
B. Motivation - One of the affects of sanctification is that we are motivated to obey God when we realize that our obedience produces Christ-likeness in us. We fail to realize the wide range of motivations for obedience to God that are found through sanctification in the New Testament.
1. Our desire to please God and express our love for Him - as we grow in our delight in God.
2. Our desire for a clear conscience before God - as we grow in our awareness of our sin before God.
3. Our desire to be vessels for noble use and have increased effectiveness in kingdom work - as we grow in our appreciation for the work of God.
4. Our desire to see unbelievers come to Christ through observing our lives - as we grow in the grace and mercy of God.
5. Our desire to receive present blessings from God on our lives and ministries - as we grow in our dependence on the power and presence of God.
6. Our desire to avoid the displeasure and discipline of God - as we grow in our awe and reverence for God, as our fear and trembling increases.
7. Our desire for greater heavenly reward - as we grow in our desire for the eternal presence of God.
8. Our desire for a deeper walk with God - as we grow in our fellowship with God.
9. Our desire for angels to glorify God for our obedience - as we grow in our understanding of the spiritual things of God.
10. Our desire to do what God commands simply because his commands are right - as we grow in our delight in the justice of God.
11. Our desire for peace and joy in our lives - as we grow in our distaste for this world and our taste for divine things.
C. Beautification - It would not be right to end our time together without me saying that sanctification brings great joy to me. The more we grow in likeness to Christ, the more we will personally and corporately (as a family and as a church) experience the joy and peace that are part of the fruit of the Spirit, and the more we will draw near to the kind of life we will experience in heaven.
Paul said in Romans 6:22 that as we become more and more obedient to God, “the return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal life.” He realizes that this is the true source of all real joy - not houses or land, not power or popularity. Romans 14:17 says, “The kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”
As we grow in holiness, we grow in conformity to the image of Christ, and more and more of the beauty of his character is seen in us. The beauty of God’s glorious image in creation, lost in the fall, redeemed for us by Christ, is returned to us by grace, through faith, and shines forth from us. This is the goal of perfect sanctification that we hope and long for and that will be ours, by grace through faith, when Christ returns.
As we lay our foundation of faith, our stones of remembrance, we have covered everything that should be in the life of the believer and have arrived at how we should go forward from today - the process of sanctification that creates in us Christlikeness. We have come to the part of the application of redemption that is a progressive work that continues throughout our earthly lives as believers. It is also a work in witch God and man cooperate, each playing distinct roles.
Sanctification is a progressive work of God and man that makes us more and more free from sin and more and more like Christ in our actual lives. Paul makes this ever clear for us as we pick up in Romans 6:1-2, 11-14; “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.”
II. Differences between Justification and Sanctification
Justification by grace through faith is a once for all time legal standing. Sanctification is an internal condition that occurs continuously throughout life. Justification is entirely God’s work that is perfectly complete in this life and the same for all believers. Sanctification is a process in which we cooperate with God, and therefore is not perfect in this life and is greater in some than in others!
III. Three Stages of Sanctification
The ordinary course of a Christian’s life will involve continual growth in sanctification, and it is something the New Testament encourages us to give effort and attention to. In the New Testament we find that sanctification has three main stages. Understanding these stages may help us to evaluate where we ourselves and our loved ones are in this process and how we all might grow toward greater spiritual maturity.
A. Beginning at Regeneration - Sanctification has a definite beginning at regeneration.
A definite moral change occurs in our lives at the point of regeneration, for Paul talks about the “washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit” in Titus 3:5.
1 John 3:9 implies that once we are converted, we cannot continue to sin as a habit or pattern of life because the power of new spiritual life within us keeps us from yielding to a life of sin. This moral change is the first stage in sanctification. This initial step involves a definite break from the ruling power and love of sin. Paul says, “We must consider ourselves dead to sin, and alive to God in Christ Jesus,” in verse 11. He says in verse 14 that, “sin will have no dominion (or authority) over you,” and continues in verse 18 saying that we have “been set free from sin.” That is God’s part!
In between Paul tells believers to “not let sin reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.” He also says, very poignantly, “Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.” That is our part!
In a very practical application, we must confirm two things to be true.
1. On the one hand we will never be able to say, “I am completely free of sin.”
2. On the other hand, we as believers should never say, “This sin has defeated me. I give up. This is just the way I am.” To say that is to give sin dominion over you that Christ died to set you free from, by his grace!
This initial break with sin involves a reorientation of our desires, and as Paul indicates in verse 17, it is an “obedience from the heart.” This change of one’s primary love and primary desires occurs at the beginning of sanctification.
B. Increases through Life - Even though sanctification has a definite beginning, the New Testament also sees it as a process that continues throughout our lives as believers. This is the primary sense in which the term is used. Even though Paul has told us that we have been set free form sin and are in fact dead to it, he recognizes that sin still remains in our lives.
He tells us in verse 12-13 “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness,” do not let it reign and do not yield to it. Our task then is to grow more and more in sanctification.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:18 that throughout the Christian life, “we all . . . are being changed into the likeness of Christ from one degree of glory to another.” We are to be becoming more like Christ! Every day, in every way - Christ!
C. Complete only at Death and the coming of Christ - Sanctification is made complete at death for our souls and at the resurrection for our bodies. Because of the residue of sin in our lives, our sanctification will never be completed in this life. But in the end, it will be complete when our souls are set free from the indwelling sin of the body and are made perfect.
Even more, when we appreciate that sanctification involves the whole person, including our bodies, then we realize that it will not be complete until Christ returns and we are made new by the resurrection. What a glorious day, when he will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body (Phil. 3:21) and at his coming we will be made alive with a resurrection body and we shall fully bear the image of the Man of heaven! (1 Cor. 15)
Some may take opposition to this fact and use verses like Matthew 5:48 or 2 Corinthians 7 out of context to teach a perfectionism that holds sinless perfection is possible (maybe in fact necessary) in this life. This is an error that is simply not taught in Scripture, while there are passages throughout the Bible that teach we can not be morally perfect in this life.
Others may take this fact and use it as an excuse to not strive for holiness or grow in sanctification. This is exactly contrary to dozens of New Testament commands and is blatant rebellion.
Still others may take this fact and loose hope of making any progress in the Christian life. This is also in exact opposition to Romans 6 and various other clear teachings about the resurrection power of Christ, and his Spirit, enabling us to overcome sin. Therefore, although sanctification will never be complete in this life, we must also emphasize that it should never stop increasing in this life.
IV. Cooperation between God and Man
The role of the resurrection power of Christ, and the presence of the Holy Spirit, along with our passion and discipline, demonstrate that sanctification is a process in which we cooperate with God. We are not saying that the roles are the same, or even equal, but simply that we cooperate with God in ways that are appropriate to our status as creatures. The fact that Scripture emphasizes the role we play in sanctification, makes it imperative that we teach how God calls us to cooperate with him in this activity.
A. God’s Role - Since sanctification is primarily a work of God, as Paul prays in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, “May the God of peace sanctify you wholly,” we must talk first about the role of God.
1. One specific role of God in sanctification is his process of disciplining us as his children.
2. A second specific role of God is his causing us to want his will and empowering us to do it.
3. A third specific role of God is his equipping us with everything good for accomplishing his will.
4. A forth specific role is that Christ earned our sanctification for us and serves as an example.
5. A fifth role of God is that the Holy Spirit works within us to change us, and produces in us the fruits of the spirit that only come by walking in the Spirit and being led by the Spirit as we become more and more responsive to the desires and prompting of God in our life.
B. Our Role - Our role in sanctification, then is both a passive role in which we depend on God to sanctify us, and an active role in which we strive to obey God and take steps to increase our sanctification.
1. The passive role we play is seen our trusting God, and our prayers asking him to sanctify us. We can not be sanctified by any of our efforts if we do not first yield ourselves to God and present ourselves as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God.
2. The active role we play is best characterized in Philippians 2:12-13, “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Obedience is always the way to work out our salvation. This means that we will work out the further realization of the benefits of salvation as we follow Christ in obedience.
We, like the Philippians, are to work at this growth in sanctification, and it is not a game. We are told that awe and reverence (fear and trembling) are the appropriate manner, for it is done in the presence of God. The reason we are to work and may expect positive results is that it is God is at work in us - our cooperation with God bears fruit because of his prior, foundational, empowering work in us. There are far too many aspects to this active role that we are to play in sanctification to deal with here. The New Testament encourages us to strive, stand, abstain, make effort, purify ourselves, discipline ourselves, train ourselves, and as Philippians 2:14-16 says, “Do all things without grumbling or complaining, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.”
One thing the New Testament does not encourage is short-cuts. In fact, Scripture gives us none! Scripture simply encourages us repeatedly to give ourselves to historic, tested means; Bible reading and mediation, prayer, worship, witnessing, fellowship, self-discipline and self-control. It is vitally important that we continually grow in both our passive trust in God to sanctify us and our active striving for holiness and greater obedience in our lives. If we neglect the active, we become passive and lazy. If we neglect the passive, we become legalist and proud. In either case, our sanctification will be deficient. That is why the wise old hymn says, “Trust and obey, for there is no other way, to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”
V. Affects of Sanctification
What are the affects of sanctification? Can you remember in your own experience the definite beginning, the clear break from the ruling power and love of sin? Can you look back over the past few years of your Christian life and see a pattern of definite growth? Things you used to delight in that no longer interest you? Things you used to have no interest in that now hold great delight for you?
I believe the affects of sanctification can be discussed in three categories, much like the three stages of sanctification; motivation, transformation, and beautification.
A. Transformation - One of the affects of sanctification is that we see that it affects our whole person, our wills, intellects and emotions.
1. Will - Sanctification will have an affect on our will, our decision making faculty, because God is at work in us, “to will and to work for his good pleasure.”
2. Intellect - Sanctification will have an affect on our intellects, on our knowledge, as Paul says in Colossians 1:10 that a life “worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him” is one that is continually “increasing in the knowledge of God.”
3. Emotions - Sanctification will have an affect on our emotions, on what we love, as we find 1 John 15 increasingly true, that we do “not love the world or the things in the world” but instead delight to do God’s will.
Most of all, Sanctification will affect our spirit, the non-physical part of our beings; and our bodies, the physical part of our beings, as we fulfill God’s purpose for our lives to be increasingly “conformed to the image of his Son, in every dimension of our personhood, every fiber of our being.
B. Motivation - One of the affects of sanctification is that we are motivated to obey God when we realize that our obedience produces Christ-likeness in us. We fail to realize the wide range of motivations for obedience to God that are found through sanctification in the New Testament.
1. Our desire to please God and express our love for Him - as we grow in our delight in God.
2. Our desire for a clear conscience before God - as we grow in our awareness of our sin before God.
3. Our desire to be vessels for noble use and have increased effectiveness in kingdom work - as we grow in our appreciation for the work of God.
4. Our desire to see unbelievers come to Christ through observing our lives - as we grow in the grace and mercy of God.
5. Our desire to receive present blessings from God on our lives and ministries - as we grow in our dependence on the power and presence of God.
6. Our desire to avoid the displeasure and discipline of God - as we grow in our awe and reverence for God, as our fear and trembling increases.
7. Our desire for greater heavenly reward - as we grow in our desire for the eternal presence of God.
8. Our desire for a deeper walk with God - as we grow in our fellowship with God.
9. Our desire for angels to glorify God for our obedience - as we grow in our understanding of the spiritual things of God.
10. Our desire to do what God commands simply because his commands are right - as we grow in our delight in the justice of God.
11. Our desire for peace and joy in our lives - as we grow in our distaste for this world and our taste for divine things.
C. Beautification - It would not be right to end our time together without me saying that sanctification brings great joy to me. The more we grow in likeness to Christ, the more we will personally and corporately (as a family and as a church) experience the joy and peace that are part of the fruit of the Spirit, and the more we will draw near to the kind of life we will experience in heaven.
Paul said in Romans 6:22 that as we become more and more obedient to God, “the return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal life.” He realizes that this is the true source of all real joy - not houses or land, not power or popularity. Romans 14:17 says, “The kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”
As we grow in holiness, we grow in conformity to the image of Christ, and more and more of the beauty of his character is seen in us. The beauty of God’s glorious image in creation, lost in the fall, redeemed for us by Christ, is returned to us by grace, through faith, and shines forth from us. This is the goal of perfect sanctification that we hope and long for and that will be ours, by grace through faith, when Christ returns.
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