Pastor's Blog

As this year’s election season kicks into high gear, we constantly hear that the economy is the only issue that matters.  Echoing President Clinton’s famous campaign slogan, one of the candidates in this year’s race recently said:  “It’s still the economy, and we’re not stupid!”  But the biblically informed Christian knows better.  It’s not about the economy, and the reason is simple.  A nation’s economy is merely a metric—a measurement of that nation’s spiritual and moral character.  We are reminded that Scripture declares:  “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people” (Proverbs 14:34).  In other words, doing the right things increases the nation’s good fortunes, but sin—the violation of the Word and will of God—only leads to disgrace.

Our nation was founded on principles contained in the Bible, and throughout more than 200 years, we have been blessed by God with unparalleled prosperity.  However, the Lord reminded ancient Israel of the dangers of prosperity.  “When you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land He has given you.  Beware lest you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statues which I am commanding you today.”  The temptation was that “your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 8:10-11, 14).

Material prosperity tends to breed spiritual indifference.  In the covenant God made with Israel in Deuteronomy 28, he Lord told His people that among the dire consequences of forgetting Him would be the cursing of their basket and kneading bowl, drought, the loss of their livestock, poor agricultural production, and unmanageable debt to foreigners.  That’s why every week in our worship service, we sing, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.”

These same dynamics are impacting America today as we have eliminated the Bible and prayer from our schools and public institutions, and have publicly flaunted our defiance of God’s moral and ethical standards.  We openly defend and promote sexual perversion, we defy the authority of laws and rules, we tolerate corruption at every level of society, and worst of all, we blaspheme the very God who has so richly blessed us.

There can be no righteous nation apart from righteous people.  The citizens of our nation need to realize that America cannot continue to be great if America is not good; and America cannot be good unless it is righteous—obedient to God’s will as expressed in His Word.  Paul reminds us that the Gospel reveals the righteous of God and is the foundation of the believer’s life of faith (Romans 1:16-17).  This is something Christians in our churches need to realize again, and why we need spiritual awakening.

But this is also a reality that ought to lead you who are not particularly religious to some serious reflection.  You cannot please God unless you first belong to Him, and you cannot belong to Him apart from turning from your sins and believing in the Lord Jesus Christ.  In Romans 1 Paul also declares that the Gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation.  Scripture shows us that the only way any of us can live righteously is first to possess the righteousness of God, and that comes only as we receive Jesus Christ who was made sin in our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor 5:21).  Thus I urge you to receive Him who said,  “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My Word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (John 5:24).

Friends, it’s not about the economy.  Ultimately, America’s future is about our righteousness in Christ!

There is a problem that I firmly believe afflicts most born-again Christians today, but it’s a problem we don’t talk about very much.  I’m referring to our failure to spend sufficient time in God’s Word and in prayer.  Although most church members probably don’t think pastors struggle with their devotional times, I can tell you from personal experience that they do.

The obstacles are many and the demands on our time are sometimes overwhelming:  commuting, working—often overtime, parenting, maintaining a home, exercising, community involvement, and church participation.  Most of us are exhausted most of the time!  And where are we supposed to fit in a meaningful devotional time (more than just three minutes with a one-page devotional reading)?

Actually it’s not a new problem—and it’s one the Lord Jesus addressed in the final paragraph of Luke 10.  Do you remember when He visited the home of Mary and Martha?  Mary “was seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word.  But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, ‘Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone?  Then tell her to help me.’  But the Lord answered and said to her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her’” (Lk 10:39-42).

Look at the dynamics of this incident.  It was Martha who initially invited the Lord Jesus to her home, but when He arrived, she went to work while Mary sat down to listen to Jesus.  Luke’s language here is that Martha was “distracted,” and the word implies being worried.  Her distraction also produced an irritable attitude which was expressed in a question to the Lord Jesus that implies she wasn’t too happy with His apparent indifference to the situation.  He replies by gently rebuking her for her anxiety and for being disturbed.  Then He said something interesting:  “But only one thing is necessary.”

What did our Lord mean by this?  After all, we are inundated by a whole range of responsibilities.  Only one thing matters?  Yes, and the older we get, the more we will understand this.  As eternity stares us in the face, we are confronted by our spiritual faithfulness, or lack thereof.  Your job, your home, your money, and even your health are not necessary in the same way as your relationship to the Lord is.  That’s apparent because there are many people in the world who are happy without them; but there will be no happiness for a Christian who has no close fellowship with the Lord.  That’s why our Lord said that Mary had chosen the good part—the thing that produces eternal dividends and which can never be taken away.

Martha’s intentions were good.  She loved Jesus too (remember what she says later at her brother, Lazarus’, grave).  But she reminds us that it’s easy to become so absorbed in—and even controlled by—the responsibilities of life, including serving the Lord, that we lose our communion with Him.  We are busy serving, but are too busy to “sit at our Lord’s feet” and hear His Word.  It’s easy to be distracted and disturbed, and when we are, our spiritual lives deteriorate; inevitably, our souls suffer.

“But,” you object, “I’m not living in sin.  I’m a pretty good Christian—just a really busy one!”  This incident, however, shows that we can be negatively impacted by things that are actually necessary and good in themselves.  Those things—even serving the Lord!—can pull us away from God.  If we’re not careful, they can poison our spiritual lives.  Distraction can lead to disaster.  So the question ultimately becomes:  what (or Who) has first place in my heart?  I encourage you today, make the business of your soul your sole business!  Don’t be too busy to sit.  Everything else will fall into place.

I was reading a brief devotional passage the other day when I encountered these questions.  They’ve stuck with me, and I want to share them with you.  The author asks:  “Have we so conformed ourselves to a sinful world that we are satisfied with unholy living?  Have we sunk so far below God’s standard that when someone does live as God intended, we consider that person ‘superspiritual’?”  Interesting questions, aren’t they?  Let me analyze them with you today.

First, “have we so conformed ourselves to a sinful world?”  I’m convinced that we don’t realize how much the world influences our thinking.  We’re under constant assault from a thoroughly godless media, and those hours of watching and listening inevitably soften our hatred for sin.  Our educational system is so anti-God that in most of us it has formed a secular worldview far removed from biblical values.  We conclude that sin is normal, and most of us have given up trying to struggle against it.  Thus, while we think we’re good Christians, our thinking and behavior is full of compromises—many of them subtle to the point we don’t even recognize them.  Our tendency, therefore, is to read Scripture through the lenses of our spiritually and ethically compromised outlook, and that’s why the few individuals we meet who are genuinely seeking to live as God intended His people to live seem “superspiritual.”  But Scripture says:  “do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Rom 12:2).

Second, are “we satisfied with unholy living?”  That’s a tough one, because many of us know, deep in our hearts, that our compromises don’t please God.  When we fill our minds with the profane and obscene content of the media, when we use language that is either irreverent or indecent, when we fraternize with worldly infidels (and enjoy it), or when we engage in materialistic idolatry and questionable morality, and then take our Bibles (along with our pious attitudes) to church with us on the Lord’s Day, we know that we are out of the will of God.  But our entire week is spent assuaging our consciences by making mental excuses for ourselves.  Yes, we are satisfied with unholy living.  Scripture says:  “But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints; and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.  For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God” (Eph 5:3-5).

Third, “have we sunk so far below God’s standard?”  In 21^st-century America, the answer is, “yes, we have.”  The things previous generations agreed were sin, we regard as normal.  Thus, few of us—even we who profess faith in Christ and are actively involved in our churches—are able or willing to muster anything approaching indignation against evil.  So we either passively ignore it or, even worse, we actively indulge in it.  To a significant degree, the reason for this is that God’s Word has been replaced with the world’s media.  How many Christians, and especially Christian families, actually spend time in the devotional reading of God’s Word and prayer?  We’re too busy and don’t have time, although we do have time to spend four or five hours a day in front of the television or computer.  How much time do you spend watching PG-13 or R rated movies?  Or how much time do you waste on Facebook?  What is God’s standard?  He tells us, “like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves in all your behavior” (1 Pet 1:15).

It’s no wonder, then, that truly godly Christians seem to most “average” Christians as a little bit extreme—just a little fanatical—frankly, a bit “superspiritual.”  What about you?  If you’ve never been accused of being “superspiritual,” you might want to ask, “why not?”  Maybe it’s time for a spiritual inventory.

One amazing reality about the biblical story of Christmas is just how much it defies our modern American values.  For most people, Christmas is all about conspicuous consumption; it’s about giving and getting.  We spend more than we can afford on unnecessary things for people whom we don’t even like!  Many who receive our gifts ultimately relegate them to oblivion in their attics, basements, or garages.  And we do all of this as an exercise in ego enhancement.  We don’t want to be seen as stingy.  So what’s the point?

That’s a compelling question because of what lies behind the event that inspired Christmas in the first place:  the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ in Bethlehem’s stable.  There’s a great deal of sentimental fluff attached to the celebration of Christmas, even in our evangelical churches.  That’s why the most important single New Testament Christmas text is not one of the accounts found in the gospels, but is a passage found in Paul’s letter to the Philippians.  He writes:  “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.  Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:5-8).

What’s interesting here is that the Lord Jesus was not passive in His incarnation.  He offered himself to provide what no one else could:  the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.  There are two selfless acts described here.  First, He emptied himself in order to be made like us.  God’s Son laid aside the prerogatives of deity—not, to be sure, the attributes of deity, but only the right to use them independently.  During His earthly ministry, He was completely dependent upon the direction of His Heavenly Father and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but in no sense did Jesus Christ cease to be God!

What did He give up?  He gave up the form in which He was manifested in heaven—the glory which He had with the Father before His incarnation, and the resurrection glory He has in heaven now.  Moreover, He gave up the position He had in heaven.  That’s what Paul means when he says that our Lord did not consider equality with God something to be held on to at all costs.  He was still equal to His Father in nature, but He agreed to experience the humiliation of incarnation by laying aside His glory.

Then, too, He also voluntarily assumed the nature of man, taking on the outward manifestation of a bond-servant.  In Christ, there were two natures in one person.  Truly man?  Yes, but also truly God!

Second, the Lord Jesus humbled himself in order to die for us.  He willingly became obedient to death on a cross.  He had to exist in human form in order to suffer the penalty imposed by God on human sin (“the wages of sin is death”).  Jesus could not die without being a man, and thus His incarnation was absolutely necessary.  He did not just die a normal death; He was executed as a criminal in the cruelest method ever devised by depraved humanity.

What does all of this mean?  As Paul says, “Have this attitude in yourselves.”  Don’t think of yourself first.  Willingness to suffer humiliation by voluntarily giving up our own interests for others:  giving ourselves joyfully rather than giving expensive stuff grudgingly.  Let the Lord Jesus be your example.  Many people suffer depression during the Christmas season.  Perhaps you are among them.  Could this be part of the problem?  This Christmas, instead of giving things you can’t afford, try giving of yourself.  Instead of emptying your bank account, like your Lord, try emptying yourself.  You may find that you will actually have a “merry Christmas.”

I was thinking about a fascinating verse from Isaiah 43 recently.  In this chapter, the Lord speaks to His people Israel, and He makes three claims for His self-identity.  He tells Israel. “I am your Redeemer.”  As such, He has chosen them and called them; He has redeemed them and ransomed them.  In other words, they have a very special relationship with Him.  The second claim the Lord makes is, “I am your God.”  The nations are so blind and deaf that they can’t see it.  Israel, however, is specially commissioned as the Lord’s witnesses, uniquely called to share God’s revelation with all men.  Then there is the third claim:  “I am your Holy One and King,” and because He has a special relationship with Israel and a special plan for them as well, He will deliver them and they will praise Him.

Was Israel overwhelmed at the privilege they had as God’s people?  Did they take their responsibility seriously?  No.  Instead, as the Lord says in Isaiah 43:22, “You have not called on Me, O Jacob; but you have become weary of Me, O Israel.”  This rebuke should provoke some serious thinking on the part of all of us who are Christians.

Note first, that in spite of all God had done for His people and in spite of all He had promised His people, they did not pray.  Were they, like many of us, just too busy to pray?  Not likely.  Rather, they may have been upset that God wasn’t working in their behalf as they thought He should.  In our lives, abandoning prayer is also often a symptom of disillusionment with God.  It says, “What’s the use?  Things will never change.  God doesn’t see, and God doesn’t seem to care!”  When you find that you no longer have any interest in prayer, it may be because you are angry with God, or upset that He has not answered your prayers in the way you wanted Him to.

However, even more thought-provoking is the possibility that we have become tired of God:  “you have become weary of Me,” the Lord says to Israel.  These are indeed tragic words.  Three hundred years or so later, the prophet Malachi would deliver the Lord’s message:  “‘Your words have been arrogant against Me,’ says the Lord.  Yet you say, ‘What have we spoken against You?’  You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it that we have kept His charge, and that we have walked in mourning before the Lord of hosts?’” (Mal 3:13-14).  Even so, the Lord goes on to say through Isaiah that He has not asked anything unreasonable of His people.

If you’re honest, you will admit that there have been times when you have experienced the same thoughts.  Life hasn’t gone the way you had hoped.  Your children haven’t turned out the way you wanted; instead they have been rebellious.  The marriage you hoped would always be a fairy tale romance has crumbled into divorce.  You have chronic health problems and can find no relief.  Your career is stuck in park, and you see no future for yourself in the current situation.  Perhaps you have been betrayed by friends or even other church members.  Your anger at God has turned to a bitter resignation.  You’re tired—physically, emotionally, and above all, spiritually.  You don’t want to be bothered with the Bible, with prayer, or with the church.  You just want something to go right for a change.

So how do you cope with this?  With God’s amazing love and grace!  Look at this passage.  The Lord doesn’t disown His people, for His very next words are, “I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins” (v. 25).  Like Israel, you don’t deserve forgiveness, but then that is what grace is all about.  However, the Lord warns that if Israel doesn’t repent and accept God’s forgiveness, then He will have to discipline them (v. 28).  He’ll do that with us too.

Search your heart.  Are you prayerless?  Are you feeling tired of God?  Turn back to Him who has chosen you, loved you, redeemed you, called you, and promised to care for you!  Get a fresh start.  You’ll be glad you did!

Over the past couple of decades, I’ve noticed that Halloween is being celebrated much more conspicuously than it was years ago when I was a child.  As soon as fall arrives, many people decorate their homes with orange lights and a variety of spooky items.  It’s also apparent that the occult dimension of Halloween has become more prominent as well.  Satanic and demonic images pervade the entire celebration.

One thing has not changed about Halloween, however.  The costumes.  Kids still like to trick-or-treat, and adults still like to attend masquerade parties.  It can be a lot of fun.  There’s just something about dressing up in disguises that hide their real identity that appeals to many people.  Interestingly enough, however, that inclination to hide behind a mask is much more pervasive than being merely a once-a-year phenomenon.  For many of us, it’s a way of life, but our masks are not made out of plastic or rubber.  Rather, they are carefully contrived and maintained false facades, calculated to mislead others concerning who we really are.

One of the long-standing criticisms of us Bible-believing Christians and churches is that we are hypocrites.  Sure, that’s a convenient excuse for ungodly people to avoid getting serious about spiritual truth.  Nonetheless, their complaint is sometimes justified.  In fact, we born-again Christians still wrestle with the remnants of what the Apostle Paul calls the “old man.”  We all sense the frustrating disconnect between the ideal of sanctified Christlikeness and the reality of our struggle against the flesh.  Far too often, we find ourselves on the losing end of our battle against sin.

Embarrassed by and ashamed of our spiritual failures, we instinctively compensate by trying to represent ourselves as more righteous than we really are.  We resort to a variety of masks.  We become masters at cultivating cheerfulness to hide our normal churlishness.  Instead of showing others our frequent anger, we feign kindness.  We want others to see us as generous when it fact we’re really greedy and stingy.  We represent ourselves as virtuous when our minds are raging with lust.  We speak politely in public, but pour forth torrents of foul language in private.  We want others to believe we are avid Bible students and zealous prayer warriors when we rarely ever take time for a personal devotional life.  We wear our spiritual masks to church every Lord’s Day, only to put them on the shelf when we get home.  And it is there, at home, that those we love see us without our masks; and what they see is often pretty ugly.

What can we do to stop this masquerade?  The Bible has an answer, and it’s found in Hebrews 4:12:  “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”  You see, even the most mature among us cannot accurately evaluate our own thoughts or discern our real motives.  That’s because, as Jeremiah points out, “The heart [mind] is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer 17:9).  In other words, we can’t accurately evaluate the true condition of our souls.  But God can.  That’s why He has given believers the indwelling Holy Spirit, and the Spirit uses the Word of God to measure the extent of our hypocrisy.  It shows us who we really are and what really drives our behavior.

Our objective, therefore, should be to live as unmasked Christians.  We achieve this goal by the diligent, daily application of God’s Word.  As we read it, we see ourselves as we really are—underneath the mask—and find strength to remove the costume and live openly and unashamedly in obedience to that which God expects of us.  So as you see the kids with their masks this Halloween, look in your spiritual mirror and ask yourself, “What does my mask look like?”

A seed change has taken place in biblical Christianity over the last gener-ation, a change which has been driven by the prevailing philosophy of the unbelieving world reaching back more than two centuries. That change discounts the possibility of certainty in matters of thought and religion. It begins with the denial of the possibility of knowing whether there is a god, and if there is, what he is like and whether he has revealed himself. Be-cause knowledge is in the mind of the knower, to make objective truth claims is regarded as sheer arrogance. No one can have any certainty as to how the world came into existence, and from that point, their agnosticism reaches to many other parts of the human experience. Of course, nobody lives like this. In day-to-day life, we could not exist without certainty. If you walk in front of a speeding truck, you will die. Likewise if you take a deep breath under water. Food will satisfy hunger; the sun will rise tomorrow morning. Your living room chair will support your weight. You can think of many more examples. Thus, knowledge has become very fragmented; there is no central truth that governs our world or our existence. The result of this thinking is moral relativism in which every person is his/her own authority, individually determining what is right or wrong. What this means in the real world is that the whole notion of truth has been undermined. Most modern people are convinced that we live in a universe governed by chance with a god who is nothing more than an impersonal force. God, if there is a god, is a mystical “god within.” Because biblical revelation has been rejected, for many people, religion has been re-duced, not to facts based in reality, but to feelings. In many of our churches, the result is a conflict between the head and the heart, and conflict that is often reflected in the church’s worship and preaching. The New Testament gives us a very different picture. Let’s let the Apostle Peter speak to this point. According to him, knowledge is basic to our faith. In fact, salvation is impossible without it. He writes, “for you have been born again not of a seed which is perishable, but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God” (1 Pet 1:23). God’s Word is revealed truth, an utterly reliable testimony to the reality about God, the world, mankind, evil, salvation, human experience, and the future. There is a body of facts that must be known and accepted before a person can believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and receive His gift of free grace. The Christian faith, therefore, is first of all a matter of the head. This is the mandate for the systematic, expository, in-depth teaching of God’s Word. That said, however, human experience is likewise a reality. Once a per-son receives the Lord Jesus, a process of growth is initiated which equally depends upon the Word of God. God has “granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the di-vine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust” (2 Pet 1:4). In other words, there is sin to be avoided as we become more and more like Christ, and the means to that end is God’s Word. Peter also ex-horts us, “like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that you may grow in respect to salvation” (1 Pet 2:2). This growth should be at the heart of our daily lives in the real world. As Peter says in closing his second epistle, “but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Sa-vior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet 3:18). Thus both knowledge and experience—both head and heart—are vital to our Christian lives. How we think and how we live are both governed by God’s Word. We cannot live independently of His truth; we are not the final arbiters of right and wrong. And yes, we can know this truth for certain!

Some kinds of Christian theology and some churches regard the Old Testament Law as the believer’s “rule of life.”  In their thinking, although they are saved by grace through faith in Christ apart from the Law, they believe that they are obligated to live according to the Law.  The problem here is that to believe in this way leads to a life of striving for self-righteousness in which God the Father demands from us conformity to a set of rules rather than the indwelling Holy Spirit giving to us the grace which leads to spiritual victory.  Consequently, those who are constantly striving to follow the rules find themselves constantly frustrated by their inability to do so.

In fact, the Law was never intended by God to be used for this purpose.  The Law is the revelation of the holiness of God, and therefore reveals the degree to which we fail to live up to that holiness.  Its purpose, therefore, is to show men and women their sin and to demonstrate their sentence of judgment under God’s righteous demands.  Once we realize God’s holiness, our sinfulness, and our condemnation, we find that we have no recourse in pleasing God and obtaining salvation other than to the one way God himself has provided:  faith in His crucified and risen Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.  Salvation is by grace through faith in Christ.  That’s why Paul says that “the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ so that we may be justified by faith” (Gal 3:24).

Having received the Lord Jesus as Savior and Master we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and we begin to live under a new life principle.  “He [that is, God] made Him [Christ] who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor 5:21).  Self-righteousness is therefore replaced by Christ’s righteousness.  Just as our baptism is identification with His death, so too it is identification with His life:  we have been “raised to walk in the newness of life” (Rom 6:4).  In this new life, says Paul, “you are not under law but under grace” (Rom 6:14).

Thus we are released from our obligation to the Law and are to be subject to the work of the Holy Spirit.  We no longer are constrained by external rules, but are controlled by the internal leading of the Spirit.  Law, you see, is a matter of works; but the new creation is a matter of life in the Son through the power of the Spirit.  Thus, we are able to say with Paul, “For me to live is Christ”—not law (Phil 1:21).  “I live,” says Paul, “by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20).

The Law is the revelation of sin, and the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23).  The death penalty was executed upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and through our identification with Him, when He died, we died too.  Thus the penalty of the Law has been exacted, and because it was paid by the infinitely holy Son of God, it can never again be executed against Him or anyone who is in Him.  That’s why the Law has no more claim on us . . . not for salvation, and not for sanctification either.  Paul puts it this way:  “For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to God” (Gal 2:19).

That’s how the Christian life is to be lived.  We are now released from the Law; we are now free:  “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery” (Gal 5:1).  This liberty, however, is not license:  “For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh” (Gal 5:13).  In other words, you are not free to live as you please, but only to live as God pleases.  And He gives you the strength to do so.  Consequently, life should not be a constant struggle to avoid sin, but a constant resting in Christ through God’s Word and prayer, through the daily confession of sin, and through increasing separation from a sinful world.  Simply put, in your frustration to live a godly life, focus less on trying and more on trusting!

Father’s Day is a convenient time to reflect upon the biblical truth concerning God’s relationship to us who are regenerated believers.  That relationship is one of fatherhood.  In fact, even many non-evangelicals have as the first article of their creed belief in the Fatherhood of God.  One liberal hymn writer has penned these words (still sung in our evangelical churches):  “Thou our Father, Christ, our Brother—All who live in love are Thine.”  Well actually that’s not true; all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and receive the gift of free grace belong to Him.  Yet it is true that God is our Father.  But in what sense?

This can be a difficult concept, since we also know that the Bible indicates that the first person of the triune Godhead can be described in many other ways:  Creator, Master, King of Creation and (in the OT) King of Israel’s theocracy.  He is infinitely holy and dwells in blazing light upon which no man can gaze.  He is worshiped by myriads of angels, and in many ways is transcendent—far above us.  And yet, He is called “our Father.”  In fact, the Lord Jesus taught His disciples that when they began to pray, they should say, “Our Father who is in Heaven, hallowed be Your name.”

One word appears in the original text of the NT that is especially precious in this regard.  It appears only three times.  It is the Aramaic word “Abba.”  The word was originally the language of small children:  “abba” meant “daddy,” and “imma” meant “mommy.”  Eventually, these were words even used by adult children, more or less equivalent to our “dad” and “mom.”  It was a term of endearment expressing intimacy and warmth.

The ancient Jews never used such language in addressing God, but during His earthly life and ministry, the Lord Jesus Christ apparently did, although we have only one recorded instance, and that was in the Garden of Gethsemane as He prayed:  “Abba!  Father!  All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will” (Mk 14:36).  At this point, our Lord had declared that His soul was deeply grieved to the point of death (v. 34).  In the moment of His most severe need, He audibly cried out to God as “Abba, Father.”  In so doing, He set an example for us.  How can we be sure of this?  How can we be sure that if we address God this way, we are not being irreverent?

The Apostle Paul provides the answer.  In Romans 8:15 and Galatians 4:6, he authorizes this way of addressing God.  Here’s Romans 8:14-15:  “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.  For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba!  Father!”  In other words, by virtue of our relationship as adopted sons of God through grace by faith in the Lord Jesus, we now have the right to speak to God in this way.  It is a right the Israelites never had; it is a right no unbeliever has, for God is their Judge.  But He is the Father of all believers, and as Paul goes on to point out, because the Lord Jesus is God’s Son and we are sons of God by adoption, we are with Him fellow heirs.  That’s why we can, as it were, climb up into our Heavenly Father’s lap, address Him as “Daddy,” and present our need to Him.  We have no right to be irreverent; God is still God, and we must not forget that.  But God is also our Father—and we must not forget that either.  We do have a right to be spiritually intimate with Him.

To address God as “Abba, Father” therefore takes our relationship with God, especially in our time of severe need, beyond merely an article of doctrine—that “Fatherhood of God” so popular in liberal theology—and places it in the context of a warm and loving personal family relationship of father and child.  This Father’s Day, when you tell dad you love him, don’t forget to tell your Heavenly Father that you love Him too!

The whole issue of eternal security is one that constantly plagues evangelical Christians.  Children who make decisions to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior often later come to their parents or Sunday School teachers with disturbing doubts about whether or not they’re really saved.  Christian young people, facing the onslaught of the world’s alluring temptations—and often finding themselves falling into sin—are often tormented by the fears that they are still lost in their sins.  Even adults may find themselves discouraged that after years of walking with the Lord they cannot seem to have victory over sin.  It is an article faith with some denominations and churches that assurance of salvation is impossible, and that the Christian is always in danger of losing that salvation.

What’s the problem here?  Recently I read this penetrating statement:  “Though my sins are crucified, they are never wholly mortified.”  The writer who penned these words was expressing a common frustration among believers.  We accept the truth of Scripture that we “are crucified with Christ” as Galatians 2:20 tells us.  Our sins have been put to death as we died with the Lord Jesus.  “Knowing this,” says the Apostle Paul, “that our old self was crucified with Him in order that our body of sin might be done away with” (Rom 6:6).  Except that our body of sin isn’t done away with, and it seems sometimes that the longer we live the Christian life the harder it gets to be holy!  We are declared to have been united with Christ in the likeness of His death so that we would be raised to walk in the newness of life.  Except that in too many ways we continue walking according to the old life.

Where is the power over sin that God has promised?  The answer is . . . faith. The problem is that we have only a partial understanding of what the Bible teaches about faith and salvation.  As evangelical, Bible-believing Christians, we correctly believe without reservation that we are saved by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  The Bible says so.  Where we have failed to take Scripture at face value is that it also teaches us that our salvation is not just from the penalty of sin, but from its power.  This means that salvation is not just deliverance from hell, but from the bondage of sin itself.  We are justified (declared righteous) by grace through faith.  However, the good news is that we are also sanctified (set apart from sin) by grace through faith.  Our position is one of righteousness through faith; but so is our condition. “You are in Christ Jesus,” writes Paul, “who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Cor 1:30).  To the Thessalonians, Paul says that “God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth” (2 Thess 2:13).

Thus, the Holy Spirit has sanctified us by releasing from bondage to sin (that’s our position), but that release is realized by faith in the truth (that’s our condition).  To put it another way, as a believer who by faith is positionally in Christ, you must claim by faith the sanctification that has already been accomplished at the cross.  Justified by faith?  Absolutely.  But sanctified by faith too!  And thus, we must not fall into the trap of believing that we are saved through faith, but that we are sanctified by our own efforts to be good or by striving to keep God’s Law.  Such thinking ends in frustration every time!

This, then, is the secret of eternal security.  We can no more keep ourselves saved than we could get ourselves saved in the first place!  Holiness comes as we appropriate by faith the work that the Lord Jesus Christ finished on the cross of Calvary.  There is nothing we can add; we can only believe it and receive it.  Now that’s the secret of victory over sin; and that’s real assurance.  I trust that if you have never done so, you will embrace it today.