All posts for the month July, 2014

Dealing with Disaster (Group Questions)

Discuss:

Share your thoughts about how the tragic events of the last few weeks have impacted you. How have these events influenced your prayer life?

Read Lord’s Day 10 of the Heidelberg Catechism: What strikes you about this personal assertion of God’s providence?

Read Psalm 46

Think of a time when life was hard for you or your loved ones. Was it apparent that God was your fortress? What impact did this have – positively or negatively – on how you managed that challenge?

What would the writer of Psalm 46 have to say to those who hold that God’s blessing is measured in health, wealth and prosperity?

In times of tragedy and trial we will often say ‘God will work things out for our good.” Is this what Romans 8:28 actually says? Who are the “those” in the phrase “the good of those who love him”?

What does Genesis 50:15-21 tell us about divine sovereignty and human responsibility?

Are you ‘a person of the problem’ or a ‘person of the solution’? How is this seen in your behaviour?

Read Matthew 5:13-16. List the things your church is doing to be ‘a community of the solution’ addressing suffering in your local community.

Read the full text of “Dealing with Disaster: Where is God in tragedy?” here

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by davidgroenenboom on July 29, 2014  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Bible Study, Bible Teaching, Home Group, Problem of Pain, Small Group, Suffering
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Posted by davidgroenenboom on July 29, 2014

https://sermonandstudy.com/2014/07/29/dealing-with-disaster-group-questions/

Dealing with Disaster: Where is God in tragedy?

Read: Psalm 46

Images

A grandfather boards a plane with three young grandchildren. This is an adventure! The kids are incredibly excited!

Arjen and Yvonne Ryder are travelling home. They are keen to see their children and reconnect with their church community.

Six others traveling to an HIV conference in Melbourne, include Joep Lange who has dedicated his life to find a cure for HIV and to relive the suffering of those who have the disease.

On July 17 their plane was blown out of the sky. All 298 people died instantly.

Ismail, Ahed, Zakaria, Mohammed and Sayed live in a poor Gaza neighbourhood. Their play is simple. One hot day the boys run down to the beach, hoping for relief from the heat and from the rockets which slam incessantly into their neighbourhood.

While the boys are at the beach, a rocket slams into a shipping container on the nearby break wall. Petrified, the boys run for their lives. A second rocket targets them, and seconds later four of them are blown to bits. The fifth escapes with serious injuries.

Near Aleppo, Syria, six men once followed Islam. Recently ISIS extremists captured them, charged them with apostasy, and publicly crucified them.

We are people who follow Jesus. How do we deal with such evil?

God’s Word

God’s people have wrested with that confronting question all through the ages. They have seen slavery in Egypt. Exile in Babylon. Persecution of the early church. More currently eviction and persecution of Iraqi Christians under threat of death.

It all seems a world away from suburban Australia. Ours is a peaceful country, possibly the best in the world. We have ice cream in our freezers, iPhones in our pockets, we plan our holidays and leisure pursuits.

These terrible events invade our comfort. And the greatest temptation is simply to push them away. We escape into the screen. We get out with friends. We grab some food. We create a diversion to escape the world of horror and evil.

One writer says

We cannot and we must not soften the blow; we cannot and we must not pretend that evil is not that bad after all

(NT Wright: Evil and the Justice of God, p.20)

So, if we are not to soften the blow, how do we deal with it? How does God’s word help us?

Lord’s Day 10 of the Heidelberg Catechism opens our minds to the whole sweep of Scripture with a daring assertion: even in the face of evil, God is sovereign, in control of all things, and loving toward all he has made.
Q&A 27

Q: What do you understand by the providence of God?


A: Providence is the almighty and ever present power of God
by which God upholds, as with his hand,
heaven and earth and all creatures,
and so rules them that
leaf and blade,
rain and drought,
fruitful and lean years,
food and drink,
health and sickness,
prosperity and poverty
—all things, in fact,
come to us not by chance
but by his fatherly hand.

But wait: we are talking about MH17, about ISIS crucifixions – did these really come from God’s fatherly hand? Well, God did not do those acts of evil. They were done at the hands of people, people committing crimes against humanity.

But by the same token, they were not acts of chance, or random forces operating outside the mysterious sovereign will of God.

I don’t know how to explain this. But I do know that if there are things outside God’s power he is not much of a God. If there are things in our world over which he has no control he is not worth believing.

But this is not the testimony of God we read in the Bible. Scripture teaches this sovereign God remains passionately and compassionately involved in our world and our lives.

Scripture teaches this sovereign God remains passionately and compassionately involved in our world and our lives.

So we are left with a tension: people are fully responsible for their behaviour. God is fully sovereign over his world and our lives.

We understand there is great mystery here.

Truth is, there are some things we may never be able to understand. Even in eternity we will know fully, but we will not be omniscient. We will stay human, and God will stay God.

Jesus reminds us that despite these mysteries, despite the limitations of human understanding, our loving God stands above all our woes. That his sovereign grace and almighty power is our only hope.

This God knows what we need:

““Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:25–33, NIV)

Jesus reminds us that despite these mysteries, despite the limitations of human understanding, our loving God stands above all our woes. That his sovereign grace and almighty power is our only hope.

We see the same in Psalm 46. This Psalm is a voice of hope and trust in the midst of dark threat and danger.

Let’s go there…

vv.1-3 This Psalmist reminds us that anything can happen. Even the unthinkable: mountains fall into the sea; the earth gives way. In this very context we hear the voice of faith:

But we will not fear!

There are shades of Daniel in the lion’s den, or the three in the fiery furnace: When God is our refuge, our strength, whom – or what – shall we fear?

vv.4-7 God is with us, and his presence is our protection. “God with us!” That tiny word ‘with’, when the Lord is the subject, is an indicator of covenant language and a signpost to his covenant faithfulness. The promise that God will be with his people is grounded deeply in his eternal promises.

“I will be with you” the Lord said, and led his people through the Red Sea with a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day. This God, Jacob’s God, is our mighty fortress.

But what, then, of Arjen and Yvonne Ryder?

Or Joep Lange?

Or any of the other 295 people on board MH 17?

A missile blew up their plane!

How could God be their fortress?

Well, Christians believe there is life, an existence with God that even a surface to air missile cannot take away. Those who trust in Jesus have an enduring hope in a glorious promise:

“What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:31–39, NIV)

It was this hope which prompted Daniel’s friends, when threatened with death in the furnace, to say that whether they survived or perished in the flames they would not bow down to Nebuchadnezzar’s image (Daniel 3:16-18). They knew, they trusted, they believed in the reality of life with God beyond physical death.

vv.8-9 Christians believe God will one day bring an end to warfare, to terrorism, to missiles, to grief and suffering.

“God will one day restore creation so the dark and threatening sea of chaos will be no more”
(NT Wright)

On that day they will beat their tanks into carousels, and their guns into bakery equipment.

This is no cliché. This is truth. This is where our world is heading, friends: a day is coming when God will put all things to right.

How do these truths impact God’s people?

v.10 “Be still, and know that I am God”

Cease striving.

Stop railing against it all.

Don’t let bitterness take root.

Stop hassling about ‘why?’ and concentrate on ‘what’.

Not: ‘why did this happen’

But: ‘as people who know the love and mercy of Jesus, what do we need to do to bring the grace of God’s kingdom to expression in this situation?’

Be still. Know that he is God.

And you are not. You are human. You cannot work this out. No one can.

No, God is not the author of evil. He sent Jesus to break the back of evil and to triumph over it.

And a day is coming when this Jesus will bring his world to rights. He will recreate it and bring it back to shalom, so that it will all be ‘very good’ once more.

A day is coming when those who fire missiles at kids on a beach will stand before the King of Heaven and Earth and give account for what they have done.

A day is coming when those who fired that missile at a plane full of scientists, families, couples, and children will give an account.

It is possible that human investigations into the incident may fail. The perpetrators might not ever be identified.

But God knows who they are, and they will answer before him.

A day is coming when ISIS extremists will stand before the Great King, and made to give an account for their violence.

There is One Judge who will act with justice. No one will miss out on that.

v.11 And so the Psalm’s refrain again: “The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.” (Psalm 46:11, NIV)

Your ultimate hope comes from relationship with the Lord Almighty. You are called to reach out to Jesus, who promised “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
This truth is no guarantee that we will never have any troubles, or that we will be spared tragedy and grief.

But we know, with the Psalmist, and with the writers of Lord’s Day 10, that it is in the crucible of grief that the strongest trust and confidence on the Lord is formed.

Take heart friends. You are not at the mercy of random forces of evil. You are in the hands of the living God, our sovereign Lord.

Answering the inevitable questions

But having said that, how do we answer the questions people ask? What can we say about all this?

First: Admit your ignorance. There are some things we just don’t know.

We don’t have all the answers. No one does. To admit this is to admit our humanity.
Try and say otherwise, or cover your ignorance, and people will know you’re faking it. And rightly so.

Second: Psalm 23 reminds us that even as we walk through the valley of death and grief, we know the Lord is with us.

You will notice the Psalm does not say we’ll be miraculously transported to the beautiful mountain top and start soaring with the eagles. We stay in the valley. The grief and suffering remain. The comfort is our God is not unaware or unmoved by our struggle. His rod and staff – his guidance and protection – comfort us. He is with us. Always. His Spirit, the Comforter, lives in us, experiencing with us all our struggle and pain. Our God is not unaware or uninvolved in our lives when tragedy or grief comes our way.

Third: The reality of suffering and pain challenges how we look at our world.

Tragedy is its own preacher: reminding us that despite all our advances and all our knowledge, we are small, and ignorant, and totally dependent on our living Lord.

Tragedy is its own motivator: drawing out of complacency. It drives us toward a better world, a greater story, a narrative – a view of life which can give us hope. This is why were are currently working through the Foundations Series: we want to understand our world, and how God’s plan in Jesus enables us to live as his new people.

Fourth: there is a greater tragedy, a greater evil than any warfare or act of aggression between people.

It happened 2000 years ago, when the Son of God was put to death on a torturous Cross.
This innocent Saviour died in the place of guilty rebels.

He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was laid upon his shoulders. By his suffering, we were healed.

In which other life context would you want another person to take your punishment? To suffer for your wrongs?

In that sense, the Cross of Jesus is the deepest and most appalling of injustices. In another sense through this greatest of evil, King Jesus conquered:

“And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” (Colossians 2:15, NIV)

This Jesus promises the comfort of his grace and the presence of His spirit to all who call on him. This Victor, the great Overcomer, is with you, and he will give you strength to cope with life’s sharp and brutal edges. The Cross and the open tomb remind us that Jesus takes evil and turns it into something that results in good.

“We will not be delivered from suffering, but with God’s help we can be transformed by it”

(Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised)

Fifth: This Jesus will return, to throw evil, aggression, and its exceptionally ugly author into the abyss for all eternity.

We long for and pray for a world where there will be no more weeping, crying, mourning or pain. Where the old order of injustice and aggression will be no more. In all the grief of this world, we look to the new heavens and the new earth.

We do this not as a means of escape, or as reason to ignore the pain and grief around us. We look to the next world to filter and focus what we do in the here and now. We want to see God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We also look to the new heavens and the new earth in faith that Jesus is returning. He will make it right. He will bring his eternal shalom.

Sixth: everyone of us must ask: am I a person of the solution, or a person of the problem?

Ask yourself: am I ruled by Jesus, and so working to break down evil in my community? Am I working to relieve suffering in my world? Am I a man, a woman of peace? Am I a person of the solution or a person of the problem?

See, if you ignore the evil around you and in your community, if you turn a blind eye, you are part of the problem. The church is not called to turn a blind eye. The church is called to be light of the world right there where you are.

So, is my church community working hard to address the suffering in our own neighbourhood? Do we understand that God’s mission is to bring an end to evil and suffering? As his people, do we accept his mission? Will we align all we do to see that he is honoured, that we will follow his call, and do all we can to bring his kingdom to glorious expression in our locality?

In the face of terrible tragedy, know that God will contain evil, he will restrain evil, he will prevent it form doing its worst, and he will even use the malice, ignorance and stupidity of human beings to further his own sovereign purposes (NT Wright). This is our comfort.

And we know that God seeks to wipe away the tears of the suffering even in this life, to break the chains of injustice, and to bring evil to account.

He will do this through the power of his risen Son.

And he will do this as his Son rules his people.

People like us.

This is our great mission.

May God give us the grace, strength and courage to shoulder it.

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by davidgroenenboom on July 28, 2014  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible Teaching, Christian Teaching, Home Group, Problem of Pain, Reformed Sermons, Suffering
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Posted by davidgroenenboom on July 28, 2014

https://sermonandstudy.com/2014/07/28/dealing-with-disaster-where-is-god-in-tragedy/

Redemption (Foundations #4) – Group Questions

Read 2 Corinthians 5:11-21

Discuss

What makes the church in the western world so resistant to the message of weakness and sacrifice so clearly displayed in Jesus’ ministry?

What reasons would we have to say that the manner of Jesus’ sacrificial ministry should be reflected in the church’s ministry and mission today? What challenges does this present to your church or your Christian community?

The redemption God has worked through Jesus impacts on three key areas of existence: People and their relationship with God; People and their relationship with others; People and their relationship with their environment/creation. How does this challenge how you see your world? What specific changes does it demand in your life?

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17, NIV) – in your opinion, which Christians or Christian movements have been the best expressions of this truth?

2 Cor 5:21 says your sin, guilt and rebellion have been laid on Jesus, and his righteousness has become yours. What does this mean to you personally?

Christians have been very influential in the development of western culture. Which areas would most benefit from Christian leadership and challenge in your part of the world?

What particular attitudes or behaviours is God calling you to change as a result of these truths?

Spend some time praying for one another, or praying for your Christian friends, asking that God’s new creation in Jesus might come to beautiful expression in their lives.

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by davidgroenenboom on July 22, 2014  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Bible Study, Christian Teaching, Home Group, Small Group
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Posted by davidgroenenboom on July 22, 2014

https://sermonandstudy.com/2014/07/22/redemption-foundations-4-group-questions/

Redemption (Foundations #4)

Read: 2 Corinthians 5:11-21

A few years ago I had a bit of a supermarket windfall. I’d walked into the meat section at Woolworths looking for some minced beef. I always look around for good specials while I’m there, so I was checking some prime bone-in rib steak.

They were about 50mm thick. They were MSA graded. Typically $39.00kg. And guess what else? They had been priced as economy grade mince. Like $7.99kg.

What do you think I did?

How happy do you think I was?

How good do you think they tasted?

Some years ago Tony Campolo got us all to imagine that one day all the supermarket price tags had been switched, where the best steaks would be a dollar or two, and the mince would be $50kg. Or the new Landcruiser would cost $900 and the rustbucket Daewoo $85,000.

The point was that in the Kingdom of God, the world’s typical values are reversed, turned on their head. The last will be first, and the first will be last. Power is made perfect in weakness, and so on.

How God rescued his world

This is, in fact, how things are. We learn this from the big picture of what God is doing.

IMG 0181

We have seen how he created, how humanity rebelled and plunged the universe into the fall, how God promised to restore all things and crush the head of evil.

Today we will see how God is bringing this rescue about, how he is bringing redemption.
We will see that this rescue is something like the switching the price tags metaphor because this rescue is altogether different, wonderful and – from a human standpoint – extraordinary and remarkable.

6147c054 bfc5 11e3 589366b

Think of it this way. We all know who this little boy is (Prince George). At present, he’s much like other one year olds. He’s got a few teeth. He’s starting to walk. And while he’s a member of the royal family, he has no idea how to plant trees. He still poops his pants.

But all things being equal, one day this will change. This little toddler will become King. And what will change?

His clothes will change: he will wear the robes and finery of a King.

His address will change: Windsor Castle, and Buckingham Palace.

He will wear a crown, studded with priceless jewels.

He will have attendants, and crowds will cheer him on, and as he walks in parade people will oooh and aaah as he passes by. When a man becomes King, this is what happens.

But what really interests us today is: what happens when God becomes King? Any of that?

What do we see in Jesus?

An unmarried mother, rumours of cheating, and mention of divorce. We see a shed, with straw, and a manger. A naked baby. A cow. Some chickens. And the visitors are shepherds, a dodgy underclass of near homeless people with a cheeky taste for mutton.

Nat3 1791716b
Rembrandt: The Adoration of the Shepherds, 1646

The moment we see this, we begin to understand that the rescue God is bringing is altogether different to what we might expect.

God’s Plan of Redemption: The Cross

The New Testament Gospels – the biographies of Jesus’ birth, life, ministry, death and rising again – confirm this. The people of Jesus day lived in a Roman province called Judea. Their once great nation had been conquered by a series of world powers. Assyria (722BC). Babylon (586BC). Greece (198 BC). And then Rome (37BC).

The people of Jesus’ day had heard God’s promises in the Hebrew Scriptures, and believed God would send mighty warrior King to boot out the invaders, and return Israel to her former glory.

Then, here comes Jesus. Feeding thousands, healing the sick, opening the ears of the deaf, giving sight to the blind, healing the paralysed, and raising the dead. No small wonder how Jesus’ contemporaries want to make him King.

Evens so, he consistently avoids pressure to become a military or political figure. He consistently challenges the religious leaders of the day. Jesus becomes too popular. The religious leaders get too threatened. So they conspire to put him to death on a cross.

Interestingly, when Jesus was crucified, we read that Pilate, the Roman Governor, attached a notice on Jesus’ cross which read ‘this is the King of the Jews.’

Did you realise Pilate was a prophet?

Did Pilate know that his act of antagonism in appending the notice to the cross, he expressed one of the greatest truths of all time: this is what it looks like when God becomes King.

God’s promise of redemption, God’s rescue of people, their world, their cosmos, would be fulfilled as God himself, the King, expends himself, sacrifices himself, as Jesus, True God and True Man, goes to the cross so his people might truly live and their world might truly be restored.

Here is the truth about God’s redemption: it comes through the crucified and risen Jesus. Through Jesus God is reconciling all things to himself (see Colossians 1:20)

The Context for Redemption

We saw a few weeks ago that human rebellion affected three key areas of existence. This rebellion, this sin, brought division between

People and God

People and one another

People and their environment

What we see today is that the redemption God has worked through Jesus Christ his son actually impacts each of those contexts.

First: Jesus brings redemption from the domination of sin on human disposition. This is clearly outlined by the Apostle Paul in Romans 8:1-4

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” (Romans 8:1–4, NIV)

Jesus sets us free from the law, the rule, the dominion of sin and death. Jesus breaks the power of rebellion to rule human nature.

God’s redemption deals with our sin, and draws people back into relationship with God

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21, NIV)

Our sin and rebellion is laid on Jesus. His righteousness and faithfulness is given to us. This change is so powerful that it is described as an act of re-creation:

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ …” (2 Corinthians 5:17–18, NIV)

Make no mistake: Jesus death on the cross and rising again deals with the rebellious disposition of people!

Second: Jesus’ redemption brings healing and restoration to human relationships:

There is hardly an uglier enmity on the pages of the Bible than the enmity and hatred between Jews and non Jews. Think: Israel and Palestine today and you’re pretty much there.

Israel palestine

But listen to what Paul writes to non Jewish people shortly after Jesus’ rising again:

“Therefore, remember … that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility…” (Ephesians 2:11–18, NIV)

As we see this violence and hatred played out before us in media reports of tensions between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza, we must recognise that the greatest need of all is for Jesus’ to rule the hearts and lives of men and women. More than international diplomacy, more than political deals, our world needs the reconciling peace which Jesus brings. Jesus brought unity between Jew and non-Jew in the first century. We need to pray he will do the same again.

Third: Jesus’ redemption opens the way for the restoration of all things.

Creation, groaning under the weight of the fall, cries out for the full redemption to come when Jesus returns to complete his work:

“For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.” (Romans 8:19–21, NIV)

The redemption God brought through Jesus’ death and resurrection impacts on it all:

People and God

People and other people

People and creation, creation itself

Here’s a question for you: Had you considered that the death of Jesus on the Cross and the power of his resurrection guarantees the resurrection of people, of society, of our world?

Did you realise that God’s plan is so mind bogglingly comprehensive?

So incredibly powerful?

You might say, ‘well, I don’t know about that. I haven’t seen too much change in people or the world. I certainly haven’t seen anything that transformational or redemptive!’ And you may be right. Perhaps you have not seen that.

You may not have seen the sheer number of societal developments spearheaded either by the church or by people who were walking with Jesus.

The development of public schools.

The development of hospitals and compassionate care.

The early days of the union movement.

The end of the slave trade under Wilberforce.

The invention of the Cochlear implant by Graeme Clark

Cancer immunology, advances in mesothelioma, through Professor Bruce Robinson, West Australian of the year in 2014

The challenge to segregation under Dr Martin Luther King.

The challenge to Nazism through Bonhoeffer.

The list is long, though quite possibly you might not be aware of how the Risen Jesus worked through such people. (A good place to see how much impact the kingdom of Jesus has had on western society is the writings of Rodney Stark)

Even if you are not aware of these people and how their lives honoured Jesus, there’s another context in which God’s redemption comes most powerfully to expression. You might not have seen that either, even though you really should have. That particular context is your own life.

If anyone is in Christ, new creation has come! They are new creation! In Jesus, you are new creation! As a follower of Jesus, you are the context in which God’s new creation will come to expression. This is the thing: God’s redemption comes powerfully to expression in the world as he brings change in people’s life, in your life, in mine.

If anyone is in Christ, new creation has come!

It always amazes me that some Christians in particular can be so critical, looking down their noses and bad mouthing others for their faults and failings, using that as reason to disengage or not be involved in what God calls them to do. They miss the point that the first context they should see the transformational power of God rescue is in their own lives!

God wants his new creation to come to expression in their behaviour and attitudes. God’s Spirit intends for you to

Break the pride.

Stop the whinging.

Cut the gossip.

Stop the cheating on your partner.

Stop driving like a hoon.

Keep you anger in check.

Lose the holier than thou attitude.

See, God has little interest in you just changing your ideas, listening to Joyce Meyer or Driscoll or Keller or whomever. You can be as eloquent as you like about the views of such speakers, or the books you read. But it all means zip unless your life starts to come under Jesus’ rule (more to say about that next time).

Let’s just say for today the work of the Spirit in you is to redeem you. To restore Christ’s character and attitudes in you. To overcome rebellion in your thoughts, words and actions. To bring new creation to expression right there in your life! God made him who had no sin, to be sin for you, so that in him you might become the righteousness of God!

God wants this change, this new creation, to move from your mind, to your heart, to your hands and your life.

if everyone who went by the name of Jesus actually started to live like Jesus, would our world be any different?

Did not Jesus say, “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and … puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” (Matthew 7:24, NIV)

Let me ask you, if everyone who went by the name of Jesus actually started to live like Jesus, would our world be any different?

If you started to live like Jesus, really, would your family be any different?

Your workplace?

Your local community?

It is inconceivable that any of these contexts would stay the same when people commit to living out Jesus’ new creation.

The character of Redemption

I want to push a little harder to get us thinking about the character of Jesus’ rescue and redemption, or – in the language of the Gospels – the character of the Kingdom.

Remember that Jesus was a picture of weakness when he was born. Remember how he refused to pander to the expectations of the people of his time, and how he rejected all pressure to be a political messiah? Remember how he was an object of foolishness when he died on the cross?

Now, if Jesus came in that manner, lived in that manner, died in that manner – don’t you think there are implications for how we should be living?

Don’t you think this is a powerful statement of what Christians should aspire to?

Doesn’t that impact the kind of life you lead?

The kind of future you seek?

The kind of success you aim for?

What sort of ministry we should want to develop?

Does that impact on what sort of church we should be trying to grow?

There is so much pressure on western churches to strive to be large, to focus on building the biggest and most impressive. We see many mega-churches focussing on the trinity of ‘lights, camera and action’ and using these means as their primary drawcard. In the end such emphases become harder and harder to maintain. The reason is that we’re imitating the world, and the world always does ‘the world’ better than the church.

Christ’s call on us is to be distinct, unique, an alternate and contrasting community. To display the impressive reality of the Gospel, even if the message appears to some as foolishness. The power of the risen Christ ruling a community of his people will always have more transformational impact that anything else.

This is what we should be looking for and working toward. Through history, this has tended to mean churches working in smaller, more community oriented units as compared with large mega churches. Historians and church growth experts will show us that these smaller units have greater missional effectiveness in impacting the local community. So maybe it is is true that small is the new big.

These are some of the most strident challenges to the prosperity Gospel: where all God wants to do is give you riches and wealth and success. What a joke! Jesus and the early church had none of that!

It was quite the opposite: where people had excess wealth, they sold some of their stuff and gave the money to anyone in need. There’s redemption and restoration right there friends.

These are some of the most incisive challenges to comfortable churches of convenience.
Where nice people roll up to get a religious ‘sugar fix’ hoping to walk away sated for another week.

This rescue, this redemption God has brought through his son is the most radical, transformational, anti establishment movement on the face of the earth! Through this Jesus centred redemption

God brings change in human disposition and behaviour.

God brings restoration in relationships

God brings hope to a fallen bruised and broken world.

And the primary context for his change to come to glorious expression is in your heart, my heart, in new community right here, right now.

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by davidgroenenboom on July 21, 2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by davidgroenenboom on July 21, 2014

https://sermonandstudy.com/2014/07/21/redemption-foundations-4/

Promise (Foundations #3) – Group Questions

What has been the most memorable promise someone has ever made to you? How did it change your behaviour or the course of your life?

Do you agree that God’s most basic response to human rebellion is one of grace and promise? How might the Christian Churches bring this to better reflection in their mission and ministry?

God’s promise of restoration is directed to 1) the human heart, as he promises to deal with human sin and rebellion 2) human relationships, as he promises to reconcile people to one another, and 3) all created reality, as he promises the new heavens and the new earth.

* Which of these areas has tended to receive the most focus in Christian teaching? Does this perceived emphasis reflect the fullness of the Bible’s teaching?

* How could Christians and the Christian Church conduct themselves differently so as to address this perceived imbalance?

God’s plan of salvation is as concerned with physical realities as it is with spiritual realities.

* How does this truth challenge or comfort you?

* What challenges does this present to you church, or to how you live as a follower of Jesus?

Who, in your experience, has been the greatest example of how the message of Jesus brings holistic transformation to all of life?

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by davidgroenenboom on July 14, 2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by davidgroenenboom on July 14, 2014

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Promise (Foundations #3)

How God answers human rebellion

Isaiah 65:17-25

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Credit: iStockphoto

So far in this series we have seen

1. How God created the universe, and it was very good.

2. How humanity rejected God, rebelling against his love and goodness through Adam and Eve’s act of defiance.

Today we will see

3. How God answers that rebellion. As we do, we may well find ourselves challenged and surprised.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Let’s start with a promise:

I was a young boy, maybe 5 years old. My mother had to take me to the family doctor to get a needle: I suppose it was some form of immunisation. There was a problem: I hate needles, and my mother was probably not too good at dealing with freaked out children.
But she had a stroke of genius the week before I was to have that fateful appointment.
She walked me into the paper shop – that’s what we used to call the newsagent in the town I was born – and pointed up on one of the shelves. It was blue ray gun that looked something like this. It was a young boy’s dream toy. The 1963 version of a light sabre.
I looked at that ray gun, and imagined the fun I could have with it. I may even have believed that with such a weapon I could keep my older sister in line. My imagination was held with my mother’s promise: ‘if you don’t make a fuss about the needle, you will get that ray gun…’

Pifco side edit

In that moment of parental genius, my mother did something divine: she saw a person gripped with fear and foreboding, and spoke a promise which drew them toward a better reality.

The Power of God’s Promise

This is how promises work: they capture our heart and point us to something better.

It happens when a man slips a diamond on the finger of his fiancé.

It happens when two people sit down and plan the holiday of a lifetime.

It happens when a young couple puts a deposit on their first home.

A promise will meet us where we are and direct our vision toward something better.

The greatest promise of all happened in Eden. Humanity was trapped in their own rebellion from God. Overcome with fear, they hid from God instead of trusting him.

What was God’s core reaction to that rejection? By core reaction, I mean the response which best expresses the character of the Lord? Our answer is seen in how God spoke right into that rebellion, and challenged it with a promise:

“…I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”” (Genesis 3:15, NIV)

Yes, human rebellion has its consequences. Grief, tears, pain, death and separation from God. What we need to see is how in the thick of all that, this gracious God set about his work of restoring his people and his world.

If you want to understand anything about God, this is where you start: God’s most basic inclination, his most basic response to human fall and rebellion is to draw people out of chaos and into his love life and grace. His promise draws a fearful and fallen humanity toward a better reality. He would send a deliverer, a Messiah, to crush the head of evil once and for all.

God’s most basic inclination, his most basic response to human fall and rebellion is to draw people out of chaos and into his love life and grace.

The Bible is really the story of God bringing this promise to fulfilment. The ancient writings of the Old Testament tell us how God opens the eyes of humanity to their own need and how he started to bring this rescue about.

We learn how he chose a relatively weak and insignificant people and formed them into the nation of Israel. Their call was to show what life was like when people lived in relationship with this God of promise.

We hear the manifesto for this fledgling nation in Ex 19:

“Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation…” (Exodus 19:5–6, NIV)

The distinctive character of this nation living with God would be expressed as they lived by his commands (Exodus 20).

Israel’s history however, shows how they failed in their task. Despite his doubtless grief and anger at his people’s sin, God keeps working to bring his promise to reality.
He keeps calling his people back to life. While it is true that he meets them where they are, he refuses to leave them that way. He draws them into change and transformation. Despite their continued failing, and times where they are exiled and disciplined, he never breaks his word. He remains faith to his promise to deal with their rebellion, to restore them and their world.

The question that really interests us today is ‘What sort of restoration would this be? What does this promise entail?’

The Old Testament has many different voices and a rich texture of answers to that question. The most breathtaking vision of how this promise would come to fulfilment is found in the book of Isaiah.

Writing some 700 years before the birth of Jesus Christ, Isaiah presents such a vista of hope and transformation that we can scarcely believe it. This is not because it seems untrue, but because it is so all encompassing and universal in its scope. Isaiah mentions three contexts in which God’s restoration will be seen.

First: God will act to reconcile humanity to himself. He will do this by dealing with the core problem of humanity: the rebellious disposition of the human heart.

“Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.” (Isaiah 1:18, NIV)

How will that happen?

Isaiah says this rescue will come through one identified as ‘The Servant of the Lord.’ This servant will become a sacrifice. He will take on the form of an abject, innocent man who willingly suffers for the wrongs of his people (Isaiah 53:3-6).

Second: Not only does God promise to reconcile people to himself, his act through his servant will have such magnitude that it will will impact on human relationships and reconcile people to each other. Relationships will be healed and the human heart transformed to such an extent that evil and injustice and violence will ultimately be overcome (Isaiah 61:1-3).

Third: (as if the first two contexts were not enough) Isaiah’s panorama of promise widens to something absolutely stupendous. How? Well, we know that creation groans with the weight of sin and the smell of the fall. We see this in natural disasters, in animal predation and environmental imbalance. We see it in unjust societal structures, in broken communities, abusive institutions, in warfare and genocide. Isaiah, however, points us to a new day when the servant’s actions will not only change human hearts and human relationships, his work of rescue will transform all created reality (Isaiah 65:17, 19, 25).

This is what Isaiah is saying: People will be reconciled to God. People will be reconciled to one another. People will be reconciled to their environment, society will be healed, and the brokenness of our universe will ultimately be overcome.

There’s the promise: God will act – through the servant – whom Christians understand to be Jesus – to rescue people and their world from their rebellion and all its consequences.

The scope of the promise

What are we to make of all this? If we are trying to come to terms with the core realities of Christianity, with the central truths of who Jesus is, what does Creation – Rebellion – Promise mean?

The first implication is that God – and his plan of salvation – is as concerned with physical realities as much as spiritual realities. In fact, they cannot be separated. One is not more important than another.

Some may be surprised about this. They have focussed so long on heaven and ‘spiritual things’ that there is hardly a thought to this world or the crying needs of people in it. The truth is that the kind of spirituality which elevates spiritual above physical, soul above body, heaven above earth, does not have its roots in the Bible, but in ancient Greek philosophers like Plato. But because western culture has been built on this foundation, people almost automatically understand that ‘spiritual’ things are more valuable to God than physical. Isaiah’s words challenge our assumptions as much as the work of the servant will transform our culture.

We do need to take care, however. We do not know all the detail of what the new heavens and the new earth will be like. And we should take great care with the symbolism and imagery employed by Bible writers. Will lions really eat straw like an ox? We don’t really know, but we do understand Isaiah’s intention: the sort of animal violence typified in the lion’s hunt will be a subject of a beautiful and radical transformation in the new heavens and the new earth which the servant will bring.

There are simply so many passages in the Bible which speak of a new world, a recreated and transformed reality where heaven and earth are reunited, that we cannot ignore them.

A second implication follows from the first: Christian ministry and mission is one of word and deed. Christians cannot seek to address spiritual matters while at the same time ignoring the physical needs of the world around them. Similarly, Christians cannot simply address physical needs of their world without also addressing the spiritual situation of people and society.

We observe this very clearly in Jesus’ ministry, where he not only taught the crowds who followed him, and saw them as sheep without a shepherd, he also fed them. Jesus addressed then whole person in his ministry. His church should do the same.

This is why when Jesus opens his ministry he not only talks about pardon from sin and rebellion, but of transformation of people and their world.

““The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”” (Luke 4:18–21, NIV)

This is why James the apostle says:

“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” (James 2:14–17, NIV)

And it is why Paul sees the work of Jesus on the cross as not merely impacting the human soul, or matters of faith, or religious ideas. He sees Jesus’ work as impacting the entire cosmos:

“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” (Colossians 1:15–20, NIV)

The Impact of Promise: We Are a People of Hope

Perhaps the greatest implication is that God’s people are people of real hope! Christianity is a world affirming, creation redeeming faith. Christians are people who are not just thinking about the Bible, but because they are thinking about their world and the community in which they live.

Christians are people who don’t just have faith in their head and their hearts, they have faith in their hands. A Christian is not simply someone with religious ideas, or someone who has made some deep commitments. A Christian is someone who is active in living out their faith. Someone in whom the transformational work of Jesus is coming to increasing expression in their behaviour, their actions, their words.

This is why at Gateway Community Church we have three core areas of our vision and mission: we want to grow transformed disciples, we want to build a new community of people, and we want to take the positive and transformational change of the gospel into our local community. If we fail on any of those three counts, we actually fail the mission of God and we fail to be his people of promise.

Christians are not simply people who believe the bible, but because they believe the Bible they are also deeply troubled that

• there are 30 million slaves in our world today

• average life expectancy of indigenous people is some 10 years below that of other Australians

• some of the most vulnerable people have no right to legal support or process even in our own courts

• there are people in our own community who struggle to heat their homes and put a square meal on the table

So, yes, we look at our world and it is not hard to sense the fall all around us. But God’s promise in Jesus meets us where we are and draws us toward a more glorious reality. It is a promise expressed in the Christmas Carol “O Holy Night”

A thrill of hope! The weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!

Did you know that? Because God is faithful to his promise, a new day is dawning!

Did you know that this is how God answers human rebellion?

Yes, there are consequences to this rebellion, and those consequences are dire. But God’s promise of a new and glorious morn is greater and more powerful than any threat of death or any penalty or curse of sin. This promise tells us One will come who will redeem us and our world from the curse of the law and from the ugly stain of our own rebellion.

There’s the promise, right there! And we are thrilled to hear that at the core of this God’s heart there is not retribution or anger or the rage of a despot, but something wonderful:

“This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4:9–10, NIV)

Here is the miracle: through the lens of the Old Testament, we see God’s first promise in Genesis 3:15 narrow, and come to sharp focus on a nondescript stable. A young mother had just laid her baby in a manger for his bed. And sharper still, thirty years later, as this son, naked again, is laid on the rough timber of a cross, and then suffers hell for his people and their world.

Why?

Because our God keeps his promises. And when his world is broken, he must act according to his nature, and get to work putting it all back together again.

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by davidgroenenboom on July 14, 2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by davidgroenenboom on July 14, 2014

https://sermonandstudy.com/2014/07/14/promise/

Rebellion (Foundations #2) Group Questions

Group questions relevant to Rebellion – Foundations #2

Grab a newspaper or read an internet news channel – which stories show there is something wrong with our world?

Read Genesis 3

Referring to verses 1-7, what was so bad about eating from a tree which God had created good anyway?

What was the initial response of God to Adam & Eve’s actions? What does this tell you about the God we worship?

Can you think of any New Testament passages which underscore this core desire and emotion of God for fallen and rebellion people?

Read Gen 3:15 & 20 – what do these tell you about God’s ultimate plan for his world?

How would you answer those who say that the fall is merely symbolic, or a myth?

Col 1:15-20 points us to Jesus Christ as the One through whom God will restore his creation and reconcile it to himself. How does this impact on how you see your world?

How does this passage change the way you look at God?

What difference will it make in they way you live?

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by davidgroenenboom on July 1, 2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by davidgroenenboom on July 1, 2014

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Foundations #2 – Rebellion

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Image: iStockphoto: © stphillips

Reading: Genesis 3

Not the way it should be…

The big day has finally arrived!

No, not your wedding day. Not your 21st. Not the big promotion.

It’s the day you get the huge Samsung curved screen TV.

It takes up half your lounge room. And before you install it, you have to extend the room by several meters, otherwise you’re sitting so close your hair stands on end…

Anyway, it’s all there. You have the chips. The dip. The Shiraz. And you’re hanging out for the final of Masterchef…

You turn it on, the screen springs to life, but all you can get is Extra – A channel dedicated to advertising stuff no one needs. But this is your new 65″ curved screen TV, so you watch a little Brazil Butt Lift, and then try another channel.

Extra.

But now it’s Dr Ho’s Pain Therapy. IN disbelief, you hit the remote again.

Extra.

And your next thought is… This is not the way its supposed to be. There’s something wrong with this thing…

In that moment of frustration, though you might not know it, you express a core truth of humanity and the world we live in: This is not the way it is supposed to be.

There seems to be a universal sense that things should be better than what they are.

That cancer is ugly and wrong.

That people should be honest.

That people should be able to walk down any street on any night and have no fear.

That politicians and orphanage workers can be trusted.

That some church leader is not going to abuse my child.

That people should not have to seek asylum ever.

Why do we have this sense, this deep rooted belief, that things should be better?

In this Foundations series we want to understand basic Christian teaching. The core message of what God is doing in the world. And one of Christianity’s core beliefs is that things should be better than what they are. The Bible tells us where that core belief comes from.

Sin… meaning what?

The problem is summed up in one word: sin.

And our problem is that our culture has no real concept of what that is.
Let’s do something on the fly: Fire up your browser and go to Google.com.au and starting type ‘sinful’

The first entries are generally things like ‘sinful iPhone, sinful colours, sinful chocolate, sinful dessert…’

See what’s going on?

Sin has become fun. Stuff you eat. Great experiences. Things we typically enjoy. Here’s the point: If Google’s definition is what people are thinking about sin, it’s no wonder we’re confused. Who needs to repent of eating a cake? Or chocolate?

In contrast to this, the Bible says our world is broken. And we need to ask, ‘how did this happen?’ If God created the world, “and it was very good”, how come it falls so far short of that today? How is it that human wrongdoing, or the threat of it, mars every workday, every child’s school day, every family holiday? [see Plantinga, p.8]

That’s the question. And we are not going to like the answer because the Bible says we human are to blame.

Read Gen 3:1-7

Adam and Eve had been told not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But instead of obedience, they chose disobedience. Instead of trusting God, they chose independence. Instead of submission, they chose rebellion. Their action became humanity’s spiritual coup d’état. A seizure of power from the world’s rightful and loving ruler.

That first act of rebellion has affected all humanity. Relationships between people and people are a mess. Relationships between people and nature; people and God; people and themselves; nature and God – all polluted. The whole universe manifests the ugly evidence that things are not they way they should be.

Rom 8:19-22

How pervasive, insistent and ugly is this human rebellion against God. It stains every act. It pollutes every disposition. It brings brokenness into every life context. It affects all of us, right to the core.

“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9, NIV)

The lousy smell of rebellion makes its way into every part of life. Like those embarrassing times when you walk into an important meeting with some post canine material on your shoe. You can smell it. Others can smell it. And you’re thinking, ‘phwoah, what’s that funky smell… that’s not they way it’s supposed to be…’ And you realise, way too late, that it’s been your problem all along.

Is there anywhere in that room where the smell does not make its heinous presence known? So also, there is no part of life that is unaffected by human rebellion and indifference against God. This is what we refer to when we talk about total depravity.
We are not as bad as we can get. But the smell of the fall impacts every part of human personhood.

The analogy actually falls down because actually everyone has that mess to deal with, and not just on their shoe – but deep within.

Seen those images of Isis militants executing people in cold blood?

Heard the reports of institutional abuse from the current Royal Commission in Australia?

Noticed that in your relationships there is not only wonderful capacity for love and joy, but also dreadful ability for pain, hurt and rejection?

this sin, this smell of the fall, it is not just ‘out there’. It is right here in this gathering. It is in our hearts. It is part of us

We cannot always measure culpability for it, but this rebellion possesses appalling force. Simply by our habitual practice, we let loose a great, rolling momentum of moral and spiritual evil across generations. By doing such things, we involve ourselves deeply in what theologians call corruption. [Plantinga, p.27]

See, this sin, this smell of the fall, it is not just ‘out there’. It is right here in this gathering. It is in our hearts. It is part of us.

And God hates it.

Not simply because it violates his law, but more substantively because it violates his shalom. Because it breaks the peace he first poured into his creation.
It interferes with the way things are supposed to be. [see Plantinga, p.27]

Now we have all seen and heard the voice of militant atheism raging against Christianity and faith in God. These voices trouble us, and threaten us. We will sometimes find ourselves cowering in their icy blast.

But think about it: What can atheists say about our human condition? What hope do they offer? Every person who does not believe in the living Lord, what hope do you have?
What challenge, ultimately, do you offer to the ugliness, the evil, the injustice we see in our world? What have you got to say?

You have no solution. You present no hope for your world. You offer no prospect that things will ever be any different.

When the next abuser is unmasked; when the next grotesque injustice is perpetrated;
when the next family breaks down; the next marriage vow broken; the next time children weep themselves to sleep; all you can say is ‘this is the way things are and it will never be any different.’

What a hopeless way to live.

What a pathetic view of life.

Solution

So here is the question we all need to answer, right here, right now:

Do we just accept that this is the way things are?

Do you want to go on living with the belief that things will never change?

Do you want to deny that cry from deep within that there has to be another way, a better way, a way of hope?

This is why you need to trust God.

If we go back to that initial act of rebellion, right back in the garden, we see that the moment humans rejected God, the moment they turned their back on him, the moment judgement descended, this same God – his own heart grieving – promised life and hope.

Humanity is hiding, living in guilt.

And God is seeking, speaking grace (Gen 3:9).

To the serpent, the evil one’s agent of the fall, this God says

“…I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”” (Genesis 3:15, NIV)

He turns the children of the women, ultimately children of faith, into polar opposites of evil. He creates an antithesis, an ingrained opposition, an enmity between those who seek to live for God and those who would persist live without him.

This God of hope promises that one day, One would come who would crush the head of evil for all time. One who would bring an end to the pain, the tears, the grief, the crying and mourning and injustice and deceit.

God’s plan is that his people, those who despite their wrongdoing and rebellion, would still trust him, that through these people he would show what life was meant to be like. He promised that ultimately, from these very people, One would be born who would ultimately crush this evil power, and start to bring things back to the way they should be.

We read the OT and we see how God chose a people as his very own. How he lived with them. They were his people, his priests, his holy nation. He would be their God. And We see them stumble and fall and fail, and lose faith.

But God stays remains faithful to his promises. His faithfulness knows no limit.

And all through the years He sent prophets who

“dreamed of a new age in which human crookedness would be straightened out, rough places made plain. The foolish would be made wise, and the wise, humble. They dreamed of a time when the deserts would flower, the mountains would run with wine, weeping would cease, and people could go to sleep without weapons on their laps. People would work in peace and work to fruitful effect. Lambs could lie down with lions. All nature would be fruitful, benign, and filled with open wonder. All humans would be knit together in brotherhood and sisterhood; and all nature and all humans would look to God, walk with God, lean toward God, and delight in God. Shouts of joy and recognition would well up from valleys and seas, from women in streets and from men in ships.”

[Plantinga p.9-10]

The NT tells us that Jesus is the one to bring this new creation. He is our promised rescuer – more about that next week.

Be sure of this: through this Jesus God is answering the rebellion of humanity that has wrecked his world.

Writing about Jesus, Paul says

“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” (Colossians 1:19–20, NIV)

This is the peace we all long for.

It comes through Jesus, who lived and died and rose again. His birth, life, death, and rising are historically verifiable events. The resurrection of Jesus vindicates His claim to be creation’s rescuer, your Saviour, your very present hope.

through this Jesus God is answering the rebellion of humanity that has wrecked his world

This Jesus – in a way that we can scarcely comprehend – is awakening that sense in you that ‘things are not the way they should be’.

He’s telling you that your world is broken. That you are broken. That we are all broken.

His death and rising again show that he has the power to put us back together.

To deal with our rebellion.

Our fallen acts.

Our fallen disposition.

Our corruption.

And he is calling you to trust Him.

To come on board with his all powerful effort to make things right.

So that instead of being stuck in rebellion, we might be free, our world made right, and one day, at last, everything will be the way it should be.

[I acknowledge with thanks the clarity Cornelis Plantinga has brought to this discussion with his work ‘Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be – A Breviary of Sin‘ This book breathes the hope of Christ into any discussion of our deepest and ugliest realities]

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by davidgroenenboom on July 1, 2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by davidgroenenboom on July 1, 2014

https://sermonandstudy.com/2014/07/01/foundations-2-rebellion/