5 March 2013

Psalm 78:1-39; Jer. 7:21-34; Rom. 4:13-25; John 7:37-52

The Lord provided the sacrificial system as a way of maintaining covenant.  His desire wasn't for sacrifices to multiply, but for obedience and righteousness.  As they became prosperous they were able to afford sin.  It would be as if you decided you would put a nickel in a jar every time you cursed.  The penalty might not be enough to cause you to stop cursing.  Sacrifices are not a substitute for obedience and righteousness.  The Lord's desire was for a people who would obey Him and be that kingdom of priests He so desires.  We can make an even more egregious mistake since we make no sacrifice at all, we can so rely on Jesus' finished work that we do not restrain ourselves from sin at all.  This is far worse than the Israelites error, it makes a mockery of the cross.

Jesus makes an amazing offer at the festival.  On this day they poured out water around the altar as a sign of their faith that the Lord would soon provide the rains in their season.  He would be faithful and give them more water.  We live in a region where such seasons are not common but in places where rain happens only during certain seasons of the year, it is truly an act of faith to pour out the water you have stored in anticipation of rain.  Jesus says that if they will come to Him they will have rivers of living water flowing from his heart.  See Isaiah 55 for the reference here.  People were divided over Him based solely on what they thought they knew concerning His place of birth.  You would think there would be a bit of humility concerning knowledge given the nation's history of problems with interpretation wouldn't you?  I wouldn't, I know too much about Christian history to believe that we understand everything we need to.

Does Paul mean faith is simple mental assent to a proposition?  I am quite certain he means a bit more than that when he uses the word faith.  With respect to Abraham, there was action required to prove his faith.  He first had to go where the Lord sent him and then he had to continue to walk with Him.  Sometimes it requires a long season of obedience to receive the promise of God but ultimately whatever He has promised He will do.  Faith and obedience go hand in hand.  We prove our faith by the living of our lives according to God's will.  We don't go back to where we were before, we leave it all behind and move ahead in the belief that what He has promised He will fulfill.  The faith we have is in the resurrection of Jesus and we live with the security of that resurrection to life eternal. 

4 March 2013

Psalm 80; Jer. 7:1-15; Rom. 4:1-12; John 7:14-36

Apparently they haven't completely left off the worship of Yahweh but they haven't given Him their exclusive worship.  They have broken the first commandment.  That commandment is set up by the reminder that He is the One who delivered them from Egypt.  These commandments are based in His action on their behalf in the past and this group has no historical memory.  Again, sound familiar?  They continue to go through the motions of worship to Him all the while paying homage to other gods, just as they did with the golden calf.  He promises to forgive them if they amend their ways and return to Him.  He will be faithful to His promise and His nature but they will not hear it, they will not give up their idolatry and worship Him only.  They believe that His love for the temple will prevail but He cares not for the temple, it has become a "den of robbers", the very words Jesus used in clearing out the moneychangers.  The Lord tells them if they think His feelings for the building will keep Him from allowing Jerusalem to be overrun they should go to Shiloh and see what remains there of the earlier worship place.  Buildings don't matter, they are inanimate structures, it is the people that matter and they have already defamed Him, destroying the temple is a small thing.

Jesus speaks here of the one who has sent Him.  Again and again we see that phrase in this passage.  His teaching and His works tell us who sent Him, if, He says, we desire to do the will of the Father.  If our hearts are pointed in the right direction we will know His teaching to be true.  The implication is that these leaders and others do not have that desire in their hearts and minds.  They are seeking glory for themselves and among themselves.  The difference is that Jesus seeks the glory of the one who sent Him.  In iconography Jesus is always pointing to the Father, just as He did in His life.  In the synoptic Gospels we hear Jesus ask the question who do people say that I am.  Here, and through all of John's Gospel, we hear that question from the people.  They are confused and it seems no one wants to conclude what was the seemingly obvious thing, He is Messiah.  They are looking to their leaders for that validation rather than to God.  Whose opinion matters to us?

Can it be true?  Can there be one who justifies the ungodly?  If so, sign me up.  Faith is the key to it all.  Saving faith has a particular content, that Jesus was a completely righteous man, sinless and perfectly obedient even unto death on the cross, and His death was actually a willing sacrifice, He gave His life up as a sacrifice to God for the sins of those created in His image and that His resurrection from the dead to life means that we too will have eternal life.  That transaction isn’t complete until we couple His work with our faith.  The work we have to do is believing in Him.  That work will then enable us to do all such good works as He has already prepared for us to walk in.  We need to turn our eyes upon Jesus and keep them there.  We need to be like Him, living our lives for His glory.

3 March 2013

Psalm 93, 96; Jer. 6:9-15; 1 Cor. 6:12-20; Mark 5:1-20

There is no knowledge of Yahweh in the land, none with ears to hear.  They have no shame and all are greedy for unjust gain.  Sounds incredibly familiar doesn't it?  We live in exactly such an age and we do hear voices healing the wound of the people lightly, not dealing honestly with sin.  The nation had lost its way because it had lost touch with their God.  There was no longer restraint on sin and they were under judgment.  We don't like to hear that there comes a time when sin has so taken over that the Lord will no longer stay His hand against a nation but if it is true of Israel, it is true of any nation.  We have failed to disciple and failed to discipline.  We no longer talk much of righteousness.  In the end, empires don't last when they fail to exercise restraint and lapse into senescence.  The Lord here says this judgment will fall on everyone and will leave nothing untouched.

The Decapolis was a place most Jewish people avoided.  It was a place of sin and vice, a place some said was one of the places where the "gates of hell" were located.  Jesus goes there as a witness and chooses the worst of the worst cases in which to display His power and His mercy.  He went there to set one man free from a horrible demonic oppression and left the man behind to tell others what Jesus had done for him.  I wonder if there is someone in Asheville right now the Lord could do this for who would be a sign to the city?  Sometimes when a city has been overcome by darkness and false worship the only thing God can do to shake things us is to display His power over those pretender gods.  We should be praying for His mercy and His power to be shown in order that these gods may quake and not command us to leave but beg us to leave.

"I will not be dominated by anything."  What a motto for life!  If we have been conquered by God's love and mercy then we should be willing to say that very thing.  Is His conquest of your life complete?  Sexual immorality comes in many forms and it is perhaps the number one besetting sin of our day.  Sex dominates our culture and we struggle with defining immorality at all.  What once was agreed upon as immoral is now passé and accepted as the new normal.  Does the church have anything to say to a society completely obsessed with sex?  The abortion culture exists completely because of sexual immorality and promiscuity, it is the result of a cultural obsession with sex.  Is the culture too far gone for redemption?

2 March 2013

Psalm 75, 76; Jer. 5:20-31; Rom. 3:19-31; John 7:1-13

(For some reason we skip forward past John 6 at present, only to return to it in a couple of weeks.)

I have too often heard it taught that the fear of the Lord means something other than fear.  That is a false teaching.  Here, we see that the fear of the Lord is an important aspect of our understanding of Him and us.  Without the fear of the Lord we have no restraint.  He is a God of judgment, even if that judgment is delayed.  The people have long gone astray, not in the last few weeks, sin has more than blossomed, like kudzu it has taken over.  The Lord has been patient, waiting for the people to return and repent, but now they have gone too far.  They have not been either fearful or thankful to Him who provides all things.  They have coveted more and more of earthly things and that covetousness has caused them to be deceitful and rapacious, exploiting their fellow men and caring nothing for justice.  They loved stuff more than people and in doing so they are now under judgment.  Sound familiar?

The temptation presented by his brothers is similar to satan's temptations presented to Jesus.  When he had fasted for forty days He was hungry so wouldn't a little food made from stones be okay.  If you want people to know you're Messiah, go where people are, Jerusalem at the time of festivals, why hide yourself up here in Galilee.  They didn't even believe Jesus was Messiah, just a sibling, at the time, so sarcasm was the likely tone of this comment.  Jesus, however, isn't moving at their behest or taunt, He waits for the voice of the Father and ultimately does go to the festival.  His mission, however, isn't what they suggest, it is more a reconnaissance mission, what are people saying about him.  Those who speak well of him do so privately, it isn't safe to do so in public, there is danger afoot.

When Paul says that the law speaks to those under the law that every mouth may be stopped he is saying that it convicts us all of sin.  Those who know good and evil, because they have the law, have no ability to proclaim their own righteousness.  The argument here is beautiful, God is just and justifier, all the work is His, all we have to offer is faith and that itself is a gift from God.  The work of Jesus is complete and free-standing, He is just, without sin, and also justifier in that the propitiation for sin was made in His blood poured out for us who are sinners.  All He has ever asked of men is that we turn to Him and away from sin.  Why do we deter and detour?

1 March 2013

Psalm 69; Jer. 5:1-9; Rom. 2:25-3:18; John 5:30-47

The first verse of the Jeremiah lesson makes me think of Sodom and Abraham's attempt to bargain with God for the city.  Jeremiah is told to run to and fro and see if he can find one righteous man in the city and all he finds are those who have refused to believe even in the face of calamity.  First, the prophet believes it is true only of those who lack knowledge of God, those who have not received His blessing.  That makes sense to Jeremiah, they have an excuse for not believing, they are consumed with the struggle anyway.  What he finds among the rich is that being materially blessed has not given them knowledge, only appetites for sin, they are worse than the poor.  What a horrible situation in the city of God, the place where the glory is to dwell, there is no knowledge of Him at all, no repentance from anyone.  The Lord must bring judgment against this place.

They are looking at the only righteous man who ever lived and He is offering testimony to Himself by various sources.  In Jewish law a man's testimony about himself could not be accepted as evidence.  Jesus, therefore, points to John's testimony.  Surely John could be trusted.  Jesus confirms and affirms John in the process.  If John's testimony isn't enough, the works He is doing are a second witness, surely they can accept that as a witness, no one has done the things Jesus is doing.  Next, He says the Father bears witness but they have never heard His voice.  The Scriptures are a witness to Him as well but as diligently as they search them they aren't finding truth because they aren't coming to Him to receive life.  It isn't the Bible from which we receive life, it is from Jesus, not simply words on a page but the Word of God.  We can receive life only from the life-giver.  He, like Jeremiah, is searching for someone who will listen and receive.

Paul's first argument is that circumcision doesn't save anyone, nor does it change anyone to make them righteous.  So long as it is only an external thing its purpose is only to point to failure on our part to keep covenant and faithfulness on His that the Lord keeps covenant with those who have not kept it with Him.  The true circumcision as every Jew would argue, is the circumcision of the heart.  The prophets make that abundantly clear.  Paul says though that circumcision has a value, the people who have been circumcised in obedience to God's command to do so are also those to whom He has given His oracles, His Word and His commandments.  This, however, has not produced human righteousness.  At the end of the day, it isn't a matter of circumcision, we are all sinners and under God's judgment.  No one is found who is righteous anywhere in the world.  We see that truth in Revelation 5, that no one in heaven, on earth, or under the earth was found who was worthy to take the scroll until the Lamb appears before the throne.  We have found the one righteous man for whose sake we are all saved!