The Family of God; Matthew 12:26-50, Romans 8:14-29

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Looking for a Sign; II Chronicles 9:1-12, Matthew 12:38-45, Hebrews 6:4-9

We all know the importance of good signage, and we recognize how difficult it is when the signs aren't clear. For example: Signs when roads too close together. Jim and my experience in New Bern with rerouted traffic. When your favorite store gets a makeover and they haven’t changed the hanging signs yet. Not being able to find the bathrooms or nursery in a big church. Antioch’s bathroom problem. There are good signs like the signs of spring around us. But sometimes we keep asking for signs missing the signs all around us, especially when it comes to the signs God gives us. Last Sunday devil tried to get Jesus to test God by jumping off the pinnacle of the temple. Gideon tested God by asking for signs. This is what the Pharisees were doing in today’s gospel. They asked for another sign. They were putting Jesus to the test and thereby putting God to the test. Remember that Jesus had been doing lots of signs. Go back and count all the miracles Jesus did beginning in Matthew 8. And in those chapters, not only are there individual healings and deliverances and miracles, there are times when many different individuals were healed, one after the other. Jesus’s teaching and connecting the Old Testament prophets to what He was doing both implicitly and explicitly testified to who He was. They had tons of signs. So Jesus calls them an evil and adulterous generation. They had turned away from idolatry for a brief time, but now they were unfaithful to God despite their religiousness. The scribes and Pharisees asked for another sign because they were trying to justify their unbelief. So Jesus chastises them and tells them the only sign they will get is the sign of Jonah. Jesus is referring to His death. Now Jesus did not spend three days and three nights in the tomb. He was raised on the third day, but analogies are not perfect. He goes on to say that it will be Gentiles who will end up judging these religious Jews. The Ninevites did not need a sign. They repented in response to Jonah’s preaching, and Jesus is greater than Jonah, and the kingdom of God is greater than Jonah. Then Jesus gives the example of the Queen of Sheba. She had heard of Solomon’s wisdom but wanted to check it out for herself. She doesn’t worship Solomon, she worships Yahweh, Solomon’s God. She doesn’t need any further sign to know that Yaweh is real. Jesus is greater than Solomon. The Kingdom of God is greater than Solomon’s kingdom. Both the Queen of Sheba and the Ninevites responded to what they heard. They didn’t need more and more signs to trust that God was speaking to them. Then Jesus seems to change the subject. He talks about a demon oppresses person whose unclean spirit leaves and searches for rest. In the meantime, the person has gotten his/her life back. Finding nothing better, the spirit decides to return with some friends, so that the person is completely oppressed and worse off than before. Jesus uses this illustration to show the people what they are like. Jesus had come with a message of deliverance. Good things were happening. The kingdom of God was being inaugurated, but those looking for a sign did not embrace the good news. They did not invite the Holy Spirit in. A power vacuum was created. We see this happen in our world all the time. A wicked government leader is overthrown. Procedures and regulations are not put in place to stabilize a society. Someone much worse takes over. This is true in the spiritual realm as well. For lasting transformation to take place, we must be filled with the Holy Spirit. The doubting scribes and Pharisees were looking for something more. This is why Jesus called them an “adulterous generation.” Having tasted of the good things of God, they wanted to see if there was something better, something that would meet their expectations, expectations set way too low. I don’t know what you would consider one of the scariest passages of the Bible, but for me, Hebrews 6:4-8 is one of the scariest Bible passages. READ. This passage speaks of those who have been immersed in the word of God and have witnessed the power of the Holy Spirit and yet somehow walk away from it. The writer of Hebrews says it is impossible for them to repent because it is as if they are crucifying Jesus all over again. It sounds a lot like the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit that Jesus refers to earlier in Matthew 12 at which we looked last month. I call this “playing Christian.” It’s impossible for those who belong to Christ to lose their salvation because our salvation is something God accomplishes in us and not something we do. We will actually look at this a little bit next week when we hear from Romans 8. But there are those who spend time with the faithful, who can talk the talk, who do lots of good things, but who have never truly surrendered their lives to Jesus, and they walk away. God gives them over to the hardness of their hearts. This is not everyone who walks away from the Lord. We hear stories of redemption all the time of people who walk away from the Lord for years whom Jesus brings back to Himself. But these words ought to stand as a warning to those who are playing Christian and not really serious about deepening a relationship with Jesus. Have you truly surrendered your life to Jesus, or are you trying to get God’s favor or the favor of other people through playing Christian? The writer of Hebrews ends these scary words with this in verse 9, “But beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you, yes, things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner.” There was a deeper evidence of salvation in the lives of the recipients of this letter, not only in action, but in character, character that reflected the saving work of God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—in their lives. May it be so with each of us. Have you seen the signs God has already given you? Romans 1 tells us that there are things we can know about God simply from the witness of creation. We can know that God exists and that God is powerful. Scripture also tells us that our consciences give us a sense of right and wrong. None of this is saving knowledge, but those two witnesses, creation and conscience, are a starting point for our spiritual journeys. But God has given us more. God has given us God’s Word. Most of all, God has given us Jesus Christ. And then there are signs that God gives to us as individuals, times we have been rescued when we should have perished, blessings we have not earned or deserved, “coincidences” of meeting the right person at the right time or being in the right place at the right time, or circumstances coming together. All that is God’s self-revelation to us. Some of us have seen things that can only be described as supernatural. More of us have experienced those things and failed to recognize them. What more does God need to do to prove God’s love for you? What do you need from God before you can place your trust in Jesus Christ? If you are still struggling, pray that the Holy Spirit would open your eyes and ears to hear and see the signs. They are everywhere. It’s okay to ask God for confirmation if you feel moved in your heart to respond to what you perceive as God’s will, but be careful not to put God to the test. Are you trying to justify your unbelief like the scribes and Pharisees, or are you truly seeking Jesus? If you are seeking Jesus, rest in assurance. The Lord says, “You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.” This can only happen because the Holy Spirit is already at work in your life, because on our own, “there is not one of us who seeks after God.” Trust the Holy Spirit to interpret the signs that God is giving you to assure you of God’s love and presence and direction.

The Purpose of Temptation; Matthew 4:1-11

On this First Sunday of Lent, we read a very familiar passage of Scripture—the temptations of Jesus. This occurred immediately after the baptism. Mark’s gospel says that Jesus was driven into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit. It was necessary for Jesus to be tested. The word “tempted” means tested for the purposes of approval. The word “tempt” is used of both the actions of God as well as the actions of the devil. The difference is in the motivations for the temptations. God tests to confirm our identity in Him as well as to strengthen our reliance on Him and to crucify the desires of the flesh in us. God uses testing to bring us closer to Him and to make us more like Jesus. The devil, on the other hand, tests to pull us away from God, to condemn us and to destroy us. God always provides an escape route. God cannot and does not tempt us to do evil. Notice that in Jesus’ temptation, God used the devil—the accuser—as His instrument. God desires spiritual growth in us. This leads to times of testing, which hopefully result in more spiritual growth. The devil has evil motives, to cause spiritual failure, but is still under God’s control. The devil has a certain freedom in the world has no ultimate authority. The word devil, “diabolis”, means “accuser” or “slanderer”. It is used to describe people. Paul uses to describe people. In I Timothy for example, the word “devil” is translated “slanderers” or “malicious gossips.” When you say something to cause hurt to another person or intentionally falsely accuse another, you are literally acting diabolical. You are devilish. When this word has the definite article in front of it, it refers to the Evil One. It had just been made known publicly at Jesus’s baptism that He is the beloved Son of God. Jesus was tempted not to doubt His position, it was something of which He was sure, but whether or not He would use or misuse His divine authority. Was He going to work in conjunction with the Father or would He establish His own will? When we come to realize that we are God’s beloved children, we face the same testing. Are we going to submit to the will of our heavenly Father, or will we assert our own selfish will? Will we try to control the Holy Spirit and try use the Spirit’s power to our advantage, or will we allow the Holy Spirit to control us? We don’t know every temptation that Jesus went through, but these three are given to signify the areas in which we are tempted—the lust of the flesh (bread), which is testing in regard to our physical needs, the lust of the eyes (kingdoms of the world), which is testing in regard to things we want, and the pride of life (jumping off the temple) which is the testing of who we are. The order in Luke has the last two temptations reversed to reflect the order in which Adam and Eve were tempted. Luke is emphasizing Jesus’ role as Son of Man—the Perfect Man who restores our fallen nature. Eve was tempted by the fruit when she saw it was good for food—lust of flesh, a delight to the eyes—the lust of the eyes, and to prove one wise—the pride of life. Matthew emphasizes Jesus’ role as King, so he has the temptation of kingship, ruling the world, as the last temptation. The first temptation was in regard to Jesus’ physical needs. He was hungry! Would He misuse His divine power to provide food for Himself? He did not. He remembers the Scripture, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” You may know, all the Scriptures Jesus quotes come from the book of Deuteronomy. Jesus considers the Law inspired and authoritative as we talked about last week. This quotation comes from chapter 8 where Moses tells the people not to forget God in times of prosperity. He reminds them of the time that they were fed in the wilderness with the manna, which God did to show them that there is more to living life than food. Jesus doesn’t deny His ability to perform the miracle, but He will let God be the one direct His power. Jesus never uses His divine power for His own self-preservation or selfish ambition. Later on, He will multiply food to provide for thousands, although He does not use His power to end world hunger. Jesus suffered hunger to identify with us. On Wednesday night, we were reminded that Lent is a time for us to renew our commitment to obedience in gratitude for Jesus’ obedience to the Father on our behalf. With Jesus’ quote in this first temptation, I couldn’t help but think of the petition in the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day the bread that is necessary.” Obedience to what God speaks is necessary for our well-being. Do we believe that God will provide what is necessary for us day by day? In the temptation for Jesus to display His divinity by hurling Himself off the temple, the Evil One quotes Scripture too, using a passage from Psalm 91. While no less authoritative, the verse is ripped from its context. This promise, like many of God’s promises, comes with stipulations—if this, then this. Jesus’ response to this temptation is, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test,” from Deuteronomy 6:16, in reference the time the Israelites tested the Lord at Massah when they were thirsty and needed water. Moses tells the people that they are to obey God’s commandments, decrees, and statutes. This verse fits this temptation because the context of the promise of deliverance is for the one who relies on God for shelter and safety, not the one who challenges God’s ability. The psalm also says that God guards one in all one’s ways. In other words, God guards a person as one goes about life serving God, not one who takes foolish risks to prove a point. This particular temptation is an attempt to test Jesus’ divine identity—the pride of life. Jesus doesn’t have to prove His position as God’s Son. He knows it. He will be revealed to those whom God wills. We must be careful not to twist Scripture to justify our selfish desires or to misuse our position as God’s children. Sometimes we are guilty of wanting blessings without the stipulations. Or we forget that blessings are exactly that—blessings—and demand them as rights. The televangelists used to say that we ought to be rich because we are King’s kids. Yes, we are King’s kids, and yes, we have the full inheritance of the Son, but it is in the Son that we receive, not because of who we are, but because of who Jesus is. We receive our riches in Christ. We don’t simply receive riches. The word “test” in the verse that Jesus quotes is different for the kind of testing that Jesus is going through. The testing of God that is forbidden is trying God out to see if God is really who God claims to be, or does what God claims to do. It is what Gideon did as recorded in the Book of Judges. On 3 different occasions, Gideon tested God. On a fourth occasion, God knowing that Gideon would ask for another sign, told Gideon to go listen to what Gideon’s enemies were saying so that Gideon would have enough courage to do what God said. This shows the greatness of God’s mercy. God knows that we will put God to the test, even though God commands otherwise. God is never obligated to submit to our tests or prove Godself to us, but God forgives and heals our lack of faith. This doesn’t mean we should disregard this commandment or think lightly of it. God forgives us every time we break commandments, but they are all to be taken seriously. And just because God forgives us every time, doesn’t mean that there are no consequences. Instead of using God’s mercy and grace as an excuse to sin, we are called to confess our sin and repent. In our doubts, instead of testing God, ew can pray like the disciples, “Lord, increase our faith!” Jesus sees all the kingdoms of the world throughout time in His mind’s eye in the 3rd temptation. This temptation reflects the “lust of the eyes”. For Jesus, world Kingship was more than a want. It was His rightful position and something He knew that He was supposed to be. But the timing was wrong. Jesus knew that the quick way isn’t necessarily the right way and that the end doesn’t justify the means. The Evil One does have some claim to the world, but is not divine and is not to be worshipped. World kingship actually would have been less than Jesus was meant to be. He is to be glorified as ruler of all creation—the heavens and the earth, the spiritual as well as the physical. Jesus desire to be King over all was not a bad want. In fact, it was who He was meant to be. Our wants aren’t always wrong either. We can want the same things that God wants for us and wants to give us. But we also must remember to wait on God’s timing. Jesus didn’t go beyond the Father’s known will at any given moment. He knew the ultimate ending, but He did not necessarily the steps it would take to get there. We too know the ultimate ending, but not the in between steps. We too ought to live in the known revealed will of God, not pushing ahead until it is time. We are facing some unknowns as a church. We have wants, legitimate wants. The temptation is to try to come up with something to “fix it”. Ultimately we know that God is good and whatever happens is right, but will we trust God’s timing? We know that God has given us work to do in the meantime. Will we be faithful in the work that He has already revealed for us? Or will we worry and fret over those things that have not been revealed? Like Jesus, we go through periods of temptation, times of testing. We pray in the Lord’s Prayer that God will not lead us inward to temptation, but that God will deliver us from the Evil One. In other words that God will not let us succumb to ourselves, which is the desire of the Evil One, to separate us from God, but that like Jesus, we will come to a deeper understanding of who we are in relation to our heavenly Father, learning to submit more and more to His will. God allows us to be tempted so that we will depend on God, like a dog being trained by his master. First the master places a piece of meat on the floor near the dog and the master says No! Now the dog knows that No means he is not supposed to touch the meat. What happens is, the dog will eventually take his eyes off the meat because the temptation to disobey is far greater when he looks at it. Instead he fixes his eyes on his master’s face. So the lesson of the dog is: Always look at the master’s face.* If we keep our eyes fixed on our Master’s face, we will be able to resist temptation. If we focus on what the Master has showed us, we will experience the victory and closeness to our heavenly Father that Jesus experienced.

Rend Your Hearts; Joel 2:1-17, Revelation 9:1-11

From Ash Wednesday, 2019. To listen, click here.

The Glorious Presence of Jesus; Psalm 97, Matthew 17:1-13

Someone said that the Transfiguration of Jesus is the opposite of the Wizard of Oz. In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy peels back the curtain to reveal not a great and powerful wizard, but an ordinary, even someone weak person. He is a sham without power. The reaction is not only disappointment, but disgust. At Jesus’s transfiguration, Jesus is shown to be more powerful, more glorious than Peter, James, and John could have ever imagined. A cloud comes over Jesus, not to obscure Him, but to further reveal His identity as the Beloved Son of God who is to be obeyed. The reaction to seeing Jesus as truly great and powerful is bewilderment, fear and trembling, and worship. The glorious presence of Jesus is no disappointment! The Transfiguration is unique in the life of Jesus, which is why we remember it every year. In this story, we get to see Jesus in all His glory and divinity, which the Son had before He was born as a baby. In Psalm 97, we see that this is the same glory Yahweh holds, further showing us that Jesus is indeed God. The Transfiguration gives us a glimpse of what our risen and ascended Lord is like as well. It’s interesting that Jesus tells the disciples not to speak of what happened on the mountain until “after the Son of Man is risen from the dead.” They didn’t even have clue then what Jesus was talking about—rising from the dead? What’s that? Only after the fact did they understand. Psalm 97 begins with the emphatic “Yahweh reigns!” We know that Jesus now reigns over all the earth from heaven and rejoice that Jesus is King. Verse 2 mentions clouds and great darkness surrounding the Lord. We have a cloud in our gospel reading as well. This is not a dark cloud, but a bright cloud. The psalm doesn’t say the clouds are dark either. The glory of God is so bright that everything else is dark in comparison. The bright cloud at the Transfiguration obscured the presence of God the Father, but it is the place from which the Father speaks. The disciples were frightened by the cloud and fell on their faces until Jesus touches them and tells them not to be afraid. The glorious presence of Jesus exposes all darkness. The light of the Lord exposes the sinful darkness within us. As we approach Him, we become more and more aware of our darkness, but He also comes to us and tells us not to fear. Darkness exposed by the light can be healed. Jesus removes our darkness from us and calls us to live in the light. We do that by staying close to Jesus, who is the light. This leads us to the end of Psalm 97—verses 10 and following. Here we read that the Lord preserves the souls of His saints and delivers us out of the hands of the wicked. Light and gladness are sown for us, so we always have a reason to rejoice and give thanks. Did you notice in the gospel reading that Jesus talks about His resurrection before He talks about His impending suffering? Here again, the light outshines the darkness, and the Lord cannot be defeated. The darkness exposed and overcome is the darkness of suffering. In our own dark suffering, we must remember that resurrection—life and light—lies beyond the darkness, and that Jesus is with us even in our darkness for He never leaves us nor forsakes us. His glorious presence is with us always. In fact, the word “sown” used in Psalm 97 implies this very thing according to Dr. William Barrick, who says, “God causes joy-filled blessings to sprout in the midst of the darkest times to show He cares for us.” Seeds are planted in the darkness of the soil, but burst forth in the light. The light of Jesus’s presence causes good things to grow out of the darkness of our lives. The Transfiguration also gives us a glimpse of how the glorious presence of Jesus will be when He returns. In our gospel reading, the disciples somehow know that what they have seen of Jesus has something to do with Messiah’s return and the coming Kingdom of God. We know this because they ask Him, “Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” They have just seen Elijah and wonder if this appearance is the one foretold by the prophets. Jesus does not connect this appearance of Elijah with that event, but tells them in effect that what the prophets spoke of had already happened through the ministry of John the Baptist. Much in Psalm 97 also describes how we will see Jesus at His second coming, referred to by the apostle Paul in Titus as “the glorious appearing.” For example, Ps. 97:3 says, “A fire goes before Him and burns up all His enemies.” We have several examples in Scripture of God using fire to destroy enemies, such as the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Ultimately, the devil and his angels along with death and the grave will be destroyed in the lake of fire as will all those who reject the Lord. In the book of Revelation, when Jesus returns, He is described as having eyes that are like coals of fire. Also in Revelation, the throne of God is described as having flashes of lightning going forth from it, just as we have described in Psalm 97:4. And like the psalm, Revelation says earthquakes follow the flashes of lightning—the earth literally trembling before the presence of the Lord. You may notice in your Bible that the first part of Psalm 97:5 uses the name Yahweh—the capital LORD but the second part when Lord is used, it is lower case letters. This Lord is a title—King or Master, which is the title given to Jesus, and yet we know that the whole verse is one description of God, so we see that Jesus is God, equal to Yahweh. The following verses continue describing the return of the Lord. Isaiah tells us that every valley will be exalted and every hill made low when the Lord returns. This is like the hills melting like wax in the presence of the Lord. Revelation also tells us there will be a new heavens and a new earth when the Lord returns and that there will be no need for a sun or moon because the Lamb, Jesus, will be the light. We know that all people will behold His glory and all will bow before Him. All powers, spiritual beings, will worship Him as well. Knowing that Jesus will return in all His glory call for action. Most of us don’t worship literal carved idols, but that doesn’t mean our lives are free from idolatry. Some we make ourselves. Some we buy. We don’t call them gods, but often they serve in that capacity, for they are where we spend our time and resources. They influence our choices and life direction. Someone said, “Today’s idols are more in the self than on the shelf.” Regardless of what type our idols are, we are called to cast them away. Lent is a great time for self-examination to discover and discard our idols. What idols might you get rid of this Lent? Where do you need to readjust your priorities? Because the foundation of God’s throne is righteousness and justice, we ought to be working on these things. We are called to hate evil. However, it is not merely the sum of our works that determine whether we will rejoice or tremble at the Lord’s glorious appearing, but how we respond to the light of His glorious presence now. Have you already embraced the presence of Jesus, or are you running from the Light, afraid of what Jesus might expose in you or about you? John 1 tells us that when Jesus came the first time many people, including Jesus’s own rejected the Light. In His conversation with Nicodemus as recorded in John 3:19, Jesus Himself said, “And this is the condemnation, that the Light has come into the world and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.” No matter what kinds of deeds you do, unless they are brought into the light, they are no good. The Light of Jesus is the Light of truth. For those that love Jesus, His glorious presence is a source of comfort. Even when we are convicted by the Light, His love overcomes our fear. Don’t fear the light, but come to the Light to find healing, redemption, forgiveness, and love.