"LET ME TAKE IT FROM HERE"
- The Lord has given us a job to do
- The Lord has picked up where we have left off
For the most part, young children love to help their parents. Helping their mother clean the windows, helping their father fix a broken toy, helping to pull weeds from the garden… Whatever it may be, young children almost seem honored when asked to help their parents with anything at all - even though the parents don’t really need their help. In fact, when those young children do “help” their parents with something, it usually slows the process down. It takes longer to get it done. And sometimes it even creates more work for the parents because they have to undo what the children have done wrong. But the parents ask for their children’s help anyway - because they want them to grow, they want them to learn, they want them to contribute. And the children, in turn, are eager to accept the invitation.
As children of our heavenly Father, we have been asked to help God himself. Our Lord has given us a specific job. And as members of a small mission congregation, we are acutely aware of what that task is: we are asked to scatter the seed of God’s Word so that as many people as possible can be brought to faith in their Savior. The Lord doesn’t exactly need our help, of course. He could have decided to share his salvation in any way he wanted. And it’s not as if we are the most efficient way of getting things done either! In fact, we sometimes slow the process down. The Lord even has to undo what we have done wrong at times. But he wants to use us anyway. He wants us to learn. He wants us to contribute. He wants us to carry out this crucially important job of scattering the seed that he has made us responsible for. And as his children, we are more than happy to be used for that very purpose.
Early on in his ministry, Jesus told a parable about what our role is in the advancement of his kingdom. And listen to what the difference is between the responsibility the Lord gives us and what work belongs to the Lord alone. “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain - first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it because the harvest has come.” Our job is to scatter the seed. Everything else is up to the Lord. He gives us one specific task to do and, after it has been completed, he gently puts his hand on our shoulder and says, “Let me take it from here. You have done a good job. I will use what you have done so that my kingdom grows and my will is done. Step back, don’t worry, and let me take it from here.” And he says that to us because the Lord is the one who does the real work. After we have scattered the seed, we sleep and we get up, we go about our daily business, and all the while that seed of God’s Word is growing in the hearts of those who came into contact with it. “First the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel.” The seed grows and we don’t know how. And we aren’t supposed to know how. Nor are we supposed to worry about it. How and when and where the seed grows is the Lord’s business. We are simply to scatter that seed and then let it go.
But it’s hard to let go, isn’t? We not only want to plant the seed, we want to check on the seed, we want to nurture the seed, we want to observe the seed growing with our own two eyes, and we want to do something about it if it doesn’t! We like to be in control. We like to have a say when and where and how things happen. And so when we spread the seed as an individual or as a congregation, we expect to see some results! And if we don’t see those seeds growing, we suddenly become discontent with what is happening and frustrated that our work seemed to be all for nothing. And it is even happening right now, isn’t it? A congregation that has been around for so long and a congregation that has done some many things pertaining to evangelism is still small enough that we cannot support ourselves on our own. There’s been some frustration lately, some discouragement…
My fellow sowers of the seed, let’s stop evaluating the Lord’s work as if we were experts in the field of spiritual farming. Let’s stop coming to rash decisions about the Lord’s ability to use the seeds we’ve sown for the good of his kingdom. Because although we’d like to be in control, although we sometimes act as if we actually are in control, after the seed is scattered, every other task falls under the purview of our all-knowing God. Only he can nurture the seed. Only he has a say when and how and where it will grow. Only he is control of the size of the harvest. He doesn’t give that job to us. In fact, he doesn’t even tell us how he performs that task. He simply asks us to scatter the seed and he promises to take it from there.
That doesn’t usually stop us from critiquing the Lord’s efforts, though, does it? We have a certain cause and effect in our minds when it comes to planting the seed, we have hopes and plans and aspirations about what should happen if we do these particular things in these particular ways with these particular people. And so we get discouraged when things don’t work out according to our way of thinking. We almost get a little upset when those seeds we worked so hard to plant do not grow in the time frame we thought they would.
Now, although I realize that this frustration stems from a genuine zeal for the lost souls around us, that attitude is also crossing the line. Because that attitude is letting the Lord know that we aren’t satisfied with the way he is handling things, that we think he should be doing something different than what he is doing right now, that our plans might actually be more in line with what he wants than what the Lord himself is getting done! But what do we know about the inner workings of the soul? What do we know about how the Word works on a person’s heart? Who are we to say anything about what the Lord is doing or how he is doing it or when he is doing it? We have no authority to say or think those things. And what an offense it is to our Father when we imply that his work in the hearts of people in this world really isn’t measuring up to our standards. The Lord knows exactly what he is doing! He knows exactly how to do it and he knows exactly when to get it done. He has always proved faithful in making those seeds grow in the hearts of sinners and he has never failed in picking up where we have left off.
Consider what he picked up that we left for him at the cross. We were sinners. And no matter how hard we would have tried, we would have still been sinners to the core. There was nothing we could do about it. There was no solution. There was no man-made remedy that we could possibly conjure up that would make those sins go away. And so the Lord picked up where we left off. He took up the sins that we could not carry and he placed them on his own back. He took up the guilt that we could not bear and he let it press down on the thorns in his head. He took up the punishment that we could not survive and he let it drive the stakes into his flesh. He took up his Father’s anger that we had provoked and he let it push him down into the horrors of hell and into the cold pit of the grave. Jesus has always picked up right where we have left off. He finished what we started! We sinned and we could go no further. And so Jesus took it from there, shouldering our sins through temptation, through suffering, through abandonment, and through an eternal death sentence. Jesus was willing to pick up right where we left off even though he knew it was going to be far from pleasant. And he did a perfect job. And he did it in exactly the right way. And he did it at exactly the right time. Even though that was about 4000 years after the first promise of the Savior was made to Adam and Eve in the Garden. I’m sure there were plenty of frustrated and discouraged Christians by the time the Lord finally fulfilled his promise. But he did it exactly when it needed to be.
The Lord has given us no reason to doubt his ability to pick up where we have left off - and to do it well. And if he could do that and was willing to do that with our sins, he will certainly be willing and be able to pick up where we left off in the spreading of this gospel message to others. He didn’t pick up our sins just to voluntarily leave people drowning in their own. He didn’t suffer to such a great extent just to watch people suffer in their ignorance. He didn’t go as far as death itself just to watch people die without a knowledge of their Savior. The Lord knows what to do for those he so passionately cares about. He knows how to do it. And he knows when to get it done.
That’s the joy of being a sower of the seed. We can throw out the seed of the Word of God to those who need to hear it, and then be fully confident that the Lord will take it from there. The one who created the soul knows how to convert the soul. The one who created the mind knows how to convince the mind. The one who created the heart knows how to move the heart. The Lord is the original architect of it all, and so he knows how to fix it all. And since we are the highpoint of his creation and the focal point of his love, we can trust that the Lord never gives up on a lost soul and he never sits on his hands to the detriment of his people. He is always working. He is always directing. He is always making that seed grow.
“Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.” Night and day the seeds we have sown as a congregation are working. They are growing. And they will produce a harvest. It may not be in the field you were expecting. It may not be in the season you were hoping. But know that the Master Gardener will produce a crop. We are proof of that. We are part of his harvest. We are the results of seeds planted. We are Christians now because he made that seed of his kingdom grow in our hearts. And we will be his children forever because he will not let his work for our souls be in vain.
And so the question we should ask is not: “When will we see the fruit of our labor?” Because even if we received an answer to that question, it shouldn’t change a thing. We should be doing the exact same thing no matter what the Lord decides. The question we should ask ourselves is: “How can we best carry out the work the Lord has given us to do?” That is our responsibility - as Christians and as a Christian congregation. That is how the Lord wants us to contribute to the growth of his kingdom. That is our small part on the assembly line of God’s kingdom.
Back when assembly lines began, each part was put together by a real live human being instead of the machines that do most of those jobs now. And when those men worked on those original assembly lines, many of them had just one simple job. A worker may have just put one bolt into a car door and then the car door continued down the line. Bolt after bolt, door after door, the worker did his job. But that worker did not place the bolt into the car door and then follow it down the line! He did not take it upon himself to make sure that every other part of the car was put in exactly the right place at exactly the right time! Nor did he follow it into the next room where the outside shell was attached or into the factory where the engine was set it place. And the worker certainly didn’t follow that car out to the dealership to see the salesman finally sell that car to the costumer. That worker rarely saw the end result of all his work day in and day out. Because he if tried to, he would be neglecting the job that he was held responsible for. Don’t neglect the job you are responsible for because you are worrying so much about the results. Just place that bolt into the door. Scatter the seed of God’s Word to others and let the Lord take it from there. He will produce crops. He will gather the harvest. He will finish what we started.
Amen.
“May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.” - Heb. 13:20-21
Monday, June 29, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
6/21/09 - Pentecost 3 - Genesis 3:8-15
FROM SIN TO SALVATION
- Fallen from glory
- Lifted up by grace
The striking contrast between our shameful sinfulness and God’s glorious grace is well-documented. There are countless passages in Scripture that explain in awful detail the horrible nature of sinful human beings and the wickedness that our inbred contamination produces. But there are also countless passages in Scripture that talk about the perfectly pure nature of God’s unending grace as well. There are even passages that place our sinfulness side by side with his grace so that we understand the magnitude of the situation. Both the Old and the New Testaments are filled with people and events and situations that demonstrate this truth in dozens of different ways. But if there were one story in the Bible that had to be chosen as the ultimate example of the contrast between our sinfulness and God’s grace, it would the story in Genesis chapter three: Adam, Eve, the serpent, the tree, and that miserable piece of fruit. There, on the last day the Garden of Eden was ever occupied by human beings, sin and grace met face to face for the very first time. And in the span of just a few short verses of Scripture, the entire human race went all the way from perfection down to sin and back to salvation. Humanity fell from glory in an instant, but was lifted up by grace just moments later. It is a remarkable story. It is a true story. And the details of this account are worth every bit of our attention.
Our reading from the Old Testament picks up in verse eight of Genesis chapter three. But already in verse seven we see the ugly effects of sin taking place. “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.” Adam and Eve knew they were naked before that point, of course. But after they ate from the tree they were not supposed to eat from, “their eyes were open” and they saw their nakedness through the lens of their sinful nature for the very first time. And they noticed that their thoughts were no longer completely pure; their thoughts were selfish and dirty and embarrassing. And then their sinfulness led them to foolishness. They took fig leaves (fig leaves!) and somehow sewed them together to cover those parts of the body that they suddenly found so awkward to look at. Sin took no time at all to infect those very first human beings to the core. And that was just the beginning.
Soon after they managed to tie some leaves together, God came down to see them. And when they heard the Lord walking towards them, “they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.” They hid from the Lord?!? They knew better than that! They understood very well that God knew everything, saw everything, and was present everywhere at every time. But their sinfulness blinded them with guilt to such an extent that they actually tried to hide from God behind the trunk of a tree! And if that weren’t bad enough, then came the excuses. “I heard you in the garden,” Adam said to the Lord only after he had been called out, “and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” But that’s not the real reason Adam had tried to hide from the Lord. Adam didn’t hide because he was naked; he hid because he knew he had sinned. He was trying to avoid the real problem in hopes that God would somehow not notice and just move on!
Of course, the Lord was not fooled by Adam’s foolishness, and he demanded an explanation. But instead of admitting his sin and confessing his guilt, Adam tried to shift the blame. “The woman you put here with me - she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” “It’s really kind of your fault, Lord! You were the one who gave me this woman! I didn’t ask for her! She’s the one to blame if anyone is going to get in trouble here. She’s the one who tricked me into taking a bite of that fruit. I was really just an innocent bystander.” Adam’s ugly and pitiful sinfulness was fully on display the moment he fell from glory. And Eve’s sinfulness was no less obvious. “The serpent deceived me, and I ate” she says when questioned. Eve tried to pass the blame on to someone else just like her husband did. “Lord, you created all creatures. And I don’t want to say that you’re responsible, but one of your creatures deceived me - I didn’t know any better! Maybe that serpent is the one you should be talking to instead of to me.”
Adam and Eve’s sinfulness is so ridiculous, isn’t it? This story almost reads like a day in the household of any young family: the children do something wrong, and then they try to come up with any and every excuse possible to convince their parents that they aren’t the ones to blame, that it’s somebody else’s fault, that they shouldn’t be punished, that they are innocent despite the way things might look at first. This account of the fall into sin might be a little humorous if it weren’t so sad, and if it didn’t effect us with eternal consequences! Because this pathetic and sorry scene from Genesis 3 not only reveals the sinfulness of Adam and Eve, but ours as well. We are all infected with real and damnable sin at the moment we are conceived because of what happened there in the Garden of Eden. And not only that, Adam and Eve’s words and actions are also a mirror image of what we do every day.
Our first parents tried to hide from the Lord, pretended as if a sin had never been committed, and then tried to shift the blame. That sums up my life right there! I’ve noticed throughout the years that I constantly try to convince myself that those things I did and those words I said and those thoughts I let wander through my mind weren’t really sins after all. They may have been borderline, they may have gotten close to going against one of God’s commands, but they were excusable considering the circumstances. Don’t you think that way sometimes or is it just me? We conjure up every possible excuse why we would have done that or said that or thought that so that we don’t have to admit that “Yes, it was a sin against the Lord. Yes, it did contradict his clear words of Scripture.”
But even then, even when we are forced to admit that it was undoubtedly a sin, we still don’t want to take the blame for it! And we take our cue from Adam and Eve: “It was the woman you gave me…” “It was the serpent who deceived me…” “If those things weren’t always on tv, I wouldn’t have those inappropriate thoughts.” “I wouldn’t have to say those disparaging things about that person if he weren’t such an idiot all the time.” “That person is really the one to blame for me getting so angry and upset the other day.” “If those people acted more in line with Scripture then I wouldn’t have to hate them so much.” Our natural reaction when we sin is to shift the blame to someone else. It is never our first thought to admit that we are solely responsible for what we have done and completely deserving of whatever consequences may come because of it. We are sadly very much like our original father and mother. And we are every bit as guilty.
I want to go back to the beginning of our story again. Not to rehash the ugliness of sin that we’ve already seen, but to contrast that sinfulness with the grace of God. Because at the very beginning of the very first verse, God’s grace is clearly on display. See how much God loves them just as much as he did before: “The man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day…” The Lord knew what they had just done! He had told them what the consequences would be if they were to eat from that forbidden tree, and so he could have simply struck them dead at the very moment they fell from his glory. But he doesn’t do that. Instead, he comes down to the Garden of Eden. And not only that, he also allows them to hear him walking through the trees. This was their first chance to repent. The Lord was giving them a little bit of time to think about what they had done and to come clean. He loved them! He wanted them to be honest with him. But, of course, they weren’t. They hid from their loving God instead. And so he calls out to Adam, “Where are you?” even though God knew right where Adam was! And God was not interested in pretending to play some absurd game of hide and seek either. He was giving them yet another chance to repent, to confess their sins, to cling to him for his mercy and compassion and love. But they didn’t take him up on his offer here either. Instead Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent, and neither of them took responsibility for their actions.
Notice that Adam and Eve never admit their guilt in this entire story. Nowhere in these verses do they finally repent of their sins and plead for forgiveness - even though they were caught red-handed and everyone there knew it! They were as sinful as sinful human beings come! But what does God do? How does he respond to their hiding and their excuses and their finger pointing? He forgives them. He immediately and unconditionally forgives them! He takes his children who had fallen from his glory and he lifts them up by grace. Without them asking, without them even thinking about it, he forgives them. He offers to them salvation from the sins that they were still in the middle of denying! And he does that by promising to send them a Savior.
Genesis 3:15 is the very first prophecy of the coming Christ in all of Scripture. And interestingly enough, the Lord gives this promise of Jesus to Adam, Eve, and every one of their descendants, while speaking to Satan. After God declares that the snake would forever crawl on its belly, he speaks to the devil directly. “I will put enmity (hatred and hostility) between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head and you will strike his heel.” The “he” is Christ - the ultimate offspring from Eve’s line. Jesus would crush Satan’s head by his death and resurrection even though Satan would strike Jesus’ heel when the Lord suffered on the cross. And although this is admittedly a vague prophecy of the salvation Christ won for us on Calvary, it is also a very important prophecy. Because it gave Adam and Eve hope. It gave them the understanding that the Lord had just forgiven them, and that he would send someone in the future to save them from the eternal punishment of sin. It gave them something in which to believe. Because this was a prophecy of God’s grace. It was an act of his love. And it came not in response to their repentance or regret or remorse, but this promise came in response to their sin! The Lord loved them just as much after the Fall as he did before!
And the Lord loves us now just as much as he loved Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The Lord is patient with us just as much as he was with Adam and Eve. The Lord forgives us just as often as he forgave Adam and Eve. Even though we are sinners! Even though we hide from our sins and try to deny our sins and pass the blame for our sins, that prophecy of the coming Savior was for us too! It was for our forgiveness. It was to guarantee our eternal life. And so we are just like Adam and Eve: we are just as sinful, but we are also just as saved. Saved not because of anything we have ever done or will ever do. We are saved because God’s grace overrules our sinfulness. And we have been carried from sin to salvation - just like Adam and Eve were - on the beams of the cross.
Of course, Adam and Eve probably never knew about the cross. Unless the Lord gave them insights that are not recorded for us in Scripture, they probably weren’t aware of the suffering and the pain and the torture and the agonizing death that their Descendant would one day have to go through for their sins. But they believed in that coming Savior, nevertheless, and now they are in heaven because of him. We have an advantage over our first parents. We know exactly what happened to our Savior on this earth. And the more we know about what Jesus did, the more we understand what he had to suffer, the more striking the contrast becomes between our sin and his grace. Even though God knew what his Son would have to experience when he made that promise in Genesis chapter three, he made it anyway. Because his love for Adam and Eve and for every other sinner after them was that strong. His grace was that immovable. And it still is. That same grace preserves you now. That same grace provides for you and protects you now. That same grace will keep you connected to his promises and will one day take you home. For the last 6000+ years God’s grace has never changed, and so we can be certain that we who have fallen from his glory because of our sin, will by his grace see that glory again. The glory Adam and Even lost. They glory they now enjoy. The glory that their Descendant and our Savior won for us, and for all mankind.
Amen.
“The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.” - Romans 16:20
- Fallen from glory
- Lifted up by grace
The striking contrast between our shameful sinfulness and God’s glorious grace is well-documented. There are countless passages in Scripture that explain in awful detail the horrible nature of sinful human beings and the wickedness that our inbred contamination produces. But there are also countless passages in Scripture that talk about the perfectly pure nature of God’s unending grace as well. There are even passages that place our sinfulness side by side with his grace so that we understand the magnitude of the situation. Both the Old and the New Testaments are filled with people and events and situations that demonstrate this truth in dozens of different ways. But if there were one story in the Bible that had to be chosen as the ultimate example of the contrast between our sinfulness and God’s grace, it would the story in Genesis chapter three: Adam, Eve, the serpent, the tree, and that miserable piece of fruit. There, on the last day the Garden of Eden was ever occupied by human beings, sin and grace met face to face for the very first time. And in the span of just a few short verses of Scripture, the entire human race went all the way from perfection down to sin and back to salvation. Humanity fell from glory in an instant, but was lifted up by grace just moments later. It is a remarkable story. It is a true story. And the details of this account are worth every bit of our attention.
Our reading from the Old Testament picks up in verse eight of Genesis chapter three. But already in verse seven we see the ugly effects of sin taking place. “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.” Adam and Eve knew they were naked before that point, of course. But after they ate from the tree they were not supposed to eat from, “their eyes were open” and they saw their nakedness through the lens of their sinful nature for the very first time. And they noticed that their thoughts were no longer completely pure; their thoughts were selfish and dirty and embarrassing. And then their sinfulness led them to foolishness. They took fig leaves (fig leaves!) and somehow sewed them together to cover those parts of the body that they suddenly found so awkward to look at. Sin took no time at all to infect those very first human beings to the core. And that was just the beginning.
Soon after they managed to tie some leaves together, God came down to see them. And when they heard the Lord walking towards them, “they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.” They hid from the Lord?!? They knew better than that! They understood very well that God knew everything, saw everything, and was present everywhere at every time. But their sinfulness blinded them with guilt to such an extent that they actually tried to hide from God behind the trunk of a tree! And if that weren’t bad enough, then came the excuses. “I heard you in the garden,” Adam said to the Lord only after he had been called out, “and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” But that’s not the real reason Adam had tried to hide from the Lord. Adam didn’t hide because he was naked; he hid because he knew he had sinned. He was trying to avoid the real problem in hopes that God would somehow not notice and just move on!
Of course, the Lord was not fooled by Adam’s foolishness, and he demanded an explanation. But instead of admitting his sin and confessing his guilt, Adam tried to shift the blame. “The woman you put here with me - she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” “It’s really kind of your fault, Lord! You were the one who gave me this woman! I didn’t ask for her! She’s the one to blame if anyone is going to get in trouble here. She’s the one who tricked me into taking a bite of that fruit. I was really just an innocent bystander.” Adam’s ugly and pitiful sinfulness was fully on display the moment he fell from glory. And Eve’s sinfulness was no less obvious. “The serpent deceived me, and I ate” she says when questioned. Eve tried to pass the blame on to someone else just like her husband did. “Lord, you created all creatures. And I don’t want to say that you’re responsible, but one of your creatures deceived me - I didn’t know any better! Maybe that serpent is the one you should be talking to instead of to me.”
Adam and Eve’s sinfulness is so ridiculous, isn’t it? This story almost reads like a day in the household of any young family: the children do something wrong, and then they try to come up with any and every excuse possible to convince their parents that they aren’t the ones to blame, that it’s somebody else’s fault, that they shouldn’t be punished, that they are innocent despite the way things might look at first. This account of the fall into sin might be a little humorous if it weren’t so sad, and if it didn’t effect us with eternal consequences! Because this pathetic and sorry scene from Genesis 3 not only reveals the sinfulness of Adam and Eve, but ours as well. We are all infected with real and damnable sin at the moment we are conceived because of what happened there in the Garden of Eden. And not only that, Adam and Eve’s words and actions are also a mirror image of what we do every day.
Our first parents tried to hide from the Lord, pretended as if a sin had never been committed, and then tried to shift the blame. That sums up my life right there! I’ve noticed throughout the years that I constantly try to convince myself that those things I did and those words I said and those thoughts I let wander through my mind weren’t really sins after all. They may have been borderline, they may have gotten close to going against one of God’s commands, but they were excusable considering the circumstances. Don’t you think that way sometimes or is it just me? We conjure up every possible excuse why we would have done that or said that or thought that so that we don’t have to admit that “Yes, it was a sin against the Lord. Yes, it did contradict his clear words of Scripture.”
But even then, even when we are forced to admit that it was undoubtedly a sin, we still don’t want to take the blame for it! And we take our cue from Adam and Eve: “It was the woman you gave me…” “It was the serpent who deceived me…” “If those things weren’t always on tv, I wouldn’t have those inappropriate thoughts.” “I wouldn’t have to say those disparaging things about that person if he weren’t such an idiot all the time.” “That person is really the one to blame for me getting so angry and upset the other day.” “If those people acted more in line with Scripture then I wouldn’t have to hate them so much.” Our natural reaction when we sin is to shift the blame to someone else. It is never our first thought to admit that we are solely responsible for what we have done and completely deserving of whatever consequences may come because of it. We are sadly very much like our original father and mother. And we are every bit as guilty.
I want to go back to the beginning of our story again. Not to rehash the ugliness of sin that we’ve already seen, but to contrast that sinfulness with the grace of God. Because at the very beginning of the very first verse, God’s grace is clearly on display. See how much God loves them just as much as he did before: “The man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day…” The Lord knew what they had just done! He had told them what the consequences would be if they were to eat from that forbidden tree, and so he could have simply struck them dead at the very moment they fell from his glory. But he doesn’t do that. Instead, he comes down to the Garden of Eden. And not only that, he also allows them to hear him walking through the trees. This was their first chance to repent. The Lord was giving them a little bit of time to think about what they had done and to come clean. He loved them! He wanted them to be honest with him. But, of course, they weren’t. They hid from their loving God instead. And so he calls out to Adam, “Where are you?” even though God knew right where Adam was! And God was not interested in pretending to play some absurd game of hide and seek either. He was giving them yet another chance to repent, to confess their sins, to cling to him for his mercy and compassion and love. But they didn’t take him up on his offer here either. Instead Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent, and neither of them took responsibility for their actions.
Notice that Adam and Eve never admit their guilt in this entire story. Nowhere in these verses do they finally repent of their sins and plead for forgiveness - even though they were caught red-handed and everyone there knew it! They were as sinful as sinful human beings come! But what does God do? How does he respond to their hiding and their excuses and their finger pointing? He forgives them. He immediately and unconditionally forgives them! He takes his children who had fallen from his glory and he lifts them up by grace. Without them asking, without them even thinking about it, he forgives them. He offers to them salvation from the sins that they were still in the middle of denying! And he does that by promising to send them a Savior.
Genesis 3:15 is the very first prophecy of the coming Christ in all of Scripture. And interestingly enough, the Lord gives this promise of Jesus to Adam, Eve, and every one of their descendants, while speaking to Satan. After God declares that the snake would forever crawl on its belly, he speaks to the devil directly. “I will put enmity (hatred and hostility) between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head and you will strike his heel.” The “he” is Christ - the ultimate offspring from Eve’s line. Jesus would crush Satan’s head by his death and resurrection even though Satan would strike Jesus’ heel when the Lord suffered on the cross. And although this is admittedly a vague prophecy of the salvation Christ won for us on Calvary, it is also a very important prophecy. Because it gave Adam and Eve hope. It gave them the understanding that the Lord had just forgiven them, and that he would send someone in the future to save them from the eternal punishment of sin. It gave them something in which to believe. Because this was a prophecy of God’s grace. It was an act of his love. And it came not in response to their repentance or regret or remorse, but this promise came in response to their sin! The Lord loved them just as much after the Fall as he did before!
And the Lord loves us now just as much as he loved Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The Lord is patient with us just as much as he was with Adam and Eve. The Lord forgives us just as often as he forgave Adam and Eve. Even though we are sinners! Even though we hide from our sins and try to deny our sins and pass the blame for our sins, that prophecy of the coming Savior was for us too! It was for our forgiveness. It was to guarantee our eternal life. And so we are just like Adam and Eve: we are just as sinful, but we are also just as saved. Saved not because of anything we have ever done or will ever do. We are saved because God’s grace overrules our sinfulness. And we have been carried from sin to salvation - just like Adam and Eve were - on the beams of the cross.
Of course, Adam and Eve probably never knew about the cross. Unless the Lord gave them insights that are not recorded for us in Scripture, they probably weren’t aware of the suffering and the pain and the torture and the agonizing death that their Descendant would one day have to go through for their sins. But they believed in that coming Savior, nevertheless, and now they are in heaven because of him. We have an advantage over our first parents. We know exactly what happened to our Savior on this earth. And the more we know about what Jesus did, the more we understand what he had to suffer, the more striking the contrast becomes between our sin and his grace. Even though God knew what his Son would have to experience when he made that promise in Genesis chapter three, he made it anyway. Because his love for Adam and Eve and for every other sinner after them was that strong. His grace was that immovable. And it still is. That same grace preserves you now. That same grace provides for you and protects you now. That same grace will keep you connected to his promises and will one day take you home. For the last 6000+ years God’s grace has never changed, and so we can be certain that we who have fallen from his glory because of our sin, will by his grace see that glory again. The glory Adam and Even lost. They glory they now enjoy. The glory that their Descendant and our Savior won for us, and for all mankind.
Amen.
“The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.” - Romans 16:20
Sunday, June 14, 2009
6/14/09 - Pentecost 2 - 2 Cor. 4:7-9
THE JAR IS JUST RIGHT
- It contains the power of God
- It is sustained by the power of God
Have you ever had champagne poured out of a Styrofoam cup? I haven’t either. Because normally when you have a chance to drink champagne at a wedding reception or an upscale restaurant, it comes in a nice champagne bottle. As with most things in this life: the container usually reflects the quality of what it is holding. When expensive jewelry is purchased at a jewelry store, it isn’t simply dropped into a plastic sack for you to take home. No, it is carefully placed into a black velvet box with little white cushions inside. The container usually reflects the quality of what it is holding. A very nice perfume or a high-quality cologne is not placed in flimsy Windex-like spray bottle. It comes in a fancy glass bottle and even that is placed in its own special little box. The container usually reflects the quality of what it is holding.
As Christians, we are holding on to the greatest treasure available in this world. We have the drink more satisfying than the best of champagnes, the gem more costly than the rarest of diamonds, and the aroma more pleasant than the finest of perfumes. Paul calls this treasure “the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” We have the gospel. We have faith in our Savior. We have salvation that is absolutely free, complete in every way, and eternal in every respect. We have an everlasting place prepared for us in heaven by God himself. It is the most precious fortune a human being could ever possess. But the container that holds this treasure does not usually reflect the quality of what it is holding. Because the Lord does not offer this indescribably priceless treasure to the world in the hands of his angel armies; he doesn’t announce his plan of salvation by coming down himself in all of his glory; the Lord doesn’t even accompany this invaluable gift with outward miracles of healing or prophecy or speaking in tongues as he once did in the past. Instead, “We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” These are the words of the apostle Paul once again. He realized that he was just a clay jar compared to the message he was privileged to carry and proclaim. He was nothing special. There was nothing outwardly spectacular about him or any other Christian. He was a jar of clay holding a magnificent treasure. You are a jar of clay. I am a chipped, discolored, barely useable jar of clay. Our small Synod is a jar of clay. Our congregation is a jar of clay. This building is a jar of clay. But these jars are just right.
These jars are just right because that’s the way God wants it to be. He wants this indescribable treasure of his saving gospel to be carried around in simple, common-looking jars of clay, so that when his power does work in the hearts of sinners, all of the glory and all of the credit and all of the honor have to go to the Lord alone. The contents of the jar will be clearly identified as the only reason a person believes in their Savior without any help from the jar itself. “We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” If someone is brought to faith it won’t be because of our art of persuasion or our ability to convince the heart or our great congregation or our magnificent building facility or anything else that we can contribute to the matter. The clay jar is supposed to be overlooked. The clay jar doesn’t even do justice to what it contains! But that’s OK. That’s the way God wants it to be. Even though the jar may not reflect the quality of what it holds, the jar is just right as long as it contains the power of God.
We get a little impatient, though, don’t we? We get a little impatient waiting for the contents we carry to work. The gospel, the power of God himself, doesn’t always seem to work like we think it should. And I’ve heard that frustration expressed by multiple people lately: that our efforts as individuals and our efforts a congregation to reach out to the lost souls around us with that powerful Word of God don’t seem to be working all that well. There haven’t been too many visible results from our work. There doesn’t seem to be any positive feedback coming from the people we try to share the Word of God with. And that may be true! There has not been a lot of visible fruit from our labor. But, my friends, let us not fall into the temptation that I’m sure each one of us has fallen into before: having doubts that God’s Word really is working and then, in turn, thinking we have to do something more with the jar to pick up the slack.
All of us, myself included, have regretfully put too much credence into the size and color and outward adornment of the jar at times. Thinking that if the jar were just a little bit bigger, if the jar were just a little more noticeable, if the jar were just a little bit more impressive, then people would come. Then people would stay. Then people would take a little more notice of what they’ve been missing… “If only we had our own church building and got out of this storefront, then all of our problems would be solved!” A new church building may prompt some more people to come in, but that clay jar will not make them stay. “If only our congregation were filled with young parents and their children so that more young parents and their children would want to visit us and hear the Word!” That congregational dynamic might bring a few more people in, but that clay jar will not convince them to make this their home. And sometimes I even think to myself, “If only I were a little bit more outgoing, if only I were a more powerful speaker, if only I had a personality that people were naturally drawn to... then, then the seats would start filling up and the Bible classes would overflow and the membership list would grow by leaps and bounds!” A friendly face, a genuine invitation, a loving encouragement might bring a person through these doors, but those clay jars will not keep them coming back. We tend to give too much credit to the jar and what we can make that jar become. Sure, we want to take out any obstacle or roadblock that might get in the way of the Word. But when we start basing our “success” on the jar, we are ripping the glory and the honor right out of the hands of the Lord and trying to give it to something else that we think might actually work better!
The power of God in the gospel does not need any help from the jar. The power of God in the gospel does just fine by itself. And when we start to doubt that and begin to think of other ways to speed the process up, we are not only stepping on the Lord’s toes, we are saying to him in a very real way, “Ya know, Lord, your power in the gospel doesn’t seem to be working well enough! It’s not pretty enough! It’s not special enough! It’s not attractive enough in this day and age! We’re going to try and help you out here and give this whole evangelism thing a jump start!” Now I know you would never consciously say that to your Lord. But that is exactly the thought we are conveying whenever we think that the quality of the jar is going to be the determining factor…
How and when were you brought to faith? Many of you might correctly say that you were brought to faith through baptism. And so let me ask you: was your baptism an outwardly spectacular event? Did the heavens rip open like they did at Jesus’ baptism? Did the Holy Spirit descend on you in the form of a dove? Did God the Father audibly speak about you from heaven? In other words: were you convinced to believe in your Savior because you were so visibly impressed by the breathtaking things that happened when you were baptism? I doubt it. The jar of baptism is plain. It is simple. It is ordinary. But the power of God that jar contained worked in your heart nonetheless and brought you to faith.
Others of you may point to a specific person who introduced you for the first time to your Savior. But were you convinced to believe in Jesus because that person was such a great speaker? Were you won over by their fine-sounding arguments? Were they so dynamic and appealing that you couldn’t help but believe what they told you? I doubt it. Your pastor or your mother or your father or your friend that led you to Christ were plain, simple, ordinary human being. But the power of God that those jars contained worked in your heart nonetheless and brought you to faith.
Some of you might attribute the nurturing and strengthening of your faith to a specific congregation - and rightly so. But were you won over by the size of the steeple? Were you persuaded to believe by the ornate decorations or the beautiful landscaping or the number of people in the pews? I doubt it. The jar of that building was relatively simple. It was not the biggest congregation in this country. And it certainly wasn’t even close to being the most ornate worship facility on this earth. But the power of God that jar contained worked in your heart nonetheless and brought you to faith.
Those plain, simple, ordinary jars were just right for you to come to faith; they will be just right for others. Because think of what those plain, simple, ordinary jars contained: they contained the news about God coming to this earth in a plain, simple, ordinary form! And so in a way, those jars do reflect the quality of what they hold. God placed himself in the jar of human frailty! The Almighty was a mortal human being: unimpressive, unremarkable, unexceptional. His brothers and sisters didn’t believe in him because he was born of the same mother as they were. The people of his hometown didn’t believe in him because they had watched him grow up. His fellow citizens didn’t believe in him because he was just another Jewish person - like they all were. Most of this world doesn’t completely believe in Jesus as their Savior because this man lived for 33 years and then was killed on a cross! How can this mortal man be the immortal God? The jar of Jesus’ human nature was just that: a jar. But that jar contained “all the fullness of the deity in bodily form” (Col. 2:9) Scripture says. That jar, bruised and cut and tortured though it was, poured out the blood of God himself. That jar poured out your forgiveness on the cross. The container did not reflect the quality of what it was holding, but that was exactly the way it was supposed to be. That is how your salvation was won. And now, that unlikely message is sent to the world in the jars of clay the Lord has saved.
As clay jars, though, we are open to abuse. The jar might get scuffed. The jar might get scraped up and chipped and even discarded. But that’s part of being a jar! “We are hard-pressed on every side,” Paul himself admitted, “but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” Although Paul understood from experience the pains of being a jar of clay, he was also fully confident that what the jar contained was the very thing that would sustain him. The benefit of being a jar that contains the power of God is the knowledge that you will always be sustained by the power of God! That message you carry is what makes you strong! That Scripture you hold is what gives you the peace and comfort to move ahead. The gospel you freely give is that which gives you freedom from guilt and sin and death. And so although being a jar of clay is not always going to be the most pleasant of responsibilities, you can be sure that the Lord will always sustain the vessels he wants to use to carry his gospel to the world.
Even if that jar may change over time. This jar may grow in size as we take on more members and move into a new church building. Your jar may take on a little different color the bolder you get in your own personal evangelism efforts and the more adept you become in sharing the Word. The jar of our Synod may or may not repair the cracks that have been spreading in different directions as of late. But no matter the size or shape or color of the jar, it will always be the power of God on the inside that keeps doing the work. The jar is just right - don’t worry too much about that. Because what the jar contains is just right. And you know that the same power of God that created the heavens and the earth is the same power of God that will work in the hearts of those around us when the time is right. And so just keep pouring out the Word. Keep drenching others in the blood of the cross. Continue to release the gospel. Because once they take a drink of their salvation, what the jar looks like on the outside won’t matter at all. And that’s the way it should be.
Amen.
“May the name of our Lord Jesus Christ be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” - 2 Thess. 1:12
- It contains the power of God
- It is sustained by the power of God
Have you ever had champagne poured out of a Styrofoam cup? I haven’t either. Because normally when you have a chance to drink champagne at a wedding reception or an upscale restaurant, it comes in a nice champagne bottle. As with most things in this life: the container usually reflects the quality of what it is holding. When expensive jewelry is purchased at a jewelry store, it isn’t simply dropped into a plastic sack for you to take home. No, it is carefully placed into a black velvet box with little white cushions inside. The container usually reflects the quality of what it is holding. A very nice perfume or a high-quality cologne is not placed in flimsy Windex-like spray bottle. It comes in a fancy glass bottle and even that is placed in its own special little box. The container usually reflects the quality of what it is holding.
As Christians, we are holding on to the greatest treasure available in this world. We have the drink more satisfying than the best of champagnes, the gem more costly than the rarest of diamonds, and the aroma more pleasant than the finest of perfumes. Paul calls this treasure “the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” We have the gospel. We have faith in our Savior. We have salvation that is absolutely free, complete in every way, and eternal in every respect. We have an everlasting place prepared for us in heaven by God himself. It is the most precious fortune a human being could ever possess. But the container that holds this treasure does not usually reflect the quality of what it is holding. Because the Lord does not offer this indescribably priceless treasure to the world in the hands of his angel armies; he doesn’t announce his plan of salvation by coming down himself in all of his glory; the Lord doesn’t even accompany this invaluable gift with outward miracles of healing or prophecy or speaking in tongues as he once did in the past. Instead, “We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” These are the words of the apostle Paul once again. He realized that he was just a clay jar compared to the message he was privileged to carry and proclaim. He was nothing special. There was nothing outwardly spectacular about him or any other Christian. He was a jar of clay holding a magnificent treasure. You are a jar of clay. I am a chipped, discolored, barely useable jar of clay. Our small Synod is a jar of clay. Our congregation is a jar of clay. This building is a jar of clay. But these jars are just right.
These jars are just right because that’s the way God wants it to be. He wants this indescribable treasure of his saving gospel to be carried around in simple, common-looking jars of clay, so that when his power does work in the hearts of sinners, all of the glory and all of the credit and all of the honor have to go to the Lord alone. The contents of the jar will be clearly identified as the only reason a person believes in their Savior without any help from the jar itself. “We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” If someone is brought to faith it won’t be because of our art of persuasion or our ability to convince the heart or our great congregation or our magnificent building facility or anything else that we can contribute to the matter. The clay jar is supposed to be overlooked. The clay jar doesn’t even do justice to what it contains! But that’s OK. That’s the way God wants it to be. Even though the jar may not reflect the quality of what it holds, the jar is just right as long as it contains the power of God.
We get a little impatient, though, don’t we? We get a little impatient waiting for the contents we carry to work. The gospel, the power of God himself, doesn’t always seem to work like we think it should. And I’ve heard that frustration expressed by multiple people lately: that our efforts as individuals and our efforts a congregation to reach out to the lost souls around us with that powerful Word of God don’t seem to be working all that well. There haven’t been too many visible results from our work. There doesn’t seem to be any positive feedback coming from the people we try to share the Word of God with. And that may be true! There has not been a lot of visible fruit from our labor. But, my friends, let us not fall into the temptation that I’m sure each one of us has fallen into before: having doubts that God’s Word really is working and then, in turn, thinking we have to do something more with the jar to pick up the slack.
All of us, myself included, have regretfully put too much credence into the size and color and outward adornment of the jar at times. Thinking that if the jar were just a little bit bigger, if the jar were just a little more noticeable, if the jar were just a little bit more impressive, then people would come. Then people would stay. Then people would take a little more notice of what they’ve been missing… “If only we had our own church building and got out of this storefront, then all of our problems would be solved!” A new church building may prompt some more people to come in, but that clay jar will not make them stay. “If only our congregation were filled with young parents and their children so that more young parents and their children would want to visit us and hear the Word!” That congregational dynamic might bring a few more people in, but that clay jar will not convince them to make this their home. And sometimes I even think to myself, “If only I were a little bit more outgoing, if only I were a more powerful speaker, if only I had a personality that people were naturally drawn to... then, then the seats would start filling up and the Bible classes would overflow and the membership list would grow by leaps and bounds!” A friendly face, a genuine invitation, a loving encouragement might bring a person through these doors, but those clay jars will not keep them coming back. We tend to give too much credit to the jar and what we can make that jar become. Sure, we want to take out any obstacle or roadblock that might get in the way of the Word. But when we start basing our “success” on the jar, we are ripping the glory and the honor right out of the hands of the Lord and trying to give it to something else that we think might actually work better!
The power of God in the gospel does not need any help from the jar. The power of God in the gospel does just fine by itself. And when we start to doubt that and begin to think of other ways to speed the process up, we are not only stepping on the Lord’s toes, we are saying to him in a very real way, “Ya know, Lord, your power in the gospel doesn’t seem to be working well enough! It’s not pretty enough! It’s not special enough! It’s not attractive enough in this day and age! We’re going to try and help you out here and give this whole evangelism thing a jump start!” Now I know you would never consciously say that to your Lord. But that is exactly the thought we are conveying whenever we think that the quality of the jar is going to be the determining factor…
How and when were you brought to faith? Many of you might correctly say that you were brought to faith through baptism. And so let me ask you: was your baptism an outwardly spectacular event? Did the heavens rip open like they did at Jesus’ baptism? Did the Holy Spirit descend on you in the form of a dove? Did God the Father audibly speak about you from heaven? In other words: were you convinced to believe in your Savior because you were so visibly impressed by the breathtaking things that happened when you were baptism? I doubt it. The jar of baptism is plain. It is simple. It is ordinary. But the power of God that jar contained worked in your heart nonetheless and brought you to faith.
Others of you may point to a specific person who introduced you for the first time to your Savior. But were you convinced to believe in Jesus because that person was such a great speaker? Were you won over by their fine-sounding arguments? Were they so dynamic and appealing that you couldn’t help but believe what they told you? I doubt it. Your pastor or your mother or your father or your friend that led you to Christ were plain, simple, ordinary human being. But the power of God that those jars contained worked in your heart nonetheless and brought you to faith.
Some of you might attribute the nurturing and strengthening of your faith to a specific congregation - and rightly so. But were you won over by the size of the steeple? Were you persuaded to believe by the ornate decorations or the beautiful landscaping or the number of people in the pews? I doubt it. The jar of that building was relatively simple. It was not the biggest congregation in this country. And it certainly wasn’t even close to being the most ornate worship facility on this earth. But the power of God that jar contained worked in your heart nonetheless and brought you to faith.
Those plain, simple, ordinary jars were just right for you to come to faith; they will be just right for others. Because think of what those plain, simple, ordinary jars contained: they contained the news about God coming to this earth in a plain, simple, ordinary form! And so in a way, those jars do reflect the quality of what they hold. God placed himself in the jar of human frailty! The Almighty was a mortal human being: unimpressive, unremarkable, unexceptional. His brothers and sisters didn’t believe in him because he was born of the same mother as they were. The people of his hometown didn’t believe in him because they had watched him grow up. His fellow citizens didn’t believe in him because he was just another Jewish person - like they all were. Most of this world doesn’t completely believe in Jesus as their Savior because this man lived for 33 years and then was killed on a cross! How can this mortal man be the immortal God? The jar of Jesus’ human nature was just that: a jar. But that jar contained “all the fullness of the deity in bodily form” (Col. 2:9) Scripture says. That jar, bruised and cut and tortured though it was, poured out the blood of God himself. That jar poured out your forgiveness on the cross. The container did not reflect the quality of what it was holding, but that was exactly the way it was supposed to be. That is how your salvation was won. And now, that unlikely message is sent to the world in the jars of clay the Lord has saved.
As clay jars, though, we are open to abuse. The jar might get scuffed. The jar might get scraped up and chipped and even discarded. But that’s part of being a jar! “We are hard-pressed on every side,” Paul himself admitted, “but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” Although Paul understood from experience the pains of being a jar of clay, he was also fully confident that what the jar contained was the very thing that would sustain him. The benefit of being a jar that contains the power of God is the knowledge that you will always be sustained by the power of God! That message you carry is what makes you strong! That Scripture you hold is what gives you the peace and comfort to move ahead. The gospel you freely give is that which gives you freedom from guilt and sin and death. And so although being a jar of clay is not always going to be the most pleasant of responsibilities, you can be sure that the Lord will always sustain the vessels he wants to use to carry his gospel to the world.
Even if that jar may change over time. This jar may grow in size as we take on more members and move into a new church building. Your jar may take on a little different color the bolder you get in your own personal evangelism efforts and the more adept you become in sharing the Word. The jar of our Synod may or may not repair the cracks that have been spreading in different directions as of late. But no matter the size or shape or color of the jar, it will always be the power of God on the inside that keeps doing the work. The jar is just right - don’t worry too much about that. Because what the jar contains is just right. And you know that the same power of God that created the heavens and the earth is the same power of God that will work in the hearts of those around us when the time is right. And so just keep pouring out the Word. Keep drenching others in the blood of the cross. Continue to release the gospel. Because once they take a drink of their salvation, what the jar looks like on the outside won’t matter at all. And that’s the way it should be.
Amen.
“May the name of our Lord Jesus Christ be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” - 2 Thess. 1:12
Monday, June 08, 2009
6/7/09 - Holy Trinity - John 3:1-17
FOR ENTRANCE INTO THE KINGDOM...
- Leave your intellect at the door
- Bring your faith produced by the Spirit
Nicodemus must have been a fairly bright man. He was a Pharisee, first of all. A major player in a religious sect that fervently studied the teachings of the Old Testament Scriptures and passionately preached a life of personal piety that was unmatched during that time. But Nicodemus was not merely a normal every-day Pharisee, he was also a member of the ruling council that governed the entire Jewish nation. That governing body was called the Sanhedrin. They had authority over both spiritual matters and matters involving the civil law in the Jewish community. And so when there was any dispute of any kind, whether it involved a question about an Old Testament custom or a punishment that had to be dealt with by the court, the people came to Nicodemus and his fellow council members to make the decision. But even that isn’t the end of Nicodemus’ résumé. Beyond being a Pharisee, over and above being a member of the Sanhedrin, Jesus himself calls Nicodemus “the teacher of Israel.” Not just a teacher of Israel, but the teacher of Israel. Jesus seems to be pointing out here that Nicodemus was either the most prominent member of the Sanhedrin at the time, the most well-known, the most respected, or all of the above. In any case, Nicodemus was a man of high-standing. He was a scholar of the Old Testament, an expert in the law, a judge of the people, and one of the spiritual leaders of the nation.
But Nicodemus didn’t seem so intelligent as he stood in front of Jesus one night. During the evening Nicodemus came to the Lord so that he could talk to him in private. But when Jesus told to him about being born again, Nicodemus responded, “How can a man be born when he is old?” And then when Jesus explained that no one could enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit, Nicodemus said again, “How can this be?” This great man Nicodemus didn’t understand! He didn’t comprehend what Jesus was saying. Nicodemus didn’t believe. “You are the teacher of Israel,” Jesus said to him, “and do you not understand these things? I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of spiritual things?... Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” For all of his wisdom, for all of his learning, for all of his understanding and experience, Nicodemus had yet to find the way to heaven. Because for entrance into that Kingdom he would have to leave his intellect at the door and bring only a faith provided by the Holy Spirit. The problem was: Nicodemus’ intelligence kept getting in the way.
I don’t think any of us here would claim to be as learned or as scholarly as Nicodemus was. I certainly wouldn’t. He knew the Old Testament better than we ever will, he had a higher position in the church than we will ever hold, and he had more spiritual responsibilities than we would probably ever want. But even though we may not ever be on the same intellectual level as Nicodemus was, our supposed “intelligence” gets in the way just like his did, doesn’t it? It gets in the way of the clear words of God. And it gets in the way of his perfect and unchangeable will as well.
There are times when we approach God in prayer and our intelligence gets in the way. It gets in the way of our prayers when we act like we deserve an explanation to a problem in our lives! “Why did you do this, Lord? How are you going to carry out your promise? When is it going to happen? Where will it occur?” Do we really think that we would be smart enough to understand God’s grand and glorious plan for all of his people of all time and how we and our little insignificant requests fall into that design if he would happen to tell us? We would not be able to comprehend the intricate details of his everlasting arrangement for all people! How could we possibly question the Lord Almighty and then actually expect that we would understand the answer we demand?
But it not only happens when we verbally release our frustrations to the Lord. Sometimes we approach his Word in the Bible with the same kind of faulty “intelligence.” Many times think that the teachings of Scripture have to make sense to us, otherwise they can’t mean what they clearly say. “That’s not possible… Something is missing here… I can’t comprehend how that all works so maybe it’s not exactly what it seems to be…” Our “intelligence” is getting in the way. At other times, passages seem to contradict what we’ve always thought and what we want to believe. And so we try to convince ourselves that there must be a few different interpretations of those passages that are possible so that one of them may match up with our way of thinking. Our “intelligence” is getting in the way. And at other times we like to make the executive decision about when and where God’s teachings apply to us. “God says to love our enemies, but this guy really doesn’t deserve it!” “God says to pray continually, but it doesn’t really seem to be working, so why bother?” “God says that we should stay away from joining together with people who don’t believe everything in Scripture, but that seems so cruel and unloving at times.” “God says that I should be constantly in and around his Word, but can’t I take a little break every now and then?” “God says that I should look out for the interests of others before I deal with my own, but sometimes my needs are more pressing than anyone else’s!” There are plenty of teachings that we pick and choose when to put into practice and even when to believe. Because we think we know better. Because we think we have the authority to do so. Because we think we are smart enough and mature enough to apply those words to our lives when we feel like it. Our “intelligence” is getting in the way.
And our intelligence at those moments is more than just a speed bump in front of God’s will. It’s more than simply an obstacle that he has to deal with every once in a while. Our uncompromising and blindly arrogant intelligence fights against God’s will! It ignores God’s Word! It challenges God’s plans and goes against his ways. Our intelligence sometimes even defies the intelligence of God himself! Because we want to be right. We don’t want to back down. And we will do everything we can to convince ourselves that God’s Word and God’s will really do match up with our cleverness after all so that we don’t have to change a thing.
I can understand why Nicodemus didn’t get it at first. I can see why he didn’t understand. Because what Jesus said to him was completely different than what he thought to be true. It was the opposite of everything he had ever experienced and seemingly contradictory to what he thought Scripture said. I can sympathize with the situation because I do the exact same thing. My supposed “intelligence” keeps getting in the way of God’s clear Word. And so that’s why I marvel at Jesus’ solution. The problem is: our “intelligence” keeps getting in the way of his clear Word and his perfect will. But to solve the problem, Jesus doesn’t make his Word match up with our way of thinking. To solve the problem, he doesn’t bend or change his will so that we will be able to perfectly understand how he operates. To solve the problem, Jesus doesn’t give us hints and clues so that we can figure it all out before we can enter the Kingdom of God. No, just the opposite! Instead of making intelligence the deciding factor, he takes intelligence completely out of the equation. For entrance into his Kingdom we must leave our intellect at the doorstep. We can only enter with a faith produced by the Holy Spirit.
And that is exactly what Jesus told that highly intelligent man, Nicodemus. “I tell you the truth, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Where’s intelligence in this picture? Where’s logical reasoning and the powers of the mind? Nowhere. Entrance into this Kingdom is only open to those who are born again. But what does it mean to be born again? Is it something that we have to bring about by our own doing? Is it something that we have to achieve in some way by making a decision for Christ? “I tell you the truth,” Jesus says, “unless a man is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” Where’s intelligence in this explanation? Where’s logical reasoning and the powers of the mind here? Nowhere. Entrance into this Kingdom is only open to those who are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Because when we are baptized into that name we are given faith in our Savior, “so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” Everyone who believes that Jesus died on the cross for all of their sins so that they no longer have to meet any requirements for salvation is already saved. Baptism by the power of the Spirit producing faith in Jesus Christ by the grace of God the Father. What role does our intellect play in this scene of our salvation? Where are the characters of logical reasoning and the powers of the mind in this script? Nowhere. Entrance into this Kingdom is only open to those who believe in Jesus as their Savior. That’s it. Intellect must be checked at the door. Faith from the Spirit is the only thing that you can take inside.
And what a comfort that is to me! What a comfort that is to know that my entrance into the Lord’s Kingdom is not going to depend on whether I understand everything or not, whether I can logically explain everything or not, whether I can fully comprehend all of God’s ways and means or not. My entrance into God’s Kingdom is already set because of the faith in Jesus given to me at my baptism. And, in fact, that is exactly what faith is! Faith is believing that which you cannot prove. It is trusting that those things you can’t explain are nevertheless absolutely true. It is being fully confident that those things that don’t make any sense at all are still undeniable facts because God himself tells you they are in his Word. That is the faith that has been given to you. That is the faith that will give you entrance into the Kingdom of God.
I don’t want to make it sound, though, like intelligence is always a bad thing. It is certainly a blessing from the Lord and it should be used as such. We are to make use of our God-give intelligence to read his Word and to apply his Word and, to an extent, even understand his Word. But when our intellect comes head to head with a clear passage of Scripture that is completely against all logical reasoning, Scripture must win. Every time. Because God knows better than we do. He knows what he wants to say, we don’t. He knows what the truth is and we don’t have the prerogative to decide for him. Use the intelligence God has blessed you with. But use it with the understanding that God is allowed to veto any thought you have at any time with his clear words of Scripture.
Nicodemus eventually understood that because even he was brought to faith in his Savior. Later on in the book of John we read that Nicodemus stood up for Jesus when the rest of the Pharisees were looking to arrest him. And then at Jesus’ death, there on the hill of Calvary, Nicodemus was one of the two men who risked their lives by taking Jesus away from the cross, wrapping him in strips of linen and aloes and myrrh, and laying him in a tomb. Nicodemus believed. Not because of his intelligence, but despite his intelligence. And that was all right with him. Because he realized that his salvation didn’t depend on his efforts. It rested on the efforts of the one he had reverently laid in the grave, and the one who rose from that sealed crypt three days later. And that is where your salvation lies as well. On the work of God the Son, on the love of God the Father, and on the power of the Holy Spirit. The brilliantly intelligent plan of the Triune God has saved you. The entrance into the Kingdom of heaven is open. You may go in.
Amen.
“May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” - 2 Cor. 13:14
- Leave your intellect at the door
- Bring your faith produced by the Spirit
Nicodemus must have been a fairly bright man. He was a Pharisee, first of all. A major player in a religious sect that fervently studied the teachings of the Old Testament Scriptures and passionately preached a life of personal piety that was unmatched during that time. But Nicodemus was not merely a normal every-day Pharisee, he was also a member of the ruling council that governed the entire Jewish nation. That governing body was called the Sanhedrin. They had authority over both spiritual matters and matters involving the civil law in the Jewish community. And so when there was any dispute of any kind, whether it involved a question about an Old Testament custom or a punishment that had to be dealt with by the court, the people came to Nicodemus and his fellow council members to make the decision. But even that isn’t the end of Nicodemus’ résumé. Beyond being a Pharisee, over and above being a member of the Sanhedrin, Jesus himself calls Nicodemus “the teacher of Israel.” Not just a teacher of Israel, but the teacher of Israel. Jesus seems to be pointing out here that Nicodemus was either the most prominent member of the Sanhedrin at the time, the most well-known, the most respected, or all of the above. In any case, Nicodemus was a man of high-standing. He was a scholar of the Old Testament, an expert in the law, a judge of the people, and one of the spiritual leaders of the nation.
But Nicodemus didn’t seem so intelligent as he stood in front of Jesus one night. During the evening Nicodemus came to the Lord so that he could talk to him in private. But when Jesus told to him about being born again, Nicodemus responded, “How can a man be born when he is old?” And then when Jesus explained that no one could enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit, Nicodemus said again, “How can this be?” This great man Nicodemus didn’t understand! He didn’t comprehend what Jesus was saying. Nicodemus didn’t believe. “You are the teacher of Israel,” Jesus said to him, “and do you not understand these things? I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of spiritual things?... Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” For all of his wisdom, for all of his learning, for all of his understanding and experience, Nicodemus had yet to find the way to heaven. Because for entrance into that Kingdom he would have to leave his intellect at the door and bring only a faith provided by the Holy Spirit. The problem was: Nicodemus’ intelligence kept getting in the way.
I don’t think any of us here would claim to be as learned or as scholarly as Nicodemus was. I certainly wouldn’t. He knew the Old Testament better than we ever will, he had a higher position in the church than we will ever hold, and he had more spiritual responsibilities than we would probably ever want. But even though we may not ever be on the same intellectual level as Nicodemus was, our supposed “intelligence” gets in the way just like his did, doesn’t it? It gets in the way of the clear words of God. And it gets in the way of his perfect and unchangeable will as well.
There are times when we approach God in prayer and our intelligence gets in the way. It gets in the way of our prayers when we act like we deserve an explanation to a problem in our lives! “Why did you do this, Lord? How are you going to carry out your promise? When is it going to happen? Where will it occur?” Do we really think that we would be smart enough to understand God’s grand and glorious plan for all of his people of all time and how we and our little insignificant requests fall into that design if he would happen to tell us? We would not be able to comprehend the intricate details of his everlasting arrangement for all people! How could we possibly question the Lord Almighty and then actually expect that we would understand the answer we demand?
But it not only happens when we verbally release our frustrations to the Lord. Sometimes we approach his Word in the Bible with the same kind of faulty “intelligence.” Many times think that the teachings of Scripture have to make sense to us, otherwise they can’t mean what they clearly say. “That’s not possible… Something is missing here… I can’t comprehend how that all works so maybe it’s not exactly what it seems to be…” Our “intelligence” is getting in the way. At other times, passages seem to contradict what we’ve always thought and what we want to believe. And so we try to convince ourselves that there must be a few different interpretations of those passages that are possible so that one of them may match up with our way of thinking. Our “intelligence” is getting in the way. And at other times we like to make the executive decision about when and where God’s teachings apply to us. “God says to love our enemies, but this guy really doesn’t deserve it!” “God says to pray continually, but it doesn’t really seem to be working, so why bother?” “God says that we should stay away from joining together with people who don’t believe everything in Scripture, but that seems so cruel and unloving at times.” “God says that I should be constantly in and around his Word, but can’t I take a little break every now and then?” “God says that I should look out for the interests of others before I deal with my own, but sometimes my needs are more pressing than anyone else’s!” There are plenty of teachings that we pick and choose when to put into practice and even when to believe. Because we think we know better. Because we think we have the authority to do so. Because we think we are smart enough and mature enough to apply those words to our lives when we feel like it. Our “intelligence” is getting in the way.
And our intelligence at those moments is more than just a speed bump in front of God’s will. It’s more than simply an obstacle that he has to deal with every once in a while. Our uncompromising and blindly arrogant intelligence fights against God’s will! It ignores God’s Word! It challenges God’s plans and goes against his ways. Our intelligence sometimes even defies the intelligence of God himself! Because we want to be right. We don’t want to back down. And we will do everything we can to convince ourselves that God’s Word and God’s will really do match up with our cleverness after all so that we don’t have to change a thing.
I can understand why Nicodemus didn’t get it at first. I can see why he didn’t understand. Because what Jesus said to him was completely different than what he thought to be true. It was the opposite of everything he had ever experienced and seemingly contradictory to what he thought Scripture said. I can sympathize with the situation because I do the exact same thing. My supposed “intelligence” keeps getting in the way of God’s clear Word. And so that’s why I marvel at Jesus’ solution. The problem is: our “intelligence” keeps getting in the way of his clear Word and his perfect will. But to solve the problem, Jesus doesn’t make his Word match up with our way of thinking. To solve the problem, he doesn’t bend or change his will so that we will be able to perfectly understand how he operates. To solve the problem, Jesus doesn’t give us hints and clues so that we can figure it all out before we can enter the Kingdom of God. No, just the opposite! Instead of making intelligence the deciding factor, he takes intelligence completely out of the equation. For entrance into his Kingdom we must leave our intellect at the doorstep. We can only enter with a faith produced by the Holy Spirit.
And that is exactly what Jesus told that highly intelligent man, Nicodemus. “I tell you the truth, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Where’s intelligence in this picture? Where’s logical reasoning and the powers of the mind? Nowhere. Entrance into this Kingdom is only open to those who are born again. But what does it mean to be born again? Is it something that we have to bring about by our own doing? Is it something that we have to achieve in some way by making a decision for Christ? “I tell you the truth,” Jesus says, “unless a man is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” Where’s intelligence in this explanation? Where’s logical reasoning and the powers of the mind here? Nowhere. Entrance into this Kingdom is only open to those who are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Because when we are baptized into that name we are given faith in our Savior, “so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” Everyone who believes that Jesus died on the cross for all of their sins so that they no longer have to meet any requirements for salvation is already saved. Baptism by the power of the Spirit producing faith in Jesus Christ by the grace of God the Father. What role does our intellect play in this scene of our salvation? Where are the characters of logical reasoning and the powers of the mind in this script? Nowhere. Entrance into this Kingdom is only open to those who believe in Jesus as their Savior. That’s it. Intellect must be checked at the door. Faith from the Spirit is the only thing that you can take inside.
And what a comfort that is to me! What a comfort that is to know that my entrance into the Lord’s Kingdom is not going to depend on whether I understand everything or not, whether I can logically explain everything or not, whether I can fully comprehend all of God’s ways and means or not. My entrance into God’s Kingdom is already set because of the faith in Jesus given to me at my baptism. And, in fact, that is exactly what faith is! Faith is believing that which you cannot prove. It is trusting that those things you can’t explain are nevertheless absolutely true. It is being fully confident that those things that don’t make any sense at all are still undeniable facts because God himself tells you they are in his Word. That is the faith that has been given to you. That is the faith that will give you entrance into the Kingdom of God.
I don’t want to make it sound, though, like intelligence is always a bad thing. It is certainly a blessing from the Lord and it should be used as such. We are to make use of our God-give intelligence to read his Word and to apply his Word and, to an extent, even understand his Word. But when our intellect comes head to head with a clear passage of Scripture that is completely against all logical reasoning, Scripture must win. Every time. Because God knows better than we do. He knows what he wants to say, we don’t. He knows what the truth is and we don’t have the prerogative to decide for him. Use the intelligence God has blessed you with. But use it with the understanding that God is allowed to veto any thought you have at any time with his clear words of Scripture.
Nicodemus eventually understood that because even he was brought to faith in his Savior. Later on in the book of John we read that Nicodemus stood up for Jesus when the rest of the Pharisees were looking to arrest him. And then at Jesus’ death, there on the hill of Calvary, Nicodemus was one of the two men who risked their lives by taking Jesus away from the cross, wrapping him in strips of linen and aloes and myrrh, and laying him in a tomb. Nicodemus believed. Not because of his intelligence, but despite his intelligence. And that was all right with him. Because he realized that his salvation didn’t depend on his efforts. It rested on the efforts of the one he had reverently laid in the grave, and the one who rose from that sealed crypt three days later. And that is where your salvation lies as well. On the work of God the Son, on the love of God the Father, and on the power of the Holy Spirit. The brilliantly intelligent plan of the Triune God has saved you. The entrance into the Kingdom of heaven is open. You may go in.
Amen.
“May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” - 2 Cor. 13:14
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