DO IT!
- God's Word should be kept
- God has kept his Word
There are certain passages in the Bible that hit harder than others. It will vary from person to person and situation to situation of course, but there are a few verses of Scripture that always seem to make an impact whenever they are read. Some of those are beautiful passages of the gospel that produce a sigh of relief in any Christian’s heart. Others are brazen passages of the law that sting a sensitive conscience no matter how many times they are heard. For me, James 1:22 is one of those verses that stings and burns and itches. Every time. Because it is a passage of Scripture that I can’t talk myself out of. I’ve tried, of course! I’ve tried to convince myself that it doesn’t apply to me or that I really do follow its command or that it’s not all that big of a deal in the long wrong if I don’t measure up… But if I care to think about this passage for any length of time, if I am being truthful with myself, I can’t avoid what it reveals. When I am confronted with this passage, my conscience is pricked and I once again realize how guilty really I am. And the passage is this: “Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” This verse gets me. It catches me red-handed and I have to bend my head low in shame whenever it comes up because I know that this is a sad description of me. This is an ugly insight into my heart. Is it an uncomfortably accurate description of you too?
It’s time for a gut check this morning. It’s time for some serious self-evaluation. A passage like this will do that. And so we need to spend some time taking a very candid look at whether our actions measure up to what we believe, whether we just hear what God says or we actually do it. And I don’t think this exercise is going to be all that pretty. Self-evaluation never is. If we are truthfully going to consider what this passage says, we’re going to have to look at some things about ourselves that we don’t want to think about. We’re going to have to admit some things about ourselves that we have avoided for quite some time. But it’s necessary. It’s spiritually healthy for us to do so. And the Holy Spirit will help us through it.
And to start out with something positive: I think in our circles we have been well-trained by the Bible itself to believe anything that God says. We are very familiar with the concept that if God clearly says it in his Word, it is true. For example: we believe that in the Lord’s Supper the bread and wine are also Christ’s true body and true blood at the same time. It doesn’t make sense, we can’t explain how that happens, but because Jesus clearly says that, we believe it. It’s also second nature for us to believe that God created this entire universe in six 24-hour days. Again, we can’t prove it, but we believe it anyway because God says that’s the way it happened. The Triune God, three distinct beings who are different from each other and yet there is only one God - not something that makes sense to our minds, but something that we agree with through faith in our hearts. And that goes for anything in Scripture. Since we believe that every word of the Bible is the inspired Word of God himself, we have no problem endorsing anything that we find in this book. We whole-heartedly agree with anything that God says. That’s the nature of faith. But agreeing with something and doing it are two completely different things.
My wife and I tell our children to get their pajamas on every night. Now they might agree with us that it’s a good thing to do, that it’s getting to be that time of night, that they need to get them on before going to bed, and that they know where to find them. But agreeing with something and doing it are two completely different things… And so James says, “Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” There are some things in God’s Word that we simply believe. But there are other things in God’s Word that we are to do. Allow me to give just a sampling. “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation” (Mark 16:15). “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord… Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church” (Ephesians 6:22,25). “Do not lie” (Leviticus 19:11). “Honor one another above yourselves” (Romans 12:10). And here in the book of James: “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry” (v.19). I doubt that anyone in this room would disagree with any of these commands or any other directives of Scripture that we are to carry out. We would all admit that they are good and God-pleasing things to do, right? But how often do you make a conscious effort to actually do them?
It’s so typical of us to nod our heads in agreement, to confidently say “Amen” to whatever the Lord says, but then to walk out these doors every Sunday without any inclination whatsoever to actually do it. And we don’t really even give any excuses for it either. We just don’t think about it. Most of the time we just don’t plan on changing the way we live our lives and so it never happens. We agree with what the Lord says, but we ignore it at the same time. We believe that those things are good and right, but we act as if they aren’t worth putting into practice. We go about our Monday-through-Saturday lives as if God didn’t give us anything to do back on Sunday morning. We go about our day-to-day routine without giving one thought to how we can implement the commands the Lord has given us. That’s not a Christian attitude. To concur without complying is pointless. It’s hypocritical. To hear what God says to you without putting it into action is defiant. And that’s the very attitude that James is addressing here in the first chapter of his book.
When James originally wrote this letter, he was writing to a group of Christians just like us, Christians who already had the Truth. They had been brought up with the Word of God and had been blessed with the knowledge of what the Lord wanted them to believe and to do. But it seems that over the years their faith had been producing less and less fruit. And from the way that James talks in these five chapters, some of those Christians had apparently started giving the excuse: “Since we’re saved by faith alone and not by works, then what I do doesn’t really matter. Why do I have to do anything at all?” Those Christians had forgotten that faith automatically produces works. Although works do not contribute to our salvation in any way, works must follow faith. Just as the sun must produce rays of light and fire must produce heat, so faith must produce works. And so if someone claims to believe in Jesus as their Savior, it should then follow that they would want to do what their Savior says in his Word. Not for salvation, but because of salvation. And that point is so important that it’s worth repeating a couple more times: As Christians, we want to do what God tells us to do in his Word not for salvation, but because of salvation. Not to gain salvation, but because we have already been given salvation. That is our motivation behind our actions. That’s what moves us to want to do whatever command we find in the Lord’s Word. It’s really an attitude of gratitude. It’s a response of admiration and appreciation. Every command the Lord gives us in his Word we want to do for the Lord because every promise he gave us in his Word he did for us.
And if we ever struggle to find the motivation to keep the commands of our Lord, we just have to think about every promise the Lord has given us in Scripture. He carried them all out. They weren’t just empty words. He didn’t just tell us things to make us feel good. He did it. He did it all. He did not leave one thing unfinished. He did everything he promised in full without a doubt. Way back at the trunk of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, right after Adam and Eve were deceived by the serpent, God made a promise. He promised that he would send a Savior to crush Satan’s head and save all people from their sins. And he did it. Throughout the centuries he promised to save a remnant of the Jewish nation although by and large they rejected him. And he did it. He promised to Mary and to Joseph through the angel Gabriel that their first son would be placed in Mary’s womb by the Holy Spirit and he would be called the Son of God. And he did it. God promised that this Jesus would proclaim freedom to the captives and give sight to the blind. And he did it. Jesus himself promised that he would be handed over to his enemies, that he would be murdered, and that he would rise from the dead after three days. And he did it. The Lord promised that on account of his life, death, and resurrection, he would no longer count your sins against you. You would be released from your death sentence, you would be freed from your guilt, you would be taken out from under the control of Satan. And Jesus did it. The Lord has kept every promise he has ever made. The Lord has carried out every word he has ever spoken to you. And now the Lord gives you the words of his promise that he will take you home to be with him forever. This is what the Lord promises you. Do you think he’ll do it?
The Lord doesn’t take his words lightly. The Lord doesn’t take you lightly. And if you ever begin to wonder if he ever takes you seriously or not, just go back to where his own words took him. His own promises took him to the cross and there he suffered and screamed (God himself screamed!) in agony. Not only were nails driven into his body, but the love of his Father was ripped away from him. And there Christ hung all alone. With no one to help - not even his God. Because he would rather cry out in unbearable torture than to see you even taste a drop of God’s divine wrath. And he promised that for himself. He planned that for himself. Even though he knew it was going to be a furious amount of pain and a sick-to-your-stomach dose of torment, he did it. He did it because he said he would. He did it because he made that promise to you. And he would never even think about letting you down. His words to you are that important to him.
Are his words that important to you? I know they are. I know that you love and believe his Word. I know that you cherish what he says and cling to every syllable of Scripture. And so do it too! Put his words into practice! Carry out the commands he so graciously gives you to do! Because when he asks you to do something in his Word, he is not asking you to gain anything. He is not requiring you to earn your keep at all. He is not placing an ultimatum on your shoulders that will determine your eternal future. He is simply giving you a way in which you can thank him for securing your eternal future for you. He is providing an avenue in which you can please him, in which you can show him how much you appreciate how much he has accomplished for you. These commands are not burdens, they are blessings. They are wonderful ways to praise your God.
And so don’t just listen to what God is saying to you this morning. Don’t just read what God says to you in your Bible every day. Do it! Do it with an excited heart because you have found yet another way to thank your Savior! You have come across another activity in which you can serve your Lord. And, of course, this kind of attitude is going to take some work. It’ll take a little bit of practice. You’ll have to plan for it. You’ll have to make up your mind that you will do whatever the Lord asks you to do no matter how inconvenient it may be. No matter how uncomfortable it may make you. No matter what the sacrifice. Because as Christians we do these things not because it makes us feel good and not because we will get something out of it and not because “it’s just the right thing to do.” We do it because these are the words of our Savior. These are the words of him who bled on a cross and traveled to the sewers of hell for us. These are the words of him who rose from the dead and promises us free life in perfection with him forever. And what better way to thank the Lord for that than to do the simple things he asks us to do?
What a privilege we have as children of our Father: We know exactly what will make him happy. We know exactly how to honor his name. Because he tells us right here in his Word. And so “do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” The Lord will be pleased with us when we do and he will forgive us when we don’t. And in the end, whether we have proved to be faithful and dependable Christians or Christians that have left something to be desired, the Lord will stay true to his Word. He will come back and he will bring us home. He will carry us to the place he has personally prepared just for us. He will wrap his arms around us like the loving Father that he is and we will be overwhelmed by the glory of his presence and the majesty of his power. That is what his Word says. And so he will do it. He always has.
Amen.
“May the Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.” - 2 Thess. 2:16-17
Monday, September 21, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
9/13/09 - Pentecost 15 - Mark 7:1-23
CLEANING THE DIRTY
- We can only make the dirty dirtier
- Only Christ can make the dirty clean
What comes to mind if I ask you to think about the word “dirty”? Some of you might think of a teenager’s bedroom or a dust-covered vehicle. Others of you might call to mind “dirty” people: a homeless person who hasn’t had a shower in a couple weeks, a miner down in the caves, a mechanic covered in engine oil and car grease. And still others of you might think of “dirty” people on a moral level: a pornographer would be dirty in that sense because of what he does, some comedians are called dirty because of what they say, a pedophile is usually considered dirty by most people, not only because of his actions but also because of his thoughts. And although all of these people and things are dirty in their own way, when I ask you what comes to mind when you hear the word “dirty,” do any of you picture yourselves?
I certainly don’t think of myself when I come up with a picture for the word “dirty.” And the Pharisees didn’t think of themselves when they heard the word “dirty” either. In fact, they considered themselves about as clean as a person could possibly be. And they thought that way because of all the laws and traditions that they tried to keep. In the Old Testament the Lord had laid down various laws about uncleanness. He told the Israelites that if they touched a dead body they would be unclean until the evening. If they touched a restricted animal or insect that was off limits that would make them unclean. After childbirth or because of a skin infection or on account of mildew in their house they would also be ceremonially unclean. And in all of these cases they would have to take various steps of purification - sometimes extending over a two week period - in order to be considered “clean” again. And the Pharisees not only tried to keep all of these Old Testament purification laws, they also added their own laws of cleanliness on top of them! For example: they made a rule that every cup and pitcher and kettle and even the couches people sat on to eat had to be ceremonially washed. They also considered it a sin if you did not wash your hands before eating. They even came up with laws about the amount of water that should be used, in what way it should be applied, and how often. Now, these specific details are not found in the Bible; they were extra regulations that the Pharisees themselves conjured up on their own. And because of these traditions of purification and laws of cleanliness that they attempted to follow, the Pharisees thought of themselves as cleaner than the average person and purer than most.
Their way of thinking, however, was challenged when they met up with Jesus one day on the shores of the Galilee. They had come all the way from Jerusalem to see Jesus, and when they began talking to the Lord about their traditions of cleanliness and purity, Jesus revealed to them how “dirty” they really were. The conversation started when the Pharisees noticed that his disciples didn’t wash their hands before eating bread. “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with ‘unclean’ hands?” they asked Jesus. And Jesus said them, “Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean’… For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.’” The Pharisees had been mistaken. They had spent their entire lives avoiding dead bodies and certain animals and spots of mildew and dirty hands, but in spite of all their efforts throughout all those years, they hadn’t done a thing to cleanse their dirtiness in the least. In fact, they had only made what was dirty from the start even dirtier because all the sinful thoughts and words and actions that came out of them just added to the filth. All of their traditions and acts of cleansing were pointless when it came to their sin and their status before God. They were not clean, they were not pure in any way and Jesus wanted to make sure they understood that.
Jesus wants us to understand that as well. He wants us to realize that we have made ourselves disgustingly dirty throughout the years. We are no more clean than those we consider the dirtiest of people. We are filthy nasty because of the sinful nature we were born with as well as the sinful things that we produce. Any off-color inclination of our own minds adds to the grime that covers us from the womb. Any hint of a sexually inappropriate thought creates more sludge in which we live. The smallest bit of hate for anyone, a touch of greed, a little white lie, jealousy, gossip, self centeredness - all of these things spew forth more and more spiritual sewage that we wallow in every day. And it keeps piling up. Every sin that we commit, every mistake we make, every error we fall into contributes to the filthiness we are responsible for. And taking a shower this morning did not truly wash you clean of this mess. The fact that you came to church today did not purify you. Even doing good things in this life does not have any cleansing effect whatsoever because our actions do nothing to take away the smut that we have immersed ourselves in; instead our actions contribute to it. We are disgusting. We are dripping with the slime and reeking with the stench of sin. We are as dirty as dirty can be and we only make things worse whenever those sin-infected actions and words and thoughts come pouring out of us in frightening amounts.
The Pharisees didn’t realize they were that dirty. And actually, I doubt that Jesus’ own disciples really understood how repulsive their sins had made them to be. And so it was important for Jesus to point that out. They had to realize the state their sins had put them in. But if was important for Jesus to reveal their filthiness, it was even more important for Jesus to do something about it. Because he was the only one that could. He was the only one whom Scripture describes as “holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens (Hebrews 7:26). Yes, Jesus was a true human being in every sense of the word, but he was and is true God as well. He did not sin. He did not dirty himself with anything ungodly. And so it was up to him to cleanse those who were. It was up to him to be our High Priest.
During Old Testament times the people of Israel were served by the priests. When a person brought an offering to the temple it was the priest who made the sacrifice for him. When the Day of Atonement arrived it was the high priest who represented that person in front of the Lord and sprinkled the blood on the altar for his sins. When anyone became unclean in certain situations it was the priest who washed them with the water of cleansing and pronounced them pure once again. And this is exactly how the Lord functioned as our High Priest. He made the sacrifice of his blood on our behalf. He stood in front of the Father in our place. He purified us from our sins. And the apostle Paul gives us a beautiful picture of what Christ did for us as our High Priest in the book of Ephesians: “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless” (Eph. 5:25-27). Christ loved the Church - he loved believers - so much that he sacrificed himself for them. He washed them with the water of baptism through the promises of the Word of God. He will present them as holy and blameless in his sight on the Last Day. And you are included in that holy Christian Church. The filthiness and the grime of your sins have been forever washed away once and for all in your baptism. There is not a spot left. There is not one speck of contamination on you. You are completely clean. You are wholly purified. And when you stand before the Judge on Judgment Day, you will stand there radiant. You will be presented before him without stain, without any remnant of your sin in sight. You will not stand there dripping with the slime and reeking with the stench of sin. You will stand there smelling of the aroma of Christ and dressed in a robe of white.
Near the end of his life, John the apostle was given a vision of those this very thing. He saw countless people from all nations of the earth. “They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.” And one of the elders with John said, “These are they who are coming out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. 7:9,14). These people that John who saw had washed their robes white in the blood of the Lamb were Christians. And you will one day join that throng of worshipers when you pass from this life of tribulation and into the life of perfection. And with the rest of the saints you will enjoy all the blessings that John describes in the book of Revelation: you will never be hungry again. You will never become thirsty. The Lamb at the center of the throne will be your Shepherd. He will lead you to springs of living water and he will wipe the tears away from your eyes. This is what you have to look forward to because of that white robe you are wearing right now. This is what awaits you in heaven because the Lord has cleansed you from all of your filthiness by his blood. You will be allowed to enter the purity of perfection because Christ has made you pure.
And that not only has implications for your eternal life; it has great meaning for your life right now. Your every stain has been washed clean. Your every blemish has been purified. Your every contaminated action and word and thought has been dissolved in the blood of Christ and his cross. And so live like it! You don’t have to gain anything by the way you live, of course, you have already been given everything for free. And so live as if you knew that! Live in a frenzied thankfulness! Live in perpetual praise! Live in unending service to the Lord who let himself be defiled on the cross so that you could be made pure! No matter how many sins you’ve committed in this life, no matter how many you will commit for the rest of your days, and no matter how nasty and vile and filthy and dirty they were, they cover you no more. Instead, you are all wrapped up in grace. Enjoy that. Enjoy your life in this sin-stained world as a cleansed child of God. You will certainly enjoy yourself as cleansed a child of the Father in the life to come.
Amen.
“May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” - 1 Thess. 5:23
- We can only make the dirty dirtier
- Only Christ can make the dirty clean
What comes to mind if I ask you to think about the word “dirty”? Some of you might think of a teenager’s bedroom or a dust-covered vehicle. Others of you might call to mind “dirty” people: a homeless person who hasn’t had a shower in a couple weeks, a miner down in the caves, a mechanic covered in engine oil and car grease. And still others of you might think of “dirty” people on a moral level: a pornographer would be dirty in that sense because of what he does, some comedians are called dirty because of what they say, a pedophile is usually considered dirty by most people, not only because of his actions but also because of his thoughts. And although all of these people and things are dirty in their own way, when I ask you what comes to mind when you hear the word “dirty,” do any of you picture yourselves?
I certainly don’t think of myself when I come up with a picture for the word “dirty.” And the Pharisees didn’t think of themselves when they heard the word “dirty” either. In fact, they considered themselves about as clean as a person could possibly be. And they thought that way because of all the laws and traditions that they tried to keep. In the Old Testament the Lord had laid down various laws about uncleanness. He told the Israelites that if they touched a dead body they would be unclean until the evening. If they touched a restricted animal or insect that was off limits that would make them unclean. After childbirth or because of a skin infection or on account of mildew in their house they would also be ceremonially unclean. And in all of these cases they would have to take various steps of purification - sometimes extending over a two week period - in order to be considered “clean” again. And the Pharisees not only tried to keep all of these Old Testament purification laws, they also added their own laws of cleanliness on top of them! For example: they made a rule that every cup and pitcher and kettle and even the couches people sat on to eat had to be ceremonially washed. They also considered it a sin if you did not wash your hands before eating. They even came up with laws about the amount of water that should be used, in what way it should be applied, and how often. Now, these specific details are not found in the Bible; they were extra regulations that the Pharisees themselves conjured up on their own. And because of these traditions of purification and laws of cleanliness that they attempted to follow, the Pharisees thought of themselves as cleaner than the average person and purer than most.
Their way of thinking, however, was challenged when they met up with Jesus one day on the shores of the Galilee. They had come all the way from Jerusalem to see Jesus, and when they began talking to the Lord about their traditions of cleanliness and purity, Jesus revealed to them how “dirty” they really were. The conversation started when the Pharisees noticed that his disciples didn’t wash their hands before eating bread. “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with ‘unclean’ hands?” they asked Jesus. And Jesus said them, “Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean’… For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.’” The Pharisees had been mistaken. They had spent their entire lives avoiding dead bodies and certain animals and spots of mildew and dirty hands, but in spite of all their efforts throughout all those years, they hadn’t done a thing to cleanse their dirtiness in the least. In fact, they had only made what was dirty from the start even dirtier because all the sinful thoughts and words and actions that came out of them just added to the filth. All of their traditions and acts of cleansing were pointless when it came to their sin and their status before God. They were not clean, they were not pure in any way and Jesus wanted to make sure they understood that.
Jesus wants us to understand that as well. He wants us to realize that we have made ourselves disgustingly dirty throughout the years. We are no more clean than those we consider the dirtiest of people. We are filthy nasty because of the sinful nature we were born with as well as the sinful things that we produce. Any off-color inclination of our own minds adds to the grime that covers us from the womb. Any hint of a sexually inappropriate thought creates more sludge in which we live. The smallest bit of hate for anyone, a touch of greed, a little white lie, jealousy, gossip, self centeredness - all of these things spew forth more and more spiritual sewage that we wallow in every day. And it keeps piling up. Every sin that we commit, every mistake we make, every error we fall into contributes to the filthiness we are responsible for. And taking a shower this morning did not truly wash you clean of this mess. The fact that you came to church today did not purify you. Even doing good things in this life does not have any cleansing effect whatsoever because our actions do nothing to take away the smut that we have immersed ourselves in; instead our actions contribute to it. We are disgusting. We are dripping with the slime and reeking with the stench of sin. We are as dirty as dirty can be and we only make things worse whenever those sin-infected actions and words and thoughts come pouring out of us in frightening amounts.
The Pharisees didn’t realize they were that dirty. And actually, I doubt that Jesus’ own disciples really understood how repulsive their sins had made them to be. And so it was important for Jesus to point that out. They had to realize the state their sins had put them in. But if was important for Jesus to reveal their filthiness, it was even more important for Jesus to do something about it. Because he was the only one that could. He was the only one whom Scripture describes as “holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens (Hebrews 7:26). Yes, Jesus was a true human being in every sense of the word, but he was and is true God as well. He did not sin. He did not dirty himself with anything ungodly. And so it was up to him to cleanse those who were. It was up to him to be our High Priest.
During Old Testament times the people of Israel were served by the priests. When a person brought an offering to the temple it was the priest who made the sacrifice for him. When the Day of Atonement arrived it was the high priest who represented that person in front of the Lord and sprinkled the blood on the altar for his sins. When anyone became unclean in certain situations it was the priest who washed them with the water of cleansing and pronounced them pure once again. And this is exactly how the Lord functioned as our High Priest. He made the sacrifice of his blood on our behalf. He stood in front of the Father in our place. He purified us from our sins. And the apostle Paul gives us a beautiful picture of what Christ did for us as our High Priest in the book of Ephesians: “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless” (Eph. 5:25-27). Christ loved the Church - he loved believers - so much that he sacrificed himself for them. He washed them with the water of baptism through the promises of the Word of God. He will present them as holy and blameless in his sight on the Last Day. And you are included in that holy Christian Church. The filthiness and the grime of your sins have been forever washed away once and for all in your baptism. There is not a spot left. There is not one speck of contamination on you. You are completely clean. You are wholly purified. And when you stand before the Judge on Judgment Day, you will stand there radiant. You will be presented before him without stain, without any remnant of your sin in sight. You will not stand there dripping with the slime and reeking with the stench of sin. You will stand there smelling of the aroma of Christ and dressed in a robe of white.
Near the end of his life, John the apostle was given a vision of those this very thing. He saw countless people from all nations of the earth. “They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.” And one of the elders with John said, “These are they who are coming out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. 7:9,14). These people that John who saw had washed their robes white in the blood of the Lamb were Christians. And you will one day join that throng of worshipers when you pass from this life of tribulation and into the life of perfection. And with the rest of the saints you will enjoy all the blessings that John describes in the book of Revelation: you will never be hungry again. You will never become thirsty. The Lamb at the center of the throne will be your Shepherd. He will lead you to springs of living water and he will wipe the tears away from your eyes. This is what you have to look forward to because of that white robe you are wearing right now. This is what awaits you in heaven because the Lord has cleansed you from all of your filthiness by his blood. You will be allowed to enter the purity of perfection because Christ has made you pure.
And that not only has implications for your eternal life; it has great meaning for your life right now. Your every stain has been washed clean. Your every blemish has been purified. Your every contaminated action and word and thought has been dissolved in the blood of Christ and his cross. And so live like it! You don’t have to gain anything by the way you live, of course, you have already been given everything for free. And so live as if you knew that! Live in a frenzied thankfulness! Live in perpetual praise! Live in unending service to the Lord who let himself be defiled on the cross so that you could be made pure! No matter how many sins you’ve committed in this life, no matter how many you will commit for the rest of your days, and no matter how nasty and vile and filthy and dirty they were, they cover you no more. Instead, you are all wrapped up in grace. Enjoy that. Enjoy your life in this sin-stained world as a cleansed child of God. You will certainly enjoy yourself as cleansed a child of the Father in the life to come.
Amen.
“May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” - 1 Thess. 5:23
Sunday, September 06, 2009
9/6/09 - Pentecost 14 - Joshua 14:1-2,14-18
GOD'S TRACK RECORD IS FLAWLESS
- Remember what he has done for you
- Remember who he is to you
Joshua had lived a long and busy life. From early on he was appointed as the aid to the great man Moses himself. And for the next 40 years, as Moses led the people through the desert and to the edge of Promised Land, Joshua was right there by his side. He was up on Mt. Sinai when the Lord spoke to Moses face to face. Joshua was one of the original twelve spies that explored the land of Canaan. He was the military general of the nation of Israel throughout their travels. And when they finally did cross over the Jordan River into the Promised Land after the death of Moses, Joshua was the one who took his place. For another 25 years Joshua was not only the commander of the armies, he was also the Israelite’s civic and spiritual leader as well. For at least 65 years, Joshua helped lead the people of Israel during a crucial time of their existence. In fact, he was one of only two people that saw the Israelites go from a nation under slavery to a nation wandering through the desert without a home to a nation established in the land “flowing with milk and honey” just as the Lord had promised. And now, Joshua was 110 years old. He knew he was about to die. And so he gathered up all the Israelites with their elders and leaders and judges and officials and he left them with some final words: "Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."
Joshua was a little worried. Because he had seen what the Israelites were capable of! He had witnessed their grumbling and rebellion and spiritual depravity for decades! He knew it would be difficult for them to stay faithful to the Lord after he died, and Joshua turned out to be right. And so before he left he wanted to point his people to the Lord’s track record. He wanted the Israelites to remember everything that the Lord had done for them and who the Lord had always been for them. And in the opening verses of Joshua 24, this aged leader revisits many of the things that the Lord had done for his people over the past few hundred years. He reminds them about Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and how the Lord called them and preserved them and gave them the land that the Israelites now possessed. Joshua reviews for them the stories of Moses and Aaron, the plagues of Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, and the destruction of the entire army of Pharaoh in its waters. He mentions the wandering in the desert, the miraculous defeat of the Amorites, the situation with Balaam the sorcerer, and the famous collapse of the walls of Jericho. And Joshua makes sure they recall “the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites” - people that had been living in the Promised Land but people that the Lord had destroyed for the good of his nation. Joshua brought their attention to all of these things in their past because Joshua wanted them to remember everything the Lord had done for them. He never wanted them to forget the Lord’s track record so that they would always be motivated to stay faithful to the Lord for the rest of their lives.
And the Israelite people did promise to remain true to the Lord at first. They saw what the Lord had done for them and I think they genuinely wanted to follow his lead. “Far be it from us to forsake the LORD to serve other gods! It was the LORD our God himself who brought us and our forefathers up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled. And the LORD drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the LORD, because he is our God.” That was a beautiful confession of faith, wasn’t it? The Israelites appreciated what the Lord had done for them over the years and their faith reflected that.
But it didn’t last long. After Joshua died the time of the Judges began. And for the majority of that 350 year period, the Israelites followed every god but the Lord. Because after the generation of people who made that promise to Joshua passed away, Scripture says, “another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel… They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They provoked the LORD to anger” (Judges 2:10,12). God’s people forgot their God. The forgot his track record. The generations after Joshua didn’t remember what the Lord had done for them and they quickly fell away.
I don’t know how much you remember about these kinds of details in the history of the Israelite nation, but this storyline should sound somewhat familiar to you because it’s the story of our own lives. We have been reminded about what the Lord has done for us too. In fact, every week here at church and every day in our own Bibles we are immersed in the wonders of God’s work for the good of his children. We see his guiding hand throughout history, we witness what Jesus did while on this earth and on the cross. We are reminded about how the Holy Spirit has brought us to faith through the Word and the Lord’s constant watch over our lives every day. But in an instant we can forget it all. Not that it intellectually leaves our minds, but it just gets overshadowed by the troubles and the problems we face in this life.
Sometimes you’re just having a bad day and you starting complaining (naturally), you start feeling sorry for yourself and you drape that self-pity around your neck so everyone else can see it. But have you forgotten? Have you forgotten the Lord’s track record? Have you forgotten every great and completely amazing thing the Lord has ever done for us? Have you forgotten that you don’t deserve any good thing in this life? Have you forgotten how good your life really is? Or maybe our financial situation changes a bit and we start to worry about whether we’ll be able to afford what we were planning on or not, we start to worry about the bills, we start to worry about the future. But have we forgotten the Lord’s track record? Have we forgotten about all of the tough times the Lord has seen us through? Have we forgotten about the love and the grace he has shown us in every circumstance of our lives? Have we forgotten that he is God, he owns everything, and he can give us any blessing at any time in any way? Or sometimes we pray and pray and pray for something. But no matter how hard we pray and how long we pray and how many times we pray, it doesn’t seem to be doing any good. In fact, it seems to be getting worse. And we start to wonder if the Lord is even paying attention. It crosses our minds that the Lord might to be all that concerned about the things that are bothering us in our lives. We might even question whether the Lord is even trying.
But have we forgotten? Have we forgotten the Lord’s track record? Of course he is trying! Of course he is concerned! Of course he is paying attention! Of course he cares about what is happening in our lives and the problems we are dealing with and the things we are praying for. Maybe it would be a good thing to remind ourselves about what the Lord has done for us and who the Lord is for us so that we don’t become more like the Old Testament Israelites than we already are. Maybe it would be a good thing to review his flawless track record. And his track record is this:
Before there was an earth to stand on, before there was a sky to look up into, before there was anything of any kind, God decided to share his love with us. And so he created everything there ever was: trees, animals, mountains, rivers, stars, colors, sounds, flavors… all for us. All for our enjoyment. All for our pleasure. And then when our first ancestors Adam and Eve gave it all up by doing the one thing God told them not to do, the Lord instantly fixed the problem. He immediately promised to send them and all of us a Savior so that we would not have to live on this earth of sin forever. And as the centuries rolled by the Lord stayed true to his promise to us. Even though the nations of the earth fell away from the faith, even though he had to virtually start all over again with Noah and his family, even though no one deserved to receive even an ounce of the Lord’s love, he did not let us down. He preserved the line of the Savior through sinful people and even through sinful actions. And when the time was just right he took the form of a human being himself and he did the dirty work. He suffered the effects of our sin for 33 years. He let himself be beaten and abused by his own creatures. He willingly took on the painful tortures of a trip to hell and back while on the cross of his crucifixion. He made sure that he was sentenced with the punishment that was meant for us. He rose from the dead to prove our salvation. He ascended into heaven to rule all things with his power and love. And then he made sure that each one of us believed it!
When you were born he brought you to faith through baptism or he preserved you long enough to bring you to faith through his Word later on in life. He sent his Holy Spirit into your heart by the words of the Bible so that you believe that this God whom you’ve never seen, this God whom you’ve never heard, this God whom you’ve never touched, is real. And he is your Savior. And you will one day live with him forever in a Paradise of perfection because of what he has done for you. And in the mean time, in good times and in bad, in every aspect of your life, in any situation you are in, at any place the Lord is guarding you. He is protecting you. He is watching out for you and making sure that everything and everyone around you is there for your benefit. The Lord has proved to be your God from eternity. He has been your Savior from the moment his blood dropped from the cross. And he will be your Lord for the rest of eternity. This is God’s track record. It is flawless. It is spotless. And it is filled with countless and continuous acts of love for you.
Joshua believed that. He remembered the Lord’s track record and he was moved by it. “As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." There was nothing else Joshua wanted to do because there was nothing else in this life that had given him so much. In fact, there was nothing else in this life that had given him anything. The Lord had done it all. And he had done it all in grand fashion. And the Lord has done the same grand things for you. He has shown his love to you for the last 6000+ years. He has never let you down and has even given to you more than you could ever ask for or imagine. He has forgiven you every one of your sins and he promises that he always will. And that immediate and unconditional forgiveness is the greatest thing about him. That is the pinnacle, that is the highlight, of what he does. And as with anything else about our Lord, his gracious forgiveness will never change.
Keep the Lord’s track record always at the forefront of your mind. It will make those disappointments in this life seem inconsequential. It’ll make those troubles in this life seem insignificant. It’ll make life itself a joy to live because you’ll understand that you are always living under God’s grace. “As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." These were words of a Christian who knew what the Lord has done and where the Lord would one day take him. Make these words your own. Remember what the Lord has done for you in the past and look forward to what he’ll do for you in the future. He is your God after all. He can do it. He promises to do it. And so it’s really already done.
Amen.
“Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and Amen.” - Psalm 41:13
- Remember what he has done for you
- Remember who he is to you
Joshua had lived a long and busy life. From early on he was appointed as the aid to the great man Moses himself. And for the next 40 years, as Moses led the people through the desert and to the edge of Promised Land, Joshua was right there by his side. He was up on Mt. Sinai when the Lord spoke to Moses face to face. Joshua was one of the original twelve spies that explored the land of Canaan. He was the military general of the nation of Israel throughout their travels. And when they finally did cross over the Jordan River into the Promised Land after the death of Moses, Joshua was the one who took his place. For another 25 years Joshua was not only the commander of the armies, he was also the Israelite’s civic and spiritual leader as well. For at least 65 years, Joshua helped lead the people of Israel during a crucial time of their existence. In fact, he was one of only two people that saw the Israelites go from a nation under slavery to a nation wandering through the desert without a home to a nation established in the land “flowing with milk and honey” just as the Lord had promised. And now, Joshua was 110 years old. He knew he was about to die. And so he gathered up all the Israelites with their elders and leaders and judges and officials and he left them with some final words: "Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."
Joshua was a little worried. Because he had seen what the Israelites were capable of! He had witnessed their grumbling and rebellion and spiritual depravity for decades! He knew it would be difficult for them to stay faithful to the Lord after he died, and Joshua turned out to be right. And so before he left he wanted to point his people to the Lord’s track record. He wanted the Israelites to remember everything that the Lord had done for them and who the Lord had always been for them. And in the opening verses of Joshua 24, this aged leader revisits many of the things that the Lord had done for his people over the past few hundred years. He reminds them about Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and how the Lord called them and preserved them and gave them the land that the Israelites now possessed. Joshua reviews for them the stories of Moses and Aaron, the plagues of Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, and the destruction of the entire army of Pharaoh in its waters. He mentions the wandering in the desert, the miraculous defeat of the Amorites, the situation with Balaam the sorcerer, and the famous collapse of the walls of Jericho. And Joshua makes sure they recall “the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites” - people that had been living in the Promised Land but people that the Lord had destroyed for the good of his nation. Joshua brought their attention to all of these things in their past because Joshua wanted them to remember everything the Lord had done for them. He never wanted them to forget the Lord’s track record so that they would always be motivated to stay faithful to the Lord for the rest of their lives.
And the Israelite people did promise to remain true to the Lord at first. They saw what the Lord had done for them and I think they genuinely wanted to follow his lead. “Far be it from us to forsake the LORD to serve other gods! It was the LORD our God himself who brought us and our forefathers up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled. And the LORD drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the LORD, because he is our God.” That was a beautiful confession of faith, wasn’t it? The Israelites appreciated what the Lord had done for them over the years and their faith reflected that.
But it didn’t last long. After Joshua died the time of the Judges began. And for the majority of that 350 year period, the Israelites followed every god but the Lord. Because after the generation of people who made that promise to Joshua passed away, Scripture says, “another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel… They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They provoked the LORD to anger” (Judges 2:10,12). God’s people forgot their God. The forgot his track record. The generations after Joshua didn’t remember what the Lord had done for them and they quickly fell away.
I don’t know how much you remember about these kinds of details in the history of the Israelite nation, but this storyline should sound somewhat familiar to you because it’s the story of our own lives. We have been reminded about what the Lord has done for us too. In fact, every week here at church and every day in our own Bibles we are immersed in the wonders of God’s work for the good of his children. We see his guiding hand throughout history, we witness what Jesus did while on this earth and on the cross. We are reminded about how the Holy Spirit has brought us to faith through the Word and the Lord’s constant watch over our lives every day. But in an instant we can forget it all. Not that it intellectually leaves our minds, but it just gets overshadowed by the troubles and the problems we face in this life.
Sometimes you’re just having a bad day and you starting complaining (naturally), you start feeling sorry for yourself and you drape that self-pity around your neck so everyone else can see it. But have you forgotten? Have you forgotten the Lord’s track record? Have you forgotten every great and completely amazing thing the Lord has ever done for us? Have you forgotten that you don’t deserve any good thing in this life? Have you forgotten how good your life really is? Or maybe our financial situation changes a bit and we start to worry about whether we’ll be able to afford what we were planning on or not, we start to worry about the bills, we start to worry about the future. But have we forgotten the Lord’s track record? Have we forgotten about all of the tough times the Lord has seen us through? Have we forgotten about the love and the grace he has shown us in every circumstance of our lives? Have we forgotten that he is God, he owns everything, and he can give us any blessing at any time in any way? Or sometimes we pray and pray and pray for something. But no matter how hard we pray and how long we pray and how many times we pray, it doesn’t seem to be doing any good. In fact, it seems to be getting worse. And we start to wonder if the Lord is even paying attention. It crosses our minds that the Lord might to be all that concerned about the things that are bothering us in our lives. We might even question whether the Lord is even trying.
But have we forgotten? Have we forgotten the Lord’s track record? Of course he is trying! Of course he is concerned! Of course he is paying attention! Of course he cares about what is happening in our lives and the problems we are dealing with and the things we are praying for. Maybe it would be a good thing to remind ourselves about what the Lord has done for us and who the Lord is for us so that we don’t become more like the Old Testament Israelites than we already are. Maybe it would be a good thing to review his flawless track record. And his track record is this:
Before there was an earth to stand on, before there was a sky to look up into, before there was anything of any kind, God decided to share his love with us. And so he created everything there ever was: trees, animals, mountains, rivers, stars, colors, sounds, flavors… all for us. All for our enjoyment. All for our pleasure. And then when our first ancestors Adam and Eve gave it all up by doing the one thing God told them not to do, the Lord instantly fixed the problem. He immediately promised to send them and all of us a Savior so that we would not have to live on this earth of sin forever. And as the centuries rolled by the Lord stayed true to his promise to us. Even though the nations of the earth fell away from the faith, even though he had to virtually start all over again with Noah and his family, even though no one deserved to receive even an ounce of the Lord’s love, he did not let us down. He preserved the line of the Savior through sinful people and even through sinful actions. And when the time was just right he took the form of a human being himself and he did the dirty work. He suffered the effects of our sin for 33 years. He let himself be beaten and abused by his own creatures. He willingly took on the painful tortures of a trip to hell and back while on the cross of his crucifixion. He made sure that he was sentenced with the punishment that was meant for us. He rose from the dead to prove our salvation. He ascended into heaven to rule all things with his power and love. And then he made sure that each one of us believed it!
When you were born he brought you to faith through baptism or he preserved you long enough to bring you to faith through his Word later on in life. He sent his Holy Spirit into your heart by the words of the Bible so that you believe that this God whom you’ve never seen, this God whom you’ve never heard, this God whom you’ve never touched, is real. And he is your Savior. And you will one day live with him forever in a Paradise of perfection because of what he has done for you. And in the mean time, in good times and in bad, in every aspect of your life, in any situation you are in, at any place the Lord is guarding you. He is protecting you. He is watching out for you and making sure that everything and everyone around you is there for your benefit. The Lord has proved to be your God from eternity. He has been your Savior from the moment his blood dropped from the cross. And he will be your Lord for the rest of eternity. This is God’s track record. It is flawless. It is spotless. And it is filled with countless and continuous acts of love for you.
Joshua believed that. He remembered the Lord’s track record and he was moved by it. “As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." There was nothing else Joshua wanted to do because there was nothing else in this life that had given him so much. In fact, there was nothing else in this life that had given him anything. The Lord had done it all. And he had done it all in grand fashion. And the Lord has done the same grand things for you. He has shown his love to you for the last 6000+ years. He has never let you down and has even given to you more than you could ever ask for or imagine. He has forgiven you every one of your sins and he promises that he always will. And that immediate and unconditional forgiveness is the greatest thing about him. That is the pinnacle, that is the highlight, of what he does. And as with anything else about our Lord, his gracious forgiveness will never change.
Keep the Lord’s track record always at the forefront of your mind. It will make those disappointments in this life seem inconsequential. It’ll make those troubles in this life seem insignificant. It’ll make life itself a joy to live because you’ll understand that you are always living under God’s grace. “As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." These were words of a Christian who knew what the Lord has done and where the Lord would one day take him. Make these words your own. Remember what the Lord has done for you in the past and look forward to what he’ll do for you in the future. He is your God after all. He can do it. He promises to do it. And so it’s really already done.
Amen.
“Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and Amen.” - Psalm 41:13
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