Free to Serve

A Christmas Poem

Clement Clark Moore is the author of the famous poem, "A Visit from St. Nicholas," which most of us know by its first line, "'Twas the Night Before Christmas." These words, first published in 1823, did a lot to cement in the American mind the traditional view of Christmas that exists today: a jolly Santa Claus delivering gifts from house to house on Christmas Eve. I grew up loving this poem and this idea.

When I became a Christian 24 years ago I finally understood Christmas. Moore's poem is light and playful but it has nothing to do with the Savior who entered this world in order to identify with a sinful humanity that he might one day die for sinners like us. One day, everyone will know who this Jesus we sing about on Christmas really is (Phil 2:10-11). In the meantime, we wait with eager anticipation for his glorious return.

Moore's poem is about the eve of Christ's birth. The following poem is about the eve of Christ's return.

How Do I Rest in Christ?

One of the most incredible New Testament passages is the simple explanation of Jesus’ identity we find in Colossians 1:15-18: 

¹⁵He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. ¹⁶For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. ¹⁷And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

The main point is clear: Jesus is preeminent, supreme, glorious and excellent. There is none like him. He is the Lord. But how do we apply such a text? What difference does it make in how we live our lives?

To answer that question, it might help to think of Colossians 1:15-18 as a sister text to Matthew 11:27-28:

 ²⁷All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. ²⁸Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

In both passages, Jesus is presented as one with the Father. In Colossians 1:15 he is the image of the invisible God. In Matthew 11:27 he is the only one who can reveal the Father. We know from both texts that to know Christ is to know God himself! What do we do with such a tremendous truth? The answer is in Matthew 11:28. We turn to him for rest. We run to Jesus promises to give us rest for our souls. Because Jesus is excellent we can find rest in him.

Not far from where I live stands Stone Mountain. It’s a chunk of granite jutting nearly 1,700 feet out of the earth. The path to the top has just a few steep inclines, but on a hot day the burning sun can make the journey grueling. But Stone Mountain is a bit unusual in that on the top that is a concessions stand that sells refreshments. After a long hike, sitting on that rock, looking out over the edge of the mountain, sipping on a cool treat—one understands the value of rest.

Let me suggest five ways, today, you can rest in Christ.

Some songs we sing should be sad

In a recent article for the 9Marks Journal, Carl Trueman, pastor and professor, explains why some songs we sing at church should be sad. In other words, there are times to sing songs overflowing with joy--because perfect joy will be what we experience in heaven. But our songs should also help us meditate upon the pain and the sadness we know here on earth. Our songs, says Trueman, should be a reflection of the Psalms.

Trueman uses the analogy of marriage. The marriage of Christ begins with tragedy and ends with joy. Our corporate worship singing should reflect both themes. 

When I married a young couple in my congregation a few years ago, I commented in the sermon that all human marriages begin with joy but end in tragedy. Whether it is divorce or death, the human bond of love is eventually torn apart. The marriage of Christ and his church, however, begins with tragedy and ends with a joyful and loving union which will never be rent asunder. There is joy to which we point in our worship, the joy of the Lamb's wedding feast. But our people need to know that in this world there will be mourning. Not wordly mourning with no hope. But real mourning nonetheless, and we must make them ready for that.

As we sing at MVBC, I pray you are ready for lyrics that point us toward the glories of heaven and lyrics that help us face the reality of suffering on earth.

 

"Before they call I will answer"

"Before they call I will answer." So begins Isaiah 65:24, where the prophet expounds about life in the new heavens and new earth. What a promise!

In this life, the Christian approaches God boldly, faithfully, always confident that God hears. In the gospel is the guarantee that Jesus Christ is our mediator. He has granted access to the throne of God and given us the conviction that God's ears are open, and he is eager to give good gifts to his children.

And yet, in this life, there are times when we feel no response. There are times when we have to remember that generations of God's people languished in slavery in Egypt. Another generation wandered in the wilderness knowing that they would not reach the promised land. Hundreds of years passed between the prophets and the Messiah's birth. During those years true believers cried out to the Lord for help, but God was silent.

In Christ, the silence is over. The Word has come. God has spoken to his people. And yet, the thorns of this world remain. We speak to God, we pray--often only to receive God's discipline. His discipline is love, yes, and demanding.

But a day is coming, says Isaiah, when God will hear us even before we call. God's people will interact with their Maker in a world without sin. Our communion with the Lord will be uninterrupted. Every Christian will experience God's perfect presence. As Alec Motyer put it, in the new heavens and the new earth, God is more than just attentive to the people of God, "there is such a oneness with the Lord that he anticipates their needs with his constant provident watchfulness for their good."

Take heart, Christian. God hears you now and chooses, in his wisdom, to let you persist in the trials you face because he knows that the path you are on is the right one. But a day will come when the trials you face and the distance you sometimes feel between you and God is no more. On that day, before you call, He will answer.

 

How Can Hard Work Seem Easy?

So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her.

                                                                                                                                 Genesis 29:20 (ESV)

 Jacob’s marriage to Rachel is one of the most important in the entire Bible. Through her came Joseph, the man God used to provide Jacob’s family refuge in Egypt. Jacob had gone to his father’s homeland to find a wife, and Rachel caught his eye.

It’s hard to know why Jacob loved her. We are told she was “beautiful in form and appearance” (29:17). One can only hope that Jacob cared about more than her looks! The text doesn’t say. What we do know is that Jacob wanted Rachel to be his wife, and he longed for her so deeply he was willing to serve her father for seven years for the right of her hand in marriage.

But here’s what’s so amazing: Those seven years of service “seemed to him but a few days.” His work was easy because he was in love. His work was light because he had something wonderful to look forward to.

This principle holds true for all of us, doesn’t it? It’s not as hard to get out of bed for the last day of work before a vacation. We have an amazing capacity to endure drudgery when we know there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

Each of our lives is full of hard labor. There are difficulties around every bend. Everyday we are reminded of life’s troubles. How can we persevere in the midst of these trials? How can we happily go to work even when our boss is unhelpful at best and demeaning at worst? How can we roll up our sleeves and change diaper after diaper? How can we pursue holiness when the road is paved with landmines of temptation?

Jacob’s days flew by because he looked forward to being married to Rachel. Our days can seem light and easy because of the promise of everlasting life. Consider Jesus. The author of Hebrews tells us that Jesus endured the cross, “for the joy that was set before him” (Heb 12:2). What was that joy? Being back in the presence of his Father, “seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

This world is not our home. Instead, “our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Phil 3:20-21).

Your days on this earth will be hard, very hard. They will be full of backbreaking discouragement and frustrating disappointment. And yet your days can seem easy because of the joy set before you. Because Christ died for sinners, if your faith is in him, you have a new home to look forward to, a new body to anticipate, and the full presence of God to long for. With all this around the corner, don’t give up fighting sin. Don’t stop pursuing godliness. Don’t let the weight of the world discourage you. After all, by God’s grace we can persevere with confidence that “this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor 4:17).

Resolved to Love

How fitting that the first sermon this year at MVBC is on the nature of God's love. 1 John 4:7, "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God."

Based upon that verse, there is nothing more important than knowing genuine, Christian love. It is the kind of love that John says is "from God." And if we have this love, then we give it away.

There is, sadly, a beastly side to all of us. It is the side that tends to keep love to ourselves, for ourselves. We can be miserly when it comes to love. We hoard it in our heart, constantly looking for others to love us instead of loving others. Like a nation experiencing a trade deficit, we import love from others without exporting it away. That is not the Christian way.

Many of us this New Year have made wise resolutions to be more faithul to read the Word, to enjoy it, to share it, to teach it. That's good. But are we resolved to love more? How can we do this? 

1. Pray for a heartfelt concern about others. We need God's grace to love others. Love is not natural to the fallen human heart. We need God's grace in our lives. We need God's Spirit filling us with God's love. And so we must pray, "Lord, help me love others."
2. Communicate a heartfelt concern for others. Love is more than words, but it is not less. We are communicative beings--we are designed to speak. Our words should do more than communicate data: "Your lunch is on the table." "You have a 2pm appointment with the doctor next week." Our words should communicate love: "I'm thankful for you." "You are a gift from God to me." "I love you."
3. Rejoice in God's heartfelt concern for you. I end here, but this is where it all begins, does it not? Our God loves us. That's amazing. Though we did not deserve God's love, he gave it to us. God's heartfelt concern was never more beautifully or finally expressed than on a tree in Golgatha nearly 2,000 years ago. 1 John 4:10, "In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

This Sunday at 10:30am, our own Dustin Butts will be preaching from 1 John 4:7-12. Pray for him as he comes to preach. But pray for all of us, that we would be marked by the kind of love that God, through John, demands of us.

A New Year's Prayer

            Father, how thankful I am for another year. Every year seems like a new beginning, a fresh start, a clean slate. I know that it does not work exactly like that, but I’m still very glad to be able to feel like I’m beginning again. It is hard, Lord, not to make resolutions. This year I want to be more committed to your word, to seeking your face, to enjoying your presence in my life. I want to draw near to you with greater reverence as well as greater frequency. I want to glorify you more and honor you more deeply.

            It begins with praise. Heavenly Father, I praise you as the Creator of heaven and earth. You made everything out of nothing. Those words stun me. Love made the world. You are a good God; you must be a good God to create a world filled with this kind of beauty, with this kind of majesty. I see you in everything you made—in the water that flows down the falls, the leaf that crinkles under my feet, the sun that glares over my head, the wind that blows through my hair. Your creation is beautiful.

            And who am I that you would make me? The pinnacle of your creation is humanity, O Father, thank you for making us. And not just for making us, but for making us in your own image and likeness. To think that the stamp of the Triune God is in my DNA is too much to comprehend and almost too much to accept. Let me never forget your glory is at the heart of every single human.

            But more than anything, this morning I want to praise you for my redemption. You have called me, like Ruth, to leave comfort and home and familiarity and to follow you. You have given me a new heart and a new life. Because the sinless Savior died for me, I have been charged to live for him, and I have been equipped to live for him by the indwelling presence of your Holy Spirit. Thank you, Father, for adopting me into your family through the work of your Son. I am more grateful to you than words can ever tell.

            The clock never stops, Father. Help me to make good use of the days you have given me. Let me serve my family with joy, my church with love, and my friends with kindness. Let me lay aside ambition and pride and selfishness and pick up humility, and peace, and self-control. Thank you for being worthy of all the attention and affection that I can muster, and help me give it all to you this coming year.

            Amen.

Why We Need to Be Reminded of the Gospel

Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers.

2 Timothy 2:14 

One of Paul’s last commands to Timothy was to “remind” the church in Ephesus of the gospel. False teachers had infiltrated the congregation. They had a tendency to lead believers into petty, unproductive conversations—“how many angels can dance on the head of a pin”—that kind of thing. But Paul would have none of that. To be a Christian, and especially to be a Christian leader, is to remind others of truth. There is a God, and he has “saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ before the ages began” (2 Tim 1:9). 

Why is it so important for Christians to be devoted to reminding others of the gospel of Jesus Christ? In other words, don’t we ever graduate out of basic gospel truth? No! Christian maturity is not moving away from the gospel, but understanding the gospel more deeply. 

Let me offer up five reasons why your teaching and even your own study of the Bible should constantly be revisiting basic, gospel truth: 

1) Because as believers we are called to focus on the Bible (2 Tim 3:16-17), and the heart of the Bible is the gospel. When Jesus ministered to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, he opened up the Old Testament scriptures and pointed out how they all pointed to him, his person and work. “Was it not necessary,” Jesus told them, “that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” (Luke 24:26). Jesus opened up the Hebrew Bible and pointed out the cross. Furthermore, when the author of Hebrews sought to ground new believers in their faith, he also reminded them that all of Scripture points to the cross. To pay attention to the Bible is to pay attention to the gospel. 

2) Because we don’t understand the gospel nearly as well as we think we do. Let’s face it, there are parts of the gospel that make perfect sense and parts that defy human understanding. How, for example, could Jesus’ righteousness become our righteousness? How can God be both the subject (Holy Father) and the object (Divine Son) of wrath? How does grace motivate the believer to greater acts of obedience instead of perpetual spiritual laziness? These are gospel categories and gospel questions that are of paramount importance—and the list goes on. We should approach the gospel with great humility, recognizing that its majestic truth requires a lifetime of study. Yes, we should be thankful the gospel is easy enough for a child to understand. But let’s also admit that it contains more wisdom than all the libraries of the world.

3) Because Satan is strongest where our understanding of the gospel is weakest. Believers can give Satan the opportunity to work (Eph 4:27). He sets snares (1 Tim 3:7; 2 Tim 2:26). We must resist him (James 4:7). He is an enemy seeking to devour us (1 Pet 5:8). And how does Satan work? He looks to jump through holes in our understanding of the gospel. For example, those with weak and attackable faith may be tempted to think that God’s approval of them is based upon their performance. Such believers will always feel like they fall short. Though they pursue holiness, they are riddled with guilt, always struggling to enjoy the peace and comfort that only the gospel can bring. Satan will enjoy holding a magnifying glass above their failures so that their sin looms large while the cross fades into the background. Likewise, other immature believers will assume that since their sins have been atoned for on the cross, they don’t really need to try all that hard to live a godly life. In this case, Satan will actually maximize the size of the cross in their eyes and minimize their sin. Thus, when temptation comes their way, these folks will be more likely to give in. Satan works most effectively where our understanding of the gospel is most deficient. 

4) Because our minds are not what they should be. There is a reason God ordained the church to gather once a week for teaching (Heb 10:24-25). Our minds are in constant need of gospel truth. It’s not just that we need to learn new things, but we need to be reminded of old things. A failing memory is part of the Fall. It is a horrible thing when an Alzheimer’s patient begins to forget his family. And it’s awful when the Christian forgets how to explain the cross-work of Christ. Because our memories are weak and failing, we need constant reminders of the gospel. 

5) Because there are numerous ways to apply the gospel. Even if the mechanics of the gospel are understood (and I would argue that a complete understanding of even the mechanics must wait for heaven), the implications of the gospel are too numerous to be exhausted in even a hundred thousand sermons. How does the gospel affect how I treat my child when he’s gotten out of bed for the fifth time in one night? What does the gospel say about how I should handle my depleted savings account? What does the gospel say about what church I should join, or what my involvement should look like at the church I have joined? What are the gospel implications of my floundering relationship with my dad? People are faced with a 1,001 different scenarios, each one of them needing the careful application of the gospel. But it is only when we revisit the gospel that these questions arise. 

Oh my friend, “remind them of these things.” Let your heart and the hearts of those around you be saturated with gospel truth. The gospel is what we need for life and for hope and for rest.

Thanksgiving 2013

Every Tuesday before Thanksgiving, MVBC has a Thanksgiving Service. The setup is pretty simple. We sing, listen to a brief Thanksgiving devotional, and then, one by one the congregation shares what they are thankful for. This year thanks were given for grace to evangelize in the midst of cancer, strength to get through a difficult season in school, mercy to see where a marriage needed to grow, and many hands willing to work with toddlers every Sunday morning. We were thankful for many things.

But most of all, we are thankful for God. It is God in whom we live, and move, and have our being. It is God who sustains us, pours out his mercy on us, and fills us with his Spirit. We are the people of God because of God's grace.

I had the privilege of starting off the time of thanksgiving with a devotional. You'll find it below. In the midst of turkey and sweet potatoes, green been casserole, and warm bread--I pray you remember not only that God is the giver of all good gifts, but as I said on Tuesday, "Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD God Almighty."

***

My text for tonight’s Thanksgiving Devotional is Psalm 7:17, “I will give thanks to the LORD the thanks due his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the LORD, the Most High.”

"Tune my heart, Lord"

Last Sunday evening at MVBC, Ricky Hutchins made the excellent point in his devotional that David responded to God's mercy by singing His praises. We should, therefore, sing with our whole heart, and even come to the Sunday morning service prepared to sing. Ricky concluded his message by reminding us of a great hymn where Robert Robinson prayed that the Lord would tune our hearts so we could sing of God's grace:

    Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,

    Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;

    Streams of mercy, never ceasing,

    Call for songs of loudest praise.

Take some time before you gather with the body on Sunday morning to pray that God would tune your heart.