Are you happy? (Psalm 1)

Jonathan Edwards, the great American Christian leader in the 1700s, once said, ‘God has made man for nothing but happiness.’  Could that be true?  I asked a friend who is a lecturer in a leading evangelical college and he said that this statement might need a little qualifying.  If you define happiness in terms of the feeling you get when everything goes your way, then no, God does not always work towards our happiness.  Indeed, there are plenty of sorrows in the pages of the Psalms.  However, there is a deeper happiness, more commonly referred to as joy that can exist in the pain.  The apostle Paul speaks of being ‘sorrowful but always rejoicing, and while Jesus was ‘a man of sorrows, familiar with grief’ there was none who had such joy as he.  So, yes, in a real sense, ‘God has made man and woman for nothing but joy.’

This joy is found in the peace that comes in realising that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus—as Psalm 32 begins ‘blessed is the person who knows their sins have been forgiven.’  This joy is found in the comfort of knowing that God is with you, even in the pain—Psalm 34 tells us that the Lord ‘is close to the broken-hearted.  This joy is found in the sure hope of knowing that all will turn out well for us, even if we have to wait until this life is over—in Psalm 23, David ends by dwelling on the fact that he will remain in the house of the Lord for ever.

Background

This Psalm is actually the introduction to the whole book of Psalms.  It’s a gateway psalm—a doorkeeper to everything else that follows.  Fail to understand this psalm and you won’t understand what the rest are about.  Right at the beginning of this book we are presented with two ways to live.  We are being asked, ‘do you belong to the company of the wicked or the congregation of the faithful?’  We’ll see how we can be among the righteous in a few moments.

Happiness is found in going against the flow (1-2)

I have a friend who says that he wants to be a salmon.  You see salmon swim upstream—they go against the flow!  Happiness is found in going against the flow!  Happy is the person who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked.  Happy is the person who … does not stand in the way of sinners. Happy is the person who ... does not sit in the seat of scoffers.  The scoffers think the way the world thinks, act the way the world acts and belong amongst those who resist God.

Don’t imagine we are been told simply to stick to our own.  He is not talking about living in a little Christian clique.  Jesus was friendly to all sorts of people.  The apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians about how to behave when they ate with their unbelieving friends (1 Corinthians 10:27).  But there will always be a sense of not fully belonging.  Indeed, if we are finding that we are being influenced more than we are influencing then we need to take a step back.  The world is not a playground but a battleground (Tozer).

One old lady was asked what the best thing was about being one hundred and four.  She replied, ‘no peer pressure.’  You will meet plenty of peer pressure in life, but if you want to enjoy God’s happiness you will depend on him for the strength to go against the flow.

So how can we stand firm?  One commenter suggests it is ‘the pursuit of pleasure!’ (Dale Ralph Davis).  ‘He does it because he cares more for his pleasure than for his pressures!’  But his delight is in Yahweh’s Torah (‘the Law of the Lord’).  He meditates on that law day and night.

Now I need to point out that how you approach the Bible matters a great deal.  I have often been embarrassed at my lack of Bible knowledge.  In fact, in one church I served at, I had just arrived and the men were having a table quiz.  My team came last in the Bible round.  I am always tempted to read the Bible to simply acquire knowledge and so impress people with what I know.  That will not bless your heart.  You need to read the Bible to see a face, to see God and know him, and to see his Son and love him.

They say that coffee and chocolate taken together have a unique way of combining to stimulate the brain.  Something similar happens with the Bible and prayer.  They are designed to be taken together.  The righteous person meditates on the Torah day and night.  God’s word is his preoccupation.  The verb carries the meaning of muttering to oneself.  The Christian regularly and consistently ponders upon it.  She pushes it down into her heart.  She speaks it out in prayer.  She thinks through its implications.  It makes her happy.

All of us struggle to be disciplined in Bible reading.  I regret that I haven’t spent more time dwelling on God’s Word.  I have found two things helpful recently.  One is a book produced by the Good Book Company called Encounter.  This book is designed for ninety days.  It guides you to a passage, asks leading questions, has a short amount of expert teaching and has a page to write your own notes.  The other thing I have found helpful is the Bible App on my phone.  It actually reads the Bible to me.  So I can listen as I walk or drive.

Dale Ralph Davis speaks of a difficult time in his youth when he was under a great deal of pressure for being a Christian.  So every morning before dragging himself to the bus stop for school he would meditate upon his Bible.  Certain psalms were of particular help to him.  He writes, ‘meditation in those psalms seemed to put me in the shadow of Yahweh’s wings and settle me on the rock of his faithfulness, and faith’s fingernails were able to hang on for another day.  To be sure, God’s Word was sheer necessity, but it was also a delight.’

The happy person is the person who is rooted (3-4)

The third verse is connected to the first two.  And he shall be like a tree.  The person who finds their delight in God’s word is like a tree.  You will be stable (planted), you will have vitality (from streams of living water), you will be productive (bearing fruit), you will be resilient (not withering) and you will be prosperous.  One preacher called this psalm ‘the true prosperity gospel’ (as opposed to that awful misunderstanding of the gospel that says you will never experience sickness, pain and that encourages the love of money).

The picture of a tree is very instructive.  Trees are subject to all sorts of harsh external conditions, but their life comes through their roots.  Trees live through autumn and winter as well as spring and summer.  You will see people facing all sorts of storms in these psalms.  Jesus knew what it was like to be ‘a man of sorrows who was familiar with suffering’ (Isaiah 53:3).  The apostle Paul speaks about being ‘sorrowful yet always rejoicing’ (2 Corinthians 6:10).  The apostle Peter says that we greatly rejoice in our future hope, ‘though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief and all kinds of trials’ (1 Peter 1:6).

Tim Keller makes an interesting point about the fruit produced by a tree.  He says that trees don’t bear fruit for themselves.  When we let our roots sink deep into the word of God it will produce a fruit that will bless those around us.  This is the word of God that works within us.  What a contrast this is to the chaff produced by a life apart from God!

There is a happiness that lasts for eternity (5-6)

One last question before we finish.  Who is the righteous person of this psalm?  I don’t feel like the righteous man who experiences God’s blessing, for I see a lot of sin in me.  Yet there was one man who was perfectly righteous, and because of him I am counted as righteous.  Jesus lived the perfect life and died a death for sin, so that I am forgiven and treated as if I had always obeyed.  There is a righteousness from God that is revealed from faith for faith (Romans 1:17).

The end of this psalm puts everything else into perspective.  Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgement, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.  This seems to be a reference to what we fall ‘the final judgement’.  Those who continue to ignore God’s offer of righteousness and the transformation that it brings cut themselves off from all hope.  The first word of the psalm is “blessed” but the last is “perish”.  ‘Make sure you are among the congregation of the righteous’ (Dave Ralph Davis).

But look at the righteous.  Yahweh knows the way of the righteous.  ‘God is intimately and personally concerned about every step the righteous man makes’ (Henry Snaith).  The God who cares about every step we take will care for us as we step into the judgement and so we will be preserved at the last and not perish (Davis).  God offers us a happiness that goes beyond this life into all eternity!

Conclusion

So you are left with one final nagging worry: I am a Christian but I don’t delight in the Bible?  Sometimes I find it irrelevant and boring.  I can go days without reading it.  May I suggest three things?  Firstly, don’t read this book simply to find out information read it to know the God who is revealed in it.  Secondly, read it prayerfully (like coffee and chocolate).  Thirdly, join with me in confessing your lack of enthusiasm for the Bible.

We pray words of Tozer:  “O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more.  I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace.  I am ashamed of my lack of desire.  O God… I want to want Thee.  I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made thirstier still.  Give me grace to rise up and follow Thee.”

What do you see?

A man asked to see me to talk about Christianity.  He told me that he believed that Jesus was a great teacher, but he didn’t seem to think that he was more than a great teacher.  The other thing that he told me was that he struggled with an awful sense of guilt.  Those two things are actually related.  If Jesus only tells you how to live a good life, then he offers no solution for the fact that we fail to live a good life.

How do you destroy self-righteousness and pride?  What is the source of Christian joy?  Can God prove that he loves you?  What do you do when you are overcome with feelings of guilt?  How do you know that Christianity isn’t just the same as every other religion?  How can you change and become more loving?  Why should you forgive?  The answer to each of these questions is the same: look at the cross of Jesus!

This morning we are going to look at the cross through two sets of eyes.  Firstly, we are going to think about what the centurion saw when he watched Jesus die.  Then, secondly, I will tell you about some of the things I see when I think about Calvary.  

What did the centurion see when he saw Jesus die?

The centurion hated being stationed in Jerusalem.  Jerusalem was in a relative backwater of the Roman Empire.  The Jews that lived there hated the Roman occupation and despised the soldiers who enforced it. 

Passover was a particularly difficult time, with pilgrims flocking to the city from far and wide.  During the festival rebellious thoughts were more likely, as the people were hoping for a political messiah who would set them free.

That year there was talk of a Nazarene carpenter, who apparently claimed to be king, and had entered the city to great fanfare.  However, the religious leaders had arrested him, Pilate had interviewed him, the crowds had cried for his blood, and now he was being crucified. 

This centurion had overseen many crucifixions.  He was only doing his job.  He had no longer felt any pity, morbid fascination or even revulsion.  Yet there was something about this execution that would remain with him for the rest of his life.  What was it about the way Jesus died that caused him to conclude that this man was innocent and that he was the Son of God?

It wasn’t the many prophecies that were been fulfilled in even incidental events that were unfolding.  The centurion was not a Jew and had not read their scriptures.  He did not know that these things were written about hundreds of years before.  Who was responsible for the death of Jesus?  You could blame greedy Judas, the jealous religious establishment, cowardly Pilate or the easily-led crowd.  We could also say that we put Jesus on the cross, for it was our sin that sent him there.  But ultimately Jesus died because God had planned it.  The Scriptures had foretold how God would send a substitute for his people’s guilt.

Matthew links the earthquake to the centurion’s conclusion.  As well as that earthquake, there was three hours of darkness during the afternoon.  It is interesting that the early opponents of Jesus didn’t deny that the darkness happened (but said it was an eclipse), and the gospels were written during the lifetime of many who would have been there.

Then there was the dignity in how Jesus died.  The centurion had never seen a man pray for those who taunted him.  Yet Jesus pleaded, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’  Even the criminals who were being crucified with him hurled abuse at him, and yet when one of them changed his mind, Jesus spoke words of forgiveness and assurance.  ‘Today you will be with me in Paradise.’  Or, what about the loving way Jesus looked down from the cross and told John to behold his mother?  Even in the time of his greatest despair, he makes practical arrangements for Mary.

Then there is the manner of the death itself.  At one stage Jesus cried out in despair, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’  The centurion did not know that Jesus was quoting the twenty-second psalm (a psalm which also speaks of the victim’s deliverance).  Jesus seemed to see purpose in his suffering, stating that the task was finished.  While it was normal for the crucified to speak their final words in a weak, exhausted, muffled voice, Jesus lets out a loud cry before he dies.  While the condemned normally tilted their head back to grasp for air, Jesus bowed his head and committed his spirit to God.  It is as if no-one is taking his life from him but that he is giving it up himself.

Seeing all this convinced the centurion that Jesus was an innocent man and that he was the Son of God.  Son of God was a title the centurion would have reserved for the Emperor.  He was giving Jesus the highest praise his culture let him imagine.  Job done, the centurion marches his men back to the barracks.  If he survived his military service and went home to whatever part of the Roman word he was from, I imagine that he never forgot what he saw that day on the hill of Calvary.

What do you see when you look at the cross?

I see the centre-piece of our faith.  The apostle Paul can sum up his preaching saying, ‘I preach Christ crucified.’  The risen Jesus told a couple of the disciples, on the road to Emmaus, that the whole of the Bible pointed to him, and his death and resurrection.  If the cross is not at the centre of your religion, then you religion is not that of the Bible.

I see justice.  I was doing a questionnaire with some of the small groups in our last church.  These were good Christian people.  I asked them what attributes come to find when they think of God.  I was surprised that no-one mentioned holiness.  The heavenly chorus cries, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty.’  How can a perfectly holy God, who will not tolerate our evil, accept us as his sons and daughters?  Only through the cross!  At the cross, God shows that he is both just and the one who justifies the ungodly.

I see a sacrifice of infinite worth.  Not only is Jesus a sufficient price for your sin, he is a sufficient price for the sins of the world.  Indeed, he is a sufficient price for the sins of a million worlds.  If all the sins of everyone in this room were lumped on your shoulders, Jesus’ death is enough for you.  Your sins are viler than you have imagined, but never dishonour the sacrifice of the Son of God by claiming that they are too great to be covered by his blood.  No matter what you have done, you can have confidence in his forgiveness and joy in his grace. 

But I also see a sacrifice of definite value.  The Son knew those that he would purchase for the Father.  This is an actual payment for actual sin—our sin, past, present and future.  This is personal.  The apostle Paul could speak of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Finally, I see love.  This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and gave his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  ‘Unless you are assured God loves you, it is pretty hard to do anything in the Christian life’ (Jack Miller).  We are told to behold (look and see) the love of God for us.  This beholding is life-changing.  We love because he first loved us.  Our love is a response to his far greater love.  So, as I said a number of months ago, ‘your problem is not that you don’t love God enough, but that you fail to see how much he loves you.’  Behold your saviour upon the cross.

Are you fully alive? (Luke 7)

John Newton was a slave-trader who had rejected the faith his mother had taught him.  He indulged in every sensual pleasure, and became an angry and bitter man.  Then he surprised himself by crying to God for mercy in a storm on the sea.  Coming to Christ transformed him.  He turned into a contented, loving and joyful man.  He became a Church of England minister, a famous hymn-writer and is known for his letter-writing.

Some of his letters were to a brother-in-law who did not share his faith.  I put the thoughts of one of his letters into my own words.  ‘You know what it is like to seek your pleasures apart from Christ.  I know what that is like, too.  However, I have experienced something you know nothing about.  I know what it is like to seek my pleasures with Christ, and it is better by far.  What’s more, when the inevitable trails of life befall us both, I have peace that the world can neither give nor take away.’  John Newton was experiencing life in all its fullness.

This morning I want to think about life in all its fullness as we see Jesus turn a scene of devastation into a party through the demonstration of his power over death.      

The look of love

Last week I was at the funeral of an uncle.  Uncle Dick died in his eighties after dementia and a stroke.  It was sad, for he was a gentle man who was devoted to his family, yet there were smiles as well as sorrow.  You see it was good to catch up with other uncles and aunts and cousins and their wives and their children.   As I drove home, I thought how different it would be to have been to be at the funeral in our passage.  The funeral of a young person is particularly devastating.  We prepare for our parents to go before us, but nothing prepares a person to bury one of their children.  This mother had no other sons, and she had also buried her husband.  In that patriarchal society, her sorrow would be joined by poverty.  This was the sort of funeral where it would have been inappropriate to smile or laugh.  This was the kind of occasion that leaves you with faith-shaking questions.  This was a scene of utter devastation!

Funerals generally took place around six in the evening.  Earlier that day, the widow would have taken the body of her only son, laid him out, groomed his hair, put him in the best clothes she had available and placed him on an open wicker basket.  He would have been face up with arms folded.  A crowd would have gathered and they would have proceeded out the city-gates towards the graveyard.  Most of the town’s five-hundred people would have been there.

The graveyard at Nain was east of the city, along the road to Capernaum.  Capernaum was where Jesus had his base.  Jesus happens to arrive down that road and meets the funeral.  There is a crowd with Jesus.  Apparently the Greek wording implies that the crowd with Jesus was even bigger than the funeral.  Perhaps there were a thousand people with him.  They give way to let the funeral pass. 

What is the first thing that Jesus does?  He looks!  The gospel writers mention Jesus looking at people about forty times.  Often that looking is followed by a description of how he felt.  Matthew tells us that Jesus looked at a crowd, and had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.  Mark says that Jesus looked at the rich young ruler and loved him.  John shows Jesus looking down from the cross, seeing his mother, and making sure that she would be looked after.  Luke tells us that when Jesus saw this grieving widow, his heart went out to her.

The eyes can be a window into the heart.  What Jesus sees touches his heart and surfaces infinite compassion.  He would have looked with a tender, concerned and engaged look.  Because he was compassionate, her pain affected his emotions.  As one writer says, ‘Jesus enters this woman’s world, feeling what it’s like to be in her place’ (Paul Miller).

The word translated compassion is a word that implies deep, gut-wrenching emotion.  The four gospel writers only ever use this word with regards to Jesus, and people in his stories that were like him, such as the father of the lost son and the Good Samaritan.  Jesus’ compassion stood out in a harsh world.  His compassion also showed his family likeness with his Father.  The apostle Paul calls God, the Father of all compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).  The more we allow Jesus to shape our hearts, the more compassionate we will be.  Intimacy with Christ will make us feel for the needs of others.

The Lord of Life

Jesus steps forward and says to the woman, ‘don’t cry.’  Then he gently places his hand on the open coffin and commands the young man to get up.  The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.  I imagine that there was initially silence and reverent shock, people then looking at each other to confirm that what they saw really did happen, and there follows an eruption of delightful chattering.

Luke, whose aim is to show his readers who Jesus really is, records that they were all filled with awe and praised God.  “A great prophet has appeared among us.”  After four hundred years of silence, since the close of the Old Testament, God is speaking again.  “God has come to help his people.”  Yet their conclusions about Jesus are not complete.  He is a prophet—this scene echoes a time when Elijah raised a widow’s son—but he is more than a prophet.  Luke will show that Jesus is the promised Christ, the Son of God and the true Lord of life.

The death to end death

As we read this story we can be glad that just as Jesus is compassionate to this widow, and he is compassionate to us.  Look at these verses and be assured that he cares about your pain and sorrows.  I had to bury a friend’s sister, the daughter of his widowed mother, and I did not know what to say.  At the funeral in her house I read this passage, for although I could not answer the questions that her loss raised I was assured that Jesus cared.

Yet Luke isn’t just reminding us that Jesus was compassionate, he was telling us that Jesus has power over death.  After Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, he exclaimed, ‘I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever believes in me, will never die.  Do you believe this?’

If you are trusting in Jesus then you don’t need to fret over the passing of time.  Jesus has taken care of your funeral arrangements.  You will pass from this world into his presence.  As John Newton wrote in another letter, ‘one sight of Jesus as He is, will fill our hearts, and dry up all our tears.’  The widow’s son would die again, but he had encountered the Lord of life.

Don’t forget how Jesus won the victory over death!  Luke will soon show Jesus’ resolutely turning his face towards Jerusalem, travelling there to die on by crucifixion.  We were on a road marked ‘destruction’; so Jesus took a road marked Calvary.  We were dead in transgressions and sin; he took our guilt upon himself and was raised to give us life.

Are you fully alive?

Finally, as I read about this passage, I thought about the fact that eternal life begins know.  Like that young man, we have been raised to life.  We have been given life in Christ.  We have been saved from emptiness that we might experience fullness in Jesus.  Are you acting as someone who is fully alive?

Jesus commands us for our good.  He is perfect and all his ways are good.  He calls us to purity, because it is not fullness of life to be a slave of lust.  He tells us to forgive, because bitterness is an acid that eats its own container.  He commissions us to speak of the cross, not just because he loves those we are talking to, but because he wants us to know the delight of being on mission.  He bids us come spend time in prayer, because he longs for us to experience more intimacy with our Heavenly Father.  He has an infinite amount of love that he wants to flow through our veins to others, and in doing so enlarge our hearts.  He wants us to let go of our regrets and to delight in the truth that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  As one Christian leader from the second-century is reported to have said, ‘the glory of God is a man (or woman) fully alive!’

Three things to help you grow (Romans 8)

A pastor used to counsel a young man who was struggling with alcohol-addiction.  What the young man did not realise was that the pastor saw out the window and watched him hide his beer before they talked.  Then, after the man had told the pastor how much he wanted to be free from drinking, the man would collect his beer again.  Now the pastor did not doubt the sincerity of that young man. , but he could see that that his addiction had control of him.  This got the pastor thinking: ‘Where does really power to change come from?’  He came to believe in the power of love to change people.

As we look at this passage of Scripture, I want you to feel that you are secure and loved.  No child can thrive if they do not feel secure and loved.  Similarly, no Christian will grow if they don’t feel secure and loved.

You are secure in Christ

‘Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’ (1). 

Notice that he does not say, ‘there is no sin in those who are Christ Jesus.’  John tells us that if we say that we have no sin, we lie and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:7).  We are God’s failing and imperfect people, yet we are never condemned.  Does that mean that God loves me even when I am sinning?  Absolutely!  You are as much a son or daughter of God when you are sinning as when you are obeying.

In verses two to four, Paul explains how God accepts sinful people like us.  He says that being good cannot make us right with God because of the sinful nature.  Isaiah tells us that our righteous deeds are like filthy rags (64:6).  Everything we do is stained by self-centredness and pride.  Trying to earn God’s acceptance by being good is as pointless as trying to wash a white shirt with hands covered in oil.  It’s as ridiculous as throwing our dirty laundry at the sky and shouting at God, ‘accept me because of these.’  But what we could not do, because of sin, God has done for us in Jesus.  Jesus lived the perfect life and died a sacrificial death for our guilt.  Therefore, those who have submitted to Christ’s love and leadership are counted righteous.

You can be changed by the Spirit

Am I telling you that obedience does not matter?  Not at all!  If you have submitted to the love and leadership of Jesus, you will want to change.  Two things combine to change us: seeing God’s and being empowered by God’s Spirit.

Verses five to eleven talk about the effect of the Holy Spirit on us.  Paul tells us that without the Holy Spirit we are hostile to God.  People claim to admire Jesus.  But often they admire Jesus as simply a good moral teacher.  When they hear Jesus say that there is no good news for good people they resist his gospel of grace (Mark 2:17).  There is no more obvious evidence of hostility to the God of grace than the claim, ‘I am a good person.’

The reverse is also true.  Grace is for those who know they have a problem with personal evil.  Acknowledging our guilt and wanting a relationship with the God whose Son died for our guilt is evidence that the Holy Spirit is striving with us.  A desire to become like Jesus and so please our Heavenly Father is evidence of the Holy Spirit within us.  Our Father wants to move us from the place of sorrow over our sin to rejoicing in his forgiveness and love.

Indeed, a lingering sense of guilt inhibits growth as a Christian.  Trust God’s promises to forgive and live in the beauty of his grace.  Another thing that hinders our growth is the lie that we cannot change.  Maybe our battle with lust or bitterness has lasted so long, and we have seen so many defeats, that we think we never will improve.  Yet Paul says that the power that raised Jesus from the dead is at work in us (11).

I would encourage you to see the victories as well as the defeats.  See that victory in the fact the Holy Spirit makes you want to be free.  Take not of the times when God provides a way out of the temptation.  But as you see progress let us be careful of pride (which is a sure recipe for further defeat).

I want to mention two more wonderful ministries of the Holy Spirit before we look at the unbreakable love of the Father.

Firstly, we read that we ‘did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear; but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”’ (15)  The devil always seeks to cause us to doubt the love of God.  So when you start thinking that God is like a severe Garda or unmerciful judge, the Spirit reminds us, ‘no, he is your Father and he loves you.’

Secondly, we read that when we do not know what to pray, ‘the Spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.  And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God’ (26-27).  It is as if the Spirit says to the Father, ‘Paul does not know how to pray about this situation, but if he knew you the way I knew you this is what he would say.’  I think this is why sometimes the answers to our prayers are for more beautiful than we had voiced.

You are loved of the Father

Paul speaks of being children of God and heirs with Christ.  This is the beautiful truth of adoption.  God has not only let you out of the prison of guilt and he has not only saved you from hell, he has brought you home to be a cherished child.  In his book, ‘Knowing God’, J. I. Packer writes, ‘in adoption God takes us into his family and fellowship – he establishes us as his children and heirs.  Closeness, affection and generosity are at the heart of the relationship.  To be right with God the judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is greater.’

I need to mention the repeated emphasis on suffering in this passage.  The Christian suffers with Christ (17) and suffers in a world that awaits Christ’s restoration.  But we are not to be discouraged by the suffering, for God is working all things together for our good, which is to be conformed to the image of Jesus (29).

Before we finish, I just want to emphasise the fact that the Christian is secure in God’s love.  One Bible commentator, Alec Motyer, was visiting a church in America, where he was introduced to a Christian man who was desperately insecure about his faith.  This man, who we will call John, feared that at some point in the future he would let God down and walk away from his faith.  Motyer asked John, ‘John, what tense is the verb foreknew in this passage?’  It is past tense.  ‘John, what tense is the verb predestined?’  It is also past tense.  ‘John, what tense is the verb called?’  Past tense!  ‘What tense is the verb justified?’  Past tense!  ‘And John, what tense is the verb glorified?’  It is past tense as well.  ‘But our glorification is not yet completed.  It will not be completed until Jesus returns and gives us our resurrection bodies.  But God is so committed to bringing his people to that destination that he can speak of it as if it has already happened.’  Don’t worry about your future; God is more committed to you than you are to him.  Look for the evidence of new birth know and trust him to keep you.

I find great confront in the verb foreknew.  God knew me before I became a Christian.  He knew me in my sin, and yet he loved me.  God knows my end from my beginning, he saw today’s sins and tomorrow’s, yet he drew me into relationship with himself.  He has promised that I will never be condemned and that nothing can separate me from his love.

Conclusion

When I was in my very early twenties, I began to feel very insecure about my faith.  You see I remembered something terrible that I had done when I was thirteen—I had experimented with a satanic prayer.  I didn’t see how God could forgive that.  It made me deeply insecure, and robbed me of peace and joy.  God does not want us to be slaves of fear.  If you are terrified about some awful thing in your past, claim the promises of God.  John Bunyan, who wrote Pilgrim’s Progress, was haunted by his past and eventually came to peace by claiming Jesus’ promise, ‘that I will never drive away anyone who comes to me’.  A similar promise is where John writes that ‘if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness’ (1 John 1:9).  It is never God’s desire for you to be haunted by your past!

I have also had people come to me with doubts about God’s love for them because they feel so defeated about their sin.  But remember that without the Holy Spirit you would be hostile to the God of grace.  Make sure that your sorrow over sin isn’t just wounded pride, and then realise that your desire to please God is evidence that the Holy Spirit has not stopped striving with you.  Remember that despite your failures there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  Let that love and security be the soil in which you grow.

John Bunyan loved to talk about the gracious love of God.  At one stage his critics explained, ‘if you keep assuring people of God’s love they will do whatever they want.’  He replied, ‘if I assure people of God’s love they will do what he wants.’  The key to growing as a Christian is to see God’s passionate, committed love for you and rejoice in the security with which he holds you.  

How do we prepare for mission? (Acts 1)

We live in a pragmatic age.  One church-growth expert says, ‘people are more interested in what works than what is true.’  A pastor told me that he built his church around a good praise-band.  The lead singers of some popular worship movements leave me wondering if only pretty people can sing.  It seems that Christian consumers want church services to make them feel a certain way.  We need to get the look and mood-lighting correct.

But is this right?  Is this how we open ourselves up to the work of the Holy Spirit?  In these verses of Acts, we see the embryonic church prepare itself for the out pouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  Let’s see what they did to be open to his movement.

1.     They listened (3-5)

Firstly, we see that Jesus prepares the apostles for his departure by teaching them(3-5).  He appeared to them for forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.  The Kingdom of God is not an earthly or political kingdom, but Jesus continuing transforming lives and communities through the person of the Holy Spirit.  It is what we see happening throughout Acts. John MacKay writes, ‘First the enlightened mind, then the burning heart.’  Do you want to see the person of the Holy Spirit transform individuals and churches?  Begin by teaching your people the Bible!

2.    They waited (6-11)

Jesus must have been disappointed with their question: ‘Lord, will you at this time, restore the kingdom to Israel?’  They still have a lot to learn.  They are still expecting a military kingdom that would drive the Romans out of Israel.  But they will be a part of a very different kingdom—one that will transform lives in Jerusalem and all Judea, into Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. 

He tells them that it will be the Holy Spirit who will give them the power to be his witnesses.  No, not by cool, nor entertainment, nor celerity-preachers, nor the latest technology, nor mood-lighting, nor big budgets, nor buildings, but by my Spirit, says the Lord.  Do you want to see the person of the Holy Spirit transform individuals and churches?  Teach them to realise that nothing of significance will happen without the empowering of the Holy Spirit.

3.    They prayed (12-26)

The apostles return to the upper room, are joined by the women and Jesus’ family, and devote themselves to prayer.  The book of Acts is filled with prayer (thirty-one references in total).  In Acts, God’s people cry out to God when they feel helpless, and God responds by doing great things.  Prayer demonstrates a realisation that we cannot extend God’s kingdom in our own wisdom and power.  Prayer should be based on a sense of personal and corporate inadequacy and confidence and faith in God.

The chapter ends with Matthias was chosen to replace Judas as one of the apostles.  These apostles were unique witnesses to the resurrection.  They were specially chosen by Christ (in this case through Jesus’ guiding of the casting of lots).  The apostles’ teaching had a unique place in the church then and now (through what is recorded in the New Testament).

Conclusion:

Our situation is different from theirs.  In one sense we are no longer waiting.  The Day of Pentecost came and the Holy Spirit was poured out on all God’s people.  Since then all Christians experience his power.  And the Holy Spirit did not finish after the twenty-eight chapters of Acts—we are Acts twenty-nine people.  The kingdom is still expanding. 

How do we prepare our people to be a part of the mission—through learning, waiting and praying!

While Jesus taught the apostles before ascending to heaven, but he continues to teach us through the word he inspired.  We are no longer waiting for the Day of Pentecost, but the Holy Spirit is not static and we wait for him to go on filling us.  Finally, if we truly grasp that the Kingdom depends on his power, not ours, then we prayer will be at the heart of all our plans and strategies. 

Your idols will keep you out of heaven (Luke 16:19-31)

Our society is filled with idols.  It is not that there are little statues on the street corners, as you might see in some countries.  Our idols are found somewhere far more dangerous—they are carried about in our hearts.  You see, an idol is anything that is more important to us than God, or something that rivals God in our life.  Idols are the things that we build our identity around—so maybe what people think about us matters more than what God thinks about us.  Idols shape how we live—so maybe we are more determined to make the team, receive the promotion or get the grade than we are determined to serve God.  Idols are what we place our hope in—maybe we dream more about the holiday in the sun than delight in the fact that we are on our way to our heavenly home.

Be careful because idols can keep you out of heaven.

Jesus has been speaking about one of the most common idols—money.  He has taught that no one can serve two masters.  You cannot serve God and money.  The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard these things and they ridiculed him.  So Jesus tells a parable about a man who rich in this world and bankrupt before God, and another man who was destitute in the world but blessed by God. 

Two very different men (19-21)

Our parable begins with two very different men.

The first man is incredibly wealthy. 

He is clothed in purple.  In that culture there was only two ways on making purple and they were both very expensive.  Wearing purple was a way of showing off how rich you were.

He wore fine linen.  Apparently the word translated ‘fine linen’ refers to the Egyptian cloth used for underwear.  This is a piece of dry humour.  Even his underpants were opulent.

He feasted sumptuously every day.  That meant that he feasted of the Jewish Sabbath.  He didn’t go to the synagogue to hear the Scriptures read and he didn’t allow his servants a day of rest.  He cared neither for God or men.

The second man is desperately poor.

He is laid at the rich man’s gate (the word for gate referring to a fine ornamental gate).  He is too weak to go there himself.  Perhaps he is paralysed.  Maybe he is just too ill.  He is covered in sores.  He is destitute.  He longs to eat the scraps from the rich man’s table.  While the rich man cares nothing for him, his guard dogs like the poor man’s wounds.

here is one thing that the beggar has that the rich man doesn’t.  He has a name.  This is the only time in all of Jesus’ parables that we see a person being named.  His name is Lazarus, which means, ‘the one who God helps.’  That seems ironic, but it is not.  It was not God’s will for him to be healthy or wealthy, but don’t think of him as being entirely miserable.  He knows God’s love, friendship and forgiveness, and the sure hope that God is going to bring him into an eternal comfort.

Here is a question that reveals a lot about the state of our hearts.  Who would you rather be?  Would you rather be Lazarus—suffering in this world and yet in relationship with the God of this world, or the rich man—comfortable in this world but without any personal knowledge of God’s love? 

Two very different destines (22-31)

This parable reminds us that death is not the end.  There are far greater realities than this world has to offer.

The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side.  I think that is beautiful.   While other people carried him to the rich man’s gates the angels carry him to heaven.  While he was rejected in this life he is honoured in heaven.

The rich man also died and was buried.  It is interesting that it doesn’t mention Lazarus being buried.  He was probably thrown anonymously in a community paupers’ grave.  The rich man was presumably afforded a fine well-attended funeral.  Yet he ends up in hell.

From hell the rich man looks up and sees Abraham, with Lazarus at his side.  What he then says is very telling.  He addresses Abraham as father—he is playing the race card.  He was Jewish and Abraham as his ancestral father.  However, who you are doesn’t determine where you will spend eternity!  Your respectable background and reputation matter nothing to God!

Have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue for me, for I am in anguish in the flame.  Notice that he knows Lazarus’s name.  He knew all about that beggar that was placed at his gate.  Yet he never did anything to help him.

We might have hoped that the rich man would have looked at Lazarus and apologised to him.  However, he doesn’t even speak to Lazarus.  He doesn’t talk to people like that.  He simply asks that Lazarus be sent to him as a servant.  That’s massive!  We need to see that there is not an ounce of repentance in the rich man’s words.  Hell is a place of regret, but not a place of repentance.  People continue in hell as they have lived—with themselves at the centre of their concerns.  Indeed, while on earth God restrains our evil so that no one is as bad as they could be, in hell that restraint is removed.  There will be no friendships in hell because everyone will be so selfishly consumed with their own interests.

Abraham tells the rich man that a great chasm has been fixed between heaven and hell.  There is no crossing over.  We might understand why someone would want to leave hell, but why would Abraham have to mention that you cannot cross from heaven to hell?  Perhaps, because Lazarus is at Abraham’s side saying, ‘I’ll go and serve him!’

Having asked for Lazarus to be his servant he now asks Abraham to send him as an errand boy.  Send him to my father’s house—for I have five brothers.

Again, the rich man is only concerned about his own people.  Even tyrants can be concerned about their family.  But Abraham tells him that if they have ignored God’s word (referred to hear as Moses and the Prophets) then someone coming back from the dead won’t cause them to repent.  In John’s Gospel there was another Lazarus that Jesus did raise from the dead.  Yet there were many who saw that amazing miracle and still refused to turn to Christ.  The reason people don’t put their trust in Jesus is not because they don’t have enough evidence.  It has a lot more to do with the hardness of our hearts and our refusal to let go of our idols.

A friend told me that we get angry when people get in the way of our idols.  Our rage reveals what we value too much.  If you have built your identity around self-righteousness and self-justification you will be mad if anyone dares criticise or challenge you (you cannot justify yourself and be justified by God).  If you have to get your way or be right then you have an idol problem.  Do you get mad when people don’t recognise your talents or achievements, or thank you for something you have done (you cannot live for the applause of people and the applause of heaven)?  Maybe your impatience with people is because comfort is an idol.  I get nervous about how much I like new things, because I know that the love of money (and what it buys) is the root of all sorts of evil.

We all struggle with idols, so how do we know we are born again?  We know we are born again by what we do when the Holy Spirit reveals our idols to us.  The Christian sees how we get mad because people get in the way of our idols, and then flee to God asking him to change our hearts.

However, if you justify the rage you are in trouble.  You refuse to see the idols and so won’t let them go.  There is no godly sorrow that leads to repentance.  You keep your distance from those who make you mad by their assaults on your idols.  You become the sort of person that everyone is afraid to challenge.  You refuse to forgive those who mad us mad.  You never take a serious look at the ordering of your loves. Be careful when you are not struggling against idols, for it may be that you are simply living to appease them.  We want to make Jesus more and more precious to us so that the things of the world grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.

Appendix—how can a loving God send people to hell?

We need to remember who is telling this parable.  This is Jesus speaking.  There has never being a more loving person than Jesus.  Yet Jesus speaks of hell more than anyone else in the Bible.  He warns about hell because he doesn’t want people to go there.  In love we must warn people too.

Jesus doesn’t have a problem understanding how a loving God can send people to hell because he knows how awful our idolatry and sin are.  God is just and we deserve to be excluded from his presence and punished for our wickedness.

But we also need to remember when Jesus is telling this story.  At this stage in Luke’s Gospel Jesus has set his sights on Jerusalem.  He is travelling there in order to die on the cross.  He will experience the hell of crucifixion and abandonment in order that we might be rescued from hell.  The good news is that Jesus will never turn anyone who puts down their idols and comes to him.  Indeed he is the only one that can break the power that idols have over our hearts.  We need to tell people that they can become a Lazarus (‘one whom God helps’).