What About Guilt
It seems to me that there are two kinds of guilt. The first kind is the guilt of breaking God's law. It's like a judge in a court room that says "you're guilty" whether you actually feel like your guilty or not. You just are because you broke God's law. The Old testament often talks about this because God would command people to go make a sacrifice in the temple if they had sinned. Then they would not be held guilty for their sin. These sacrifices were a picture of Jesus Christ. He sacrificed himself for all sins that we have done. So it's covered. Even though you are guilty of sinning God doesn't hold you guilty; he puts the guilt on Jesus on the cross.
The second kind of guilt is what I would call psychological guilt. When you sin there is a voice in your head that says "that was bad." It's a good voice because you're supposed to listen to it and stop doing what you were doing. But guilt happens when that voice keeps saying it over and over: "that was bad, that was bad, that was real bad." And before long it starts saying "you're bad because you do bad things". When it says starts to say this, you start to feel trapped: "If I'm bad, then all I can do is bad." Do you see what has happened? That voice--or rather, listening to that voice--has effectively taken the cross back out of your life.
Remember, Jesus actually took the guilt for your sins on himself. But that voice keeps on accusing you! What's up with that? This voice is telling a half truth. It is true that you are a sinner and that you do bad things, but this does not determine your identity; it has no more power to define who you are because you do not belong to yourself anymore.
You are forgiven. That is what you are. You are in Christ, you are a new creation, you are clothed in righteousness. But this voice would have you think about the old self, the one that died with Christ. That is why the voice of guilt is what we call the accuser, or Satan. Jesus shows us the way to combat Satan: you tell him what God says about you. Some of the best passages for this are Romans 8 and Ephesians 1.
When you tell the accuser that you now belong to Christ and are a new creation, freed from the accusations of your sin, you are not merely playing mind games with yourself in order to promote positive thinking. God's word has power for salvation. That means it has the power to actually change you. So when you rebuke the accuser and tell him that God's word says you are forgiven, that same word can change you and your behavior. That's what repentance is. It is an actual change. God's truth causes you to turn away from sin and toward the the life of doing what it good. Notice: this change is not what makes you forgiven! You are forgiven when you are made one with Christ: you and I ARE forgiven. The work is done; Christ's promise assures it. Repentance is tyour response to that truth. If you really receive the forgiveness of Jesus, then you don't want to throw that in the trash by sinning more! In Romans 6 the Apostle Paul says "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?...Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness."
We see this beautifully demonstrated in the story of Zacchaeus. When the Word of God comes walking by in the flesh and blood of Jesus he immediately receives him saying "Come to my house!" then he responds to that Word with repentance, turning away from a life of fraud by giving half of his possessions to the poor. That was great, but he did one more thing, and it is very instructive for us.
Zacchaeus is now a forgiven man; he is repentant, having turned away from his sin by God's grace, full of good works. Now when he thinks upon the sins he has done previously he knows that his sin does not just hurt himself, but it also hurts other people. So he does something that we call "making restitution", or making things right. He says: "If I have defrauded anyone I will restore it four times over." I repeat, Zacchaeus is already forgiven; this act is not earning his salvation. But the point of being a follower of Jesus is not just being forgiven, but living the good life! That is what Jesus wants for us. The good life is a life of love for others, and you can start with the ones you've wronged. You may be sure that the accuser had no power over that man.
So after you have spoken Christ's truth to the accuser and have turned away from your sin to a life of doing good, the surest fire way to be done with guilt is to go make restitution. Anything less would have you mired in a fog that falls very short of the life Christ has for you. Restitution has many different forms. If you have spoken with anger, tell that person that you are sorry and seek their forgiveness. If you have stolen, go pay it back. If you have acted indecently toward a young woman or man, you go tell them that you have sinned against them and commit to purity. Be very specific. If you have looked at things that draw your mind away from the love of Christ and focused on lust or greed or coveted what you cannot or should not have, then you take your Bible to a quiet place and take a long time to talk to and listen to the True Lover of your soul. I will say it again: none of this will get you forgiven; YOU ARE FORGIVEN! Restitution puts you back in a place to be living free of the accusing lies of guilt. It allows Jesus to take you to more beautiful places.
An Acquired Taste
Some tastes are "acquired tastes" as they say. Then there are some flavors that are so universally acclaimed as exquisite, like truffles, or single malt scotch, and yet, nonetheless are not appreciated by many. Some cannot stomach the taste of some foods which are said by many to be the apex of gustative delights
The Pure in Heart
Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God
"How does one obtain a pure heart?
"By believing in Jesus Christ and so that your sins may be washed away by his blood.
"Why is it that such people will see God?"
"Because Jesus is the one who brings us to God."
"What does it mean to 'see God'?"
"There are two promises in this statement, which are actually one promise with two fulfillments. The first promise is that those who are pure in heart, that is, those who have been washed with Jesus' blood, will be with him forever. This is God's plan for the fullness of time, to present everyone blameless before God to dwell with him forever.
The second promise is really the same one, but is fulfilled even right now. There is so much evil in the world, and our own minds are so shaped by the sinful desires of the flesh, that we are prone to regard everything with selfishness. But when we belong to Jesus we know that everything belongs to him, and so everything belongs to us through him. So we learn how everything is to be used by looking at how Jesus uses it and how he teaches us to us it."
"So what does that have to do with seeing God?"
"Well we have physical eyes, and God is spirit. So we see God by getting spiritual eyes. That's what it means to be pure in heart. To see the things of this world with spiritual eyes. When we do that we see God and enjoy him in his creation."
"For example?"
"Well, take anything that people are bound to abuse. That thing is intended for a good purpose, but it is missused. The easiest way for a person to become impure is to think selfishly. One of the easiest sins to commit is sexual sin. People think that chastity is a hard rule. But in fact sexuality is one of the greatest gifts from God for our enjoyment. But like everything, it has to be in is rightful place to be good and useful and thoroughly beautiful. God explains in scripture that the image of marriage and sexuality are a picture of god's love for his church, giving himself to her that she might produce the fruit of life in this world. So sexuality is an awesome gift to marriage as a way for people to see God through their own bodies, to see him as a God of love and pleasureable communion. So in this way if someone is pure in heart, then they have spiritual eyes to see God in sex. But impure eyes would see it as a means only for physical pleasure; this would be selfish eyes that are of the flesh and they would not see God."
"So really the promise 'blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God' is a promise both for this life and the next!"
"Yes, and this applies to every area of life. If we find that there is a law that is burdensome to us, or a rule or moral that we would prefer not to have, then we are not seeing with spiritual eyes. But if we are pure in heart, we see that all of life is a way to see God through our relationship to Jesus Christ and his creation. This is what it means to say that the law is fulfilled in Christ, or that Jesus has "done it all". This doesn't mean we stop doing good, on the contrary! It means we get his heart, his pure heart, to love seeing God in everything we do."
The Body of Christ
When the Apostle Paul rebukes the Corinthians for their lack of love in I Corinthians 11:17-22, he is attacking a church-wide problem; he is attacking a collective sin. When he says that "each one ought to examine himself" (v. 28) we are to take this command as being given for the purpose of the unity of the church, and not just the repentance of individuals for various sins. He says that "Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread" (10:17) in order to reinforce that taking the bread and cup is a matter of communal identity. That is, when we all, as individuals, share of the bread and cup, we are made a part of Christ Body in the world, which is unified throughout all of time by his Holy Spirit.
It is true that we go to the Lord's Supper to receive, personally, a gift from Christ. But let us understand the gift. The gift is that we are made to be participants of God's plan in all of history to bring about one entity, a union in and with Christ, referred to as his "body". This is the plan for salvation; to unite all things in Christ. Salvation from sin is necessary because sin stands in the way of this unification.
Because the bread and cup is the gift of Christ's own self, it indeed delivers of necessity forgiveness of sins to those who receive it in faith. But the Lord's Supper reaches beyond forgiveness of sins to bringing about what Christ was sent to accomplish. The bread and cup create of those who participate a living fulfillment of God's plan; it is the founding and sustenance of his true body in time for eternity.
So as we partake of the bread and cup, even as we examine our hearts individually, our understanding also should reach beyond our individual hearts to the state of the church as a community, locally and the world throughout. The same questions we apply to our heart concerning sin, pride and divided relationships in order to repent and receive the sacrament joyfully are the same questions that we are to ask of our congregation and the world-wide church as we ingest the true and eternally life-giving body of Christ.
Sermon Notes Pentecost Sunday
The ghost that moves in rushing wind and fire
Alighting on the heads of those who wait,
To Move tongues of those who still aspire
To heavn'ly life, who fear no earthly fate
(For life of flesh and blood has lost its charm
Since Man the First was cast from Eden's gate
And Christ's own body nailed
Maundy Thursday
I Kings 19:9-18
"[Elijah] came to a cave and lodged in it. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" He said, "I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away." And he said, "Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord." And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" He said, "I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away." And the Lord said to him, "Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. And when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael to be king over Syria. And Jehu the son of Nimshi you shall anoint to be king over Israel, and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah you shall anoint to be prophet in your place. And the one who escapes from the sword of Hazael shall Jehu put to death, and the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha put to death. Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.""
It is a very frequent feeling in ministry: abandonment. Exhaustion at the seemingly endless tasks, discouragement that there is no apparent fruit from our labor. It is easy to stick it to God, and ask him why he isn't faithful. It is also easy to become self-absorbed and wonder what we're doing wrong, what's wrong with our methods, or perhaps we just "missed our calling" and are doing the wrong thing.
Elijah may have felt any or all of the above, and so he went and hid in a cave, nursing his wounds. But God did not ask him "what's wrong?" But rather "What are you doing here?" Clearly, there was more work to be done, but Elijah was at his wits end.
When Elijah shared his woes with God as we often do, God does not seem sympathetic, but only tells him to go stand on the mountain. Perhaps Elijah wanted to see God bring down more fire from heaven as he had done on the mountain only a few days previous, and consumed an altar and its sacrifice. This is our expectation anyway. When we pour our efforts into his service we expect results. It's like an exchange, we do our part, he does his and when we don't see the results we think our efforts merit, we are tempted to complain at God that he is not moving. He's not keeping his side of the bargain.
As with a student who can't seem to get his lesson, God sighs and says, "Go stand on the mountain." There God delivered what Elijah wanted; fire, hurricane winds and earthquake, but God was not in them. They were brought by God and demonstrated his power, but he was not in them. God shows many signs by his power. He works miracles, he commands all the powers of nature, but such things do not bring us closer to him. To receive God himself takes a humble and repentant heart, realizing that we have nothing to offer him, and nothing to demand of him. Or works are as filthy rags, and all our efforts are as useful as the dances of string puppets. What God seeks is a people that will be devoted to listening to him. To see God's judgment and power we may gaze at his miraculous works, to know him we must cultivate the art of listening. Why should he come in the still small voice? Because in order for us to hear it we must shut up the clamor of our own sinful hearts. We have to set aside self-pity and self-righteousness and cover our faces with our cloak and go stand at the opening of the cave and listen.
When Elijah did this God asked him the same question he did before and Elijah gave him the same answer, but this time God revealed to Elijah his plan. The kings who sought his life would execute God's will apart from Elijah's work, and apart from Elijah's great prophetic knowledge God had already set aside seven thousand people who were devoted to him. Elijah didn't see results because the results belonged to the hidden God who speaks with a still small voice! The results that God sought was the humbling of Elijah, as he set aside time to come out of his little world and listen to his God.
As Jesus told his befuddled disciples when they were not able to cast out a demon "This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer." Jesus shows us what sort of a relationship God desires with those who minister his word. Jesus always sought the quiet Gethsemane. He went to the mountain not to hide in a cave, but the listen to his father in prayer. So in the midst of our exhaustion he asks of us "Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation." But as we groan and turn over, we do not know that he is already taking the burden of our failures upon himself, for tomorrow he will be crucified.
Psalm 119
In Psalm 119 the psalmist repeatedly and confidently declares his innocence before God; "I hasten and do not delay to keep your commandments"
Jonah
Where might be found the presence of divine
There found is calling burdensome to me.
What he would have beyond the pow'r of mine
Has driven far upon the pagan sea
This heart from love and tender conscious faith
Unto that fiery sermon of the deep,
Unto the very throat which right portrayeth
Mine own engorging habits where I sleep
Unknowing quite the storms which rage without
On me and on those of like fearsome plight
Unknowing or unwanting but to doubt
The worth of other man in heaven's sight.
Now fall from God of earth and sea and land
On all who sin what mercy's willed 'forehand.
Baptism, Illustrated Edition
Jesus baptism is ours. To understand our own baptism we have only to look at that of Jesus for its illustration and explanation.
The Law and Prophets all spoke of the coming redemption of Israel, the Savior of Israel. For her sins God provided a sacrifice. As Isaac, in whom all of Israel was represented, was saved by the death of the sacrificial lamb, so all of Israel in her vast numbers were covered by the blood of lambs at the Passover. Both of these events illustrate how Jesus, as the Lamb of God, himself covers Israel.
In addition to being the Lamb, Jesus is also the high priest who represents the people. In him is all of Israel, for he is the seed of Abraham. All who believe in him are the children of Abraham by faith. In Christ is both Israel, and her sacrifice. For what did God demand but Israel herself as a living sacrifice. This relationship is typified by the Sabbath day, where his people are his and his alone, enjoyed by him (his "rest").
When Jesus goes to the waters of baptism he is uniting these two images, that of Israel, and that of Savior of Israel. He is baptized by John, the last and greatest of prophets. John called the people to repent of sins. Jesus had no sins of his own, yet he identified with the people as their representative head
Because of Sin
Per Rob's request
Could there not have been another way? Could God have saved us from our sins without sending Jesus? Why couldn't God just forgive us without Jesus death? Why does death have to be the punishment for sin if God is merciful? Such questions are very common in Christian discussion and are indeed natural to our human curiosity.
It has been said that true Christian reformation always comes about by a renewed understanding of the doctrine of sin.
If sin is the way things are not supposed to be, perhaps we should seek to understand the way things are supposed to be. Humans were created to glorify God, to obey him, enjoy his creation, live in it, care for it, and give back to him all the praise for his marvelous gifts. This is living in God's life; living in all that he creates and provides. God himself is life, so living is defined by being in him.
God foretold that should Adam and Eve eat of the tree they would die. Yet when they had eaten they did not die for many hundreds of years. But they were cast out of the garden, and this separation from God's presence is the first definition of death. In God is life, so away from God is not life; is death. This is what scripture means by "the wages of sin is death."
Physical death also follows. The cells of one's body degenerate from the time they are first formed, and are replaced by new ones. But this whole process of replacement is a degenerating one so that over the years one's entire body slows down until it can no longer keep up, and dies. Again, outside of the garden, without the Tree of Life to eat from, the body dies because it lacks the sustaining presence of its creator.
This is the two-fold death of sin: because of sin the body and the soul are separated from the author and sustainer of life. But why should sin bring this about? Sin is defined by the Apostle Paul as anything that does not proceed from faith. Faith relies in God's providence, submitted to his will for all of creation and for the individual, trusting that his will is best. As is intended in Creation, all things live, move and have their being in the Creator, but if they rebel against this, they are rebelling against life; they are seeking death. The Creator is life and he gives life; to live in him is to live truly and to reject him is to reject life.
This life is characterized by its gift. In the Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit we see the eternal society of life as it is given amongst three persons; life exists in giving it, in loving. So this is God's desire for creation: that humans participate in this divine life-giving love, submit to it, receive it, and share it with one-another. This is the hope expressed by Christ's prayer in John 17; that we might be one in him and share in the life that he shares with the Father. This is the creation restored.
But before creation restored we must realize why it needs to be restored. When humans rejected this God they rejected necessarily life itself. When a person acts out of selfishness, pride, negligence, carelessness, malice, etc., he places himself above and outside of this love in his own heart and leaves himself in the life-less domain that is outside the presence of God; east of Eden. Since creation was the scene in which God expressed his relationship with humanity, creation now naturally reflects the same death that humanity has desired upon itself by sinning. This is why a sinner rightly deserves death: sin is the demand to be excluded from life.
So then, on what basis does Jesus pray that we all may be one as he and the Father are one? Whence this hope? This prayer is called the high-priestly prayer because Jesus is filling his role as priest by interceding to the Father on behalf of sinners. But more importantly he is also priest because he is about to go to the cross to offer the sacrifice of his own blood for the sins of the world. If we do not understand sin, we must look again to the cross: there it is; separation from the Father, suffering, death. It is by the right of this sacrifice that he can look forward to the day when they will be "pure and blameless". This day is referred to in the epistles as the day of Christ, or the day of the Lord. It is in view of the hope of this day that all Christians live because the death of sin will finally be no more when our bodies will be resurrected by him, just as he rose.
But until that day, humans remain in this sin ridden world and struggle against its temptations and the guilt of our own sin. This is why we must continue to hear the law and the gospel. The law is what told us that we have sinned. It said "You shall" and we didn't. It said "You shall not" and we did. Indeed, outside of the supply of God's life, we cannot but live according to this realm of sin. This is law: that we are only capable of sinning, if we do not dwell in God.
Is God then unjust to make such demands of us? Well let me ask you this: is it unjust for God to desire what is good? Indeed, to give us the law is to show us what is good. So the vision of what is good condemns us who are sinful. But the vision of what is good is not an end in itself; it points to the goodness revealed in Christ, when he gave himself to the last drop of his blood. Though the law could not save us, it points to the one who can and does. Jesus' blood did cover all sins.
It would be wrong to say that God was obligated to provide a way for sins; if it were wrong for God to destroy all sinners, then it would certainly be wrong for him to kill his own perfect Son! No, he did so out of his desire to unite his creation with himself. And indeed, he will. Because of his work of death and resurrection for us, and because we have been baptized into his death "our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly bodies to be like his heavenly body through the same power that enabled him even to subject all things to himself" (Philippians 3).
So in our Christian walk we still need law and gospel. The Law reminds of our sin so that we do not comfortably begin to live in death again, it convicts us of when we do sin, and gives us the vision for goodness, the way we will live with God in eternity. But we live by the gospel: God was not obligated to save us yet he did out of love, so we also are set free from the law in the Spirit and are obligated to no nothing, yet we live according to the life given us and do all things that are beneficial to eternally life in Jesus. This is life defined by God's love as seen in Jesus' gift on the cross. So we see that the cross is where sin is best seen, alone, dying, and where love is best seen, giving life, to the last drop of blood.