In the Beginning

In the beginning of 2015, let’s reflect on beginnings:

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

So begins the Bible. So begins this creation, this eon. But Scripture also tells us:

John 1:1-3 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

Jesus is God, and was in the beginning with God. Distinct, yet one.

See the same distinction and unity in Revelation:

Revelation 21:5-6a  And he who was seated on the throne [that is, God] said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”  And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.”

God is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.

Yet in the next chapter Jesus says:

Revelation 22:12-13  Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done.  I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.

Jesus is the beginning and the end. Distinction, yet unity.

Furthermore, this One with God, who was God, through whom all things were made, became man, became a created being:

1 John 1:1-3  That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life–  the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us–  that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.

John and the other disciples handled Jesus – they felt His muscles, they saw Him sweat, they heard Him snore. He is the eternal life; He is the source of life; He is the Way to life; and He became man to bring life to His people.

In the beginning, God created the world for a purpose – a purpose that He is certain to bring about:

Isaiah 46:8-10  “Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me,  declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.’

And what is that purpose?

Revelation 4:11  “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”

Psalm 19:1  The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

Isaiah 40:25-26   To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One.  Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power not one is missing.

Isaiah 43:6b-7  Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

He created all things – and mankind in particular – for His glory, for His praise. All creation displays Who He is. This is the purpose for which we were made in the beginning.

Expanding on this idea, the Apostle Paul emphasizes that the Church fulfills God’s purpose for humanity:

Ephesians 1:3-6  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

Ephesians 3:8-11  To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles [that is, to the nations] the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord.

From the beginning, He created us, He chose us, He predestined us for adoption, to the praise of His glorious grace. And that praise will come not only from redeemed mankind, but also from “rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” – spiritual beings – who will see God’s glory in us, in the church, and praise Him.

So the psalmist sums up the proper response of all creation to God, their glorious Creator:

Psalm 148:1-5, 11-13  Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD from the heavens; praise him in the heights!  Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his hosts!  Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars!  Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!  Let them praise the name of the LORD! For he commanded and they were created. . . . Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth! Young men and maidens together, old men and children!  Let them praise the name of the LORD, for his name alone is exalted; his majesty is above earth and heaven.

So may we, at the beginning of 2015, fulfill God’s purpose for us from the beginning of time: May Christ Jesus be our increasing joy, may we praise Him from redeemed hearts, and may we magnify His Name in love and faithful witness to those around us.

Mary: A Woman of Humble Faith

This time of year we read of Mary magnifying God; we sing of Mary holding the baby Jesus.

But put yourself in Mary’s shoes. A young woman, probably about sixteen years old, planning to be married to the local carpenter, looking forward to a quiet life in a backcountry town.

Sure, she and her fiancé are descendants of King David – but there are lots of descendants of David. And there hasn’t been a king in this line for hundreds of years. Augustus Caesar is king, and Herod is his regent.

Mary’s quiet life is shattered when the angel Gabriel appears, crying out, “Greetings, O favored One, the Lord is with you!” (Luke 1:28). Mary is frightened – the usual response to angels in the Bible. And she is confused. She has no idea how she is especially favored – how she is a recipient of grace.

So Gabriel continues, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God” (v30). The word translated “favor” is often translated “grace” in the New Testament. The same Greek expression is used more than 40 times in the Greek translation of the Old Testament commonly read in the first century. For example, both Noah and Moses are said to have “found favor” with God (Genesis 6:8, Exodus 33:17). Always, as in the case of those two men, when someone finds favor with God, it is undeserved. Mary is not full to overflowing with grace; rather, she is undeservedly favored by God. Gabriel is telling her, “Mary, God is graciously giving you a privilege far, far beyond your deserving.”

The angel then explains this grace in v31-33.

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.

The Jews have been waiting hundreds of years for the promised Son of David to arise and reign. Mary now hears the startling message: Her son is to be the long-awaited Messiah. She, a young girl from nowhere, is chosen by God to mother the Messiah who will reign forever.

Mary believes the angel. She does not doubt. But she is confused. She asks in v34, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” She’s saying, “I don’t get the biology here.”

Gabriel tells her it will be a miracle:

The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy- the Son of God. (v35)

God will cover her, He will fill her, He will perform a miracle – and she will then give birth to the Holy One, the Son of God.

Gabriel then graciously gives Mary a sign she can check out of God’s power at work: Her barren, elderly cousin Elizabeth is pregnant. So “nothing will be impossible with God” (v37). Even for Mary to become pregnant without ever having sexual relations with a man.

It’s at this point that I want you to put yourself in Mary’s shoes. How could Mary have reacted?

She could have said, “What? Me? Pregnant? What will Joseph think? What will my parents think? Can’t you just leave me alone and pick some other girl?”

Does that sound familiar?

That’s more or less how Moses responded to God’s call at the burning bush (Exodus 3).

But Mary instead says, “I am the servant [or “slave”] of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word” (v38).

Mary receives great grace from God – the privilege of bearing the long-awaited Messiah. It is a great privilege. But it is also a great upheaval. It is completely out of the blue, completely unexpected. All her plans, all her dreams, now changed.

But young Mary responds with great faith and wisdom.

Mary knows she will become pregnant soon, so verse 39 tells us she “went with haste” to Elizabeth. No one else is likely to believe her story that her pregnancy is God’s work.  She wants to share her joy with the one person she knows who has experienced something similar.

When Mary arrives and greets her cousin, John the Baptist in utero leaps, and Elizabeth exclaims that Mary is blessed among women. She concludes by explaining why she is honoring Mary – and thus why we should honor her: “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord” (v45).

Elizabeth honors her:

  • Not because she was perpetually a virgin, for Scripture says no such thing
  • Not because she is co-mediatrix, for Scripture says that is impossible, there is only one mediator between God and man
  • Not because she is full of grace, overflowing with merit that we can tap into, for Scripture says, “There is no one righteous, no not one”

Rather, we should honor Mary because she is a woman of faith. She believes. She acts on that belief. Her plans were turned upside down. And yet she followed God faithfully.

She then expresses her response to God’s work in a marvelous song. For our purposes here, just note a few sentences:

Verse 46-47: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”

How can Mary magnify the Lord? Isn’t He already as big as he can get? As John Piper helpfully notes, we can magnify God the way a telescope magnifies stars. The stars are incredibly large, yet look tiny to us. Telescopes help us to see them closer to the size they really are. So Mary praises God, giving Him a portion of the worship He truly deserves.

And note that Mary magnifies the Lord through her joy. She could have responded to Gabriel by moping and saying, “Oh, well, I guess if that’s God’s plan I just have to go along. I can’t fight against Him. But I sure wish I could have lived out the quiet life I had planned.” That would have diminished God rather than magnifying Him.

Instead, she sees that God has lifted her out of the mundane, and given her grace for a great task. So she rejoices, and magnifies His Name.

She explains why she is so joyful in God in v48-49:

For he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.

God could have ignored a young girl from an obscure town. But He looked at her. He graced her with His favor.

Look at how Mary returns to this theme at the end of her song:

He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent empty away (v51-53).

God is the only strong one! He always takes weak ones – like Mary, like Esther, like David, like Daniel – and exalts them, showing that He is the source of their strength. He always takes the proud, the mighty – like Pharaoh, like Nebuchadnezzer, like Jezebel, – and humbles them, showing that their power is nothing.

Worldly power, worldly accomplishment, worldly pride are all nothing. Indeed, to the extent that they make us think we do not need God, they are worse than nothing: they are dangerous.

God always keeps His covenant, He always shows mercy. But He shows that mercy only to the humble – to the one who admits he needs God’s mercy.

As Mary sees this – as she sees that she deserves nothing from God, but like so many throughout history, she receives great mercy from Him – she overflows with joyous praise.

She could have bellyached. She could have focused on all her plans gone awry. At this point she doesn’t even know how Joseph will respond. But she rejoices in God Her Savior. She humbles herself. And magnifies God.

What about you?

Will you humble yourself? Will you admit your need for Him?

Will you thus magnify God?

He who is mighty, He who is faithful, He who expresses covenant love to His people, will do great things for you too.

You might say, “I’m not chosen to be the mother of Jesus. I’m not chosen to do anything important – so how does this apply to me?”

God has given you a task, a vital task. You are like Mary, in that no one else can perform your task.

Furthermore, like Mary, you will only accomplish God’s task by setting aside some of your own plans.

Mary found favor with God. But finding favor with God did not lead to an easy life for her – and it won’t for you.

Always, like her, we need to live a life of humility, rejoicing in God our Savior, even as He upsets our plans and leads us through suffering. For He has looked with care at your humble estate, and has chosen to use you for His good, wise purposes.

This is true for every person who is part of God’s covenant people. We all can know for sure that He has done great things for us, and will continue to do them in the future.

So: Are you within that covenant? Are you a recipient of God’s promises?

You can be. That’s why Mary became pregnant:  For your everlasting joy.

Fear the Lord. Be humble. Acknowledge your sinfulness. See Mary’s Son as your treasure. Admit that you have been proud, exalting yourself, your own plans, your own thoughts. Admit that you have diminished God. Admit that you have thus violated the reason for your existence.

Repent. Turn. Seek joy in Him. See Jesus as one who became man, lived the life you should have lived, and died to pay the penalty for sins. See Him as the One who reigns today, who will return to bring in His eternal Kingdom.

Then, like Mary the woman of faith, rejoice in God your Savior. Find joy in humility – and thus magnify the Lord.

 

Ferguson and Race

On August 9, Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Wilson is white. Brown was black.

Was that shooting racially motivated?

In the summer of 1975 I worked in a program for disadvantaged high school students at an historically black university, Johnson C. Smith in Charlotte. Late one evening I was washing my clothes in a public laundromat. No one else was present. The door was open as there was no AC and it was blazing hot. A group of five guys walked by, noticed me, and yelled racial slurs through the door. A few minutes later they came back, hyped up the racial slurs, started tossing some of my clothes in the air, and then, when I leaned over to gather the clothes, slammed me against the washing machines and hit me in the face. My left eye tooth pierced my upper lip. I was able to get away and run out of the laundromat (perhaps only because the perpetrators were not completely sober).

There was no question in my mind that this event was racially motivated: I was the only white person anywhere along Beatties Ford Rd that evening, and I was the one beaten; the racial slurs were many.

Later that evening, however, after the hospital and the police, I met with my African-American boss and colleagues. They were sympathetic and helped in numerous ways.

But they also assured me race had nothing to do with this. I was alone and vulnerable. A group of thugs walked by and took advantage of that vulnerability. The same can happen – and did happen regularly – to African-Americans.

Most of my white friends said the opposite: This was an example of racial violence.

Who was right?

The point is this: We hear of a crime or a tragedy, and immediately was interpret the facts through the lens of our societal assumptions: Policemen are our friends, protecting us from criminals, or the police are instruments of the oppressive forces of society, taking advantage of their power to abuse us and harm us. Society is fair, and you get what you work hard for, or society is rigged against us and with rare exceptions we can’t advance.  Whatever our societal assumptions might be – and there are many more possibilities – we tend to interpret events in a way consistent with those assumptions.

So what was the true interpretation of this minor incident in 1975?

Undoubtedly, had I been 6’9” and 250lbs instead of 5’8” and 135lbs, this incident would not have happened. In that sense, it was my stature rather than my race that led to the beating.

But what if I had been my actual size, but African-American? Would it have happened just the same, only without the racial slurs?

We’ll never know.

Take that tentativeness to your interpretation of the Michael Brown tragedy in Ferguson. Remember the warnings of Scripture:

Proverbs 18:13 If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame.

Proverbs 18:17 The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.

There were many – many of all shades on the political spectrum –who gave answers about the meaning of the Michael Brown tragedy before they heard from all of those involved. There were many who jumped on one eyewitness account or another and, ignoring other eyewitness accounts, said, “This is what happened! See, here is more evidence that my view of society was right all along!”

What then should this tragedy prompt in us?

First, prayer: Prayer for those involved, prayer for the grand jury presently meeting (which may have reported by the time you read this), prayer for genuine justice to be done, prayer for healing of the racial divide that still stains our country, prayer for fellow believers not to be used by politicians of any persuasion, but to test all through the lens of Scripture.

Second: Acknowledge and recognize the facts of the case and of our society. Here are a few:

  1. There are markedly different eyewitness accounts of what happened, stated by people who are trying to be truthful.
  2. The police in Ferguson at a minimum have made numerous procedural errors.
  3. The powers of the state have been used against many African-Americans for hundreds of years.
  4. Similarly, for many years, state institutions and even many churches taught that African-Americans were an inferior type of humanity. (I once flipped through a book, published in the early 1900s, which included a chapter entitled, “Can the American Negro love?”)
  5. Much has changed with regard to racial oppression in this country in the last sixty years, but horrible incidents of abuse of power occurred during the lifetimes of many of us. And some such incidents continue today, regardless of whether or not Michael Brown’s shooting is one of them.
  6. The church of Jesus Christ must stand up for the weak and powerless. As God says in Psalm 82:3-4, “Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.  Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

Third: Be humble. Talk to others whose initial take on this tragedy is different than yours. Listen to each other. Don’t give an answer before you hear. Ask both white and black friends about past experiences of being the victims of apparent racial violence. Ask both white and black about past cases of apparent unfairness in school or in the workplace. Ask those from other countries about their own very different experiences with ethnic or racial tension and oppression.

The point is not to magnify anyone’s victimhood. The point is to avoid being manipulated by politicians, to be able to understand another’s perspective, to appreciate the facts and experiences that influence how we interpret events like Ferguson – and to overcome the sin of hubris that leads us to judge others and to exalt ourselves.

May God be gracious to give us ears to hear, and so to grow in our union with one another and with Him.

David and Goliath

David and Goliath by Andrew Shanks

[Andrew and Laura Shanks were part of Desiring God Community Church while he was studying at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary from 2005-2008. Now pastor of Fontaine Baptist Church in Martinsville, VA, Andrew has just published Echoes of the Messiah: Finding Our Story in God’s Story. This is an excerpt from Chapter 4: Triumphing Over God’s Enemies: Echoing the Messiah with David. You can read more of Andrew’s writings at AndrewShanks.com. He and Laura also plan to join us for worship this Sunday.  – Coty]

The battle between David and Goliath . . . is perhaps the most spectacular parallel between David and the Messiah in the whole David saga. And yet it is rarely recognized as such. . . .

Timothy Keller has pointed out that the real lesson of the story in 1 Samuel 17 is that we all need a Davidic hero to rescue us from our enemy. From this perspective, the story becomes fairly obvious. The people of Israel are encamped before their enemies, the Philistines, who are primarily represented by their champion, the gargantuan Goliath. This larger-than-life enemy has terrified the people of God into immobility with his constant blasphemies and threats. He and his horde are on the brink of overrunning the Israelites, slaughtering them, and enslaving the survivors (1 Sam. 17:3-11). The Israelites and their pet king don’t know what to do.

Then a new champion arises. David, upon his arrival, is immediately outraged at the blasphemies of the pagan giant and determines to silence him (1 Sam. 17:26). The fact that no one else in the entire nation of Israel seems capable of dealing with Goliath does not deter David. His confidence does not lie in the strength of the military or even in his own prowess. His confidence lies in the pleasure of the Lord. He says to King Saul, “The Lord, who delivered me form the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine” (1 Sam. 17:37). When face-to-face with his opponent, David reiterates the same assurance (1 Sam.17:45-47). The key element in David’s confidence is his belief that God will always act in such a way as to vindicate his own glory. David was not acting out of a desire for personal glory, but out of a desire to see God glorified and his people strengthened.

As Keller eloquently demonstrates, the story of David and Goliath is a lesson, not about what great things we can do in the power of the Lord, but about what great things God’s champion will do in our place. In other words, as we read the story of David, the giant-slayer, we should not identify ourselves with David, but with David’s brothers and the people of Israel as a whole, who cowered behind the battle lines, paralyzed by fear, and impotent against their enemy. Such is the state of all humanity in the face of sin and death. We are incapable of doing anything to save ourselves from slavery to sin, and our defeat at the hands of our enemy, the devil, seems certain. But it is at just this moment that our Davidic hero appears. Jesus Christ walks firmly out to take his stand between us and our foe. He rescues us from slavery and defeats the enemy in our place. This divine Hero does not triumph through battle, however, but through submission and death. This is the real story of David and Goliath. And the reason we can see this lesson, this parable in the David saga, is that God orchestrated these events for this very purpose: so that we could look back in wonder and delight at the Messianic reverberations as they echo throughout redemptive history and particularly in the stories of men like David. . . .

The real David – the biblical David – went to war. He didn’t go to war because he loved violence. He went to war because he loved God. David fought Goliath because Goliath was so blaspheming the God of Israel that he had the entire Israelite army convinced that their God was not capable of defeating their enemy. David wouldn’t stand for that. He loved the glory of his God so much that he chose to put his life on the line to prove God’s strength. And he trusted in God’s pleasure in him so much that he was assured of victory. That’s what it came down to for David. He loved the glory of God, and he knew that God took pleasure in him because of that. That’s what made David a man after God’s own heart. . . .

It is precisely here that we must be very careful when it comes to the lessons we derive from the story. On the one hand, we, like David, are called upon to mimic the Messiah in his role of giant-slayer. Our communities, like David’s, are being confronted with giants that need to be slain. . . . The Apostle Paul instructs us how we should prepare for this battle: “Take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm” (Eph. 6:13). We must, indeed, go to war.

But notice: . . . All of these tools of war craft are connected to effects of the gospel itself. In other words, when we go to war, our very weapon is the finished work of Jesus Christ. At the end of the day, it is not we who slay the giants, but Jesus. On the battlefield of life our proper role is not that of the heroic general, but of the faithful foot soldier. Until we learn to rely on our divine Champion, we are destined for defeat. Jesus is the true giant slayer.

From A.P. Shanks, Echoes of the Messiah: Finding Our Story in God’s Story (Rainer Publishing, 2014), p. 80-86.

 

Truly This Was the Son of God

How do people react to Jesus?

As we saw in last Sunday’s sermon, in Matthew’s account of the crucifixion, once Pilate condemns Jesus to death, all the people who speak mock Him:

  • The soldiers bow before Him, saying in mockery, “Hail, King of the Jews!” They spit on Him and beat Him.
  • Those passing by deride Him, calling on Him to save Himself, to come down from the cross if He is the Son of God.
  • The religious leaders also mock Him, saying He cannot save Himself, and claiming they will believe in Him if He comes down from the cross. They also say, “He trusts in God; let God deliver Him now, if He desires Him. For He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”

Where are those who followed Him? Where are those who acclaimed His entry into Jerusalem just a few days previously? Will no one speak for Him? Will no one see Him for Who He is?

Yes. Someone will. Yet, as is so often the case in Matthew and, indeed, throughout Scripture, those who speak are not the ones we would expect.

About noon, unexpected darkness covers the land. The mocking evidently stops – none of the Gospel accounts record any further mocking after the darkness falls.

Jesus yields up His spirit.

Suddenly there is an earthquake. Rocks split and tombs open.

And then someone speaks up. Someone speaks for Jesus. Someone sees Him – at least partially – for Who He is.

The centurion and the others soldiers say: “Truly this was the Son of God!”

The very ones who had nailed Jesus to the cross, the very ones responsible for ensuring His death – perhaps the very ones who had spit upon Him and beat Him a few hours before – now see what the religious leaders cannot see. They see what those who had read the witness to Him in the Hebrew Scriptures cannot see: He is the Son of God.

Those passing by had said, “If you are the Son of God,” laughing at the idea. The religious leaders had mocked Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God. But these Roman soldiers proclaim: Truly. Truly. Jesus is the Son of God.

Surely none of these soldiers would have been able to explain the doctrine of the Trinity. It seems likely when they made this confession they were still polytheists, believing in many gods. But here at the cross, seeing what has happened, they say with certainty: “What this man said about Himself must be true.”

This statement by the soldiers, in my opinion, is a major highlight in Matthew’s account of the crucifixion. All builds to this point. After all the mocking, all the suffering, all the tragedy, these Gentiles proclaim Jesus to be the Son of God. And they are the firstfruits of those from every tribe and tongue and people and nation that will worship Him forever and ever.

Johann Sebastian Bach also saw this confession as the highlight of Matthew’s account. In what may be his greatest work, St Matthew’s Passion, Bach has the entire passion account of Matthew sung by soloists and chorus, interspersed with responses to the record of Scripture. The entire Passion takes around three hours to perform, but I urge you to listen to the seven minutes that include verses 45 to 54 of Matthew 27. In this 1971 recording – which includes subtitles since the singing is in German – this section runs from 2:46:30 to 2:53:36. The only addition to the words of Scripture is one verse of a chorale sung to the tune we use for “O Sacred Head Now Wounded.” See how Bach builds up to the confession of the centurion and then renders those words in painfully beautiful but understated music.

Ponder this confession prior to this Sunday morning. Then join us as we look in more detail at the words of the centurion. May we all together proclaim: Truly Jesus is the Son of God.

“His Blood Be On Us and On Our Children”

Last Sunday’s sermon text includes these verses:

So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.”  And all the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” (Matthew 27:24-25)

In the sermon we focused on Pilate’s guilt, despite his proclaimed innocence. But we also saw that Pilate could be forgiven, the same way that you and I can be forgiven: By grace through faith in the death and resurrection of the man He crucified. Furthermore, we saw that, beginning in the 2nd century, some church traditions say that Pilate did indeed come to faith.

However, there’s an ugly side to that tradition. In the church’s early decades, the great majority of believers were Jewish in ethnicity. By the late 2nd century, that was no longer the case. Rather, there was considerable animosity between Jews and Christians. Many Christians then began to use Matthew 27:25 as justification for hatred of Jews. You see, they would argue, the Jewish people as a whole are willingly accepting blame for the death of Jesus. And that blame continues through all future generations, since they accept it on behalf of their children.

This horrible distortion of the text has continued over the centuries, leading to persecution and hatred of Jews time and again.

Why is this interpretation a distortion? Because it is inconsistent both with the story surrounding this text, and with wider biblical teaching.

First look at the surrounding context. Jesus entered Jerusalem a few days earlier to the acclaim of the Jewish crowd (Matthew 21:7-11). The crowd in chapter 21 holds him to be a prophet (Matthew 21: 46). The crowd in the next chapter is astonished at His teaching (Matthew 22:33).

The crowd in front of Pilate in Matthew 27 has to be persuaded by the chief priests and elders to turn on Jesus (Matthew 27:20). We don’t know how these leaders persuaded them, but given the accusations against Him in His trial before the High Priest, it seems the religious leaders were able to convince the crowd that Jesus had committed blasphemy. That would explain why so many in the crowd now think He deserves death.

But many Jews have been following Jesus, and, of course, all the disciples are Jews. They don’t believe He should be crucified!

So (a) this crowd is not representative even of those in Jerusalem at this time, much less of all Jews everywhere; and (b) the crowd, stirred to a frenzy through the manipulations of the religious leaders, calls out for blood without understanding what they are doing (as Jesus Himself says in Luke 23:34).

Thus, at most the crowd takes the guilt of Jesus’ death on their own descendants and not all Jews. But given their lack of understanding, we should question even this.

When we look at wider biblical teaching, we see that even this limited understanding of the guilt of the crowd’s descendants is wrong. First, a few weeks later at Pentecost many who were in this crowd – and even some religious leaders – come to faith in Christ and are forgiven for all of their sins, including this one (Acts 2:36-41, Acts 6:7). Second, Scripture is clear that while sin does often have a multi-generational impact, children are not condemned by God for the sins of their parents other than Adam (Ezekiel 18, Jeremiah 31:29-30; for Adam, see Romans 5:12-21).

So, no: This text does not teach anti-Semitism. Nobody is saved because of their ethnicity. And no one is condemned because of their ethnicity. All have sinned, Jew and non-Jew. All deserve God’s just condemnation.

Who, then, is responsible for Jesus’ death? Who crucified Jesus?

Many individuals were responsible. Judas. Caiaphas. Annas. Pilate. Others.

But in a larger sense, I crucified Him. You crucified Him – if you trust Him as Savior and Lord. For He paid  my penalty. And, if you are in Christ, He paid your penalty.

As Johan Heerman wrote 400 years ago:

Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon Thee?
Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone Thee.
’Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied Thee!
I crucified Thee.

And yet He died so that those in the crowd before Pilate, so that their descendants, so that you and I, murderers that we all are, might live in union with Him as beloved children of God for all eternity.

So away with all anti-Semitism. Away with all semblances of ethnic superiority and hatred. Before God we all are equal – equally guilty. And before God, by His grace through the death of His Son, we all can be equally loved.

 

Love, Suffering, Obedience – and Resurrection

What is love?

There are a thousand answers to that question, since we use the word “love” in so many different ways. So let’s narrow the question down:

What is God’s love? And what does it look like when we love with God’s love?

In a recent book – A Loving Life: In a World of Broken Relationships – Paul Miller argues that this type of love is a one-way covenant; we step out in love without needing or even expecting a response. This makes us vulnerable, and often leads to suffering. We rightly cry out in lament over such suffering. But faith holds on to God’s covenant love in the midst of suffering, so that we continue to walk in obedience – we continue to love. In this we are following the path of Jesus’ life – love, suffering, death. But Jesus rose from the dead. And as God raised Jesus, He similarly will bring about a form of resurrection in us.

Miller masterfully brings out these truths from the book of Ruth, following Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz through their journeys of love, suffering, lament, obedience, and resurrection. Consider these selections – and may we follow the path of love.

Love and Covenant

[We learn through the storyline of Scripture that God’s love is a one-sided covenant, His determination to do good to His people, to redeem them, to make them His, despite their rebellion and disobedience. Thus, God’s love is also covenantal. Our love, if it is to be like God’s, must also be covenantal. The Hebrew word most often used of God’s love for His people is hesed. Paul Miller sometimes uses this word as an adjective to clarify that he is referring to that type of love.]

[There is a] modern myth that says, “Love is a feeling. If the feeling is gone, then love is gone.” Hollywood has no resources to endure in love when the feeling is gone. Actually, that’s the point when we are ready to learn how to love. 285

Ruth walks into the city ignored and, in effect, alone. One of the hardest parts of a hesed love is that you can love others, but there may be no one to love you. The very act of loving can make you lonely. . . .

But that loneliness, that dying, instead of being the end of you, can display Jesus’s beauty in you. The moment when you think everything has gone wrong is exactly the moment when the beauty of God is shining through you. True glory is almost always hidden—when you are enduring quietly with no cheering crowd. 809

The question is not “How do I feel about this relationship?” but “Have I been faithful to my word, to the covenants I am in?” As Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, “If you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” (Matt. 5:46). In other words, if I love only when I feel like it, then I’ve really not understood love. 923

[After Ruth goes to Boaz’s field:] If you are bent on pursuing personal freedom, you remain frozen hunting for the perfect field, the perfect person. You never land. You have to commit to make love work. We don’t love in general. We love someone, somewhere. Setting our affections on someone always means narrowing down. Election and love are inseparable. This goes against the spirit of our age, which prizes independence and perfection. . . . Often our difficulties with love are simply that we react to the constriction that accompanies love. But that constriction is inherent in love. To love is to limit. . . .

Ironically, the experience of love, of narrowing your life, broadens and deepens your life. The narrower your life, the broader your soul. . . . Love always involves a narrowing of the life, a selecting of imperfection. 1072

Life is a path or pilgrimage. It is lived not in isolated moments, but in trajectories of reaping and sowing. Everything we do now creates the person we are becoming. We do not live in an impersonal, rigid world in which obedience mechanically dispenses reward; we live in our Father’s world, a richly textured world organized around invisible bonds that knit us together. All of life is covenant. 1319

[Consider covenant as a kind of limitation:] Repentance often drives the journey of love. It moves the story forward. Because Naomi returned home, God’s grace will be unleashed in her life. Repentance involves a returning to the box, to the world of limits, that my Father has given me. I stop creating my own story and submit to the story that God is weaving. . . .

Life is like a beautiful garden with a tree whose fruit I can’t touch. That “no” defines and shapes my life in the garden. So my relationship with my wife is like a wonderful garden with a solitary “no”: I cannot touch or develop emotional intimacy with another woman. That “no” narrows and limits my life. It provides a frame for my love to Jill. I am keenly aware that I can destroy a forty-year marriage in five minutes. That limiting, instead of boxing us in, lets the story come alive. 852

Love and Suffering

Suffering is the crucible for love. We don’t learn how to love anywhere else. Don’t misunderstand; suffering doesn’t create love, but it is a hothouse where love can emerge. Why is that? The great barrier to love is ego, the life of the self. In long-term suffering, if you don’t give in to self-pity, slowly, almost imperceptibly, self dies. This death of self offers ideal growing conditions for love. 221

Self-pity, [that is,] compassion turned inward, drives this downward spiral. Instead of reflecting on the wounds of Christ, I nurse my own wounds. Self-as-victim is the great narrative of our age. . . . Enshrining the victim is so seductive because you have been hurt. But self-pity is just another form of self-righteousness, and like all self-righteousness it isolates and elevates. It elevates you because it says you are better than the other person; you are the victim. It isolates you because you live in and are nourished by your interior world, which can’t be criticized. 1677

Suffering and Lament

[We often do our best to hide our suffering. Indeed, sometimes we confuse laments over suffering with lack of faith. But Paul Miller argues that Scripture is full of laments, and that lamentation is a necessary step on the path to hesed love.]

A lament puts us in an openly dependent position, where our brokenness reflects the brokenness of the world. It’s pure authenticity. Holding it in, not giving voice to the lament, can be a way of putting a good face on it. But to not lament puts God at arm’s length and has the potential of splitting us. We appear okay, but we are really brokenhearted. (emphasis added) 693

Listening to a lament is a powerful way of loving someone who is suffering. By being present, by not correcting or even offering our own unique brand of Christian encouragement (“It’s going to be all right – God’s in control”), we give those who are grieving space to be themselves.

This doesn’t mean that Naomi’s judgment of God is correct. God is good and just. He will answer her frustration with more goodness. Naomi was interpreting God through the lens of her experience.

She stopped in the middle of the story and measured God. A deeper faith waits until the end of the story and interprets experience through the lens of God’s faithfulness. Is this something we tell Naomi? No. It is what we tell ourselves. Good theology lets us endure quietly with someone else’s pain when all the pieces aren’t together. It acts like invisible faith-glue. 706

The opposite danger of not lamenting is over-lamenting. Dwelling on a lament is the breeding ground for bitterness. Bitterness is a wound nursed. Our culture’s emphasis on the sacredness of feelings often gives people an unspoken theology of bitterness. They feel entitled to it.727

Faith, Love and Obedience

[Difficult situations compel us to conclude:] You simply do not have the power or wisdom or ability in yourself to love. You know without a shadow of a doubt that you can’t love. That is the beginning of faith—knowing you can’t love. Faith is the power for love. 617

Unlike the Israelites who wanted to return to Egypt, Naomi is obeying, doing the right thing by returning to the Promised Land. Her feelings were all over the place, but she put one foot in front of the other as she returned. We can summarize her response this way:

Bitterness openly expressed to God + obedience  => a raw, pure form of faith

Bitterness openly expressed + disobedience => rebellion

Through a sheer act of will, Naomi continues to show up for life. In C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters, the senior devil, Screwtape, warns his junior devil of the danger of this obedience.

Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause [the Devil’s cause] is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending to do our Enemy’s will [God’s will], looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys. 747

Ruth’s act of loving put her at the bottom of society, but she doesn’t push back on her lowered status. She accepts the cost of love. Like Jesus, she takes the lower place. Love and humility are inseparable.

When serving is combined with humility, the serving becomes almost pleasurable. You are thankful for any gift given you. In contrast, pride can’t bear the weight of unequal love. . . . ride makes others’ joy, or even the possibility of our own joy, feel phony. It is an odd sort of authenticity where we demand that others be as depressed as we are. 1393

Jealousy is extraordinarily deceptive. It is by far the most destructive sin in communities and organizations that I’ve been a part of, and yet, I seldom hear it mentioned or confessed. It always masks itself as something else, creating a hidden chain of slander that drags someone down. A multiheaded hydra, it begins with an inability to rejoice with another’s success, leaks out as gossip, and finally erupts as slander. Jealousy seeks to gain by destroying others, while hesed  [love] loses by giving itself. One is the heart of evil. The other is pure gospel.  1494

Many Christians get stuck trying to grow their faith by growing their faith. They try to get closer to Jesus by getting closer to Jesus. Practically, that means they combine spiritual disciplines (the Word and prayer) with reflection on the love of God for them. But that will only get you so far. In fact it often leads to spiritual moodiness where you are constantly taking your pulse wondering how much you know the love of God for you. Or you go on an endless idol hunt trying to uncover ever deeper layers of sin. Oddly enough, this can lead to a concentration on the self, a kind of spiritual narcissism. Ruth discovers God and his blessing as she obeys, as she submits to the life circumstances that God has given her. So instead of running from the really hard thing in your life, embrace it as a gift from God to draw you into his life. 2095

Obedience and Resurrection

[Miller discusses how the life of loving obedience often follows the shape of a J-curve: Our love and obedience leads to suffering, and so our life seems to get worse. But God brings about the upward slope of the “J” – in ways that we cannot know ahead of time, following trajectories that we never expected.]

[God teaches] us to love by overloading our systems so we are forced to cry for grace. God permits our lives to become overwhelming, putting us on the downward slope of the J-curve so we come to the end of ourselves. I encouraged my friend to embrace the downward path, not to push against it or worry about where his feelings were with his wife. Jesus said, “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. . . . No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:11, 18). Seeing the gospel as a journey remaps our stories by embedding them in the larger story of Jesus’s death and resurrection. His normal becomes our normal. 1004

Here’s what I have learned going through the J-curve:
1. We don’t know how or when resurrection will come. It is God’s work, not ours.
2. We don’t even know what a resurrection will look like. We can’t demand the shape or timing of a resurrection.
3. Like Jesus, we must embrace the death that the Father has put in front of us. The path to resurrection is through dying, not fighting.
4. If we endure, resurrection always comes. God is alive! 1021

We can do death. But we can’t do resurrection. We can’t demand resurrection—we wait for it. 1032

 May we love, suffer, lament, believe, obey – and see resurrection!

[Paul Miller, A Loving Life: In a World of Broken Relationships (Crossway, 2014). Numbers after the quotations are Kindle locations.]

 

Those in the Kingdom are [the Body of] the King

[Sunday’s sermon included eight statements summarizing Jesus’ teaching, as it culminates in the story of the sheep and the goats:

  1. Jesus is the King
  2. Your Eternal Destiny Depends on Jesus
  3. Those in the Kingdom are Blessed by God
  4. Those in the Kingdom Inherit the Kingdom
  5. Those in the Kingdom Walk with the King
  6. Those in the Kingdom are the King
  7. Those in the Kingdom Love Those in the Kingdom
  8. Those Not in the Kingdom will Suffer with Satan

The sixth statement is easily misunderstood. A more accurate summary statement would be “Those in the Kingdom are the Body of the King.” Here is an expanded and clarified version of that point – Coty]

 ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

(Matthew 25:40)

What is Jesus saying here?

First, let’s clarify who “my brothers” are.

Some time previously Jesus’ mother and half-brothers came to see Him. While He was teaching, someone informed Him of their presence. Jesus replied:

“Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?”  And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers!  For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:48-50)

Jesus says those who are disciples, those who obey the Father, are in His intimate family. These are His brothers.

Similarly, in Matthew 28 the risen Jesus speaks to the women at the tomb, saying, “Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me” (Matthew 28:10).  Jesus isn’t instructing them to tell everyone they see, or every Jew they see, or His physical half-brothers to go to Galilee. Rather, Jesus is calling those who follow Him, those who obey Him, to go to Galilee. These are His brothers. These are the people Jesus identifies with so closely that whatever you do to one of them is done to Jesus.

Our Lord makes a similar statement in Matthew 10, when He sends out His followers to proclaim that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand: “Whoever receives you receives me” (Matthew 10:40). Someone who welcomes and shows hospitality to Jesus’ followers is indeed receiving Him.

Furthermore, recall what the risen Christ says to Saul (soon to be renamed Paul) on the road to Damascus:

“Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”  And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” (Acts 9:4-5)

Who was Saul persecuting? As far as we know, Saul never encountered Jesus during His earthly life. However, we learn in Acts 8:

Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. (Acts 8:3)

Saul is persecuting the church, the followers of Jesus – and Jesus says, “You are persecuting ME!” As Saul did it to one of the least of these, Jesus’ brothers, he did it to Jesus.

So Jesus’ followers not only take on His character. They not only are welcomed into the Kingdom. They not only are His subjects. They not only are His agents, His ambassadors. They are His Body (1 Corinthians 12:27, Ephesians 1:22-23, 5:29-30). And as His Body, a good deed done to them is done to Jesus. Harm done to them is harm done to Jesus.

Now push this a little further. Each part of the body has an ability and a responsibility to serve the rest of the body. The eye can see, helping the foot know where to step. The digestive system breaks down food into nutrients the entire body needs.

If you follow Jesus, if you treasure Him, if you see Him as your Savior and Lord, you are part of Him, part of His Body. And because of that identity, because of the blessing of what God has done for you by grace, you now are able to meet some needs of the Body of Christ – and so to serve Jesus, who has no needs in and of Himself.

  • So when you visit your sick brother or sister in Christ – you are ministering to the Body of Jesus.
  • When you provide food to a hungry follower of Christ – you are feeding the Body of Jesus.
  • When you help your persecuted fellow believer – you are aiding the Body of Jesus.
  • And, when you are hurt or sick or hungry or persecuted for His sake, and others minister to you – they are ministering to the Body of Jesus.

Marvel at these truths – and then step out to love your brothers and sisters, because He first loved you. Love like Jesus. Love the Body of Jesus.

 

Light and Darkness

Consider some of the images of light and darkness in Scripture:

  •  Genesis 1:1-4  In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.  The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. . . .  And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.  And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.
  • John 1:1-5, 9-12  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.  In him was life, and the life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. . . .  The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

In verse 2 of Genesis 1, darkness covers the world. There is no light. There is no life. Then God speaks, and light shines in the darkness, penetrating the darkness, overcoming the darkness.

In John 1, the physical darkness at the beginning of Genesis 1 becomes a picture of spiritual darkness in a world opposed to Christ. He is the light – the only light – of men. He shines in the spiritual darkness, bringing the light of true life into the world, and, as in Genesis, the darkness cannot overcome Him.

Yet the darkness does oppose Him. The very world created through Him, the very people chosen as His own, reject Him. Indeed, they crucify Him. Darkness seems, indeed, to have overcome Him. We see this again and again in the book of John:

  • And this is the judgment (or “condemnation”): the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil (John 3:19)
  • When about to heal a man who has never seen light, Jesus Himself says: “We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.  As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” (John 9:4-5)
  • In His last public statement before His arrest, Jesus says, “The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake (this is the same Greek word translated “overcome” in John 1:5) you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going.  While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.” When Jesus had said these things, he departed and hid himself from them. (John 12:35-36)
  • When Judas leaves the Last Supper to betray Jesus, John tells us, “And it was night” (John 13:30)

There is thus a battle between light and darkness. Darkness is trying to overtake, to overcome those listening to Jesus. He is there, He is the light, He is shining in the darkness, He is opening blind eyes so that they might see the light – but those who do not want their works exposed, those who love the darkness – that is, those who think they are in control, who think they know where they are going – reject the light, and thus remain lost, without hope, without true life.

Indeed, the serpent’s temptation to Eve in Genesis 3 is an invitation to come out of the darkness, out of her supposed blindness, into light, so that she might truly see: “God knows that when you eat of [the forbidden fruit] your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). Satan, a “liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44), calls darkness light, and light darkness. Thus the battle began, and thus the battle rages to this day.

But the outcome of the battle is certain. In Revelation, as John describes the future kingdom, the new Jerusalem, he tells us, “And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever” (Revelation 22:5).

So where are you? You were created by the One Who is the Light of the World. In that light is life – and nowhere else. Are you holding on to the darkness, thinking that what you know is safe and secure? Are your eyes accustomed to the darkness, so that you find the Light painful? Do you think you have the spiritual equivalent of night vision goggles, so that you don’t need the true Light?

There is only one light. All else is darkness. All else is condemnation. All else is death. Jesus said, “I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness” (John 12:46).

Believe in Him! Receive Him! And you will be sons of light, children of God, who will shine for all eternity as the Light of the world shines through you.

 

 

Entering the Kingdom of Heaven

Who will enter the Kingdom of Heaven?

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus speaks explicitly five times about entering the Kingdom. Let’s look at these verses plus some context to help us answer the question.

Matthew 5:17-20, 48  “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.  18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.  19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.  20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. . . . [Jesus then elaborates on the true meaning of the Law. He concludes this section:] 48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Matthew 7:21-23  “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’  23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

Matthew 18:3 “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 19:23-26   And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven.  24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”  25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?”  26 But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Matthew 23:13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.”

The Pharisees expected the promised Kingdom to come, in which their Messiah would reign (Luke 17:20). They rejected Jesus as that Messiah – but they believed they would be in the coming Kingdom.

In these verses, Jesus makes at least 11 points about entering the Kingdom:

1)      “Salvation” and “entering the Kingdom” are at least very similar concepts – perhaps identical, according to Jesus (Matthew 19:23-26).

2)      Those in the Kingdom do not rejoice in shutting out others (Matthew 23:13).

3)      Entrance to the Kingdom does not come about through external obedience to a set of rules. The Pharisees were experts at such obedience (Matthew 5:20).

4)      Nor does the entrance to the Kingdom come about through calling Jesus ‘Lord,’ or through speaking in His name, or through performing great deeds in His name (Matthew 7:21-23).

5)      The rich have no special access to the Kingdom – on the contrary, there are tremendous barriers blocking their entrance, seemingly impossible to overcome (Matthew 19:23-24).

6)      Jesus is the ultimate arbiter of who enters the Kingdom (Matthew 7:23).

7)      Anyone can enter the Kingdom (Matthew 19:25-26).

8)      Entrance into the Kingdom is a result of God’s work, not ours (Matthew 19:26).

9)      We must humble ourselves like children if we are to enter the Kingdom. We cannot think we deserve to enter, or that we can earn the Kingdom if we just work a little harder. We must look to Jesus as our hope, our joy, and long for relationship with Him (Matthew 18:3).

10)   Thus, Jesus’ conception of the Kingdom is markedly different from the Pharisees’ conception, and if they continue in their ways, they have no hope of entering the true Kingdom (Matthew 23:13). Jesus teaches that we enter into the Kingdom by God’s grace through coming to our Savior humbly, confessing our sin and seeking His favor.

11)   The Law is a reflection of the character of God – and if we are citizens of His Kingdom, if we are His children, we are to take on this character through being transformed by His power (Matthew 5:17-48, in light of Romans 8:29).

So: Enter the Kingdom!

Invite others to join you in the Kingdom!

The invitation is to all. The joy is for all.

The glory is all His.