The God of Reversals

In the book of Esther, Haman plots to kill Mordecai and then wipe out the Jews; God turns that plan on its head, as the king has Haman hung on the gallows prepared for Mordecai, and the Jews win a great victory over their foes. Even more importantly in the storyline of Scripture, God saves the line of Jesus, the Messiah by destroying those who would kill His ancestors.

But when Mordecai refused to bow down before Haman, and when Esther approached the king without being summoned, neither knew what would happen. Both took dangerous actions that could have led to their imprisonment or death.

The Apostle Paul assures us that “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). All things. He causes our efforts to work for good; He causes the evil acts of evil men like Haman to work for good. He causes your struggles and trials to work for good – sometimes in ways you can see in retrospect, oftentimes in ways you will not see until eternity.

God informs us of that truth – and He graciously gives us examples in Scripture to show us what that looks like. Here are a few more of the many reversals in Scripture:

  • Joseph’s jealous brothers sell him into slavery, but God raises him to a position of power over those brothers – and Joseph’s leadership saves those very brothers, the entire line of the promise to Abraham, from dying in the famine (Genesis 37-50).
  • Pharaoh refuses to comply with God’s command through Moses and Aaron to let the Israelites go to worship Him; God sends plagues and so works in Pharaoh’s heart that the Israelites end up leaving with abundant silver and gold, the Egyptian army is destroyed, and God’s Name is proclaimed in all the earth (Exodus 5-14; see especially Exodus 9:13-16).
  • A young shepherd boy armed with a sling and a few stones has no chance in single combat with a giant, experienced warrior, but God gives the giant into David’s hand so that “all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel … [and that] the battle is the Lord’s.” (1 Samuel 17:46-47).
  • The most powerful army in the world comes to attack the Kingdom of Judah and its capital Jerusalem. King Hezekiah acknowledges that he cannot defeat them, but prays that God would save them “that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O LORD, are God alone” (2 Kings 19:19). God kills 180,000 soldiers in their sleep and the Assyrians retreat.
  • After centuries of warnings and prophecies about what will happen if the Israelites continue to rebel against Him, God sends the Babylonians to destroy the Kingdom of Judah and the very temple that pictures God’s presence with His people. The siege and its aftermath are horrible – read the poetic accounts in the book of Lamentations. Yet, as God assures Habakkuk after telling the prophet ahead of time that this will happen, the end result will be that “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14).
  • Or think of the Fall itself: Adam and Eve reject God, choosing to trust in their own senses and to believe Satan’s lie instead of relying on the one who created them, who loved them, who provided everything for them (Genesis 3). Many millennia of tragedy follow, to the present day. Yet a time is coming when there will be “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages … crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” (Revelation 7:9-10).
  • And all this comes about because of the greatest reversal of them all: Jesus – the only man ever to live a sinless life – is tried in a kangaroo court, sentenced to death, mocked, beaten, and hung on a cross where He dies. Evil and cowardly men bring this about. Yet God through that death pays the penalty for the sins of all those who trust in Him, and raises Him from the dead, “so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10-11).

Add to this list others you can think of in Scripture. Meditate on these reversals – and on the God who brings them about. Think of the ways God has effected similar reversals in your life, and in the lives of those you know. And consider your own present trials, difficulties, pressures, and sorrows – knowing that God is working in ways you cannot fathom to bring about obvious or subtle reversals, so that every pain becomes a means of bringing glory to His Name and good to His people.

Which Culture is Most Christian?

Which culture is the most Christian?

There is a definite Islamic culture; there are elements of life on the Arabian peninsula in the 7th century that continue to serve as ideals for many Muslims today. There is also a definite Hindu culture. Is there a Christian culture?

Biblically, the answer is no. There is no Christian culture; no culture is the most Christian. Christianity is inherently cross-cultural.

In Acts 15 – the text for our sermons the next two Sunday mornings – the young church must deal with this very question. Paul and Barnabas have been teaching that Gentiles, non-Jews, can come to faith and be united to Christ; they need not be circumcised or follow all the requirements of the Mosaic Law, such as the dietary code. Some had come from the predominantly Jewish church in Jerusalem to Antioch – Paul and Barnabas’ sending church! – and declared their teaching wrong; Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, they argued, and in order to be united to Christ, Gentiles must become Jewish.

Though, as we shall see, more than culture underlies this dispute, culture is one important element. If Christ is the fulfillment of all that Judaism points to – isn’t Christian culture Jewish culture?

Guided by the Holy Spirit, the apostles and elders – and, indeed, the entire church in Jerusalem (Acts 15:22) – declare that this is not the case. We will examine their arguments and explanations in the weeks ahead. But for now, consider some of the implications of this outcome:

1) No one must give up his culture to become a follower of Jesus. Every culture has sinful, clearly unbiblical elements, and these, of course, the new believer must avoid. For example, in the Roman Empire, abortion and infanticide (through abandonment) were common. The early Christians practiced neither and rescued many abandoned infants. Nor would they bow down to worship Caesar or any other so-called god; many were martyred in consequence. In that sense, Christians must be counter cultural. But from these early days, there were many different cultures in the church. In Antioch there were Jews and Gentiles, rich and poor, slave and free, African and Asian. They came together united in Christ, not united in culture. As they preached the Gospel, they called all to come to Christ, not to come to Christ and to take on one specific culture.

2) Genuine Christian worship will look, sound, and feel very different across cultures. There are key biblical guidelines for corporate worship. Such worship includes the preaching of the Word (2 Timothy 4:2), the public reading of the Scriptures (1 Timothy 4:13), singing songs, hymns, and spiritual songs (Ephesians 5:19), praying together (1 Timothy 2:1, Colossians 4:2), practicing baptism (Matthew 28:19) and the Lord’s Supper (1 Corinthians 11:26). But within these guidelines, churches in different cultures will be profoundly different.

3) These cultural differences are for the glory of God. Revelation 7 pictures those from every tribe and tongue and people and language praising God around His throne. These are the saints made perfect, worshiping God eternally – and they are culturally distinct! They retain their cultural differences. They are made one in Christ; they praise God in song; but that song is a glorious, thousand-part harmony, rather than one melody sung in unison. So God works all things together to create for His glory for all eternity one people with thousands of remaining cultural distinctions.

4) The true church welcomes and delights in this diversity of cultures. Our natural tendency is to look down on those who differ from us. We tend to question the motives or sincerity of people who praise God in ways that seem strange to us. But if our chief end is to glorify God, and if God rejoices in the diversity of cultures praising Him, we too will rejoice to see the Gospel lived out and proclaimed in different cultural forms.

5) The church that unites various cultures in one local body glorifies God. Such an assembly shows today, in microcosm, the Revelation 7 unity that we will experience in eternity.

So praise God for the guidance the Holy Spirit gave to the Jerusalem church in Acts 15. Praise God that we are not limited to worshiping Him in Jewish cultural forms. Praise God that He has made us one from many cultures. And praise Him that even at DGCC, we can reflect His glory through uniting people from different cultures in one body. Join us these next two Sundays as we rejoice together in these great truths.