Bible Messages from the Kimberly Church of Christ

In Luke 8, we read one of the most unusual stories in the gospels, as Jesus casts out a massive group of demons into a herd of swine. It's unique in the gospels in that Jesus actually chooses to have a conversation with the demons, even asking their names.

We're not told why Jesus chose to grant the demons' wishes, but in doing so, we get a graphic view of how impressive Jesus' power over them really was. And as we look at the story as a whole, we see three different responses to Jesus' power, with three different expressions of fear:
- The fear of the disciples, expressed immediately before the incident, when Jesus calmed the storm on the sea.
- The fear of the demons, who unlike the disciples, understood exactly who Jesus was and knew the full extent of his power, but whose response was limited simply to delaying their ultimate end.
- The fear of the townspeople, who lost thousands of pigs and were struck with fear over this new power, and appeared to be focused on sending Jesus away before he could do any more damage.

In fact, the one person who doesn't appear to be afraid is the man from whom the demons are cast out - while the demons and the townspeople begged Jesus to let them be, this man begged Jesus that he could follow him.

The story of Adam is often dismissed by modern theologians as a myth or a parable, but in the teachings of the New Testament, we find that Adam's story is vital to understanding how Christ can redeem us today through his sacrifice. And as we read the story of Adam, and we see the care with which God creates the earth and places mankind into the garden as its caretaker, we can learn a lot about what God wants from man, what He has done for us, and the relationship which He wants to create with us today through Jesus.

In the wake of Adam and Eve sinning, we learn three important lessons that have to be reconciled under Christ:

1. Adam and Eve cannot cover their sin. They are shown to be naked - physically and spiritually - and their attempts to dress themselves are insufficient. God makes for them skins of animals, in the first indication that to truly cover sin, atonement has to take place. Something has to die.
2. Mankind can no longer have closer fellowship with God. Sin separates us from God, just as God separated light and darkness on the first day of creation.
3. The pair was cut off from the source of life. In a literal sense, they could not eat of the tree of life, which seems to have sustained them until that point, and they would one day die. But more importantly, they died spiritually because their sin had separated them from God.

However, God still viewed His creation in the same way! He still valued mankind as precious above the rest of creation. He continued to bless man even when man turned his back on God. And His purpose for man remained - but man's sin now had to be removed before he could fully return to God and take his place as God's image-bearer.

But because God allowed the effects of Adam's sin to cascade down through all humanity, God could also allow one man's righteousness and one man's atonement to impact all humanity. And so, as Paul argues in Romans 5, Adam serves as a "type" of Christ.

We talked last week about why we worship God, and today we talk about what it really means to worship God - whether it's the time we spend together in "corporate" worship, or the worship that takes place when we go about our daily lives.

The Bible talks about both of these, and doesn't make it an "either-of" prospect; we are called to worship both together in the church, and individually through our lives. And in fact, our collective worship is designed to help us in our daily worship, while our daily worship should in turn draw our focus more closely to our collective worship. 

Ultimately we are creatures designed to worship something - the question is will we worship God? Or will we worship self? Or will we find something or someone to which we aspire, and set that as our object of adoration? Ultimately, we find that all of those other things fail us, either because we find something we esteem more and move on, or we learn that the thing we worshiped wasn't really worth worshiping at all.

Only God provides us someone who is worthy of our attention, our love, our awe, and our devotion. The question then becomes: Am I truly worshiping God with the heart that He deserves?

In Luke 6, we read an abbreviated version of the Mountain Message that we read in Matthew 5-7. And we can see how Luke highlights specific parts of that lesson in line with his themes of appealing to those who are poor, those who need the gospel of Jesus. And we see Luke essentially building a case for listening to the teachings of Jesus - not just as a warning for what happens if we do not, but as a look at the blessings that await us if we do.

If we read the account from the end backward, Jesus sums up his argument with the parallel of the wise man who builds his house upon the rock, as opposed to the foolish man who builds on the sand. He makes the argument that if we will build our lives on the foundation of a spiritual character - as he outlines in a shorter version of what we often refer to as the "Beatitudes," then we will see our lives change in the way we deal with persecution and hardship, how we deal with our enemies, how we judge and assist our brothers and sisters, and how we evaluate the actions we're taking in serving God.

Jesus argues that if we do these things with a mind toward spiritual fulfillment, we will achieve a spiritual reward - a reward which is eternal in nature and far outweighs any reward we might attain from a worldly outlook on life.

John 4:23-24 - "But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

That's an idea that comes under increased criticism, in large part from atheists who do not believe in God to begin with, but more and more among believers who do not see the value in offering any sort of formal worship toward God, or even treating God in a reverential or deferential manner.

"If God is so big and I am so small, is he really going to care what I do anyway?"

Opponents will often paint an image of a God who delights in servants groveling at his feet begging for some scrap of favor. And while our first response may be of anger or outright refusal to acknowledge the point, we need to be able to answer that question beyond simply saying "because God wants you to do it."

The truth is that as we read the Bible, and as we look around us at our society today, we should begin to understand that WE are the ones who need to worship God. God demands worship from us not so that we will stoke His own pride, but so that we will recognize the truth of our lives, our world, and our relationship with God, and in doing that, we can open up for all the blessings God wants to give us.

The book of James presents a practical type of teaching for Christians, not just providing general concepts and lists of things not to do, but showing us what every-day Christian life should look like in practice. And it's interesting how many of his points tie back to the idea of our speech.

The Bible emphasizes the power of speech throughout, beginning with God speaking the world into existence. And while our own speech has nowhere near that much power, we can see how the things we say have dramatic impact on those around us - often impact that can't be changed once those words are spoken. And so he warns us that our speech, when left uncontrolled, is a "world of unrighteousness," and "a restless evil, full of deadly poison."

Our speech inevitably reveals our character, our attitude toward God and toward those around us - even when we say things we don't really mean. As Jesus teaches in Matthew 12:36, we will be called into account for every idle word we speak - because no idle word is harmless.

James intertwines discussions on speech throughout his letter, but when we look at them together, four points stand out that will help us develop the type of speech that edifies, that glorifies God, and that makes peace:

1. Speak with humility
2. Speak with godly purpose
3. Speak with intent to act
4. Don't forget to speak to God