Obeying the Gospel

FAITH AND TRUST (APRIL 18)

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"And the Lord said to Moses, 'How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them?'" (Numbers 14:11).

ONE MEASURE OF THE MATURITY OF OUR FAITH IS HOW MUCH WE TRUST GOD. If we believe in the existence of God, that is a good thing. But as believers, do we trust Him enough to do things His way when that path looks dangerous and difficult?

In Numbers 14, when the spies came back from their reconnaissance of the land of Canaan, all but two of them reported that it would not be possible for Israel to occupy the land. Discouraged, the nation wanted to reject Moses’ leadership and return to Egypt. That is when God pointed to the real problem: the people’s lack of trust in Him. “How long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them?” They had not gotten the point of the miracles God had done to prove His dependability.

GOD’S CHARACTER. If all we mean is that Israel accepted God’s existence, they were “believers.” But they showed, when the going got tough, that they were not believers in the sense of trusting God. In fact, God said, “How long will this people despise me?” Having thrown away everything God had demonstrated to them about His trustworthiness, they had little confidence in God’s character.

GOD’S PROMISES. We call Canaan the “Promised Land” for a reason: God had promised it to Israel and powerfully confirmed His promise. They had seen God’s power in the plagues in Egypt, heard His thunderous voice from Sinai, and received His provision of manna in the wilderness. Nevertheless, they had no confidence that God would actually keep the promises He had made.

GOD’S COMMANDMENTS. Worst of all, Israel showed a lack of trust by refusing to obey what God had commanded. Here, perhaps, is the main area where we find out whether our faith has matured into trust: will we or won’t we do what God has said? We can deplore the lack of trust that caused Israel to back away from God’s command, but do we do any better? When it comes to obeying the gospel of Christ, do we trust the God we believe in enough to do what He has told us, confident that His wisdom is always best?

"Trustfulness is based on confidence in God, whose ways I do not understand. If I did, there would be no need for trust" (Oswald Chambers).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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FAITH AND REASON (APRIL 17)

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"But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand" (Acts 4:4).

BETWEEN “HEARING” THE GOSPEL AND “BELIEVING” IT, A PROCESS OF REASONING HAS TO TAKE PLACE. Contrary to the popular notion that faith and reason are incompatible, reason is necessary in the creation of a genuine faith in God. Without the solid foundation of reasonable thinking, faith is nothing but a feeling that is subject to the winds of ever-changing circumstances. Tried by persecution, a merely emotional faith would not stand the test.

EVALUATING THE EVIDENCE. Anyone who has sat in the jury box in a criminal trial knows that in order to reach a decision as to the defendant’s guilt or innocence, your reason has to evaluate the evidence provided by witnesses. The same is true with the New Testament. No faith in the deity of Jesus is possible without making a rational (“reasoned”) decision as to the quality of the evidence.

REACHING RIGHT CONCLUSIONS FROM THE EVIDENCE. Going back to our courtroom analogy, it is one thing to get the facts straight as to what happened, but it is another to see clearly what is implied by those facts. Both of these — What are the facts? and What do the facts mean? — require reasoning. In the New Testament, the witnesses claim that they found Jesus’ tomb empty, and we have to decide whether the record is believable. If the tomb was empty, we have to decide whether its emptiness means that Jesus was resurrected. Finally (and most importantly), we have to decide whether, if Jesus was resurrected, that means “God has made him both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36). Reason is required at each step.

DECIDING TO TRUST GOD. Ultimately, our faith must be in the character of God — and that, like everything about the gospel, requires that we reason carefully from the facts to the meaning of the facts. What the gospel aims to produce is not simply a person who participates in a certain religion and keeps the right commandments. It is a person who, believing the facts of the gospel, is willing to stake his whole life on God — the very God whom the gospel is about.

"Faith and sight are set in opposition to each other in Scripture, but not faith and reason . . . True faith is essentially reasonable because it trusts in the character and the promises of God. A believing Christian is one whose mind reflects and rests on these certitudes" (John R. W. Stott).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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THE LORDSHIP OF DAVID’S LORD (APRIL 16)

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"The Lord says to my Lord: 'Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool'" (Psalm 110:1).

IN PSALM 110, DAVID SPOKE OF THE RULE OF A PERSON HE REFERRED TO AS “MY LORD.” Who was this person? Whoever it was, Yahweh is pictured as saying to him, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” Some have said David was speaking of himself, but there is no other place in the Scriptures where a king spoke of himself as “my Lord.” And David would not refer to any of the later kings on the throne in Jerusalem as “my Lord.”

(1) Jesus argued in Matthew 22:41-46 that David was speaking of the Messiah. The Pharisees had agreed that the Messiah would be “the son of David” (v.42), but Jesus countered, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”’? If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” (vv.43-45).

(2) Peter, in his sermon on Pentecost, quoted from Psalm 110 and applied it to Jesus: “For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”’ Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:34-36). (On this point, read 1 Corinthians 15:24-28 with Daniel 7:13,14 in mind.)

(3) That Psalm 110 is messianic is also seen in v.4 where Yahweh says to the one at His right hand, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” Unlike the Levites, the Messiah would be a priest-king, like Melchizedek in Genesis 14:18-24. Hebrews 7:1-28 argues that this “priest forever after the order of Melchizedek” is Jesus.

Psalm 110, then, is one of the most powerful prophecies of the Messiah — and every part of it meshes seamlessly with the person and work of Jesus Christ. It is no wonder that the New Testament writers saw in the language of this great Psalm clear and forceful references to the identity of Jesus as the Messiah, the One who is now seated at the right hand of God (Hebrews 1:3,13; 10:12,13).

"There are in fact strong reasons to conclude that the original author of the psalm intended to speak of a divine lord. David, Israel’s most exalted king, was looking forward to the coming of a future ruler even more exalted than himself" (Michael A. Rydelnik).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM (APRIL 15)

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"I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matthew 16:19).

WHAT ARE WE TO MAKE OF CHRIST’S “KEYS OF THE KINGDOM” STATEMENT? If Roman Catholics have read too much into this text, Protestants may have read too little. Jesus’ saying is of fundamental importance, and it should impact our thinking significantly.

To Peter, and by extension the rest of the apostles, Christ said that the “keys of the kingdom of heaven” would be given to them. Obviously, they would not have the authority to legislate the law of the kingdom, for God alone can do that, but to the apostles would be given the role of communicating that law authoritatively. The terms of entrance into the kingdom revealed by the apostles, and also the rules for living in the kingdom, would be those which God had decided on. When the apostles taught (or wrote), you could no more disregard what they said than you could disregard Christ Himself. (Ponder the implications of 3 John 9, for example). The keys of the kingdom had, by God’s design, been placed in their hands, so the normative nature of their work must be taken seriously. We are the church of the Lord today only to the extent that we conform to what the apostles directed the church to be in the first century.

The apostles, therefore, played a pivotal role in the New Testament period. No one since then has possessed Christ’s authority as they did, and their teaching will always be the benchmark against which everything must be measured. So are we free to “develop” the apostolic teaching in order to make it more relevant to our times? Paul, the thirteenth and last of the apostles, left no doubt: “Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8). And what did John say to brethren being disturbed by the advocates of a more enlightened gospel? “Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you” (1 John 2:24).

"Christian theology is anchored not only to certain historical events, culminating in the saving career of Jesus, but to the authoritative apostolic witness to, and interpretation of, these events. The Christian can never weigh anchor and launch out into the deep of speculative thought. Nor can he forsake the primitive teaching of the apostles for subsequent human traditions" (John R. W. Stott).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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THE KING’S UNPROMISING BIRTH (APRIL 14)

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"But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days" (Micah 5:2).

THIS TEXT IS ONE OF MANY FROM THE HEBREW PROPHETS QUOTED OR ALLUDED TO IN THE WRITINGS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. It foretells that the Messiah (“Anointed One”) would be born in the village of Bethlehem — just one of the numerous details about the Messiah that were fulfilled in Jesus Christ (Matthew 2:1-6).

If you had lived in the first century and were looking for the coming of the Messiah, you probably would have been looking for a kingly figure more majestic than Jesus. Bethlehem was an unpromising place to begin, but Nazareth, the village where Jesus grew up, was even more lowly. He was a peasant. How could He be the king who would lead Israel in its freedom-fight against Rome?

But what was the “territory” Jesus promised to reclaim and rule over? It was the human heart. His was a mission to defeat Satan, the great usurper. And He did exactly that. In Jesus Christ, God “has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13).

There is a marvelous irony in Jesus’ humble birth in a place like Bethlehem. If the God of the Old Testament and the New is indeed real, and if in fact He entered the world and took upon Himself human form, who would have expected that it would be in such lowly circumstances? Yet when we think about it for a moment, it seems altogether appropriate. If it is our pride that is the root of our sin, there can be no deliverance for us if we won’t humble ourselves once again before our King. But are we not beautifully moved to do so when we see the humility of the King Himself? Although He is unimaginably powerful and glorious, He was willing to accomplish our rescue by sharing our weakness. He conquered the consequences of our pride not by arrogant command but by the ultimate act of submission.

Breath, mouth, ears, eyes
he is curtailed who overflowed all skies, all years.
Older than eternity, now he is new.
Now native to earth as I am,
nailed to my poor planet,
caught that I might be free.
(Luci Shaw)

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

For more information, visit http://AreYouaChristian.com

A CHILD IS BORN, A SON IS GIVEN (APRIL 13)

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"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6).

IN THIS MEMORABLE TEXT, ISAIAH PORTRAYED THE MESSIAH’S DOMINION IN MAJESTIC, SWEEPING LANGUAGE. He would rule as God’s sovereign King (“the government shall be upon his shoulder”), and He would be entitled to the most exalted praise. “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” are epithets that could apply only to a divine ruler, receiving both the love and reverence that are reserved for God.

The words “to us a child is born, to us a son is given” should remind us of the “Immanuel” prophecy in Isaiah 7:14: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” Indeed, our text for today in Isaiah 9:6 should be seen within the context of the entire section of chapters 1-12, a section filled with messianic hope. The messianic King who was to come would be no ordinary king. He would be even greater than David: a descendant of David physically, but one who would be miraculously born and nothing less than the Son of God — Immanuel (“God with us”).

The King in Isaiah 9 would rule “from this time forth and forevermore” (v.7). This is exactly what Gabriel the angel told Mary about the Son that she would bear: “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” (Luke 1:31-33). And when the Child was born and taken by His parents to Jerusalem for the required sacrifices, an aged man named Simeon took Him in his arms and said, “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel” (Luke 2:29-32).

"The point of Isaiah 9:1-7 was to alert the house of David that the virgin-born King for whom they were to look would only come after a long period of darkness. Nevertheless, He would indeed come, possessing a divine nature, to establish a righteous and eternal kingdom" (Michael A. Rydelnik).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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KINGDOM OF PRIESTS, HOLY NATION (APRIL 12)

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"Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Exodus 19:5,6).

IN THIS AGE OF THE WORLD, “KINGDOM” AND “PRIEST” ARE NOT EVERYDAY CONCEPTS, LET ALONE “HOLY NATION.” But what did God mean by these terms in speaking to Israel at Sinai, and what relevance do they have to us in thinking about the gospel of Christ?

MY TREASURED POSSESSION. This is what physical Israel was then, and it is what spiritual Israel is today. Those who have been reconciled to God are uniquely His people, His “special property” (BBE).

A KINGDOM OF PRIESTS. In the Law of Moses, the priests were to represent Israel to God, but they were also to represent God to Israel. By extension, then, Israel was to be “a kingdom of priests” — that is, they were to represent God to the rest of the world. Today, it is Christians, coming from both the Jewish and Gentile races, who represent God before the watching eyes (and listening ears) of the world. So, for example, the Book of Revelation begins with this doxology: “To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen” (1:5,6).

A HOLY NATION. God wanted Israel to be what His people in Jesus Christ would later be: a group of people who were “holy.” In other words, they would be devoted exclusively to Him, set apart for His use and reserved for the accomplishment of His purposes. 

Writing to Christians, Peter used all of these ideas: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

Much more could be said about being a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, but I want to end with the most important way in which those who are God’s people represent Him to the world: we are to be those who speak God’s truth to the world. And the ultimate goal is always the same: people who, based on God’s truth, come to share His likeness and enjoy His presence in eternity.

"We are called to be God’s transmitters, to be completely separated from all thoughts which are contrary to his thinking, so that we may transmit his thoughts to others" (Hannah Hurnard).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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GOD’S PROMISE TO ABRAHAM (APRIL 11)

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"Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis 12:1-3).

THIS TEXT RECORDS GOD’S FAMOUS CALL FOR ABRAHAM TO LEAVE HIS HOME IN UR. It also summarizes the remarkable promises that God made to Abraham concerning the future of his family.

First, God was going to lead Abraham to a land that would be given (over four hundred years later) to the family of Jacob, one of Abraham’s grandsons. Next, God said He would make Abraham’s descendants so numerous that they would constitute a great nation. And finally, God said the whole world would be blessed “in you,” i.e., “in your seed” (Genesis 22:18 NKJV). Since “seed” here is singular rather than plural, this refers to the Messiah, the Savior who descended from Abraham, as Paul points out in Galatians 3:16.

Of these three, only the Seed promise was universal and ultimate in its scope. The land that God gave to Abraham’s descendants has fulfilled its purpose in the history of salvation, and so has the physical nation of Israel. The Messiah having come and God’s plan now being complete, the preliminaries have been laid aside (Galatians 3:24-26). Consequently, the people of God are those from every tribe and tongue who have been justified by faith, the same kind of trust that Abraham was known for. Of course, not even Abraham could have been justified by his faith without the sacrifice of Christ, so Christ’s sacrifice works backward in time just as it works forward (Hebrews 9:15; 11:1-40). Every person who inhabits heaven will have gotten there on the same basis as Abraham: the obedience of faith, based on the sacrifice of Christ. Abraham, then, is the prime example of how salvation works; he is the forefather of all who trust in God’s promises enough to actually walk by faith. And when the whole host of Abraham’s spiritual family gets together in heaven, what a reunion that’s going to be!

"The physical aspects of God's promise to Abraham were but a means to the far more important and eternal end of salvation from sins for all mankind. 'There is neither Jew nor Greek . . . you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise' (Galatians 3:26-29)" (Robert F. Turner).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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A NEW PROPHET LIKE MOSES (APRIL 10)

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"The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers — it is to him you shall listen" (Deuteronomy 18:15).

TOWARD THE END OF MOSES’ LIFE, HE TOLD ISRAEL THAT IN THE FUTURE GOD WOULD RAISE UP ANOTHER PROPHET LIKE HIM. At Sinai, Moses had received God’s word and brought it back down the mountain to the people. So the time would come, Moses said, when another spokesman would act as God’s representative, revealing things about God that the people could not have known if God had not spoken to the prophet, and the prophet, to the people.

We see here the meaning of “prophet”: a spokesman or mouthpiece (Exodus 7:1,2). We often think of prophecy as a prediction of the future (and sometimes it is), but the basic idea is that of one who represents God and speaks in His name. The prophet is one through whom God reveals His word to the people.

We should not miss the importance of this point. The will of God cannot be discovered by human efforts such as divination, mystical experience, subjective emotions, or philosophical effort. Anything true we may know about God will have been revealed to us by Him — using an authoritative spokesman. The prophet could say, “Thus sayeth the Lord . . .” and not simply, “I feel this to be true.”

By the Roman era, the Jews were expecting the coming of the new prophet who would be like Moses. When John the Baptist began preaching, some thought he might be this prophet: “When the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, ‘I am not the Christ.’ And they asked him, ‘What then? Are you Elijah?’ He said, ‘I am not.’ ‘Are you the Prophet?’ And he answered, ‘No’” (John 1:19-21). It was John’s mission to prepare for the One who was the coming Prophet, Jesus the Messiah.

“It is to him you shall listen” is what Moses had said in Deuteronomy 18:15. And when Jesus was transfigured and seen by His disciples talking to Moses and Elijah, God spoke from heaven and said, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him” (Mark 9:7).

"Moses predicts that the Lord will raise up another prophet like to himself . . . This promise received its complete fulfillment when God finally spoke through His own Son. Such was the definite assertion of Peter concerning Christ: 'Moses said, "The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers"' (Acts 3:22)" (Charles R. Erdman).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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THE BLESSINGS OF THE BROKEN HEART (APRIL 9)

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"But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word" (Isaiah 66:2).

WHO IS THE PERSON WHO RECEIVES GOD’S SPECIAL CARE? To those who worship self-confidence, the answer is surprising: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at God’s word.

A text very similar to Isaiah 66:2 is Psalm 34:18, where David said, “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” When we hear this perspective expressed, we can’t help but think of the “Beatitudes” of Jesus in the New Testament: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:3,4). While these words sound almost absurd to modern ears, the truth is still the truth. When it comes to the most important parts of life, the broken heart is not a problem; it’s a blessing. As long as sin is a reality in our lives, we will need to see it for what it is and, in godly sorrow, seek God’s forgiveness.

What we see in both the Old Testament and the New is that the door to God’s blessing is opened not by satisfaction with our lifestyles or a sense of our own fullness, but by a sense of how empty we are. If we humble ourselves before God, what we see is that in the presence of His holiness we are not wealthy; we are bankrupt. Especially in the so-called “developed” nations of the world, we need hearts that are more broken. To the self-satisfied, James put it clearly: “Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you” (James 4:9,10).

It is true — and what a wonderful truth it is — that joy comes from God’s forgiveness (1 Peter 1:3-6). But who are the forgiven? It is those who come to God with their hearts broken (2 Corinthians 7:9,10). And we see no better illustration of this than the description of Saul of Tarsus grieving because of his new awareness of the need for God’s forgiveness. He had fasted for three days before the Lord knew he was ready to be told what he must do to have his sins washed away (Acts 9:8-19; 22:11-16). In this world, even in Christ, it will always be the penitent who are able to find true joy.

"The only things that are improved by breaking are the hearts of sinners" (Anonymous).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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