Two Journeys

Pastor Andy Davis teaches a class on apologetics geared toward teenagers to give them tools to articulate a consistent Christian worldview.

The post Debunking Evolution: Class 1 appeared first on Two Journeys.

Paul’s courageous and faith-filled leadership during the event of a shipwreck that resulted in his landing in Malta.

The post Acts Podcast 48: The Shipwreck appeared first on Two Journeys.

A two-step miracle of healing by Jesus gives us a picture of how our salvation also happens in stages.

Turn in your Bibles to Mark chapter 8. As we resume our study in this incredible and glorious Gospel of Mark, we come this morning to a truly unusual miracle, a remarkable miracle. All of the miracles are remarkable, but this one's unique in some incredible ways. In this miracle account, Jesus's power seems to flicker a bit, I guess, I don't know how we would say it —that it seemed like it didn't work the first time. Do you think that Jesus is just giving us an example of perseverance? “If at first you don't succeed, try again.” That is not what's going on here, but it's strange for Jesus to have to circle back and to heal this man, it seems a second time, like somehow Jesus' power had been inadequate or somehow seemed to fail.

This is especially acute when we remember the instantaneous nature of all of Jesus' other miracles. Just walk through it. As we've seen in the Gospel of Mark. In Mark chapter 1, Jesus touched a leper and he was instantly cured of his leprosy. There's no healing process, no therapy that he had to go through. He was just healed. His flesh was restored and renewed. Mark chapter 2, the paralyzed man just got up and walked out in full view of them all. No therapy needed for him. When Jesus in Mark 4 said, "Peace be still," the wind and the waves were instantly silent, instantly quiet. The quelling of the turbulent waves was just astonishing power. It might usually have taken hours for them to settle down, but instantly quiet. In Mark 5, when He commanded the legion of demons to leave the tragic demoniac of the gatherings, thousands of demons instantly left and went into the pigs. There was no hesitation.

In that same chapter, the woman with the bleeding problem for twelve years touched the hem of his garment and immediately felt within her body that she was freed from her suffering. Again, no therapy, no pattern of healing, it was just done. Again in that same chapter, Mark 5, when Jesus visited Jairus' house, He touched that little girl, and she was instantly raised from the dead. Whatever fever or illness had brought her to death was gone. All she needed was a good meal at that point. Best of all, I think Mark 7, the Syrophenician woman, the mother answered Jesus humbly and with faith, "Yes Lord, even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table." And Jesus said, "For such a reply, you may go, the demon is gone." Well, that's instantaneous. What's so remarkable in Mark 7 and that healing is that Jesus didn't say anything, do anything or go anywhere. It just was in his mind, it's done, instant healing.

Remember the worship that came at the end of that chapter, Mark 7, with the healing of the deaf-mute and the people said about Jesus, they're overwhelmed with amazement and said, "He's done everything well until this.” This didn't seem to go so well. There must have been some intentionality here, and I think there was.

There's intentional healing in stages, but why? Why a healing in stages? Look again at the account. Verse 22 -25, “They came to Bethsaida and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, ‘Do you see anything?’ He looked up and said, ‘I see people, but they looked like trees walking around.’  Once more, Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes, then his eyes were opened and his sight was restored and he saw everything clearly.” 

The location is Bethsaida, which we know from other scriptures was the hometown of Peter, Andrew, and Philip and probably Nathaniel.  It's near where Jesus fed the 5,000. Almost certainly many of the people there had been miraculously fed by Jesus that day. So what happened?  The issue is blindness. Blindness was tragically common back then. Jesus healed many blind people throughout his ministry. Blind people are obviously in great distress, many of them ultimately had to resort to begging just to survive. In this case, this blind man has friends that care about him. Some friends brought the blind man to Jesus and begged him on his behalf for him to heal him. It's a beautiful picture I think of intercession. Similar to the four friends, you remember, that dug through the roof and lowered the paralyzed man down and lay them in front of Jesus, they cared about this man. These friends didn't have to work so hard as those friends did, but they had the same level of compassion and care for their friend.

Stop for a moment and let's just do an application right here. This to me is a picture of intercessory prayer for lost people, that we would be bringing spiritually blind people to Jesus, for him to heal them spiritually. That's where we're going in the sermon, and I think it's just a teachable moment here. Who is like that for you? Are you praying for someone by name? Do you have a lost friend or coworker or neighbor or relative that you know by name and you are bringing this person to Jesus and saying, "Lord, please open his eyes, open her eyes.”? It's this teachable moment of intercessory prayer. 

Now, back to the account, we see the healing. Jesus takes this blind man by the hand, similar to the healing of the deaf-mute, the personal touch. He loves to do this, touching people, but in this case with him being blind, He's got to lead him and He leads him outside the village.  Then He spits, He uses his saliva to heal the blind eyes of this man. Similar to John chapter 9, which we'll discuss later in the sermon, the man born blind. In that case, He spat on the ground and made some mud with the spit and smeared it on the man's eyes and sent him away and he went to the pool at Siloam and washed and his eyes were open, he could see. But the same thing in this case is the spitting. In this case, Jesus spat directly on the man's eyes, something that ordinarily would be a great insult. When Jesus was being mocked, they spat on him. But in this case it's not that at all. It's just the applying of moisture of water from Jesus' mouth for his healing. Having done this the first time, He asked him what he can see. Jesus knows everything. He knows what he can see, but He wants him to speak his experience and so he does, in verse 24, "I see people, but they look like trees walking around."

Some sight has been restored, but it's not clear. People don't look like trees. His vision's working, but it's not clear, it's fuzzy, it’s not distinct. It's not reality, but it's better than it was. This is directly contrast with the final outcome, verse 25. Once more Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes, then his eyes were open, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. It's just beautiful, I love that word “clearly.” He saw things as they really were. The same word is used of the deaf-mute. He can speak clearly at the end of Mark 7. It’s the same thing. So seeing things as they actually are, they're not fuzzy, they're not blurry, that's reality. 

The account ends with this command about the village. He had pulled the man outside the village to heal him.  After the healing, He commands him not to return to the village. Verse 26, “He sent him home to his home saying, 'Do not even enter the village.’" This may be like all the other commands to silence in these accounts where Jesus warned the healed person not to tell anyone. My usual go-to on that, has been crowd control. It's very clear that the Holy Spirit does not ultimately want this healing a secret because it's clearly been published around the world a billion times and twenty centuries of making this healing known to everybody. This is temporary injunction to not tell anyone, crowd control. As you see in John 6, the crowds got unruly, wanted to take Jesus by force and make him king. That seems to be why He does that. 

Some scholars, however, believe that it's an act of judgment on the City of Bethsaida. I think it's possible because Bethsaida had been the site, as I said, of the feeding of the 5,000 and many miracles, and Jesus specifically takes Bethsaida to task in Matthew 11 and cries down a prophetic judgment on Bethsaida. Matthew 11:21-22, "Woe to you Chorazin! Woe to you Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would've repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you it'll be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment, than for you Bethsaida." So it could be we're at the point where Jesus does not want to give any more evidence of his deity and his wonder-working power to Bethsaida, possibly. I don't know exactly when the sequence was, but that's possible. So that's the account, just walking through it of what happened.

Now let's talk about the spiritual analogy, the salvation analogy, physical and spiritual healings. Why this two-step? We can reject any failure or fault on Jesus' part. Jesus was not having a bad day. We all have bad days. Sometimes you have to kind of circle back, do something a second time. “Don't give up, don't get discouraged, look at Jesus, He never gave up. Don't do that.” That's not what's going on here. There's got to be some intentionality. Mark 7 still holds, “He has done everything well,” including this. Everything He does is for a purpose.

My idea here is Jesus was picturing that our spiritual healing comes to us in stages. That's my thesis, my idea. Whether that's his intentionality in this miracle or not, our salvation does comes in stages. But I think it's not hard to prove that Jesus' miracles were meant to be more than just physical, they're also to teach us things spiritually. I do believe that Scripture gives us permission to link the physical healings done by Jesus to the spiritual healing we need so much. Isaiah 53 starts that link. Isaiah 53:5 says, of Jesus, "He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities: the punishment that brought us peace was upon him; and by his wounds we are healed of our transgressions and our iniquities.”

Again, Luke 5, as we quoted many times, 31-32, “Jesus said, ‘It's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I've not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.’" There it is a clear link of our repenting from sin being likened to healing by a doctor. We need therapy, we need spiritual healing. We are sick with sin. That's the real sickness Jesus came to cure through repentance. Then the clincher for me with this whole blindness issue is in John chapter 9. In John chapter 9, Jesus heals a man born blind. It's a marvelous chapter. This man is healed, Jesus isn't around when he's healed, he'd gone away to the pool at Siloam. And then the spiritual police— Scribes, Pharisees, teachers, law, high priests, haul him in before the tribunal. They're grilling this guy as if he has done something wrong. It's a remarkable account, really is. It’s got some interesting moments like when the parents get hauled in and they say, "Is this your son? The one you claim was born blind?" Stop right there.  “What would our motive be of faking his blindness? It's been nothing but hard for us.” 

It's just amazing how obtuse these people are, and they're trying to force this man into their narrative of Jesus's life as an evildoer, as a messenger of Beelzebub. They're trying to force him, but this guy won't have anything to, he has none of it. He is just simple and is like, "You want to know what happened? I was blind, he put mud on my eyes, I washed and now I can see. What else you want to know?" "Well, we want to know who you think he was." "I think he was a prophet.” They start to curse at him and yell at him and said, "We don't even know from where this man comes." He said, "You don't know where he came from and he opened my eyes. Kind of obvious to me. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing. How is it you can't see where he is from?" Then they end up cursing him out and basically excommunicating him, kick him out of the synagogue because they'd already decided that if anybody said that Jesus was the Christ, they'd be put out of the synagogue, so they throw him out.

Jesus goes and finds him, and it's not accidental. The next chapter, John 10, is the good shepherd that goes and looks for the sheep. He goes and finds this man, but the enemies come out and they're surrounding him and they're still right there.  And Jesus says these words, John 9:39-41, "For judgment, I have come into the world so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind." Now that's a key verse in my mind of Jesus here. Some Pharisees who are with him heard him say this and asked, "What are we blind to? So tell us what you mean by that statement." John 9:41, Jesus said, "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin. But now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains." In other words, you are blind. But they're physically fine. He's definitely talking about spiritual blindness. That gives me exegetical permission to see Jesus's healing of people physically blind as a picture of our spiritual healing from spiritual blindness. Jesus openly makes that connection here in John 9. The man born blind, his eyes were opened. He knew who Jesus was because he had said when Jesus went to him and said, "Do you believe in the son of man?” "Who is he, sir?" the man asked. "Tell me so that I can believe in him." Jesus said, "You have now seen him. In fact, he is the one speaking with you." Then the man said, "Lord, I believe," and he worshiped him. He didn't receive just physical sight that day, he received spiritual sight, the ability to see Jesus as savior. So we have every right to see all these physical healings as pictures of our spiritual healing, our salvation. 

There are many such verses that speak about this. One very clear one is in Acts 26:18, and that's the third time, in the book of Acts we have the account of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus.  The Lord said to him as He converted Saul, Paul, says, "I'm sending you to the Gentiles," listen to these words, "to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light." Well, there it is. Our salvation, therefore, is likened to the giving of spiritual sight, moving us from darkness to light, "To open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God so that they may receive forgiveness of sins in a place among those who are sanctified through faith in me." So that openly tells us our salvation is like we were blind and now we see.

Therefore, I believe that Jesus saved this blind man in stages to picture our salvation coming to us in stages. What does that mean? The time orientation of our salvation is taught in the Bible. We have been saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved. Now we Baptists are used to, "So when were you saved?" Or, "Are you saved?" and all that. We tend to kind of boil “saved” down to the moment of being born again. That's okay at one level, but it's not okay if we think that's all salvation is. Salvation's bigger than that, but it is that. We have been saved in the past, that being born again, justified if we came to faith in Christ. Ephesians 2:8-9, uses that language, "For it is by grace you have been saved through faith and this not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not by work so that no one can boast.”

The moment you trust in Christ  and repent of your sins, at that moment you're saved. Ephesians 2:8 tells you, "Saved from the wrath of God," but we're being saved as well.vA number of verses use this, but most plainly, 1 Corinthians 1:18, "The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." So we are being saved by the ongoing power of the cross. The gospel keeps ministering to us, "We are being saved." Then salvation's future, “We will be saved." Romans 5:9 uses that language, "Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him.” There is a yet future salvation, it hasn't come to us yet, and we will be saved. So that's the time orientation. It's a process. Theologically, the process comes in these three stages, justification, sanctification, glorification.

Justification is the beginning of the Christian life. What is justification? It's the instantaneous declaration by God that we, who are sinners, are righteous in his sight. We are declared not guilty of our sins. The simple language is, we're forgiven of all sins, past, present, and future. But more theologically, we are declared righteous in his sight. How is that? How are sinners like us declared righteous? “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”  That's how we are justified, we are forgiven, we are made righteous by faith in Jesus. It happens by a double imputation or crediting our sins to Jesus and He dies under the wrath of God on the cross. As 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, "God made him who had no sin, to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." That's the second imputation. His righteousness credited us and on that basis, God declares us righteous. He counts our faith in Christ as righteousness and He declares us not guilty, acquitted, totally forgiven of all of our sins. That's justification. But that's not the end of salvation. 

There’s a process and the next is sanctification. That gradual process of transformation where little by little, we are made more and more conform to Christ. We more and more think like Christ, love like Christ, act like Christ. Progressively, gradually.  Many verses speak of this. Ephesians 4: 22-24 says, "You were taught with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." You're putting off wickedness, you're putting off sin and corruption and putting on purity and righteousness.

The key text in the entire Bible on sanctification is Romans 6, 7, and 8.  Those three chapters, by the way, we are walking through those chapters carefully on Wednesday evenings. The next two weeks will be on creation/evolution, but then when we resume on Wednesday evenings, the adult Bible study will be walking through those chapters. I invite you to come. But Romans 6 teaches sanctification most plainly. Romans 6:3-8 says, "All of us who are baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life.If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him, dead once for all, the old self, so that the body of sin might be rendered increasingly powerless, weaken gradually. Romans 6:6, "So that we should no longer be slaves to sin because anyone who has died has been freed from sin." Now if we died with Christ, we believe we'll also live with him, we'll walk with him, that kind of new life. Spiritual union with Christ means positionally, died to sin, at the instant of justification, we're dead to sin forever and then progressively, through new habits, through the transformation of the mind and the heart, by obedience to God's word, little by little becoming more and more like Christ. The progressive nature of sanctification is plain in Roman 6:19, "Just as you used to offer the parts of your body and slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness, leading to holiness."

That ever-increasing language that's progressive. We are to become more and more holy, more and more conform to Christ. That's salvation, that's sanctification, progressive. Paul commands the Philippians, "Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose." We have work to do, brothers and sisters. We have work to do in our salvation. We're not done being saved. It comes to us in stages. We must work out our salvation with fear and trembling. But we're not on our own, God is working in us. Every good thing we do in sanctification, God worked it in us by His spirit.  We are commanded to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ [2 Peter 3:18].  That's the second stage. 

The third stage is glorification, the final stage of salvation. This occurs also in two stages unless we're the final generation. If we are still in the mortal body, when Jesus returns in the clouds, we get to skip the whole death thing. You have to go through a lot of other things, read about it in Revelation. But if we're not, we're going to die. If you're a Christian, you die in the Lord. The instant that you die, your spirit will be separated from your mortal body and the mortal body will go to corruption, but your spirit will go to perfection, instant perfection.

That's step one of glorification. At that moment, your disembodied spirit will be present with the Lord, absent from the body, but present with the Lord, and you will be done sinning forever. How many of you are looking forward to that? Don't raise your hand, just smile. I'm looking forward to that. Free at last from sin, free at last. Then the final stage of our salvation is the resurrection of the body conformed to Christ's glorious body.  Philippians 3:21 speaks of this, "By the power that enables him, Jesus to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they'll be like His glorious body." We're going to get a resurrection body. 

Now all three of these stages are essential to our salvation. The Bible's very clear, we do not get it all at once. Therefore, I believe the healing of this blind man in stages, pictures our salvation in stages, but especially for me, our sanctification. Now I'm going to go back to that middle stage and say especially that I want to talk about the improvement of your spiritual sight for the rest of this sermon. That your eyesight, spiritual eyesight, will get better and better.

I'm arguing here that faith is the eyesight of the soul. I’ve said that many times before, I think it's a good analogy. The Bible likens faith to sight. 2 Corinthians 5:7, "We walk by faith, not by sight." They're very similar, faith and sight. Hebrews 11 does the same thing, "Faith is the assurance of things, hope for the conviction of things what, not seen." Later in that same chapter, Hebrews 11:27, it speaks of Moses, "By faith Moses left Egypt, not fearing the king's anger, he endured as seeing Him who is invisible." Let me say that again. "As seeing Him who is invisible." How do you do that? It's in the faith chapter — by faith you see Him who is invisible.

Ephesians 1:18 speaks of the eyes of the heart being enlightened. What is that? What are the eyes of the heart if not faith? The ability to see invisible spiritual realities, past, present, and future. That's the eyes of the heart being enlightened. Physical eyesight is vital to our lives. Jesus said in the Sermon of the Mount, "The eyes are the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is dark, how great is that darkness?" Do you have a sense Jesus was speaking about spiritual eyesight there? I do. But He's using the physical analogy. You know how important eyesight is to you? Why is it important? Because it means your whole body's full of light, it means you can see reality, you can see the world around you as it really is —the lay of the land, the rising and falling and undulation of the earth. The road curving left, going straight, then curving right, you can see it. The ditch on the right-hand side of the road.

Luke 6:39, "Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?" Because your eyes tell you the pit is there, but if you're blind you can't see it. Eyesight has to do with reality, what is. Is a pit there or not? Have you guys ever walked into a darkened room you've never been in before? You're staying as a guest in somebody's house. You get up in the middle of the night, for whatever reason, and you walk through the room and yep, there was a coffee table there about shin high. Do you know what I'm talking about? You discovered it, but not by sight, because the room was dark.  Now you can go eastern mystic there and say, it isn't really there. Oh no, it's there. Your shin's telling you it's there. We're talking truth. We're talking reality. The coffee table is there and the eyes tell you. Jesus used this analogy in John 11, when he says, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? A man who walks by day will not stumble for he sees by this world's light. It is when he walks at night that he stumbles for he has no light." The light and the eyesight tell you what is. They tell you what's around. Moving into the spiritual realm, the spiritual reality, spiritual eyesight, faith tells you what really is in the spiritual realm, what the truth is.

Now, biblically, our faith can be weak or strong. It could be non-existent, you have no faith, in that case you're dead in your transgressions and sin. You have no faith. But if you are a Christian, your faith can be weak or strong. Jesus frequently commented on the level of people's faith. For example, the Roman centurion in Matthew 8, “When Jesus heard what he said, He was amazed and said, "I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith."

Or again, to that Syrophenician woman, He said, "Woman, you have great faith. Your request is granted." So you can have great faith, meaning great in quantity. It's a dimmer-switch kind of thing. It's like you can have a little faith, more faith, great faith. You know the disciples, how often did Jesus complain about them? "Oh you of little faith." Remember when Peter began to sink? He said to Peter, Matthew 14:31, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?" "Little faith," that was like his number one nickname for his apostles, "You of little faith." Therefore, it seems vital for us to increase our faith.

Faith can increase. Biblically, it is possible for you to have more faith a year from now than you do now. 2 Thessalonians 1:3, "We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more." What does that mean? You have more faith than you did a year ago. And the love you have for each other is increasing. Again, 2 Corinthians 10:15, "Our hope is that, as your faith continues to grow, our area of activity among you will greatly expand." You can have more faith a year from now than you do now. Therefore, in the analogy I'm using today based on this miracle, it means clearer and clearer spiritual vision. You see things more and more clearly as you progress. Spiritual things, you see them more clearly than you used to. How does that happen?

It happens first with Bible intake. Good, sound, biblical instruction, feeding on God's Word. Get in God's Word. I would commend in the analogy we're using today, Psalm 119:18, where the psalmist says, "Open my eyes, that I may see wonderful things in your law." “Open my eyes”, what does that mean? “I'm reading the Bible. I might miss something. Give me clearer spiritual vision on the text.” From that, everything flows. Like what? As you take in God's Word and as you obey it, obedience is essential. Don't be merely a hearer of the word but a doer of it also. John 14:21 is the key on this, "Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me and whoever loves me will be loved by my father and I too will love him and manifest or disclose or show myself to him.”

The double combination is: have his commands and obey them. Then what'll happen, more and more, God will manifest himself to you. You'll see him. What will you see? There's some different things I've looked through in the Bible that link spiritual reality to vision, seeing things. What are you supposed to see if you get clearer and clearer vision? If you started with men like trees walking around, but then your vision gets clearer, what are you seeing more clearly? First, let’s start with Christ crucified, the agonies, the agonies of Christ's death. Do you see it? Galatians 3:1, "Oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you before your very eyes?" Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. How do you do that? Preaching. Paul preached Christ crucified. Then, like Isaac Watts said, “when I survey the wondrous cross,” you're supposed to survey it. Look at him. Look at Jesus bleeding out on the cross. What are you supposed to see when you see that? You see all the attributes of God if you know what to look for. You see his love, you see his power, you see his compassion. There's not an attribute of God that you cannot see in the cross. Just surveying it, how long can I look? It's beautiful, powerful, terrifying. By faith you should look at the cross daily, I Corinthians 1:18, "By the cross we are being saved." 

Secondly, you see the glories of Christ's resurrection. You can see his resurrected glory, the radiance that comes from his resurrected body. 2 Corinthians 3:18, "We all with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord." How do we do that? By faith. You can see the glory of the resurrected Christ as Saul of Tarsus saw on the road to Damascus, a light brighter than the sun.

You can see the resurrected glory of Christ. "We all with unveiled faces beholding the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to the next." The more you see that glory, the more you will shine like Moses, that's the analogy he's making there. You are going to shine with the glory of God. As I said earlier,  what's your goal for 2023? I'd like to be more glorious. I'd like to shine more and more with the glory of the Lord. Then behold, with unveiled faith, his resurrected glory. 

Thirdly, see the greatness of Christ's kingly power at work in you. Ephesians 1:18, “The eyes of your heart, your faith. The eyes of your heart may be enlightened." They're enlightened. What am I going to see?  In that chapter, Ephesians 1, what you'll see is, "Pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you. The riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints and his incomparably great power at work in you who believe." That power, by the way, of the three, that's the only one He zeroes in on. “That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which He exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion in every title that can be given, not only in the present age, but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way.” Wow. What's all that about? Power. Do you understand how great is Christ's kingly power? All authority of Heaven and earth has been given to him, but to what end? For you. To benefit you, to finish your salvation in this dangerous world. To protect you and get you there, to get you to Heaven. He's never going to fail. He wants you to see the eyes of your heart, be enlightened, to see that kind of power. Nothing can snatch you from his hands.

Fourthly, to see the vileness and the details of your own sin. What? You're supposed to see that? How can you be sanctified without it? That's the journey ahead of you. The reason you need sanctification is because you're a sinner, a habitual sinner. You're in a mortal body of sin. You have habits of sin. Do you see it? You don’t, not like you should. “Oh Lord, show me my sin." Hebrews 11:1, "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for." That sounds good to me, but it's also the conviction. Conviction, conviction of things not seen. Conviction? What does that mean? Like a convict like in a court of law, you've been convicted of crime. By faith you see your sin and you need to and you need to see how violent it is. When you see Jesus bleeding on the cross, you know it's because you sinned. And what will it make you do?If you see it for what it is, it'll make you hate it like He does. You have to see it as it really is so that you can hate it like He does.

 Fifth, to see the lostness of people around you. We don't. That's why we don't witness. We don't see them by faith. We don't see what it's going to be like for them on judgment day when they don't have a mediator, when they don't have anyone answering for them, they will hear those dreadful words, "Depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." They don't fear that. You're supposed to fear on their behalf because they don't fear like they should.

Remember those disciples in John chapter 4? They go into the Samaritan village and buy lunch, to-go. Not eating with these people. For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. What are they doing there, they asked. It's got to be one of the times the apostles questioned Jesus, like, "Jesus, why are we here? This is weird." There was another way to get up to Judea, but no, the text said they had to go through Samaria. Why? Because this woman and the village was there. They came back with lunch, but without a single Samaritan inquiring about Jesus. Not one. Jesus said to them, "I have food to eat that you apparently know nothing about." What is that food? Could somebody have brought him lunch? “My food is to the will of him who sent me and finished his work. That's what my food is. What about you? Lift up your eyes and look at the fields. They're white for harvest. Don't you see these lost people? Don't you see them?” Listen, brothers and sisters, I'm speaking to myself as much as to you. I don't see lost people the way I should. I don't have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart like Paul does in Romans 9. But I want to. Couldn't you ask the Lord to help you see lost people, not like trees walking around, but as they really are under the wrath of God and in great danger?

Six, see needy people around you. This is similar to the last one where it just has to do with physical miseries, poverty, sickness, brokenness, sadness. Remember the parable of the good Samaritan. Let me just read it so we don't miss the detail. “A priest happened to be going down the same road and,” listen to these words, "when he saw the man he passed by on the other side." He saw him physically, he didn't seem him spiritually. To the Levite, when he came to the place and saw him he passed by on the other side. He saw him physically, but he didn't seem him spiritually. “But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came to where the man was. When he saw him, he took pity on him.” He saw him physically and spiritually and was a good neighbor to him.  We don't tend to do that. We, like the priest and Levite, see physically, but not spiritually and go by on the other side. We don't alleviate suffering like we could.

 Seventh, see the brevity of your life. See your coming death. It's coming soon, sooner than you think. Psalm 90 teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Where's the seeing verse? All of these, by the way, had seeing in them. That's how I found them in the Bible, I was searching. “God, show me seeing verses.” So here it is, Psalm 39:4, "Show me, oh Lord, my life's end and the number of my days. Let me know how fleeting is my life." “Show it to me. Let me see my own death. Let me see myself in the ICU, let me see me with my relatives, my grandchildren around my bed weeping for you.  Let me realize like Ecclesiastes tells you to do, to be very aware that you're going to die. Show it to me.”  Along with that, with Ecclesiastes, see the vanity of this world, the temporary nature of it. The ordering, the physical ordering of all the stuff in the world is temporary. In Matthew 24:2, when his disciples came and said, "Lord, look at these incredible stones, these amazing buildings," [talking about the temple]. "Do you see all these things?" Jesus said, "Not one stone here will be left on another. Everyone thrown down." Same is true of the whole world. All of it is destined for fire. It's all temporary.

Therefore, see the reality of the coming Judgment Day. 2 Peter 3, "The day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar. The elements will be destroyed by fire and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.” Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live godly and holy lives, as you look forward to the day of God, and speed it's coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire and the elements will melt in the heat. Look forward to that coming day. See it coming and speed it's coming.

Finally, 10th, "See the glories of heaven." In the same chapter 2 Peter 3:13, "In keeping with this promise, we are looking forward to a new Heaven and a new earth. The home of righteousness." That's ten things you can see more clearly in scripture if you ask the Lord to open your eyes. At present, how many of those do you see men like trees walking around?

Our eternal destination is perfect vision. We're going to see everything clearly in heaven. How do I know that? 1 Corinthians 13:12 talks about this healing, very similar to the miracle we talked about today. We see but a poor reflection as in a mirror. That's, “I see people like trees.” Now we see, but a poor reflection as in a mirror, “then we shall see face-to-face. Now I know in part then I shall know fully even as I am fully known.” We're going to see everything clearly and we're going to see God face-to-face. 1 John 3 says that, "Dear friends, now we are children of God and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is."

Then Revelation 22:3-4, "The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city. His servants will serve him. They will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads." In heaven, we'll have perfect clear vision, something to look forward to.

 Close with me in prayer. Father, thank you for this miracle. Thank you for the way it taught us about spiritual vision. I pray, oh Lord, that you would sharpen our vision in these ten areas and other areas beside help us to start with Scripture, to see things in your Word that we have not seen before. And then to obey the things you tell us to do and not be mere hearers. And we know that if we have your commands and obey them, you're going to manifest yourself to us. Reveal yourself. So please, oh Lord, do that. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

A two-step miracle of healing by Jesus gives us a picture of how our salvation also happens in stages to help us understand the gospel.

The post Healed in Stages to See More Clearly (Mark Sermon 37) appeared first on Two Journeys.

In this episode, Andy and Wes discuss Paul’s dramatic trial before Festus and Agrippa and the powerful testimony to the gospel's progress.

The post Acts Podcast 47: Paul Stands Before Agrippa appeared first on Two Journeys.

Paul’s trial by Roman authority under the accusation of Jewish leaders enters its next phase: the trial before Festus.

The post Acts Podcast 46: Paul’s Trial Before Festus appeared first on Two Journeys.

An invitation to renew your commitment to feeding yourself with God's word throughout the upcoming year.

I wish all of you a happy New Year. I'd like to ask that you turn in your Bibles to Psalm 1. We're going to just do a single sermon to begin the new year on the importance of the word of God. Every time I get up here to preach, every time I stand here in the pulpit, my desire is to feed First Baptist Church with the Word of God. I think often of the exhortation that Jesus gave to Simon Peter after his resurrection as he was I believe restoring Peter back to ministry after Peter had denied him three times. He asked him three times, "Do you love me?" And he said, "I do love you." And then He said effectively, "Feed my sheep." That's an incredibly important calling. Because earlier in John's gospel, Jesus said that He is a good shepherd and laid down his life for the sheep. The sheep are precious to Jesus, and He shed his blood for them.

But for Peter as an under shepherd, under the great shepherd, the good shepherd, to be tasked with the responsibility of feeding Christ's sheep is weighty. In due time, Peter died and went on to be with the Lord, but left behind an epistle, First Peter, in which he exhorted elders to take his place and to do that kind of shepherding ministry and feeding ministry.

I think often of that. I meditate on what does it mean to feed the sheep? Ultimately it comes down to the ministry of the Word of God. All of you are sheep. You are followers of Christ because you have believed the Word. Because you have heard the gospel and believed it. But there is a need that all of you have for ongoing feeding, so the pastors of this church are committed to feeding your faith, week after week, to feed you.

But today in the meditation on Psalm 1, I want to urge all of you, sheep, to feed yourselves. I want you to be active in 2023 to feed yourselves. I actually think in the end, the feeding you'll do of yourself will be more significant, certainly more voluminous than any feeding we can do in the brief time we have here in the ministry of the Word.  That's why I wanted to turn to Psalm 1.

As we're looking at Psalm 1, we have an image of a tree planted by streams of water. The roots are not mentioned, they are implied. The idea is that this tree planted by streams of water, has ready access to everything it needs for life and fruitfulness because of its proximity to the stream. The idea here is a concept of a root system, and the proximity to the Word of God.

As a homeowner, I have had the opportunity over 25 years living in my home, of studying the roots of certain trees in my yard. Some of them to me are quite dominant. There's a part of my lawn I can't mow anymore because over 25 years, the hardwood tree there, its roots have emerged above the surface of the ground. They're so high now, the only thing I can do is get at them with a weed whacker. I don't know why grass still grows in and around them, but it does. There's also a tree near my driveway where we put up a basketball court sometime ago, and its roots are causing the driveway to, I don't know what to say, ripple. I've had someone look at the driveway and they said, "Well, I can't really do anything for you until you remove that tree." I don't want to remove that tree. So the roots are going to continue to ripple, I guess, my driveway.

What's going on there is that this subterranean root system of the tree is relentlessly, with great force, seeking what it needs to survive. Seeking water, and seeking nutrients from the soil. My question to you this morning is what is your spiritual root system? What's going on behind the scenes in your life? More specifically, what are your habits with the Word of God? What are your habits with the Word of God? Are you regularly taking advantage of the remarkable proximity all of you have to the Word of God? You have a proximity that has never been equaled in all of church history. The ease with which all of us have to the Word of God is remarkable. It has come at great cost, brothers and sisters, in previous generations. But now we have it, and we have axes. The question is, what are you doing with it?

Jesus told us earlier is our study as we walked through the Gospel of Mark, not today, but we've been making progress. There was a set of parables that Jesus told in Mark chapter 4, centered on the ministry of the gospel. The most important of these parables, the first one He told was the parable of the seed in the soils. The farmer went out to sow a seed and it landed on different types of soils.

The second soil was the stoney ground-hearer. Hear again, the words of Mark 4: 5-6, "Some of the seed fell on rocky places where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root."

He then explained this type of hearer in Mark 4:16-17, "Others like seed sown on rocky places hear the word and at once receive it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away." The context there seems to be hostility to the Word. Persecution by a hate-filled world, which assaults that plant that's growing up and causes it to die, because it doesn't have that subterranean, hidden root system. But Jesus doesn't specify what the trouble is. We are in a hostile environment as believers. The world, the flesh, and the devil constantly assaulting our souls, and if we don't have a developed root system, we are going to die.

We are not in such a context of overt persecution in our culture, not yet. It may be coming within our lifetime. It may certainly come within our children's lifetime, where American culture will become aggressively anti-Christian. It'll be very difficult for you to live an open, faithful Christian life, as many of your brothers and sisters around the world are facing, and many have in past generations as well. However, we are under siege. We are assaulted, as I said by these three enemies. Constantly, the world, flesh  and the devil. So you must have a developed root system. 

Psalm 1 gives you a picture, an image in your mind of that nourishing that you need and that access to the Word of God, which will keep you alive and fruitful. Psalm 1  starts with a promise of overwhelming blessing.  Look at Psalm 1, verse 1. The first verse of the psalter, the book of Psalms. As you're stepping into the world of the Psalms, an amazing world, 150 Psalms, the sign over the doorway kind of metaphorically as you walk in is “Blessed”. “Blessed are the people, blessed is the man.” That's the thing.

The psalter is God's prayer book by which He instructs all of us how we should pray. It also addresses every emotional state that could ever happen in the Christian life. All of these things are addressed in the 150 Psalms. But fundamentally, the 150 Psalms as we take to heart and we pray them back to God and live out their wisdom, is an instruction manual on how to live a blessed life, both now and eternally. A blessed life. The sign as you enter is the word “Blessed”.  Similar by the way to Jesus' teaching ministry in the New Testament, which begins with in the Sermon of the Mount, the beatitudes. The “blessed are”, “the blessed”, “ blessed”, blessed statements that Jesus makes at the beginning of his teaching ministry. Matthew 5:3, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

This concept of blessedness, what does that mean? What does it mean to be blessed? The Hebrew word in Psalm 1 is “baruch”. It's a beautiful word. It simply means happy, but a rich happiness, a spiritual happiness, a deep happiness, not a temporal fleeting mist in the morning type of happiness. But a deep, rich, full happiness in the Lord. That's what the word “blessed” means to me. The God of the Bible instructs us his followers on how we can have a blessed, happy, rich, deep fruitful life in him. 

This word “blessed" brings us into the concept of the old covenant blessings and curses, which was very prominent in the old covenant. God was constantly setting before the Israelites a choice— blessings and curses. Will you be blessed or will you be cursed? Will you live a blessed life or will you not? The blessings are defined in the old covenant, frequently and very physical, even agricultural sort of ways because that was their society.  In Deuteronomy 28:3-8, it says, "You'll be blessed in the city, blessed in the country. The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land, and the young of your livestock. The calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. Your basket and your needing trough will be blessed. You'll be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. The Lord will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They'll come at you from one direction, but flee from you in seven. The Lord will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The Lord your God will bless you in the land he has given you." That's a comprehensive sense of blessedness that the people of God would experience, if they would just obey the covenant.

In the new covenant however, the blessings become richly spiritual. It's not like the physical doesn't matter, it does. But we are instructed in the blessings of the new covenant in a spiritual sense. Ephesians 1: 3- 4 captures that as well, “Praise be to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.” It's overtly spiritual there. The new covenant blessings are spiritual blessings.  What are those blessings? We could go on and on listing them. They begin with full forgiveness of sins. All of your sins, past, present, future forgiven by God. And adoption into God's family, that you are called a son or daughter of the living God forever, with a permanent place in the family.  And the indwelling Holy Spirit, to testify to your spirits that you are a child of God, to lead you, and guide you, and convict you of your sins and to help you and instruct you in the Word of God. Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. He's not your enemy anymore. He's your ally, your friend. Peace with God.

Freedom from all condemnation. “There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” No fear of hell, we will not be condemned. We will not hear those dreadful words “Depart from me you who are cursed into the eternal fire.” We're free from that fear.  There is guaranteed resurrection in a glorious body, and our bodies are going to shine like the sun in the kingdom of our Father. The promise of a perfect life and a perfect world in the new heaven, new earth with all of the redeemed. Brothers and sisters in Christ from every tribe, language, people, and nation, from every era of church history, there with us as well, and the blessings of a good and fruitful life here on earth before we ever die. The blessedness of the Christian life now. All of these things are ours.

We're able by obedience to the Word of God to store up treasure in heaven every day. That means that every day, including today, you can serve God and do good works which He has prepared in advance for you to walk in. By doing those good works, you'll store up treasure in heaven. Now that's a blessed life, dear friends. And that's what I have in mind when I think of the word “blessed”. “Blessed is the man who . . .etc.” Faith filled obedience to the Word of God, biblically, is essential to all of this, to the blessedness that God intends to give up. If we hear and obey God's word, we step into these blessings in no other way.  Deuteronomy 32:47 therefore says, "The words of the covenant are not just idle words for you, they are your life." So that's why we need to constantly minister the word of God to ourselves and be ministered to. You need to be fed by this pulpit. You need to be fed by the pastors of this church. But then day by day, you need to feed yourself in the Word because the blessedness comes from the ministry of the word of God.

 Psalm 1 then begins, and it begins negatively. It begins essentially with a way that hates evil. Verse 1, "Blessed is a man who does not,” does not, does not. It starts out negatively, “The man who does not walk in the council of wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers.” It's not enough for me to just be up here saying happy, positive things. We're in a sin cursed, fallen world. We have to deal with the evil of this world if we want to be blessed, so the psalmist begins negatively. We have to wage war against sin while we live.

The psalmist introduces us right away to the two different ways to live. The way of the righteous is directly contrasted with the way of the wicked. Amazingly, he describes the purity of the righteous man from all the evil influences of people in this world. “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the council of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers.” He does not walk in that way. It's a Hebrew expression of daily lifestyle. What is your daily lifestyle? What are your habits, the habits of your life? The choices you make every single day.

The year 2023 is, for the most part, in front of you. Most of the events of 2023 haven't happened for you yet. I don't know what time you went to bed last night. I tend to make it a habit to try to go to bed before midnight on New Year's Eve, because I lost interest in New Year's Eve years ago. But others of you, you love to stay up. Great, that's fine. Some of you stayed up to watch some football games I've heard. But at any rate, that's what you all did. That's fine. But the year, if God allows you to live, is in front of you, and it's going to be defined by choices you make, good or bad.

What choices are you going to make? How will you walk? What path will you walk in? Your wise or foolish choices will dictate your level of blessedness in Christ. The righteous man of Psalm 1 does not walk in the council of the wicked. He's not imitating wicked people who live for the lust of the eyes, and the lust of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life. He's not walking in their council, he's not seeking advice. "How shall we live? What shall we do? Tell me what to do." He doesn't want it. He's not interested in the council of the wicked, and doesn't walk in the way they walk.  He doesn't stand in the way of sinners. He's nothing near that lifestyle. He doesn't want any part of that kind of lifestyle. He doesn't sit in the seat of mockers. Our age as really every age is one of mocking holy things, of mocking Jesus, of mocking the Bible, of mocking purity, of mocking holiness.  You get this in popular culture, on social media platforms, and standup comedians, and late night hosts. They just make a living mocking Christianity. That's been going on a long time. Just go back to Voltaire in the 18th century, he was a great mocker. Some of the thinkers of that day, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Mark Twain, they're all mockers. They made a lot of money mocking religious things.

In the 20th century, a man named H. L. Mencken raised mocking of holy things of God to an art form. He said this. "What is the function that a clergyman performs in the world?" Answer: "He gets his living by assuring idiots that he can save them from an imaginary hell.”  I want you to know that's not why I came here today. I hope it's not why you came here today. To continue with H. L. Mencken, "The liberation of the human mind has never been furthered by dunderheads. It has been furthered by gay fellows who heaved dead cats into sanctuaries, and then went roistering down the highways of the world proving to all men that doubt after all was safe. That the God in the sanctuary was finite in his power, and hence a fraud. One horse laugh is worth 10,000 syllogisms. It is not only more effective. It is also vastly more intelligent."

He's just celebrating the people that heave dead cats into sacred ground, and run away, and show they can get away with it. Mencken also said, "We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children are smart."   I mean, that's just sarcasm. It's mockery, it's unkindness. I wouldn't want a man like this as my friend. Psalm 1 says,  “I'm staying away from a person like this. I'm staying away from this type of mocking.”

We should not be surprised at it, it’s part of every era. It's part of our era as well. In II Peter 3:3, Peter said, "First of all, you must understand that in the last days, scoffers will come scoffing and following their own evil desires." This is part of the last days. We also should remember this. Galatians 6:7 says this, "Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows."

It's impossible to mock God. He is so infinitely above our mockery. He sits on a throne of light infinitely above everything He has made, and there is nothing we can do to pull him from his throne. Our mocking of him doesn't change him at all. We're really just mocking our own souls, because we reap what we sow.  Now, Psalm 1 is clear. Blessedness in life comes from staying away from that whole mindset. The lifestyle of the ungodly. While we cannot avoid daily interaction with non-Christians and actually don't seek to, we are commanded to be light in the world. We're commanded to be witnesses for the love of God in Christ. We are to avoid following the ways and philosophies of this world. 

Instead, by contrast, the way of blessedness is a way immersed in the Word of God. It's immersed in the Word of God. Here we see the roots of eternal fruitfulness, and that's meditation in God's word. Look at verse 2 and 3, “But his delight is in the law of the Lord. And on his law, he meditates day and night. He is like a tree, planted by streams of water which yields its fruit and season, and whose leaf never withers. Whatever he does prospers.” That last phrase is electric for me, “Whatever he does prospers.”

So it begins with delighting in God's Word. The psalmist celebrates a heart that delights in God's Word. The righteous take delight in the Word of God. It is a delightful thing for them to immerse their minds and hearts in the Word of God.

Two psalms in particular celebrate the attributes of the delightful attributes of the Word of God— Psalm 19 and Psalm 119 both. Psalm 119 has 176 verses of delight in the Word of God. Psalm 19:7-10, "The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy of the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the Lord are sure and altogether righteous. They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold. They're sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb."

The beautiful, delightful, delicious, sweet, attractive aspects of the Word of God. David probably wrote Psalm 19. Think of all the scripture that hadn't even been written yet when David wrote those words. Isaiah hadn't been written yet. Jeremiah, all of the beauties of the prophets that hadn't happened yet, and then the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. How much more true are those words of the gospels, as they portray the greatness of Jesus Christ? How beautiful is the word of God? So delightful.

Jeremiah says in Jeremiah 15:16, "When your words came, I ate them. They were my joy and my heart's delight, for I bear your name oh Lord God almighty." So there's a heart attraction and deep love for God's words. The question I'm asking you is what do you delight in? What brings you pleasure? What do you anticipate with great expectation? In 2023, can you develop your delight in the Word of God? It gives you a stunning portrait of Jesus, the savior of the world. Can you immerse yourself in the beauties and the power and the majesty of Christ, by the ministry of the Word?

It gives you beautiful promises, for the rest of your life here on earth and for your eternal life to come. Can you feed your hope on those promises, so that you're a hope-filled person in a hopeless world? It gives you careful instruction on how to do life as a husband or wife, as a parent, as a child, as an employee, as someone with money, as somebody with physical strength, somebody who's sick. All of these things are addressed beautifully in the Word of God. He gives you instructions, careful instructions on how to live. The richly happy person described in Psalm 1, delights in God's Word above everything else. We see here the discipline of meditation, “On his law, he meditates day and night.”

So what is that? What is biblical meditation? More and more I'm noticing in commercials as I watched forwarding events, this zen meditation that's being put in front of us. It's like, heaven forbid, it would be Christian meditation. You see somebody on their knees with their hands together in prayer. Instead, they're in that lotus position or something like that. Zen meditating, whatever that means.

I've never really been aware of anybody that practiced this Buddhistic Eastern meditation, but I've read about it. It seems to be the goal of that meditation is emptiness. You're always trying to empty your mind. Get to a pure perfect emptiness where you realize I guess that the physical world's an illusion, and all suffering and pain comes from it. You're detaching yourself, detaching yourself from it so that you can achieve enlightenment to some degree. So you meditate on these conundrums that cannot be solved, such as what's the sound of one hand clapping? I'm like, "That's not a problem." Silence. But no, you meditate for hours and hours on that, and then at some point, you are purely empty, I guess. And enlightenment comes.

That is not biblical meditation. I'm looking for the opposite. I want fullness. I want a feast. A feast of truth, a feast of love in the presence of God. I want to feast on God's Word. I want to chew over, and swallow, and feast my soul on the Word. Every word, every sentence, every paragraph, every chapter. I want to understand context. I want to understand truth. I want to find problems that I initially can't solve, and then solve them. I love doing that kind of thing. I want to feast my soul on the Word of God.

Then delight comes. It's in proportion to understanding. As understanding comes, then delight comes. In Psalm 119:18, the Psalmist says, "Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law." So what is that? It's like it was there all along. The Word never changes. The Word of God is timeless. But you didn't notice something. You had never seen something before, and now you do, and delight comes, because there's some new truth you've meditated on.

We're not skimming lightly over the text here, like one of those bugs that comes across the surface of a pond, or when you throw one of those flat rocks across the surface and try to get it to skip across how many times you can skip. That's not what we're looking for. We're trying to go deep. We want to meditate, to feast on.  The Hebrew word for “meditate” is “hagad”, which means “to growl, mutter, groan, murmur”. Something like that.  You're just working over the words again and again until understanding comes. It's a deeply rational, logical process, but it leads to emotion as well. It's emotion based on truth and the truth based on the Word. You got it from logical thinking about Jesus. That's how it works.

The psalmist says, “On his law, he meditates day and night.” This is easy for us in our technological age. You are all planted right next to streams of water. You're right there, the proximity. As Paul said, quoting Deuteronomy, "The Word is near you." You guys have Bible apps, I usually say “turn in your Bibles to. . . etc.” I'm assuming you have one of these. You have your word apps, you have the ability, the access to the word of God 24/7.

When the psalmist wrote this, that was not so. The Word of God prior to the Gutenberg press was incredibly expensive, because everything had to be copied by hand. That's what the scribes did. They were copying the Word of God letter by letter. The full scroll of let's say Isaiah, Jeremiah, how much more the entire Old Testament, would've been incredibly costly. Kings would have a copy, and the high priest would have a copy, and every synagogue would have a copy, but not individuals.

So how could the average Israelite of that day meditate on God's law day and night? The only way they could have done it was to memorize the scripture so they could meditate on it day and night. The image is a perfect rootedness for constant fruitfulness. Verse 3, "He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit and season, and whose leaf does not wither.” The root system of this person is constantly immersed in life giving water.

The lack of water is deadly to any plant. That's the whole point with the rocky ground here, that it dries up. When the sun heats it, it doesn't have the water it needs to live. But this tree is planted by streams of water. It has everything it needs to stay alive and be fruitful.  I can't help but think this image, of living water, Jesus gave in John 7,  “Jesus said In a loud voice on the last and greatest day of the feast, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.’" Just drink of Jesus, drink of Christ as the living water. "Let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me." Then He flips the image, "As the scripture has said streams of living water will flow from within him." By this He meant the spirit.

So here's the thing. You go and drink and drink deeply. Then guess what? You then become a fountain of living water for other people. You start sharing the things you've meditated on day and night, and people want to be around you because when they're around you, they learn new things. They're encouraged by you, you give them life. You point them to Christ. That could be evangelism with lost people. It could be discipleship with people who are already Christians. But just streams of living water flowing from within you. But they first flowed into you, because you meditated on God's Word day and night.

 It says “The leaf does not wither. It yields fruit in season.”  What does that mean? The meditations you do today may not bear fruit for ten years. You may be lodging some concepts in your mind that you don't even see how they're going to be useful. Connections are being made in your mind and your heart that are going to bear full fruition years later. But at the right time in season, you will bear fruit, fruit that will last, and you're never going to wither. You'll be impervious to droughts. Droughts came normally in that part of the world, but this tree needs never to fear drought, because it's planted right by streams of water.

Jeremiah 17 captures the image in  verse 7-8, "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes. Its leaves are always green. It has no worries. In a year of drought, it never fails to bear fruit.”  Jeremiah there speaks to the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. That's a life of faith, and the food of faith is the Word of God. Your intimacy with Christ is dependent on your constant intake of the Word of God.

As I noted already, there’s the staggering promise— “whatever he does prosperous”. You'll be blessed in everything you do. Verse 3, the man is like a, "tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.” It's hard to imagine a more sweeping promise.

Scripture tells us, and I already mentioned this, but this is based on faith-filled obedience to the Word you read and hear— faith-filled obedience. You'll be blessed in what you do, James tells us. James 1:22, "Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says….The man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues to do that.” I believe that's a picture of meditation. You're looking intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues to do it. Not forgetting what he has heard. That's memorization. Not forgetting what he is heard, but doing it. That's obedience. "He'll be blessed in what he does." There's the process.

You meditate. I would say, I'm going to say at the end of this message, memorize, and then obey, and you'll be blessed in everything you do. Again, John 14:21, "Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my father. And I too will love him and manifest myself to him, show myself to him." This is infinitely, mysterious Jesus. In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. He will open himself up to you progressively, and show more and more of himself to you.  Do you want that? Do you want intimacy with Christ? Do you want closeness with Christ? This is how you do it. Have his Word. Obey it. Follow it by faith, and He will manifest himself to you, and you'll store up treasure in heaven. You'll be blessed in everything you do.

This is not a life that's going to be free from suffering, not at all. I'm not promising a life free from suffering. Actually, church history shows the opposite. The more fruitfully obedient you are and courageously obedient, the harder life you'll have, not easier. Look at the Apostle Paul and his catalogs of suffering. II Corinthians 11, "Five times I received from the Jews to 40 lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked. I spent a night in a day in the open sea. I've been constantly on the move, in danger from rivers, bandits, my own countrymen from the Gentiles, in the city, in the country, and at sea. I've labored and toiled, and have often gone without sleep. I've known hunger and thirst, and have often gone without food. I've been cold and naked." I don't know if I want that kind of life. But I'm telling you, I don't know anyone in church history who has been as eternally fruitful as the Apostle Paul—no one—blessed in whatever he does. So I'm not promising an easy life. But I'm saying if you follow the wisdom of Psalm 1, you will prosper, spiritually prosper in your life.

The stark contracts is the desolation of a disobedient. "Not so the wicked,” Verse 4, "They're like chaff that the wind blows away." Chaff is a picture of impermanence, of being lightweight. Where you could imagine a threshing floor and the wheat getting beaten out, and then the threshing fork comes along as flung up in the air. The heavier wheat falls back down, but the chaff just gets blown away, they’re just blown away. They're impermanent. The things they do are nothing. As the book of Ecclesiastes says, "It's vanity of vanities. You invested your life in nothing, and it's gone." They're like chaff that the wind blows away.

An eternal condemnation awaits him on judgment day, verse 5-6, "Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. If they do not repent and believe in Christ, they will hear those dreadful words. 'Depart from me, you who are cursed,' into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." That is the chaff being blown away. That's what happens to the wicked. Verse 6, "For the Lord watches over or knows the way of the righteous. But the way of the wicked will perish.”

The Lord now, by means of the sermon, I hope, is watching over your way. 2023 hasn't happened yet. What's it going to be like for you, dear friends? What are you going to do? This sermon, the purpose of the sermon is to call you again, to a secret habit of Bible intake, day-by-day.

For you who are not yet Christians or came in here outside of Christ, the fundamental call for you in scripture is to believe in Jesus. The scriptures are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. That's the central call for you. That's the work of God for you, to believe in the one that He has sent in Jesus.

But for you who are believers, it's initially the same call again as well. The scriptures still make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus as well. It's not just for people who are lost. It's for us. You need to continue to take in God's word.

What is your plan? Do you have a plan for Bible intake in 2023? I would recommend a combination of knowledge and breadth, and knowledge and depth. What I've done over the years is knowledge and breadth is a plan to get through the whole Bible, or the whole New Testament, or some aspect of it in the year in a regular pattern. The Psalm talks about your habits, you’re walking in the way of. That kind of thing. What is your habit?

In the North Tower Resource Center, there's six different devotionals out there. There's all different ways you can feed yourself. They are remarkable. I actually went and plundered one of them for myself, because I like those kind of additional helps from time to time. But there's just different resources. I would recommend a pattern of ongoing Bible intake every day, every day. Taking in God's Word, knowledge, and breadth.

Then knowledge and depth, I would commend extended memorization of scripture. I would commend that you memorize a book of the Bible. That is a beautiful combination then. You're reading through the Bible, getting that breadth, that lay of the land all the time. Then you are zeroing in on a particular book and memorizing it. I think there's no better genre to start with than the epistles. They're packed with truth, packed with commands. They're very brief. Ephesians is 155 verses at a verse a day. With one day off a week, you can get through Ephesians in six months. In six months from now, you could have Ephesians stored up in your mind. And you're going to do a lot of that meditation as you memorize. As you go over it again, and again, and again, it's going to live inside you.

Philippians is even shorter, 104 verses. Do that in three or four months. You just take in God's Word, and you feed yourself on it. As you do, you're going to store up treasure and get yourself ready. You're going to store up good things inside you. Jesus says, "Every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old." That'll be you. You'll be rich in ideas, rich in doctrine, rich in the gospel, storing up. I would commend that to you.

Some time ago, I came across George Muller's Quiet Time pattern. I want to commend it to you as we finish up here. George Muller was a great man, a very disciplined man. He talked about his purpose in a daily quiet time. "I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how I might serve the Lord, but how I might glorify the Lord. How I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God, and to meditation." What is the food for the inner man? It's not prayer, but it's the Word of God.

Not the simple reading of the Word of God so it only passes through our minds like water passes through a pipe. But considering what we've read, pondering over it, implying it to our hearts. The first thing I did after having asked in a few words, "The Lord's blessing upon his precious word," was to begin meditating on the Word of God, searching as it were into every verse to get blessing out of it. Not for the sake of public ministry of the Word, not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated on, but just for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul.

The result I found to be almost invariably was this. That after a few minutes, my soul has been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or intercession, or supplication. So though I did not, as it were give to prayer, but to meditation, yet it turned almost immediately more or less to prayer once the new thoughts came to.  When thus I had been a while making confession, or intercession, or supplication, or giving thanks, I go on to the next word , the next verse, turning all as I go into prayer for myself or for others, as the Word would lead to it. But still continually keeping before me that food for my thanksgiving, supplication or intercession, mingled with my meditation, and that my inner man is almost invariably sensibly nourished and strengthened, and my soul is brought into a happy state in Jesus.  Isn't that great? My goal every day at the beginning of the day is to get happy in Jesus. It's kind of obvious if you're not, should anyone want to be around you? Should your spouse want to be around you, if you're not happy in Jesus? Feed your inner man, feed your inner self in the Word so that you can be joyful in Christ. 

Let me ask you a question as I finish. If you could have one book of the Bible memorized a year from now, what would you choose? What would you choose?  Some of you're saying “3 John”. I know why you're saying it. But all scriptures is God breathed. If God leads you to 3 John, that's fine. I think 2 John's shorter.  But I would just commend the epistles. I would put that question in front of you. "If I could have one book of the Bible memorized a year from now, what would it be?" Then if you say, "All right, I think it would be X." Now, what could I do to make that happen? Then you could step into the world of Psalm 1 very quickly by that discipline. 

Close with me in prayer.  Lord, thank you for the time we've had to meditate on your Word. Thank you for the things that you teach us by it. I just want to thank you for this church. This is a church filled with people who I think overtly love God's Word. They just do. I am strengthened and blessed by the sisters and brothers of this church, who clearly love God's Word.

I pray that we would spur each other on toward love and good deeds. I pray that we would ask each other, "How is it going with your soul?" That we would hold each other accountable in discipleship relationships, that we would strengthen each other. I pray that this pulpit in 2023 would be more than ever before committed to the feeding of the flock by the ministry of the Word of God. But then I pray that the flock itself would feed itself in the Word, in the pattern of Psalm 1. In Jesus' name, Amen.

An invitation to renew your commitment to feeding yourself with God's word throughout the upcoming year.

The post Blessed by Fruitfulness in 2023 appeared first on Two Journeys.

In this episode, we learn about Paul’s trial before Felix, the subsequent years of imprisonment for Paul, and, eventually, a trial before Caesar.

The post Acts Podcast 45: Paul’s Trial Before Felix appeared first on Two Journeys.

Jesus was born in obscurity and raised to glory in his death and resurrection, fulfilling the prophets' prophecies.

I want to wish all of you a very merry Christmas. My weird statistical analytical mind this morning wanted to know how often this happens, this Christmas on Sunday thing. It feels like it's been a while, but we looked it up, I thought it's got to be every seven years, but it isn't. Because of leap year it happens irregularly and the next time it's going to happen is 11 years from now. So I'll be really old by then, so this is the last opportunity I have as a young man to preach on Christmas Sunday, so grateful to share it with you all.

Today we celebrate the birth of our King, the King of Glory, Jesus Christ, into the humblest and most obscure of circumstances. Today we're going to peer into the darkness of a stable where animals were feeding, and standing and resting and lowing and mooing and bleating, and a tiny baby is born, weak, small, unknown, the seed of a formerly glorious lineage that had fallen for almost six centuries into total obscurity. This one born so low would be exalted to infinite glory by the hand of God, born to reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. My focus in this message today will be on the God ordained obscurity of his birth. God ordained obscurity. It was predicted in the prophets, it was worked by the hand of God, it was decreed, personally worked by almighty God for his purposes, and then the infinite glory to which He will rise and bring us with him, that's the message today.

I want to begin with this phrase “like a shoot out of dry ground.” It comes from Isaiah's prophecy. Isaiah the prophet spoke these words of prophecy over seven centuries before they were fulfilled. Isaiah 53:1-3, "Who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not."

The powerful image in that prophecy is that the Messiah, the savior of the world, will be completely physically, visibly, unimpressive. No majesty to attract our eye to him. Nothing in his appearance, he'll be underwhelming to the untrained eye, there'd be no radiant glory, no obvious display. We're going to speak more in detail about this marvelous prophecy later in the message, but let me zero in on this image that has captivated my mind. He grew up before him like a tender shoot and like a root out of dry ground. This is a powerful agricultural metaphor, as so many are in the Bible, speaking of Jesus Christ, the savior of the world, growing, which He did, from infancy to manhood. The text says He grew up before him. That is the Messiah, the Savior, Jesus Christ, grew up in the presence of almighty God, with God watching over his growth.

But the growth was like, it says, a tender shoot, meaning apparently weak, frail, and impressive, and like a root out of dry ground. His culture, his people, his nation were fruitless, dry, sterile, like a desert. No power, no glory, no prospects, a dry and weary land with nothing alive, that's the image. But there is in the center of that desert, a tiny shoot, a little root with a small amount of activity of life, of power, but not apparently amounting to anything at all, that's the image.

As I meditated on it my mind went to a part of American history, relatively recent, called the Dust Bowl. In the American Prairie in the 1930s during the Depression was a terrible era of drought and erosion and wind resulting in overpowering clouds of dust that destroyed all crops and drove a mass migration of poverty stricken farmers westward just to survive. John Steinbeck wrote a classic on this era in American history called Grapes of Wrath, and it powerfully depicts the desperation of farmers in this Midwestern Dust Bowl, seeing the Dust Bowl emerge, dust storms ravaging their crops and their hopes, nothing left but stunning poverty, desolation, emptiness and despair. Listen to some of Steinbeck's prose that skillfully captures this desperation.

"The wind grew stronger, whisked under stones carried up straws and old leaves, even little clods,   marking its course as it sailed across the fields. The air and the sky darkened, and through them the sun shown redly, and there was a raw sting in the air. During a night the wind raced faster over the land, dug cunningly among the rootlets of the corn, and the corn fought the wind with its weakened leaves until the roots were freed by the prying wind and then each stalk settled wearily sideways toward the earth, pointed in the direction of the wind. The people came out of their houses and smelled the hot stinging air and covered their noses from it, and the children ran out of their houses, came out of their houses. But they did not shout or even run about as they would've done after a rain.  Men stood by their fences and looked at the ruined corn, drying fast now, only a little green showing through the film of dust. The men were silent, they did not move often. And the women came out of the houses to stand beside the men, to feel whether this time the men would break. The women studied the men's face secretly, for the corn could go as long as something else remained. The children stood nearby drawing figures in the dust with their bare toes, and the children sent exploring senses out to see whether men and women would break this time."  

That was the Dust Bowl tragedy, the destruction of a hundred million acres of farmland, crops devastated, hopes utterly crushed, buried in billowing clouds of dust. The powerful question Steinbeck raised is whether this time the dust storm, which destroyed the corn, would also break the spirits of the people and crush hopes.

That's the image that I have here when it comes to Israel, like a root out of dry ground. So it was with Israel's messianic hopes, a kingdom of words and dreams only it seemed. A bygone era of power and glory; it'd been a long time, more than half a millennium. Ancient prophecies that seem to have absolutely no chance of coming true of a worldwide empire of righteousness in which all nations on earth would submit to the power of the Son of David, the Messiah, reigning on a throne of majesty in Jerusalem. But the house and lineage of David seemed nothing, it meant nothing, apparently. The tree had been felled a long time ago. The lineage of Jesse was a stump left in a dry fields, nothing stirring. So it was that holy night when Jesus was born, the son of God, born to be king of heaven and earth, but it did not appear to be so. 

The king of glory was born in a stable, you‘ve heard the narrative, it's very famous. We read it every year, Luke 2:1-7, listen again, "In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria, and everyone went to his own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth and Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged to the house and lineage of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn."

At the beginning and then at the end of this short passage, we have two individuals in stark contrast with one another, you have Caesar Augustus, and then you have Jesus Christ. The narrative begins with the most powerful man then on earth, Caesar Augustus. He was the first Roman Emperor and reigned from 27 BC until his death in the AD 14. He was considered one of the greatest leaders in world history. He established the pattern of the Roman Empire under the Caesars for centuries to come. He had been born Gaius Octavius. He was a great nephew of Julius Caesar, who was assassinated in 44 BC. Julius Caesar had named him his legal son and heir. He won total control over the Roman Empire by the year 31 BC. Four years later in 27 BC the Roman Senate voted him the title Augustus, meaning “majestic one”. For them it implied deity. Luke writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit did not mean so, but he used the title by which he was well known, Caesar Augustus.

By the time Jesus was born, scholars tell us, in 4 BC, Caesar Augustus was at the absolute height of his power. He ruled over a vast realm of 1.7 million square miles, 45 million people, about 20% of the world's population was under his domain at that time. He was so wealthy, personally wealthy, that during an economic crisis for Asia Minor, he paid that entire region's tax bill out of his own coffers. He lived in purple, surrounded by marble columns, dining on whatever food he wanted, the finest of meats, the best of wines anytime. The world trembled at his slightest command. It was he who ordered that the census be taken of the entire Roman world, causing minor migrations of people, as for example, Joseph and Mary going to Bethlehem.

Jesus, on the other hand, entered the world at the other end of the spectrum. Though he was King of Kings and Lord of Lords, He was born into poverty, the son, so it was supposed, of an obscure Jewish carpenter in a conquered backwater of the empire. The actual circumstances of his birth are famous for their poignant aspects, they are humble and poverty stricken in the extreme. Forced temporarily to migrate from their home village of Nazareth, they had to travel to Bethlehem to register. The reason they went to Bethlehem was that Joseph, we are told, was of the house and lineage of David, the ancient king of Israel. But however glorious was the lineage of David back in the heyday, that line had fallen into total obscurity by this time.

The birth of Jesus, the son of David, was in total obscurity, and in far more distress than would've happened if he had been born in Nazareth with his mother Mary at least surrounded by family and some friends that could help with the birth. Instead of that they were desperately seeking a place to stay, a place where the baby could be born, because her time had come and she was in the agonies of childbirth. Of course, very famously, Joseph could not find any lodging in the inn, there were too many people there in the tiny town of Bethlehem. So Mary gave birth to Jesus surrounded, it would seem, by animals. She laid him in a manger, a feeding trough for livestock. Instead of a royal birth in which he was wrapped in purple, He was wrapped instead in simple swaddling cloths of the lowest sort. What a stark contrast to the life of Caesar Augustus, the most powerful man on earth.

The humble origins of Christ's birth were essential to God's plan. God wanted his only begotten son to be born into this level of poverty and humility. It's not an accident, it was ordained by God. Honestly there is no glory, there is no wealth, there is no power on earth that remotely compares with the kingdom Christ left to come here. Let's be honest, God is not impressed with Caesar Augustus. He's not impressed with his wealth or his power or his purple. No matter how powerful rulers like Caesar Augustus are, God is not impressed, and God willed that Christ should humble himself to identify with us in our poverty and weakness, for we are poor and we are weak, and apart from Christ we are wicked. He wanted this humility and obscurity and poverty for Christ.

2nd Corinthians 8:9 describes this journey, "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor so that you through his poverty might become rich." Or again, Philippians 2:6-7, "Jesus being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness." We see the intentional strategic poverty of Jesus, that was his mission. 

Jesus was born into extremely low circumstances, very few babies in the world are laid in mangers after they're born.  I've not done any actual research on this, but I would have to think it would be highly unusual to put a newborn baby in a feeding trough. I think about the standards of cleanliness all over the world where babies are born. The OB-GYN wards here seem pretty clean to me. I don't think they have any mangers there, in either little Duke or big Duke Hospital. That's it, there's a level of cleanliness and protection for newborn babies around the world vastly higher than that which Jesus, the son of God, received that night.

Shortly after his birth, Joseph and Mary had to flee to Egypt with the baby Jesus to escape the murderous King Herod. Jesus went from a temporary migrant from Nazareth the Bethlehem, to literally a refugee fleeing to Egypt to save his life. When the family returned it was to Nazareth, to an obscure and poverty stricken area of Palestine, where Joseph was a manual laborer, he was a carpenter, and Jesus would be too before he was presented to Israel and began his public ministry, a manual laborer. Jesus's poverty would continue throughout his life. He told one of the people who wanted to follow him wherever He went, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, the son of man has no place to lay his head. I have nowhere to sleep tonight. Don't expect any kind of earthly power or prosperity if you follow me."

Now Jesus' disciples one day were walking through the grain fields on the Sabbath and were picking heads of grain and rubbing them in their hands and eating them. We are told that this is the way that poor people were provided for in Israel back then. This was basically welfare for poor people in Palestine in that day. Jesus's followers had to do that. Jesus's own financial needs were met in part by some women, we're told in Luke 8, that contributed to him out of their private means.

But the clearest display of Jesus' poverty would be at the end of his life. When He was arrested, condemned, and crucified, all of his worldly belongings were gambled for in fulfillment of prophecy. John 19, "When the soldiers crucified Jesus they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. 'Let's not tear it,' they said to one another, 'let's decide by lot who will get it.'" This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled, which said, ‘They divided my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.’” That is what the soldiers did. Jesus entered the world penniless and left the world penniless, without a single possession on earth. All of his actual possessions were fair game for the fulfillment of prophecy.

His poverty at that moment was infinitely greater than the  material, for He was stripped of all glory and all favor in the presence of almighty God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God, and once God transferred our guilt and our sin onto Christ the substitute, the Savior, He then poured out his wrath on him, justly and rightly, and broke fellowship with him in his role as Son of man Savior. In Mark 15:34 Jesus, "Cried out in loud voice 'Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?' which means 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'" To be forsaken by God is the ultimate poverty. And all of that to make us rich.

Brother and sister in Christ, let me tell you something, you are infinitely rich, you're richer than you can possibly imagine. Part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to help you know how rich is your inheritance together with all the saints. You're richer than you think you are. Rich in forgiveness, all of your sins, past, present, and future 100% paid for, forgiven by almighty God. Rich in love, for the Father and the Son have lavished all their love on us and will continue to lavish that love for all eternity, and the Holy Spirit pours out his love into our hearts, that we would know that we are adopted and beloved. Our wealth is just beginning, for we have an infinite inheritance of glory waiting for us in the next world. Jesus said, "I go to prepare a place for you and I'll come back, and you will be with me and see my glory, and you will have heavenly possessions yourself, that can never be taken from you, can never perish, spoil or fade." So Jesus became poor so that all of us who believe in Christ might be forever rich.

This whole downward journey that I've been describing here, from glory into poverty and then back up to glory, is essential to our salvation. The humble origins of Christ's lineage, the humble origins of his kingdom were specifically predicted by God and orchestrated by God. Isaiah 53, as we've already seen, "Who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him, he was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised and we esteemed him not."

Now we need to understand this is written in the seventh century BC by Isaiah the prophet when the lineage of David was still in power, when Hezekiah was a powerful successful king. So this was the prediction of the laying low of the house and lineage of David. The Messiah, the son of David, would have no majesty that would attract anyone, nothing in his appearance, this was predicted before there were even indications that it would happen. And like a tender shoot and like a root out of dry ground, Isaiah had said it earlier in his prophecies, with the idea of Israel becoming a tree that was felled leaving a stump in the ground seemingly lifeless with no future.

Remember the great calling of Isaiah to his prophetic ministry, "In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord seat in the throne, high and exalted." He sees the glory of God, and a voice comes out, "Whom shall I send and who will go for us?" "Here am I, send me," says Isaiah. What's the mission? "Go tell them, 'Be ever hearing but never understanding, be ever seeing but never perceiving. Make this people's heart callous, make their ears dull and close their eyes." How would you like to be a prophet and be told right up front, "They will not listen to you."

Isaiah said, "For how long, oh Lord? How long do I have to do that difficult ministry?" And he answered, "Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left deserted, and the fields ruined and ravaged. Until the Lord has sent everyone far away and the land is utterly forsaken." That's the Dust Bowl, that's emptiness, desert. "And though a tenth remains in the land, it will again be laid waste, layer upon layer of devastation by the judgment of God. But as a terebinth and oak leave stumps when they are cut down, so the holy seed will be a stump in the land."

Here's this image of a dry desert and a stump, how does that look to you? It looks like nothing. But then in Isaiah 11 it says this, "A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse. From its roots a branch will bear fruit." There's life in that stump in the middle of that desert, a shoot coming up from the stump of Jesse. The spirit of the Lord will rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and of an understanding, the spirit of counsel and of power, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord and He will delight in the fear of the Lord. That is Christ rising like a shoot from a stump in the middle of a desert.

Ezekiel said the same thing in his prophecy, about the destruction of the monarchy of Judah because of the wickedness and sins of the kingdom of Judah, including their kings. The kingly line of David being reduced to total obscurity, the prophet Ezekiel ministered during the days of the exile to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, reduced the kingly lineage of David to the lowest level of poverty. There were still descendants of David, there are still sons of David physically alive. God made sure of that, there would always be a son of David, the lineage would not die out. But they had absolutely no power, no glory, no majesty, they were stripped. The image that Ezekiel gives in Ezekiel 17 is of a low spreading vine, a vine crawling on the ground looking for water. Ezekiel 17:5-6, "He took some of the seed of your land and put it in fertile soil, he planted it like a willow by abundant water and it sprouted and became a low spreading vine." Picture kudzu I guess, I don't know, something low and insignificant and weak.

Ezekiel 17:12-14, a couple verses later, very clear, because it's a complex parable in Ezekiel 17, but then he says, let me spell it out for you, "The king of Babylon went to Jerusalem and carried off her king in her nobles, bringing them back with him to Babylon. Then he took a member of the royal family," [that’s the house in lineage of David] "and made a treaty with him, putting him under oath. He also carried away the leading men of the land so that the kingdom would be brought low, unable to rise again, surviving only by keeping his treaty." Only by getting along with the Gentile overlords would they even have a future.

It was the same thing in Ezekiel 19:12-14, "It was uprooted in fury and thrown to the ground. The east wind made it shrivel, and it was stripped of its fruit," that's the Dust Bowl image, shriveling, dry, no fruit. "Its strong branches withered and fire consumed them. Now it is planted in the desert, in a dry and thirsty land." That image, it's a desert and there's just nothing going on. "Fire spread from one of its main branches and consumed its fruit, no strong branches left on it fit for a ruler's scepter." He's talking about the house and lineage of David, there's no one strong enough to be a king.

This is a prophetic image, I think, of the Jewish nation as a whole, but especially the kingly line of David, and it's because of their great wickedness and sin. It's not an accident, it's because they're idolatrous, it's because they sacrificed their own sons in the fire to Moloch. Descended from David, they took some of David's descendants and burned them to Moloch. God judged them with the Exile, stripped them of glory and kingly power. A shoot growing out of dry ground, seemingly with no future at all, a mighty glorious tree that is then leveled until there's nothing left but a stump in the land. Then a straggly vine crawling on the ground searching for water, finding enough to survive, but not enough to be anything other than a straggly low, weak vine, a leafy vine, humbled, obscure, weak, powerless, nothing mighty enough for a scepter like a shoot out of dry ground.

So Joseph of Nazareth was born a son of David, but He's totally obscure. If you look at the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1, it covers 42 generations, and they're broken into three groups of 14. The first two groups, the first 28, are relatively well known and written about in the histories of Israel, in the Kings and Chronicles, we know about them. But the last 14, we never heard of them. Who are these people? They're all sons of David, they're in the lineage, but they're completely obscure, they're weak. Where do they live? Do they live in Palestine? Live in Babylon, live in Assyria? Where do they live? We don't know, but they're in the lineage, and they're obscure, we've never heard of them.

[Trivia question, what was Joseph's father's name? It is knowable. It's Jacob. Tell me about Jacob of Nazareth. I don't even know if he was in Nazareth, I don't know anything about Jacob except that he was Joseph's father. Obscure, weak, and lowly.]

Joseph himself, interestingly, was called a son of David by the angel Gabriel. Remember how he was engaged to Mary, to be married to Mary, and found out that she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit. He resolved to divorce her quietly, because he was a righteous man. But an angel spoke to him in a dream, Matthew 1:20-21, "The Angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph, appeared to him in a dream and said, 'Listen Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins."

Did you hear that? Joseph is called a son of David. Well, what was he? He was a carpenter in an obscure town in northern Galilee, a despised backwater of Jewish life, a conquered people in a land dominated by Gentiles, especially by the mighty Romans under Caesar Augustus, with no end in sight. Another half millennium of Roman power in that region.

But from humble obscurity we rise to infinite glory, the future is unspeakably glorious.  Listen again to Isaiah 11, "A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse, from its roots of branch will bear fruit. The spirit of the Lord will rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and of power, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord, and he will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes or decide by what he hears with his ears, but with righteousness. he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.  The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together, and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest. They'll neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. In that day, the root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples, the nations will rally to him and his place of rest will be glorious." [Isaiah 11:1-10].

That's the shoot from the stump of Jesse, the king of the kingdom of heaven, the spirit of the Lord rests on him to build a worldwide kingdom of peace and justice and righteousness, and the earth is going to be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. It will include Gentiles, for the root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the nations.  They are going to rally to him, they're going to come, a multitude from every nation on earth, from every tribe and language, and people and nation will rally to the banner of the root of Jesse. They will worship and obey him, and his place of rest will be glorious. The new Jerusalem will shine, will be illuminated, will radiate with the glory of God and of the lamb, forever.

Ezekiel 17 finished that same way, if you know what to look for, it's glorious. Ezekiel's vision was of the house of David being leveled like a low crawling vine looking for water, but not forever. Ezekiel 21:27 speaks of the desolation, "A ruin, a ruin, I will make it a ruin, it will not be restored until he comes to whom it rightfully belongs, to him I will give it.”  Ezekiel 17:22-24 is equally majestic. This is what the sovereign Lord says,"I myself will take a shoot from the very top of a cedar and I will plant it. I will break off a tender sprig from its top most chute and I will plant it on a high and lofty mountain, on the mountain heights of Israel I will plant it. It will produce branches and bear fruit and become a splendid cedar. Birds of every kind will nest in it, they will find shelter in the shade of its branches. All the trees of the field will know that I the Lord bring down the tall tree and I make the low tree grow tall. I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish. I the Lord have spoken and I will do it."

That's awesome, I'm going to take this tiny little shoot and I'm going to plant it on Mount Zion, Jerusalem, and this tender sprig will grow to be a mighty cedar. But it's a strange cedar because it bears fruit. You guys know anything about cedars? They're coniferous, like pine cones. Have you ever eaten a pine cone, or a pine needle? It's nasty. So what is this fruit on the cedar? The cedar is the immensity and height and size, but it's fruitful, and the branches are shaped for birds of all kind to nest in. It's a picture of Christ and of his kingdom that God is going to establish that will reach to the ends of the earth.

To me it reminds me very much of the parable of the mustard seed. Mark 4, "'What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it?' asked Jesus. 'It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground, yet when planted it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade.'" Friends, do you not understand how powerful the interconnections are in the Bible? You think Jesus didn't know about Ezekiel 17? He knew about Ezekiel 17. All of the birds of the air can nest in its shady branches and eat fruit from it, and that's a picture of the Gentiles from every tribe, language, people and nation coming to Christ, coming to the kingdom. It's beautiful, and it's fulfilled in Christ atoning death and the spread of the gospel. The prediction in Ezekiel 17 is God takes the tall tree and levels it, and makes the low tree grow tall. He has the power to do that.

Let me ask you a question. Let's say there are different censuses taken of the entire world. Now two simple questions, have you ever heard of Jesus Christ, or have you ever heard of Caesar Augustus? Who do you think would win?  Let me ask another question, of those who have heard of Caesar Augustus, how many have heard because of Luke 2:1-7? So you got to take them off the table, you have to ask a different question, how many have heard of Caesar Augustus but have never heard of Jesus? I think there's like 5,000 of those people. They're all scholars in universities, I guess. I don't know, but they've heard of Jesus. My goodness, Jesus is much more famous than Caesar Augustus.

God has the power to take the lofty tree and make it low, level it, and He has the power to take the low tree and make it fill the earth with glory, and that's what He did through the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus was made low, died, so that fruit might come. John 12:24, "Truly, truly I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falls to the ground or dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit." Christ was never weaker and more obscure than when He died, but from his death has become infinite fruit, infinite glory, spreading to the ends of the earth and to the ends of time. 

Applications for Christmas. Meditate on this, meditate on this rise from obscurity to glory. Meditate on how God worked it. Meditate on the fact that God wills that that obscurity is temporary. He doesn't want obscurity anymore, just so you know. Our job is that Jesus would not be obscure. We are witnesses, we are messengers to take the name of Jesus to those who have never heard of him before. God wills it through the power of the Holy Spirit, that all peoples will hear of Jesus. That this gospel will be preached, and the whole world is a testimony to all nations that He would not be obscure. Meditate on that.

Understand that Christ gave up all that infinite wealth and power and glory and honor so that we might become rich. 2 Corinthians 8:9, meditate on that. The willingness to become low so that he might take us with him to glory, meditate on that. Ponder the cost of your salvation. This is a time of celebration, but realize the reason He took on that body was so that that body could be shattered on the cross, so that that blood that flowed through his veins could be poured out as an atoning sacrifice. Ponder the cost of your salvation through that, and ponder the riches of your eternal inheritance. Read Revelation 21 and 22, see where we're heading. Look at that glorious place of rest that Christ is working for you.  And then finally, enjoy your Christmas celebration with one another.

Close with me in prayer. Lord, we thank you for the depth of your word. We thank you for themes that perhaps we didn't even know were there, in Ezekiel and Isaiah. Lord, we in general have been aware of this rise from obscurity to glory, but Lord, we didn't realize how much you directly predicted and orchestrated it so that we would know how glorious is Christ. Help us to meditate much on him, to feed our souls on the gospel. Help us, oh Lord, to be willing to proclaim the message of Christ's death and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins so that any who hear and repent and believe would find forgiveness, and help us to celebrate with one another in ways that bring you glory. In Jesus' name, Amen.