THE SIX P's

In Sunday’s sermon I mentioned six groups, each of which start with P, that I pray for regularly because I believe serving them in the various ways they need is important for fulfilling the Great Commission God has given us. 

 

Proximate Community

We must first reach those closest to us, including family, friends, community, co-workers, fellow students, those from other countries God is bringing to us, and speaking into the public arena to display our love and to set the stage for evangelism. Starting here is not only  important since those who don’t make disciples at home probably won’t be involved in places farther away, but also since disciplemaking can help to raise up an army of people who can pray, send, support, and go when it comes to missions. 

 

Present Missionaries

This group is important since these are the folks that God has called us to send out and support so that missions throughout the world can take place. When we are not loving and supporting our missionaries well, we are hurting the church’s effectiveness in the Great Commission. The opposite takes place when we love and support them well.

 

Pastors Undertrained

 Through much of the world where the Spirit of God is moving and people are coming to Jesus as their Savior in large numbers, most pastors have less training than the average Christian attending church services on Sunday mornings in the United States. To serve this group well ultimately encourages and strengthens and brings greater health to the churches they lead and their oversight of discipling. This is a crucial part of the Great Commission (Mt. 28:19-20). 

 

Peoples Unreached

One third of the world, three billion people, have no access to a Bible or the gospel, no Christians around to tell them about the gospel, and no churches to serve them or nurture them if they would come to Christ. It is estimated that 160,000 people a day die and go into a Christless eternity. If Christians will obey Jesus Christ and go to these people, it will mean bringing greater spiritual health to the church so that there will be people who make the sacrifice to go to unreached peoples and to stay with it. This is especially true when one realizes that unreached peoples are in some of the hardest places and people groups to reach. 

 

Poor and Persecuted

There are many throughout the world who are poor materially and to help minister to their physical needs often opens them up more to respond in genuine faith to the gospel (Acts 4:32-34; 1 John 3:16-18). This, then is an important aspect of fulfilling the Great Commission.

 

At the same time, the church throughout the world is often materially poor and suffering due to persecution. When Christians minister to fellow Christians in these circumstances, they are helping these front-line believers to continue to carry out the Great Commission and to do so fruitfully. 

 

Parentless

Finally, an important group to serve throughout the world are those in need of orphan care, including those in the foster care system, and/or those who need to be adopted. In most of these lives much pain and need are found. Helping to love such children not only can open the door for them to hear and respond to the gospel, but it also gives a powerful picture of the gospel in that it is true of all genuine Christians that God adopts them into his family and gives them a right to all the privileges of his children (Rom. 8:15-17; Gal. 3:26; 4:5; Eph. 1:5; 1 Jn. 3:1). 

 

Response        

How can we respond?  It is simple. Begin to pray for these six groups of people. As you pray for them, seek to learn as much as you can about them. Not only pray for the needs they have but also ask God how you can serve each one. Are there things he would have you do beyond pray? Watch and see how God answers you.

 

Joyfully serving these six groups with you!

 

Tom

How Jesus Prays

As I said in Sunday’s sermon, Luke emphasizes the prayer life of Jesus more than any other Gospel writer. He showed us in the passage we looked at (Luke 4:42-44) that Jesus drew closer to God the Father, gained direction, and gained strength for his mission through prayer. We emphasized that we should follow his example in this as in everything. After all, as disciples of Jesus, we should emulate him (Luke 6:40; 1 John 2:6). And what is more, Jesus wants us to follow him and become like him (Luke 6:40; 9:23). 

 

This brings up an important question we should ask if we are going to follow his model in prayer: How did Jesus pray?  

 

There are at least five answers we can give.

 

To begin, Jesus prayed in accordance with Scripture. We know this because his very last words before he died on the cross consisted of a prayer to the Father that quoted Psalm 31:5: “Into your hands I commit my spirit!” The fact that Jesus would both pray and quote Scripture as he did it as the last thing before death shows how much a part of his life communication with the Father was (note that he prayed for his current and future disciples on the night he was betrayed, just before going to the cross! John 17), yet also communication that was according to Scripture. It is because of this, in part, that Jesus calls his disciples to pray in accordance with his Word (John 15:7). 

 

Next, Jesus prayed that God would help him carry out his mission. We know this  because of his wrestling with the Father in prayer when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he committed himself to do the will of the Father (see Lk. 22:42). This is also apparent from his spending time in prayer at key times during his public ministry (e.g. Luke 4:1-2, 42 [in light of Mk. 1:35]). One of the best ways we know this is by looking at his prayer for his current and future disciples in John 17. Finally, it is seen in how he teaches his disciples to pray. He teaches them to pray for the glory of God, God’s will to be done, and for the kingdom to advance, i.e. to pray for the mission to which God has called them (see Luke 10:2; 11:2-4). 

 

What is more, Jesus did not only ask the Father for what he needed, he also praised and thanked the Father (Mt. 11:25; Lk. 10:21). This is in keeping with the Psalms, that Old Testament book that chronicles the worship life of God’s people (e.g. Psalms 100, 106, 107). 

 

Also, we can say that Jesus prayed about all kinds of things, as is seen in his Garden of Gethsemane prayer (Luke 22:42) and his petition he made to the Father for himself as part of his prayer in John 17 (see verses 1-5). 

 

Finally, what is most remarkable is that Jesus continually prays for all his followers (Rom. 8:34; Heb. 7:25). There is little that should give us more comfort than the reality Jesus is continually praying for us. The Scottish pastor and author, Robert Murray M’Cheyne, once wrote: “If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference. He is praying for me.” 

 

The life of Jesus shows us he is our Savior, the one who intercedes for us that we might be saved to the uttermost (Heb. 7:25), he is our source, the one through whom we have bold access in prayer to the Father’s throne of grace (Heb. 4:16), and finally he is our standard for how to pray, as we saw above. 

 

Be encouraged Christian, and may we be able to say what King David did: “But I give myself to prayer” (Psalm 109:4). 

 

Joyfully praying through and like Jesus with you!

 

Tom

Glory In Our Savior

On Sunday we looked at some treasures that Luke uncovered about Jesus Christ in his Gospel, Luke 4:16-21. I said that this is in keeping with what has happened through the history of the church, as teachers have called the church to focus upon the greatness of Christ for the sake of worship and faith. Here are some examples.

 

1. John Calvin (16th c. French pastor in Geneva) in his commentary on Col. 1:12 writes: "For how comes it that we are carried about with so many strange doctrines, (Hebrews 13: 9) but because the excellence of Christ is not perceived by us? For Christ alone makes all other things suddenly vanish. Hence there is nothing that Satan so much endeavours to accomplish as to bring on mists with the view of obscuring Christ, because he knows, that by this means the way is opened up for every kind of falsehood. This, therefore, is the only means of retaining, as well as restoring pure doctrine—to place Christ before the view such as he is with all his blessings, that his excellence may be truly perceived." 

 

2. John Owen (17th c. British author and teacher), in Communion With God, 104, writes: “Christ is [the saints’] delight, their crown, their rejoicing, their life, food, health, strength, desire, righteousness, salvation, and blessedness. Without Christ they have nothing. In Christ they shall find all things. Christ has, from the foundation of the world, been the hope, expectation, desire, and delight of all believers.” 

 

3. Robert Murray McCheyene (19th c. Scottish pastor) adds: "Learn much of the Lord Jesus. For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely. Such infinite majesty, and yet such meekness and grace, and all for sinners, even the chief. Live much in the smiles of God. Bask in His beams. Feel His all-seeing eye settled on you in love, and repose in His almighty arms. . . . Let your soul be filled with a heart-ravishing sense of the sweetness and excellency of Christ and all that is in Him." 

 

4. Modern-day teacher and writer, Michael Reeves, Rejoicing in Christ, 9-10, comments: "Jesus Christ, God’s perfect Son, is the Beloved of the Father, the Song of the angels, the Logic of creation, the great Mystery of godliness, the bottomless Spring of life, comfort and joy. We were made to find our satisfaction, our heart’s rest, in him." 

"He is not a mere topic, a subject we can pick out from a menu of options. Without him, our gospel or our system—however coherent, “grace-filled” or “Bible-based”—simply is not Christian. It will only be Christian to the extent that it is about him....

"I’m going to dare to say, in fact, that most of our Christian problems and errors of thought come about precisely through forgetting or marginalizing Christ.

"...consider Christ, that he might become more central for you, that you might know him better, treasure him more and enter into his joy. That, happily, is just how we will most honor the Father: by sharing his own everlasting delight in his Son (Jn 5: 23)."

 

One of the treasures we looked at in the sermon was that Jesus serves as our standard and source for the development of godly habits. A “habit” means that which has become customary to do (i.e. what is almost always done) through repetition. Another way to word this is that through much repetition an attitude or action becomes more entrenched and second-nature to a person. 

 

Some key Bible passages that deal with the importance of developing godly habits include the following: 

1. “Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness” (1 Tim. 4:7)

 

2. “But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil: (Heb. 5:14).

 

The Bible also speaks of the reality of bad habits, even to the point they can feel like they are enslaving: 

1. “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Heb. 10:24-25)

 

2. “They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! … They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.” (2 Peter 2:14, 19)

 

Joyfully Glorying In Our Savior With You,

 

Tom

A Free Choice Can Be Determined

In Sunday’s sermon I affirmed that a decision can be free and a person can be responsible for it at the same time it is determined. We saw this in Jesus’ temptations, the outcome of which was determined and yet, at the same time, he was truly facing temptations and making real decisions. 

 

The view of freedom to which I hold and which I represented in the sermon is known as compatibilistic freedom. In other words, it is a view that believes God can so govern all things that all things are determined (he is absolutely sovereign) and, at the same time, genuinely free choices can be compatible with this. 

 

The other view of freedom to which Christians hold is libertarian freedom (or sometimes called indeterministic freedom). This view believes choices are free if and only if they are not determined. Often those who believe in this view of freedom will assert that a decision is free if, when the person chooses choice A, they could also have chosen choice B (aka alternativity). This view does not allow for absolute sovereignty. Rather it holds to a view of sovereignty that is limited since it is dependent upon what a person will choose and therefore some options may be beyond God’s ability to ordain. 

 

I do not believe libertarian freedom is what the Bible teaches. The Bible, instead, demands that human freedom must be compatible with absolute sovereignty (e.g. Acts 2:23). It also seems to teach that a truly free choice is what which someone wants to do (e.g. Philemon 14), without having to include alternativity.  

 

With that said, I want to share another illustration for how something can be determined by God and, at the same time, a true choice on the part of the person. In our sermon we talked about how the outcomes of Jesus’ temptations could be determined and yet he be truly tempted. This analogy is from my book Divine Sovereignty And Human Freedom.

 

Suppose that Mary decides to undergo a colonoscopy. As a result, the date is set and she faithfully abides by the instructions to fast and cleanse her colon in preparation. While she is in the procedure at the hospital the surgeon accidently damages her colon during a polyp removal. This leads to a reparative surgery and, as such, a longer time that Mary is unable to eat. Once Mary comes out of the procedure and is recovered enough to eat, she is very hungry. As a result, when the hospital offers a very appealing lunch to her (meatloaf and mashed potatoes, which is her favorite meal), she accepts and eats—very gladly and freely!

 

Once damage was accidently done to the colon, there was a kind of necessity upon the surgeon to repair it. It was determined. Given the fact that she is a competent surgeon, wants Mary to be well, and is capable of doing the procedure, she knows she must do it. However, she is not constrained to do the surgery against her will as if someone is holding a gun to her head or as if, at the time she thinks to herself, “I don’t want to do this procedure, but somehow I can’t help myself. It almost feels like the forces of the universe are compelling me to do this!” 

 

Likewise, in Mary’s decision to eat, there is a necessity in that she is hungry, her body needs nourishment to survive, she wants to eat, is not nauseous from the surgery, feels fine, very much enjoys what is on the menu, she lacks any other compelling reason not to eat, and so she wills that outcome, which is also determined. However, if any of those things had not been true (for example, if she had been nauseous), there could have been a different outcome. What is more, no one is holding a gun to her head to make her eat, nor is anyone force-feeding her against her will. Also, she did not have the sense, “I really feel nauseous and don’t want to eat, but I can’t help myself. Forces larger than me are compelling me to order the food and now to take up the fork and eat it.”

 

Though we can say that Mary hypothetically possessed the ability to reject the food (to make a different choice if she wanted to), given the other circumstances leading up to the decision and given the preference of her will itself, she would certainly eat and at one level there was a necessity. Yet, it was not a necessity that opposed her will. It was determined and, at the same time, free.

 

Right away some will respond, “Oh, but Tom, can’t you imagine a reason for Mary to refuse her favorite dish, such as her desire to keep going in her weight loss momentum of the past couple days so she could lose those few extra pounds she put on during the holidays?  Or perhaps she is expecting family to visit soon and so she doesn’t want to eat while they are in the room?”  To this we can say, Oh, we most definitely can imagine those. However, in each of these situations what we are proposing is that a new and greater motive has replaced the motive of enjoying the delicious food.  Such an explanation is in line with compatibilistic freedom. And, with each of the parts of the chain we can not only say God decreed or willed it and brought it about causatively, permissively, or as a combination of both, but also Mary truly willed each decision. So, she has engaged in a free choice. 

 

I hope this helps further explain how Jesus’ decision regarding his temptations were determined and, at the same time real temptations and choices. 

 

Writing For Your Joy,

 

Tom

 

SERMON LEFTOVERS

There are three truths in yesterday’s sermon that I did not have the time to expand upon, each of which has to do with who Jesus Christ is. In this post I want to deal with these leftovers in more detail. 

 

1. OUR SAVIOR HAD TO BE GOD. 

In the genealogy of Luke 3 we see that Jesus is God. There are at least three reasons why the Savior had to be God. 

 

First, the Bible teaches us that salvation comes from God. Another way to put this is that the Savior must be God. Jonah 2:9 puts it this way: “Salvation belongs to the LORD!” (See also Ps. 68:19; 98:2-3; Is. 43:11; Hos. 13:4; Rev. 7:10)

 

Second, the Savior must be God to ensure that his obedience and suffering would be perfect and effective. 1 John 1:5 says of God: “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” The sacrifice must be sinless and perfect (Heb. 9:14; 10:1-18). 

 

Third, the Savior must be God so he could undergo God’s righteous wrath against sin and yet overcome death. Acts 2:24 captures this: “God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.”

 

2. OUR SAVIOR HAD TO BE HUMAN.

In the genealogy of Luke 3 and the subsequent temptations of Luke 4 we see that Jesus is fully human. There are at least three reasons he had to be human. 

 

First, the Bible teaches the Savior must be human so he could on the behalf of sinners perfectly obey the Law of God. God requires perfection (Mt. 5:48) which is why one seemingly insignificant sin, eating a forbidden piece of fruit (Gen. 2:16-17), plunged all mankind into sin and death. Jesus always did the will of God the Father (John 5:19, 30; Heb. 4:15; 7:26). 

 

Second, the Savior must be human since humans are the ones who sinned, who must be saved, and the Savior must do this by suffering the punishment for sin, which is death (Col. 1:21-22; Heb. 2:17). 

 

Third, the Savior must be human so he can sympathize with our weaknesses (Heb. 4:15). 

 

3. THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHESIED THAT THE SAVIOR, THE CHRIST, MUST BE A DESCENDANT OF DAVID.

One of the key points made in the Luke 3 genealogy is that Jesus is a descendant of David as is necessary of the Christ, the Davidic King. Here are some examples of such prophecies. 

 

2 Samuel 7:12-13: “When your days are fulfilled [David] and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.”

 

Psalm 89:20-27: “I have found David, my servant; with my holy oil I have anointed him, 21 so that my hand shall be established with him; my arm also shall strengthen him. 22 The enemy shall not outwit him; the wicked shall not humble him. 23 I will crush his foes before him and strike down those who hate him. 24 My faithfulness and my steadfast love shall be with him, and in my name shall his horn be exalted. 25 I will set his hand on the sea and his right hand on the rivers. 26 He shall cry to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation.’ 27 And I will make him the firstborn….”

 

Jeremiah 33:17-21: “For thus says the Lord: David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, 18 and the Levitical priests shall never lack a man in my presence to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings, and to make sacrifices forever…. Thus says the Lord: If you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that day and night will not come at their appointed time, then also my covenant with David my servant may be broken, so that he shall not have a son to reign on his throne, and my covenant with the Levitical priests my ministers.”

 

Ezekiel 34:15, 23-24: “I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God…. And I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. 24 And I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them. I am the Lord; I have spoken.”

 

Ezekiel 37:24: “My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes.”

 

Joyfully Delighting In The God-Man And King With You!

 

Tom

Antinomianism

The past two Sundays we have looked at six emphases John the Baptist had in his preaching ministry that pointed to Jesus as the Savior. We have affirmed that John engaged in pre-evangelism and post-evangelism. In each of these, John taught that God’s moral law (he mentions four of the last five of the Ten Commandments in Luke 3:10-14) still applies to us. 

 

Many Christians have concluded that God’s law no longer applies to Christians at all. Such a position is called Antinomianism. I wanted to address this way of thinking in this post and then explain how the moral law still applies. 

 

Antinomianism, “which means being ‘antilaw,’ is a name for several views that have denied that God’s law in Scripture should directly control the Christian life.”[1]

 

The primary reason that Christians conclude that the law of God no longer applies to them is because the New Testament says we are “not under law” (Rom. 6:14, 15; Gal. 3:23) and elsewhere it says that we are “under the law of Christ” (1 Cor. 9:21; Gal. 6:2) and the “law of liberty” (Jm. 1:25; 2:12), and finally it says that “Christ is the end of the law” (Rom. 10:4). Yet, when we understand these texts correctly, we come to see that the Bible is not teaching that the law of God does not apply to Christians. 

 

More specifically, here are some reasons we know that the moral law of God still applies to Christians. By moral law of God, I mean all laws in the Old Testament that were always intended to be permanently applicable to the people of God. Dietary, cleanliness, sacrificial, and festival laws were temporary by design and fulfilled in Christ with the result that once he came, died, and was raised, they were no longer applicable (Col. 2:16-17; Heb.8:5).

 

1. In those New Testament books that speak of God’s people no longer being under the law of God (Romans, 1 Corinthians, Galatians), we either see specific Old Testament laws being still applied to Christians (Romans 13:8-10)—which strongly implies that the phrase cannot mean God’s law no longer applies, an explanation that the meaning of that phrase means, “No longer under the law covenant or system” (Gal. 3:15-29), or it is clearly said that being not under or outside the law of God does not mean being outside the moral law of God, aka the Law of Christ (1 Cor. 9:21). 

 

2. The Law of Christ seems to be synonymous with the law of God and, most likely means the same as the law of liberty, namely the focus is that now, under the New Covenant, God’s people, united to Christ and permanently indwelt by the Spirit, have more liberty and Christi-given ability to obey God’s moral will, his law. 

 

3. The careful reader of the New Testament sees clear references to Old Testament laws still being applicable to the New Covenant believer (e.g. Rom. 1:26-28; 7:7; 13:8-10; 1 Cor. 6:9-10; James 4:11-12; 1 John 2:15-17; 3:4; 5:3, 21). 

 

4. The New Testament is positive toward God’s laws, not negative (e.g. James 4:11-12; 1 John 3:4; 5:3), implying that it is consistent with and not opposed to the gospel (1 Cor. 9:21; 1 Tim. 8-12).

 

If the law still applies to Christians, in what way does it? Another way to ask this is what are the purposes of the law for Christians? There are three that the Church has historically acknowledged from the Bible. 

 

1. It shows the person that they are a sinner, that is, that they fall short of the glory of God, and thus need a Savior (Luke 3:10-14, 19-20; Rom. 7:7). 

 

2. It shows a Christian how to live once they have come to Christ (e.g. Luke 3:10-14; Rom. 13:8-10; 1 Cor. 6:9-10).

 

3. It serves to restrain unregenerate society so that it is not as bad as it could be (1 Tim. 1:8-11). Because of this, then, the Christian can follow God’s direction in his law for how to shape the public square.  

 

May we say about God’s Law, as the psalmist does (Psalm 19:7, 10): “The Law of the Lord is perfect…. More to be desired are [God’s laws] than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.”

 

Joyfully Loving God’s Law With You,

 

Tom 

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[1] J. I. Packer, Concise Theology (Crossway, 2020), 192.

A Modern-Day Holy Week Parable

 In Romans 4:25 Paul summarizes what we will celebrate from today (Maundy Thursday) through Sunday (Easter): “He [Jesus] was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised to life to make us right with God.” Here is a parable to give clarity to what Jesus has done for us and how we should respond to it. 

Imagine that you are one hundred thousand dollars in debt through your own irresponsible decisions. Creditors are now coming after you so much that you are convinced you will not survive it.  

Then out of the blue the investor, business tycoon, philanthropist, and the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett, calls you up to say, “Hey, I have heard about your tough situation and I would like to give you a gift of one hundred million dollars. That will not only wipe out your debt, it also will assure that you have sufficient resources for all you need the rest of your life. Will you accept this gift? I will transfer the funds to your bank account.”

Let’s say that you have learned that Buffett is a man of his word and he can afford such a gift. Two questions arise. First, will you turn from trying to make your predicament right yourself and turn to Warren Buffett, trusting him to wipe out your debt and to supply you with wealth for the rest of your life? In other words, will you accept the gift? Most likely, the answer would be, “Yes.”  Second, with what kind of attitude would you respond to this offer? For many the answer is with great gratitude but also a heightened sense of grief over your irresponsible decisions that made his actions necessary and with a resolve to be faithful into the future with such a gift.

No parable is perfect, but this one does help illustrate what Jesus Christ has done for sinners like you and me and so it gives us a picture of what we remember during Holy Week.

We all are in debt to God as those who have rebelled against him, lived as if he is not there, and this debt is beyond what we can pay. What we owe God is to face the eternal punishment for our transgressions against an eternal God. Jesus took the penalty for sinners upon himself and paid it in full through his death upon the cross.

At the same time, we not only face that debt, we face the need for a perfectly righteous and holy life so that we can be in God’s presence and his heaven forever. Jesus also met this requirement for sinners by living a perfect life, always doing the will of the Father.

And what is more, when Jesus was raised from the dead he not only proved his death was a saving death and not just that of a criminal, he conquered sin and death and this results in the  spiritual resurrection of sinners now to a new way of living. His resurrection also results in the future physical resurrection of those same persons to an eternal life with no pain, suffering, illness or death, i.e. to ever-increasing joy in his presence.

The main question that is posed to us as a result of the work Jesus accomplished that first Holy week is this: Will you turn from trying to save yourself and with grief over your sin and a desire to follow Jesus in love and gratitude, will you trust him alone so you can be forgiven of your sins by God with the result that you will want to follow Jesus? In other words, will you, by faith, receive this free gift of salvation? When someone does this, God credits them with the perfect righteousness (his life and death) of Jesus Christ.

“This is the work of God, that you believe in him [Jesus] whom he [God the Father] sent.” “And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he commanded us.” (John 6:29; 1 John 3:23)

Joyfully Trusting In The Savior, 

Tom