“Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.” (1 John 3:18, ESV)
““All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.”
(1 Corinthians 10:23–24, ESV)
Legalism seeks to win the approval and acceptance of another through right activities, while all the while harboring sin in the heart. Licentiousness swings to the other side and disregards all others in the pursuit of self-satisfaction and pleasure. Right in the middle of the double ruts of legalism and licentiousness lies the spiritual principle of love.
Biblical love originates in the love of God and then emerges in the heart of the believer, and so the actions are not forced and shallow, as they are in legalism. But this type of love is not self-love, but others-directed love. It is a love for God and a love for neighbor.
Because love for the approval of men and love of self are always easier and more satisfying to the the flesh than selfless love of others, legalism and licentiousness are attractive substitutes to many Christians. But Paul cuts through both of these with his words to seek the good of our neighbor.
Yes, our Christian liberty may allow us to do these things, but is it loving? Will it tear another down or will it bring spiritual confusion to an immature Christian? Why not simply give up our freedom because we love people more than our freedom in Christ? To place our own good over and above the good of others is selfish.
But the answer is not to cast off the commandments of God. Yes, Christ has fulfilled the law, but this doesn’t mean that they are useless as a guide for living. Instead, they provide us divine wisdom for living and showing love for others. “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.” (1 Corinthians 10:31–33, ESV)
“Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!”
(Psalm 133:1, ESV)
As Christians we know that there will be no final and eternal peace until Jesus comes and reigns forever. But we share the good news of the gospel because we know that there is still the need for peace in the tumultuous souls of the lost. Inner peace comes when there is peace with God because our sin debt has been paid by Jesus upon the cross of Calvary.
“For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”
(Colossians 1:19–20, ESV)
But there is another peace that we need to strive for as well. It is a peace and unity that emerges from our heart based upon the gospel of peace that unifies us as brothers and sisters in Christ and demonstrates the love of Christ to a watching world. In Jesus’ day the disunity that existed was mainly the distinction between Jew and Gentile. The gospel overcame that division so that Christ has created one Church, unified in the Savior, baptised in Christ, celebrating one communion, prepared to enter into one Kingdom.
“For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.”
(Ephesians 2:14–16, ESV)
When two women in the church of Philippi didn’t get along, Paul wrote, “I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord.” (Philippians 4:2, ESV). There is no mention of the color of their skin, by the way. It doesn’t say who was at fault. The basis of their unity is given: “agree in the Lord.”
When addressing the need for unity in his letter to the church that was in Rome, Paul stated that the unity they demonstrated would act as one clear voice for the message and glory of Christ: “May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” (Romans 15:5–7, ESV)
But what if you have been wronged by someone who claims to be a Christian? What if you have suffered unjustly for no reason of your own? Paul also addressed this in Romans 12, right smack in the middle of a section on not taking revenge and not seeking to avenge yourself, but leaving it to God. It says, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” (Romans 12:18, ESV)
The early church existed in the midst of a wicked world. Unity was common in most churches because they were led, not by emotion, politics, the flesh, or human reason and philosophy. Instead, where unity reigned it was because the Lord led his people through his Word and his people lived according to that revelation. We can never overcome the evil of this world by echoing that evil back in our response. “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:21, ESV)
Frustration of injustice that leads to sinful anger, sinful speech, justification for sins committed, and promotion of anarchy, and chaos does not reflect the spirit of Christ. May we seek to address sin and the need for change within the church and within our culture and society by the means that God has given us–godly living, reasoned speech, loving service, gospel proclamation, person to person confrontation of sin committed, and a willingness to overlook some sins for the sake of love and unity.
“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”
“And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.”
Luke 1:38, ESV
This morning I read from the book of Jonah. I have been pondering the incarnation for the last several days and the wonder of Christ’s birth, and then I read Jonah. To put it lightly, Jonah had problems. Massive spiritual problems. I’ll come back to him in a bit.
All too often in Protestant churches, Mary, the mother of Jesus, has scorn heaped upon her because there are some who have taken this woman of God and have worshipped her. But that isn’t Mary’s fault! From my reading of the New Testament, Mary was a gracious and beautiful example of incredible faith that we should emulate–such as the passage I cite in Luke 1:38 above. Yes, Mary was a sinner, and she too needed a Savior. But look beyond this and see her humble submission as well.
I’ll let the scholars handle the age of Mary, but I think most agree that this woman was still very young. But her words, particularly in what has been called the Magnificat (Lk 1:46-55), show a spiritually mature child of God. She is not a scholar, nor of the priestly line. She is a simple, humble woman from a back-woods town who is preparing to marry a humble carpenter. That is why her words should stop us in our tracks: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”
She is saying through the angel to the Lord God, “I am yours. Do with me whatever you see is right. I am nothing, you are everything. Whatever you want, I will submit to you wholly.” O, how we need more people of God with this heart! But she isn’t alone in the Bible.
In the Old Testament, we find Abram willing to leave everything he has ever known–land, family, language, comfort, safety, the familiar, the safe. He leaves it all because he is following his God (Gen 12:1-4). Again, the spirit of Father Abraham is that the Lord is Sovereign. He commands, and we joyfully follow; even into the unknown darkness. Later, when he has received his son Isaac after many years of waiting, Abraham is asked to sacrifice this beloved gift (Gen 22:1-19). There is no argument, or pleading with God to reconsider what he is asking. Genesis 22:3 simply says that Abraham rose early in the morning and set out to obey his Master.
I saw this same commitment to humble submission when I recently re-read the book of Hosea. In Hosea 1:2-3 it says:
“When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.” So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.”
(Hosea 1:2–3, ESV)
We can understand the purpose of God in doing this because the Bible is clear about the reason for this request–to be a shockingly visible illustration of the way that Israel was toward the Lord God. But that didn’t make Hosea’s obedience and heartbreak any easier. The shame he endured as God’s man must have been unbearable at times as his unfaithful wife continued to bear children fathered by other men. Yet, Hosea continued to faithfully and humbly submit to all that the Lord asked of his servant.
That brings us back to Jonah.
Mary endured shame, scorn and great pain in order to bring the Savior into the world. Abram left everything and was willing to sacrifice his most beloved son. Hosea walked his entire life in the darkness of a broken relationship for the cause of illustrating the enduring love of God in the face of rebellious and idolatrous Israel.
And Jonah…he sulked and ran and was enraged because he wanted to be the master of his life. Jonah wouldn’t rejoice at the repentance of the lost. He wouldn’t rejoice at his salvation from the fish’s belly and a new opportunity to be used by God. He wouldn’t even enjoy life, but would rather be struck dead because he was such an angry little man.
John Paton
I recently read the biography of the great missionary to the Pacific, John Paton. In Paton’s day, the church had taken on the attitude of Jonah. They loved their comfort and ease. They didn’t like it when men and women of God wanted to take the gospel to the world because they didn’t want their comfort to be unsettled. Some were bribed with money to stay. Some were belittled and treated with contempt–being told that God would’t use them because they were ungifted. Some said that the primitive people would never be able to appreciate the fine education they had earned, so why waste it? Others were so fearful of the dangers of cannibalism and disease that they forbid anyone from going to these people. Serve Jesus in England, where it is safe. You can serve Jesus here. WE need him too!
But Paton, and a few others accepted the call and braved the hardship and ridicule heaped on them back home and face the dangers in the Pacific. They humbly submitted their lives to the Sovereign they loved more than life itself. Most died, but the Lord raised up many more servants until the Pacific was won for Christ.
But the Jonah spirit is alive and well in many hearts and churches today. I take comfort in the fact that there are also still in Christ’s church Mary’s and Abraham’s and Hosea’s among us. Those who will submit to the Lord their God with joy and humility. If that is you, don’t allow the Jonah spirit in the church to dissuade you. See the joy in the hardship. Know that the Lord is greater than any hardship you may endure. As Luther wrote,”Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also; the body they may kill, God’s truth abideth still. His kingdom is forever!”
And if you see too much of Jonah in your own heart, then Jonah’s message to Ninevah is God’s message to you too. Repent. This life isn’t for you. It isn’t about you. It’s about Jesus. Humble yourself before the mighty hand of God, and he will lift you up (1Pet 5:6).
“Knowing that fighting the good fight requires a multitude of leaders and realizing that leaders sometimes become casualties, Christian leaders must intentionally reproduce themselves and multiply. Some leaders are casualties by divine appointment, and unfortunately some are casualties by carelessness. But eventually all of us will be called home. Who will be there to take our place?…The church as the family of God must be committed to the reproduction and multiplication of leadership. One of the reasons the church falters in the next generation is because we do not pass on the legacy of Christian leadership and fail to disciple effective leaders who can take the church and its mission forward to extend the kingdom of God to the next level in the next generation.”—Harry L. Reeder III and Rod Gregg, The Leadership Dynamic
Lord willing I will step into the pulpit of my church this Sunday and I will continue my journey through the book of Acts. I will be in Acts 26 and as of last night, I’m not sure how far I will get into Paul’s defense before Agrippa. I have been saturating myself with the text, doing word studies, background, translation and all the good stuff that comes with Bible exposition done well.
As a part of my study, a small phrase in Acts 26:3 stuck out to me that is helpful to think about more, not only as we prepare to preach, but as we think about the overall ministry of preaching to our congregations. The phrase that Paul says is this, “Therefore I beg you to listen to me patiently” (ESV). There are a lot of reasons that Paul says this, and I can’t go into them here, but I do want to say this–expositors need to learn to develop patience in their listeners and we need to be such skillful expositors that people are willing to be patient when we preach.
You see, Paul was well aware how critical sound doctrine is, particularly in preaching the gospel. He is about to expound on the differences between traditional Judaism as practiced in his time and how they differed from the gospel message of Jesus Christ. To the Jews, Paul had committed sins worthy of death while Festus couldn’t figure out why everyone was so upset. It all sounded the same to him!
Agrippa was a Jew and he knew Judaism well (Acts 26:3), and yet Paul still begged for patience from him as he laid out this complicated doctrine of the gospel. Paul didn’t abandon sound doctrine, but he also didn’t abandon his listeners either!
Brother preachers, let me be candid for a minute. Sometimes people don’t reject sound expositional preaching because it is not informative, but because we have not done all our work to be clear and concise. The church is not a seminary and your pulpit is not a seminary lectern. We cannot dump raw meat on our congregations and expect them to digest our poorly assembled sermons. We can ask and expect patience, but we must deliver on feeding the sheep! They cannot digest raw exegetical data. Reject the false dichotomy that our preaching must be raw meat (unrefined doctrine) or baby food (little or no doctrine). We have been called by our Lord to dig deep, understand the text better than anyone else in our church, and then to assemble a sermon that imparts much of what we have learned in a way that does not choke them because it is too far over their heads or factual but unhelpful.
As you prepare, go deep but go patiently, walking with the weak and the babes. Recommend further reading and study for those that are more mature. Add in scholarly insights at appropriate places to entice deeper thinking, but return to the average maturity level of your congregation for most of your exposition. Let them up for air after a long explanation of a particular concept by showing them why this doctrine is so important to their lives and how it can be put into practice to the glory of God.
That is how you develop patience in your listeners. You are a shepherd. Lead them, don’t drag them or abandon them. Ask for their patience, but deliver the goods every time you make them work to understand. Reward thinking by showing the soaring heights of spiritual truth. Then the next time you open your Bibles, they will have grown a little more and able to keep a little faster pace with you.
Always Reforming 